Chapter VIII: The fall of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria
Welcome to my next chapter of this (thrilling) AAR!
Historically, Italians were unable to take over Greece by themselves, so the Germans needed to intervene, if they wanted the Europe Allies-free... Yugoslavian force isn´t huge, but at least it can stall the Italians and Germans for a while...
Look at the Romanians! Joining Axis was their biggest mistake they ever made... They are steamrolled by Soviet forces, which is very close to put them in GiE!
Nice chain reaction here... Japan DWs UK, Nationalist China wants to unite against common threat, which UK accepts... At some point, Bulgaria joins Axis and DWs me and Yugoslavia... Not such a smart move, do you agree?
After some initial fights, Bulgarian forces aren´t fully mobilized yet, so this is a cake-walk for my well-equipped divisions... But this extends to a longer conflict, since it´s December right now...
Yugoslavia is fighting hard fights, while I´m slowly dealing with Bulgarian forces... I need to hold them off for a few months longer, because my homeland isn´t defended very well!
Look at this cute little pocket of Bulgarian troops! I´ve done a good move, at least my casualties’ won´t be so high...
At this point, I´m about to conquer Bulgaria, at least I don´t have to fight both fronts at once... My army excels in equipment, but not in numbers... Also I´ve decided to establish a weak, but at least some defensive front, including Beograd with it, mostly behind rivers or in the mountains...
This is gonna be close! The situation looks grim; at least my troops from Bulgaria are ready to move to Yugoslavian front...
What just happened? Ah, Germans took over Beograd and my troops are starving in the German puppet of Serbia? We must evacuate them out of here ASAP and establish a home-front!
For some reason, Serbia and Croatia DWs me when I retreat my forces from there... Well, at least there aren´t forces of Italians, Romanians and even Hungarians present... This gives me better odds of success...
Another pocket achieved, thanks to Albania and Bulgaria landmass connected! I really wonder if the AI gets “disastrous battle” event, but I guess their NU would be even zero...
I managed to cut the pocket´s size to one province, so they can´t my fronts back now... I´ve caught 4 German and 1 Serbian division in there... This will help me for future fights!
For somewhat reason, Italians are trying hard to take over Tirane and neighboring provinces... Four brigades of GAR are putting a hold of these Italian intentions...
At this point, the Serbians stay with their master, while SU conquers Beograd... I´m still moving forward, but I´m cautious and I´m leaving some units on former Greek-Serbian borders, just in case Soviets get pushed back...
I´m trying to cut off Soviets from reaching Zagreb, but my forces aren´t strong enough, so I need to wait a while and conquer at least the southern provinces, still better than nothing...
Oh look! These pesky Italians are landing near Tirane, to avoid amphibious penalty! Luckily I´ve some mostly MTN divisions around here, so I´ll end this invasion soon enough until they do some real damage to my war effort... Also the Vichy France DWs UK, so much for the foreign politics...
Do you see that loses? I´m starting to think Italians are fighting like they should, according to real history!
Now I´m taking over Split, nowadays a big tourist magnet... I´m not gonna stop here and take a sunbath, I need to move on and drive the Axis forces out of the whole Europe!
I´m coming to the end of this thrilling chapter, I hope you enjoyed this... Now I´m sending a full corps of MTN units to fortify my back against sudden Turkish invasion that could happen, if they join Axis! Also some INF brigades were disbanded in order to build more GAR units to suppress the cities in Bulgaria... One more thing: I have a nice surprise for Baltasar and guys like him!
P.S. The next update will probably come out at the end of this week, so don´t be worried about me forgetting about my AAR!