Chapter 188: The Siegfriedist War, Part 7 - The Last Offensive
"And you thought that the Maximists were the only ones fracturing."
-Konrad von Habsburg
"It's either we succeed and destroy the Maximists for good, or we fail and we all die, Maximists included."
-Wolfgang Ludendorff
"Seizing power? Certainly not. This is simply a normal assumption of the executive office and all powers associated with it, as laid out in form 32B, on the administration of the realm, whitepaper 48:53-D, on the transfer of power under certain circumstances, as modified by protective clauses 3, 8 and 12b, law 48-9 and edict 3W-4. What is there not to understand? Your majesty has signed all of them."
-Haraldr Yngling, CEO of the Republic of Kanata, Ltd.
On 7 August 1853, General von Braunschweig and his legion arrived at the gates of Rome. The siege of the Eternal City, the first in centuries, began immediately. Von Braunschweig had twenty-four thousand men, veterans of the major battles in the Balkans. The Maximist defenders had taken the Kohen Gadol, Pope, Patriarch of Rome, Ecumenical Patriarch Germanos IV, and other prominent figures hostage. While the walls of Rome held firm, they would not hold for long, and the fall of the city would further boost the Siegfriedists' legitimacy.
A little under a month later, the Siegfriedists breached the walls of Rome and stormed the city.
The Maximist defenders resisted fiercely, forcing the Siegfriedists to fight for control of each street. Over the next few hours, they advanced towards the government district and St. Peter's Basilica, taking heavy casualties in the process. It was said that several hundred men were lost just trying to secure the ancient Colosseum.
Eventually, though, after all of the hostages were freed and the remaining Maximist forces were defeated, von Braunschweig's men hoisted the Siegfriedist insignia over St. Peter's Basilica, proclaiming that the city had been liberated. The loss of Rome dealt a harsh blow to the Maximists. Without the city the Reich was named after, how could they continue calling themselves the true heirs to Rome? Similarly, the capture of Rome boosted Siegfriedist morale, with Ludendorff and his legions redoubling the effort to march towards Berlin.
Most surprising about the liberation of Rome was the fact that Persian soldiers fought alongside the Siegfriedists. Hundreds of them helped to free the hostages and secure the forts and palaces of the city. For the first time in the history of the world, Persian troops marched through Rome, though not as conquerors but as liberators (at least to the Siegfriedists). However, the Maximists still controlled the Persian concessions. The junta decided to punish the Persians for their "betrayal." In mid-September, Maximist legions crossed the border from Hormuz into Persia proper and quickly advanced on Isfahan. There, they overwhelmed the local garrison and took Shahbanu Gunduz I and her family hostage. Using the royal family as leverage, the Maximists forced the Persian government to sign an economic treaty, in which the Persian economy would be placed under direct Maximist control. Maximist legions were also given the right to be stationed in Persian territory. In addition, all aid to the Siegfriedists would be cut and redirected to the Maximists, though the Persians would still maintain their alliance with the Constantinople government. Now under the Maximist sphere of influence, Persia was effectively removed from the war.
Knowing that the loss of Persia as an ally would economically hurt Constantinople and incite the population to rebellion, Ludendorff decided to act quickly. Three days after the Maximists enforced the unequal treaty on Persia, the Liberation Legion received orders to march on Prague in preparation for an assault on Berlin. The liberation of Bohemia was crucial for the Siegfriedists to reach Brandenburg.
Elsewhere, von Sachsen-Meiningen continued to advance up the Nile, liberating Giza and securing the pyramids from the Maximists. While the temples around the city had sustained severe damage from Maximist iconoclasm, the pyramids and the Sphinx were simply too large to be damaged, though urban legends sprung up claiming that the Maximists had knocked off the Sphinx's nose (it had already been lost by the time the Reich pushed the Fatimids out of Aegyptus in the eleventh century).
In November of 1853, the Maximist cause had basically collapsed. There were no Maximist troops in Brandenburg or even defending Berlin; all of the
Reichsheer was tied up trying to take Lisbon, which was still holding out. It was at this point that the people of the western empire decided they had enough with the political gridlock of Berlin and the military incompetence of the junta, which was only good at destroying the previous junta. Funded and equipped by Siegfriedist spies, they rose up in rebellion, flocking to the banner of a former Maximist named Maximilian Goering. There was just one problem: they rose up in territory occupied by Siegfriedist forces and were hostile to the Siegfriedists as well. Goering denounced both the Berlin and Constantinople governments as weak and ineffective, calling on his supporters to topple both governments and restore the Reich under a stronger and more efficient government. Sigismund responded by cutting off aid to the rogue Siegfriedists, as they came to be called. He focused instead on the capture of Berlin, for if the Maximists fell and the Siegfriedists reunited the Reich, the rogue Siegfriedists would likely stand down. Goering, meanwhile, sent his own spies into the eastern empire, taking advantage of public anger against the government for waging a long war.
Two days after the rogue Siegfriedists began to rebel, the city of Cologne was liberated. Three days later, Naples was liberated. Maximist control over Italia and West Germania thus utterly collapsed, further fueling the rogue Siegfriedist movement that was now rapidly spiraling out of control.
Concerned with the rising unrest in the population, Sigismund ordered more reforms implemented. He started with limiting the working hours of every employee in the eastern empire to fourteen hours. While this was already widely in practice, formalizing it into law had the effect of reducing public anger slightly.
The Siegfriedist legions soon found that the rogue Siegfriedists were an even bigger threat than the actual Maximists. While the legions could easily defeat the rebels at this point, they had to do it quickly or face more rebellions down the road.
At the end of November, Prague fell to Ludendorff's Liberation Legion, opening up a path towards Berlin. All that he had to do now was take the cities between him and Berlin.
Every battle against the rogue Siegfriedists so far ended in a decisive Siegfriedist victory, but what the rogue Siegfriedists lacked in strength they made up with in cities captured. Paris and several other cities fell to rogue Siegfriedists in early December, followed by Belgrade. Not even the liberation of Genoa could make up for the loss of Paris.
As von Braunschweig marched south, his scouts reported that fifty seven thousand Maximists were standing on the Strait of Messina, apparently not even besieging the city or bothering to cross the narrow body of water into Sicily. After wondering why fifty seven thousand men would do that, more scouts returned, reporting that there was actually only one man there to begin with, the commander of the "legion." Expecting an easy victory over this one-man-army, von Braunschweig decided to liberate all other cities in Italia first before dealing with the Maximists.
The rogue Siegfriedists gained more and more followers, and the rebellion rapidly spread. Now the legions had to fight rebel hordes of over thirty thousand men, as opposed to nine thousand a month ago. The constant rebel uprisings were taking their toll on both the western and eastern empires.
On 1 January 1854, new methods of beer and steel production were developed, boosting the economy of the eastern empire. In addition, the Provisional Diet convened, again with a liberal plurality. The new Diet's goal was to deal with rising unrest in the general population. Intelligence reports stated that an outright uprising was imminent. The police and the Varangians were put on high alert, though Sigismund did not go as far as to declare martial law. All legions not commanded by Ludendorff were ordered to retreat and deal with the rebels before seizing more territory. If Goering was killed, the rebellion would probably die with him.
The city of Halle fell on 7 February 1854, giving Ludendorff a foothold in Brandenburg right next to Berlin. He gave the order to march on the capital itself. It was now a race against time between the Siegfriedists and rogue Siegfriedists. The Siegfriedists had to seize Berlin quickly before Goering incited a rebellion in Constantinople itself. If he overthrew Sigismund and Maximilian, the civil war would become pointless, and the Reich would be even worse off than under the Maximists.
Several weeks later, rogue Siegfriedists seied Vienna, gaining more strongholds in the east, closer to Constantinople. Metternich ordered the loss of Vienna to be censored from the newspapers and replaced with stories on the development of a new kind of steam engine. However, he and the rest of the government was barely keeping a lid over the public anger against the war. Protests of thousands of factory workers were now a frequent occurrence. Strikes happened all of the time. Intelligence estimated that over two million of these angry citizens had joined rogue Siegfriedist factions.
The siege of Berlin continued into April. The city held out against Ludendorff's siege relentlessly. Five thousand Siegfriedists had perished in the siege, and almost two hundred more were killed when a rogue Siegfriedist militia assaulted Ludendorff's positions. By now, Gallia was basically overrun by the rogue Siegfriedists, with Carpathia and Illyricum not far behind. All Siegfriedist troops in the affected regions were ordered to withdraw to safer positions.
It was then that Goering sprung his trap. All across the territories controlled by the Constantinople government, cells of rogue Siegfriedists suddenly activated, taking up arms against the government. Goering declared war on both Berlin and Constantinople, declaring himself the true Kaiser of Rome from his makeshift "palace" in Paris. Constantinople itself came under siege.
In a desperate attempt to call off the rebels assaulting Constantinople, Sigismund decreed that the work day would be limited further, to twelve hours. It had no effect on the rebels.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Kanata convulsed in revolution again. When the King of Kanata ordered troops to fire on protesters in Markland, the army refused and sided with the protesters. The entire Kanatan military, fed up with frequent losses against the Fox Empire, rebelled and stormed the royal palace, forcing the king to abdicate. The Hogting was forced to announce the abolition of the monarchy and the creation of the Corporate Republic of Kanata, Ltd., which would be ruled by Haraldr Yngling, CEO of the Thorfinn Bay Trade Company, who took the office of CEO of Kanata; the Hogting was then forced to dissolve itself. The King and his family fled to Scandinavia, where they and loyal politicians and generals established a government-in-exile.
Finally, on 5 June 1854, Ludendorff's troops breached the defenses of Berlin.
Siegfriedist troops getting ready to storm the Reichstag
The capital was liberated, at last. However, the junta had escaped somewhere into the countryside, taking with it Konrad and Maximilian. Meanwhile, the rogue Siegfriedists grew in numbers even more. While Berlin had fallen, neither the Maximists nor the rogue Siegfriedists were willing to surrender yet.
The civil war only got even more complicated.
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Well, now the Reich will just have to remind Scandinavia and the Commonwealth that the land they stole was not theirs once the civil war is over and the Reich has had time to heal.
Very happy to see that the war is nearing its end. I want Mozart and Beethoven to perform their concert soon.
All in due time...that is, if I can survive until my surrender event fires.
May Siegfied's glorious army strike down not only the Maximist scum and filth, but also the backstabbing, weak, cowardly Norse and Lithuanians who believe that they can take territory from the Reich and get away from it. I think it's time for some surprise Anschluss.
The treacherous Lithuanians shall pay for this ultimate treachery!
That Mozart and Beethoven concert should be spectacular. I love seeing the dead play musical instruments.
The Norse and Lithuanians are certainly going to regret that decision when the civil war is over. God luck to them holding on to tiny territories in Iberia, Britain, and more against the might of the Reich.
I have an event in the works regarding Mozart, but more on that when it actually fires (after I kill all of these blasted rebels and the Maximists).
Actually, I didn't plan for Scandinavia to take territories in Britain and Iberia. That was just bad coding, but it works for the purposes of the story. Just gives me more Vikings and Lithuanians to kill.
Bitchslap the Maximists, bitchslap the Norse, bitchslap the Lithuanians, bitchslap them all!
Why stop there when you can Anschluss them all?
Does Denmark still have any cores? If it does, once you've reclaimed your cores, a buffer state might be useful to keep the Norse away and to humiliate them.
I don't think Denmark has any cores left. In EU4 I don't recall any Denmark/Sweden/Norway cores converting over. Besides, it was Denmark's ruling family that formed Scandinavia in CKII, so it wouldn't make that much sense to release Denmark. It would be like forcing Prussia out of the German Empire. However, I did change the names of Sweden/Norway/Denmark to their Norse names in the localization files.
Nice update, things are going crazy! I think it's fine if you don't mess with Indian provinces, but if you do, give some to Persia or Yavdi.
Yeah, I am pretty inclined to leaving India alone, but I will definitely be buffing Persia slightly.
Lithuania-Ruthenia takes Masuria? Well, it seems that they want to build up historical Poland-Lithuania... inside with Prussia.
In Hohenzollern Empire, Poland-Lithuania partitions Prussia!
They had cores on that land since late CKII. Makes sense given that I gave them basically Prussian ideas in EU4. They were supposed to also get Crimea and the land around it, but that would cause border-gore so I didn't put that in.
