A House of Cards (An alternative KR-MDS AAR)

[Kurt_Steiner]

October 4th, 2003, Ottawa

While the battle of the HI.12 was going on, Francis Urquhart was highly amused by the unexpected "return to life" of the Liberal Party.

The long years away from power that followed the defeat of 1979 had plunged the Liberal Party of Canada into the abyss of nothingness. Jean Chrétien had to struggle to keep the party united and to push the reforms that he saw fitting to recover his plance into the Canadian political scene after the failure of the elections of 1988. The defeat just give him and his supporters more strenght to go ahead with the changes in the party. Chrétien managed to modernize it, to remove what he saw as the radical faction from positions of power in the party, to introduce new and younger faces into the party and to give it a new force and strength.

Then came the unexpectred defeat of 1992. It was made worse because Thatcher had vanished from the political scene and her replacement, the moderate but indecisive Henry Collingridge, who was unable to disciplinate his own party (as his downfall was to prove), had defeated the Liberal party because the voters prefered what they already knew, that is, the tories' way, rather than to discover the "New Way" promoted by Chrétien.

The 1992 defeat forced Chrétien's resignation and, since then, the Liberal Party had been unable to recover from it. It split into two when a few MPs, led by Allan MacEachan, left the party to from their own, the Social Democratic Party, and that paved the way for Urquhart's triumph,along with Preston Manning's Reform party, that contributed to divide even more the opposition tot he Tory's rule

That had been eleven years ago and now, in 2003, after the SDP had returned to the Liberal ranks, one of Chrétien's young politicians, Michael Lang, became the leader of the Liberal party. His proposal to take the party out of the wilderness that had plagued it for the last twenty-four years, the "Third Way", amused very much the prime minister.

Apparently, Lang's reform aimed to be an option to the conservative and socialdemocrat politics but, in Urquhart's opinion, what was trying to do Lang was to become a "light Tory".

"Left and right had no meaning now", Lang said, as the so-called Syndicalist parties were nothing but a fascism in disguise.

"Very droll, indeed", Urquhart said. The Prime Minister was highly interested to see what would come next.

Michael Lang, the new "face" of the Liberal Party​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

October 11th, 2003, Paris

There had been some rumours, but nothing came of it. Not even when, during a metting of the Commitée Central (October 6th) angered Vincent Crochon made a "call for order" and asked Gautier to "return to the right path". As said, nothing happened.

On October 11th, a coup d’état was launched in Paris. Crochon was behind it, but he had added some support to his move: Bruno Coulais and Marshal Bernard Blancan. These were men of power and also remarkable cunning. They had risen to the highest ranks within the power structure of the French Government and Armed Forces, yet they wanted more.

Crochon was the Chairman of the Committee for State Security, the dreaded DGS - Direction générale de la sécurité. The forty year-old man was a career bureaucrat and a secret policeman. He had come from very humble roots and risen almost to the top. In the position that he was in, as head of the DGS, Crochon was one of the most informed people within the Commune of France, and he feared what he saw. Crochon knew the state of the country’s economy, the true capabilities of the military and the shortcommings of the country. He was worried over the General Secretary’s inaction; Crochon was convinced that the path that Gautier was leading the country down would bring ruin to them all.

Vincent Crochon, in a picture taken from the archives of the CIS.​

His co-conspirator Bruno Coulais was the Party Secretary from Normandy. He was a life-long bureaucrat and someone with great ambitions too. Coulais had his own little empire down in Paris and had initially been an ally of Gautier. However, she was a source of too many interferences for Coulais` taste, and her anti-corruption plans alarmed him: he saw a future for himself under the General Secretary’s rule as disgrace and exile, if not outright execution.

Once these two men begun plotting, they came to realise that the influence that they both held – over the CGS and a significant section of the Party – wouldn’t be enough. They wanted to get rid of Gautier and many of the people around her but the forces at their disposal weren’t enough for that. They needed the support of a man who had many guns behind him.Thus, they brought a third man into their plans. Marshal Blancan was the Chief of the General Staff: the most senior military officer in the Commune. Since he became the Chief of the General Staff was unhappy at Gautier`s plans and delays and feared that the confusing rewritting of the plans for attacking the German Reich would be discovered by the enemy and used to crush the Commune. Thus, after being propmised that he was to be the man in charge of the planning the strategy and leading the military operations, he joined the conspiracy.

Marshal Blancan, first to the right,seen here during a field exercise.
​

The pre-dawn raids in Paris that started the coup were undertaken by the Alpha Group, the CGS commando unit, though its strength had been concentrated in the capital in the days before the coup struck. The men of Alpha Group were highly-trained and well-experienced. Since the inception of the formation in the 1970s, they had been deployed in a variety of combat roles in several foreign deployments, helping friendly regimes to survive or contributing to depose hostile ones.

That morning, six detachments of Alpha Group soldiers assaulted several party residences throughout Paris and the surrounding areas. Within moments, six of the top figures close to Gautier were dead. They were either shot while in their beds, bathrooms or kitchens. Among them there was the Foreign Minister, Jean Rochefort, the Interior Minister, Jean Claude Brialy, and the Defence Minister Louis Jourdan. Three more targets were not politicians, but civil servants. The commander of the Interior Ministry’s SDAT (an elite counter-terrorist task-force) was gunned down and so too was his deputy. Another victim was the CGS officer in-charge of the Luxembourg Palace security forces: he had proved himself too loyal to Gautier.

This was just the beginning. A larger detachment of the Alpha Group launched a bloodless assault against the Luxembourg complex simultaneously to those assassinations. Two hundred men moved against the famous seat of the Government. Armed and ready for a fight, they found no opposition at all: Crochon had managed to convince the officers of the CGS guard force to surrender just before the assault began. Just a few shots were fored at the start of the attack, when nobody knew for sure who was on whose side.

​

The General Secretary herself was snatched from her bedroom rather than killed there. Gautier had no time to wonder what was going on before she was loaded into a helicopter and flown away. Her lover, George Timothy Clooney, the fallen leader from the extinct CSA, was nowhere to be found.

Crochon had been responsible for the bloody part of the Paris Coup, but where Marshal Blancan acted there was no violence. He was at the Ministry of Defence building duering the coup d'etat. He personally made phone calls to other Generals and Admirals commanding military forces not only in Paris, but across France ordering their forces to remain in their barracks and wait for further orders. No one who he contacted seemed to know what was going on and they did exactly what they were told. No one asked Marshal Blancan about his nominal superior, Defence Minister Jourdan.

Tanks patrolling the streets of Paris, as if the capital
had returned to the days of the Revolution of 1919​

Coulais was in Paris that morning too. He went to the Interior Ministry building and established himself there and from there, Coulais was able to make sure that there was no hostile reaction on their part to what he and his co-conspirators were doing. No urgent orders were sent out for SDAT troops to come to the aid of Gautier's dying regime.

By lunchtime on October 11th the ‘change of government’ was made public.Coulais had prepared statements that were issued to the main newspapers for immediate publication the following day. All of them printed highly-favourable headlines and editorials which would praise Gautier for ‘unselfishly stepping aside due to ill health’ and encourage ‘the people to support her replacements’. No mention would be made of the killings or the hundreds of arrests of many influential people. Before that, both Coulais went to airwaves. The public face of the new leadership of the Commune of France spoke of Gautier’s ill health, and the threats to the State from both ‘external enemies’ and ‘internal counter-revolutionaries’. The provisional government had been ‘selected by their colleagues’ to ‘guide the nation through this time of struggle’. To end up the annoucenment, Coulais promised that little would change within the country and what did would only be ‘for the good of the workers’.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

October 15th-17th, 2003, North Atlantic

One of the side-effects of the Paris coup d'etat was the inmediate removal of Admiral Jean Louis Flandin, who had leaded the French Marine since 1996. Flandin, who was was demoted to Admiral Inspector, was replaced by Admiral Xavier Bonnier de La Chapelle, who, at once, ordered to use the old "worlf pack" tactis of the Weltkrieg and also began to study new ways to use the surface fleet.

This change in tactics was suffered by the convoy HI 14. It was a convoy of 23 ships which sailed from Halfiax on October 15th bound for Iceland. It was ecorted only by two RCN frigates as there was thought that, after the last failure and the turmoil caused by the coup d'etat. the enemy armed forces would be thrown in dissarray. It wasa mistake that the convoy was to pay.

The HI 14 was opposed by 5 French submarines plus two italian ones that were moving west to join them. On October 16th the convoy was sighted, but, as it still was within range of Coastal Command aircraft, the submarine, the S676, followed the convoy, being later joined by the S647. A few hours later, they were joined throughout the day by two submarines that were nearby.

The first assault, during the night of 17/18 October was made by SC664 (Capitaine de Frégate -Commander- Yves Daniel) just after midnight; She fired on the merchants: Southby, which sank; Aldington, which was damaged and sunk later by the newly arrived S637; and Thirlby, that escaped unharmed. Just after 4am the whole pack attacked; King Charles was hit by S647 and sank, followed a few minutes later by Bomber and Empire McAlpin, both hit by S573 (Capitaine de Frégate Georges Louis Blaison).

With the loss of 4 ships already Commodore GTC Cresswell determined the ships would be less vulnerable if they were dispersed, and at 02.21 am the order was given. As the convoy started to scatter the tanker British Viscount, was hit by S573. The tanker sustained severe damage, but remained afloat. When Halifax heard about the attack, an ASW taskforce hurried west. During the morning Cresswell gathered together eight ships, to reform the convoy; these eight ships were met later in the day by the two frigtates that protected the convoy since it departed Halifax: HMCS Wolverine and HMCS Worcestershire.

Six other ships remained scattered and became the targets of the pack: just before midday S698 found and sank Helle, and in the midafternoon S698 found and sank the Dolores, a Chilean (so, a neutral) freighter sailing independently. After the ASW taskforce joined the convoy, no further attacks took place until the night of 18/19 October, S-676 tried to attack the convoy, but was forced to leave by the ASW frigates.

At dawn of 19 October, S-676 was running on the surface when she was sighted by a Nimrod MR.4 from Halifax and attacked it. The S-676 dived, but another Nimrod joined the attack, along with the frigate HMCS Wolverine. The submarine, damaged by the explosions of someof the torpedoes, was forced to the surface, and the crew abandoned her. Before the Volwerine could assemble a team to secure and capture the boat, the S-676 quickly sank. All the crew but one were rescued.

The pack made no further attacks on the ships of HI 146, who made their way to port. Swabey’s group of 8 ships arrived to Icelandl on 20 October 2003; the tanker British Viscount, which was damaged, docked one day later.

The atack was quite a shock for Ottawa. Five ships had been sunk, for 35,969 tons, and another one damaged. Nearly 100 sailors lost their lives. Against this, just one enemy submarine had been was destroyed. And to make it worse, the enemy navy did not look affected by the coup at all.

The victours S673 returning to Brest after her succesful patrol.​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

October 20th-25th, 2003, North Atlantic

The Convoy Battle took a new way when the old LPH turned into ASW carriers were hurriedly send to perform escorting duties for the freighters bound to Iceland. Furthermore, the Royal Canadian Navy send three of the carrier groups into the North Atlantic to roam the seas in seach for any Sindie submarine. The Syndicalist countered by sending their submarines southwards as the northern waters were too "hot" for them.

Thus, that change in strategy caused the battle for the convoy CN 18. It was a west-bound convoy of 28 ships, and sailed from Cape Town on 16 October bound for ports in North America. The convoy commodore was R.Adm. W. MacKenzie. It was protected by the 7th Escorting Group, an escort group made up by ten warships; these were joined in md-ocean by the 3rd EG, a force of eight warships. Opposing them was a force of nine enemy submarines, though in the event only five were in a position to pose a threat.

CN 18 was sighted on October 20 by S-19, which reported its position and began shadowing while the High Command alerted other submarines in the area. There were five submarines within striking distance, and these were ordered to close with S-19's position. Meanwhile, during October 22 the escort force was joined by the 3rd EG. Then the French submarines made a mistake. They attacked the convoy one by one.

At night of October 22 the S-19 attacked the convoy. Her skipper was able to enter the convoy by submerging ahead of the convoy and letting the lead escorts pass. He was then able to fire at close range on the ships in the centre of the convoy, hitting Ixion and Eastern Star. However S-19 was found by the escorting ships and counter-attacked by two frigates, that attacked he for two hours. S-19 was damaged and forced to return to France.

On October 23 the ASW carrier HCMS Audacity and her battlegroup joined the convoy, and the 7th EG departed back to Cape Town. That evening, S-150 and S-101 also made contact, tracking the convoy. On the next morning, S-150 moved into position and commenced her attack. Although the escort was still in place, the submarine managed to sink two ships although she located and attacked. S-150 survived the attack, but was seriously damaged and was taking on water, so she had to withdrawm as the S-19.

Meanwhile, S-101 made her attack, sinking one ship and damaging another, but she was also counter-attacked and forced to retire. In the early hours of October 24, the convoy was found by S-156 which attacked immediately, resulting in one ship damaged and then withdraw after suffering heavy attacks from the Sea King helicopters from the HCMS Audacity.

After that there were no more attacks and the convoy reached New York without any more incidents.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

October 15th-25th, 2003

The news of the coup d'etat in Paris were known quickly. Media organisations in North America and Central and Eastern Europe broadcasted soon that Crochon and his companions were now in charge.The claim that Gautier had resigned because she was ill was immediately doubted. The CBC dubbed the whole event the "Paris coup"and such a name immediately stuck.

However, no one understoodw at all of that was about. All the statements made by Crochon weren’t issued for the benefit of the Western media, but rather for their own people. It was those to whom the new men in charge wanted to convince that there was nothing had changed at all. Thus, Presidents and Prime Ministers all around the world asked the heads of their intelligence services why there had been no indication of what was coming.

Urquhart was sure that Gautier would never have resigned. Furthermore, he was sure that Crochon had the makings of a dictator, and if there had been killings in Paris, then he would have been behind them. As to Coulais, the new General Secretary was a corrupt man. Full stop. And having Marshal Blancan around meant serious strategic bussiness for all. Things were just going worse. Throughout the following days, the Prime Minister personally reviewed intelligence from MI-6 concerning the new leadership of France. The stories of secret trials of alleged counter-revolutionaries – which were similar to those that had taken place in the 30s and 40s both in France and Italy– held his interest and so too did confirmation that some senior members of the deposed Gautier’s Politburo had been shot.

Meanwhile, in Alger King Jean III was discovering that if a week was long time in politics, two weeks was even longer. That lapse of time had passed since his coronation and the new head of state of the National France felt stuck. He had wanted to begin his reign with a show of good-will. Thus, two days after his coronation, on October 11th, during his first meeting with the cabinet, he iissued a political amnesty, aiming to free 1,805 political prisoners. However, his first minister, General Charles Bompard, blocked this move and the amnesty was applied only to just 405.

"Alors -said the King-, c'est mieux qu'un coup de pied au cul" (1)

"Excuse me, but the last time I read the Constitution,
it was ME who was the Head of the State, not you"​

That was just the beginning of a quite complicated situation because even if the King wanted to reform, his Prime Minister thought otherwise. Even worse, as Bompard had been chose by the late de Lioncourt for the post, he thought that Jean III had no power over him. Of course, the king thought otherwise.

-The General (that's the way that Bompard talk about de Lioncourt) selected me to run this position for five years and I have still two more to go -the prime minister said to the king.

-That's right, Charles -the King replied-, but let's make it to look legal. You should ressign officially aqnd then I, through the standing Cabinet, I will confirm you as my Prime Minister. This way it will look as my decision and it will reinforce your position as my prime minister.

Of course, Bompard was not sure about the intentions of the King and demurred as much as he could do.


"(1) That's better than nothing.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

October 30th - November 5th, 2003

The Syndicalist submarines revenged themselves of their last failure by attacking the convoy HI 16 (October 30th-November 6th) with great success: nine submarines from the 2nd and 7th submarine task force operating out of Brest and St Nazaire, respectively, managed to sank nine ships in spite of the efforts of the escorting ships.

For the Entente the lesson was quite clear: As the convoy had lacked the support of ASW planes and carriers due to the weather, it was decided that no convoy would depart without the proper escort. Meanwhile, the Entente submarine force retaliated and attacked an enemy convoy from the British Isles to Gibraltar. The 12 ships of the convoy departed Liverpool on November 2nd and were found by the submarine HMCS Otus. Two merchant ships and a escorting corvette, the RNS Zinnia, were sunk by submarine attacks continuing through the next two days.

Meanwile, when India put to sea his battlegrorup, Tokio began to worry. The aircraft carriers Vikrant and Viraat, along with the guided missile destroyers (DDG) Mysore and Delhi plus some other older destroyers and the replenishment ships (AOR) Rajaba Gan Palan and Shakti had been put to sea and were patrolling the area. The idea was to made know his presence by the People's Republic and by Burma. However, Tokio was the most alarmed by the display of naval force. That in the area there was also a Canadian Carrier Strike Group, based around the HCMS King George V aircraft carrier, just made it worse.

The HMIS Vikrant seen here when she was still using the old
but still powerful Supermarine Seafire II Mk XIV
​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 8th, 2003

Francis Urquhart was absolutely relieved that his ligthning visit to Asia was over. He had spent the last three days visiting India and now he was leaving Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. After the Xinhai Revolution (1911–12) toppled the Qing dynasty and the last Qing troops were escorted out of Tibet, the Dalai Lama refused any Chinese title and declared himself ruler of an independent Tibet. Since then, it had been a valuable ally that had acted as a buffer state between the India and Shinqiang Tianguo. And since then the Canadian Prime Ministers had used to pay some official visit to boast loudly of their pleasure that having Tibet as an ally was.

Canada’s version of Air Force One was not as luxurious or as technologically sophisticated as the American version. It was said that the American President could run a World War from his own plane. Urquhart did not have quite that much power at his fingertips when in the air, but he had enough to communicate with whom he needed to.

“The cousins,” said one of his secretaries, referring to the Americans, “are pressing the Argies as much as they can.” La Plata was too quiet about the whole war, at least for Urquhart's liking. That was the same about the syndicalist Brazil, but that fact didn't irk the Prime Minister so much.

"Are you sure that we cannot use some of our boys to persuade them?” Urquhart inquired.

“Not bloody likely with the Argies... They know too much about our methods.”

Urquhart began to curse inwardly. Those pesky... He began to consider some alternative, thus he reclined comfortably in his seat and he was soon lost in the winding paths of his mind. He was suddenly aware of a sudden bang to his left, followed by a sickening plunge. What the...? He looked out his window and saw that the left engine had been blown away and the wing was disintegrating. The aircraft was going down. and it was falling fast Urquhart looked around. His staff were all in their seats, held down by the G forces, their faces contorted with terror.

Hand held SAM, he suddenly realized. He started to say a prayer when a crunching sound ground below him. Then he felt himself turning head over heels. Then the lights in the cabin went out, he felt a sharp pain in his side, and then—nothing.

Mayday, mayday, may...!!!!​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 9th, 2003

“How the Hell did this happen?”

Lord Irwin, Foreign Secretary, was furious, which was a quite odd thing in him. As soon as he head the news, he made a call to his man in Tibet.

Someone had unleashed hell there. Unexpectedly, the army of Shingqan Tianguo had crossed the Jinsha River on the late hours of 8th November. Two enemy army corps had quickly surrounded the outnumbered and surprised Tibetan forces and were advancing against the border town of Qamdo. Right now, active hostilities were limited to a border area northeast of the Gyamo Ngul Chu River and east of the 96th meridian. Furthermore, there had been some uprisings and riots in the main Tibetan cities.

“It seems that an insurgent got off a lucky shot with a shoulder fired SAM missile, minister.”

“Yes, I know that. But the length of time of the wesponse. Thwee bloody hours!”

“Well, our nearest available unit was in India, helping the local units in a counterinsurgency operation... It took that long to suspend the operation and get the unit over to the crash site.”

“Just give it to me stwaight. Is the Pwime Minister dead or isn’t he?”

The secretary told, to the Cabinet relief, that an SAS unit had arrived at the crash site and found everyone there dead but for the Prime Minister who, heavily injured, was laying among the debris of the area. Hardly two minutes later, a helicopter, lights flashing, appeared overhead and landed in the area held by the SAS. Urquhart was put on a stretcher and carried into the helicopter, which then took off and vanished into the black sky.

SAS soldiers seeing here during a day exercise​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 10th, 2003

​

Malcolm Tucker was a happy man.While the French buggers had needed to use tanks, killing squads and hitmen, he had only used his wits. No need for spilling blood, no need for unnecessary violence. No. Just some trick and some persuasion... and a bomb. Well, you know, sometimes a bit of violence is useful. A bit.

An explosion rocked London as the car of the General Secretary, Norman Foster, was on his way for a Cabinet meeting. The explosion had claimed the lives of five more people. Apparently, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) had already claimed responsibility for the attack, which was lovely, Tucker thought, because that allowed him to have a cause to settle accounts with Ireland before the Entente could get their forces there. Of course, Tucker didn't trust the neutrality of the Green Island and was determined to fix that as sson as possible.

While Dublin had claimed his determination to stop the PIRA for once and all, Tucker doubted that very much. Not because Dublin may have now a lot of reasons to do that, of course, but because they would be unable to find the commandoes that had done such a bad service to the Republic. After all, Tucker took all the possible steps and pain in the arse to be sure that the Irish terrorist would not be available to explain their version of the tale.

Then he began to write his statement for the country.

"I’ll rip the Paddies to shreds when I get them. This will never turn into their own sordid little..."

Mmmm... he thought. Somehow, those words didn't sound right to him...

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 15th, 2003

Francis Urquhart received the news about the coup d'etat in the Union of Britain in the hospital, where he was recovering. He was upset.

Tibet was gone, swallowed by the fanatics of Shinqiang Tianguo; then, the UoB had changed an ineffectual secretary with a schewing machiavellian bastard (where he not a Syndie, Urquhart might have liked him). And on top of that, his doctors had just informed him that he would never walk normally again. The idea of using a walking stick for the rest of his life irritated him.

Worse was to come. With his former alliesbusy fighting the Syndicalist powers, Japan had decided to begin its rise to become a new global, imperial power. Four months ago, the Japanese government had approved a huge increase in the country's military spending, citing the need to defend Japan from threats to its existence. Meanwhile, Tokio had signed a trade agreement with the Russians, which helped to fuel Japan's industrial production and reduced, somehow, the shortfalls in resource stockpiles. Furthermore, the goverment had introduce a new way of state intervention, that was aimed "to better guide economic policies and direct things such as industrial production, instead of leaving such economic issues to the invisible hand of the free market capitalist system".

Since then the Imperial Army had increased its size with new mechanized infantry divisions, commando brigades and airborne units. Even the navy had been reinforced with news ships, the most important of all of them being the new flagship, the aircraft carrier Akagi, the first ship of a class of four that joined the service in the following months, dwarfing the Hosho and Zuiho classes.

The Tiger was sharpening its teeths, Urquhart thought. Who would be the first to suffer them? Bearing in mind that last showdown about trade with the Republic of China, the Prime Minister had the feelingt that he knew where the lightning was to strke first...

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 5th-15th, 2003, North Atlantic

While all those events were taking place, the Convoy Battle was still raging.

Convoy SC 22 was made up by 30 ships that departed from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Iceland. It was attacked over a three night period (November 5th-7th) losing 8 ships sunk totalling 34,124 GRT and 2 damaged. This was the worst Entente loss so far and it was made worse by the fact that only one enemy submarine was destroyed.

The next battle was the result of a big Entente effort to resupply its base in Iceland and to prepare it to be the starting point for the planned invasion of Europe. Coded Operation Halberd, it was at the time the largest resupply effort of the war; 80 merchant ships carrying 810,000 tons of military equipment and supplies sailed from New York to Iceland. They were protected by Force J, under the command of Admiral Harold Burrough, accompanied the convoy as defense against enemy ships. Force J consisted of four aircraft carriers, five cruisers, 28 destroyers and 8 submarines.

The French deployed eight submarines to ambush the convoy. Two light cruisers, Travailler and Bastille, of the 4th cruiser division sailed from Brest with five destroyers of the 10th destroyer flotilla, while two aircraft carriers and ten destroyers prepared to sortie from St. Nazaire. Meanwhile, at Southampton, the Britons had three cruisers and eight destroyers prepared to join them. Scotland's bases deployed twenty-six Vulcan bombers against the convoy.

Briton aircraft found the convoy in the early hours of November 12th, and reported the convoy speed of 18 knots. The ships from Southampton and St. Nazaire sailed and rendezvoused to join the lights cruisers from Brest. The enemy fleet was faster than the angloamerican force, but was inferior to the enemy firepower and air superiority. The Briton RAF launched a strike of 25 Vulcan, which attacked without the protection of the friendly fighters. The convoy came under air attack at 11:00. The strike was met by defending fighters and heavy anti-aircraft fire. Three bombers pressed through the enemy opposition to launch their missiles, one of which damaged the cruiser USS Port Royal (CG 74). Port Royal slowed to 17 knots, but maintained position in the convoy. Seven enemy bombers failed to return from the strike. Friendly fire shot down one F-18 Hornet.

The enemy fleet was shadowed by enemy submarines. When they were about 40 miles from the convoy, its commander decided to return home when he learned that the enemy had several carriers and cruisers at sea. That night the convoy was attacked by a few bombers, and Imperial Star was struck by a single missile. HNZMS Wellington took the damaged freighter in tow, but it sunk a few hours later.

Without too much ado, the convoy reached safely Iceland.

At home, neither Tucker nor Coulais were happy with the complete failure of their fleets.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 19th, 2003

The problem of the National France was that, after Rafarin's sudden fall from power, Bompard felt quite uneasy. He had helped quite a lot to cause the demise of his predecessor and he was afraid that someome may try the same trick with him. Also, he wasn't keen at all to go on reformig the state, so he kept playing for time. Jean III, on his part, felt uncapable of forcing a decission and decided to find a way to remove Bompard. In that he was in complete agreement with Fraqncis Urquhart, who was absolutely tired of Bompard, as, in Francis Urquhart's opinion, he prime minister was hurting the order and any possible change of keeping the old order at work. However, the King's ideas could be slightly useful for him as they could be used to create some dissent in the Syndicalist France.

Thus, sir Humphrey Appleby the Younger departed to Alger, to spent there a well deserved holidays. King Jean, on his part, was aware that his name was linked to the Prime Minister that de Lioncourt had appointed and that all his efforts to democratize the country where being blocked by Bompard, who was doing his best to keep the country as it was during de Lioncourt's days.

Me? on Holidays? Ha!​

Then came a reshuffle of the cabinet and Jean III suggested some names, politicians that he trusted. Bompard at the beginning, disliked the King's intromission but then began to be worried when he read some of the names proposed.

The first name was Antoine Frémicourt (born in 1932), former ambassador in Germany (1992-94) and Austria (1993-2001), who had shown his monarchist sympathies in those two countries; the second man was Adrien Février (born in 1957), the current ambassador in Ottawa. That the King had selected him was a surprise for Bompard as Février was a man with long recorfd serving the old regime. He had been named, in 1983, Minister of National Education; in 1989 of Labour; and then, in 1992, Minister of Public Works and Transmissions. He held that position until 1999, showing his unconditional loyalty to the government, proving to be a superb controller of the news media, arts, and information in the National France for propaganda purposes. Février became tainted fto the true reformists as he supported some of the most harsh measures of the dictatorship in its final years. However, somehow, he displeased de Lioncourt, as he was forced to resign in 1999 by the dictator, who send him to Ottawa as the new Ambassador. Bompard couldn't see any reason to bring him back, so he disliked the move.

The final name in the list belong to a monarchic politician: Louis Bouthillier, former ambassador in Argentina (1977-80), Germany (1984-88) and Russia (1988-92). He had resigned from his post because he did not agree with the politics carried out by de Lioncourt and went to join the royal family, by then exiled in Canada. Bompard considered him a traitor to the regime. Ironically, the King did not like him either, but he considered Bouthillier a good diplomat.

Nevertheless, Bompard added the names suggested by the King. Never mind, Bompard thought. If he was to retain his share of power, he wouldn't mind sacrificing the whole cabinet. For the moment, the King was to keep his prime minister as that was seen by the military as a sign that the old regime was still in place: the same parliament, the same ministers, all of de Lioncourt's men were working with the king, who knew that the charade could no longer go on.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 24th, 2003

On 24 November, general Bompard was killed along with 25 others in an explosion in Alger. Explosives equivalent to around 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of TNT were detonated as his motorcade drove from the Hotel de la Ville to the General Government.

At once an special investigacione was carried out by the National France Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch, but nothing came of it. Someone pointed out to the Syndicalist French secret service of Coulais and some other to the Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action (in French: Comité Révolutionnaire d'Unité et d'Action), the armed branch of the National Liberation Front (Arabic جبهة التحرير الوطني - Jabhet Al-Tahrir Al-Watan, French: Front de Libération Nationale, hence FLN)

The truth was that the government has lost its prime minister and the King jumped at the ocassion to put a man of his own as his replacement while general elections were called. Thus, Adolphe Crémieux was chosen for the post, causing massive anguish amongst the liberal press at the time. Of Crémieux, what little was known was that he had been, for a brief time, Minister Secretary of the National Movement, a post traditionally assigned to bona fide Lioncourtists. Many political pundits thought Jean III had thrown his lot with the continuance of a seemingly doomed regime.

They were wrong.

Adolphe Crémieux seen here during an official act.​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 24th, 2003

Francis Urquhart was in a dire situation. He was not sure whether he sould feel relieved or furious. Yasser Arafat, the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and leader of the Fatah political party and former paramilitary group, which he founded in 1959, had been"blown to bit by the Ottos, sir", according to the prime minister's personal secretary.

Arafat had been stirring troubles for the Ottoman Empire since the 1960s and had survived every attempt by the Ottomans and his political rivals, including Islamists and several PLO leftists, until the last one. Some commentators believed his survival was largely due to Istambul's fear that he could become a martyr for the Palestinian cause if he were assassinated or even arrested by the Ottoman authorities, but, apparently, someone had got tired of him and his troubles.

Since the failed rebelion of 1982 that throw Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon into disarray, the Ottomans had put a price on his head forcing him to flee to exile at Addis Abebba, Ethiopia. And now, he had been assasinated. The Ottoman Air Force had bombed his headquarters, leaving 73 people dead, among them Arafat and some of his bodyguards and several of his most trusted followers.

And that was the problem, because, of course, Ethiopia was outraged by the violation of its air space and by the attack, The whole issue had provoked a strong outcry, even in the German Empire, Istambul's strongest ally. Though initially labeling the strike a "legitimate response to terror". Berlin had been forced to say that the attack "cannot be condoned" in order to avoid harming the relations between Germany and the Arab States.

The Middle East powder keg was going to explode... Then, Urquhart had an idea.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

October 5th - November 15th, 2003, United States of America.

While the war was going on, the race for the White House was gathering speed. Once the answer to the main question facing the Republican Party (whether or not Bush would step down) was know, the ball was on the Democratic field. Once it hwas knew that Bush was going to be the rival, the Democrats began to reinforce their bids to the Democratic Presidential nomination.

However, the war gave the impression that only Bush possessed the experience and the team needed to defend the country from the Sindies. Of course, tha fact forced both Dean and Clooney to change their tactics.

Clooney was gainning ground very fast. He began by collecting the endorsements from a variety of notable Democratic figures, including the Kansas Governor, Kathleen Sebelius, the former Maine Governor Angus King, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy (and with him all the Kennedy clan), the former Georgia Senator Max Cleland, Bruce Springsteen, Charlie Sheen (whose father had endorsed Howard Dean) and Susan Sarandon, He also gained some unexpected supporters, as John Eisenhower, the son of the former Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who endorsed Clooney after saying that the Republican Party of today "is one with which I am totally unfamiliar". Ron Reagan Jr., son of former President Ronald Reagan, endorsed Clooney, saying that Bush had hijacked his father's legacy for extremist purposes. It should be noted that Ron had a history of opposing his father's policies while his father was in office. Furthermore Michael Reagan, Reagan's son from his first marriage, endorsed Bush.

When Al Gore endorse Howard Dean, an amused Francis Urquhart said to his wife "that's a new way to commit suicide!", althought the CNN reported it "could cement Dean's status as the leading Democratic candidate heading into the kickoff contests now just weeks away in Iowa and New Hampshire."

 

[Sakura_F]

Josiah Bartlet supported Dean? Come on, Jed. That was a dumb idea.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

@Sakura_F Don't ask me why, but he did it in OTL.

November 27h, 2003. Berlin, German Empire

Since the beginning of the war, the German Empire had remained peacefully idle while everything went mad around. In fact, Berlin just was puzzling looking around, and what they saw was not of its liking.

While the the Commune of France and the Union of Britain were arming themselves to the teeth while conquering Portugal and raiding Iceland and the Atlantic, while the Socialist Republic of Italy had send some submarines and a few air units to harass the enemy sea lanes, while Lybia remain silent (keeping an eye on its neighbours), Germany look worried to Russia.

Apparently, while all this was taking place, the Imperial Russian armed forces had began to redeploy themselves towards the Caucasus and Central Asia. Even if Berlin understood that the Tzar felt obliged to recover the lost lands, that they were moving part of its strenght from Europe looked strange to the German Eye.

After all, Germany had became used to look with distrust both to the East and to the West.

Vienna claimed for attention, then. Suddenly Austria feared an incoming Italian invasion. The German Intelligence service informed the kaiser that Rome looked hardly inclined to take any offensive action against the Austria army and the Kaiser Frederich IV was happy to inform his cousin about that. The Austria Emperor Karl II of course, was not so confident about that inforrmation.

To clam his cousin, Frederich went to Vienna to pay a friendly visit to his Austrian family and to try to calm Karl. The meeting turned to be quite different from what the Kaiser had planned, as he returned to Berlin quite worried. The Austrian intelligence service had been reporting to Vienna for the last two months a subtle increase in the presence of enemy cover agents in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. While those countries had taken radical actions against those spies, Vienna was still worried about it, as, whatever those covert agents were doing, in spite of the casualties they were suffering, it was still going on.

Furthermore, the SRI armed forces, after reinforcing the defences of the Piave defensive line, had remained idle, and that was quite strange. If before the war there had been small inciddents when French or Italian planes had violated the Austrian or the German airspace or some small patrols had crossed "by mistake" the border, since the beginning of the war those incidents had stopped.

Elsaß-Lothringen looked as peacefully as ever.

The Piave Line was absolutely calm.

[
The SRI was recruiting woman in its army and, worse of all...
they were smiling!!! What kind of silly wear was that?​

And that began to worry Berlin as much as if one thousand French bombers had been raiding the German cities every night. Thus, both Empires had began to rearm slowly and to quietly mobilize their armed forces (Hungarey had been less than adamant to do his part, but they were doing it, albeit quite slowly and with some grunting comming from Budapest), trying not to stirr the French or the Italian attention.

Then, Sergei N. Sverbejev, the Russian ambassador to Germany, contacted the German Foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

November 29h, 2003.

Comrade Tucker was reading for the hundreth time the same report. Apparently, after the strenge event that replaced the CSA by the "fucking" USA, all the nuclear weapons had become useless as their warheads had suddenly vanished too. Replaced by conventional warheads, the former ICBMs were still a threat. And, apparently, Canada was on the verge to persuade Ireland to let them deploy some of their newest cruise missiles, the Gryphons. The deployment was scheduled for the end of March 2004. The Gryphons could be launched secretly and could ride undetected over British defenses and could devastate the industries and cities of the UoB. If launched from Ireland, they could reach London in just 6-8 minutes. After the news about their imminent deployment, Tucker and the rest of the cabinet began to share a basic thinking: better to preempt the enemy before the deployment than after.

Amidst all this tension, on November 26th a British surveillance satellite, mistakenly signaled the launch of five US ICBMs against London. Only a coldblooded officer prevented a general alarm to the high command when he could prove that it was "just" a malfunction of the systems of the satellite. This little episode weakened the sense of security of the British General Staff and vcaused a greate anxiety on Tucker.

For Tucker something was quite clear: Ireland had to go.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

December 2nd, 2003.

Even if the meeting between Sergei N. Sverbejev, the Russian ambassador to Germany, and the German Foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was surrounded by secrecy, a Syndicalist spy managed to inform about it.

Olga Konstantinovna Chekhova worked for the Imperial Foreign Ministry since 1986 and for the French Deuxième Bureau since 1985. She was spying neither for her political ideas nor for money, but because she had a lust for danger.

During the Sverbejev-Steinmeier meeting, Chekhova, one of the ambassador's two secretaries, was taking notes during the first part of the talks. Thus, he dully collected Steinmeier's proposal for an offensive alliance between the two powers aimed, of course, against France. She noted down Sverbejev' flat refusal and then informed Paris about the whole issue.

When Coulais received the report, he was absolutely terrified. Russia, thankfully, had refused the German offer. However, it looked quite obvious that Berlin was readying herself to take a more agressive stance against France.

Of course, he was not to take any risk and, two days later, on December 2nd, during a meeting with the General Staff, he stated that France was to attack Germany, being February 1st, 2004, the chosen day for the attack. It was up to the generals to have a final plan as soon as possible. Or else.

Marshal Blancan had his plan ready, so he just began to explain it to Coulais. When Blancan stop his explanation, all those present at the meeting were smiling broadly.

However, there was something that Chekhova couldn't inform them...

War!!!​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

December 3rd-5th 2003. (2)

While it was true that Sverbejev hat refused Steinmeier's first proposal, he had been quite interested about the second one. That second meeting was missed by Chekhova.

It all began with a German proposal on the second day of for a framework of economic negotiations between the two countries, which would open the way for close military and diplomatic connections. Soon an economic cooperation agreement was achieved and that opened the way for further negotiations.

As they were working out the last details of their economic deal, Steinmeier suggested, in a casual way, a possible framework for a political alliance. Before Sverbejev could say a word, Steinmeier suggested that Germany would not be opposed to the creation of area of Russian influence on the Balkans.

It goes without saying that Sverbejev was dumbfoundedby the German "proposal" and called to Sant Petersburg asking for instructions.

Officially, the Sverbejev-Steinmeier meeting ended on December 4th, but it last for another day when a secret pact was firmed: the German Empire was to place half of the Balkans the the Russian' sphere of influence: Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Albania and Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire and Persia would become "clients" of the Russian Empire. In exchange, St. Petersburg was to recognize the independence of Finland, the Great Baltic Duchy, Lithuania and Poland while Irak and Saudi Arabia would become the area of influence of Germany, that would keep "protecting" Croatia, Bosnia and Bohemia-Moravia. Furthermore, in the case that either Germany or Russia was attacked by a third European country, they would give each other mutual aid and mutual neutrality in the event of attack by another power from outside Europe.

If the pact was to be respected was to be seen...