Royal Carnage
Chapter IX, The Battle of France - Part V
Human Players: Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, France, Soviet
Recap: It is peaceful in the world - except in the Western Europe where Germany is cutting into Belgium and France. The Allies are desperately scrambling to hold them back. But greater things is stiring...
February 14th-16th, 1940
Authors note: Our House Rules dictates that Soviet must not declare war on minors if their threat on US I higher than any Axis nation. After their attack on Rumania, their threat went above the Axis and they had to take it easy. With the Italian attack on Turkey, I was so surprised the Italian threat on US did not hit the roof. As I was sure their threat at least was the highest within Axis I activated my spies in Italy on “increase threat” missions.
The 14th, Maxyboy (Soviet) saw that Italy’s threat on US had gone over the Soviet threat. That meant they were free to attack a minor should they want. After two days of preparations, Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria. The plan was to puppet them to get some additional troops before Barbarossa.
Soviet threat now went high enough for the Allies to invite the US. This is, however, not allowed in our House Rules. Axis threat must be high enough to trigger an invitation – and it was obviously not that high.
February 18th, 1940
Italy apparently became very stressed by the fact that Soviet was widening their front against them (former Yugoslavia). Just one or two days after the Soviet declaration of war on Bulgaria, Italy attacked neutral Greece.
This was the third neutral country to be attacked by the aggressive Italians. This led the South Africans to join the Allies – probably to safeguard against further Italian aggressions.
But the South Africans were not the only one to be fed up with Axis constant warring…
February 19th, 1940
Authors note: The Italian DoW on Greece not only brought their threat on USA higher than Soviet – it was high enough for US to be invited to the Allies – and they agreed to the invite.
The Italian attack on Greece seemed not to be worth this. From my perspective, it is bound to be a miscalculation from the Axis side. Any way – this game have taken a very interesting turn within a few days.
At this moment, Germany is alone against the might of the entire Allies, including the US. Neither Japan nor Italy is in war with Allies. While Japan is at peace, Italy is, as you now, in war with Greece. Soviet is in war with Bulgaria.
March 2nd, 1940
Two weeks after USA joining the war, and 6 month after the German declaration of war on Belgium, Wehrmacht is closing in on Paris. Half of the Maginot Line has been captured (mainly those with VPs). In the south, the Germans have found a soft spot in the defensive line, but their own hostile border is getting more and more stretched – tying down free units. Their offensive is continuously slow and grinding.
Authors note: Note how French player have been putting garrisons (4 brigades in most cases) on all VPs. Germany will not be able to quickly blitz through France like we so often see after the fall of Paris. There are garrisons on all remaining provinces on the Maginot. Except a mountain division, all regular forces were retreated from Maginot before it was surrounded. This means that the French army is still fully operational and they have not lost more divisions than Germany has. A praise to the French player.
But now the French player will shift to the USA and France will become run by AI...
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