5th September. But really late at night, almost the 6th really.
We return to Bratislava, but this time to the master bedroom at the very heart of the Presidential Palace. If you could call it a palace. If you could call what Tiso was doing a Presidency. There was a knock at the door.
"Get the door Tuka." The half asleep Tiso mumbled.
"You should get." Tuka replied.
"I'm the President." Tiso retorted.
"You have the bottom bunk, so you are nearest the door." Tuka called down.
Grumbling Tiso walked to the door and opened it, revealing Messenger C
"I bring urgent news from the East, General Turanec is under attack!" Messenger C blurted.
A finely balanced and tense battle on the Eastern Front! Sort of. Not really.
"Tell the General Staff we will be in later." Tiso said.
"You aren't going to rush into the HQ?" The messenger asked.
"Why would we bother?" Tuka called down from his bunk.
"It's not like we could do anything to help them fight." Tiso agreed.
"But you must do something!" Messenger C cried out.
Tiso stared the man in the eyes and reached a decision.
"You are impudent, but correct. I must do something." He announced.
As Messenger C was dragged away by the Presidential Hlinka Guards, Tiso returned to his bed, appreciative of the perks of dictatorship.
7th September
Deep in the heart of the Slovakian Army's Deeply Integrated Strategy Tomb, Malar was wondering if the acronyms were starting to do more harm than good. His reasoning was interrupted by the arrival of a yawning T&T, noticing their arrival Malar looked at his watch meaningfully.
"Stop that Malar, it's not like we missed anything." Tuka said.
"You took a whole extra day off! You might have missed something really important." Malar complained.
"No we wouldn't, and we needed to catch up on our sleep after that messenger interrupted us." Tiso explained.
A junior officer stops the bickering by handing over a message to Malar and sprinting out of the room.
"It as we feared." Malar sighed.
The benefits of mountain, weather and a tramp like moustache + hat combo were not enough to stop a crack Soviet Guards division led by a man with a stunningly peaked hat. The complete lack of organisation in the defending Slovak division may have been a factor as well. In any event Slovakian milliners, like their colleagues in the rest of the nation, had much to learn and little time to do so.
"That means that Northern Romania has now defenceless?" Tiso asked.
"Pretty much." Malar agreed.
"So Turanec will be joining up with our allies to hold the Hungarian border?" Tuka asked.
"Sort of." Malar fudged.
"In what way sort of?" Tiso asked, fearing the worst.
"Well Turanec will regroup on the Hungarian border, but Admiral Horthy has decided the Hungarian forces have other priorities." Malar gestured at the map of many things.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Czech HQ unit that has already been surrounded and engaged in combat is much more of a threat than the 3rd Ukrainian Front. Or at least it is a truth acknowledged by the Hungarian Army High Command.
Where once Tiso had taken comfort in not being the most inept Axis minor, latterly he had begun to realise the terrible consequences of this for the wide war effort.
*Pop* *Glug, glug, glug*
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Notes:
More T&T and extra hipflask action, are you not entertained!?
I ran the game for an extended period just to make sure the AI had a chance, it sill got badly confused by all of this and did decide the Czechs must be crushed at any cost regardless of consequence for the Eastern Front.
