Scorpions in a Bottle: 'For Want of a Nail' Expanded

[SpanishSpy]

Operation William, Part III

The German forces under General Theofild Waldfogel, had secured their holdings in Folkestone and Dover by the first of August of 1974. However, such a holding was not the main goal. The goal, of course, was London.

The plan devised by the German general staff was to advance up the highway towards London from that portion of Kent to Ashford and then to Maidstone, both major British supply depots and airfields. After the fall of Maidstone, projected to be by December of that year, a bombing campaign on London, supplemented with artillery, would force the fall of London to the Germans and the surrender of the British government.

However, Perrow was not going to let that happen without cost to the Germans. Britain was a nuclear state, but had not fired nuclear weapons when the war begin due to the doctrine of the Common Risk of Annihilation, which predicted that human civilization would be at risk should nuclear weapons be used and responded to in kind. When the Germans launched their nuclear weapons at the south of England, the usage of British nuclear weaponry was delayed. General Richard Warrington, in charge of the Nuclear Administration, was hesitant to use such weaponry; he, like many others in the British government, viewed the usage of such weapons as inherently evil and would lead to massive amounts of civilian deaths. In a war where the British were trying to define themselves as morally superior, the usage of such weapons would be detrimental to such a perception.

However, by August 6th the General staff agreed that the usage of nuclear weapons was necessary for any hope of victory. On August 7th, nuclear bombs from bases in Norfolk and Somerset were fired at German holdings in France and at Germany proper. One hit Calais, destroying a large portion of the force destined for Britain; however, substantial forces were located in areas surrounding the area. Other bombs landed at Etaple and Bolougne-sur-Mer on the French coast, and several more were poised towards the Ruhr industrial area, specifically the cities of Dortmund, Essen, Dusseldorf, Wuppertal, Bochum, Duisburg, Cologne, and Bielefeld. However, by the time they were spotted over France, a missile base outside of Strasburg, the very same that had launched the first German volley of nuclear missiles at the south of England, had launched interceptor missiles, which destroyed all of them but one; Bochum went up in flames.

In retaliation, more missiles were fired from the base near Strasburg. Nuclear fire soon consumed Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Clacton, Lowestoft, Guildford, Reading, and Swindon, as well as areas thought to be hosting the British missile base. Shortly thereafter, the Germans began moving on Ashford.

On August 23rd, Ashford fell to the Germans.

 

[SpanishSpy]

Operation William, Part IV

The fall of Ashford left the British forces scampering back to London. Prime Minister Perrow gave an impassioned speech to a combined assembly of the Houses of Commons and Lords in a desperate attempt to defend the crucial city of Maidstone, the County Town of Kent. If Maidstone were to fall, he pleaded, the route to London would be made clear for the Germans to attack. Anti-air weaponry was established all throughout the cities of London and Maidstone to prevent the coming of more bombers; nevertheless, long-range bombers did their damage, some using stickzine to cause widespread devastation (such as the terror bombings of Southwark and Hounslow)

British forces stationed in Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, and western Hampshire were relocated to bases in Berkshire and Surrey, which were to be used as staging grounds against the Germans. Maidstone itself was being defended by British forces brought in from Surrey, Norfolk, and Suffolk. Further detachments of forces from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and northern England were being rushed down to London to defend the capital from the forces of General Waldfogel. These forces were hindered by rebel factions from the other nations of the United Kingdom, aided by German supply drops and commandos. British response to the rebels was swift and decisive; they would take no prisoners to send a message. General Sinclair Peterson, a General who commanded the forces in the areas between southern Scotland and Nottinghamshire, gave little care for the radical antiwar nationalists that attacked him; he said that "they would give us no quarter, so we should give them none." Such tactics were cheered on by the British leadership.

The defense of London was given to General Daniel McIntyre, a Scotsman and veteran of the various wars in the era of decolonization after the First Global War. He put an end to the rebel insurgencies in the Pepper Coast during the independence process in 1961, ensuring that the new government of the country would be favorable to British interests; similarly he put down Neiderhofferian-inspired rebels in the former British Ndongo, ensuring yet another friendly state. He had become renowned for his military acumen and had been mentor to many of those generals that had spearheaded the invasion of India. He had refused to do so citing a desire to continue guarding the British Isles; he was part of a minority of military figures that seriously feared the possibility of German invasion and had drawn up detailed preparations for a theoretical attack. Given the circumstances, it is easy to see why McIntyre was chosen.

 

[SpanishSpy]

Operation William, Part V

General McIntyre assumed the command of the defense of London when the possibility of a general occupation of Britain was very, very real to the British government. His opposite number Waldfogel was wasting no time in advancing towards London; more and more victories were being won as the Army was forced to retreat.

McIntyre was met with deep hostility from the British General Staff as he proposed his plan, but a begrudging sense of agreement eventually arose. The plan was to withdraw entirely to the areas around London, to evacuate civilians, and to destroy any remaining infrastructure. Many, in particular the Home Minister Quentin Wilberforce, objected to what was seen as a wanton sacrifice of British property to the invaders. Other but related objections were made on the basis of cost; the postwar amount needed to repair the damage in Kent and Surrey was by then predicted to be in the hundreds of millions of pounds, and this was not counting the damage already done to London and the surrounding areas of Middlesex and Essex.

However, the cost was thought to be worth it; better more debt than total defeat by the Germans and their ragtag bunch of allies. Roads in towns throughout northern Surrey were forcibly abandoned with civilians taken to refugee camps in mostly Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, well away from the land fighting and defended with the anti-air weaponry. McIntyre justified this with the locust warfare practiced by the Germans in the imitation of the CNA in the North American front: "Better that they lose the satisfaction of destroying it than we let them walk over it and then destroy it."

In cooperation with Admiral Isidore Morris, forces from Wales and Ireland were being conveyed from the west to London. The major highway connecting the ports on the island of Anglesey and the major military port at St. David's in Pembrokeshire to the rest of the British highway network, which ran from Hereford to Worcester to Warwick and eventually all the way to London. General Christopher Chatham was given command of overall strategy of that stretch of highway to ensure that the route was defended and the source of reinforcements secured.

Additionally, to the lack of knowledge of the public, McIntyre ordered large amounts of the British nuclear arsenal based in areas in the Scottish Highlands to be put on immediate readiness, and aimed towards several possible German staging areas in Surrey and Kent. They were weapons of last resort, insisted McIntyre, but if London were to come close enough to falling the possibility was certainly in the cards. More airbases were established in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire to ensure coverage from German air attacks from new airfields around Folkestone and Ashford which were pummeling the defenses of London.

 

[SpanishSpy]

Mexican Strategy and the Battle of St. Louis

The Mexican victory at Pocklington left the city of Fort Lodge, Southern Vandalia, under direct threat of attack by the Mexicans. However, General Recinos was very hesitant to attack the city; the Mexican strategy now was perched on a very ambitious prospect: the taking of Burgoyne itself. St. Louis, Southern Vandalia, on the Mississippi River, was the key to the Confederation of India, which bordered the Northern Confederation; Burgoyne was by the border.

The Mexican general staff was hurriedly trying to decide whether to take down Fort Lodge to minimize possible counterattacks from that direction when attacking St. Louis. However, such would cause a large loss of men and war materiel and thusly Recinos was not favorable towards the idea. General Bermudez similarly was opposed. Only General Malcolm Norris, pushing in from the west to aid that front, was coming forth in support of attacking Fort Lodge; he had access to various assets based in Alaska and the Mexican Old North that he maintained would allow the taking of the city as well as the capture of St Louis.

It was eventually decided by the end of February that Fort Lodge would be bypassed, but the question remained on how to deal with the forces based in that city. General Watford's forces were based mainly near St Louis, but General Nathaniel O'Rourke's forces were charged wit the defense of Fort Lodge and were authorized to strike at the Mexicans should it become feasible. General Recinos asked President Lassiter for the ability to use a weapon that would fundamentally change the nature of the war: the nuclear bomb.

President Lassiter refused to allow the usage of the bomb, fearing the possibility of North American nuclear weaponry falling over major Mexican cities such as Mexico City or Puerto Hancock. The Mexican nuclear program was new and bombs were being made but not at a rate to match the North Americans. Thomas McCarthy, the head Mexican nuclear scientist, was opposed to using the weapon, saying that "Mexico simply does not have the industrial or mechanical capability to produce nuclear weapons at a rate that can match the North Americans." Thusly, Lassiter vetoed Recinos' request for action.

However, another one of Recinos' orders was obliged with great haste; stickzine reserves in Durango and Chiapas were being shuttled to the Southern Vandalian front. On March 8th, the first bombers with stickzine-filled bombs were deployed over Fort Lodge. The ensuing firestorm killed a good half of the population of the city in the chaos that followed, with many famed landmarks of the city falling to flame. Special concentration was given to military bases and bridges; conventional bombs were dropped on those. General O'Rourke was killed in the raids on March 14th, and vulnerable CNA forces made their way to St Louis shortly thereafter. Mexican forces intercepted them and destroyed the majority.

Similar bombing runs took place over St Louis through March while the Mexicans deflected assaults from the North Americans coming in through the Southern Confederation. On March 19th, Mexican armor under the command of Pedro Shea charged the North American line. Paratroopers from Mexican airstrips were dropped into St Louis to take out key personnel. A weeklong battle ensued; by the 26th, the Mexicans marched into St Louis triumphant.

Indiana, and thusly Burgoyne, was at their doorstep.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The March through Indiana, part I

March through October on the North American front was a slog of epic proportions through a heavily defended area, and the basis of North American industrial strength. The factories of Michigan City, New Boston, Kent, and other cities were busy churning out armor and aircraft to pound the Mexicans into submission. The only battle of real importance during this time in and of itself was the Battle of Fort Radisson, in which more stickzine and massed bombing campaigns, combined with treacherous street fighting, was employed. The battle lasted for two months, and quickly became known as second only to the Battle of Jefferson City in terms of sheer brutality.

Many strategists at the time did not expect the Mexicans to make it that far, especially given the longer history of industrialization that the North Americans had in comparison to the Mexicans. What is cited by many historians of the Second Global War is the lack of preparation of the North Americans for a long and arduous campaign on their home soil. The CNA had long assumed that Mexico would not have the power to invade North America and thusly put only token forces on the border between the two countries. Interior fortifications within the country were nonexistent, which General Recinos exploited to the fullest.

During the advance eastwards towards Burgoyne, aerial campaigns were conducted under the direction of General Rutherford Ballinger of the Mexican Air Force. His opponent over Indiana was North America's Cameron Lundon, who was in charge of various air bases throughout eastern Manitoba. Appointed by Governor General Worden himself, he was the director of the Air Force after the sacking of those less than completely loyal to the Imperativist regime, such as the former commander Marcus Mulville. Lundon was seen by many in the CNA establishment as average but not superb, and many historians contend that his lack of ability would impede the North American war effort.

Locust Warfare was employed without mercy by the Mexicans in the small towns of Indiana; Mexican soldiers employed the Mapana, adapted from La Guerra Granadina, against both military and civilian personnel, and were particularly effective in clearing garrisoned buildings. Gyrogunships, based in makeshift airstrips made as the front advanced, were instrumental in destroying North American armor divisions. As stated before, Stickzine was used liberally, not just on towns but on infantry columns.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The March through Indiana, part II

Governor-General Theodore Worden, by August 1976, was in dire straits. The people of the eastern CNA, in major cities such as Norfolk, Boston, Philadelphia, Burgoyne, New York, Savannah, and others were out in the streets protesting his mishandling of the war. Indiana, what was long considered a heartland Confederation, was being penetrated by the Mexicans, and making great progress. The destruction of towns such as Worcester, New Wigtown, Sullivan Creek, and Brunswick Grove were cause for mass protest. Unlike what the propaganda machine spearheaded by Peter Sykes tried to imprint into the public conscience, Worden and his government was blamed for the greatest military tragedy ever to occur on CNA soil.

There had been no war in the CNA since the Rocky Mountain War; that conflict for a time gave rise to the name "Second Rocky Mountain War" for the Rocky Mountains front of the current war. What was becoming public, after certain whistleblowers such as Miriam Dartford and Brent Bates, enraged the North American public even more: the fact of the institutional purges that had dominated the North American government. Generals such as Ethan and Wyndham were only appointed to the positions they had due to their loyalty to the Imperativist strain of thought, not due to their military ability, which was revealed to be lackluster. Cyril Cunningham, a former brigadier general who had been dismissed by the Imperativists, said the following at an antiwar rally in Porton, Georgia:

"The terror in Indiana was caused by military weakness of a very refined sort: the kind that is allowed by the whims of a dictator like Worden to thrive so long as it goes about the motions, satisfying his ego for the sake of the illusion of a strong military."

Student movements and other activist groups sprung up in these cities, often led by the remnants of the Peace and Justice Party. The party's interim leader, Giles Gerard, led a mass demonstration in Burgoyne calling for an "honorable peace" with Mexico, and accused the CNA government of "a crime against all morality" in the nuclear bombing of Havana, Cuba. They also called for the release of James Volk and Timothy Hamilton, former leaders of the PJP, as well as the leader of the Liberal Party, Preston Curnow (the deputy leader, Jerome Carlisle, also attended the rally in a show of solidarity).

This demonstration turned violent when the local military detachment, under the command of Brigadier General Lewis Denton, attempted to block the road to Worden's residence, the current seat of the rump Grand Council. One of the members of the crowd, whose identity remains unknown, fired a shot at one of the soldiers. Machine gun fire from one of the terramobiles broke out, and the demonstration became a massacre.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

I seriously doubt the war in North America can go on much longer... I foresee a long period of rebuilding for both sides.

Great TL still!

 

[SpanishSpy]

I seriously doubt the war in North America can go on much longer... I foresee a long period of rebuilding for both sides.

Great TL still!

I'm not going to reveal much, but I will say it is going to get worse before it gets better.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The March through Indiana, part III


On September 8th, 1976, Mexican forces under the command of General Vidal Delgado, a subordinate of Julio Recinos, captured the town of Denton, Indiana. Denton was an unimportant small town will only a textile factory that had been in operation since the 19th century, and was generally held by those in the area as a boring, sleepy town without much of anything. However, there was one important quality of Denton that provided it with something crucial to the Mexican advance.

Denton was positioned so that if airstrips were established in the vicinity, aircraft would be in range to strike Burgoyne, the North American capital. General Rutherford Ballinger, commander of all of the Mexican Air Force stationed in the Indiana front. Quickly, an air force engineer detachment was sent to Denton with great haste, and constructed many air strips and command structures in the area outside the town. Soon, elements of the Mexican Air Force were brought in from their previous main base in Indiana, the town of Dorney, Indiana, and their fuel and other supplies were brought in to allow Denton to become a "fully operational stationing area for Mexican aircraft."

On September 12th, bombers were launched from Denton, with a heavy escort from fighters, over Burgoyne, many with stickzine but others with conventional armaments, and unleashed what has been described by survivors of the initial and subsequent raids as "hell on earth." Many landmarks and ministry buildings were destroyed, including the completed portions of the effort to rebuild the Grand Council chamber that had been destroyed in the August 7th bombings. Cameron Lundon, the commander of the North America Air Force in the region, scrambled fighters to do what he could, but the damage had been done. Burgoyne had suffered its first attack in centuries.

Governor-General Worden and the rest of his rump Grand Council survived the bombing, retreating into a bunker assembled by the CBI under his house and weathered the storm. After the bombings had ceased and large portions of the city were aflame, Worden gave a speech to the nation from radio and vitavision broadcasting channels in a station used by the CNA government, saying the following:

"Even if our cities are bombed and our capital is laid waste, the people of North America will not succumb to the Mexicans. We will fight in the streets of Burgoyne and in the fields of Indiana, we will fight in Philadelphia and in New York and in Boston and in Halifax if need be. We are brave people, we are committed, we are strong, and we will never surrender!"

Many, both at the time and in today's current climate of historical academia, have alleged that Worden was mentally ill. The decision that he made after the first bombings of Burgoyne are often used as evidence for that belief. After the above speech, he ordered a top-secret military installation in northern Manitoba to launch a nuclear-tipped warhead on Denton, destroying the town, killing Ballinger and Delgado, as well as the remainder of the population of the area.

 

[Kuamong]

I really should have seen the nukes coming. Is this going to lead to a Mexican nuclear response, or are they going to attempt to have a more level headed approach with their response?

 

[SpanishSpy]

I really should have seen the nukes coming. Is this going to lead to a Mexican nuclear response, or are they going to attempt to have a more level headed approach with their response?

I'm not going to reveal much, but I will say it is going to get much, much worse before it is going to get better.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The March through Indiana, part IV

With the usage of North American nuclear weapons on their own soil on the town of Denton, Indiana, the Mexican command was faced with a dilemma: should they use their own nuclear weapons on Burgoyne?

General Julio Recinos asked for access to nuclear weapons, but was not intent on immediately using them on Burgoyne; a communique back to Mexico city read:

"This would only make the North Americans more willing to fight, not less. If their leader dies by our hands in that manner we will be trapped in this hellhole for centuries."

President Lassiter, too, opposed the usage of nuclear weapons on Burgoyne, as did Secretary of State Raymond Portillo. It was considered "politically inexpedient" to do so; a postwar world in which North America was perpetually under Mexican occupation would be exhaustive of Mexican resources and would likely give whoever came out of the European War on top the upper hand in any ensuing arms race, which Mexican strategists felt was almost inevitable. Generals Bermudez and Norris too were against the usage of nuclear weapons; indeed, the decision was made in Mexico City with near-unanimity, with only some relatively low-ranking servicemen dissenting.

However, Recinos' request was heeded and a nuclear missile base, constructed in 1974 and its scientific operations overseen by the eminent Thomas McCarthy, in the wastes of northern Alaska, was assigned to Recinos' command should he find it necessary. The base commandant, Plutarco de la Pava, was hesitant about the arrangement but was sympathetic with many of Recinos' views; like Recinos, he was raised religiously in Durango state and felt that North America was essentially the new Sodom. "If I am needed, I will unleash holy fire on the unbelievers," said de la Pava in a communique to Recinos, to which the latter heartily agreed.

Quickly, military convoys from Puerto Hancock and San Francisco were sent on the highways to Alaska beyond Nikolaevsk, to cities such as Volkovograd and Popovsk, and eventually to the small town of Wellston, the closest settlement to the missile base operated by de la Pava. These convoys carried anti-air weaponry and a larger garrison to defend the base and the town of Wellston should a group of North American stragglers make its way into Alaska.

Air raids over Burgoyne, now led by General Hector Edmisten, were intensified significantly while Recinos' ground forces continued their offensive. By the beginning of December, the Mexicans had advanced to the point that the Burgoyne itself was able to be besieged.

The battle of Burgoyne was about to begin.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The Battle of Burgoyne

The battle for the North American capital is mostly remembered as a nigh-pointless bloodbath in which promising young men from both Mexico and its allies and the CNA were sentenced to death in a meat grinder. The same could be said about the Battle of Jefferson City, but Burgoyne will be forever remembered as the battle that damned the continent of North America to the fate that it would have in the late 1970s and most of the 1980s.

It would not be until May of 1977 that Burgoyne's orgy of slaughter would come to an end; the entire conflict was a maddened frenzy, with stickzine being used by both sides and intense urban warfare. Air strikes from Mexican bases in Indiana on one hand and the North American bases in Manitoba on the other hand made frequent collisions with the ground and pockmarked the landscape with craters.

Neither side wanted to use nuclear weapons, and neither did. What Worden had ordered to be used on his own people had led to mass violent demonstrations in Burgoyne and in other cities; cities such as Milledgeville in Georgia were almost in open revolt. The Mexicans also refused to for political reasons, and a desire not to be seen as a pariah state (although the Germans had them beaten in that regard, certainly).

General Recinos on the Mexican side was still keen on executing his own men who did not fight sufficiently impassionedly. General Watford on the North American side did everything he could to keep morale up in what was certain to be a losing battle. Governor-General Worden himself gave rousing speeches to soldiers behind the lines; wherever he spoke he would be guarded by increased anti-air capacity and fighter interceptor squads overhead. In one of his last speeches before the end of the battle in May, he proclaimed:

"There is no real North America if we surrender. We are a race of warriors who fought in Mexico and in India. We fight for real liberty and for the republican principles of those like Scott and McDowell. To surrender to them would be a crime against humanity, a crime against nature, a crime against God Himself!"

And yet the bombings continued and the fighting failed to cease, as terramobiles rolled through the stately streets of the city. Eventually, an air strike by the Mexicans killed General Watford, and stickzine bombings ate away at the chain of command.

On May 11th, 1977, the Mexicans rolled into the center of Burgoyne and surrounded Worden's home. After a short firefight, his guards were killed and Mexican soldiers broke into the home. Worden and his government were dragged out and imprisoned; orders from Mexico City said that Lassiter wanted his opposite number alive.

 

[FleetMac]

Alright, end game for Worden's CNA! You know what, I hope he gets a fair trial. As dickish as he's been to Mexico from the start, he hasn't really done anything all that especially evil (from an OTL perspective, a la Pol Pot or King Leopold) that would otherwise trip my red-haze anger. I'm sure he'd get his just desserts one way or another, I say let Justice prevail here as is the Mexican way (at least, in theory )).

As for the CNA itself, if anybody's taking suggestions, I'd say split the place up so that its various multi-province/state Confederations are each separate countries, leaving Mexico the biggest unified country on the Continent (and said ex-Confederations dependent on them). But that's just me .

 

[SpanishSpy]

Alright, end game for Worden's CNA! You know what, I hope he gets a fair trial. As dickish as he's been to Mexico from the start, he hasn't really done anything all that especially evil (from an OTL perspective, a la Pol Pot or King Leopold) that would otherwise trip my red-haze anger. I'm sure he'd get his just desserts one way or another, I say let Justice prevail here as is the Mexican way (at least, in theory )).

As for the CNA itself, if anybody's taking suggestions, I'd say split the place up so that its various multi-province/state Confederations are each separate countries, leaving Mexico the biggest unified country on the Continent (and said ex-Confederations dependent on them). But that's just me .

I'm going to finish up the war in Europe and some coverage of Asia, Africa, etc., and then the postwar situation in North America will be revealed.

The suffering of that continent is far from over.

 

[SpanishSpy]

France as of May 1977

The German hold of the south of France had practically ceased to exist by 1977; the forces of the Egalitarian Republic of France were making rapid gains in that part of the country. Irenee Parris, the high commander of all Egalitarian forces, had taken the city of Marseille in December, Nice and Montpellier in October, Monaco and Grenoble in January, and La Rochelle, Limoges, and Clermont Ferrand by May.

Throughout the country the people of France were flocking to the banner of the Egalitarian Republic, with its characteristic scythe, hammer, rifle, and rope, as a method of lashing out against the German forces which had 'humiliated' the French nation, "reducing it to slavery to capitalist interests," in the words of Ruben Allard, the Republic's President. A staunch Neiderhofferian, as well as a French Nationalist, he traveled with the army and General Parris (other generals included Albert Diufaloy and Thibeaut Livremont) and radicalized the people, especially the youth.

However, there was some ideological dissent within the ranks of the Republican Army. Mathieu Cordonnier, the provisional government's Commissioner for Military Logistics, was sternly anti-nationalist. In a speech in Bordeaux, Cordonnier, himself from that city having worked in the factories for German-owned countries, he emphasized the need to expand the revolution to countries such as Spain and Italy. However, he was willing to tolerate Allard and his nationalist sentiment so long as they continued their land reform and labor reform in the territories that they ran.

Cordonnier grew to form a massive faction within the Republic, and a large portion of the growing state bureaucracy based in Bordeaux was sympathetic to him. The People's Assembly, their national legislature, was forty percent Cordonnierist and supported an army movement into Germany itself once France was taken. Allard and Parris thought this idea to be absolutely foolish, the former saying that "our Republic is only so strong."

The assassinated Bruno Biermann had been replaced by the German high command by Lennard Unterberger, a general of little repute but of high standing in the military bureaucracy. He himself was given command of a force that was prone to making the same mistakes that the North Americans and their UBE allies had made when occupying India; indeed, Parris and the other generals freely admitted to being inspired by the ILM in their tactics.

These tactics were brutal and unforgiving to the Germans and to those French who were foolish enough to collaborate. Scout parties with explosives regularly mined the highways, and detonated when terramobiles or infantry moved over them. Bombings were regularly carried out in populated urban areas for the sake of terror; in the words of Parris, "we must cow the Germans if we are to expel them." In one town in the Auvergne, as a Republican army advanced the water supply was poisoned. The sickness led to many deaths among the Germans and forced a Republican victory.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The Sussex Worker's Army

In May 1977, a group of various dockworkers and industrial workers in the Sussex city of Shoreham-by-Sea banded together to form the Sussex Worker's Army to resist what was deemed the "exploitative tendency of war" and the "murderous idea of nationalism" that had caused the current calamity. Its leader, Bernard Cook, a former dockworker, expressed sympathy for and inspiration from the Egalitarian Republic of France and its leader Ruben Allard, as well as the controversial Commissioner for Military Logistics Mathieu Cordonnier.

When the Germans had invaded England in Operation William, there was hope among certain circles of workers on the coast of the English channel that there might be better treatment for workers under General Waldfogel. In the 1880s Britain had been resistant to adopting Neiderhofferist reforms on the level of France, Spain, and Italy. Leon Gambetta, the French statesmen in the post-revolutionary 1880s was seen by many European workers as an idea statesman who should be emulated; Allard and Cordonnier both agreed that this was the case. The Germans were staunchly anti-Neiderhofferist, ironic given that Neiderhoffer himself was from Germany, but were still seen as better than the British government, which was widely held as an "oligarchy of business moguls."

However, when the Germans finally commenced Operation William the workers found themselves either forced into service of the German armed forces or dead, in the latter case by nuclear bomb in some high-profile cases. Their seeming hope of salvation gone, covert resistance was the main method of resistance, occasionally aided by the British Army, until the formation of the Sussex Worker's Army. The use of nuclear weapons only made the situation worse; there had been no attempt to warn workers, or anyone for that matter, of the coming nuclear strikes.

The Army made its first strike on the Germans by seizing a cargo ship, the Louis William, killing its crew, stealing its weapons, and sinking the ship with detonation charges. These new weapons were taken to a hiding spot by the Army, which used them to arm their forces and overrun a German position not far from the port of Shoreham, now one of the most important ports in the south of England given the destruction of Southampton, Portsmouth, and Brighton,.

Soon, Cook sent his men to stir up more violence in other parts of Sussex; there was a rising in Chichester in which both the Germans and the Anglican Church were targeted. It was made very clear from the outset that the Army was no friend of London; the leader of the Chichester rising, Thomas Pearson, had said that "oppressive oligarchs, whether they be in London or in Berlin, are no allies of the workers of the world and shall be treated as such."

 

[SpanishSpy]

Rebellions throughout the Greater German Empire

The Indian Liberation Movement, despite its brutal methods in attempting to destroy the remaining British connections that India maintained, was very potent in inspiring nationalist movements in many nations, with the Egalitarian Republic of France and the Sussex Workers' Army in France and the United Kingdom, respectively, being influenced heavily by the insurgent tactics of the ILM. Shamba Pandya was seen as a freedom fighter by many throughout the other nations of the Greater German Empire, which was often described as Reinhold Kiermaier's "experiment in German hegemony," in the words of Dutch terrorist-cum-freedom fighter (depending on who is asked).

The Netherlands was ransacked during the First Global War, and the subsequent occupation by the Germans was a cause for much resentment. Incorporation into the Greater German Empire in the early part of the decade only forced more funds, materials, and men to join an integrated government and civil service. A Dutch Nationalism, with the bands of anti-German fighters in the First Global War as well as activists during the Bloody Eighties, served as the catalyst for revolutionary activity throughout the country. Andreas van Buggenum, a former soldier from Amsterdam, took several of his compatriots and wired explosives in a highly-attended gala in the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, killing the German-sympathetic prime minister of the country, Boudewijn Bullens, as well as several of his ministers as well as German officers. Similar attacks took place throughout the Netherlands.

Poland was a similar case, having been independent for only a short time before being incorporated into the Empire by Germany, a common historical opponent, and found itself in league with, of all places, its other historical enemy Russia. Polish separatists were willing to use locobombs in cities such as Danzig, Bromberg, and Warsaw itself. Shootings in public places, particularly in areas held to be sympathetic to the Germans, were common. On July 8th an assassin, Mariusz Sadowski, fatally shot the German-backed mayor of Kattowitz, Waldemar Szwec, in full view before committing suicide by jumping off a balcony. This led to a popular uprising in Kattowitz and the neighboring cities of Gleiwitz, Tschentoschau, and Zaberze, which required the attention of the German military.

Perhaps the most rebel-stricken country was Russia, where the current government of the Associated Russian Republics was widely despised as being collaborationist. The major resistance organization was the Russian Patriotic Front, led by Varnava Petrov of Smolensk, which was daring in that its attacks were not solely undertaken in Russia. On July 20th, a roadside bomb was detonated in Berlin itself not far from the German diet building. The bomb killed between a hundred and two hundred people and narrowly missed Guntram Falk's locomobile. Soon, forces in Germany were dispatched to the area between Moscow and Smolensk, with particular concentration in the metropolitan areas of Tver and Velikiy Novgorod, to hunt down the terrorists responsible.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The Sons of Fanchon and the Egalitarian Republic of France: a Tenuous Alliance

The two insurgent organizations operating in France were two vastly different beasts. The Sons of Fanchon were an arch-conservative terrorist group that was fighting in Paris and the North of France with the occasional action elsewhere, by 1977 mainly Le Havre and Strasburg. The Egalitarian Republic of France, conversely, was rapidly becoming a government in its own right, with its capital in Bordeaux and an increasingly coherent military force. The former was led by the insurgent Leopold Herriot; the latter by the President of the Republic Ruben Allard.

The two naturally saw each other as allies against the occupying Germans; representatives of each met at the town of La Charite-sur-Loir to the south of Paris. There, it was decided that there would be a French People's Alliance to expel the Germans from their homeland, with the postwar settlement to be decided between the two factions. Allard hoped that Herriot would sympathize with the Republic's cause and fold into the Republic's army when it became fully established. Herriot, however, thought that Neiderhofferism was a "foolish ideology that reeks of entitlement" while Allard thought of the Sons' namesake as "a despot and a dictator."

Nevertheless the two groups coordinated the Republic's siege of the city of Dijon, where Sons engineers and special operatives were able to destroy terramobiles and telephone lines in the city, leaving the forces of the German commander unable to call for reinforcements. Explosives were planted in German-held warehouses, destroying them and killing several soldiers and workers. With the city of Dijon in chaos, the armies of the Republic, under Irenee Parris, were able to close in and take the city for themselves.

Similar operations took place at Nantes and Angers, while the Sons of Fanchon worked on taking complete control of Le Havre. The port of Calais, to the northeast of Le Havre, was the main target of Sons attacks in the northern part of the country but the city was too well defended by the Germans, who, despite suffering nuclear bomb attacks from Britain on it, had seriously reinforced their holdings around the city, hoping to maintain a landing area for those German forces that were fighting in Britain. Calais was their only lifeline back to Germany.

Soon, the necessity came to take Paris from the Germans; once Parris and Herriot agreed on doing so, the Sons destroyed several bridges along the Seine, causing commerce and military activity to grind to a halt in the meantime as repair teams from Strasburg and Lille were called in. On that July day, a Republic army had massed to the south, and General Unterberger's men were withdrawing to the city.

 

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The Siege of Paris

It is unknown exactly what General Unterberger, commander of the German forces in the south of France, told General Kreuse, the commander of German forces in Paris, when it became necessary for the former's forces to use the latter's city as a base for their retreat northwards. It is, however, known to historians that Kreuse was displeased with Unterberger's incompetence, as he had lost to what Chancellor Kiermaier described as an "armed rabble."

The Republican Army of the Egalitarian Republic of France was in no way a rabble. General Parris was dubbed by one historian "among the finest commanders of the Second Global War." The Republican Army was a highly organized force with large amounts of weaponry captured from the Germans and airdropped in by the British, as well has having men from international brigades in Spain and Portugal (the former had a good deal of Catalonians join the army, as did Basques; these regions were seeking independence from the central Spanish government, and both had significant Neiderhofferist factions). By July 14th the Republican Army had amassed a significant amount of former German and prewar French armor, artillery, and armaments for infantry.

To start the attack, the Sons of Fanchon, the radical conservative terrorist organization, undertook one of its most daring attacks that it would during the war. Firstly, the command building in the center of Paris was destroyed by a freightmobile locobomb, obliterating the entire city block near it. Any bridges over the Seine that had been reconstructed after the previous attacks in the city were destroyed once more, to prevent the Germans north of the river, those under Kreuse's command, from reaching the other side quickly.

More locobombs attacked German emplacements in the south of the city, where the Republicans would be coming from, and Sons partisan fighters swarmed barracks. This initial wave was unsuccessful in fully dislodging the Germans but was enough to allow Republican artillery to do significant damage. Shortly thereafter Republican infantry and armor came crashing into the German fortifications. General Unterberger, at that point to the north of the Seine, was helpless as his subordinate officers were slaughtered.

Engineers hastily constructed more and more pontoon bridges over the Seine to allow the Germans to move to the southern side of the Seine. However, artillery strikes from the Republican Army, as well as Sons snipers that had snuck into the city, disrupted the bridge construction and allowed the Republican Army to secure the southern banks of the Seine.

Artillery from the Republicans continued firing into the north of the city; General Unterberger was killed when a shell hit the building he was taking shelter in. What remained of Unterberger's forces came under Kreuse's command. However, more locobomb attacks in the north of the city, combined with the seizing of pontoon bridges by the Republicans, several thousand in number, forced Kreuse to withdraw from Paris. The French capital was in the control of revolutionaries.

The only major German strongholds in France were Calais and Strasburg.