@LoneStar Prussian
Well, the Russians are almost finished! It's going to be a hell of a task redeploying all of those troops westward, but it's a necessary effort. Is there any danger of a Franco-British offensive into Elass-Lothringen as a counterpart to their Swiss thrust?
The Deserts of Arabia are looking to be quite the catch.
@LoneStar Prussian Ah, now that Russia is collapsing how about we dust of the invasion plans in the West and calculate the likelihood of each of them succeeding. 1. The basic Schlieffen Plan doesn't seem viable with the Fortressess of Leige and Arlon in your way, although you could just bust through the lines with 60-100 divisions (I have done it before so I know it can be done)
2. Extended Schlieffen Plan (the only plan that allows Germany to
get more lebensraum save more nations from allied occupation) I used that plan in the game where the Austrians almost collapsed (was a fun game and Romania joined the Wae too although we know what happened)
I am sad about the loss of your fleet I guess we will have to cancel Christmas in London and focus on a MittelEuropan strategy. (Oh, I say don't intervene in China because events make sure you can't do it) About Russia I say wait until the revolution fires so you have a genuine reason to make them see the error of their ways after the War ends.
Until next time, Au Revoire.
Well, Liege and Arlon will only be a problem if the Entente gets troops in fast enough, but I'm more willing to leave the Dutch alone than drag them into the war. Thanks for the insight though.
Chapter XXV: Victory and Defeat
"Pity the Swiss don't have a King, it would make for a great phrase considering our current situation. 'King Under the Mountain!'. Yes, I think I'll use that line someday..." -J.R.R Tolkein, British Soldier, Fourth Battle of Lugano, July 28th, 1915
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July 16th - July 31st, 1915
The Battlefields of the Weltkrieg stretching from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, from the Alpine Front to the Middle Eastern Front, July 28th, 1915.
Europe. A land that since it's formation has known only one thing, and that is war. This week, it of course did not change, in fact, it only got more bloodier. But before getting into that, grave news came for almost every single nation fighting the Weltkrieg. With the war's anniversary approaching (August 7th, 1914, the day the war began), many soldiers, especially in Russia and Switzerland, mutinied from their respective armies. For Russia, this kind of thing had been going on since the onset of the new year, but this was the first time in the war that men from all sides decided to mutiny. The French and Italian Armies experienced a number of protests from soldiers who'd been transferred out of the Lugano Hell. The Entente didn't take things like this lightly, almost all soldiers participating in the act being executed in secret. Well, scratch that. The Italian Army thought that by executing their own soldiers in public, it'd somehow boost the morale of the men at the front.
In the Central Powers, things were also really bad. On the Western Front, thankfully there no incidents since almost none of the soldiers hadn't seen combat, and on the Eastern Front the war was going to end their shortly anyway. The real defection took place all along the Alpine Front, especially at Lugano. An entire brigade of German Soldiers refused to charge an enemy trench on the 18th of July, 1915, resulting in the failure of an operation to take a French Trench for the entire 34. Infanterie-Division. It really doesn't need to be said what happened to that brigade, however it was much worse for Austria-Hungary and the Swiss Republic. On the 17th, the Austro-Hungarian Army finally captured Belluno, ending the Battle of Two Idiots, and immediately they marched on Venice. The Battle of Venice ensued, however, the Austro-Hungarians simply couldn't reach the city and breakthrough the mountain defense. A large part of this failure was because entire divisions refused to fight, the Austrian Army was out of it. In Switzerland, the same happened during the opening stages of the Fourth Battle of Lugano. Even nations like Oman and the Senussi had to deal with rebellion in the ranks. All parties in the war would not tolerate such acts though, and as quickly as men mutinied, they were put down like dogs.
As if the Russian Empire had enough problems, the Siege of Tallinn finally came to an end on the 21st of July. The Russian Forces defending the city, around 24,000 of them, all surrendered by the time they heard that Petrograd was under attack. The Russian General defending Tallinn gave up, for he now knew that the war truly was over for them. However, that didn't mean the Russians didn't fight tooth and nail for the city. So much so that the German Army had more dead than the Russian Army, and the city itself really wasn't something pretty to look at. Despite this high casualty count, the rest of the Prussian North Army along with the Silesian Middle Army could now put the Typhoon Offensive into overdrive. All across the front a general advance was ordered, nothing would stop the German Military, nothing. Every hour of the 22nd, a new destination was reached and another Russian Village/City was captured. Novgorad, Gatchina, Rzhev...all now bear the the Black, White, and Red German Tricolor.
German Sailors of the Baltic German Fleet parading through Tallinn, July 23rd, 1915.
Far down south on the Middle-Eastern Front, the Ottoman Empire had finished it's preparations for the battle that would either end the British Empire or save it. On the same day German Soldiers paraded in the city streets of Tallinn, brave soldiers of the Sultan entered into battle with the British Arachnid. The Ottomans started the Battle of Suez, the most costly battle for the Ottomans of the entire war. Twenty-Eight Ottoman Divisions (in which included German, Bulgarian, and Austrian Soldiers) attacked British Positions on the Left Bank of the Canal. The British Army in the two months since their disasters in the Sinai Peninsula had too been building up for this decisive battle, as this was the battle that would decide this theater of the war. The Anglo-French Forces had dug themselves in well, learning from their mistakes at Al Qantarah and Bur Tawfiq. The Ottomans had no more tricks to pull up their sleeves, and the Austro-Hungarian Fleet could only do so much without invoking on the wrath of the Royal Navy. Thus, the Battle of Suez would be the toughest battle the Ottomans would fight.
The first thing the Turkish Army had to do was capture the vital bridges and railways forming the Suez Canal as this was the only they would get across into British Egypt. However, this was where the Ottomans ran into their first bloodbath. The British fortified the left side of the canal long ago when they first acquired it, but nobody really knew how well the King's Army had done so. Suez was practically a fortress, and from their bunkers on the left bank, the British rained death upon the attacking Turks. It got so bad that the Austro-Hungarian Navy had to do something, sparring only a few dreadnoughts to bombard the British Defenders. This virtual hell lasted for a week before ending, becoming the shortest Major Battle of the Year of Battles. 10,000 Anglo-French Soldiers died protecting the most vital canal in the world, and 36,000 Ottoman Soldiers died in vain trying to capture it. The Battle of Suez was over, and with it, any and all chances of opening a wider front in Egypt ended. The British Empire lived on, and if that wasn't enough, the Senussi in Libya surrendered to the might of the British, allowing Britain to deal with the Ottomans without any setbacks or distractions. Dark days lay ahead for the Ottoman Empire.
Harking back to the European Continent, more specifically, the Alpine Slaughterhouse, the Fourth Battle of Lugano still raged on. It was amazing to see the tenacity of the German Soldier to go on and never give up, even when attacking much better entrenched Entente Positions. The British, French, and Italians were giving it their all, and their all thankfully wasn't enough. On the 29th of July, 1915, German and Swiss Troops broke through all British Trenches at Lugano, almost wiping out the entire British Expeditionary Force. The British suffered around 11,000 casualties, 2,000 of those being taken prisoner. The British POWs were taken to the Rhineland and were put into camps, doing labor to help the Central Powers' Cause, very ironic. Anyway, with breakthrough in the British Sectors, the Italian Commanders panicked and retreated in fear of encirclement. The Austro-Hungarians then filled in the gaps, and soon, only the French were left defending Lugano. The rest of the Alpenkorps finished off the job, striking fear into the Entente's heart. After the battle ended, the French Government filled out a public outcry of the ferocity of the German Alpine Soldier. The Alpenkorps could shoot rifles from across two trench lines and still hit their target, most of the time. The French went so far and called for Germany to disband the elite troops, calling them a living war crime. This was only met with laughter in the German Reichstag and Generalstab, how pathetic of them.
To avoid the Entente from simply counterattacking the forces of the Central Powers just as the got into Lugano, three simultaneous attacks were launched all over the Alpine Front. The first being at Bergamo, the next at Turin, and the last being Genf (Geneva). The attack on Genf wasn't go too well, so it was eventually called off, the same went for Turin after the Alpenkorps finally entered Lugano. The same could not be said for Bergamo though, since the attack at first was going well, the Austro-Hungarian Army pushed in, not knowing what that the Italian Army was using Defense-in-Depth tactics. The Entente was simply luring the Austrians in, only to slaughter them later. The Battle of Bergamo soon ended right after, with Austria taking in 26,000 Dead compared to 7,000 Italian Deaths. The Alpine Front was bloody as usual, that much was clearer than the most transparent crystal.
Lastly, the Russian Army was finally destroyed, thus completing one phase of the Typhoon Offensive. At the same time, a very important city was taken, more important than Tallinn, which ended up completing Operation Faust. First off, the Typhoon Offensive was going great, it was a superb success. Moscow as only a few kilometers away, and the Russian Army that was sent to save it was absolutely annihilated by just eight German Divisions and five Austro-German Calvary Regiments. The Battle of Belgorod, or really Tannenberg Reincarnated, saw the destruction of the last Russian Army. Eighteen Divisions of 100,000 Fighting men wiped out in a single battle by an inferior number of troops. Shows how bad the Russian Army was, and how the Russian Empire was approaching the end of it's lifespan. The Russians were caught off so badly that some divisions just broke on the spot, either way, that entire Russian Army surrendered at Kursk, thus in turn sparing Moscow from a huge fight.
Finishing out July was the ending of the Battle of St. Petersburg, and for the first time since 1871, a European Nation's Capital was Occupied by a foreign army, again by the German Army. The battle was hard fought, many civilians were killed in the fighting, and the Winter Palace was nearly destroyed. Despite this, the German Nation had pulled through, no one could stop the German Eagle from soaring over Eastern Europe. The Prussian North Army paraded throughout the city non-stop, Kaiser Wilhelm II even entered the city in order to further salt the wound. The Tsar and his family were evacuated to Arkhangelsk, Russia, a port city nestled on the far reaches of Russia's Icy North. With Petrograd planted firmly in German Hands, the city was renamed once again to St. Petersburg by the Kaiser himself. He also ordered the construction of a statue to German Soldiers who fought for the city, making sure that instead of them wearing the Pickelhaube, they would be wearing the soon to be iconic Stahlhelm. Germany had truly won the Eastern War, and the Eastern Entente was finished. Now, the German Eagle turns west, west to destroy the Western Entente. This war is Germany's, the Kaiser has seen it himself.
Germany Over All!
Over All in the Entire World!
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End of Chapter XXV: Victory and Defeat
I'm gonna make this brief since I already typed this once and something happened to where the forum didn't save my last draft and I had to write most of this update over again, and I'm kinda annoyed. Russia is done, they will surrender in September, Stahlhelm will come in August (I know I said July but that's still too early in my opinion) this AAR is probably going back to weekly release (really when I just feel like writing it) and that's about it. Goodbye and have a better day than mine.
