@Viden and others about France: Yes, that is very annoying. It doesn't help much with jokes regarding France. I've taken matters into my own hand to make sure the AI doesn't do stupid things and overstretch itself, as OvG pointed out.
@Baron: I'm planning on doing just that once Germany weakens a bit. Unfortunately as I'll mention towards the end their navy is troublesome. And yes, there is hostile territory in Morocco- as you may recall the CNT-FAI in Spain instigated a rebellion there. Unfortunately the German AI just bombed it out of existence, but it neglected to actually take back any captured territories. So it appears an odd blob. I honestly forgot about it until you brought it up.
@Leviathan: Saint Lenin? Makhno won't be happy about that!
@LaFayette: Yeah, it's a shame. Again, doesn't help with the jokes.
@Hab: We'll see what comes later regarding territorial adjustments. All that matters to me is ONE BIG UNION as the saying goes.
Opening Moves
Sébastien Faure said:
Ah, goddamit, it’s time to put an end to this,
We've moaned and suffered long enough,
No half-way war,
No more cowardly pity,
Death to the bourgeoisie!
The war opened up in earnest as both sides of the German and French border were pounded by artillery and aerial bombardments, tearing up the land which had only then begun to heal from the scars of the first Great War.
Within that first week in June, it was obvious this war would be different from the first Great War. The most obvious difference was the advancements in technology which allowed for much more devastating attacks.
The German Imperial Army had a sizable amount of older generals within their ranks, veterans of the Great War who were quite skilled. However, they had not adapted to the advances in armored or aerial warfare, though there were plenty of younger commanders who eagerly embraced the new face of warfare.
This was not a problem that the French Communal Army faced, as only a handful of high-ranking officers sided with the revolution in the chaotic aftermath of the Great War. For the most part, many of the generals were from a younger generation. The Communal Army even had issues with finding enough trained officers, and members of the revolutionary government with experience in war such as Nestor Makhno took it upon themselves to take up positions in the military.
What the Commune of France also differed from Germany was the philosophy behind the makeup of the military. The anarchist-led government believed in a more ‘popular’ formation for the military, focusing more on manpower and irregular infantry as opposed to the more orthodox strategies of the imperial high staff.
The war expanded early on with Hungary, Bohemia, and Galicia-Lodomoren honoring their agreements with the Austrians and joining in their war against the Syndintern. The Ottoman Empire was yet to show any sign of honoring its agreements with the German Empire, though it managed to secure a truce with Hashemite Arabia as hostilities broke out in Europe, but was unable to do the same with the Kingdom of Egypt.
The Union of Britain escalated its involvement in the war by formally joining the war on May 25th, honoring its arrangements with the Commune of France. This was without controversy as the debates described earlier showed, and it was only a rare act of cooperation between some Federationists and Maximists that allowed the Union of Britain to re-emerge on the international scene once more.
French strategy had not changed much from its conceptual stages in the preceding Congresses, though was adjusted accordingly with the addition of the Combined Syndicates as a reliable trading partner to help in the war effort.
The crux of the strategy relied on a rush through the lowlands of Belgium, one that would hopefully allow for the Syndintern to create a pocket around the large amount of German forces in Alsace-Lorraine.
After that, the Empire should be on the run.
“Should”. That is what needs to be emphasized; as history has shown us before, wars rarely go according to plan. The first major kink in the Syndintern’s plans was the entrance of the Entente with the declaration of war on the Union of Britain by Canada on June 1st.
The Monarchists in Canada hoped to exploit the war between Mitteleuropa and the Syndintern to their own benefit. The Union of Britain would be at a point of vulnerability and the possibility of reconquering the realms of their former kingdom would be within their grasp. The French government-in-exile, based out of Algiers, also joined with Britain with the same aim towards the Commune of France.
From the coast of North Africa the forces of the Entente launched aerial attacks on Spain and France, and on the high seas the Canadian navy clashed against the Republican Navy of Union of Britain.
In the Combined Syndicates, the Continental Chamber of Syndicates was engaged in a debate over the direction of the war against the Pacific States and their position in the international syndicalist movement. While the Pacific States were unable to attack the Combined Syndicates much, the Syndicates in turn were at best making very slow progress into the territories of the Pacific States. To make matters worse, much of the territory they were moving across was mountainous and mostly barren- the industrial heartland and powerhouse of the Pacific States was along the West Coast, in particular California.
It was known that President Reed desired to enter the Syndintern, but conditioning in the former United States would make the proposition a troublesome one. An isolationist mindset had set in for many years, well before the first Great War, that made much of the populace balk at the idea of agreeing to membership in an international entity.
However, Reed used the desire to unify the former United States as a means to advance the Syndicalist cause within the Americas. The focus of this was the state of New England, with which relations had soured immensely. New England painted itself as the inheritor of the United States’ will, a beacon of ‘liberty’ in the chaos that had engulfed the former United States.
On June 10th, President Reed sent an ultimatum to the state of New England- surrender and join the Combined Syndicates.
It could be argued that Reed knew it was unlikely New England would surrender, but rather appeal to the Canadian government for help in asserting its independence. In fact, this was more than likely the case as Reed was probably hoping for two cases. The first would be New England receiving aid from Canada and provoking a war between the Combined Syndicates, ending the tug-of-war over who would be the powerhouse of the Americas. More importantly, this would allow Reed to help the Syndintern in some form without officially joining it.
The second possibility, far less unlikely, would be Canada abandoning New England due to its attempts to destroy the Union of Britain. This would allow the Combined Syndicates to acquire New England without much trouble, but since Canada recognized this region as a weakness, it would be unlikely they would allow the Combined Syndicates to annex it.
A half hour after Reed sent his ultimatum a response from New England arrived declaring their intention to be independent, backed with the King’s blessings. Then, citing the need to protect the Combined Syndicates’ territorial integrity, war was declared on New England, bringing Canada into the war.
Though not in the Syndintern, Reed was now carrying out what his role would have been had the Combined Syndicates been a full member of the Syndintern. The war would be a tough one, with hostiles on every border except for Mexico, which chose to be neutral in the continent-spanning conflict.
The Union of Britain, seemingly free of having to deal with Canada on its own, implemented some of its own plans for the war. The first was an attempt to open up a second front against Germany through an invasion of Denmark. This of course meant that the Kingdom of Denmark found itself at war with the Syndintern.
Despite their naval superiority, the Union of Britain found it difficult to establish a beachhead in Denmark with the constant harassment from the German naval base at Kiel just over the border.
In Italy, the first few weeks of conflict mainly saw exchanges of artillery and aerial combat, with very little movement on either end of the border. The only notable combat began on June 5th as the People’s Army began an assault on the city of Trento in Austria. The assault proceeded very slowly, despite being supported by large amounts of air and artillery strikes. The Italian military then faced its first major defeat, not in its assault on Trento from the ground but rather the air.
The assault on Trento turned out to be a long one, and attempts to break the Austrian emplacements across the Po River from Republic-held Ferrara proved to be fruitless.
This was in sharp contrast to the fighting between the Commune of France and the German Empire in Flanders-Wallonia as a lightning French strike blasted their way through the client state. The French swept through most of the country with little resistance, as the national military melted away in face of the advancing French forces, too late to be helped by the German military.
On June 25th, a battle took place in Antwerp, threatening the capital of Flanders-Wallonia nearby. Despite an initially effective defense by the Imperial Army, the Communal Army overran the defenders in Antwerp. By the end of the battle, only a handful of divisions remained to face the considerable French storm.
On July 1st, French forces triumphantly entered Brussels as the Imperial Army retreated ahead of them into Germany. The Commune of France proceeded to occupy Flanders-Wallonia, establishing a new Belgian government in the event of a successful war.
A few days later on July 5th, the French tried to follow up on their success by crossing into the first piece of German territory, centered on the city of Liege [1]. Despite promising gains at first, the French forces were pushed back from Liege across the Meuse River into the occupied city of Namur.
For the next week a protracted battle took place around the city of Namur as French forces attempted to forcibly cross back over the Meuse River into France. At first, the battle appeared to be evenly matched, and French commanders were confident of their prospects.
A week later, despite their best efforts, French forces found themselves falling back and retreating in the face of a reinvigorated Imperial Army as armored elements moved in to reinforce the attack. Not only did the French lose their chance at Liege, but the city of Namur in the process.
This was followed with sudden offenses launched by the Imperial Army, as armored divisions spearheaded attacks into French fortifications. Gains made in Belgium were threatened as German forces used the safe crossing provided by Namur to move forces back into Belgium. Attacks on Brussels and Antwerp were repulsed by Syndicalist forces, but they were unable to dislodge the German forces now occupying Namur.
The potential of gains in Belgium quickly being lost resulted in a reshuffling of French forces across the battle lines with Germany, attempting to address weakness against armor where they were present and digging in as the German air force rained hell across the French emplacements.
With France occupied with Belgium and the invasion of Denmark stalled, the Union of Britain started up the RED [2], and deployed T.E. Lawrence and his squad into western Germany across the battle lines. There, T.E. Lawrence linked up with Syndicalist-aligned trade unionists and agitators in the Saarland and the Rhine to cause problems with production and supplies for the German forces relying on them.
The German Empire found out about the act too late, responding to the acts of sabotage by the RED after the fact and arriving to burned out factories and ruptured rail lines.
All this activity had the effect of focusing the attention of Mitteleuropa away from Italy to its front with France. This turned the long, drawn out Battle of Trento in Italy’s favor, with a sizable assault from the Italian forces within striking distance of Trento. This took the few defenders present in the city by surprise as the Italians overran the city.
On July 25th, the city of Trento was occupied by the Italian army, a great embarrassment to the Mitteleuropan operations there.
Mitteleuropa did not consider the city to be a great loss in the end however, feeling the Italians could be easily repulsed with a coordinated attack. Mitteleuropan High Command was more worried about the fall of Bulgaria the previous day on July 24th, ending the long Balkan Wars in favor of the Serbians, Romanians, and Greeks.
The Balkans after the Treaty of Sofia
The main problem this presented was that the governments present in Serbia, Romania, and Greece were for the most part hostile towards Mitteleuropa- in particular over territories currently controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This also meant that there no longer was a stable corridor for Ottoman forces to join the front in Europe that Bulgaria once provided, leaving Ottoman forces to attempt naval transit of its forces to Ukraine across the Black Sea. This was not a capability the Ottomans had well developed, and it would be troublesome to create a stable flow of supplies from the Middle-East to Europe as a result.
As the French assaulted Namur in an attempt to restore the front across the Meuse River, the Italians once again took advantage of the movement of forces to fight the French to open up an assault on Mitteleuropan forces across the Po River. On July 30th, Director-General of Defense Berneri ordered Italian forces across the Po River into Austrian-held territory.
Defenders melted away as Italian forces advanced across the Po River and successfully captured a number of small towns. The fighting began to converge on the city of Padova, the last line of defense until Venice itself.
Here the Italians hit a snag and had received reconnaissance that there were troop movements towards Venice to reinforce the garrison there and push back the Italians across the Po. They could not lose this opportunity- Padova had to be taken as quickly as possible in order to take control of Venice and establish pressure on the Mitteleuropans from the south.
Time was of the essence. Italo Balbo in Trento reported a massive counter-attack on their forces there, and this confirmed that Mitteleuropa was attempting to reestablish control over the front before it went out of control.
It was in this time that the elderly general Emilio De Bono, held in jail following the breakup of the “Society for Democratic Rebirth” conspiracy, requested he be given a chance to ‘redeem’ himself in fighting to recapture Venice, a city he had witnessed fall to the Austrians in the First Great War.
The suggestion was sudden and for the most part, unpopular. De Bono was viewed both as a traitor and liability, and the commander of the People’s Army Maugeri advised against it. However, on account of De Bono’s old age and lack of real threat to the war effort, he was allowed to proceed to the front line under the supervision of a commissar from the USDR [3].
As soon as he was given command, De Bono showed he was willing to fight and put aside his reservations against the government. This was, more or less, an act of redemption for his failure in the first Great War and fear that he would die with a tarnished reputation on account of his involvement with the Society for Democratic Rebirth.
Somehow, despite better equipped and favorable terrain to the defenders that should have made numbers irrelevant, De Bono’s forces found themselves able to dislodge the forces in Padova. The forces of the Italian People’s Army, encouraged by their victory, pressed onwards towards Venice, and on August 8th the Battle for Venice took place.
At the same time though, Balbo’s forces came under extreme pressure and bombardment, and was forced to withdraw from Trento as the first wave of Austrian forces began returning from the north to reinforce their positions.
As the battle was raging in the ancient city of Venice, the Italians suffered a defeat and retreated back to Italian held positions.
This kept the Mitteleuropan forces occupied, particular after an attempt to make a dive towards Milan, as the People’s Army fought a difficult battle in Venice as the garrison there was reinforced by fresh troops redeployed from Germany. The fighting was a difficult one, made worse with constant bombardments from the air and from artillery emplacements on both sides of the battle line. Major Gallo recounts his experience in fighting on the outskirts of Venice:
Niccolò Gallo said:
We advanced on the town of Mestre [4], an outlying community of Venice and the entrance to the only bridges connecting Venice to the mainland. The whole route up to Venice from Padova was a total mess- much of the landscape was scarred by the constant bombardments by artillery and bombers. Whatever people lived there had since moved on, some coming in our direction, others going towards the Austrian emplacements.
Most of my division was veterans of the American Civil War, and as such we were accustomed to fighting in urban settings, a factor that definitely helped us against the Austrians who had yet to fight such battles beyond putting down riots by restive minorities in the preceding years.
I would still say that what we fought in New York was far more dangerous and trying than what happened in Venice. This isn’t saying that it wasn’t a tough battle- it was- but it was better than we thought it would be thanks to our experience, strategy, and a good stream of supplies from People’s Army.
The industrial districts and the main routes to the bridge still had a couple of Austrian divisions defending the route to the bridge. High Command did not wish to use the bridge as a means to assault Venice, as it would only be a deadly bottleneck, but rather cut off the supply route to the city. We were confident that by capturing much of the surrounding coast line, we could also fend off attempts to resupply and reinforce the city by sea.
Fighting was mostly mobile. We moved from building to building, street to street, stopping for no more than 20 minutes at most due to the random nature of bombardments on the area. We had a close call at one point when a small store we barricaded ourselves in received a hit from an artillery strike- whether it was Italian or Austrian we do not know.
We managed to push back the defenders towards the bridge, and as we were doing so many of us had begun to wonder how exactly Venice itself would be captured. High Command was hell-bent on capturing the city, feeling that besieging the Austrians would be unfeasible. It should be said that Venice had a significant propaganda value to us, liberation of a city that had been under foreign domination since the first Great War.
As my division joined other forces, we took our positions on the road to the bridge. With the bridge behind us, we fended off a number of attempts by Austrian forces to push us out of our positions in order to restore their supply routes.
This went on for a good four days, with fighting still raging in Mestre’s northern ramparts and along the bay to the northeast. In a way we were lucky to have been near the bridge- Austrian strikes were careful not to strike around that area for fear of damaging the bridge nearby.
Soldiers talking among themselves wondered how long we’d end up being here for Venice to surrender. There were speculations that the People’s Army might attempt a naval landing, or even dropping men from planes, “paratroopers” as I was told about them. I had never been aware of it before, but it had been developed in collaboration with France during much of the past decade.
We were saved from having to deal with this though. The Austrians did not feel it was worth holding the area if they were just reduced to the island on which Venice itself was situated, and withdrew their forces through naval means back along the coast before Italian divisions completely occupied the nearby coast. Those on the mainland withdrew northwards to Belluno or east towards Udine.
Our division was among the first to go into Venice on August 20th. Unlike Mestre before it, it had been largely untouched by war, much of its valuable history intact. The museums unfortunately seemed to have been emptied as the Austrians left…
Over a week later on August 20th, Italian forces captured the city of Venice to much fanfare as Italians turned out to greet their countrymen. The “Committee to Free Italy” or the Pope were nowhere to be found, presumably having pulled out of the city with retreating Mitteleuropan forces.
Encouraged by the victory in Venice, a counterattack took place to recapture Trento. Italo Balbo, the ‘Hero of Rome’ was also concerned about being upstaged by an old general like De Bono with the surprising capture of Rome and hoped to at least not be embarrassed by having been unable to keep Trento.
The Second Battle of Trento was, simply put, a meat grinder. It was only the fervor of Venice’s capture that kept Italian forces going despite the devastating defense that Austria was putting up against the offensive.
After a brutal battle in the city proper, Trento was once again captured by Italian forces. An attempt to follow up on this an attempt was made to capture Belluno in order to secure the front along the Piave River, but this attack was repulsed by Mitteleuropan garrisons.
The Italian forces moved to prepare themselves for counterattacks from the Mitteleuropan forces, halting offenses for the time being and attempting to bolster its air presence which was being torn up by their German and Austrian counterparts.
Meanwhile, the French forces managed to push German forces out of Namur and reestablished a front along the Meuse River but were unable to advance into Liege, once again prevented from doing so by the German garrisons there. T.E. Lawrence, finished with his sabotage operations in west Germany, moved northwards to Bremen and Hanover to wreak havoc there. Already feeling the effects of the RED’s sabotage in the Battle of Namur, German security forces converged on the northern cities in Germany, but found that the RED was able to blend in with the populace and more than likely received help, much to the irritation of the government.
August drew to a close without much more developments along the fronts, with the war entering into September and fall beginning. Hopes from France to break into Germany quickly were crushed, but they were able to prevent a potential disaster in the numerous battles along the Meuse River and stabilized the front.
In Italy, there was much celebration with the liberation of Venice, though everyone knew the war was far from over. In fact, for the most part it was going to get worse before it got any better. Italian attempts to seize Crete and Malta were total failures, with the German Navy easily tearing apart the naval escorts.
Almost fittingly, the battle lines between Austria and Italy seemed to realign themselves along the Piave River, the site of Italy’s defeat in the first Great War. Once again, that small river would represent a vital turning point in Italy’s history.
The war in the beginning of September
____________________________________________________
[1] Liege was once in the Kingdom of Belgium, but following the First World War it was directly annexed into the German Empire.
[2] The Revolutionary Exportation Directory.
[3]The Ufficio Stato e Difesa della Rivoluzione, or Office of the State and Defense of the Revolution. Established during the reforms that saw the birth of the Italian People’s Republic following the annexation of the Italian Federation, formed from the old security apparatus in the Republic.
[4] Mestre during the period of Austrian occupation was officially known as Maxhafen, named after Maximillian, the last Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia and later the short-lived Emperor of Mexico. This was part of the attempt to make the region more ‘German’. The automobile bridge built by Austria during the 1930s was named after Emperor Franz Joseph.
AAAND a bonus. My airforce sucks this bad.
With that I hit the 20 image limit