Excerpts from A Brief History of the Red Lion
Chapter 15 - The Red Lion take charge
As the Republic fell to the north the Danish Empire stiffened. As the Russian troops advanced the King travelled to Helsinki - many thought symbolically to contribute to the fight for Finland. In reality he planned something more substantial. On the 23rd of May, in a speech broadcast throughout the Danish Empire, he promised that if Denmark survived the war victorious the peoples of Finland the Baltics would be offered their liberty. Whilst he would remain a (largely) ceremonial head of state, in practical terms they would be independent, if they wished it. At a stroke the King ensured the steadfast support of the Finnish and Baltic populations for the remainder of the war, because whilst the Russians were trying to play on their discontent, they were not offering freedom. The King also commended Mannerheim as the saviour of the people of the Empire (many would later note he did not proclaim Mannerheim as the saviour of the Empire).
We now know Mannerheim had been pressing something like this to the King for many months, but that even he was in the dark as to the precise details of the King’s declaration. In the event it was more generous that he hoped. Almost overnight the Finnish and Baltic populations militarised. Those Balts now falling under Russian occupation almost entirely sought to escape to the defended areas to join the fight. The Russians dismissed the Helsinki Declaration as mere trickery, but in this they also misplayed their hand, and Mannerheim used the Russian’s own statements as effective propaganda against them. In the frozen north, the Russians would come to fear their foes.
By the summer equinox of 1939 the once mighty Republic of All Peoples had been reduced to a strip of territory running from Krakow down to the Black Sea, and a pocket towards the old eastern border. Containing many hundreds of thousands of soldiers, airstrips, and (due to the nearness of harvest) plentiful food supplies, in addition to considerable stories of ammunition and equipment. The disorder could not last forever, and by the end of May the defence had started to get organised. It was quickly clear that the trapped army did not really have the necessary offensive capability to break out, and that the mixed Republican and Red Lion forces could not break through.
That left essentially two options, surrender or resistance in the hope it might divert Russian forces. Some wanted to surrender, and the military leadership within the pocket now made a bold move. They agreed that any who wished to could surrender, but in an organised fashion so as not to cause a military disaster that could compromise the defensive perimeters that were now being constructed within the pocket. It went as well as the Polish leadership hoped when the Republican soldiery waving white flags were mercilessly gunned down. In that one act of barbarism instituted by the then Russian commander the pocket gained a grim determination. With surrender removed there remained only death, and a death dearly bought.
The Pocket campaign, as it was known, was fought throughout the late summer, autumn, and into winter. For a time the defenders could gain additional supplies by air, and even maintained a small fighter force until the logistics became eventually impossible. Likewise the wounded and some civilians could be evacuated. As the weather turned though, and Russian pressure increased the pocket inevitably contracted and became more and more isolated. Food though was plentiful, and well rationed. Food, not ammunition, is thought to have kept that resistance going , and it was not until the snows began the thaw that the last bitter holdouts were over-run. The Pocket campaign tied up well over a million Russian soldiers - and at the beginning much more. It cost hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties, and it became the dark twin to the Battle of Krakow. This was fighting without hope, with no hope of salvation or victory, with the only possible outcome known months in advance. And many think it was also the reason the Russian armies did not totally over-run the rest of the Republic of All Peoples.
As for the Republic of All Peoples on the 16th September an important event took place which, in hindsight, either saved or condemned the world, depending on your point of view. By this time the fighting had, if not paused, then greatly slowed down. The Russians were starting to concentrate on the pocket, and the Germans had started to slow their assault on Krakow. The front here cannot be called static, but it was (after a fashion) stable. The Red Lion sent more forces to the region, and Republic conscripts began to make up a force that could maintain something of a front line. However, it was clear that without the Red Lion the Republic would have fallen.
Churchill, now recovering from his collapse after more than a month of frenetic ceaseless energy, called it like it was. The Republic, he claimed, no longer had the capability to fight by itself. Too much territory and industry, and too many soldiers, were lost. The reality of the situation was galling, but it could not be avoided. To survive meant surviving by the efforts of the Red Lion, supplemented by what forces the Republic could yet muster. In this war they had become a junior partner, and the junior partner cannot lead forever. Better, Churchill argued, to make the decision gracefully and win as many concessions as possible.
As it happens the Red Lion (almost naturally) had been thinking of similar lines. Their chief general on the ground was an actual German by the name of Erich von Manstein, who that summer orchestrated a series of daring strokes that blunted the remaining offensive power of the Russian forces against him. He allowed them to advance just far enough to over-extend, and then flung them back. Three times the Russians tried to advance, and three times Manstein sent them back, with the result the front line by mid-September was much as it had been in mid-June.
However, further north the Red Lion general in charge was actually from the Republic, a man of Polish extraction was Konstanty Rokossowski. A talented general in his own right, he had aided the relief of Krakow with a few short, well-timed assaults. When Churchill wrote to the Red Lion leadership from his sickbed, he asked for Rokossowski to be set as the joint Marshall of the Republican and Red Lion forces in theatre. The Red Lion agreed.
The handover of power on the 16th September was the first time the Red Lion took charge of a major theatre over a sovereign nation. Previously their forces had always been subordinate. Now, although very technically in the pay of the civilian Republican government, they were in charge of all military matters in the Republic - which effectively meant they were in charge. Churchill, for his part, loathed by so many of his surviving political colleagues for doing what they could not, managed to appoint himself the Republic’s foreign supremo, responsible for all diplomatic matters as well as the relationship with the Red Lion. It is perhaps not hard to understand why so many conspiracy theories swirl around the patrician Brit. Churchill however, had other plans, as all would discover.