The German Century (Kaiserreich AAR)

[Bullfilter]

The odd comment as I go through the back catalogue:

On the day the ballot boxes opened, millions of eligible men lined up to vote. As they did so, many tens of thousands of women took to the streets with never-before-seen levels of organization to demand suffrage. Their aim was not to acquire the right there and then, but to ensure that their menfolk took the notion to the ballot boxes with them.

Suffragettes outside of a polling station, 1937​

And never-before-seen levels of millinery extremism!

 

[Basileus2]

XVI: Black Eagle, Red Sun​

The Reichspakt suffered catastrophic setbacks in the eight months following the relatively static and far-flung fighting of June – October, 1938. However, the German government’s positioning of the war as an ultimate fight for survival of the German people, the steely discipline of its enlisted men, and the skill of the commanders of its armed forces prevented these failures from developing into a ultimate strategic defeat. This ongoing and ferocious resistance, especially from wider population, baffled the syndicalist leaders who maintained the line that they were ‘liberating’ the German people from tyranny. There was some support for the syndicalists in the Rhineland from radical pro-socialist proletariat, though even this began to falter as the crimes committed by the invaders or their puppet communes grew. Increasingly, the conquerors and the ‘Red Germans’ began resorting to progressively harsh methods of pacification in the light of the growing partisan movement in the countryside.

After the success of Actions IX and XIII, the syndicalist war effort began to funnel itself into an all-encompassing effort to take Berlin. The CMC’s logical belief was that by taking Germany’s political and symbolic center the final pillar of its resistance would be undercut. However, its fixation on the city to the detriment of all other avenues to victory began to develop into a tunnel vision that impeded its ability to destroy the German forces in the field.

While rightly criticized for the early defeats, the German military establishment, with its institutional knowhow, was able to generate just enough force at the right time and place it in the right locations while entrusting it to the most qualified hands to escape near-certain doom. After a period of initial shock absorption, it began to shake off the ‘victory malaise’ that had hindered its initial offensive efforts and alleviate the strategic shortsightedness that had plagued the pre-war planners of the General Staff. The ruinous start to the war had forced a period of self-reflection upon the General Staff, though even in the worst of days they did not fall into defeatism or fatalism. Further, the loss of so many officers in the first period of the war led to a growing meritocracy that allowed for men of all birth and classes to begin to break into the higher ranks (a process that would come to fruition by the end of the war). This new generation of German commanders helped lead its armed forces in a skillful retreat to advantageous ground to arrange what they hoped would be a decisive counterattack. Lastly, the Reichsheer was able to deal a crushing blow to the most dangerous of Russia’s three attack vectors, delaying the eastern bear’s rampage. This victory restored much of the confidence lost in the Heer by its own men and the population at large and helped stiffen German resolve at a critical hour.

Germany’s dire situation in June 1939​

The greatest difficulty for the Reich however would be tackling the massive loss of industrial capacity. Much of the Reich’s air force, panzer and motorized forces had been eroded in the campaigns till now. While great efforts were being made to build industry in the east and Poland’s factories were able to be repurposed for German efforts, this could not match what had been lost – some 62% of its industrial base. These constraints forced Germany to adapt its economic and financial model. The State Secretary of Economic Affairs, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, employed the skilled industrialist Fritz Thyssen as Minister for Armaments and War Production. The new office would evolve massive powers over the rump German economy as von Lettow-Vorbeck gave way to the need for the centralization of economic planning for all supply chains used in the development of military equipment and supplies, from initial inputs of raw materials to finished goods. Soon, everything, including food production and distribution to the aerially devastated cities of unoccupied Germany, fell under Thyssen’s ballooning ministerial department.

Even so, what was produced was not enough. Germany would need to rely on lend-lease equipment from many of its allies, most notably Austria and Hungary, resulting in a hodgepodge requirement for spare parts and exponentially complex repair methods. To attempt to simplify this situation, for its own equipment at least, Thyssen streamlined the many German weapons development programs and assembly lines – only a few, reliable models of equipment would be produced throughout the remainder of the war rather than the numerous different versions of aircraft, tanks and trucks that Germany’s many design companies and bureaus wished to pursue. The Panzer III (and later IV) would be the core of its armored forces. The same was true of the Bf 108 and 109 (later the Fokker 190) in fighter aircraft and Ju-88s (later Ju-123 A and B variants) for close air support aircraft. While still produced, the creation of mobile anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank weaponry, trucks and armored troop transports were subordinated to the need for aircraft, artillery, and armor. Thyssen’s strategy served the Fatherland well at this moment of dearth. While later in the war more technologically advanced Internationale weapons appeared, the proliferation of multitudinous service lines and equipment models hindered syndicalist production and helped squander much of their moment of industrial superiority over the Reichspakt.

While the French and British had lost as much of their own equipment in the drive to the Elbe, their ability to replace this was now bolstered by their occupation of Germany’s heartlands. As 1939 neared its halfway point, the General Staff began laying the groundwork for the counterattack that retake their lost lands. Before that could occur however, the dangerous syndicalist salient in Bohemia and the forward syndicalist positions on the Elbe threatening Berlin had to be dealt with.

As the fighting in Bohemia intensified, a further complication arose in the form of the far eastern power of Japan.

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The Eastern Seas War:

On the 7th of April 1939, the Empire of Japan declared war on Germany, citing its ‘divine destiny to liberate Asia from the barbarians from beyond the sea’. As French tanks rolled down the Golden Lane in Prague, Japanese forces began attacking Reichspakt positions across four sectors: Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, the East Indies and the Far Pacific. The war had well and truly become the Second Weltkrieg.

The Japanese empire had long coveted the European possessions in Asia for their value in imperial glory and more importantly, for their mineral and oil wealth. The Japanese, largely confined to their islands and Korea, had attempted to expand their sphere of influence in the Weltkrieg though the defeat of their allies had invalidated the few victories they had achieved in that war. Since then, they had reestablished their world power status by positioning themselves at the head of the ‘Pan-Asian’ movement, making strategic interventions in the Asia-Pacific region to prevent further encroachment of western power, namely Germany.

This direction of Japanese foreign policy continued even after the defeat of the ‘Youngbloods’ coup led to the surprise electoral victory of the social democratic party, the Shakai Taishuto. The new prime minister, Abe Isoo, despite being more pacifistic than his predecessors, was carried along by the undertow of the still heavily conservative military (even post the purge of the ‘Youngbloods’ officer clique) and the Zaibatsu military-industrial conglomerates. To have any inkling of passing his reform packages through the Imperial Diet, Isoo reneged on his peaceful intentions and compromised with the conservative parties to maintain an aggressive stance on the international stage.

Through the usurpation and puppeting of the Transamur government and the redoubling of the alliance with the Fengtian warlord, Zhang Zuolin, the Japanese guaranteed themselves a strong stake in the house of cards that was Chinese politics. Further alliance-building brought the Kingdom of Siam and after the American civil war began, the Philippines, into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Still threatened by German power, the Japanese bankrolled and supplied the Indochinese rebels and engaged in a full-on proxy war with the German Empire in the Pacific States theater of the Second American Civil War. Though the latter had failed (with nine thousand Japanese casualties and POWs), the former had succeeded in helping prop up the syndicalist insurrection even into 1939.

Now, with the distraction of Germany in Europe and the German East Asian military in the Indochinese rebellion, the Emperor’s military council and the prime minister, decided that there would be no better opportunity to secure Japanese hegemony in the eastern hemisphere. Early in the morning on the 7th of April, Japanese and Siamese troops stationed in Siam rolled into Indochina and smashed through the German border checkpoints.

Upon hearing news of the new front to the war, Reichskanzeler von Lettow-Vorbeck made the announcement to the East Asian forces: “The little vultures of Nippon think that we are a carcass. Show them that while we bleed, the German eagle remains the apex predator of the skies above the Pacific.”

Indochinese frontlines as of April 7th, 1939​

With most of the GEA’s infantry forces in tied up in the Mekong Delta, the Japanese incursion into Indochina was rapid and ruthless. Confusion reigned in the territory over the three months of the invasion, resulting in the pro-German forces being largely pocketed between the Co-Prosperity Sphere and the resurgent Indochinese rebels.

Indochinese frontlines as of August 8th, 1939​

Similarly, several poorly defended and isolated Pacific archipelagos succumbed to Japanese naval invasion (including the infamously bloody stand on Palau against the Philippine 1st Army), but that was where the lightning war ended for the Japanese.

Victorious forces of the Japanese 'Indochina Area Army'​

The German Empire had bolstered the colony’s defenses of all-important Singapore with seven divisions, including one crack division which had helped secure Sudwest Afrika after the breakup of Mittelafrika. Singapore’s defenders included 61,000 colonial soldiers of the German East Asian Colonial Office and an additional (albeit undersized) seven divisions of around 42,000 men of the Reichsheer’s ‘East Asian Expeditionary Corps’ (Ostasiatische Expeditionskorps - aka the OEK). These former forces were commanded by General Friedrich von Kesseinger and the latter by General Gotthard Heinrici. As war broke out, Alexander von Falkenhausen, the Staathalter of the German East Asian colonial administration, insisted that Heinrici’s forces should be folded into his own jurisdiction and command hierarchy but was rebuffed by Berlin, who wished to keep their own finger on the pulse of Singapore’s defense.

Malay Peninsula frontlines as of April 20th 1939​

The initial Japanese push was as unexpected as it was fast. Ipoh and the other border villages were quickly overwhelmed as pro-German forces rushed from their garrisons to the frontline. The two distinct command structures of the East Asian Corps and the GEA’s colonial office muddled the German response. However, Heinrici and Kessinger were able to break their administrative impasse to agree on a counterattack to throw the Japanese out of the colony before they could mobilize superior forces. The attack went through in late April and early May, achieving some success in stemming the Japanese tide.

The reversal was again reversed when on 4th May, Heinrici was killed by during a Japanese banzai charge that nearly overran the reeling army headquarters unit. Heinrici’s adjunct, Colonel Wessel von Loringhoven, took command of the defense, even partaking in hand-to-hand combat himself. Loringhoven had recently been a part of the Baltic Duchy’s military and had made a strong impression on the now Chief of General Staff, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. Hammerstein-Equord, absorbed in his own troubles, would rely more and more on his relationship to manage the affairs of the Reichsheer expeditionary force in Malaya and promoted Loringhoven to general of the XXXVI Infanterie-Division.

General von Loringhoven, ‘the Young Tiger’​

Loringhoven would prove himself one of the most capable commanders in the East Asian theater, later assuming command of the entire defense of Singapore. The Japanese, who admired the general, would bestow upon him the epithet of the ‘The Young Tiger’ (Loringhoven was only 40 at the time of his promotion). He would soon meteorically rise through the ranks to command the Reichspakt’s war efforts in Malaya.

Despite the solidification of a frontline on the Malayan-Siamese border, a Japanese landing at Penang Island threatened to cut off the defenders from Singapore itself but was defeated by two divisions of colonial troops with hundreds of casualties to the invaders. Despite the setbacks, the Japanese military leadership was set on the capture of Germany’s jewel in the Pacific and would redouble their efforts in the months to come.

Malay Peninsula frontlines as of 28th September 1939

Germans of the Ostasiatische Expeditionskorps manning a machine gun​

The heaviest and most varied fighting occurred in the East Indies, where large, mobilized pro-Dutch forces had been combating the Insulandian rebels for years now. As war broke out, the secretly planned invasion of Sarawak and East Borneo erupted with eight Philippine divisions and fifteen Japanese divisions rushing forward. The Co-Prosperity Sphere forces overran the defenders in the lowlands and valleys but were faced stubborn resistance in the jungles.

East Indies – Sarawak frontlines as of 9th August, 1939​

Where Loringhoven proved a darling of the public for his exploits in Malaya, the similarly talented Erwin Rommel would rise to prominence in the vicious fighting across the East Indies. Like Loringhoven, Rommel instilled his poorly trained colonial troops with an iron esprit de corps and tactical brilliance that recalled the exploits of the Lion of Africa in the First Weltkrieg.

Alongside Loringhoven in plaudits was Erwin Rommel. Despite the poor quality of his colonial troops, Rommel instilled them with an esprit de corps which alongside Loringhoven’s regulars would lead them onto many victories in an ultimately doomed campaign. Many of Loringhoven and Rommel’s tactics are still studied today at war colleges across the world. Whereas more traditional frontline tactics were employed in the Malayan front, in the East Indies the Rommel’s forces and those of the Dutch colonial administration adopted the same guerrilla tactics that the Indochinese and Insulandians had used on them so recently. These methods came to define the war in the East Asian theater, which was replete with night attacks, vicious tactics such as excrement-covered booby traps, the excessive use of carcinogenic herbicides and defoliants, and even suicide bombings.

General Erwin Rommel, the ‘Jungle Rat’ (colorized)

Men of the Ostasien land forces were largely extracted from settler populations of Germans, Dutch, British and French extraction - the size and prevelance of native units was reduced after the scale Indochinese uprising​

Often, the fighting in East Asia is remembered as a bitter struggle to the death. Nowhere was this truer than in the East Indies. Few prisoners were taken on either side. Both opposing factions rabidly demonized their opponents, painting them as subhuman animals. Field hospitals often became mortuaries if overrun by the enemy, who would mercilessly bayonet the wounded. As terrible as this form of warfare was though, disease and dehydration proved an even greater killer than bullets and bombs, with entire regiments being wiped out by dysentery, cholera and tropical diseases. For their hatred of Rommel and his elusive contingents, and because they saw his tactics as dishonorable and underhanded, the Japanese named him the ‘Jungle Rat’.

On the seas, the admiralties of both navies attempting to conduct their fighting with cerebral chess-like plotting. The massive scope of the theater, which encompassed the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Thailand, the Andaman, Sulu, Celebes and Philippine Seas, prevented a quick, head on clash of navies. Instead, casualties occurred from aerial or submarine attacks, and most of these being on the merchant marine of both sides. German wolf packs were especially efficient and deadly, managing to sink tens of thousands of tons of Japanese cargo over the course of the war.

The first major clash between the Japanese and GEA fleets occurred in the South China Sea on the 22nd July. After receiving reliable word that the Japanese ‘China Area Fleet’ had departed south to support the final destruction of the GEA’s Indochinese forces, Admiral Hellmuth von Mücke launched nearly the entire combined surface strength of the Ostasiatische Station to intercept them. Mücke’s aim was to decimate the Japanese navy and achieve superiority over the South China Sea to enable the resupply and rescue of the GEA’s Indochina front.

Battle was joined in the late evening after German spotter aircraft identified the Japanese fleet’s wake. The Japanese, under Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo, spotted oncoming formations of German fighters, launched their own air wings, and joined battle around 19:00. The confused aerial battle between the complements of seven aircraft carriers heralded the initiation of a new form of naval power. The fighting proved inconclusive, even after a squadron of German dive bombers broke free of the melee and landed hits on three destroyers and the battleship Nagato, sending each of them to the sea bottom. Nightfall and the need to refuel saw the German air forces pull away. The Japanese steamed forward toward the naval yards at Hue despite their loss. The fighting did not end entirely however, for the Japanese screens encountered German outriders resulting in night battles that were lit by star shells and muzzle flashes. During the night, two more Japanese destroyers were sunk but this time the Germans ended up worse with four of their own ships sunk, including the heavy cruiser Barbarossa.

During the battle, it had been identified that there were four Japanese aircraft carriers rather than the expected two. Mücke, fearing the enemy’s superiority in numbers, decided to disengage and return to Singapore. The twin battles of the Paracel Islands ended with a victory for each side which only advanced the status quo of slight German inferiority in the Pacific. It would not be the last time the main German and Japanese battle fleets met in the Orient.

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The Reichspakt in 1939

The Reichpakt had first been intended as Germany’s eastern buffer and great resource hub. It had then enrolled the services of Sweden, Ireland and the Two Sicilies to contain the Internationale’s tentacles. After each of those nations had succumbed to the syndicalist menace, Austria-Hungary and its huge pool of manpower and resources had joined the conflict too. As the Germans shifted all but Army Group Guderian to the west, the Austrians and their vassal states manned the eastern front alongside the oststaaten nations of Lithuania, White Ruthenia and Ukraine.

While Austria-Hungary had developed a reputation for poor military capabilities across centuries of warfare, this time proved itself more proficient. The political, economic, and military reforms that Emperor Karl I had masterminded had borne fruit in a markedly more efficient Austria-Hungary. Over the course of much of the coming years, the empire bore the brunt of the eastern fighting and scored some important victories. However, against the power of the Russian bear, even the combined might of the oststaatens and Austria-Hungary slowly gave way.

In Ukraine, the disastrous beginning of the war had been accompanied by the death of their Austrian-born king, Vasyl I von Hapsburg-Lothringen. In his place was Leo Stefan I von Hapsburg-Lothringen. While the child king was helpless to act in the context he found himself in, the fact that he spoke Ukrainian and had been taught the customers of what had become his adopted people helped stiffen some of the fighters in the desperate defense of Kyiv during the first siege of that city earlier in 1938-39. The charming child king soon became a mascot of sorts for his men on the frontlines and was often trotted out to units recuperating behind the lines to bolster their morale.

Elsewhere, the Bulgarians had joined the fighting earlier in 1939, sensing the war as an opportunity to recuperate something of the great empire they had built off the back of the First Weltkrieg. The Kingdom of Romania, so recently Bulgaria’s ally however, had begun to fear the rapid economic recovery of their southern neighbor. Soon, that country’s leadership began scheming to manufacture a cassus belli to cut their neighbor back down to size. The key contributing factor to this decision was the collapse of the southern Ukrainian front in summer, 1939 and the fact that the Romanian government judged the German Reich as not long for the world.

Of the same mind and even quicker to act than the Romanians was the long-time ally of the Russian State, Serbia. Serbia declared war on Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary just as the bottleneck on the Crimea was broken and Russian troops flooded across the Dniper in southern Ukraine. Unlike the Romanians, Serbia had timed their declaration of war in careful lockstep with Russian plans. As the war had entered its second phase, Boris Savinkov had been casting about for allies and at last secured one by promising the government of Serbia the hegemony of the Balkans that the Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians had enjoyed in recent years. If Serbia would join, it could dictate its own terms in the Balkans and at last establish the dream of Yugoslavia.

Despite Russia’s advances in southern Ukraine, Serbia would still find itself deep behind enemy lines. Only by undertaking its war carefully could it prevent itself from being quickly overrun by Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, which surrounded it on all sides.

Yet further afield, other nations observing the conflict closely noticed that while Germany had suffered some field defeats, its army was largely intact and still fighting back ferociously. Prussia had suffered worse defeats in the Seven Years and Napoleonic Wars and survived to make its comeback as a Great Power in the 19th Century. Unpersuaded of Germany’s decline, Haiti, denuded of American hegemony due to its civil war, petitioned the Reichspakt for membership. The gesture of friendship was quickly accepted, despite little support being expected from weak Haiti. The country duly joined the Reichspakt on 26th February, becoming the second Caribbean nation to join the alliance after Cuba, who had been admitted in 1937.

​

Next Chapter: Death Grip

* Author’s note: Apologies all, I’d written out most of what was happening in the two European theaters before realizing that that material plus that I’ve already got in this chapter was probably too much to post at once (would've been in excess of 6,000 words). I’ll have the other half of what was this chapter finished shortly and published as its own segment.

 

[Basileus2]

The odd comment as I go through the back catalogue:

And never-before-seen levels of millinery extremism!

Millinery...I learned a new word today haha.

 

[J_Master]

the despised king Vasyl I von Hapsburg-Lothringen

Doubtfull really. He was a active Ukrainian nationalist which didn't stick well with his Polish inclined father and brother, especially considering this was over the ethnically mixed Crown of Galicia-Lodomeria. The populations attitude towards him would range from hatred (the odd bolshevik/syndicalist) to neutral (the vast mass of the population) to really popular (Ukrainian nationalists)

 

[grievousrommel]

Well almost all of the players are in now. All that's left are the exiles to try their luck.

 

[Basileus2]

Doubtfull really. He was a active Ukrainian nationalist which didn't stick well with his Polish inclined father and brother, especially considering this was over the ethnically mixed Crown of Galicia-Lodomeria. The populations attitude towards him would range from hatred (the odd bolshevik/syndicalist) to neutral (the vast mass of the population) to really popular (Ukrainian nationalists)

Interesting, thanks for letting me know. I had no idea about that. I was just following the flavour text in Vasyl's profile. I might go back and made some slight amendments to incorporate this.

 

[J_Master]

Interesting, thanks for letting me know. I had no idea about that. I was just following the flavour text in Vasyl's profile. I might go back and made some slight amendments to incorporate this.

I've had discussions about KR before on discord about all manner of different things, but even DHKR had this part about Vasyl wrong, cause if you want to do anything as Ukraine you have to get rid of him. Just read his wikipedia article, he was very well connected with Ukrainian nationalist organisations in the Interbellum and was put to death by the Soviets for his pro-Ukrainian activity. There is a fair point in questioning how well developed established the Ukranian identity would be without the Soviet Indigenization reforms, with a lot of the old Russian aristocracy sitting around in the economy and administration and whatnot, but Vasyl would not be without his supporters. Modern (HoI4) KR and a lot of cold war KR stuff falls into the trap of always having the German monarchs of its sphere of influence be unpopular when there's plenty of opportunity for them to endear themselves to the local population and it's in Germany's interest for these countries to develop into reliable partners against Russia (as your AAR has shown, great job btw)

 

[HistoryDude]

I've always liked the idea of Kaiserreich, although I don't know how to play HoI4.

This is interesting. Germany is in an unenviable position, but they could recover their mighty empire. Is Lettow-Vorbeck based on Roosevelt and Churchill? I was getting those vibes.

The Second American Civil War seems to be between the American Union State and MacArthur's United States...

I'm liking the narrative interludes!

The Second Weltkrieg didn't begin well for Germany. They face a war on at least two fronts, and rebellions throughout their territory. Seriously, that peace offer and its aftermath were brutal. Let's hope that things turn around soon enough... At least the situation in Asia appears alright.

 

[Historywhiz]

This is interesting. Germany is in an unenviable position, but they could recover their mighty empire. Is Lettow-Vorbeck based on Roosevelt and Churchill? I was getting those vibes.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was a real person: the former general in charge of German East Africa who tied down a much larger force of British and Belgian troops and influential figure in the Weimar Republic. According to legend, Hitler personally met with him to try and offer him the ambassadorship to the UK, and Lettow-Vorbeck turned him down with such hostility that “go f— yourself” was apparently more polite than what he actually said.

 

[HistoryDude]

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was a real person: the former general in charge of German East Africa who tied down a much larger force of British and Belgian troops and influential figure in the Weimar Republic. According to legend, Hitler personally met with him to try and offer him the ambassadorship to the UK, and Lettow-Vorbeck turned him down with such hostility that “go f— yourself” was apparently more polite than what he actually said.

I know. I meant his role as chancellor. That trivia about the ambassadorship offer is pretty interesting, though - thanks for the info!

 

[Basileus2]

I've always liked the idea of Kaiserreich, although I don't know how to play HoI4.

This is interesting. Germany is in an unenviable position, but they could recover their mighty empire. Is Lettow-Vorbeck based on Roosevelt and Churchill? I was getting those vibes.

The Second American Civil War seems to be between the American Union State and MacArthur's United States...

I'm liking the narrative interludes!

The Second Weltkrieg didn't begin well for Germany. They face a war on at least two fronts, and rebellions throughout their territory. Seriously, that peace offer and its aftermath were brutal. Let's hope that things turn around soon enough... At least the situation in Asia appears alright.

Glad you're enjoying the story thus far. I've been trying to do the interludes every 3rd or 4th chapter to lend some grounding to the world as it evolves.

I'm working to keep to Lettow-Vorbeck's real life character as much as possible but there's definitely some allusions to some of the IRL Allied leaders in there, e.g. Churchill with that 'liberate the old world' speech.

As for the Second American Civil War, I'll do a chapter at some point recapping the latest events around the world. I

 

[Basileus2]

Well almost all of the players are in now. All that's left are the exiles to try their luck.

Soon... TM

 

[Basileus2]

XVII: Death Grip​

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ​

As momentary calm descended on the Elbe, Bohemian and Bavarian sectors, OKH continued apace with its reorganization of the army. By June, most German forces, about 110 divisions, were allocated to the west with the White Ruthenian and Ukrainian regions being entrusted to other Reichspakt members. The loss of much of its population placed great strains on further force generation, resulting in a widening of the conscription brackets to include men in their mid-40s and boys as young as 17.

​

The need to expedite the creation of formations able to cover gaps along the front also meant the downsizing of the standard size of German divisions. Where the standard rifle division had around 11,000 men before the war, OKH restructured the template around which regular infantry divisions were formed, leaving a new typical size of these units at around 8,900 strong (though often newly formed divisions were formed and sent into battle with less than this).

Disposition of German armies as of June 1st – Army Group Witzleben along the Kiel Canal was the smallest. South of these forces, covering half of the Elbe front, was Army Group Model. In charge of center of the line and guarding the approaches to Berlin was Army Group Falkenhorst. Army Group Manstein held the lines south of Berlin and north of the great Bohemian bulge, with their defenses pivoting around the city of Dresden. Capping the bulge was Army Group Kesselring, who’s left flank was met by Army Group Ritter (Franz von Bayern). Lastly, King Rupprecht of Bavaria had taken up command of the smallest force on the extreme south in the Alps *
​

By June, German losses stood in stark contrast to those of the Internationale. Though a large proportion of these casualties were from the partial collapse of the center of the German lines in ‘The Black Month of the German Army’, the offensive actions in 1938 and the subsequent retreat under fire in March – May resulted in equally bloody tolls. However, the strong defensive footing the armed forces now found themselves in offered them the opportunity to equal the odds.

Germany Is Not Yet Lost: June – December, 1939

Around this time, the consensus on the overall strategy of the Comité Militaire Mixte began to fracture. The leaders who had shown admirable unity in decision making since the decision to pursue Action XIII, namely Commune Marshal Delestraint and the British Field Marshal Ronald Forbes Adam, began to differ in their opinions of how to reach Berlin. Delestraint wished to use the Bohemian salient to swing north and avoid the German defences on the Elbe while Field Marshal Adam had concluded that with the Germans digging in along defensible locations all along the front, only attrition could defeat them if attacked overland. In consultation with Admiral Herbert Richmond of the Republican Navy and Hugh Dowding of the Republican Airforce, Adam pushed for a joint amphibious and parachutist assault somewhere along the northern coast of Germany, or perhaps in the Balkans to cut off the vital Austro-Hungarian industries that were acting as Germany’s lifeline. Richmond assured the CMC that the High Seas Fleet was being attrited of its screening craft faster than they could be produced, especially with the occupation of the shipyards at Wilhelmshaven, Bremen and the incapacitation of those at Kiel. Delestraint, growing overconfident in his successes thus far, politically outmanoeuvred Adam, stating that the continued land offensive allowed them to retain options for both lunging toward Berlin or Vienna. Further, he convinced Marshal Edmondo Rossoni of the Socialist Republic of Italy and the Norwegian high command that such an undertaking could only be possible through the combination and subordination of all the Internationale’s fleets under what was most likely to be British control. When the time came, the CMC voted in favour of Delestraint’s strategy, though Adam too would have his day before the war was over.

Though orders from Berlin to maintain defensive postures along the line had strongly emphasised, Erich Manstein and a group of similarly ambitious generals foresaw an opportunity for a limited strike at the enemy. The French had overextended in their drive through Bohemia. Their flanks were insecure and the body of their forces, estimated to be some 125,000 – 175,000 strong, were vulnerable to encirclement. Manstein was at first rebuffed by Oberkommando Heer. On May 19th, he travelled by train to the General Staff Headquarters in Königsplatz, Berlin to convince the General Staff himself. Though cautious give the precarious state of the Heer, he was given the green light.

On 29th May, ‘Operation Konstriktor’ began. The ultimate intent was to snip off the head of the Bohemian bulge to help even the troop counts across the line and hopefully set the stage for a general offensive across the Elbe. Striking at known weak spots in the line, 10 German divisions, supplemented by 6 further Reichspakt allied divisions broke through and briefly cut off the advanced Internationale formations just as they reached the outskirts of Brno.

Opening stages of Operation Konstriktor, 29th May, three days after the offensive’s beginning
​

The attack stunned the CMC. Such aggression had not been expected from an enemy the CMC considered all but defeated. Delestraint had placed his most aggressive generals up front in Bohemia with the intent of punching north out of the mountains and onto the other side of the Elbe to cut off the defenders of Dresden from the rest of the German rump. Instead, 18 divisions worth of his mobile forces and most experienced infantry had been encircled. The CMC ordered an immediate offensive to reconnect the land bridge to this pocket just as General Kesselring’s armies began their attacks on its eastern extremities.

​

German forces in the thin corridor between Internationale troops could not sustain their positions under the heavy attack, especially in the air where Franco-British airpower ruled the skies. Within several days the siege in the pocket was lifted, though the rail lines that had been supplying the enemy remained severed.

Despite the setback, the German offensive had yet to culminate. Further reserves had been drawn (much to OKH’s hesitation) from Army Group Model and Falkenhorst and were thrown into the fight. As May passed into June, the Germans had achieved local numerical superiority at the head of their push. To supplement this, the 5th Fliegerkorps formation was repositioned south to degrade the enemy’s close air support.

The following month saw a grinding battle with the Internationale, overextended as it was, unable to properly reinforce or supply their forces.

Efforts around nearly the entire salient to recreate the pocket were undertaken, with success being achieved around north of Budejovice where the syndicalists were attempting to rotate out shattered units to replace them with fresh ones. Simultaneous, albeit ineffective and ill-coordinated attacks were launched on the outskirts of Prague. Nonetheless, as July passed into August the French bridgehead grew ever more precarious. On 17th July Delestraint gave the order for a partial withdrawal but constant German attacks on the neck of the salient hampered movement.

With what the CMC presumed (correctly) was the last of Germany’s mobile reserves tied down in the center sector, the CMC cancelled plans for offensives from the salient. Instead, they opted for a more direct course of action. In their effort to win in Bohemia, Germany had left its Elbe defenses afront Berlin precariously undermanned. Over July, the syndicalists built up a new force north of Dresden, accumulated bridging equipment, then in August launched “Action XXVIII: Dantès”.

On August 9th, six divisions of French, Batavian and British troops pressed forward across the Elbe, smashing aside the German defenders. Earlier in the previous month, the spy agency, R.E.D., had identified the location chosen for the attack as the hinge between two of the army groups defending Berlin. As the highly concentrated syndicalist attack went ahead it was the German’s time to be shocked. The belt of fortifications across the Elbe were hastily breached – the road to Berlin, it seemed, was once again open.

It was the moment of supreme danger, as was later recorded by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. The advanced scouting units of the syndicalists were now amidst the hills and forests outside Berlin – only about 45 kilometers from the capital, with the 11th Army’s headquarters being stationed momentarily in the city of Brandenburg. In fact, one scouting unit led by Lieutenant Colonel Marcel Caron of the XXXXIV Reconnaissance Battalion, claimed in their after-action report to have been able to see the spires of the capital through their field glasses while on a mission that led them to scale a hill near Potsdam. This unassuming moment would later be recognized as the syndicalist high-water mark of the war.

The Kaiser and many of the government offices began to pack up and prepared to leave the capital for Kreuz. As this was being done however, the Reichskanzeler went to see Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. “Can the city be held?” the Reichskanzeler asked the supreme warlord of the German army. Famously, the Chief of the General Staff relpied “Zweifellos!” (Undoubtedly). Hammerstein-Equord outlined a plan of immediate counteroffensive using the forces all around the breakthrough, including a strong contingent currently garrisoning Dresden. It might mean the loss of that city if the syndicalist attacks developed into an offensive in that direction, but the invader’s bridgehead could and would be dislodged and thrown back over the Elbe. A further five divisions of green troops, even now still in training camps north of Berlin, would be deployed. Lastly, blocking detachments were employed to round up the routing troops who had been so badly beaten along the Elbe. The typical Prussian punishment of death by firing squad for the offense was foregone due to the need for every bullet and man who could fire one.

Refugees crowding central Berlin were conscripted to help build several belts of defensive fortifications in return for food and shelter for them and their families (damage from aerial bombardment is visible in the background)​

The Reichskanzeler once more took to the airwaves to broach for an air of calm as refugees fled from the city. He was accompanied by General Rundstedt of OKW who gave a frank assessment of the situation but assured the citizens of Berlin that everything would be done to defend the city. He implored citizens to turn out to help establish new trench lines, blockade roads, donate to the troops and help ferry or carry supplies about. The Field Marshal signed off with the now infamous pledge, “Germany is not yet lost!”

Once more, Lettow-Vorbeck was able to convince the Kaiser to remain. The efforts and those of the army paid off. After intense fighting through the villages on Berlin’s approaches, the French were first held then pushed back.

By 1st September, the breakthrough had been pushed back though at the cost of the bulwark of Dresden which had been left largely in ruins by urban fighting over the last two months.

Dresden, ‘Florence of the Elbe’, wrecked in incessant artillery duels between French and German forces that included incendiary ammunition used to drive out or destroy troops garrisoning buildings – the city’s sacrifice bought time for the Reich to mobilize

Dresden was abandoned in order to utilize the 6th Army, under General Paulus, to save Berlin​

After months of positional fighting in the valleys of Bohemia, the Heer had finally achieved their goal of cutting off some of the French troops there. Much of the Internationale’s forces had been withdrawn but not all had been able to escape the slow developing trap. At last, the Reich had scored a decisive victory by saving Brno from occupation and the Bohemian government a likely collapse.

While the situation had been slow to develop thus far, now events began to accelerate. Weakened by the repositioning of forces toward the Berlin axis, the hasty retreat from the siege of Brno and the surrounding of six divisions, syndicalist cohesion collapsed as local panic and disorder overtook the units in western Bohemia. Some units had to be left behind to besiege the cauldron but other Reichspakt forces moved forward, probing for weak spots. Several were found. Desperate assaults to try to break open the whole line pressed forward and achieved yet another encirclement.

As a result of Operation Konstriktor, nearly 100,000 syndicalist troops were surrounded and forced to surrender in the Reichspakt’s first great victory of the war. The triumph could not have come at a better time, for other events around Europe required the swift attention of Germany’s armed forces.

With a new threat to the south and the Austro-Hungarians already committed fighting the Moscow Accord in Serbia and the eastern front, Oberkommando Heer was now able to afford sending General Kesselring’s army detachment of fourteen divisions south and deal with the Italian National Republic.

As German units finished their clearing actions in the pockets in Bohemia and returned to the frontline, it had become clear that the actions of the previous months had seriously degraded syndicalist power in the central sector of the front. Sensing blood in the water, the Konstriktor was now deemed a success and its planned successor, ‘Kobra’, began. A broad offensive against the reeling syndicalist units in Bohemia now began.

While the CMC remained fixed on Berlin and attempted to identify areas where they could cross the Elbe further north or routes which might yield the encirclement of Munich, the slow, grinding drive through the Bohemia’s lowlands continued through October. Prague was liberated on the 1st November. Despite some fighting in the center of the ancient capital it was left mostly unscathed, savings its architectural heritage where Dresden and Munich’s had been utterly obliterated.

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As the year ended, the lines on the western front began to solidify once more, effectively ending Operation Kobra within sight of Pilsen. The syndicalists had been driven back nearly 230 kilometers from the gates of Brno. A new Internationale bulge had appeared in the central sector of the western front and with it, new opportunities for encirclements.

This time the syndicalist salient had been of the Reichspakt’s making – new opportunities to strike south outflanking Budejovice had been made apparent and would soon result in the next German punch

The Siege of Munich entering its sixth month

The year ended with 138 German divisions stationed on the western front, seven still fighting in the Pacific (the GEA’s forces not included), with 38 further divisions exploiting Russian weaknesses in the Baltics

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The Destroyer Campaign: October 1938 – August 1939

Even as battles raged in front of Berlin, the war at sea had begun to reach a new phase. Whereas rough parity had been the order of the day for over a year, the High Seas Fleet’s effectiveness had begun to slip as first its primary Baltic and North Sea bases were seized then its screening components were targeted.

The strategy, decided at the London War Rooms by, as always, Chairman Mosely himself, had been initially cooked up by the Republican Admiralty in Whale Island, Portsmouth. In the initial battles the thick armor of the German battle fleet had negated the relatively weak and dysfunctional torpedoes of the British dive bombers. While new air-to-sea torpedo designs were being created and production switched over, the Admiralty had decided to focus on the escort ships of the High Seas Fleet to make it easier for British submarines to sneak in close to the heavy ships and destroy them.

The campaign against the German light ships began slowly but picked up steam over the first half of 1939, whittling away dozens of destroyers. The greatest victory of this effort came on August 14th when the Republican Grand Fleet, loitering off the Swedish coast, launched a submersible and air attack on the High Seas Fleet as it lay in anchor at Stettin.

In a single hour, much of the remaining light ship contingent of the German fleet in the Baltic was wiped out. The High Seas Fleet was paralyzed in port.

The Italian Front Opens: September – December 1939

The Italian unification, the Risorgimento, carried out between the revolutions of 1848 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 had been a geopolitical disaster for the empire of Austria-Hungary. Where once they had largely controlled the north of a fractious and backwards peninsula a powerful new great power stood.

Despite initially standing with Austria-Hungary and Germany in the Triple Alliance, Italy had drifted toward the Entente, affording the Habsburg empire the chance to rectify one of their greatest failures of the 19th century. It took millions of killed and wounded in the Alpine front during the Weltkrieg, but by 1919 the Italians had been defeated. The subsequent months after the peace treaty was signed, Italy devolved into revolutionary chaos as nationalists and syndicalists (inspired by the French) ravaged the land. The Italian Civil War lasted nearly a year, by which time the old kingdom had either split or been split into multiple competing factions. The Austrians oversaw the ‘unification’ of all anti-syndicalist factions into the de-centralized, largely aristocratic Italian Federation. The Federation itself proved an unworkable failure and lapsed in 1930. This fragmentation of a single unified entity into many gave rise to the term ‘Italinization’. As Italy ‘Italianzied’, the Austro-Hungarian puppet state of Republic of Venetia-Lombardy was reformed into the Italian Republic.

As the Black Monday economic crisis rocked Europe, the Austro-Hungarians, attempting to cut spending, withdrew the garrison units and closed military bases in the fledgling Italian Republic. With Austrian oversight suddenly gone, the nationalists emerged from the woodwork of the republic’s political system. Snap elections were held in 1936 which saw the election of the nationalist populist Associazione Nazionalista Italiana (ANI), headed by Italo Balbo, come to power. Balbo immediately began reforming the republican government into a single party dictatorship with his ’greenshirt’ followers fanning out across the countryside to crackdown dissidents and imprison political opponents, especially any outspoken folk with left-of-center beliefs and Austrian settlers. These unfortunates were incarcerated in camps with deplorable conditions, leading to mass death from disease outbreaks and starvation.

Balbo was an Italian ultranationalist who ensured that revanchist propaganda was constantly spewed from the rapidly centralized media across the former republic. Though the Veneto region rebelled in ‘36, the greenshirt paramilitary and the newly renamed ‘Italian National Republic’s’ (INR) military quickly crushed the revolt (adding yet more thousands of political prisoners to Balbo’s camps).

As with Japan and Serbia, as the Reichspakt was handed defeat after defeat in the early stages of the Second Weltkrieg, Balbo steered his country towards a war he hoped to use to regain Italian territory in the Alps and forever end Austro-Hungarian pretensions to hegemony over the peninsula. Over the course of August, 1939, INR troops massed along the borders with Austria. The Austrians attempted to placate Balbo, but on the 5th of September, 1939, the INR ambassador in Vienna was ordered to burn his documents and deliver a final note to the Austrian government: the INR had declared war.

The Italian plan was a multifaceted and overly complex one – seize Trieste’s Dalmatian coast, storm the Alpine passes and take Innsbruck (using it and its proximity to the Munich supply lines to threaten the Germans into not intervening). Finally, a defensive line was to be built in the mountains between Villach and Salzburg preventing a counterattack.

A thin, tripwire force of Austrian units had been positioned along the Italian border to take up position in the old fortifications along the Alps. These managed to hold back the diversionary Italian assaults in the north while the main body of the INR’s forces pushed toward and captured Trieste. Follow up attacks in the Alps managed to break through the Austrian defenses and capture Trient just as the Germans began detraining to help stiffen the line.

The hostile presence of the Italians south of the Alps stood to threaten thee supply lines for Munich which ran through Innsbruck. To Berlin, the Italians had to be dealt with. A quick campaign could also enable the Reichspakt to either open a new front against the Red Italians to draw off their forces from Germany, or possibly to even knock them out of the war.

With the Internationale now on the backfoot in Bohemia, OKH transferred Army Group Kesselring to the Alps where their mission would be to drive south on Balbo’s lair in Milan. On 2nd October, with his forces now in place, Kesselring initiated Operation Edelweiss. 124,000 Germans smashed against the Italian defenses. While the German military reputation had suffered since the collapse of Mittelafrika and especially since the beginning of the Second Weltkrieg, it did not mean that the quality of their forces was lessened. Against the Germans, Italo Balbo’s greenshirt militias and substandard regulars crumbled.

Frontlines as of 10th October
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Kesselring’s forces sliced through northern Italy like a knife through butter, reaching the Brenta river in less than a week and Verona in under two.

Realizing his mistake, Balbo secretly offered “status quo ante bellum” peace terms. These were quickly rejected by the Viennese and Berlin governments. Vienna published the offer which, as expected, undermined confidence in Balbo’s will to ‘fight to the death’ as he always claimed.

On the 16th of October, fourteen days after the initiation of Operation Edelweiss, German cavalry was marching down the Corso Venezia while infantrymen scoured the city searching for Balbo. The ‘Il Duce’ had fled, escaping, as so many others would over the course of the war, to Switzerland.

Italian prisoners being escorted to internment camps​

Despite their leader’s abandonment, some Italian forces clinging to the Venetian coast continued to fight on into November, but by the 24th of that month, the final holdouts of Balbo’s ill-fated attempt at a glorious national restitution surrendered.

The fighting had cost the Italians between 30,000 – 40,000 killed and wounded with around 149,000 made prisoners of war. Many of these prisoners were transported north to be used as laborers in factories and the farming fields alongside those surviving Polish soldiers who had been forcibly employed as such the previous year.

Emperor Karl I’s government set about re-establishing the old Italian Federation, stating that they would release the governments of the Republics of Venice and Lombardy ‘as soon as circumstance allows’. Immediately the Austro-Hungarians found themselves in lobbied by the delegates of the exiled government of the Two Sicilies, who, the cafes of Vienna, had been formulating the idea of a centralized Italy under the court of King Ferdinand. The delegates would argue that a reunified Italy under an aristocratic government modelled after Austria-Hungary’s own was a more viable and stable option than the helter-skelter, humiliating Federation which would only create more Italo Balbos.

For now, the Reichspakt stood across the Po River from the Italian Social Republic, necessitating the Internationale to withdraw troops from various locations to defend the homeland of one of their constituents.

No Grand Alliance: June – December, 1939

At this stage of the war, the eastern front now possessed the mobility that the western front had lost. It was not the last time that this flip would happen, for while they both warred with the Reichspakt, the leaders of Moscow Accord and the Internationale never truly developed a working relationship with one another.

There was some communication of intentions between the two factions, but no bargain or working relationship ever truly developed. There was no love lost between the syndicalists and the coterie of ultranationalist, neo-reactionary regime of Boris Savinkov. Savinkov was viewed almost as a demonic figure by many in the west for his endorsement of multiple well-known massacres of socialists and former Bolshevik intelligentsia and party members as well as former Red Army officers and commissars. Unable to escape the Savinkovist ire too were the extended family members of these condemned. Though it was never confirmed, at least 198,000 of these piteous figures had been tortured and executed in various ways with some half a million others worked to death in the mines and factories of the ‘Siberian colonies’. Indeed, the tales of horror had been carried west by a second generation of ‘Red Émigrés’ who fled, much as the senior Bolsheviks such as Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Ioseb Dzhugashvili and Konstantin Rokossowski had a generation before. Likewise, Savinkov viewed the syndicalists with distrust, blaming all forms of socialism for the downfall of Russian greatness. He had spilled far too much blood, treasure and too many words to back down from his promises of never working with the syndicalists to countenance doing so now.

“The supposed progressivism and welfarism of the Bolsheviks and those of their ilk tore out the struts which held up our Motherland. Without the guiding mission of the Orthodox Church, without the brotherly love between the toilers of Slavic soil, without the memory of our common heritage, our Third Rome was torn asunder and trampled in the dirt. Never again will Holy Russia succumb to such tribulation. Never shall I, as God’s divine agent, deal with the snakes in Paris or Milan! If ever Russia suffers these bastards in her bosom, then the fires of Armageddon will be near.” – Boris Savinkov in an election speech, 1933

Russian Reorganization: May – August 1939

After the climactic destruction of Boris Shaposhnikov’s ‘Northern Front’, Russia had begun to mobilize her second and third brackets of conscripts to hurriedly make up for the shortfall. With the loss of so many, the northern frontiers had been stripped of the men needed to defend such a wide front. Even before the destruction of the Northern Front a widescale reorganization of her armed forces had begun to take place.

Vyacheslav Naumenko was placed in charge of the remnants of Shaposhnikov’s armies while the new 1st Reserve Front was activated from the Central Military District. It was placed in the hands of the young and energetic Feliks Egorov who had proven his merit as an army commander in the south under Denikin and earlier during the Civil War as a staff officer for Pyotr Wrangle.

Komanduyushtchi Fronta (Front Commander) Feliks Egorov **
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Further south, Front Commander Vladimir Kappel continued the preparation of his Western Front for a renewed offensive into White Ruthenia. Unlike his predecessor, who simply tossed men into battle under equipped and without proper combined arms coordination, Kappel would seek success through deep operations tactics.

Lastly, Denikin’s victorious Southern Front was split in two with a semi-subordinate ‘Front’ placed in Crimea to support the coming invasion of western Ukraine.

Frontlines as of June 15th, 1939 *​

Russia’s war efforts were not confined to eastern Europe however. The war against the Ottomans continued even after the quick collapse of the Caucuses front. The Sublime Porte had failed too against the Arabs and Egyptians of the Cairo Pact, but their surrender and withdrawal from war against their former subjects left them more to fight the Russians with. As the war proceeded into the Armenian highlands, the general commanding that front, Sergey Markov, found that now that the war had been brought to the Ottoman homeland, Turkish spirit began to rise just as major changes in their government and military began to bear fruit on the battlefield. As the war ground back and forth across the Anatolian Plateau, Savinkov surmised that though they had yet to conquer the Ottomans, this enemy was incapable of pushing them back.

The Anatolian Front as of 10th July, 1939

Ottoman leadership changed much in this time period – Abdülmecid II’s death left his son Osman IV on the throne, however defeat in the Desert War infuriated many military officers who saw Osman’s reforms as weaking the empire – the military, led by the general, Refet Pasha, instigated a coup d'état to seize the state and ‘correct its path’​

Around late January, when it seemed as if Germany was in rapid collapse, Savinkov ordered that some forces of Deniken’s grouping as well as those of Markov’s be siphoned off to begin the formation of an entirely new force – one intended to overthrow the government of the Socialist Republic of Iran. The Iranian Revolution of ’36 had seen the coming to power of a radical socialist government friendly to those of the Internationale. There had even been discussions of extending membership of the Phalanstre Internationale to Iran to support its economic development and integration into the ‘Red West’.

Stavka and Field Marshal Wrangle stringently disagreed with attacking a neutral country at this time, calling it a ‘needless dilution of our strength’, but Savinkov made the decision to allocate 300,000 men to do so anyway. For him, it was a political expedient intended to cement his name as an anti-syndicalist at a time when his forces were attacking the arch-anti-syndicalists, the German Reich, as well as to prevent a syndicalist neighbor on his southern border in case of Germany’s conquest by France. Lastly, and most cynically, Saviknov coveted control of Iran’s oilfields, which would make his country the single greatest producer of the resource in the world.

Exploitation: June – December, 1939

All of this meant that when the Germans struck back in April – June ’39, there were few forces to halt their counteroffensive. Heinz Guderian saw this opportunity all too clearly. After clearing the remnants of Shaposhnikov’s forces, he received the go-ahead from Field Marshal Goltz to advance across all axes. The only major German force on the eastern front sped across the Baltic with Guderian’s characteristic speed.

After taking Jelgava, Guderian split the 19th Army from his force and tasked it with trapping the remaining Russian forces on the coastline while the other three armies under his command advanced northwards. This was handled by General Blomberg, who had been subordinated to Guderian after much of his army group was transferred west. Blomberg handled the job with typical skill, blockading the stronger elements of Naumenko’s forces into the Courland Peninsula.

On the 1st of July, Riga was liberated after a successful crossing of the Daugava. Guderian arranged for a parade of 10,000 infantry, 178 horse-drawn artillery pieces and 62 Panzer IIIs down the historical center of the city. Fresh from various Russian oppressions, the populace, even the formerly anti-German Estonians in the city, cheered the troops as they marched on.

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North of the city there was nothing but a ragtag collection of badly fazed Russian units.

“I intend to pursue the ground ahead of me until either resistance or exhaustion prevent us from seizing another kilometer,” Guderian wrote to Goltz at OKO. Goltz, having long served in the old Baltic Duchy, was elated at Riga’s recapture. He indulged Guderian’s ambition.

Several deep strikes were undertaken with the greatly weakened Russians falling back in disarray. By the end of November, German troops stood on the shores of the Baltic, with another 28,000 Russians being crushed outside Reval.

Through this momentous retreat, Naumenko himself was nearly captured on several occasions, managing to escape through the luck of not being recognized on one occasion and having to flee by plane across Lake Peipus on another.

Frontlines as of 30th November – two more Russian divisions were liquidated on Saaremaa Island​

With the winter snows here and his own forces highly strung out, Guderian called for a halt along the Narva – Pskov – Polotsk axis. In the north, the year had been closed with the virtual unshackling of the Baltic from Russian domination. From the Russian perspective, the Northern Front had been one long, unfolding disaster since Shaposhnikov’s failure, but further south events were unfolding differently for the Russian cause.

The Pale Horseman Rides: August – December 1939

The Ruthenian and Ukrainian sectors had been handed over to non-German control in a graduated manner across the first half of 1939. Until summer there had been little movement of the frontlines as the Russians struggled to control the decaying situation in the Baltics. However, Russia’s most accomplished commander to date had no intention of ceding momentum over to Reichspakt.

Fierce air battles raged over Ukraine as the Russians slowly ground towards Kyiv. Each kilometer of the country’s black soil was dyed red with the blood of each side in warfare that was only a scintilla more mobile than that of the western front Weltkrieg. While the Austro-Ukrainian generals fretted about ways to defend Kyiv, General Anton Denikin was silently setting the stage for his next great advance.

On the 25th of May, nearly contemporaneously to Shaposhnikov’s fall, Kherson fell to the Russian forces under General Mikhail Drozdovsky. The bridgehead for the Crimean Front (newly split from the Southern Front) was now established. The only remaining domino that Denikin now waited for was the long-awaited Serbian entry into the war. The Balkan nation obliged him by launching three-pronged assault against both the Austro-Hungarians, the Bulgarians and even Albania on the 10th of August.

The collapse of the defensive lines in the Tauride opened the Crimean Front
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On the 15th August Operation Belyy Grom (White Thunder) was launched across a thousand kilometers of frontage. From Kherson the Crimean forces stormed forward, easily capturing Nikolayev, paralyzing the Reichspakt forces around Krivoy Rog. Simultaneous spearheads were thrust by cavalry and tank units. Deep disruptions in the rear were achieved east of Kyiv by massive parachutist drops.

Russian parachutists and glider forces near Zhytomir, August 15th
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The simultaneous attacks and the Serbian declaration of war paralyzed the eastern front for nearly two weeks until the Reichspakt eastern joint command managed to shake off the shock. By this time however, several dangerous holes had opened in the front across Ruthenia and Ukraine. The Austro-Hungarians decided that the Serbians, who had been rampaging southeastward toward Sofia, had to be dealt with first. The decision saw the sealing of three Reichspakt armies in the Krivoy Rog pocket.

Balkan frontline around 28th August: the capture of Sofia was the limit of Serbian expansion

Ukrainian front as of 23rd September with the remnants of the Reichspakt’s Army Group D​

While several divisions escaped the encirclement, most did not. The fighting was bitter and drawn out with some Reichspakt forces in the Krivoy Rog pocket still struggled on heroically into early October. Their prolonged sacrifice helped slow the Russians who had to mop up these forces before advancing too far. Though Denikin was an excellent commander, he lacked the audacity of a Guderian who would have advanced onto Lviv in the time it took the Russians to clear out their rear (by Guderian’s own assessments as gleaned from his notebooks once they were published decades later).

Around this time the Russians completed the conquest of Iran. The fall of Tehran and the surrender of the syndicalist government there saw the freeing up of dozens of divisions to join in on Operation Belyy Grom and the second great push that was being assembled to the north along the borders with White Ruthenia.

Even as Serbia capitulated on the 3rd of October, Kyiv came under fire by Russian artillery once more.

Frontlines around November 30th ​

This time, however, Kyiv did not hold. With the great disaster taking place in the south Reichspakt units fled routed west. After only a brief fight the Second Battle of Kyiv concluded with Russian forces marching through the city in triumph on the 9th of December.

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The fall of Serbia meant that the Reichspakt’s lines toward the combat zone in the east were once again freed up (discounting, of course, the heavy partisan fighting that the dispersed Serbian army provided for years longer). As these units reallocated east to help stiffen the Ukraine from total collapse, yet more forces joined them from the relative quiet of the Central Front in Ruthenia. As Russian spies and observation aviation picked up these movements, the second great punch of the Russian Autumn-Winter Offensive began.

For the entire year, General Vladimir Kappel had built up the forces under his Western Front command. Now he pushed forward. Under an apocalyptic creeping barrage launched by 1,200 guns on a 48-kilometer front, the Reichpakt defenses on the far side of the Dnieper and Daugava were pulverized. Kappel’s legions bridged the great rivers and began their westward march. Russian maskirovka had deceived the Reichspakt’s commanders into believing that no great force existed beyond the strongest defenses of the Ostwall, Kappel’s men washed over its steaming ruins. Mogilev fell on October 31st, the third day of the operation. The city had already been surrounded to a depth of eighty kilometers by the advancing Russian forces, leaving two divisions of the garrison to surrender.

Heroic holding actions by the Hungarians under General Hugó Sónyi along the banks of the Berezina River managed to halt the Russians for about a week while the situation was digested by Reichspakt command. Nonetheless, on the 9th of November the new defensive line was breached near Bobrusik, which fell the next day. Next was Borisov, which fell on morning of the 11th. That evening, Russian forces were on the outskirts of Minsk.

Ruthenian Sector frontlines as of 11th November

Eastern Front as of 15th November​

Russian forces attempted to storm the capital of White Ruthenia but were savaged in their frontal and ill-coordinated assault. Kappel changed tack and focused on attempting to encircle the forces still on the banks of the northern Dnieper.

At this stage, the Reichspakt had reinforced the area, but remained heavily outnumbered and outgunned by the Russians. Minsk came under sustained bombardment through the rest of the year as Kappel attempted to disrupt any concentrations of troops that might be using the city to prepare for a counteroffensive.

Eastern Front as 31st December 1939*​

As 1939 ended the war seemed no closer to resolution and had only intensified in brutality. Across the seas, however, watchful eyes studied the unfolding conflict with interest…and intent.

Phillipe Petain and MacKenzie King of the Republic of France and the Dominion of Canada​

* Base map from Reddit by DoctorSpaceIsTyping

****Feliks Egorov is this tale’s first entirely novel character. He was ‘butterflied’ into existence by surviving the Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites (imagine him, IRL, as one of those anonymous dead of that terrible war). I’m using the portrait of Amet-Khan Sultan, an IRL Soviet flying ace and officer. He will have a similar background as a Crimean Tartar to Amet-Khan.

 

[HistoryDude]

I wonder how the Entente's participation will change the war. Russia seems to be on the offensive, but the syndicalists are retreating...

The internal divisions among the syndicalists and Russia's failure to cooperate with them will aid Germany greatly... will this situation last, though?