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Within June of 1911, Lithuania moved over 25 divisions, a little bit over 200 000 men, into their protectorate Wallachia-Moldavia, officially to strengthen their defenses in Oltenia and the Carpathians, but, as one could easily tell, they were lined up along the Danube and in Dobrogea for attacking a whole other target. The Lithuanian Black Sea Fleet was mobilized into full capacity and began patrol missions in the region, and Saugumas's foreign intelligence department moved the "oppressed peoples of the Balkans" into full capacity. Thousands of leaflets and pan-Orthodox propaganda campaigns were prepared, agents were taught Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek and were ready to be inserted into hostile territory.

Anyone with a clear enough mind could see who this was targeted towards, and, unfortunately to him, Abdulmejid III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, failed to call the Lithuanian government's bluff. Fearing that a sudden first strike could destroy his country then and there, he began looking for ways to amend the relationship between his nation and Lithuania, and in it came the July Summit, a three-day round of negotiations between Žygimantas IV's Lithuania and Abdulmejid III's Ottomans, and it resulted in the Turkish empire becoming the fourth full-pledged member of the Entente Cordiale. The Ottomans began to mobilize to take down Visegrad, while relations between the Mughals and the rest of the Entente deteriorated further than ever.

The highlight of the summer of 1911 was undoubtedly the Netherlands Offensive in the Western Front. Well aware that the Netherlands was a hole in their "water wall" that was the Rhine, the combined North and South German armies poured into the Dutch territory, with their goal being to reach the river and prevent France from sending significant forces to the right bank. While minor skirmishes between North Germania and the Netherlands started at the very beginning of the war, the small Dutch army was caught off-guard by the vast, over 300 000 soldier offensive, and within weeks, the Germans overran most of Friesland and Guelders. The Estates-General of the Netherlands relocated to Antwerpen. However, that was enough time for the French high command to take notice and transport two reserve armies into the region, which clashed with the North German 3rd Army and South German 1st Army in the First Battle of Utrecht. The beautiful, ancient city, one of the nation's main cultural and religious centers, suffered the wrath of two months of street combat, massive maneuvers and artillery fire, especially artillery fire, and in the end, the results of the battle were inconclusive. The French positions were pushed back and most of Holland had to be temporarily evacuated in danger of an encirclement, but the Germans failed to acquire most of their strategic objectives, nor did they reach the Rhine, while the French funneled more troops into the right bank. And, in addition, their victory in Utrecht created a large salient, as following offensives in Gelderland were met with failures. In late August, Field Marshal August Schnee gave the order to evacuate the Utrecht salient and dig in at a more defensible position. Germania began to lick it's wounds, while at the same time ready to give the offensive a second shot. The war in the Netherlands was only beginning.

Outside of minor skirmishes in Switzerland, where, after a short siege, the French captured Bern, not much else happened on the Western Front. However, France was planning for an offensive of their own in the following months - weather forecasts predicted that the winter of 1911-1912 will be cold enough for rivers like the Rhine to freeze over, and that was exactly what the French needed...


In the Pyrenean Front, Spain began a major offensive around the same time as the First Battle of Utrecht took place, incited by the Germans in order to alleviate pressure from the Netherlands, and this period was known as the Roussillon Campaign. The Spanish dictatorship set the goal of their attack to be the reconquest of Roussillon - a campaign with little to no strategic benefits, mostly for bragging rights and alleviating pressure, and it went just as well as you'd expect. Both sides bled a lot of men in over a month of mountain warfare, in hot Mediterranean weather, and in the end, Spain was forced to call off the offensive, which achieved none of it's goals and did little to help the situation in the Netherlands. Static warfare began to dominate in the Pyrenees, just like in the Western Front.

An another "front" where the Entente was having success over the Coalition was in the seas. The mighty Marine nationale overpowered both their Spanish and Visegradian counterparts in naval skirmishes across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic within the time of a few months. In September 11th of 1911, the French magenta ship Charlemagne sunk Visegrad's flagman Matthias Corvinus in the Gulf of Sirte, and after a number of smaller engagements, Visegrad's sea connection to it's colonies was practically cut off. Spain fared a little better, as their navy was considerably more powerful and disciplined, but even they suffered greatly in the first months of the war. In addition, France could easily outproduce both Visegrad (who lacked as wide of a naval industry as it's peers), Sweden and Spain in naval production, while North Germania hardly had a navy to begin with, so the war in the sea was practically done for. The Entente laid naval blockades across most of Europe, and if the Coalition wanted to win the war now, they had to do it on land.

While the Entente was on the defensive during most of this period, one front where they were the ones doing the advancing was the Eastern Front. With the flanks secure thanks to the Ottomans joining the war on their side, Lithuania could go all-out against Visegrad, and amassed four new armies at the border by July. The first strategic objective of the July Offensive was to capture Visegrad's Baltic Sea coast, reach the Vistula and the Dnieper, and then defeat the Visegradians in the plains and drive them to the Carpathians, at which point, the Lithuanians hoped, the Coalition will be war weary and agree to an advantageous peace. The idea for the offensive was proposed by the Grand Hetman, Antanas Aukštaitis, who was a firm believer in the idea that this war can and will be decided with a single powerful invasion to knock the enemy out of the conflict.

How successful was the offensive? Not very. The initial phases of the attack worked great - Lithuanian soldiers swept across Pomerelia and even captured some of North German Pomerania, but the next phase of the attack - reach the Vistula and Dnieper - were met with problems. The massive size of the armies involved, the poor rail network in Lithuania and linguistic problems meant that by the time the Lithuanians reorganized and began their attack, Visegrad had plenty of time to prepare for the hit, move reserves to the front and endure the attack. After bloody battles in Plock and Warszawa, the Lithuanian 3rd Army managed to reach the Vistula in the first week of August, but in Galicia, the Imperial troops were stopped in their tracks in the Battle of Lemberg. The offensive was a failure, having only accomplished a few of it's goals out of many, and was eventually called off. Visegradian superiority in organization and in infrastructure became apparent to both sides.


While this was happening, the Lithuanians were losing ground in the far North. Bolstered by fresh reserves from the homeland, the Swedish army pushed the Lithuanians out of parts of Karelia, even as far as reaching Lake Onega, and they also captured a number of towns in the Isthmus. It was a minor loss, but the Swedish media was quick to overblow it as a great victory, trying to give the people some hope in this war that many of them did not want to participate in. Outside of that and a few naval skirmishes in the Baltic Sea, not much happened in the Northern Front.

In the recently opened Southern Front, Lithuania hoped to "use" the Ottomans as a distraction during their July Offensive, but soon realized that this was not a good idea. Despite some modernization efforts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Ottoman industry and military was not up to par to Western standards, and the fact that they started to mobilize their forces too late meant that the Turkish army was not prepared for any major offensives. The Balkan peoples were also growing unruly, tired of over 500 years of oppression, and since they lived right in-between the core of the Empire and the front lines, it was not a very good thing. The Ottoman military attempted a few minor offensives in Montenegro, managing to occupy the coast of the autonomous region and getting close to Dubrovnik, but they lost ground in Serbia, as the Visegradian border units occupied a few minor towns in Vojvodina. Despite Lithuanian demands, the Ottomans did not launch a major offensive to distract their opponent - they needed more time to prepare.

In the African Front, the naval blockade on Coalition powers made the job even easier for Egypt, and despite a heat wave and a number of sandstorms forcing both sides to cease activity in the front numerous times, the French protectorate advanced even further, successfully capturing Benghazi in late August. The tiny Visegradian garrisons were out of supplies and too small to stop the Egyptians despite their inferior armament, only delay them, thus Spain had to bring in reserves from North Africa to help. Still, the war in North Africa appeared to be going heavily in Entente's favor.

Despite a number of failures, the war nevertheless seemed to be going barely to Entente's favor - however, the balance of the conflict will be shaken up even further, as after a deterioration of the already deep diplomatic crisis between the Mughal Empire, the Ottomans and France, the massive Indian nation officially declared war on the Entente in September 14th, 1911, as well as joined the Coalition, the first independent non-European nation to do so. Along with that, they drew in their protectorates in South-East Asia. Despite being called the "Great European War", it was quick to expand to the rest of the world, it seems...

But what has been gained so far? What has been learned?

Well, one thing's for sure - both sides were here for the long haul. The era of great offensives, pitched battles and heroic commanders was over. To replace it came the era of blood, machine guns and small-scale warfare. Every inch of land was important.

In late September, already after the Mughal Empire's entrance into the war, Francois Chirac, a Romandy French politician, one of the main leaders of the anti-imperialist and anti-war movement in the Republic of France, caused a scandal. A scandal, caused by posting a newspaper article, which, among many things, hosted this immortal line: