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I don't have kids, but I know how hard it is to do good writing when distracted by other things.
 
The Duke of Windsor in German hands... just one single word: TROUBLES.
 
I don't have kids, but I know how hard it is to do good writing when distracted by other things.

Well, least Leeb and Rundstedt get their long-promised moment in the spotlight - and what a moment it was, rolling up the Maginot Line!

The Duke of Windsor in German hands... just one single word: TROUBLES.

No, it means the Duke of Windsor gets his hopes up. :p

If there's one thing that Kaiserreich taught me, it's that there are plenty of German royals to go around, so no need to go reinstating some idiot who can't figure out that as King, you don't get to go marrying a foreign divorcee just because it's what you want. I like Prince Wilhelm, but he gave up his succession rights before he was Wilhelm IV. Neither Evil Papen nor Grown-Up Wilhelm III are really inclined to throw Britain into a civil war just because they have an ex-royal on their hands.
 
I would... :D

No, that leads to Kaiserreich, and I have a different path in mind for the collapse of the West in the Epilogue. :p
 
62. The Agony

7. Fliegerdivision Area of Operation
Near Rethel, Republic of France
30 August 1941


When the paratroopers arrived from their long overland march from Denmark, the area north of Reims was already a blasted wasteland that veterans of the autumn of 1914 recognized immediately. The wine country of Champagne was transformed by shell craters and barbed-wire strands hastily strung across the vineyards. They had debarked from their impromptu convoy across occupied Belgium and immediately been ordered to take up a sector; every one in the corps, and indeed in the other forty divisions assembled in a great arc stretching from the reverse of the Maginot fortifications at Metz to the forests around Compiegne, knew that the two marshals, Bock and Blomberg, could give the Order at any hour.

That was how they thought of it - the Order. They never discussed what the order to advance would mean; for men who had jumped into Poland, who had broken the lines around Warsaw, and who had jumped into a neutral country without concern over declaration of war, it was a remarkably subdued reaction. They had never seen a battlefield like this, with the vineyards smashed and their fragile racks turned into makeshift barricades.

It was enough even to make Skorzeny subdued. The testing and development group had transformed in wartime, becoming the corps pathfinder unit and rapidly expanding with a sudden influx of veterans as the airborne schools were combed out on the declaration of war. Most of these men had joined them between Copenhagen and here. Wilhelm was just grateful that Skorzeny had shut up finally, and still puzzled by his personal orders in Copenhagen. He had received orders from Student himself, looking immensely displeased and more than a little fatigued, to secure a specific house in the city, with its occupants unharmed, and await proper relief.

The occupants had turned out to be an older gentleman, long-faced and intelligent-looking, whose high forehead gave him the appearance of a receding hairline where none existed, and a serious-faced woman who seemed to hover over him; Wilhelm had seen much of his own mother in the way she steered him even when strange men with guns had arrived on their doorstep. The third man was another long-faced blond, this one younger, eyes sneering, apparently a Danish naval officer. "Thank God you're here," the man had said, practically shoving the pair at Wilhelm, "I have to get to the docks before the damn Danes manage to run out their whole fleet. Herr Doktor, a pleasure to meet you, must catch a ship," the blond man had smirked, then grabbed the first car he saw in the street, apparently fleeing like the majority of the Danes on the German approach.

When he had turned the couple over to Student, the General had displayed gruff, awkward courtesy until a Stork had arrived to whisk them away to Berlin. In several years of exposure, he had never seen Student quite so discomfited as when he was playing host to what as far as Wilhelm could tell were a couple of middle-class Danes abducted from their home in the middle of the night by a corps of parachutists and a suspicious naval officer. It was all a most curious affair, and it occupied his thoughts even as they arrived north of Reims.

He had at least gotten his wish: he now had a proper company, as did Skorzeny. The testing group was now a battalion, and they were benefiting from his experience as a pioneer. Each of his men now carried a covered-over role of engineer's tape for route marking, wirecutters, and a thin wooden probe for mine clearance. Fitzgerald had glanced at the mine probe with distaste, but had said nothing, setting a remarkable example for his squad given the man's past. Perhaps responsibility had sobered him - no, not a chance, Wilhelm thought indulgently. At least Fitzgerald loved his work; Wilhelm's other old friend, Bechtel, made the most nervous company mother that he had ever seen, and was clearly not cut out for life as a parachutist. If he survived, Wilhelm thought, we need to send him back to the Schoolhouse.

He returned from the morning briefing, finding his company already dispersing forward at stand-to in case of a French attack. It seemed unlikely, but it was always possible. "Platoon and squad leaders on me!" he called out, and the men in question began to materialize in ones and twos, some still sleepily eating the rough black bread that passed for field rations. "You guessed it. It's the Order. We're to mark out a route at least one kilometer deep forward of here, sticking to the hedges where possible, on the axis Rethel-Tagnon, down here. We'll have Oberst Ramcke breathing down our necks the whole time, so we can't afford to bog down in combat. Squad leaders, designate one route-marker per squad, everybody else stays guns-up. Move along the hedgerows, stay low, and if you make contact..." He took a deep breath and continued his message. "The Marshal himself has said that we cannot afford to stop, so if you make contact, you form line and push forward. Understand?" The squad leaders nodded slowly, grimly, Fitzgerald's fingers flexing around the butt of the FN Mle D he had somehow traded for, using his apparently inexhaustible stash of liquor.

Before the sun had completely cleared the eastern horizon, they were moving forward slowly in that curious half-crouch men instinctively adopted when threatened by gunfire. They wound up having to cut their way through the hedges immediately before their own lines with the wirecutters, marking the gap with engineers' tape before slithering forward into the next field. Every step, every breath was painful, tehir hearts slamming in their chests. They knew that Gamelin and the French were in front of them, but where?

The answer came moments later when fire stuttered across the creeping parachutists, apparently from a concealed Hotchkiss gun. Several men went down - some, Wilhelm noted sadly, wearing the "Polen" band. They responded admirably enough, forming on line and pressing themselves to the ground. In one way they were fortunate: Fitzgerald's squad was in the lead, and the deep, powerful but-but-but of the Belgian rifle drowned out his roared-out commands. This was where Jack Fitzgerald really belonged.

One thing that Wilhelm had learned in Poland was that battles had a rhythm to them, unique to each engagement. The rhythm here was frankly terrifying. Where they first made contact, Ramcke's regiment appeared in the hedgerow behind them, and Wilhelm's men were trapped between two fires. They shimmied forward, seeking the tiny ripples in the ground that would give them enough cover to live another day. Wilhelm himself kept his MP38 clenched in his fist, sweeping the hedgerow in vain as he sought a target, anything that would relieve some of the stress of being under fire. Eventually he resorted to the same measure as the rest of them, firing at muzzle flashes and praying. His company was trapped in a box, two fields and fifty meters wide, a hundred meters deep. Behind them, Ramcke was doggedly obeying his own orders to advance; before them, the French were dug into the hedge.

Desperately, Wilhelm screamed for an assault, knowing it was hopeless but not having a good alternative. His company wavered for a moment, then stood, stumbling forward a half-dozen meters at the cost of thirty of his hundred and twenty starting strength. Some of those who went down stayed still, but most rolled and writhed in agony, calling for medics, morphine, and mother. In a sudden flash, Wilhelm saw little Fritz in each of them, and knew that just as surely, they were his children dying out there. He kicked forward, belly-crawling toward the French line with tears running unconsciously down his cheeks. He had no way of knowing that he had passed his own line, nor that Fitzgerald had seen him and had roared out for them to follow their captain. All he knew was that the French were massacring his men, and he could no longer bear to look.

He was at the hedge, and a poilu stuck his head past, twisting to point his rifle at Wilhelm. He grabbed the still-hot barrel, yanking him through the hedge and driving his heavy-bladed Kampfmesser into the man's belly. Doing so required him to release the submachine gun, but at this point, he was beyond caring. He was finally able to hit back. The French initially did not realize a man had reached their hedge; they paid for it. He was in their line in moments, and only their shocked, horrified cries at this mad-eyed, dirty-faced German, his uniform streaked with blood, alerted the machine-gun crew, who first tried to limber the gun, then simply panicked. Wilhelm shot them as they ran, the first time he had ever had reason to use his sidearm in anger. He stood there, chest heaving, enraged and ready to kill anyone he saw, until a bullet sliced past his left ear and sent him diving once more. The French had merely dug into the next hedge as well.

Ramcke's men finally advanced to the hedgerow where Wilhelm's company now huddled, miserable and worn. With them came the medics, tending the wounded in the field behind. Wilhelm, numb and expressionless now, crawled along the line, turning the abandoned Hotchkiss on the French and sighting it in before handing it off to Fitzgerald's squad, rapidly becoming his heavy-weapons section. Ramcke himself, lean and middle-aged with a build like Wilhelm's own grayhound frame, suddenly and unexpectedly dropped into a dugout beside him. Their only company was a dead Frenchman.

"Shit day," Ramcke said in a voice that was meant to be conversational, but after a morning under fire came across just under a yell. Wilhelm, too emotionally drained to reply properly, just nodded, then the older man thrust his canteen at him. "Drink, Hauptmann. You need it." Wilhelm nodded again, absently sucking down water, his promotion completely passing over him. The old man, once an NCO in the Kaiser's marines in the Great War and one of the eldest to complete the parachute course, frowned, gazing across the next field at the French. "We've got maybe two fields' worth of manpower left in us," he calculated, "and the Marshal has said no stopping if we can avoid it. So... Hauptmann... up and at them." His mouth pursed and he clapped Wilhelm on the shoulder, not quite looking him in the eye. Wilhelm wearily turned toward the French and obeyed.

Bechtel and a squad from his first platoon began to inch along the hedgerow that divided Wilhelm's company roughly in half, working their way toward the French once more. By now the sun was high and they were sweating beneath their jump smocks. They had all been conditioned to dull every metal implement they could find, making finding them that much harder against the hedgerow, and Wilhelm himself had a hard time finding them until he had crept forward to join them. He looked horrifying, his front a mixture of mud and blood against the mottled camouflage smock, his face equally splashed in dirt and the Frenchman's blood, and he had barely remembered to retrieve his MP38. Even Bechtel started, drawing fire from the French, who had until now concentrated on the hedgerow they had just left, where Ramcke's regiment was forming a firing line.

"Sir," Bechtel whisper-shouted, "we can't take them like this!" Wilhelm nodded wearily, looking back, seeing the rest of his company start to work its way along the hedge, minus Fitzgerald's impromptu machine-gun section. The French might run once contact was made, but until then they were quite willing to shoot. He had heard horror stories that the French might have brought forward Senegalese troops, or Legionnaires... best not to think about those things now. Instead, he shoved past Bechtel, a rifle round cracking into the foliage above his head and driving him downward. Again, don't think about it.

One of the French machine guns swept toward the hedgerow, and all of them hugged the earth, buttocks clenched, every man secretly willing himself to vanish into his own helmet. Three of them did not wish hard enough; Wilhelm looked back to see two writhing and one still, and gritted his teeth to inch forward again. This was unbearable; he would rather have fought his way through a town again than done this open-field crawl in daylight in the face of the enemy! They finally reached the intersection of the hedges, where the French could not possibly turn to fire on them, and Wilhelm glanced back along his strung-out company. Enough of them were forward; he nodded to Bechtel and raised his head for a moment. "Grenades!" he bellowed, waving toward the French line, and they dutifully pulled forth their grenades, a mixture of egg and stick depending on when they had last drawn them. The French could not mistake what was coming, and the gun swept the hedge again as they rose to throw. Even with the losses sustained thus, the French hedge wavered and screams rose. Now was the moment to charge.

They were on the French, forcing their way through the hedge, in the first breath drawn after the grenades went off. Ramcke's men lifted their fire as the explosions rocked the hedge, and Wilhelm was once more among the French. This time, he had his MP38 ready, firing as he moved, screaming unconsciously. The knife was loose in its sheath, but it proved unneccessary, the French line breaking under the impact of this terrible figure, black-faced and bellowing. He again lost any sense of reason, firing until the bolt clicked feebly on an empty chamber.

At the end of the first day past the Aisne, they had advanced a whole four hundred meters. Wilhelm Volkmann's company went from a hundred and forty to eighty-four effectives, twenty-eight wounded, and twenty-eight dead. Of the "effectives," thirty-two were walking wounded, men who were not badly enough injured to justify sending back to hospital in Bock's relentless advance on the French position. He had no idea what casualties were like on the French side, but by day's end, he knew he had captured twenty or so, and an equal number never got the chance to surrender.

Even so, it was not enough. He checked the men quickly before dropping in next to Otto Skorzeny. "Otto," he said stiffly - he still hated the man's cavalier attitude, hated him even more now that Skorzeny's company had sustained only a few dozen casualties and Skorzeny himself seemed to have attracted a following of reporters. "Otto, I'm attaching what's left of my company to yours." Skorzeny rolled over where he had been laying propped on a helmet, eyebrow up. "'Bout time you showed some sense, Willi. Where are you going, if I may ask?"

"I'm going to hurt the French," Wilhelm replied grimly, fingers unconsciously running over the MP38 slung in front of him. Skorzeny's jaw dropped slightly, his cigarette falling onto the grass, where he fumbled and cursed before recovering it, mercifully still lit. By now, Wilhelm Volkmann had vanished into the dark.

He had not vanished quite far enough; he saw a half-dozen of his company following him, led by Bechtel, looking frankly terrified, but doggedly determined. "Sir, we're going with you." Wilhelm shook his head, then saw Fitzgerald's amused expression. "Then begging your pardon, sir, who's going to carry you back when you get shot this time?" He lacked the strength to argue, just hitched his head toward the next hedgerow and began crawling, slithering through the vineyard in the dark.

Other forces passed through the airborne corps in the night, advancing to keep Bock's relentless pressure on the French through all hours. The parachutists lost all track of Wilhelm Volkmann during this period, and he was generally lost in the shuffle. Most assumed he was another casualty, though Ramcke was true to his word and mentioned Volkmann in his dispatches, complete with field promotion to Hauptmann for his reckless charge into the first hedge. Other men saw the tiny knot of parachutists, barely a squad, as their uniforms began to fray. First rank insignia vanished, then beards grew, and never a one of them stopped to change or bathe - after all, they had brought along just enough to kill Frenchmen. Still, rumors circulated back to Meindl, Ramcke, and Student, and they began to wonder - who were these men who always seemed to be forward of them, in what could loosely be described as their uniforms?

Finally, on 3 September, an ambulance bounced its way into corps headquarters. In the back were four paratroopers, uniforms black and stiff with dirt and blood - some theirs, some French. Their helmets were long-gone, they arrived bare-headed, and they could not hold up their heads at all from exhaustion. One of them, apparently their leader, was so exhausted he had been strapped to a gurney, his head rolling heedlessly with the motion of the ambulance. He twitched every time he heard artillery, and his hand compulsively grabbed the hilt of a battered fighting knife every time the ambulance hit a bump. Amazingly, all four were still armed, though they had exhausted their ammunition.

Meindl was the first to recognize them. Fitzgerald was the giveaway, huge and red-headed under the grime, with a centimeter of beard on his face and his massive Belgian-manufactured automatic rifle still cradled in his arms. Bechtel was, he recognized, an utterly spent force; Fitzgerald actually had to help him out of the ambulance, surprisingly gentle for such a bear of a man. Next was Frisch, an otherwise unremarkable trooper who had the "Polen" band, but whose service there had been limited to casualty collection. Finally came Wilhelm Volkmann, uniform rent but mostly unharmed other than superficial cuts and scratches. He had not slept for three days, the others explained; every time he closed his eyes, he'd open them again, screaming and staring. Finally he had just passed out. Fitzgerald produced a sheaf of papers, somewhat awkwardly explaining that they were from the units they had joined. Meindl flipped through them incredulously - quickly-scrawled notes from company and battalion commanders, and even a hastily typed but formal memorandum from General Heinrici's headquarters, describing their actions over the past three days.

"When he wakes up," Meindl ordered Fitzgerald, "you personally come and get me. Do not let him move, understand?" Fitzgerald had saluted, an incongruous move given the filth and grime, his lack of headgear, and his decidedly non-issue weapon, and Meindl had merely stared down at Wilhelm Volkmann's exhausted, ravaged face. "We need to find out what color necktie suits him," he murmured.

The Battle of Reims lasted two weeks, from the twenty-eighth of August to the twelfth of September. It was the last great battle of its kind, where massed infantry armies hurled themselves at each other across no-man's-land, and it was broken by the sudden appearance on the field of two men: Josef Dietrich and Hans Hube, whose men called him "The Man," as if there was no other. Hube commanded the new-raised 38. Panzerdivision, fresh from fitting out and barely equipped with Panzer III tanks before deploying, as there simply were not enough Panzer IV to go around. Dietrich, for his part, had finally arrived from Bohemia with KuK Böhmen.

The appearance of the two armored divisions on the field at Reims changed the face of the battle from an attritional slugging match which the Germans were bound to win into a total rout. It was the most expensive two weeks of fighting in France, where of five hundred thousand German soldiers, two hundred thousand became casualties, of whom a hundred and twenty thousand would never return to Germany. For France, it was even more catastrophic: the forty divisions committed at Reims retreated with less than half their initial strength, and the Germans were disinclined to take prisoners after two such bitter weeks. Effective casualty counts for the French were never established, but it was estimated that perhaps a quarter-million Frenchmen died or were taken prisoner at Reims.

Bock was accused of seeking an annihilation battle for its own sake, even at the time, but even then, he smiled and pointed out that his was merely the left hand of the Reichsheer, holding the shield - that the right with its sword, under Brauchitsch, had achieved its own miracle during this time. Reims, for all its bloodletting, had been merely a diversion.

5sep41paris.png
 
What a nice and fast rate of updates!

Don't tell me that Fitzgerald has managed to get his hands upon some kind of prototype (the 1936 or the 1937) of the FN Model 1949? Lucky bugger...:D
 
What a nice and fast rate of updates!

Don't tell me that Fitzgerald has managed to get his hands upon some kind of prototype (the 1936 or the 1937) of the FN Model 1949? Lucky bugger...:D

No, the FN Mle D is a Belgian-licensed Browning Automatic Rifle that includes a number of features of later squad machine guns like hot-swappable barrels.

EDIT: Think of it as Fitzgerald's seven-barreled gun.

Amazing story :D

Thanks, I'm pretty proud of this particular update.
 
REINHARD HEYDRICH! :mad:


The other guy is Niels Bohr, right?
 
REINHARD HEYDRICH! :mad:


The other guy is Niels Bohr, right?

Right on both counts. Figured I'd use Heydrich since I brought him in as a spy something like forty updates ago.
 
I never liked Reims in HoI2. It always seems make or break my invasions, since it borders so many provinces in Belgium that you have to defend if your initial attack fails, and it sits in the middle of the route the French AI uses to send units from the Maginot provinces to meet the German attack. If there's one province that forces the player to use a 1914 style Schlieffen plan instead of a 1940 style Manstein plan, it's Reims. :mad:

Anyway, congrats on breaking the French Army so quickly. I don't know if I'd be willing to accept such devastating casualties were I in your position, but it doesn't look like you'll have to deal with a protracted war in the West...
 
Looks like this has really blossomed during my absence. Great work, and I look forward to catching up fully!
 
No, the FN Mle D is a Belgian-licensed Browning Automatic Rifle that includes a number of features of later squad machine guns like hot-swappable barrels.

EDIT: Think of it as Fitzgerald's seven-barreled gun.

Oh, it's a BAR. Well, the Germans could have some examples from Poland, too.

I knew that Sharpe was to appear sooner or later in this forum :D
 
I never liked Reims in HoI2. It always seems make or break my invasions, since it borders so many provinces in Belgium that you have to defend if your initial attack fails, and it sits in the middle of the route the French AI uses to send units from the Maginot provinces to meet the German attack. If there's one province that forces the player to use a 1914 style Schlieffen plan instead of a 1940 style Manstein plan, it's Reims. :mad:

Anyway, congrats on breaking the French Army so quickly. I don't know if I'd be willing to accept such devastating casualties were I in your position, but it doesn't look like you'll have to deal with a protracted war in the West...

In Mod33, it's exacerbated by the exact opposite of the Maginot problem; the mobilization events mean that divisions from Paris have to be shuffled forward from the front, and their corridor is Paris-Reims-Metz. I didn't actually plan on sustaining such heavy casualties at first, until I realized that Reims was a black hole for the French army, leaving everything else undefended. The 38 divisions they had in Reims were by this point the majority of the forces in European France.

Looks like this has really blossomed during my absence. Great work, and I look forward to catching up fully!

Thanks, and get back to your salt mine! I want to see the Wilhelm Gustloff pulling up to the Dover docks! :p

Oh, it's a BAR. Well, the Germans could have some examples from Poland, too.

I knew that Sharpe was to appear sooner or later in this forum :D

Sharpe already appeared, or rather his descendants did, by way of the French Colonel Patrick-Henri de Lassan, Vicomte de Lassan, an officer in Napoleon III's cavalry (see Cornwell's Starbuck Chronicles, set in the American Civil War).

As for the BAR - well, the Belgians apparently know their way around an LMG. Since rechambering is a minor industrial adjustment, the BAR in Mauser 8mm is very likely to become this timeline's FG42.

Well, Verdun too was supposed to be a diversion... some diversions just are quite bloody...

The difference is that, bloody or not, Reims lasted two weeks, Verdun lasted an eternity.

Regarding whether Reims was worth it - I would say yes; only two divisions of the armored force were involved, while the majority of that body was well to the west, in Normandy and the Ile-de-France. It wasn't planned on my part, but it became vitally important to tie those divisions down while more productive operations were carried out elsewhere. The result was that half the German army was used to tie up half the French army, during which the other half of the French army tried frantically to get themselves tied down, and the other half of the German army ran rampant. It was a meatgrinder, but unlike the meatgrinders of WW1, it prevented the formation of a static line everywhere else.
 
63. Paris Ist Gefallt

Headquarters, 3. Panzerkorps
Dury, Occupied France
6 September 1941


For his field headquarters, Rommel had appropriated a chateau four kilometers south of Amiens, on the south side of the Somme. Prior to his corps joining in the attack on Paris, there was one task set for him: clear out the pesky remnants of the French armored offensive on Hausser's right flank. That task had finally been completed late on the evening of the fifth, and today, Rommel had invited commanders down to battalion level to a quick celebratory dinner before they joined in the Paris offensive.

Among those present was the newly promoted Oberst von Manteuffel, commanding 6. Schutzenregiment after the collapse of a bridge under Oberst von Unger's halftrack. Manteuffel was widely known to be a shoe-in for the Pour le Merite for his near-miraculous assault across the Afsluitdijk, and he raised his glass silently toward Johann Volkmann and General Bayerlein in the staff section. Volkmann smiled and nodded in response; Bayerlein grinned ear-to-ear for his own reasons. He had pulled Johann aside the day before to tell him the news. "Well, Hans, I'm leaving as soon as this campaign's over. Probably have a place for you if you want to follow." It transpired that Bayerlein had already been notified by Brauchitsch and Rommel successively that he had been tapped for divisional command, probably to take command of one of the new mechanized formations being raised back in Germany proper. Johann had congratulated him as far as service etiquette allowed - not far, for a subordinate to a superior - and said he would consider the offer.

De_Gaulle-OWI.jpg

Only one man at this gathering looked put out. That was the tall, pencil-moustached guest of honor, a French armored general whom Rommel freely admitted had been one of the primary sources he had researched prior to the Polish war. The Frenchman had preened upon hearing this, until remembering he was in German captivity and retreating once more into sullen silence. General de Gaulle, Johann had already decided, combined arrogance and brilliance in a rather limited way. He would have made a fine Junker, he thought as he drained some departed French aristocrat's finest brandy.

Rommel stood, rapping the table once with his knuckles. "Gentlemen!" he began, raising his glass. "The Kaiser - may God guide the All-Highest to victory in this war!" The assembled officers stood and raised their glasses in toast, even de Gaulle after a long pause, eyes dark and mutinous, manners or possibly self-preservation finally winning out. "God save the Kaiser!" came the response. It was Bayerlein's turn; he toasted the Kaiserin. The toasts went down the table - the Army, the Marshal, victory, and, incongruously, the French ("A gallant foe - may they fight well, but not too well!"). Finally, after they had all consumed more than any sane man would under the circumstances, Rommel leaned forward against the table for support and began speaking once more.

"Now, I'm sure all of you know what is coming next. We are to join General von Brauchitsch and break Paris." He glanced at de Gaulle, who sat stiff and unmoving through this news. "Once Paris falls, we are to continue south. I have been given no definite orders in that regard, but I expect to spend Christmas somewhere warm - Marseilles, perhaps," he added with a grin and a finger alongside his nose. Laughter and cheers greeted the news, and he frowned, waving for silence. "Still - one of the consequences of victory is that we lose good men. Some to the foe," he nodded at de Gaulle, "and some to a more dangerous enemy - headquarters." Another round of laughter followed.

"Well. As some of you know, after Paris, we are losing our chief of staff. General Bayerlein here has been asked to return to Berlin and receive his marching orders. The only question is, Fritz, you riding in a tank or a halftrack?" Rommel grinned at his chief of staff, who smiled back. The two got along well, which was a small miracle given Rommel's disdain for staff work. De Gaulle looked vaguely bewildered at the exchange, and Rommel went on. "So, congratulations, General Bayerlein. Now the other source of losses - the foe. General de Gaulle, I would like to congratulate you on a gallant defense, and, if I may say, on the only counterattack which your army has launched which actually worked. I regret meeting under the circumstances, and I must say, I'm surprised at you. Gentlemen, did you know we captured not a single color, not even down to battalion level, from the good general's division? No? It's true, not a single standard!" Rommel gestured at de Gaulle in frank admiration, and the Frenchman unbent so far as to incline his head a fraction. "Tell us, General, now that it's over, how did you manage?"

De Gaulle shrugged, shoulders rising and falling eloquently. "A gentleman does not tell," he replied.

---

Chateau de Lassan
Outside Rouen, Occupied France
9 September 1941


A knock sounded at the door to the great old chateau, predating the Revolution, and Annelise de Lassan glanced up from where she was nursing. The boy cried out angrily and she quickly repositioned herself. Her father-in-law, old Colonel de Lassan, or the Vicomte, as she occasionally thought of him, started, opening his eyes and sitting up. The war had taken a terrible toll on him; in six weeks, she had seen him go from vigorous and active to despairing and chairbound. He stood and tottered toward the door, where Annelise heard him exclaim in apparent joy and shock.

In staggered Henri, bedraggled, covered in mud, with his uniform buttons half torn away and his hair matted to his head. He looked nothing like the gallant young tanker who had gone off to war six weeks ago, nor the man she had married in the Saumur garrison church. The only point of similarity was the ancient, heavy-bladed British cavalry sword he clutched as if life depended on it. Instead, he seemed to hug himself, cringing inward. At first, she thought it might be injuries, but instead, he straightened, looking his father in the eye. "Mon Pere," he began, voice cracking, "the war is lost." He collapsed on his father's shoulder, sobbing, until he recollected himself and straightened up again to attention, reaching into his uniform blouse and tugging. A blue-white-red flag, its white central field emblazoned with a half-dozen strings of gold text, ranging from "JEMMAPES 1792" to "LA MARNE 1918," emerged bit-by-bit, and he lost some of that crouched-in look. He still looked years older, but not quite so folded in on himself.

"M'sieur," he said formally, "I have the honor to present you with the colors of the 1.re Regiment de Cuirassiers." With that, he found a chair, collapsing into it, exhausted and beaten.

The full story came out in outline form. De Gaulle's 1. Division Blindee had used the SOMUA exactly as it should have been used, massed in division numbers, and had pushed back at Amiens just as the mass of German armor had committed at Compiegne. The German reaction had just been to relax back along the Somme toward the sea, and the sheer volume of German armor spreading out from the concentration at Compiegne had first separated de Gaulle from Paris, then overrun him. As a final recourse, he had ordered the division's youngest officers to grab their colors and disperse. He had no idea where the others were, but he at least had made it home without being captured. At this point, the Germans were not even bothering to round up prisoners, Henri said; it was too much trouble to account for every man who had been thrust in uniform in the last six weeks, and besides, the paperwork was probably hopelessly fouled in the Invalides. Even so, he had avoided every German patrol that he possibly could, and given the rest his best beaten-man impression. It wasn't hard, Annelise thought, somewhat unkindly. He really was a beaten man. The old man was a different story. His jaw firmed and he visibly sloughed off the last six weeks as he held the First Cuirassier colors in his hands. "France endures," he said, casting his final judgement on the matter. "Kings and emperors come and go, but France endures."

---

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L'Hotel National des Invalides
Paris, Occupied France
19 September 1941


On the same day that Gamelin ordered the retreat from Reims, Paris was declared an open city. General von Brauchitsch had decided to allow Paul Hausser, whose troops had invested the city for three weeks, the first triumphal entry, his own troops entering behind Hausser's 2. Panzerkorps and ahead of Manstein's 1. Garde-Panzerkorps. They paraded down the Champs-Elysees in broad daylight, the rumble of tread against concrete replacing the feared rumble of artillery.

The German headquarters had been established in the Invalides complex among the monuments to French military grandeur; Brauchitsch's own office was only steps away from Bonaparte's tomb. For the moment, his own position was almost overwhelming: Chief of the General Staff, commander, Army Group North, and now Military Governor of France. Even Hindenburg had never held so much theoretical power, and Brauchitsch himself was still recovering from the heart attack he had suffered earlier in the summer. The result was that the campaign in France devolved upon corps commanders, especially the spearhead leaders like Guderian, Hausser, and Rommel. However, for a bright, shining moment on the nineteenth of September, they celebrated the Kaiser's arrival in Paris.

The front had by now moved far south, with Leeb and Rundstedt forming a line between Dijon and Vichy. Model's corps was speeding southeast from Orleans, so he was not among the attendees at the Invalides. Kaiser Wilhelm looked tired, drawn, not at all the celebrant he should have been at the second German occupation of Paris in a century. Still, he mounted the rostrum to deliver his news.

It was not terribly surprising news in its particulars: batons for Brauchitsch, Leeb, and Rundstedt, the almost-unheard-of honor of the Grand Cross of the Pour Le Merite for Bock, and a more liberal bestowal of that award than at any point in history. Both junior and senior officers were so honored: Rommel with the rare oak leaves for his breakthrough at the Afsluitsdijk, Manteuffel as the man who had actually spearheaded that attack, and a young, haunted-eyed parachutist captain named Volkmann for his actions at Reims... a mere sampling of the honors bestowed at the Invalides ceremony. The Kaiser visibly started at Wilhelm Volkmann, for a moment much more his old self, and the reporters heard him once again joke. "Well, Volkmann, I said don't let the name down, but this is quite another thing!" Royal joke or not, the parachutist had merely stared dead ahead, through the Kaiser, through the wall.

Johann Volkmann had tracked down his brother after the ceremony, before the airborne corps was released to garrison Normandy temporarily. He had just received his own marching orders, and was still stiff in the black-and-silver uniform of 3. Leib-Panzerdivision. He frankly thought the Totenkopf shako was ridiculous, and had surreptitiously carried a "Rommel beret" the entire time. The beret was so much more practical when wearing a headset, after all. Still, he had to admit, it was cheaper than the ridiculous silver cuirass the Garde du Corps wore, and at least Mackensen's old division didn't require a "Graf" to enter! For all of the changes he saw in himself, he was shocked at the changes in Wilhelm.

Wilhelm, always grayhound-lean, was now gaunt. He ate, though without relish, and he whirled at the sound of approaching horses, though it was just a supply wagon. He did not even bother looking apologetic at this point. The two German officers attracted surly glances as they walked the cobbled streets, and Wilhelm frowned at the surrounding Frenchmen. "I wish they'd all die," he muttered. Johann blinked. "Willi?"

"The French. I wish they'd all die." He looked around again. "You know what they did at Reims?" It was rhetorical, they both knew about the bloodletting there. "Well, yes," Hans admitted, "but surely it was worse for them!" Wilhelm spat, eyes flashing. "Besides, it doesn't matter. They've already told me I'm going home." He was bitter, hands flexing into fists. "Soon as I get a company, it gets killed out from under me, given to that fuck Skorzeny, and they want me to go home soon as the corps is settled in in Normandy."

Johann coughed, not expecting this sudden outpouring of anger. "Why?" he asked, somewhat shocked. Wilhelm stopped, turning to face him. "Apparently Generalmajor Ramcke is setting up some new staff. Some kind of combined group. And he wants me to go with him." Wilhelm's face was a mask of raw anguish. "I don't want to leave my men, Hans! Not least to Skorzeny." It took Johann a minute to think of who this Skorzeny might be, but he finally dredged up a mental image from this month's Signal, showing a cheerful, scar-faced paratrooper squatting back against a French machine-gun, cigarette clamped in his teeth and his helmet on his knee. "What's so bad about this Skorzeny?" he finally worked up to asking, half-dreading whatever explosion he might produce.

"He thinks war's a fucking game, Hans! All that 'follow me to glory' nonsense. He salutes like he's on stage, you can practically hear him smirking when he marches, and he swills beer like a goddamned Gefreiter - with his goddamned Gefreiter!" Wilhelm deflated, hands visibly shaking as he refrained from jamming them in his pockets. "Well. Anyway. I'm supposed to make sure my company's barracked in Normandy, then I'm supposed to go with Ramcke back to Wilhelmshaven. Wilhelmshaven, Hans. Not Stendal, Wilhelmshaven." He looked miserable for a moment, then for the first time since Hans had seen him today, he softened, smiled, turned back into the boy he remembered. "Oh, and my mail finally caught up with me." He did not look at Hans, gazing down the street instead. "It's a girl. Marguerite Marie Volkmann. Rita somehow talked the Johanniters into letting a photographer in. Look." He finally produced a tiny photograph from his pocket, showing a tired but happy Rita Volkmann holding a tiny bundle with an outrageously small face, eyes looking into the camera with no sign of fear, in a hospital bed.

"She's beautiful, Willi," Johann Volkmann said with feeling, his own mind turning to Ilse, back in Berlin. They had traded letters for months, but had only occasionally seen each other. Ilse's own letters had slowed since Becker had released her from her secretarial duties. Whatever she was doing now, she was happy - apparently her doctoral committee was headed by Doctor Meitner, an idol of hers, but she was not allowed to discuss it in any great detail. Her last letter had said, more or less, that the war was a silly dispute, and the sooner he got home from it, the better. He did not know how to explain to her that, silly or not, it was not just what he did, but what he was.

"Yeah, thanks," Wilhelm said, tucking the picture back away. "And hey, congratulations on the Guards. Someone out there likes you. Wish I could say the same."

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Führer der Unterseeboote
Kiel, German Empire
20 September 1941


U-47 had had strict orders on this cruise: not to return to port until torpedo stores were expended or Commander Prien was down to a quarter of his fuel reserve. Strangely, in the waters around Scapa Flow it had been the first that finally occurred, bringing the Type IX boat back in with a broom tied to her masthead. Prien grinned ear-to-ear as they approached the dock, his submarine having accounted for a pair of destroyers and the light cruiser Belfast. It was not a bad haul, albeit utterly lacking in the big ships Prien craved. Reputations like Weddingen's weren't made by light cruisers, he had explained to Peter Volkmann. Still, for a first cruise, it was quite satisfactory.

Peter spied a man waiting at the dock that he had not expected, an impatient-looking Admiral Canaris. He ducked below to dart into the officers' bunks, grabbing his leather jacket. It had shrunk considerably once he had peeled it off on his rescue, but he had spent the intervening three weeks stretching it once more until it fit, albeit snugly. Prien, freshly shaven for his return to port, laughed at the pretense. "Silly pilots, think you need a costume or someone'll mistake you for a U-mann?"

Peter grinned back, elbowing Prien. "Not a chance, I at least bathe occasionally. Otherwise, I wouldn't be aboard, now, would I?" Prien guffawed one last time, saluting the shore as the mooring lines were cast. "Guess not. Now get off my boat before I break out the pikes." Despite the harrassment, Peter was, as rank dictated, second-to-last off the boat, Prien being the last aboard. Canaris had been all but stamping in impatience. Peter noted a blue glint at his throat. "Sir, congratulations," he said, awkwardly saluting, the jacket resisting his arm movement. Canaris grunted and quickly walked down the docks; he had seen Dönitz approaching, and did not want to get into another turf war. "Come on," he snapped over his shoulder. Peter obediently followed. As they reached the security checkpoint at the end of the dock, Peter's eyes widened - there was Hanna, a furious expression melting off her face as she saw him and her belly slightly but, on her slight figure, unmistakably rounded. He bolted past Canaris and picked her up, spinning around as she battered at his head, her voice an incoherent mixture of angry and overjoyed babbling.

"Frau Volkmann, if I may," Canaris said, lips pressed together, reaching into his coat. "You are Peter Volkmann, of His Imperial Majesty's Kaiserliche Marine?" Peter blinked. "Sir, you know..." He realized what must be coming and came to attention. "Sir. Yes, sir."

"Then, Herr Fregattenkapitän, in accordance with the wishes of the War Minister, the Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, the Chancellor, and the Kaiser in council, you are awarded the Order of the Red Eagle, Third Class, With Bow, Crown, and Swords." The award case contained a more ornate version of the award Peter already wore, and Canaris glanced at Hanna, who nodded and lifted the ribbon to slip it around his neck. "Read the citation on your own time, Peter. Frau Volkmann, you may kiss the fool." Hanna grinned and leapt at him again, and this time, there was no trace of her apparent anger earlier, nor, after a long moment, air in Peter's lungs. In self-defense, he pulled away.

"Now, Frau Volkmann, I apologize, but I must steal your husband." Canaris turned oddly courtly in his manner, bowing slightly with his apology, and she sighed. "Fine, Admiral, but I do want to see him tonight." It was an unexpectedly subdued reaction from the usually outspoken Hanna, and she kissed his cheek once more before walking away, eyes over her shoulder the whole time.

"Scapa Flow." It was a strange beginning, but that was Canaris. "You've been on a U-boat, so you probably don't know everything. Must hand it to him, Dönitz has done a decent job of keeping them bottled there. First things first, Peter. You did it. You got the Hood, congratulations. Broke clean in half. Second, we got at least two more battleships, and a carrier. That Mountbatten character was her captain, according to the BBC. Got a VC for saving his crew. You're probably wondering about this," he added, fingering his own Pour le Merite. "Well, the Kaiser... he gave Ludi and Siggi the Black Eagle as soon as we got back to port, could hardly ignore their commander. Or the man who planned the raid," he amended with a meaningful glance at Peter. "So you're probably wondering what's next."

"Yes, sir."

"This is actually our third return to port, then we rejoin the Scapa Flow blockade squadron. The Luftwaffe's taken responsibility for the Channel squadron, we're just supposed to keep the battleships under fire until further notice. We don't really need you on the Zeppelin, so you're getting kicked upstairs. Rising tide lifts all boats and all that. Congratulations... Kapitän zur See Volkmann. Konteradmiral Langsdorff's taking over Carrier Division One, you're the Hindenburg's new captain as soon as we get a change of command arranged." Canaris stopped to face Peter. "I've jumped you over two dozen captains with seniority dating back to the Great War, but they think the Walrus is just a garbage scow with all these new carriers coming off the slips. Anyway, we're at Wilhelmshaven for the next seventy-two hours, I expect a change of command with twenty-four hours for you to get to know your ship. Other than that, you're on pass, dismissed."
 
Gee. I wonder where that Frenchman got his hands on a Napoleonic era Brit Cavalry Sword. More Volkmans is always nice, and he got a Carrier! Sweet.
 
Gee. I wonder where that Frenchman got his hands on a Napoleonic era Brit Cavalry Sword. More Volkmans is always nice, and he got a Carrier! Sweet.

See last comments section. The Lassans have been there for a while now. :p
 
I've read all the books, and your comments too. In any case, I somehow expect a Vice Admiral Volkmann leading the Imperial German Atlantic Fleet on a surprise attack on Norfolk one fine December morning in 1948.... :D