Chapter 6: Spain goes to wAAR - the order of battle
August 23, 1939
It was one of those nights, President Azaña thought to himself. It had been a long day, a long week and a long mont. When he thought about it, it had been long three and half years. First the Civil War, those days of excitement and feeling of accomplishment. Winning the war had been easy enough, but winning the peace had proven much more problematic. After all Spain had seen more than a century without a stable government, unity or prosperity. The long years after the Civil War had been rebuilding, reforming, work. The worst part had not been poverty or illiteracy, but unifying the country that lacked national identity. Even with worst troublemakers gone, there were Stalinists, anarchists, strikes, endless negotiations and persuasions to make the impossible to happen, and now it was an election year as well. And here he was again, burning the midnight oil with fresh stack of troubles.
Suddenly he lifted his head and listened to noises outside the silent office. There was a sound approaching, a steady noise of heavy footsteps. It was a familiar sound, and it could mean but few things. It could mean few friendly drinks, but it was too late for that. It could mean new pleads to increase the army budget, but that budget simply could not be increased anymore. And finally it could mean bad news. President found the last option most likely. Before visitor knocked the door President spoke.
'Come in Martinez. Leave the disastrous news on the table, on top of the old ones.' President said with tone of a man who has all the good reasons to expect the worst.
As door opened he saw the familiar, enormously moustached bulk of chief of staff, with the familiar good humor. '
Buenas noches Boss.' The moustached apparition called smartly. 'We have good and bad news Boss, which ones first?'
'The disastrous ones first, if you could be so kind.' President noted calmly. 'And please do not call me boss. Mr. President will do, since we are friends.'
'Yes Boss.' Martínez saluted. 'Bad news are following; it is with greatest grief that I inform you that your beloved dog Lenin is no more with us. We suspect communist assassination.'
'Oh, is that all?' President muttered, mildly surprised. 'Well, it was his time, he was almost four years old. I'll have a new one and call him Stalin. Please proceed with the good news.'
'With pleasure, Boss. The news is that the Second World War begun six hours ago.'
President stared him with a comical look on his face. 'I fail to find anything positive from that knowledge.' He gasped finally.
'Oh, shrugs. Now we can finally clean the barracks from all that scum that has been piling there and get the boys bloodied a bit. Besides, is it not good to fight Fascism, yes?'
'War is always terrible.' President said. 'Many brave voters will not come home.'
'Oh, surely we all know that war is a terrible thing and peace much more favorable, but still we all know that there are things worse than war and much more preferable than peace. Fascist world order is certainly one of them.' Big general sat on a sofa and begun to smoke an enormous cigar with great vigor, dropping ashes on the carpet. 'Besides, we are not going to fight Nazis alone,
no?
Los inglésand
los francés will do the fighting,
no?'
President made a helpless gesture. 'They have not accepted us into their little club so far, those arrogant Imperialists.'
'Ah,but this came five minutes ago, for your eyes only.' CoS pulled a thick envelope from his greatcoat and tossed it on the table. It had dozen important looking stamps from England, and seven stamps of Top Secret. President opened the letter and read it. It did not take long. Message read:
'Dear Mr.President of Spain. We recently have reassessed your qualifications to enter Allies, and we found twenty-one good reasons to accept your proposal. Welcome to the Allies! This could be a beginning of a beautiful friendship. Sign here please.
The Allies
P.S. Send more Mammoth Tanks! Urgent!'
'Twenty one good reasons?' President muttered. 'General, how many division we have?'
'Twenty one.'
'How many are sending to help France?'
'Twenty one.'
'So we are in then.' President said with a heavy sight. 'I hoped it did not come to this, but we have no choice.' He opened a drawer in his desk and armed himself with a big revolver and a cowboy hat. 'Now I'm ready.' He said. 'Let's get this show on the road.'
'Oh, there were some other things.' CoS said suddenly. 'The things is, Stalin just pissed us.'
'Are you
loco? I haven't bought that new dog yet.' President made impatient gesture.
'Not that one, the real Stalin. Here,
los inglés send us some information. It looks like Uncle Joe recently made an nonaggression pact with Hitler. Actually, it was made two hours before
Los alemanes attacked Poland. Brits are already printing satire about it.'
'Well, they are certainly fast with something then. I can't believe Stalin would sink so low! He is such a friendly brutal, totalitarian dictator!' President muttered uneasily. 'What actually have happened? What are the facts?'
'
Los alemanes crossed to border to Poland, the horse-stables of Europe, few hours ago.' Burly general said with a big grin. 'They are hungry for some
Lebensraum. They surely will have it, since there will be so many less to share what they have now. Anyway, rest of Allies are shitting bricks at the moment, but I think Hitler is not much better. I reckon he calculated Allies would chicken out of this one too. I reckon he calculated wrong. Now he has all the British Commonwealth, which is half of the world, against him, now including us.'
'Such a great thing!' President muttered, not much cheered. 'They are caught unready. It will take years before they can mobilize some serious help.'
'It's not that bad, old sport!' General bellowed cheerfully. 'Here, we received some pictures from our allies! Here is a tank from New Zealand, whatever place that is.'
'I feel so much better now.' President said, reaching for aspirin. 'Anything else?'
'Sure Boss, here is my personal favorite from Canada. I must say I like their view of the war.'
'Yes, such a beautiful gun.' President said, gulping down his medicine. 'What are
we doing, if I might ask?'
'Oh, things are sure looking up, Boss. Allies got so frightened that we are being flooded by all their dispatches, reports and signals. All our spooks and eggheads are in seventh heaven now, it seems we finally became part of international community. Also people are very understanding about this. I guess we can get away with some steep rationing now, with this just cause against Fascism and all.'
Game note: This is one of the benefits of researching decrypt machines in HPP.
'
Bueno.' President said and picked up his fountain pen. It was pink and had few rabbits on it. 'I'll use my executive authority as the elected president of this great nation...oh, I'll just make few new laws. Here goes...rationing...extreme measures...military prioritization...war economy...' He wrote intensively for five minutes as General smoked.
'Well, how do you like?' He asked, sliding the paper towards the hoary soldier.
'It's magnificent! So many draconian measures in one paper! Nobody could do better! But wait, you just fired me from my job!'
'Not at all.' President said. 'I'm merely observing how to best use your considerable talents. You, my dear Martínez, are no man to waste time with papers. Spain needs you in the trenches where the glory is! Leave this job as CoS to Manuel, he is no real soldier. He wastes time with providing soldiers with news, mail and hot meals, and such nonsense. It keeps them happy and they recover faster, but is that any real war?'
'How true!' General cried. 'I'm so happy I'm send to the frontlines!'
'Anyway Boss, I'm sure you would like to know more about our army, since we are going to use it. Here is a little report about our order of battle.'
'How are boys taking the training, by the way?' President asked as he flipped through the long reports.
'Not bad, Boss. Gone are the days one could see Spanish soldier fire machine-gun with one hand and eat his rations with the another. They are now mean, tough and cruel, and I like that. They got some new gear as well, but that will come later. Here is our main HQ in Madrid.'
'We have Garcá leading all the Spanish armies. You know him, Boss. Considerable charm, splendid energy, limited intelligence. But his good with organization and he can't do much damage parading here, unless he spills his coffee on his uniform.'
'So he's like you, expect with charm and energy.'
'Thanks Boss! That was such a kind thing to say! Anyway, we have 188000 men in arms, but that's demobilized strength. It will double from that.'
'Ah, and here is our beautiful First Army, led by General Miaja.' Burly old soldier continued. 'He's the best we have, after myself, and he eats Fascists for breakfast. He knows all those fancy defensive maneuvers and, like all of us, he can do most with the least supply. I still remember those Civil War days when we had five rounds for each rifle, five rifles for each division...' He was wiping his eyes emotionally with a handkerchief.
'Please continue!' President demanded hastily.
'And here is our first real fighting force! First Corps, codename Red, with five full strength divisions. Led by 'Red' Rojo, who is almost as good commander as I am.'
'But why do all the division have such funny names?' Asked the President.
'Because Americans give their divisions nicknames, so must we!' General explained. 'The five divisions here are named:'
1st - American Dream
2nd - El Cid
3rd - Rio Grande
4th - Daddy Cool
5th - Nocando'
'What does "Nocando" mean?' President wondered.
'It's American language and means something is extremely good.' General explained. 'But let us go forward.'
'Second Corps, codename Blue, naturally led by myself!' General shouted triumphantly, banging his fist on the desk. 'Well, what do you like?'
'Very impressive.' President said. 'But your skill is least impressive so far.'
'Who needs skill when we have numbers?' General wondered. 'Anyway, divisions here are:
6th- Blondie
7th - Big Iron
8th - Tuco
9th -Sierra Madre
10th- Angel Eyes'
'These names sound very familiar.' President muttered. I've heard them somewhere...'
'And here is our final full strength Corps, codenamed Green. Nothing much to say here.'
'I think that green is spelled wrong in spanish.' President said. 'It supposed to be
verde.'
'True, but awfully correct in a screenshot, yes? Anyway, our divisions are;
11th - Corto Maltese
12th- Django (this division had an odd tradition to transport machine-guns in coffins)
13th- Lucky 13th
14th- Rasputin
15th- Old Bill (divisional motto
ills here!)
'Great job.'President said warily. 'It's getting late, how about a little re...'
'Sure, only few more Corps to review! Here is our fourth Corps about which nothing funny was invented.'
'How merciful...' President moaned.
'Is
that all?' President demanded.
'Not at all, Boss! We still have our craziest divisions to go! They were all stacked into one Corps, in 2nd Army.'
'What the HELL are these divisions?' President demanded. 'Those two are cavalry divisions but the rest...They are just
loco!'
'Not at all, Boss! Here is our "Metalhead" division, where we put all our obsolete infantry tanks!'
'It sucks.' President said. 'And that picture is not Renault FT 17.'
'Sure Boss, but they still got the combined arms bonus, yes? And they still got MGs, yes? We could post a picture of real Renault FT 17, but we are running out of allowed pictures for this post, since we have 17 so far. Anyway, here is our next
loco division.'
'OMG.' Muttered the President. 'Why is it called Mad Max?'
'But Boss! It has lots of shitty cars so it must be Mad Max! It could Evil Knievel too, but that was a bike. Anyway, they still have that combined arms bonus, and they can shoot soft targets.'
'They are all going to be slaughtered.' President said with resolution.'
'Probably yes, but then we could use them to garrison duties, or just rent them as tables. But here is the last one, and you're going to
amor it!'
'That was such a bad Spanish...'President thought.
'Oh no, it cannot be...' President moaned.
'Oh yes, it's that Legion Condor we captured at the end of previous AAR, now reinforced with one of those armored busses. We put our best Combined Arms leader to command it, so it should be fine. Unless, of course, Germans have developed better panzers in which case our Jabberwock division will be splattered.'
'Hardly a great loss.' President pointed out. 'We have invested all our LS to infantry warfare, and here is only one infantry brigade.'
'How true, Boss. But it's our only fully motorized division, as obsolete as it might be, and it still gets that all-important combined arms bonus.'
'Well, was there anything else?' President demanded, now rather weary.
'Oh, there was still the Air- and Naval forces, but we run out of pictures in this post.'
'And as we have talked, Poland has been under attack constantly!' President cried, suddenly remembering what this all was about.
'Don't worry, Boss. I remembered to hit the space bar...'