Chapter 12: Mussolini's Adventures in Wonderland - A casual massacre
July 1940
Game note: So this AAR was heroically saved by Piktoonis, who delivered me new old version of HPP 1.9.2. The game works again normally except one amusing glitch which I call 'Border formalities.' The units cannot use strategic redeployment across national borders anymore. This is somewhat wacky but not crippling, and actually suits the general mood of this AAR. It must be those pre-EU border customs...
Historical note: As we all know, France historically signed an armistice with Germany on 22 June.
During the rest of June not much happened, great battles were fought on Cinderella front, Spain was out of coal and President Azaña was out of aspirin. As Spain was trying to glue together the remains of its broken divisions to frustrate Fascist onslaught the leaders of Alliance were busy planning further military operations at the General Allied HQ, located in Paris. The mood swayed between jubilant and drunk, as against all odds German onslaught had been frustrated for a while, and most leaders of Alliance were busy drinking away their money before Germans captured it.
A typical night of fervent work at General Allied Headquarters, in Moulin Rouge, Paris. No effort was spared to defend democracy, and no sacrifice was too great. Most allied leaders had tables at front row, but very limited credit.
But war went on with its own, sluggish momentum, knocking down random Dutch villages and making lots of German heroes in the process. Ede and Maastricht were the regular killing grounds of the war, where endless German divisions were smashed to pieces. But unfortunately Germans had hundreds of divisions to spare, and Spanish defenders were kept hard-pressed. Often Spanish pilots tried to frustrate the German air superiority that was becoming more and more evident every day, and were sometimes succesful. Whenever Spanish planes caught German bombers without their customary fighter defence heavy casualties were inflected. But most often Allied pilots found themselves outnumbered and outgunned by
Luftwaffe. German air power was devastating, but failed to give them decisive advantage on ground. It was fortunate that battles were fought over friendly territory where pilots could parachute into safety, since this occurred so often. Indeed, Spanish pilots were pioneers of airborne infantry! Some men actually spend more time jumping from planes than flying them. The inability of France and UK to deal with
Luftwaffe was a cause of bitter animosity between Allies.
A rare moment at end of June when Allied fighters wreck havoc among German bombers.
Despite the continuous slaughter and pain, the war became paradoxically rather safe routine for those who fought it. The lines did not move, there were no dramatic breakthroughs, no daring operations. It was only gruelling war of attrition over few miles of otherwise meaningless Dutch riverbanks. But in 5th of June something extraordinary happened.
Mussolini's Adventures in Wonderland
This extraordinary discussion was captured and decrypted by Allied intelligence services at 5th of July. Actually, they just bribed all cleaners in
Reichstag with Coca-cola.
SS-guard: '
Mein Führer, extraordinary news!'
Hitler: 'I HATE NEWS! I HATE EVERYTHING THAT ENDS WITH -EWS! Can't you see I'm busy? I'm playing World of Tanks against one of my officers and somehow I'm losing every round! Who does this Michael Wittmann think he is? AARGH!'
Guard: '
Mein Führer Italy has joined the war!'
Hitler: 'So what? Send six divisions to Alps, those Marios will never get through. There are no pipes that lead under Alps.'
Guard: 'Er...I must have expressed myself improperly!
Mein Führer, Italy has joined the war
on our side!'
Hitler: 'WHAT?' Now we must send at least 30 divisions to help those idiots! This is a catastrophe! Sh*t! F**k! Sh*tf**k!'
Hitler was not pleased with the news.
Somewhat same was repeated in Allied HQ where most Allied leaders had been busy drinking for last three weeks. Only Spanish leaders were not present, being too busy fighting the war. Around 3am staff officer rushed in, waving a urgen looking telegraph.
'Italy has declared war on us!' He shouted.
The roar of laughter was thunderous. Churchill was guffawing helplessly on the floor, his face like a ripe tomato. French prime minister Léon Blum nearly choked on lobster and caviar. Paul Van Zeeland of Belgium laughed so hard his teeth were recovered ten meters away. For nearly ten minutes not an intelligible syllable was produced. Churchill was first to pull himself together.
'That was good enough joke to win the war!' He said, wiping his eyes. 'We should broadcast that to Germans to lower their morale!'
'But sir, it was the truth!' Hapless staff officer screamed. 'Here it is printed!'
'Lol whut?' Churchill said and glanced at the telegraph. 'This makes no sense at all. It seems Mussolini tried to order a pizza named 'I declare war on UK' and somehow ended up declaring war on us! Well, his pronunciation was always bad.'
Among Allies Mussolini soon gained the nickname 'Top Hat.' He was stupid enough to mistake it as a compliment. If he had read a singe book in his life, he could have known better.
'This is a catastrophe!' Cried the officer.
'Bollocks, now we can make good headlines kicking Mussolini around! We could actually win this one without those darn Spaniards! Italians cannot even defeat Ethiopia so we might stand a chance!'
'Toast for Mussolini!' Declared the rest of drunken Allied leaders. By this time Hendrik Colijn of Holland was drinking brandy from a high-heeled boot.
'Oh, speaking of Ethiopia we could invite them to Allies, if there is a free table around here. Anyway, let's give them Spanish table, since those guys are never here.'
So, after four and half years of standing against Italian aggression Ethiopia joined the Allies and received the customary table from Moulin Rouge.
Ethiopia was somewhat legendary figure in Allied circles. They had fought alone against best Mussolini could send against them, and were now the first Allied country to fight against Axis. While some argued that Italy's best was not actually that much, and that Ethiopia was repressive tyranny, they were still great guys! These men were true supermen, and Italians were deadly afraid of them.
First to fight; Ethiopia. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I is here seen in Norway where he mistakenly thought he was out of Axis reach. But now he gladly relocated his HQ to Paris, and joined the merry gang of Allied leaders there.
But now war was becoming truly global. By Mussolini's raving madness Kingdom of Italy declared war on Allied and thus Mediterranean became a battleground, along with North Africa. This could have been disastrous, since both French and British colonies there were virtually empty of any military presence.
Spain's leaders were amazed to see how bloated this war already was.
Strange things also happened on other fronts. For a long time Spain, or more honestly all Allies, had been too preoccupied with their own survival to pay much attention to former global conflict, that between Japan and USSR. But now something shocking happened there. Mongolia had surrendered! Well, nobody really cared and war in Far East continued unperturbed. Allied experts could not understand what Japan thought it could gain. Most likely reason for this prolonged conflict was a bug in HPP 1.9.2 evenst that did not stop this useless war. Anyway, it was amusing to watch.
Far East front in July 1940. Note that Communist China still fights.
But it soon became obvious that Mussolini had made a grace strategic mistake, thought most liked to think it as a 'strategic suicide'. Italian army was simply not prepared to fight the Allies. Actually it was also questionable whether Italian army was prepared to fight a paper bag. Newspapers in Western Europe made big headlines from this 'Mussolini's glorious defeat.'
The Alps, for one thing, were impenetrable for Italian assault. France had been clever enough to fortify this sector and Spain had been devious enough to send four powerful divisions of specially trained mountaineers to hold them. This proved to be helpful since France had left this front almost undefended, and Italian breakthrough could have been possible. Now Italian commanders simply took one look at the defences, and then rolled cigarettes from their orders to attack.
French Alps 1940. Italians never bothered to try.
Also Maginot line was as safe as it ever was. Italian contribution did not significantly change anything here. It can also be noted that the units defending the M-line were luckiest of all Spain. They had not been attacked even once, nor bombed. Spanish divisions fighting in Ede "meat grinder" were rather bitter about this.
Maginot line was basking in warm July sunshine, still untouched by reality.
But in Africa things were becoming nasty for Italians. Combined Franco-Anglo-Ethiopian alliance now rolled against hapless Italians who could not even cope with Ethiopians alone. Italy had massive amounts of troops at this area; 240000 was a good estimate. During daytime mercury climbed to +50C and all these troops were supplied through one level 2 port, which proved perfectly incapable of doing so. Allies considered this operation a 'humanitarian catastrophe' rather than a military action.
Italian lines vanished under any military pressure, and Allies begun to advance. Use of air power was difficult in Africa due to weak infrastructure, but nonetheless Spanish bombers begun harassing retreating Italian troops from the airfield on left. 'Never give sucker a break' commented Spanish commander.
North Africa became the very synonym for Italian idiocy. Mussolini had dreamed of new Italian Empire in Africa, but those dreams were probably his most practical contribution. British Egypt had only few weak divisions to defend vital channel - but Italians had practically nothing. Amazed British units simply walked over the border after Italian declaration of war. One very frightened garrison unit was found from Tobruk, and was then delivered to local "lost and found", but otherwise Africa was empty. Yes, that sound you hear is Allied commanders laughing on the floor.
Churchill called this battle 'An glorious British victory, a new Waterloo.' Spain was not impressed.
But in Europe things were not so rosy, and Spanish divisions were actually wishing they were in Africa instead, which tells much of the situation. Every day came the same waves of German bombers and same crazy infantrymen. Actually infantrymen were different every day, since not many returned from those crazy attacks, but bombers were the same. Germany had now complete air superiority over Wester Europe, and combined air forces of UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Spain (also some random planes from Egypt and India took part) were not enough to defeat the incredibly powerful Luftwaffe. Germany had really invested heavily on air forces considering both quality and quantity, and they seemed to posses an unlimited supply of superior planes, pilots and equipment.
Typical Italo-German overkill. 11 July 1940. Faaborg Stalker continued to cause steady mayhem to attacking Germans in Denmark.
However, this unhappy state of affairs also gave some reasons for optimism. Germans had clearly invested heavily on interceptors in both money and research. But this accomplished them very little on ground where they still continued to lose thousand of men every day. Should Germany had invested even some of their effort to armored vehicles, results might have been disastrous. But now
Luftwaffe controlled the empty skies, accomplishing very little after all. Germany and Italy had bombers, but not sufficiently to break the deadlock in Holland.
Battles such as this caused despair for Allied Air Commanders.
But all this did not change the harsh reality that Allied lines still held, after nearly two months of carnage. The full strength of
Wehrmacht, some two million men, were assaulting Western Europe and gaining nothing. Attacking German divisions were defeated again and again in places whose names were imprinted into history of warfare; Faaborg, Bastogne, Maastricht.
These were typical casualty rates. Routinely Germany lost five or six times the casualties Spain received. In Faaborg the exchange rate was even worse, some thirteen German soldiers died for every Spanish hero. If this stood as a proof of excellent Spanish weapons and tactics, it also marked their significant advantage in terrain. Germans had to attack over Rhine with terrible casualties, or otherwise unfavorable terrain. In most places they could attack from relatively narrow perimeters that Allies could defend and reinforced easily. Ede was the only weakness in 'Cinderella line,' but it was ferociously defended by best Spain had to offer.
General Miaja 'the Sorcerer' Menant was widely hated among German soldiers who had to fight against him. It was said that his divisions were responsible for more German casualties than combined armies of UK and France together. This was perhaps an exaggeration.
But finally in 24th of July newspapers in Madrid literally exploded with the importance of news they tried to deliver. During morning hours of 24th tired Spanish defenders had looked from their battered foxholes and awaited the unavoidable German assault. But this time it did not come. Exhausted, beaten and with horrible casualties, Germans called off the attack and retreated, leaving behind them sad heaps of humanity, mountains of abandoned equipment. It had been an utter massacre for
Wehrmacht. Spain erupted in spontaneous celebration. But price had also been high.
Nearly million men had fought in Ede and over 120000 were killed, making the Ede "slaughter" the bloodiest battle war had seen so far. 41277 Spanish men paid with their lives to uphold the democracy and beat back the Fascist beast. It was staggering price, and Spanish commanders were looking longingly back to the Civil War days when 500 casualties were extraordinary.
But Germans had been massacred. They lost over 80000 men killed in Ede, a staggering amount that would have bought lesser country to its knees. Typical German division lost 30% of its strength killed and had some 12000 men. So some 20 German divisions were completely exhausted during the two months that Battle of Ede lasted. It was rumored that Hitler busted a vein. Again.
Even most fanatical Nazis facepalmed as they heard the news from Ede.
At evening of same day Germans attacked Ede again.
But now Spain had held the Fascist beast back for over two months, and not a single inch of soil had been given to Germans. It was time to take offensive. As end of July approached, Spanish High Command was going through the plans to invade Sardinia.
Mediterranean would be the next battleground.
