Wacht am Rhine
When the newly trained divisions were called up in early November they were split into two groups. One small force would garrison the vital city of Frankfurt whilst a larger group was put under the command of General Fleck, a veteran of the Great War and recently came out of retirement. On November 11th the operation known as Wacht am Rhine was begun; the objective was simple to end the French advance on the Eastern Bank and retake Stuttgart. This all started with the bloody battle of Friedrichshafen which saw a decisive German victory.
The initial plan had been to have a significant time to regroup before moving on to the main objective of Stuttgart but a French counter offensive forced everything to be sped up. The French army had strongly attacked the Saar and overwhelmed the defenders of the region forcing a retreat Northwards. In the face of this the attack on Stuttgart was launched much earlier than hoped but proved to be a great success as a larger French army was beaten back Westward. The French army had now been beaten back and their attempt to take Germany’s vital industry in the West had largely failed. The French would not be ready for another attack for many months by which time the German defences could be significantly bolstered. Despite the loss of the Saar the German High Command in West considered Wacht am Rhine a great success.
Gebirgsjäger on their advance through the French Alps
The advance of the German mountaineer divisions through the French Alps to Nice was swift and met minimal resistance. Contrastingly the assault on the territory of La Spezia saw a terribly draining battle as 12 German divisions faced around 18 French and Italian divisions. The battle was only won thanks to a massive bombing campaign from the German, British and Canadian airforces that rattled the Comintern forces. Despite the losses by late November the initial objectives had been secured, now only the port of Genoa stood between the Reichswehr Italian front and a great victory, yet this city was heavily defended, occupied by some 23 divisions and the German troops were in no condition to launch another major offensive. After waiting a few days to regroup the Germans launched their first attack on the port from both Wet and East but were eventually forced back. By this time most of the RAF forces in Italy had been sent elsewhere (likely Africa) by the British and the Canadian bombers had changed their focus to bombing Italian cities so the massive air support enjoyed during the attack on La Spezia had been lost. After a series of ever more desperate assaults it was cleat that Genoa would hold. This would leave the Mountain troops in Nice in a very vulnerable position so they were ordered on another march through the French Alps back to the City of Turin where they would hold their position. Meanwhile the troops in La Spezia would attempt to hold their own in the face of an ever larger Comintern presence in the region as French and Spanish troops began to arrive form the West.
On November the 28th Model’s Panzerarmee arrived in the city of Skopje, it was here where the Yugoslav government had attempted to hold on and it was here where the officials who had not fled to neighbouring states had signed the Yugoslav surrender, Tito was not amongst them. The former Premier of Yugoslavia and fled to Italy via Albania where he begged for assistance in reclaiming his lost homeland. The defeat of the first Comintern state in less than a month of war was an impressive feat and now gave a clear message of the might of the Riechswehr to the rest of the world, all military division in the Balkans were now sent towards the Hungarian frontline as they look to break though the heavy defences set up there.
The British and Commonwealth performance in the war to date had been relatively strong. Although they had failed to take advantage of the small troop numbers in the French Colonies in Asia with any form of attack there they had made gains in their active theatre of war: Africa and the Middle East. By the end of November the Italians had been effectively beaten in east Africa and British forces advanced at will there, a tiny British force of barely a single Colonial divisions had simply bypassed the large Italian army on the Libyan-Egyptian border and made significant gains on the Italians procession, in the Middle East the British troops based in Palestine combined with the Iraqi army had taken Damascus and the strategic Golan Heights and victory now looks certain there too. However in West Africa the absence of any major British force had led to significant defeats as the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Northern Ghana and Northern areas of Nigeria were now all under French control. But most significantly the strategically vital fortress at Gibraltar had been lost and as a result the Royal Navy was forced to abandon hopes of an aggressive campaign in the Western Mediterranean.
