The Arrival
1943 opens with excellent news.
The finns have defeated the russians!
Almost.
Before february is over theyve become best friends with Stalin.
This is the first serious blow dealt to the axis.
In the Byelorussian-Lithuanian-Polish border area Stalin wishes to find out what these newcomers are made of.
The soviet general anwsers him with one word: Steel.
As the snow melts Graziani begins an offensive.
But he is annoyed that everywhere he tries to go, russians amass a ridiculously large force.
No luck.
Graziani suffers from depression. He isnt able to lead more than 18 divisions without ending in a bloodbath. With all the germans, hungarians, romanians, bulgarians, slovakians, croatians.. the man cant concentrate! Back in the desert he was famous, when his assaults were on the way everyone held their breath. Now he is nobody. Should he succeed, no one will care. Would anyone notice if he was killed?
We pull out from the north, with Mussolinis blessing. Having to reinforce divisions just for sitting there was annoying him like hell.
And in the south we fare much better.
We close on Stalingrad!
And italians are instrumental in defeating a large soviet army!
And our tanks push further into the caucasus. Yes, this is madness, should we meet resistance our tank would be blowing up by the dozens. But the soviet caucasus army seems to be somewhere else...
In the Mediterranean
One of our fleets tries to move from Sardinia to Venice. On their way they are pummeled by 3 different navies, bombed throughout the way. When they reach Taranto they are just burning heaps of trash.
The american strategy is obviously to sink all our ships so we cant get our desert armies to defend the peninsula.
Mussolini likes this.
Yes, they are so cowardly, they fear our armies so!
Hah, a diversion - the oldest trick in the book.
Pintor continues the offensive, two more hours and the americans will be beaten!
Until...
German forces mutiny, they will no longer accept our commands..
It will take months for infantry from Tripoli to arrive! But the men hold out.
And were saved! By the germans! And we make up right away, they will once more accept our orders!
All are put on trains and transported to Tunisia.
But what are we doing here? We cannot defeat this US army. We cannot get reinforcements from Arabia. Cant get home and cant just hold the allies back until our allies win in the east.
No. A fatal desicion is made. North-Africa is to be abandoned. Yes, this land, which cost us so much sweat, in which we bled, oh how much adrenaline was burned, how much soup eaten - now it is given away without a fight.
All are sent to Arabia, to connect with the army in the caucasus.
The soviets are making large investments to get this land. We must push them out, every last one of them.
Meanwhile whats left of the british army tries to take crete after cyprus.
We are not fooled the second time.
But our german allies (who were not left behind of course) refuse to take our gas. "
Nein, nein, nur deutsche benzin is richtig für unsere panzern." As they push their tanks onward..
So we let them go. "Yes, youre free, go where you please. We will not accept these kind of insults."
And so they decide theyre with us. No, with us, totally.
Himmler himself swears allegiance, flies our flag, promises to learn the language in two months.
The soviets think if they have enough men and machines they can do anything. Well our troops show them what experience and organization means.
Lt. Gen. Meyer, a looser in the Wehrmact - now one of The Three (tank commanders) of Italy!
Himmler brushes aside overwhelming bolševik hordes.
Our plan is a sketchy one. We should attack where they are weak.. and surrounded them.. maybe.
But due to a organizational mishap our motorized elite moves away before enough infatry can take their place.
This is but an annoyance,
yet were forced to abandon Kuweit still.
When italian minded iraqis rebel to support our invasion we have no choice but to brake through and.. uh.. fight them.
