Chapter thirty-seven. Wuthering Fronts
With the opening of hostilities of the new war, the majority of combat operations were conducted in Poland and Czechoslovakia. The initial wave of air strikes by the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte and the first RAF squadrons recently arrived to their bases on the Continent were giving hell to the Communist armies. In Poland, the Polish forces that covered the border were already disintegrating after a few hours of relentless shelling and constant Air attacks and forced fall back. In some areas an orderly retreat was carried out by the defeat but in other it turned into a rout, with some complete divisions becoming a disorganized mob of men and machines fleeing east and thus blocking the arrival of Soviet and Polish reinforcements and becoming easy preys for the Junkers Ju 87 Stukas and Fairey Battles (1) that circled the battlefield. In some places, however, some isolated small units that ranges from single companies to whole regiments offered fanatical resistance to the German armored spearheads, hurting them until they were obliterated. In the air the small but determined Polish Air Force was annhilated even before the Soviet Air Force could reinforce her.
In Warsaw the Polish Government had issued a call for volunteers and turned the Soviet war of aggression into an unprovoked German attack which galvanized the Polish population. The Polskie Radio Spółka Akcyjna (PRSA; Poland's national publicly funded radio broadcasting organization) kept informing the population of the coward German invasion (which, by some uncanny dirty Capitalist trick kept advancing past the border defenses in spite of being defeated over and over by the glorious and corageous forces of the Proletariat, according to the PRSA's speakers) and calling for every citizen to present himself into the recruitment offices and militia training centres, which were already overflown with volunteers and reservists.
Meanwhile, a few Soviet submarines at sea were prowling on lone allied merchantmen, who were already steaming towards Allied ports. By the end of the week, however, those submarines would lay on the bottom of the ocean or would be back at their bases at Kola Peninsula. Meanwhile, the Nordsee-Schlacht-Gruppe salied through the waters of the Heligoland Bight waiting for the arrival of the Royal Navy. The groups commander, Konteradmiral Otto Ciliax, was being constantly reminded by the Oberbefehlshaber der Marine, Grossadmiral Erich Raeder, that the Kaiser wouldn't take lightly any Soviet warship sailing into the North Sea (2), even if the recce birds of the Luftstreitkräfte had shown that, apparently, the Red Banner Baltic Fleet had apparently no intento to leave its bases in Kronshtadt. Thus, 2 battleships, 2 cruisers, 2 flotilla leaders, 19 destroyers, 48 MTBs, 65 submarines and other ships remained iddled at the start of the war. (3)
(1) Who could have guess that the Battle would be of any use in a modern war...
(2) Ciliax, ol' boy: if the Kaise won't be pleased, imagine how could I feel. And you don't want to hurt me, do you?
(3) Uncle Joe, let their ships come to me, please. The Hood, the Bisamrck and the Ark Royal would thank thee.
@The_Unificator: The Wehrwhat? You mean the Kaiserlich Deutsches Heer
Yes, the Bolshies are massing troops (ReDs EvErYWhErE!!!!) and taking command of the local Polish and Czech armies. Apparently I'm going to face a heck of Reds hordes sooner than later.
Good, as the King Emperor needs hands to build new roads in India
@trekaddict: Old habits die hard, you know...
The Czechs will fall. Period.
@Sumeragi: Yes, the Hungary Air Force made a daring role in the first days of the war. Then she vanished...
@Nathan Madien: Indeed. I guess there was no one in the pic to avoid the effects of the blast of the mortar. No one wanted to go from Poland to NY to recover their brains.
@Razgriz: There were some similar to this one in my Great War AAR, methinks. Or are you thinking about something different?
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