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Grosshaus

Minister of Peace for Europe
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May 14, 2003
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Guardian of Democracy, French AAR

This is my first ever attempt of an AAR, I have no idea if I will ever do anything else with it besides start it or whether it'll be of any good. Here it goes anyway.

My goal in the game is to go down with my boots on. I will fight Nazism and totalitarialism in all forms and in all theatres, including intervention in Spanish Civil War. My focus will nevertheless be on economy, research and buildup: I hope I can focus my military well enough to contain Germans and Italians.


January 1st 1936

So here we go. Action number one is research, to keep up in the tech race I must have all 5 of my tech teams working and fully funded at all times. Here you will see the current technological status of the French Empire:

gd_0.jpg


Priority nro 1 is economical buildup, so quite naturally improved machine tools will be researched. Looking at my navies I notice the need for more screen ships to cover my massive old-school fleet consisting of mainly heavy cruisers, although my advisors say it'll be nearly impossible to gain new advances in destroyer tech as we already are leading the World I still order them to be researched. It'll take a while before my industry is in the shape to build any anyway. Succesfull defence of the Maginot line will require top-notch artillery so it shall be focused on as well. Despite skeptism from general staff work will be started to develop radar technology, it might not work but if it does then perhaps our air forces can manage with less planes and be more cost-effective. While I doubt my manpower doesn't necessarily require mechanization of agriculture I engage in the project just in case as it's better to do early on.

From my navies I scrap one lone obsolete level 1 submarine. Many more ships seem quite outdated as well, especially some of the destroyers, but I don't want to compromise naval strenght before I have newer vessels at disposal. I note that the fleets aren't quite balanced and make a mental note of redistributing them when there are no more pressing matters to attend to.

Production is split in the start quite evenly to consumer goods, production and supplies. It seems there are plenty of steel, energy and rare materials, hopefully some are left after setting up a trade deal for oil to buy some supplies as well to free up some industrial capacity to production. Speaking of production: buildup of 10 new industrial complexes was started, mostly spread around in South-Western France. They should be relatively safe and the provinces had high infrastructure making them lucrative choices. A trade deal with Venezuela was cancelled as there is a chance to get some which give oil for anything else than supplies. It's quite hard yet to make exact balances to the budgets as supplies are shipped to overseas garrisons and trade deals are to be made, I'll just rely on stockpiles for a while to get things going.

Trading starts out well after Ireland decides to sell me supplies in exchange of metal and energy. The amounts aren't big but the direction is right. I make a much bigger deal with UK trading supplies for metals, now I need some oil. Argentina refused, but Mexico and Canada were more receptive. I might have gotten better deals somewhere else, but Americas sounded like a safe source, especially if I get my destroyers up and running. Here is how the budget ended up:

gd_1.jpg



January 7nd 1936

UK offers me some of her technologies, although I can't fully utilize them but only get blueprints that speed up my research I'm very gratefull. Instantly I can persuade the rest of my generals about the feasibility of radar technology as Brits had succeeded in it already. I get a lucrative trade offer from Spain trading supplies to some materials, I take the offer without hesitation. Who knows, that might even help them out with the turmoil they have with their fascists. Looking at my troop distribution I do some tweaking, mostly just to spread them functionally: fast troops with other fast troops to give a quick and deathly punch. The garrison in Djibouti is transported back home, luckily I can use British bases in Egypt as my transports wouldn't have been able to travel that long without refueling. Although I hate to see Italy advance in Ethiopia I don't think East-Africa should be my focus point.

January 26th 1936

Paraguays have decided to have a revolution, but instead of turning to any radicalist idea they take took the moderate route of Social Democracy. Solid choice in this World filled with extremism. It's time for the French society to reform as well to be more moderate, from two extremist positions we hold it's propably for the best to limit democracy first before openness of the society. After all France does hold various non-national lands in colonies and their happiness is best maintained with openness, while backing away from extreme democracy lets us focus more on military buildup and allows easier usage of pre-emptive foreign policy actions.

A change of politics is best seen in changing people, to let the nation know economy is the key to success changes must be done in the cabinet. Intelligence is directed to focus on industrial issues by Roger Salengro while Maurice Gamelin is dismissed as Chief of Army by Leon Victor Bourgeois. While Gamelin made good forts it's now imperative to have a guy who can reduce the supply consumption and Bourgeois is an expert in that. Besides, it's not like there would be any IC around to build any more forts. Being a democratic society cabinet changes had an effect on dissent, but it'll soon be negated by my consumer good production.

Cabinet after the changes:

gd_2.jpg
 
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February 17th 1936

Republican Spain elected National Front in general elections, only time will show what happens with that choice. Just in case some divisions were transported closer to Spanish West-Sahara, Morocco and Pyrenees. All mainland cavalry was moved to Pyrenees, it'll be useless in Maginot in any case. Some mountain troops and infantry joined them. Again one man can make a difference, so the command of said divisions were checked. In Africa logistical cunning was preferred due to low infrastructure, in Pyrenees offensive capability was preferred. Meanwhile commanders with armor skills were ordered to take control of the two armor, and armored car, inforced infantry armies that were stationed behind Maginot. Overall old guard officers were moved back and hungry young blood was introduced to the ranks. Skill levels and ranks hopefully have time to better before the true heat arrives. Pyrenee divisions were given to tree major generals: cavalry to Touchon, mountaineers to Le Gentilhomme and infantry to Giraud. If we are forced to intervene at some point they are well used there, compared to the more established officers they will advance in experience much faster. I hope to see them running my HQs later on.

March 7th 1936

At around midnight German troops violated one more part of the Versailles treaty: they marched into demilitarized Rheinland. Not only Europe saw destabilizing actions, few days earlier Nicaragua was struck with a military coup and Japan fought the 2-2-6 coup attempt. One must look at the bright side of all this though: even the French parliament can be persuaded to give increased support to military funding. Let's just hope it's not too late.

Also air forces faced some leadership changes in the same way as the army, leutnant general Valin was raised to lead the new Southern Wing and major general Jauneaud the Northern Wing.

Despite earlier choices the Bourrasque class destroyers must go. Comparing their stats to those now in service they seem like pretty worthless and hopefully the new class in research will be an even bigger improvement.


May 17th 1936

Following breakthroughs in farm moderzination and radar technology it's time to redirect research focus. To increase the chance of our surprising tactical manouvers to remain surprisive basic encryption devices are needed and to complete our defensive installation network beyond the original Maginot line more advanced construction techniques are needed. Especially the ground neighbouring Italy sounds like a good place to fortify as even a token force can hold the rugged terrain freeing troops to fight in the north. But that will have to wait bit longer, no point in building things now if soon the smart engineers of Renault will provide us with better bulldozers and such.

To get a clearer picture of troop distribution here is a pretty zoomed out map of Europe and North-Africa:

gd_3.jpg
 
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June 26th 1936

After a month or so of general inactivity several events occurred. First Quanxi Clique declared war on Nationalist China, which resulted in the Nationalist Chinese ally Xibei Xan Ma to join the fight. Official France remains neutral, but secretly hopes Quanxi Clique will be dealt with quickly and with minimal losses so the rising Japanese presence can be countered.

Once again UK decided to provide us with some blueprints for technologies. Especially the one for basic encryption devides was appreciated as the research is already underway, there is some doubt whether France will ever build transport planes though.

July 13th 1936

Italy has finished the Ethiopian campaign successfully resulting in complete annexation of the nation. This was not liked by the rest of the World and Italy became partially a pariah nation, now democracies with the same pretty firm interventionist policies like France have the public support to declare war on Italy. That would be pretty pointless though, the Italian army and navy is quite formidable. Besides, it's not like Ethiopia is such a major source of resources or industries to Italy anyway, most likely it'll just drain resources as divisions must be stationed there to commence anti-partisan actions.

Improvement of the Maginot line continued somewhat as some anti-air batteries were constructed. They are of low priority though, all IC is used to build the factories. It's just good to have little something in excess in build queue so IC won't be wasted when current production is completed and the first factories will be in few months.

Few days later Nationalis China chose to end hostilities with Guanxi Clique without any requirements from either side. Perhaps even they have realized Japan is their common enemy.


July 18th 1936

Not all goes peacefully though, Spain was struck with civil war between Republican and fascist Nationalist sides. France shall use all means at disposal to crush the fascists. Here is a picture of the province distribution between the sides, it also shows fighting starting in the streets of Barcelona.

gd_4.jpg
 
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July 23rd 1936

French intervention in the Spanish Civil War, SCW, started as French volunteers were encouraged to join the figth, supplies were shipped and loans were granted. This wasn't liked by all parts of the society, some thought we had too little to gain from all of it. It was speculated though that even more people would have opposed not helping them. Especially the industry and academic circles opposed as the money shipped to Spain was raised by taking away funding of their projects, it was decided to sell some of our coal to US to cover the loss. A longer-term deal was made that would raise our head above water in about just a week, for that period of time it's propably ok not to research.

Diplomatically the decision strained our relations with Italy and Germany who were, supporters of the Nationalists. Soviet Union chose to support Republicans like we did, now at least their material base should be sufficent. Let's just hope we haven't angered Germany and Italy to actually attack us directly. For the moment there were no means to help them further, the 3rd fleet from Alger was sent to patrol the eastern coastline to get an idea of what was goin on. The divisions bordering France was decided to equip with more modern equipment as the new innovations done after the Great War hadn't been yet put to use, unfortunately this took a heavy toll on industrial production that should have been put to industry creation, almost a tenth of our production goes now to upgrades. Well, at least they'll soon be upgraded and the production can be redirected. Unfortunately also supplies production needed more focus as so much of them had been shipped to Spain, also improving those divisions will mean they will consume more supplies. To make sure only the divisions in question would be upgraded they were given priority status, this would also be usefull if they face combat as thei will be reinforced quicker.

August 19th 1936

After having survived a massive party to honour the birthday of a very special government advisor some work was done as well. Encryption research was finished and the next goal would be rear area vehicle repair shops, that might come handy if losses are suffered.

The war has stabilized, Republicans have secured Barcelona and now fighting is mostly done in provinces separated from combatants main areas. Nationalists hope to crush resistance in Oviedo in the north and to break out of Valencia and Seville in the south. Seems like both sides are pretty balanced, although Nationalist hold the bulk of the navy.

Troop modernization has truly began, already one cavalry and one mountaineer division has gotten modern equipment. Especially the cavalries are vital to upgrade as earlier cavalry divisions had no AT capability, now they have at least some.

gd_5.jpg
 
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August 28th 1936

Research on basic cavalry had finished, there are no plans to make France focus on cavalry in modern times but part of the cavalry modernization is also about implementing mobility in general. Perhaps we could be making infantry divisions loaded into trucks later on? It's not yet sensible to pursue further cavalry research though, more pressing is the AT situation. Looking at the tanks used in SCW it's obvious that the calibre of the guns used by French armies aren't large enough to do true damage. Plans of an AT gun using 47 instead of 25 mm shots are made, the new model will be called 47 mm SA 37/39, it's more than likely that it'll take until 39 or so before they are distributed to the troops.

gd_6.jpg


War in Spain is now less stable as both sides have managed to open up their isolated pockets, it appears Republicans have the upper hand though as they have isolated new Nationalist armies in the north. Some French diplomat just lost his job as he didn't question a request from the foreign minister to guarantee the independence of Nationalist Spain when obviously Republicans should have been the target. Let's hope that mess can be solved easily, we'll have to wait awhile though so we wouldn't seem indecisive by other states.

September 17th 1936

Now also Republican Spain has been guaranteed by us, the effect won't be much as I can only declare war on anybody new who would attack them. The beauty of it is in preventing Italy and Germany to fully support Nationalists as it would mean I could declare war on them. Some oil was shipped to aid Republicans, to secure public support some coal was traded in exchange. That won't matter in their warring capacity though as they have plenty of electricity sources.

The war itself is back to square one, Nationalists have supply line to Bilbao but the one they fought to have to Valencia has been cut.

The new cavalry technology has been brought to use in most units, the change wasn't as drastic as the previous one but important nevertheless. Canadians had developed a new naval bomber model and decided to provide us with the blueprints, how kind of them.

September 24th 1936

Following breakthroughs in industrial engineering we are now significantly more productive, effective IC rose by around 5 percent and is now at 77. As it seemed to be a good move further funding was given to the research area making us even more efficient in the future.

In Spain Republicans have taken Valladolid leaving some Nationalist troops isolated once again. Their goal seems to be to release the pflight of their troops in Oviedo once again under attack, while at it they could even capture and loot the Nationalist capital in Burgos. Frustration grows in the French cabinet over the inability to do anything to help directly, the leader of our alliance UK is reluctant to intervene and also firmly against our interference. It might not be wise to break the alliance still, Germany can't be fought with Spain only as an ally.
 
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September 16th 1936

Now all units deployed near the Spanish border are equipped with modern weaponry, only one artillery brigade is still using slow and outdated heavy great war artillery. After hearing horrible espionage reports of stalinists possibly gaining power in Republican Spain if the war drags on for long it's time to act to stop that, if it makes us fight Germans or Italians then be it. Troops located in the are reformed, now there are 3 corps:

Corps de Cavalerie Espagnole located in Dax with 3 basic cavalry divisions
Force Expéditionnaire with an infantry and a mountaineer division, the troops redeployed from Africa, in Dax
Premier Corps d'Espagne in Pau
4ème Groupe de Bombardement in Toulouse

5 am in the morning the French embassador in London officially ends our participation in the Anglo-French alliance and a new one is signed with Republican Spain on their embassy in Paris. Simultaneously engines are started in Toulouse and first shells fired across the border. Now nobody can say France doesn't take her task as a guardian of democracy seriously.

Of course everything comes with a price, this time it's land in North-West Africa. It would have been quite hard to justify joining the fight to the French people if it would be about democracy only, it was imperative to give them something concrete as well. In a deal struck with the Spanish they promised to cede possession of the regions they hold in Western Sahara and around Ceuta if they were to be successfull in the civil war. The area is economically completely unusable wasteland with little population, but on the map it looks big enough to satisfy the population. Besides, it would allow us to block access to and from Mediterranean with Gibraltar, provided the Brits are willing to ally with us after this episode is over. Immediadly troops are moved to take control of those undefended provinces.

Submarines fleets from Tunis are sent to do naval interdiction in Western Mediterranean, the Spanish fleet might be small but it can still harm our convoys. In Northern Spain Corps de Cavalerie Espagnole and Force Expéditionnaire attack Bilbao from the north, Premier Corps d'Espagne supports in the ground and 4ème Groupe de Bombardement from the skies. The plan is to envelope the division in Hues and then drive gradually towards Burgos, the capital.

gd_7.jpg


October 2nd 1936

The Nationalist are on retreat! It will take awhile for the French troops to reach the positions, but victory is already guaranteed. On top of that the Nationalists are retreating towards Huesca which might mean they could be annihilated in the coming encirclement as well.

For the economy war is a blessing and a curse. It's now easier to allocate production to whatever the wareconomy needs raising total production significantly, but trade became lot harder. Although no nation cancelled their trades they require now stricter terms, French companies must bear the costs of raised insurances, protection and such. It actually became unprofitable to continue trading energy for money with the Yanks, especially since the raised production levels brought by the war made there to actually be a deficit of energy. I wonder what will happen as the new factories are taken into use, will there be a need to start selling supplies for raw materials and not vice versa?

October 19th 1936

Maurice Gamelin was again raised to be chief of staff, something has to be done with all the raised Industrial Capacity so it's time for him to design expansion to the Maginot line reaching the Atlantic Sea. It might scare our Beligian brothers though, after all it would be better to stop the Germans before loosing whole of Belgium. Oh well, they are still not wise enough to see they should be focusing on military matters more at these times. Another fortress project was started at the Italian border, the mountaineous passes were to be built to contain any Italian assault.

The encirclement plan has been called off. Republicans chose to assault Huesca themselves from Barcelona, trigger-happy fools! Premier Corps d'Espagne will go out to help them as it was evident they could not win against units well-entrenced in mountaneous terrain. Other two corps have met stiff resistance in Saragossa from two armor division, especially before the infantry got there the cavalry was experienced troubles. The planes are set to help them with bombing runs. 3ème Flotte de la France is moved to shore bombard Sevilla if the Republicans choose to attack there, it seems the Nationalist navy isn't going to be used. Also the submarines are called back to port to reserve now-precious oil.
 
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October 27th 1936

The attack on Bilbao was called off, victory was unreachable. It's imperative to better our AT capabilities before we are ready to fight the big boys. Corps Expéditionnaire with the mountaineers was sent further west along the coast to be able to strike to Burgos when their organization is again in better shape.

Republicans had to cancel their trade agreement with us, there were no hard feelings as we really couldn't afford our part of it either but had been unwilling to end it unilaterally. Another deal with Ireland was cancelled as well to spare resources. It seems the Spanish did indeed start to use their navies, after some convoys were damaged it's time to deploy the submarines again to hunt the buggers down.

November 4th 1936

Americans have chosen Franklin D. Roosevelt as their president, a wise choice as in private talks he had expressed his support to our interventionist actions. He also said it would be nearly impossible to get the American public to agree with him ordering an act like that, let's just hope we can do without them. At least right now things seem quite bright, after the armor divisions were withdrawn from Saragossa a two-pronged attack was ordered to siege the province. The battle rages on, but at least two divisions have been killed this far. Not all is well, Corps Expéditionnaire had to be pulled back since Nationalists managed to bring fresh troops to Oviedo.

November 8th 1936

A sad day for Spain: Nationalist took Madrid forcing Republicans to move their capitol to Murcia. Meanwhile Corps de Cavalerie espagnole are ordered to give them the same treatment and brazenly attack Murgos. It might even succeed as Nationalist forces in neighbouring provinces are engaged in battles with Republicans. Our air wing is rebased to Murcia as it's too far away from Toulouse to participate fully in the battles.

The first of the industrial complexes ordered over half a year ago have been finished, at the same time an increasing number of units stationed in Maginot have been distributed new equipments. If our gamble fails, at least they will be prepared.


November 15th 1936

Corps de Cavalerie espagnole succeeded, this must be the break of the tide. Now we have cut the Nationalists in two and Corps Expéditionnaire will be used to finish the garrisons in North-West, it can't be a hard task to fight divisions that are out of supply. There were vague protests from Republicans about shipping the supply depots of the Nationalists immediadly to France, luckily they didn't realize how long and heavy the trains were. To help in the south the 85ème Div. d'Infanterie d'Africa was moved from Ceuta to Spain.

gd_8.jpg


Few days ago a miniature wave of revolution hit simultaneously Panama, Perua and Poland resulting in government changes, nothing fully drastic though. No dictatorships or anything.

November 27th 1936

The fleet bombarding Seville has been called back to get supplied, after it it shall bombard Valencia instead as Republicans are trying to take the province. The fleet even met some naval combat and managed to sink some transports. In the north our bold attack on Sigüenza from Saragoza, supported from Burgos, succeeded. Soon Republicans took Madrid and the end seems to be near. Submarines are called back as after the eventual surrender of the rebellion the Nationalist navy will surely surrender as well, it would be a folly to sink ships that can soon be used by my ally. We can spare few transports.

Few days later first of the new AA batteries meant for the Maginot wall are finished.
 
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December 30th 1936

Just before it's time to leave another year behind us we got reports from the people in charge of the plane reparation in our Spanish campaign that they have immensely developed their efficiency in repairing stuff during combat. When spread around it'll mean we have developed rear area vehicle supply technology. To honour the commander of the 4ème Groupe de Bombardement Valin in helping this happen he was promoted to an air general. Altogether he had gathered lots of experience from this campaign becoming one of the best in his field in the World. His troops were give some time to rest and resupply now, the men are getting tired and the result of the war is already obvious with or without air support.

In the front our ships are again moved to bombard Seville as Valencia has fallen to us. The troops in Valencia retreated to Albacete which has no strategic value at all, they can be left there while the focus will be to capture Seville and Málaga. That was started from the north through Huelva, then another attack will be combined with north and east to get Seville.

As we now have free research capacity it's used to develop further our knowledge on cavalries gained during the campaign. The main focus will be on thinking how to integrate usage of wheeled vehicles with cavalry, especially usefull for supply of the divisions.


January 11th 1937

At 2 am the Nationalist Spain leadership saw the end is now and approved our irresistable demand of total surrender in negotiations arranged through the Portuguese embassy. One threat less to democracy and welfare left. Spain, now there is no reason anymore to separate between Republican Spain and Spain as there is only one, honored the treaty we made and ceded control of her African territories to France. Now our century-long ambitions in Africa are fullfilled for good.

gd_9.jpg


The sad part is the World opinion not favouring our choices. League of Nations decided our entry into the war was offensive with the territory received and there was lot of arm-wrestling involved to let us remain in the organization. Overall it seems we are thought to have behaved roughly as badly as Italy in Ethiopia, although we genuinely acted to promote democracy against oppression. Well, you can't please them all.

Our troops are now free to leave Spain and be moved to guard our Eastern border. Only the mountaineers are moved to help in defence against Italy, all infantry is moved to the Belgian border. Cavalry is moved to North Africa, it's evident that even if combined with some motorized componenents it won't be of use against German armor. But the Italians don't seem to focus much on armor and the low infrastructure of Africa is still where cavalry is at it's best. As a part of this restructuring general Gamelin and his HQ is transported to Europe, it would not be wise to follow quicker cavalry units with an HQ when it can be more effectively used to command our defences against Germany.

Moving out of war economy wasn't an easy task. Many nations refused to trade anymore with us, propably because of the diplomatical tensions mentioned before, and some pre-war deals weren't what we needed anymore. New deals were made to secure oil from Mexico in exchange of energy and supplies from USA in exchange of energy and metals. Some advisors proposed making smaller deals with nations we'd like to be in closer contact with to improve our relations, that was put into consideration. Also it became evident we couldn't reserve such a large propotion of our production to war-related purposes anymore, ruling a democracy forces one to support things like education, hospitals and other less hostile actions. Oh well, I'd presume France will do just fine nevertheless as our total production has been strenghtened and government effort is all the time put to modernize it further.
 
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February 3rd 1937

Now our society is finally prepared for some change, after experiences from some anti-war demonstrations that almost went nasty, new legislature was enacted that would limit the rights of people to demonstrate. From now on they will need to contact police officials first for them to be prepared, not a major shift towards a closed society but a step nevertheless.

After failed trade talks with European minors it was decided to sell some more metals to USA for corn and beef. Despite the diplomatic benefits the deals those nations, like Belgium, the Netherlands or Romania, could have offered were so much inferior to American ones. They are so wealthy that they can afford less lucrative deals to corner markets, something that one should be aware of if there wasn't a war to prepare to. Meanwhile some more industry complexes were completed along with the rest of the new anti-air batteries in the Maginot line.

February 17th 1937

After the glory of our victory has faded a bit it's time to look into the future a bit and think what should be done. First thing needed is allies, lots of them. After futile attempts to get Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey to join our alliance with Spain a decision was made to focus on bettering our relations with said nations first. Turkey might seem as a odd choice, but they do have a pretty formidable, although outdated, army which can well defend their own rugged territory. The thing is they hold access to the Black Sea, without which it wouldn't be possible to support the nation in the region that would really make a difference againsts Germany: Romania. Without Romanian oil their military capacity would surely suffer. What would be best is to join UK in an alliance again, but they seem reluctant to do that. Ending the alliance with Spain and applying alone might be easier, but then again if France has only one ally it would seem dangerous to loose even that.


February 17th 1937

A politician gone bad, a communist member of parliament who was behind the now limited anti-war demonstrations, has been running a public campaign in leftist newspapers telling the French government is the main reason why the Germans are becoming more and more hostile from day to day. He wanted to engage in a radio debate with prime minister Sarraut, after through discussion no response was sent to him. Sarraut, although a fine man and liked by everybody, would not fare well against such an old fox. That was just the public part of what happened though, undercover many members of parliament were encouraged not to support the rogue politician to have a chance of continuing in public life and he was in effect silenced. In effect our democracy was weakened a notch, but it was imperative to be able to survive the coming conflict. As a consequence the government now has firmer grip on the parliament, we won't have to anymore accept such many bills giving more funds to civilian issues releasing resources for national security.
 
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April 3rd 1937​

Experiments with using wheeled components with cavalry are now successfully finnished. Looking at raports some meanings can be found between the lines, it's apparent several lower-level officers would rather scrap the horses and use trucks only. An idea worth thinking about, especially if mobility comes as a more important feature. Currently the French doctrine is to sit tight behind the trenches, where would the trucks drive there? Meanwhile what must be improved is aerial defence, research on improved interceptor, codename Block MP.152, has been started.

For war there shall be, just a week earlier Japan, Italy and Germany signed a Comintern pact together. Officially it's to counter communism, but it's clear their ambitions aren't restricted to them.

April 23rd 1937​

Maginot Line HQ, led by field marshall Huntziger, has now received all the modern technology we have to yield. It will be able to much better co-ordinate our defences.

gd_11.jpg


The fort construction in Dunkerque was cancelled, looking at the map it's almost as preferred to fight in Ghent in Belgium behind the rivers than behind minor fortifications in Dunkerque. Naturally the decision hasn't been made openly with the Belgian authorities, but instead by using connections of military attachés. It's a shame their public opinion still thinks they would be left alone if Germany gets even more aggressive. As part of the decision 1ère Armée has been moved to border Ghent, with their mobility they can reach favourable defence positions quickly and start to entrench.

May 13th 1937​

The moderaters in Spanish government have had to fold, the nation was couped by left wing radicals led by Juan Negrín López. They have thrashed the democratic elements to enable more radical social reforms quicker. Now it's increasingly difficult to justify us being allied, as soon as some signs are gotten from UK of them being about to move their minds and our alliance will be terminated. Well, something good came from all of this still: Spain isn't in the hands of fascists. They might not be that much better than communists, but at least the main communist nation, USSR, is further away than Germany.

Modernizing infantry units on the Maginot line is proceeding as planned, only few units to go. Then the new AT guns should be already around so work can be directed towards them.
 
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June 2nd 1937​

Now it happened what was feared after signing of the Anticomintern pact: Japan found an excuse from the Marco Polo Incident and chose to attack China. Our intelligence sources can confirm no aggresion from the Chinese side. French garrisons in Indochina are small and outdated and our navy must be deployed in Europe to defend the mainland. All we can do is hope the Chinese to be able to employ their massive resources to their full potential, that isn't helped by the still on-going war against the Communist China.

gd_12.jpg


June 10th 1937​

UK has officially guaranteed our independence after long and hard negotiations, they could overcome the general resistance towards our unilateral approach in Spain as tensions rose with Japanese actions in China. Surely that is a sign that they will re-ally with as if we just disentangle us from Spain.

First prototype of a Mogador class destroyer has been finished, now it would be possible to truly start the production. In field tests they have really excelled, actually in many aspects they even overperform older Duguay Trouin class light cruisers. There is one critical aspect though: firing range. You just can't mount big enough guns on a destroyer. Nevertheless they are much better than our existing destroyers, the number of which is not even adequate due to previous scrappings. Eight were ordered immediadly, they will be shipped in batches of four so they won't drain too much of our industrial capacity at any given time.

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General Gamelin has, after serious lobbying from his side, be given the responsibility to make elaborate plans to prepare for our defences. Many don't think he's not up to the task, his supporters focus on portraying him as our only expert on the individual aspects of infantry focus, individual courage and large unit tactics needed for the task. It'll propably take a long time for him to finish the task, but it's best to start it now. In addition to improving overall combat abilities of land units and HQs it'll also allow quicker mobilization of troops. As we plan to construct more infantry and artillery to face the Germans this project should start now to be ready in time.

Admiral Darlan will lead a project on improving naval unit doctrines, he's task is to integrate the basic concepts we received earlier from our former allies to our navies. Some proponents of smaller vessels say it's silly to build destroyers and focus on improving combat abilities of large ships at the same time, but surely Darlan as chief of the navy will know best.

As we were building our forts our engineers came up with new ideas in advanced construction engineering, with these utilized in all construction yards we can considerably speed-up their construction. On top of all this technological process also Schneider finished their 47mm AT gun, next they were given a contract to construct more advanced field artilleries.

In the Far East Japanese advances have this far been pretty minor and concentrated on the Northern border. Overall a positive day.
 
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June 18th 1937

Soviet Union has embarked on a plan codenamed Operation Zed, it's aim is to strenghten the Chinese againts the Japanese attack without direct intervention. Apparently they are just as scared of the Comintern as they should be, perhaps we can even hope them to have a common enemy in Germany.

Nationalist China was able to persuade the warlords leading Shanxi to join them, with these two actions combined they hopefully manage to turn the tide of a war that's now turned to Japanese favour following a strong westward thrust in the north.

Marx Dormoy, although a well liked gentleman, was removed from his post as minister of security. It seemed to be more important to get maximum industrial production from our colonies using any means possible than to do it with less rigour and meanwhile secure extra volunteer recruits. Julien Luchaire will replace him, some people say his methods are even too ruthless but at least in Paris he's a nice fellow.

July 3rd 1937

Now also the United States has joined the unofficial front to help the Chinese, a program called Pitman pact will provide them with some materials and experience they are lacking. Our intelligence agents within China have reported massive activities of moving industrial complexes from the coast to more secure inland provinces. Seems like a smart move.

July 28th 1937

Unfortunately moving the industry was a really smart move as now Japanese troops that landed near Shanghai have almost encircled Nanjing, the Chinese capital. The process to move the capital eastwards is underway, as Japanese troops enter Nanjing they'll notice capital buildings emptied and the functions being relocated to Hefei. Reports from a massacre during the occupation of the city has raised massive public uproar in the United States.


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September 8th 1937

Research on advanced machine tools is now complete, from this day on our industry is once again bit more advanced. Next step in raising effience is to force stricter quality control measures, some crude experiments made in Renault plants have been proven quite succesfull so they were given the responsibility to continue this work. This time with direct government support.

9ère Armée in Dunkerque has been broken into three parts, each of the divisions were moved to separate parts of the Maginot line. We had already planned to move the mobile forces forward to Belgian side of the border, so why would we keep those divisions around anyway. Maginot line as a whole is not actually all that strong, especially since intelligence reports show German aeroplane fleet, especially tactical bomber and interceptors, to be increasing in numbers.

In China also Hefei has been taken and the Chinese capital moved even further to the West. It seems the Japanese attack has lost momentum though, they have not advanced nearly as rapidly as in the start. Perhaps their transport capacity isn't adequate for the conditions?

October 18th 1937

The first installment of modern destroyers are now ready, they were deployed to the 1ère and 4ème Flotte de la France in Brest. Some now obsolete destroyers were scrapped from said fleets in the process. Finally all of our obsolete AT brigades are updated, focus is now directed to modernize the cavalry units to have the wheeled components they still lack.

Few days before liberal parts of the parliament approached the government to dismantle the fascist minor parties that have gained support in local elections. This action was taken to promote national unity, it'll take us bit more to the left side of the political spectrum as a nation.

October 24th 1937

As soon as reports arrived from our new interceptor model, Bloch MB.152, being ready for construction work was started to build altogether 6 squadrons of them. That will be a massive project, even when it was decided to construct only 2 of them at a time it'll eat up a significat portion of our national production. If all would go smoothly the construction project would end in roughly a year, but most likely will drag on a bit longer. One must remember that in addition to now units we'll also need to refit our existing ones.

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To alleviate the production troubles another project was started to raise efficiency, the focus of that one will be on production planning.
 
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November 3rd 1937

Finally the Brits have acknowledged the need to have France as their ally, despite previous clashes about Spain. A big thanks must be given to the relentless efforts of our diplomat staff. Following the rebuilding of the old alliance it's again possible for our militaries and military equipment corporations to continue with their co-operation. Our knowledge gained after the break-up on, for instance, production and destroyer technology was traded to get access to latest British innovations, most of which deal with air doctrines. All seems to be going well again.

Few days before USA moved one step forward in their war preparations with their new additions to the budget. Japanese aggression in China hasn't been left unnoticed.

Interceptor production was given bit higher priority after it was revealed that not providing the product with full funding and resources at all times the possible gains from economics of scale would be lost.

December 3rd 1937

Despite protests about wasting resources from general Gamelin research was started on producing heavier armors after research on more advanced field artillery was completed. Plans were made to provide a significant proportion of our troops with those new artillery pieces, we just have to wait first for the destroyers to be finished in few months.

After some investigation the reason for Japanese inactivity recently in the Chinese front has been revealed. They are facing severe problems with partisan activity throughout the region they control, there simply aren't enough troops that aren't tied to anti-partisan duty to keep on fighting the Chinese to conquest more territories.

January 13th 1938

Not much going on in the World. Germany, South Africa and Nicaragua had some internal political crisis, some ministers were apparently moved aside and that's it.

In France 8 moden artillery pieces were ordered, as with the planes these will be in two serial runs to have a balance between exploiting the gearing bonus and getting them done at decent time. Actual work hasn't yet started, but will as soon as the ships are ready.

Instead of upgrading the cavalry in Africa focus was shifted to upgrade the mountaineers stationed at the Alps. Some of those troops were not actually obsololete, but rather there just was room to improve. Overall upgrading budget was cut slightly, there just simply isn't that much to upgrade and less gain is gotten from focusing on production.

Our destroyer project has been finalized, it's time to deploy the vessels. A decision was made to deploy them all to 2ème Flotte de la France, the fleet had obsolete destroyers that are now scrapped. Also it's located in the Mediterranean and it seems as if the Italian navy is still more formidable than the German one.

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February 17th 1938​

Guangxi Clique has broken away from the front united by Nationalist China to fight the Japanese. Apparently they've realized Japan cannot advance quickly enough to reach them and prolonged alliance with the Nationalist China would endanger the position of the leadership at home.

Meanwhile in France admiral Darlan is ready with his project on battlefleet concentration, excellent work. Next in line is to improve our infantry divisions to meet the standards of the day, or actually tomorrow. On the diplomatical front industrial co-operation with British military corporations has given us valuable insights into building both heavy tanks and self-propelled artillery, the former can be utilized rigth away to hasten our research. In exchange they were provided with blueprints of our top-notch artillery pieces.

March 2nd 1938​

Confusing reports were delivered from the Soviet Union, according to them loads of people, including some very talented officers, have been purged. We can do nothing but wonder the motives of Stalin on this one, the act severely weakens their military capacity.

Our military capacity has on the other hand just increased as the first of the new Block Mb.152 interceptor planes are ready for utilization. They will be deployed to Paris to wait for enough to be ready to form an actual squadron.

March 10th 1938​

Germany has now annexed Austria, although officially it was a popular request made by Austrians wanting the Anschluss there are many who doubt the legitimacy of the request. The government of Austria cannot be seen as representing the whole of the population in a matter like this. What's even more important is the clear breach this has to the Versailles treaty, in a crisis encounter with the British PM Chamberlain both nations start even more to gear up for war freeing resources to military uses. Now our respective parliaments are more than willing to resort to such actions. To supply our industries with increased amounts of materials this requires some trade deals trading materials to supplies were ended and rare materials were traded for metals with UK. A bigger proportion of our production will now be on supplies than before, but the situation will be helped soon when production control and planning have been perfected.

March 22nd 1938​

First part of the fortifications in Grenoble are now complete, when the latter stage is finished after one and half years the place should be able to stop everything when armed with our excellent mountaineers.

Char B1bis heavy armor is now ready for production, unfortunately we don't quite have the capacity to build it at this stage. In autumn the artillery and, bit later, interceptors should be ready giving room for them. It was revealed while testing them that they would be unwieldy to work separately, the only way to have any practical use from them is to make them as brigades and assign to existing divisions. They are just too clumsy to work alone, although with the firepower add a nice punch to lighter armored divisions.

French chief of air force Victor Denain has been given the responsibility to modernize our tactical fighter doctrines accoridng to British operational destruction doctrine.

April 30th 1938​

After through consideration a proposal made by some conservative members of the parliament to ban a radical communist party was accepted. In the same deal a center-right party will be allowed to the government thus altering the options we have to choose our ministers from. Not that the current ones would need immediate changing, but at some stage it might be preferred to look for a replacement for especially general Gamelin. Despite the long time he has spent in pre-planning the defences he said not even one fifth is yet complete. He has been effective in promoting artillery production and usage, the first patch of new guns were shipped to strenghten the defences in Strassbourg.

In the Far East fighting between Japan and China is still quite stable. A breach in the stability happened though as Japanese and Soviet troops fought a minor skirmish near the lake Chasan.

Since the mountaneers are now top-notch it was seen to be time to upgrade our existing interceptors to utilize the newer planes as well. In the construction front fortifications in Nice start now to have a combat effect, but the work there continues still.
 
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May 22nd 1938

Another batch of artillery pieces were delivered to troops, after listening to alarming reports from a young colonel Tracique about the vulnerability of the Maginot line they were deployed to Mulholland to strengten it. The whole build is proceeding smoothly and will be ready as planned in Autumn.

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Some restructuring of air wings was commissioned to have less bombers in a stack compared to interceptors, a change that is bound to keep the bombers alive and one that will continue as more interceptors are completed.

As head of intelligence a new man was appointed: Felix Gouin. His specialty is technology and his methods will hopefully make us better in that field. With all the industrial build-up and research it seems we might actually not benefit anymore so much from Roger Salengros industrial approach.

July 7th 1938

Buildup, both of artillery pieces and interceptors, has again proceeded. This time some of them were directed to the troops neighbouring Belgian border as well. On research front air doctrine research continues to the area of bomber veteran initiative. After succesfull covert operations from the newly chosen head of intelligence some prominent Austrian aircraft engineers have deflected to France with their knowledge on basic fighters, that combined with counter-engineering of more advanced British AA guns we bought will give some more needed support on the aerial front.


September 9th 1938

Nothing much going on, it all seems like a calm sunny day before a storm. Research is moving along very well, especially hearthwarming were the breakthoughs in construction technology. As it is we are on the forefront in that field and after some work companies like Renault anticipate being able to work even more efficiently. Funding is continued. Elsewhere advances were made in AA guns and aerial doctrines, aerial research continues and the Curies were given the means to work on decryption mathematics.

The biggest advance was still on another field: infantry. After a through investigation on the equipments used they were deemed outdated and new ones were issued. Production focus was lifted from construction of new things to upgrading the current ones, especially after the last interceptors are done much more will be gained from upgrading. Some new production was started as well in the form of radar stations, although their effect might be limited now they are pretty cheap and as all new technology might improve immensely later. Looking at th German level of plane build-up we'll need any help we can get, unfortunately they have been able to build lots of ground troops and ships, especially submarines, as well.
 
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September 30th 1938​

Another bad day for democracy. German pressure and support to ethnic-German people living in Czechoslovakia has resulted in rising of tensions in the region for a long time. Now Germany officially demanded seizure of the area, Sudetenland, to the Reich. As was suspected after the annexation of Austria Hitler did not stop there. In a conference in Munich the other European powers negotiated with him on the matter, there was still genuine hope that peace would prevail on some of the candidates, especially the British ones led by Chamberlain. For us it was clear Germany would not end expansion after getting the areas where Germans live or even those lost after the Great War. Unfortunately we could not turn the Brits around, after the break-up following the Spanish Civil War we didn't want to end up alone against a very much stronger opponent. So Sudetenland is now German territory gained without no shots fired, in addition to industry Czechoslovakia lost many forts vital to her defence. It'll be a matter of time before Germany does something more drastic in there. Well, all we can do now is modernize and build-up our armies with even greater fury.

As near-panic struck the general staff on the issue it was decided to resort to even more radical plans. Despite heavy lobbing from the supreme commander Gamelin a small production run of heavy armor was ordered. Sure they are slow and actually pretty costly, but as there are yet no really modern Anti-Tank weapons available they might still be usefull. Also the first batch of 5 of the newer infantry divisions was ordered, more to follow after the planes are done. Luckily our allies, notably UK and Canada, chose to support our economy by shipping some metals and other rare materials with very favourable conditions. With them we can keep our military-construction rolling.

November 12th​

The Turkish head of state Ataturk has passed away due to an illness, he will be greatly mourned both in Turkey but also abroad as a man who basically formed the now modernizing Turkey himself. With his strong figure gone the whole Turkish way of doing politics changed to a less authoritarian one, after all his successor Ismet Inönü is a solid president but no national hero.

Now the planes are ready and three other 5-division groups of infantry were commissioned, they should be fully ready in around a year. Now we should altogether have 20 new divisions, but they could use some brigades as well. Schneider was given a go-ahead to come up with a new model for our troops. Supplies production was increase in advance, it'll need to go even higher when the divisions are done. Hopefully the more intense build-up wasn't started too early meaning production wasted on supplying divisions that aren't fighting.

After the new decryption algorithms were taken into use our signalists managed to crack some of the codes used by Germans, it was revealed that their garrisons bordering us are bit bigger than expected and against previous reports also equipped with armor.

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December 26th 1938​

As even more reports flood from Germany of land unit build-up another batch of infantry is to be trained. As it wouldn't be all that wise to wait for those new AT guns to be ready for all the divisions 10 artillery brigades are to be built as well. Luckily we still have a lot of untapped manpower, at least for now. First of the heavy armor brigades have been constructed and was assigned to enhance the light armor division stationed as mobile reserve behind the Maginot line. Now it'll hopefully have the punch needed to push back German advances halted by the garrisoning infantry.


January 22nd 1939​

Last few months have been hectic in the French parliament with economical and social discussion. The ruling social liberal cabinet has been lobbying for an economic policy initiative, as we value freedom very high it's not preferred to have people be forced to make harmfull choices to their, or their families, health or future because of poverty. The plan was not to make the system have a heavy impact on taxation thus scaling it down making the socialists unhappy. On the other side conservatives were reluctant to empower their workers by granting places in universities to poorer talented people. In the end we chose to side bargain with the conservatives to keep our economy better prepared for war. Them being now in the government as well has changed the way other nations perceive us, they think we are nowadays still liberals but with a more market, than social, oriented liberalism as in UK. With the new government we were also able to enact laws prolonging the compulsory service time of conscripts, below is a presentation of our internal politics after both these changes.

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February 26th 1939

First radar station was completed and placed in Strasbourg, it'll take a moment for it to become totally functional. Also the second heavy armor brigade was finished, it was deployed to our second armor division located in Dunkerque.

Although more resources were again directed to supply our raising army some was also freed for production. Looking at our naval composition some more destroyers were ordered, although we now have enough screens for our ships they are easier to get damaged than capital ships and replacements are good to have around in time.

March 15th 1939

What we feared in the first place now happened, Germany continued expansion in Czechoslovakia. They installed a puppet dictator Tiso in Slovakia and annexed the Czech part to Germany, in the process Hungary was given regions in Ruthenia. It's perfectly clear now even to the British that the appeasing policy lead by prime minister Chamberlain has failed, unfortunately Germany has been reformed to a massive war machine in between.

Two new gifted officers from a younger generation are were now set to lead the two mobile armies and promoted to lt. generals to avoid schism in the lines of command. De Gaulle has been given command of 6ème Armée which is the Maginot reserve and Juin the other one at the Atlantic coast. Newly formed divisions were piled up at the German border.

As an attempt to let Germany not get Hungary in their alliance we supported a promising coup attempt in the nation. Unfortunately the nationalist boost their fascist government had received after regaining Ruthenia by aligning with Nazis was too much and they were defeated. We lost a lot of money and prestige, the poor dissident had no choice but to run for their lives out of Hungary.

With the increased funds released to military buildup due to rising tensions a decision was made to build three more Bloch Mb.152 interceptors. The German air force had once again increased since the last reports received.

March 24th 1939

Germany has yet again expanded, this time they demanded Memel province on the sea coast from Lithuania. Lithuania ceded, they had really no choice. Internally we have decided to put our foot down on Poland, it must not be let to fall to Germany as well.

Apparently the German divisions bordering us have again grown in number, now there are seven in all of the three provinces. Those we could stop with the existing divisions, but there are propably 70 more divisions further east compared to the 52 we have now at disposal. The ones being built are desperately needed.

March 24th 1939

It has become apparent for Italy that there will be no consequences for aggressive actions so they tried their luck with Albania. King Zog refused their demands so now the two nations are at war, unfortunately for Albania it will be a short one: their army is really not an army at all.

Also the Brits have been persuaded that Poland must remain so they tried to get them to join our alliance. The Polish government foolishly thought they might avoid the war by remaining neutral, a position suited for a distant nation like Sweden but definedly not Poland.


April 15th 1939

New ideas about logistical strike doctrines brought up a point that our current tactical bombers aren't all that well suited for that task. A new model was commissioned from Amiot.

Reported German troops movements towards the Dutch and Belgian borders must mean something, for a moment troop deployment emphasis must be balanced slightly to focus on the northern troops as well.

April 23rd 1939

A month after start of hostilities the Albanian government had no other choice, their miniscule army had been crushed by Italy and the nation was annexed. To what direction will Italy then try to form her rebirth Roman Empire? Yugoslavia? Greece? Unfortunately for now Germany is more important and as the two nations aren't allied and we have a non-aggression pact with Italy there might be a way to deal with Germany alone. As more Italian planes are now apparently bordering us some AA guns were ordered to be stationed on the border.

May 27th 1939

Grand admiral Censoul has announced being ready with his task in coming up better patterns to provide security for our trade routes. To be prepared to harm our enemies' convoys instead our navies were moved from ports to patrol the seas. 4ème Flotte de la France with the carrier Béarn was sent to North Sea while two submarine flotillas are sent to Western and Central Mediterranean. Some subs formerly stationed in Tunis were moved to Marseille as their port was revealed to be too small to be functional for such a force.

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Although lots of pretty modern infantry is being produced at increasing speed there still exists a need to make them even better. Apparently the Germans have spent lots of time and effort to refine their doctrines and they are rumored to be pretty impressive. On our side Gamelin is still stuck at making even more detailed plans to take every possible aspect into account. The fresh leutnant general de Gaulle seems like a much more innovative fellow but it would be a waste of resources to replace Gamelin while he is still working on it.
 
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June 7th 1939​

Apparently Italian plans were revealed as they presented an ultimatum to Yugoslavia requiring the disputed coastal areas. Despite our former guarantee of Yugoslavian independence they felt threatened enough and agreed to the demands. When will they believe we will come to aid if they only ask for it? Just in case Romani, Bulgaria and also Denmark were given public guarantees to give them aid in case of an attack, those combined with similar ones given to Poland, Belgium and Netherlands should make further advancement harder. Meanwhile Germany and Italy have growed immensely almost without any shots fired:

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July 20th 1939​

New 17Pdr. Guns meant to penetrate tanks have now entered production, 5 new brigades are to be manned with them plus naturally all existing ones upgraded. To help the new tactical bomber model Liore-Oliver LeO 451 to be functional at nighttime research to improve night-time co-operation by both technical and doctrinal means were started. But that's not all what happened on the research front as Renault finished their assembly line experiences giving an immense boost on supply production, next they will try to construct assembly lines for small arms production as well. The new tactical bombers are ready for production, more units won't be constructed though as we must focus on repelling an invasion for now. Existing units will naturally be upgraded.

Another major parliamentary battle was fought about our proposed legal reform. Due to massive public demonstrations it was chosen to be withdrawn, primarily to heal the rift caused by focusing quite heavily to the Conservatives. Now our dissent is again non-existant improving our production and also morale of our troops.

July 24th 1939​

The World is stunned. Germany and the Soviet Union announced they have made a pact of non-aggression! How is that possible, aren't they supposed to be arch-enemies? There must be something more to it than meets the eye, unfortunately our intelligence cannot penetrate the two closed nations.

July 30th 1939​

No need to wonder about the hidden clausus of the agreement: Germany has attacked Poland as it wouldn't give Germany land access to East Prussia just after USSR had managed to pressure the Latvian government to apply for membership in the Soviet Union. They have apparently split Eastern Europe to respective spheres of influence, if only we knew where the border is...

Thinking of such issues is not relevant right now, what is more important is to take immediate action. As promised we would help Poland, war was declared. The whole commonwealth sided with us. With the independence guarantee in action this could be done without public backlashes, actually the public supported the action and and immediadle agreed to us changing the society to war economy limiting private consumption. They have seen our armies grow and see them as powerfull, fortunately they don't know what is facing them. Upgrading our tactical bombers was rushed, the combat will in the start be focus on them and the navies as the planning done by Gamelin is not quite ready. Luckily he is finally nearing completion at least.


Our navies were set to seas, the ones stationed in Brest were given a go-ahead to advance to the German Atlantic coast. With some luck our carrier can strike at some German ships still at port. A flotilla of submarines was ordered from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, it would be usefull to make German trade more difficult. Our planes were set to do air superiority mission, the ones at Maginot above it and the rest bit westwards on Bourgogne-Champagne.

It has began.
 
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September 9th 1939​

Our and British fleets combined have managed to keep the German high seas fleet at bay, unfortunately the resistance from AA batteries made it impossible to damage the ships there. Commonwealth bombers are used to wreak havoc on German industrial capacity, they mostly fly through French territory. We tried to get military access through Belgium but they refused still hoping to stay neutral.

In the east Soviets have now scared Lithuaneans as well and they have been annexed, quite understandable though as there is no way we could come to aid. Poland is not faring well, the Germans immediadly gained access to East Prussia and cut their access to the sea. Although they are now officially our allies there is little we can do to help them from this far except to send some experts to tell guide their weaponry production. Unfortunately they may be too late.

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September 15th 1939​

The young hothead de Gaulle insisted on riding his panzers across the border, to Freiburg to be excact, saying he was confident of success and determined that bold action must be taken while there still is a Poland. The discussion was still ongoing when reports were heard of him actually doing that, he had even managed to get all the artillery batteries of the Maginot line to support his attack. Although air support was also sent the probe failed, our troops simply weren't organized enough to manage across a river to fortified positions. Not even when there was numerical superiority of 12 to 9. Well, the Germans may be pretty well lead but as war booty we got some pretty old eqiupment. Might it really be that half of the German army is less-well of in personal equipment than we are? Most propably they´ve just sent their priority troops to fight in Poland. At least there they are advancing all the time, now it seems as if the southern flank is advancing faster.

The Brits have reported only now fully what happened in the sea battles at the outbreak of the war, it seems they have been highly succesfull. They have sunk several cruisers of varying size and destroyers while Commonwealth casualties are limited to few transporters and cruisers ambushed by submarines. Good work!

September 22nd 1939​

Good work on our navy as well, the 1ère Flotte de la France that has the old battleship Lorraine as a flagship managed to catch a German fleet off-guard. Before they could approach near enough to take use of the numerical superiority of smaller vessels Bismarck was heavily damaged. It might be that it had been damaged somewhat before by the Brits. Anyway, soon it sank and they had only one major ship to return fire on our two battleships. Our fleet managed to sunk the light cruiser Köln while only one old light cruiser got damaged on our side. That was waiting to be removed out of active duty anyway, so when they have returned to base it shall be scrapped and the rest of the navy can continue with their mission.

As many neutral nations are less willing to trade with us on previous terms we concluded a new trade agreement with Spain to get some badly-needed rare materials in exchange for metals. It's good to have a land-neighbour when the instability on the seas has no effect.

October 3rd 1939​

The celebration to be held to celebrate Gamelin's finally completed defence plan got into a gloomy one as news arrived from Poland. Warsaw had fallen. Claiming they were helping the Poles Soviet troops crossed the eastern border, it was clear they weren't invited by the Polish government as they would have told us. Small pocket of resistance remains north of Warsaw but no reports are available from the troops who have met the Soviets. Were they captured? Seems as if now we know the borders of the Molotov-Ribbentropp agreement, especially as Estonia was also eaten in the same manner as the rest. It appears the border is to follow the pre-WW1 border meaning Finland and, at least parts of, Romania are in danger as well.

Anyways, now that Gamelin isn't around to plan the role of armor to be insignificat anymore the British prototypes gotten about improved light tanks will be studied by SOMUA for reproduction. In the end there is no way to end the war without breaking through to Germany and that is not possible with just infantry.

October 6th 1939​

Poland fell completely. In the aftermath German and Slovakian troops withdraw form some parts of former Poland in favour of Soviets, it's no longer possible to get any evidence not pointing at Russo-German co-operation. An alarming news was the Hungarian announcement to ally with Germany, the British ambassodor privately told they are now pretty mad at us in London as our attempt of a coup there must have not helped to moderate the views of the leadership. Oh well, what's done is done.

October 24th 1939​

Not much is happening really, both sides are now waiting what the other one will do. After the German way of fighting in Poland using combined forces to strike fast and hard was called blitzkrieg this one is starting to sound like sitzkrieg. A new army group, 9ème Armée, was first formed to act as a reserve on the Belgian border, but looking at the massive troop concentrations on the other side of the Maginot it was ordered to go there instead.

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Those divisions meant that first of the longer runs from a year ago have been completed. Unfortunately we had only tactical bombers as really new units we need to build, it sounds like a bad idea to build more infantry if new models are going to be active pretty soon. Small runs were ordered nevertheless as the action on the East was really alarming.
 
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