The Co-Prosperity Sphere

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 838: Austrian Order Division Number Four​

The Austrian Order Division Number Four: Galicia (Galizien) was named after the former Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, named after Galicia a Latinized form of Halych, a principality of the medieval Ruthenia and Lodomeria, a Latinized form of Volodymyr-Volynskyi. It was created as a Grenadier Division of the Austrian Order and made up mainly from Ukrainians in Galicia. These Volunteers of ethnic Ukrainian background had hoped to become part of the Ukrainian Kingdom as a vassal and puppet state of Austria Hungary, but were mainly used by the Austrians first to cleans the once major southern Polish Industrial region of remaining Polish settlers, to crush all remaining ambitions and claims of the Polish Kingdom to the area. At the same time the Ukrainian majority itself was seen as a problem by the Austrians as well, especially if the Axis Central Powers were to create a depending Ukrainian puppet Kingdom liberated from the Soviet Union Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (SSR). Ukrainian democrats and nationalists alike however supported the Axis Central Powers backed Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN, or Ukrainian: Організація Українських Націоналістів; ОУН, Orhanizatsiya Ukrayins'kykh Natsionalistiv) and used anti-Polish propaganda from the Polish–Ukrainian War. This was in parts also because the Polish Kingdom had become a more German Imperial depending puppet and vassal, instead of an Austrian one, as the Austrian Emprie had hoped in the Beginning. Because of that the Galician Division was soon expanded with Czechs and Slovaks alike, ethnic groups opposing Polish as well as Imperial German ambitions and claims to their land, making the Galizien Division a bulwark of the northern Austrian Imperial Border Region and the Border itself. It participated in the Eastern Crusade against the Soviet Union and it’s Red Army, fighting alongside the Baltic Teutonic Order and the Ukrainian Gothic Order alike, were they would support elements of the Ruthenian Kingdom (White Ruthenian) and Independence Movement, as well as the Ukrainian Kingdom and Independence Movement, supported massively by Andriy Melnyk and Stepan Bandera alike.



The Galician territory itself served as another major field of operation beside partisan fighting at the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union and local nationalist, socialist or communist partisans. In Galicia the majorly Czech and Slovak elements of the Austrian order Division Galizien were used to suppress national Ukrainian ambitions to integrate the region into a Greater Ukraine and spread pan-Ukrainian ideals of irredentism. Some of the ethnic Ukrainian members of the division would aid the newly liberated and independent Axis Central Powers member of the Ukrainian Kingdom and it’s new political government supported and pursued the idea of a own Ukrainian police and armed force, many of which would come from ethnic Ukrainian as well as Crimean Tartars (Krimtartaren) in opposition of the Soviet Union, it’s Red Army as well as Russian settlers in Ukrainia. While assisting the Austrian Empire and the United States of Austria to resettle Galician Ukrainians to the Ukraine, the Division would also help free land and homes for them, by resettling (often not so volunterly) Russians from the Northern and Eastern Ukrainian Kingdom lands further east into the newly liberated regions of the Russian Empire. Because of this the Austrians themselves, especially Germans and Hungarians made a clear distinction between western Slavs civilized by the Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, that had become Catholic, like Czechs, Slovaks and Poles, towards eastern Slavs that had remained Orthodox, or recently Atheist under Communism, thereby proving they were less civilized then the Western Counterparts, at least in the eyes of the Central European Axis Central Powers, as well as their Western European allies, who viewed Southern Europe, Southeastern Europe and Eastern Europe as not only less industrialized and advanced, but less civilized overall, which was partly why the Axis Central Powers of the German Empire and the Austrian Empire saw themselves on a mission to bring Catholic and Protestant Cristian Values back to these regions to free them from Atheist Soviet and Orthodox Russian and Pan-Slavic influence alike.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 839: Teutonic Order Division Number Seven​

The Teutonic Order Division Number Seven: Latvian Number One was an Infantry Grenadier Division formed during the Second Great War. Formed in 1943 together with it’s sister unit, the Teutonic Order 2nd Latvian, or Latvian Number Two, they were also known as the Latvian Legion. Originating from the Latvian Police Battalions of the newly formed United Baltic Duchy and the Teutonic Order alike, many former Nazi’s were among their early members with the intention of Germanizing the Baltic areas and integrate them into the German Empire. Because of that this majorly ethnic Latvian Division was commanded by ethnic German Officers. Formed by Latvian volunteers eager to join the Teutonic Order to defend their Baltic State from the Soviet Union and it’s Red Army, therefore they were also known as the Latvian Volunteer Division. Later Latvians would also be recruited and pressed into service by martial law and draft alike, conscripting Latvians for the military, allowing for compensating the losses thanks to the Latvian Province Administration and Government, which started using Latvian citizens born between 1919 and 1924. Under these laws many Latvians and other civilians of the United Baltic Duchy were also pressed into forced labor programs. During their operation in the Eastern Front, the so called Eastern Crusade, the Division would fight alongside Axis Central Powers forces in the Battle of Leningrad, as well as against partisans in the surrounding areas. During this operations they would loose a significant portion of their manpower, especially in the Ostrov, Novosokolniki and Novgorod Oblast, which meant they were in need of reinforcements and fresh soldiers. While slowly reinforcing they were send to the outer defense walls of Leningrad, by now renamed to Saint Petersburg once more to aid against the Red Army counter attack. After heaviest fighting they were down to 8,247 soldiers, th majority of which no longer capable of active serving in front-line operations. Therefore they were send back to the Baltic Nation Coast, so they could regroup, be healed and use their leave of absence to regain their lost strength. By 1944 they were send back to the Eastern Front fully replenished by fresh recruits and combat ready once more. Once more encountering heavy fighting during the Battle of Moscow, their strength would fall to 5,351 soldiers, once more making them incapable of continuing front-line combat operations.


Because of that they were instead relocated behind the front-lines and tasked with anti-partisan duty against local national independent, socialist, communist or other types of rebels and insurgencies. The Lettische Nummer Eins, as the Austrians and Germans would call it would however still play a major role in Axis Central Powers propaganda, not only as one of the few units present in two major battles of the Eastern Crusade, Leningrad and Moscow alike, but also as a symbol of hope that liberated the People of Eastern Europe from Soviet Tyranny, as well as a role model for duty and sacrifice of all Axis Central Powers armed forces. The Latvian Division Number One would later be merged by the Teutonic Order with the Latvian Division Number Two, to the Latvian Division, or Latvian Legion to get back to full fighting strength after both had sustained severe losses during the Eastern Crusade. At the same time a new Latvian Divisions Number Two would be raised by the Teutonic Order from the regular Latvian recruits of the United Baltic Duchy Army to keep the Teutonic Order in acceptable strength and at the same time weaken the United Baltic Duchy Army and with it possible opposition by the Baltic people for their plans of Germanization and annexation of the area into the German Empire later on. Because of that tensions between the Teutonic Order and the United Baltic Duchy, especially the local ethnic Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian majorities, but partly also the Russian, Polish, White Russian and Ukrainian ethnic minorities, that were deportee into their own nation states out of the Untied Baltic Duchy, opposed growing German influence and settlement. This was also the reason why German colonists, settlers and German Baltic Duchy government members were supporting the Teutonic Order, the German Empire and German politics before that of the other Baltic people and the independence of the United Baltic Duchy. This tensions nearly lead to a Baltic Duchy Civil War, but with the German Empire and it’s political, economic and military power backing the Teutonic Order, the United Baltic Duchy feared to restrict the Teutonic Order by laws, police or even their own military.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 840: Teutonic Order Division Number Eight​

Created from Imperial German and Ethnic German volunteers and recruits alike, the Teutonic Order Division Number Eight; German Emperor was a motorized unit. Named after the German Emperor on purpose and using the coat of arms colors of the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Emperor. Clearly this was partly meant as a means to enrage and ridicule the United Baltic Duchy, while at the same time praise the glory and history of the German Empire and the Teutonic Order alike, which in itself was another affront to the Baltic people because of the Nordic Crusades. Despite this the German Emperor Division of the Teutonic Order was made up by Germans, it was not made up by the hardcore Nazi’s who initially had made up much of the Teutonic Order beside parts of the SS, SA and even the German Army. While this normally could have meant that the Teutonic Order Division Number Eight; German Emperor was especially problematic, the overall presence and open plans of the Teutonic Order and the German Empire to Germanize and later annex the Baltic region into the German Empire. As a part of the motorized Teutonic Order divisions, it would serve on the Eastern Front, during the Eastern Crusade against the Soviet Union and it’s Red Army. During this fights against the enemy army, as well as partisans behind the front-lines, the German Emperor Division did comity war crimes against enemy soldiers, prisoners and civilians alike. Sustaining heavy causalities in front-line fighting and anti-partisan activities behind the front they would loss many man and as a result o this would be combined with additional man coming from the Fallschirm-Panzerjäger (Paratrooper Tank Hunters) Division made up of Luftwaffe (Air Force) members send to the Untied Baltic Duchy by Hermann Göring to aid in the build up of a local air force in the fight against the Soviet Union. These combined forces would be heavily involved in punitive actions against civilians in partisan-infested regions, leading to them being involved in massacres of civilians and captured prisoners alike in this officially so called anti-partisan activities. Because of this activities, as well as their involvement in resettling ethnic Russians, White Ruthenians, Ukrainians and Poles out of the United baltic Duchy into their own nation states and kingdoms.


While originally a purely motorized unit, their merger with the Fallschirm-Panzerjäger Division Hermann Göring added two unique features to them, specialized anti-tank infantry with grenade launchers, mines and anti-tank guns, as well as paratroopers, who would soon combine their skills and specialties with that of the original motorized unit. This way they created a partly motorized, special anti-tank forces, that also had a brigade of anti-tank paratrooper attached to them, while most of the pilots and instructors of the original air force division were simply incorporated into the new ground forces, or served as transporter, bomber, stucka and fighter pilot for the air squadrons directly attached to their new Teutonic Order Division. Known as battle hardened elite forces soon once more they were used as a fire-fighting unit against front-line breakthroughs of enemy forces into the Axis Central Powers lines, a task which only further increased the overall losses and the additional manpower needed to bring them up to full strength. Because of this Baltic-Germans and Wolynien-Germans (White Russian/ Ruthenian or Volhynia Germans) were soon additionally used as volunteers, or recruited by the Teutonic Order, the German Empire and it’s eastern puppets and vassals, like the United Baltic Duchy, the Polich Kingdom or the Ruthenian Kingdom. In exchange these soldiers and their family were promised to become Wehrbauern (defensive peasants) and given additional heritable land for themselves and their families by the local Governemtns, the Teutonic Order and the German Empire in exchange for their services. This only increased the number of German volunteers and recruits, as many of the German ethnic minority in the East used this to rise in social status and financial rank during the Second Great War, becoming great land owners of large farm estates and territories that the ethnic majorities would then crop and cultivate for them so that these former farmers and workers could rise to the ranks of high middle class, or even upper class citizens inside these new nation states to increase ethnic German influence and growing interests being secured there for the coming future.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 841: Burgundian Order Division Number Three: Burgundian Cross

Created by the Burgundian order out of Imperial Germans, ethnic Germans and Franco-Germans (northern French), as well as those with Burgundian heritage, the Burgundian Order Division Number Three, also known as Burgundian Cross saw action on the Western Front during the Second Great War. Raised in former France, ir was created as a tank grenadier division from scratch with much of it’s original cadre coming from replacement units and conscripts, many of whom were Germans and French volunteers. Honorably named after the Burgundian Cross as an insignia of the Burgundian Order and the Burgundian Independence and commanded by newly promoted Brigadeführer Werner Ostendorff starting in 1943. While the Division still lacked vehicles in February 1944, so they needed to round up French vehicles in an attempt to complete its mobilization, so that finally by March, most of the major combat formations were fully motorized, although two of the six infantry battalions were still on bicycles. On 1 June, they were stationed in Northern France, with no tanks, although the crews were fully equipped with 42 Sturmgeschütz IV assault guns, only a few months' training, and below strength in officers and NCOs., shortly before the American Invasion into Normandy. When the Allied invasion of June 6, 1944 occurred, the Burgundian Cross Division was ordered to Normandy to take part in the efforts to reduce the Allied beachhead. On June 10 the Division made contact with 182 paratroopers of the 3rd Battalion, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, and B Company, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, at the village of Graignes. This small group of paratroopers had been dropped mistakenly by the U.S. 9th Army Air Force Troop Carrier Command and had decided to try and hold their positions. The ensuing battle, and the criminal execution of wounded paratroopers and French civilians by the Burgundian Cross Division, has since been known as the Battle of Graignes. On June 11 the reconnaissance battalion engaged in combat near the town of Carentan with the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division and drove them back towards the seaside with further Axis Central Powers support.



With the Americans retreating from the town and were retreating northwest by the morning of June 13 to avoid German and French reinforcements, the Burgundian Order Panzergrenadier Regiment 37, supported by the assault guns of the division's Panzer battalion and Oberst (colonel) Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte's 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment, attacked the retreating American paratroopers alongside the Burgundian Cross Division. In what the Americans dubbed the Battle of Méautis, the Germans routed two paratroop companies before their attack was stopped by the arrival of Combat Command A of the U.S. 2nd Armored Division and Allied defenses held on for some time. For the rest of the month, the division was engaged in heavy fighting for the Normandy region near La Haye and Portbail. During this period, the Burgundian Cross Division suffered heavy losses and by the beginning of July, its strength had been reduced to 8,500 men. The division was in the line of advance for a final push to eliminate all remaining Allied forces in Normandy, but suffered heavy losses attempting to halt the Allied evacuation in the Siege and Battle of Cherbourg. It was engaged in heavy fighting with the U.S. 2nd Armored Division in the during the siege occurring urban combat where both lost most of its armored equipment. It was then ordered to take part in the Cherbourg Offensive, code-named Operation Charles Martel. After their increased losses during this offensive, the division was split into four Kampfgruppen, “Braun”, “Günter”, “Friedrich” and “Wilhelm”. These small units managed to continue fighting the urban battle for Cherbourg in smaller groups, which surprisingly fought and managed much better then then before in larger, bigger formations, but still would suffer heavy losses and remained in almost constant combat against the retreating Americans and British, until finally the last Allied forces had retreated back to Britain, had been captured as prisoners of war, or had been killed during battle. After this heavy fighting, the Burgundian Cross Division was transferred to Caen for a much-needed rest and refit. In July the reserve battalion of the division was involved in counterinsurgency action against remnant Allied paratrooper groups that had joined with local Resistance groups. Among the most well known member of this Burgundian Cross Division was Sepp Dietrich, who alongside the rest of the Division would continue on to fight the Allied invasions in Morocco.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 842: Austrian Order Division Number Five: Austria-Hungary

The Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division Austria-Hungary was formed in 1943, from cradle of the 1st Austrian Order Infantry Brigade of about 1,000 men and filled up with mainly ethnic Germans and ethnic Hungarians of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the United States of Austria. They would first be send to Galicia, were they would be tasked with rear-security duties against local resistance, of mainly Communist and Ukrainian, before they were send further East to the Eastern front, all beside one regiment that remained behind to fight a local Slovak National Uprising in July 1944. Most of the Austria-Hungary Division would then fight partisans in the Kingdom of Ukrainia, before finally being deployed even further eastwards in the Caucasus regions, to aid the local German, Russian, Turkish and Gothic Order forces to stop the Red Army counter-offensive of the Soviet Union. In the Northern Caucasus, before aiding in the fighting in the Southern Caucasus that would liberate Georgia and Azerbaijan, as well as lead to the conquest of many of the Baku Oil Fields for the Axis Central Powers, even if heavily damaged. After this they would be send further south to assist in the fights against the Allies in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, Syria and Transjordan, where they would have encounters with American, but mainly British, English and Indian forces alike, as well as a few Australians and New Zealand military groups. During this fighting the Austrian-Hungarian Division would use it’s engineers to keep the oil fields and oil transport running, like it had done before during the Cuacasus Campaign, but this time under much more heavier and frequent Allied artillery and bomber attacks then ever before. Because of that the number of causalities not because of direct fighting, but Allied bomber and fighter attacks increased significantly and over time the Austrian-Hungarian Division was forced to take in additional reinforcements, some even from Czech, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia to fill up their ranks. This partly inflicted morale, as did the difficult Middle East climate and changed conditions, changing from the frozen Caucasian Steppe towards the desert dunes of the Middle Eastern regions they now were fighting with the Allies over.



During their time their original nickname of the Bergsteiger (Mountain Climbers) changed to that of the Dünenhunde (Dune Dogs) because of the quick way they managed to even drive and bypass the enemy to get him in the flanks and even from behind trough the local desert areas. But while their new nickname and success suggested they quickly adapted to their new surroundings, many actually became quit homesick as the region and it’s locals and customs were so much different then their home-area of the Balkans, leading to many to be later replaced by fresh forces from Austria-Hungary and even local Axis Central Powers supporters and auxiliary, like Jewish nationalists, Arab independence fighters from the Allies and other controversial groups that partly mistrusted and outright opposed one another, but were much better equipped to fight in the local customs and climate. This method soon proved to be even more devastating then the other problems and the Austrians soon changed to let these forces fight as Auxiliary, but rely on ethnic and cultural groups from within their own Imperial volunteer and recruited groups for the remaining duration of the Second Great War, at least in highly elite trained and well equipped forces, like the Austrian Order Divisions, despite their continued staggering causalities and losses on all front-lines in the coming months and years. This as well as a shift of training, specializing in a more desert and savanna climate thanks to returning Austrian and Hungarian veteran trainers from North Africa allowed the Austrian-Hungarian Division to remain at the top of it’s game and continue to be one of the most elite and best equipped forces the Austrians would ever field in the Middle East during the Second Great War. Victories in Egypt, Transjordan and Iraq meanwhile meant that the majority of the old Division core veterans was soon send back to Russia to reinforce against the Red Army forces of the Soviet Union there, while those more accustomed to desert warfare remained in the Middle East to support the Axis Central Power operations there, effectively splitting the Division into two separately operating regiments for the rest for the war.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 843: Teutonic Order Division Number Nine: Lettgallen

The Teutonic Order Division Number Nine, also known as 2nmd Latvian and Lettgallen was an infantry Grenadier-Division of the Teutonic Order created during the Second Great War. It was formed in December 1943, after its sister unit, the 1st Latvian with which it formed the so called Latvian Legion. It was formed out of two Teutonic Order Brigades, with the addition of a newly raised third regiment, Grenadier Regiment 46 (Latvian No. 6). Simultaneously, the designations of the two other grenadier regiments were changed from 39 and 40 to 42 and 43 respectively. It was besieged in the outer defensive line (Katharinalinie) during the Soviet Union Red Army counter offensive against the German and Russian Empires captured city of Leninrgad, which was renamed Saint Petersburg. The commander of the Teutonic Order brigade, Oberführer Hinrich Schuldt became the first commander of the division. After Schuldt was killed in action on 15 February 1944 during heavy fighting, Friedrich-Wilhelm Bock temporarily took command, being replaced on April 13 by Bruno Streckenbach, who would lead the division until the end of war. Named after Lettgallen (Latgale), a historical Latvian region and province, were most of the early volunteers came from that made up the majority of the Division. As a grenadier Division it was motorized and thanks to the Teutonic Order it had much of the most modern German equipment, to fill in the gaps however it also used some older equipment of the Latvian Army as well, leaving it with a mixed batch of weapons and vehicles, so that only their uniforms were coherent. It then took part in the northern Russian Campaign heading for Archangelsk alongside Russian and Finnish forces, driving the Red Army before them and took part in battles in Plessezk, Beresnik, Welsk, Wologda, Rybinsk and Jaroslawl during the northern encirclement campaign of Army Group North against Moscow. During this operations, the Lettgallen Division suffered heavy losses, which made it needed to reinforce it with fresh German and Latvian ethnic people from inside the United Baltic Duchy. This meant that the newly reinforced Lattgallen Division was full of fresh volunteers and recruits when the Battle of Moscow began, leading to more heavy causalities and losses.



After the Bettle of Moscow with heavy urban warfare, were nearly every house had to be freed from Red Army and Soviet Militia, the majority of the Lettgallen Division itself was send back to the United Baltic Duchy to rest and reinforce completely. Afterwards they were send for rear-security missions between the United Baltic Duchy and the front-lines in the East, tasked with defeating communist and Red Army partisans as well as local resistance and independence guerrilla groups operating outside or against the Axis Central Powers. During this operation the Lattgallen Division would also partake in war crimes against local civilians, armed and unarmed alike to root out guerrilla forces that were sabotaging their bridges, railways and other supply lines to slow down the Axis Central Power Forces. Together with regular army forces, police and local militia, they therefore ensured that enough supplies would reach the front-lines to ensure a continued pressure on the remaining Soviet Union government and it’s remaining Red Army forces, who tried to use the northern forests and southern plains for renewed counter-offensives to drive back the Axis Central Power forces and recapture Moscow and other lost Soviet Union land. Fierce resistance by the liberated Russian People, who could once again vote and pray as they pleased under the returned Czar, as well as their own mass-militia, police and volunteer army alongside more elite German, Teutonic Order, Gothic Order and other Axis Central Power regular forces would alongside German reserve motorized, mechanized and tank divisions, put a stop to these counters and use them to encircle more and more Soviet Union Red Army forces in their own spearhead attempts to encircle them. However new Red Army tank models and supplies from the United States and Britain meant that the fighting was far from over and despite massive military and civil losses, the Soviet Union and it’s Red Army were not yet beaten and defeated. In fact their resolve and fanatism had hardened after they realized what would happen to them if the White Russian Czarists and the Russian Empire would win this partly Second Civil War during the so called Eastern Crusade.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 844: Teutonic Order Division Number Ten: Estland/ 1st Estonian

The Teutonic Order Division Number Ten, Estland (Estonia), or 1st Estonian, that served alongside the regular Baltic Landwehr of the Untied Baltic Duchy, the Imperial German Army of the German Empire and the Imperial Russian Army of the Russian Empire. The Estland, or 1st Estonian Division was officially activated on 24 December 1943, and many of its soldiers had been members of the Estonian Legion and/or the 3rd Estonian Volunteer Brigade of the Teutonic Order, which had been fighting as part of German forces since March 1942 and September 1943 respectively. Both of the preceding formations drew their personnel from the Untied Baltic Duchy, especially from local ethnic German and Estonian groups. Shortly after its official activation, widespread conscription within the United Baltic Duchy was coordinated by the German advisers and military authorities, both in the Untied Baltic Duchy and the Teutonic Order alike. The Estland/ 1st Estonian Division was therefore formed in Estonia around a cadre comprising the 3rd Estonian Volunteer Brigade, and was initially known as the 20th Estonian Volunteer Division. Overall a total of around 38,000 men were conscripted in Estonia for the Teutonic Order during that time, while other Estonian units that had been part of the German Army and the Finnish Infantry Regiment 200 were transferred to Estonia to join them. In February 1944 the Estland Division had a designated strength of 16,135 men and between March and August 1944 had a total of 13,700 men pass through the reserve units and by September 1944 some 10,427 of it’s members had been killed or missing during continued combat operations during the Eastern Crusade. The unit fought the Red Army on the Eastern Front continuously in an attempt to break the Soviet Union for good alongside other Axis Central Power Forces throughout the Second Great War. They would fight their way towards Moscow, before being redirected North to help the Finnish Kingdom with the defense of it’s southern front-line towards the Soviet Union. This region, officially claimed and annexed as Greater Finland by the Finish Kingdom was none the Fins, Germans and Czarist Russians wished to give up, as it secured the flank of the liberated capital Saint Petersburg, the former Leningrad.



Therefore reinforcements were needed, as the Soviet Union had started a major counter-attack and attempted to retake the city, which ended in a failure and heavy losses on both sides. After this the Estland/ 1st Estonian Division was further reinforced by ethnic Germans, Estonians and a few Finnish volunteers and would continue to fight the Soviet Union’s Red Army on the northern front towards Arkhangelsk. During the Battle of Arkhangelsk they would volunteer be joined by parts of the Imperial German Navy, survivors of a submarine crew who had lost their ship during a raid on the harbor and managed to make it to land to rejoin the Axis Central Power forces. While an unusual arrangement at the time, this forces would actually be one of the reason part of the Estland/ 1st Estonian Division would later aid the United Baltic Duchy Navy and be reassigned to them to secure and safeguard the Baltic (Teutonic) Sea from Allied and Soviet raiders and submarines alike that targeted Axis Central Powers supply and reinforcement convoys from Germany. But while they would support, train and help the United Baltic Duchy Navy, they would also serve as the core of the Teutonic Order’s very own naval forces, rivaling them on the Teutonic Sea. This would actually lead to diplomatic tensions between the German Empire and the Untied Baltic Duchy, as the Teutonic order, while gaining fewer ships, had been given more modern ones by the Germans then the United Baltic Duchy as their direct neighbor and ally in the Baltic Sea. This extending and growing rivalry would nearly lead to a Civil War inside the United Baltic Duchy, until the German Empire outright integrated the Baltic Region into it’s own state later on during this crisis to prevent something like this from happening. During this takeover the Estland/ 1st Estonian Division would help secure the harbor of Tallinn together fith forces of the Imperial German Navy before continuing to take control of the whole city from the local government, that had welcomed Reunification with the German Empire since the Fall of the Teutonic Order from it’s dominant position in the region 400 years ago.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 845: Austrian Order Division Number Six: George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, 1st Albanian

Recruited mainly from the Catholic Christian Minority in Albania, the Austrian Division Number Six, also known as George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, or 1st Albanian was formed to aid in the occupation of former Yugoslavia, as well as Serbia and Albania itself. Created out of a battalion of ethnic Albanians that had experience in fighting Yugoslav Partisans in Eastern Bosnia, as a mountaineer Division and composing mainly out of ethnic Albanians as well as Yugoslav Germans (ethnic Germans) as officers and commanders, the Skanderbeg Division was named after medieval Albanian lord George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, who defended the region of Albania against the Ottoman Empire for more than two decades in the 15th century. In a similar manner it was now intended to be used against Mohammedan Partisans in Albania and Bosnia, as well as Orthodox Partisans in Serbia, as the Austrian Empire, the Untied States of Austria had plans to create a homogeneous, Catholic Empire spanning the Balkan Peninsula. Not reaching full divisional strength and comprising only of 6,500 soldiers at first until 1944, they were engaged in a series of deportations and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia and Albania alike. This atrocities included murdering, raping and looting alike, especially against Mohammedan Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Mohammedan Albanians, were they operated in combat areas against Partisans to aid the Axis Central Powers war effort. This anti-Partisan operations often included more operations against local civilians then against true partisans and would later also be extended onto the territory of occupied Montenegro in May 1944. After this operation they would act as a guard force of the local chromium mines of Kosovo. Reinforced by nearby Austrian Navy forces after their last losses against local partisans (nearly 500 Albanians had died). With this fresh forces they aided the Austrian and Hungarian Army in suppressing the local Partisans and also aided local nationalist and fascist and groups that wished to ethnic and religiously cleans the regions of Bosniak, Serbs, Albanians, Mohammedans and Orthodox people alike to create a more heterogeneous Catholic Christian and Catholic Culture dominated Austrian Empire for Vienna or their own local ambitions.



Commanded by August Schmidhuber, the Division would comity various war crimes, including the direct targeting of Mohammedan Mosques and Orthodox Churches, which they blew up claiming local Partisans used them as bases of operations and were hiding inside. Later most of these places would be rebuild by the Austrian Empire as Catholic Churches to aid in the spreading of Catholicism in the Balkan region. As part of this operations the Division would also accompany the deportation of many of the local ethnic and religious groups further east, south and southeast in the Balkans during the Second Great War. After the Second Great War they would even further expel some of these groups, mainly the Mohammedans into the Ottoman Empire and the Orthodox people towards the Russian Empire. It was something the Ottoman Empire did as well, as they deportee the Christian Armenians northwards towards Russia as well in exchange for the Russian Empire deporting their own Mohammedans from the Caucasus and partly even Central Asia towards the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire or even Afghanistan and China. Clearly all involved Axis Central Powers partaking in such deportations and ethnic cleansing officially called it relocating and anti-partisan fighting and many outside of the Axis Central Powers, even in the Allies simply had to few information to know what was truly going on, at least the true scale of it during and after the Second Great War, as there were some rumors at least. Despite their War Crimes however the Austrian Empire and some Catholic Churches and Cathedrals in the Balkans would honor them for what they had done against enemies of the Empire during the Second Great War, including the creation of statues and honorable orders and titles for these members of the Austrian Order. It would take about 70 to 80 years in some places if these war crimes were talked about, let alone sorted out and even some of this statues and war memorials removed later on once the more liberal and local ethnic population within the United States of Austria would change how some of the things planned or done in the Second Great War were viewed by later coming generations. In other places of the Austrian Empire however, worship and honoring of some these war criminals remained strong and uncontroversial for the locals, especial in these regions were people only lived or were a minority now because of their deportation and cleansing operations.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 846: Austrian Order Division Number Seven: Maria Theresia

The Austrian Order Division Number Seven was set up as a cavalry division from it’s previous cavalry division and created in November 1943, mainly out of ethnic Germans and ethnic Hungarians. Named after Maria Theresa, who had ruled Austria, Hungary and Bohemia in the 18th century it was trained in Budapest, equipped mostly with vehicles and weapons of the former Hungarian Army, from which some volunteers came, before being send up into eastwards combat zones. This way a Regiment part of the Division fought in the Caucasus Campaign and Caucasus region, while the majority remained in Hungary o finish the rest of their training. This Kampfgruppe (Combat Unit) send east consisted of a Cavalry Regiment with attached artillery, Flak (anti-air) and reconnaissance elements. Therefore they were active against the Red Army as well as Partisans in the Region and served in support of other Gothic Order, Hungarian, Romanian, German or Russian units. During one of this counter-operations the Division, alongside others of minor Axis Central Powers got encircled and cut off from the main Axis Central Power front-lines. Able to break out on their own and leaving some allied Axis Central Power Forces behind as they all had been outflanked and surrounded by the Red Army counter-attack. They would need nearly a months and travel around 200 miles across enemy territory before reaching the Axis Central Powers front-line once more. They then were given only a minor time to rest before partaking in the next large Axis Central Powers counter-attack to push the Red Army back once more aiding Imperial German and Russian forces to push them back once again and secure much more of European Russia and with it the main resource and industrial area of the Soviet Union. This was partly why the Soviets tried to relocate as much of their industries eastwards towards Siberia then possible. At the same time long-range Axis Central Powers and Co-Prosperity Sphere air forces meant that the Soviet Air Force was severely damaged and had lost many planes and pilots, heavily depending on airplanes and repair parts from the Allies by now and fearing that to far east, south and west in Soviet Asia and their enemies would be capable of bombing and destroying this land-lease needed infrastructure and industries they depended so heavily now on.



Afterwards the Division was tasked with anti-Partisan activity in the Caucasus region, especially the Mountains, before being ordered back into the Ukrainian Kingdom to aid the Gothic Order there with anti-Partisan duty threatening the Axis Central Powers supply lines for their forces in Russia, as well as the Ukrainian supply in grain for their home-countries the other way around. The Division later supported the relocation of ethnic Poles and Ukrainians from Galicia into the Kingdom of Poland and the Kingdom of Ukrainia, as well as aid in the Austrian annexed Siebenbürgen against Romanian partisans and ethnic Romanian forces that the regional Ukrainian enclave wished to have deported east so these old Hungarian lands would ethnically connect themselves directly. Actions like these were why parts of Russia, Ukraine and Romania would later claim the Division was involved in war-crimes during some of it’s operations, something the Austrians and Hungarians would deny for decades, even long after the Second Great War. Some criticism was especially targeted at the Hungarians in the Division, as many of them had been granted land at the End of the War in Sibenbürgen, they had previously relocated ethnic Romanians out of, partly aided by local Sibenburgen Hungarian militia and partisans that had opposed the Romanian Kingdom, before the region became part of Hungary once more. Because of this tensions with the Romanians had been leading to a series of clashes and skirmishes between local police, militia and military, even as both were officially allies during the Second Great War. Because of this racial tensions, partly even religious ones between the Catholic Hungarians and the Orthodox Romanians would lead to various lawsuits, rivalries and even outright terrorist activities on both sides throughout the next decades after the Second Great War until the Kingdom of Romania itself would become a State within the United States of Austria, the Danube Confederation. This would be leading to some of the tension to drop, partly only because all resistance to the Ukrainians was crushed by the government in Budapest and Vienna alike.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 847: Austrian Order Division Number Eight Johannes Torquatas, 2nd Croatian

The Austrian Order Division Number Eight, Johannes Torquatas, or 2nd Croatian was named after the Latin name of Ivan Karlović, was a mountain infantry Division of the Austrian Order, made up by ethnic Germans (mainly officers), Croatians and Bosnian, created out of a core of the 1st Croatian Order Division to aid the Austrian Empire, the United States of Austria in 1944 and saw action in the Ukraine against Partisans, against local Partisans in the Caucasus and fights against the Soviet Union Red Army, before being redeployed to Croatia itself, were they helped fight local rebels, partisans and insurrections, fighting until the Mohammedan Bosnian mutiny and join the local Bosnian independence movement, leading to heavy causalities of the division and the expelling of the remaining Bosnian which are quickly replaced by ethnic Germans and Croatians as a result of this loyal actions. As a result Austrian actions against the Mohammedan Bosnian are continuously harsh and many Croatians Slovenes, Austrian Germans and Hungarians are encouraged to settle in Bosnia and drive the local Bosnian Mohammedans out of the regions, deporting them to the Second Ottoman Empire. Operating in or around Zagreb, Banja Luka, Osijek, Tuzla, Zenica, Sarajevo, Split and Mosar against partisans, the Division Johannes Torquatas would be involved in war crimes during and after the Second Great War, especially while relocating local Bosnian and Serbians eastwards first not Serbia and Albanaia, later from there towards Russia (Orthodox Serbs) and the Turkish Second Ottoman Empire (Mohammedan Bosnian) to ensure the Croatian region would become majorly Catholic and better integrate into the Catholic core and culture of the then more United States of Austria. At the same time this actions of deportation lead to the rise of even more local Bosnian and Serbian resistance and oppositions groups, which Vienna and Budapest then used as a reason to claim that these ethnic groups were doing nothing more then destabilizing and tearing the Danubain Union of theirs apart. At the same time local ethnic Germans, Hungarians, Slovenes, Croatians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Albanians were used against the more Serbian becoming former Yugoslavian Federal State to oppose all possible untied resistance they might otherwise form against the Axis Central Powers.



Instead they were promised ethnic national provinces and states within the Austrian Empire, the United States of Austria in their minorities ethical major lands, that they would be able to govern and decide within as they pleased, unlike under the Serbians in Yugoslavia. Anti-Serbian actions would later lead the Division to Hungarian annexed Subotica and Novi Sad, as well as to Belgrade, Kragujevac, Nis and Podgorica in Serbia-Montenegro and even into Pristina and Prizren in Greater Albania and Skopje in Bulgaria were local Austrian, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian and even a few Greek troops supported them in their fight against Serbian socialist, communist and national partisans and resistance groups there. Because of their use as a mainly anti-partisan unit in Croatia and Serbia alike, the equipment of Austrian Order Division Number Eight, 2nd Croatian or Johannes Torquatas was mostly made up of older Austrian and Hungarian equipment and not truly up to date, or as modern as that of other Austrian Oder Divisions. This changed partly during the Eastern Crusade, Operation Barbarossa in the Soviet Union, when the Austrian Empire and the German Empire, as well as the local Gothic Order partly supplied them with better equipment and some instructors, but only about 23% of their force got their hands of those, the majority had to fight with their older, outdated equipment and when send back to Croatia and Serbia, this was a blessing in disguise, as it meant the Bosnian members rebelling and joining the Partisans therefore had not the most modern and best equipment the Axis Central Powers had to offer. Still their treason in joining the enemy had a devastating effect on morals of the Austrian Order Division Number Eight and it’s overall performance as suddenly they had to fight their former comrades as partisans. Under Command of Julius 'Papa' Ringel they would attempt air force support for their mountaineers and fight everyone opposing the new rule of the Austrian Empire in the Balkans and over Southeast Europe with pure force and pinning local rivaling groups against one another, so they would not ally against the Untied States of the Austrian Empire and their Danubian Federation.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 848: Burgundian Order Division Number Four: Netherlands, Philip Ist

The Burgundian Order Division Number Four; Netherlands or Philip Ist was named after the Son (Philip 1st of Castile) of Mary of Burgundy who lead the Dutch region from Burgundian Netherlands to the Hasburg Netherlands and later Austrian Netherlands. Made up by a volunteer group of collaboration military recruited in the German-occupied Netherlands during the Second Great War, formed after the Axis Central Powers Invasion of the Netherlands by the Burgundian Order. The largest Dutch Burgundian Order Unit, it was made up of what the Axis Central Powers and would briefly join the Eastern Front to fight the Soviet Union’s Red Army during Operation Barbarossa, the Eastern Crusade against Communism to free the people of Eastern Europe, like Russians into their own Kingdoms and Monarchies. In September 1943 the Unit was transformed into a Panzer Grenadier Division, but only made up a fully trained Brigade when the Allies landed in the Normandy during D-Day. As a result of this the Division, with only Brigade strength would fight the Allies in Cabourg, Caen, Tilly-sur-Seulles, Bayeux, Balleroy, St. Lo, Isigny, Carentan, Öedday, St. Mère-Église, St. Sauveur-le-Vicornte, Montebourg, Valognes, Bricquebec, Barrneville, Les Pieux, Barfeur and Cherbourg. With their on motorized, mechanized and even a few tank forces, the Panzer Grenadier Division would give the Invading Allied Forces hell within the Normandy region, fighting heavy urban battles against them to drive the Allies back into the English Channel and stop their Invasion of Western Europe. Sustaining heavy causalities while fighting along Imperial German and Imperial French Forces during this operation, the Burgundian Order Division Philip Ist or Netherlands was reinforced by German Dutch recruits and volunteers before resuming operations against remaining Allied Paratroopers and Resistance movements that remained behind the front-lines of the Axis Central Powers were remnants of their forces had allied with French resistance movements to continue their fight with the Axis Central Powers in Northern France and hope out for the Allies to attempt a Second Invasion into Europe that would never occur again.



Because of this many of them would continue fighting the Imperial French Army, the Imperial German Army and the Burgundian Order and ultimately End up shot as insurrectionist rebels and guerrilla fighters, as many of them had put away their official uniforms to hide better from Axis Central Powers Patrols and were therefore seen as armed civilians. This meant the Austrian Order Division Number Four; Netherlands or Philip Ist was actively involved in war crimes inside of France and helped capture and shoot Allied Prisoners of War and civilians alike. The Division itself, the Burgundian order and the allied French and German Empires would always deny such actions and officially no records ever mentioned the killing of any civilians, just of irregular Allied forces behind the regular Front-line unwilling to surrender and capitulate, but instead fighting an irregular warfare that according to Axis Central Powers officials endangered local civilians and were even made responsible for some of the partisans shot and killed by Axis Central Power forces in France. Secretly the Officials knew what was going on and some Imperial Germans and the Burgundian Orderitself encouraged such operations, especially in more Latin Southern France, while the more Germanic Northern French were seen as possible for Germanization and assimilation into the German Empire if they were within the targeted border region, especially former areas of the Holy Roman Empire, whose old border the Imperial German Nationalists aimed for once more in a new, separate peace deal with Imperial France after the Second Great War. At the same time the Burgundian order remained an ally of the German Empire and a rival of the French Empire for control of Northern and Eastern France, despite them all being officially allied inside the Axis Central Powers and this did not only lead to a growing rivalry, but opposition and even a few skirmishes between French Imperial and Burgundian Order own militia, para-militia, police and regular army forces across northern and eastern France. The fact that ethnic French Royal Fascists and Monarchist Nationalists alike, as well as a few other groups were in support and openly joined both factions, while others like Bretons wished for their own independent state, or even join the Southern Latin Union, as Southern Gallic Latin France, Occitania was in favor of unlike the pro-German, German Frankish North.

 

[CountofDooku]

849: Austrian Order Division Number Nine: 1st Slovenian, Ferdinand I

Created out of ethnic Austrian Germans, Italians and Slovenians in Southern Tirol and Slovenia, known as the Austrian Order Division Number Nine; was known as 1st Slovenian Slovenian, or Ferdinand I, King of Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Archduke of Austria. Created as a Division of the Austrian Order serving alongside Austrian, Hungarian, Italian and German forces. Created in 1944 out of a Battalion and attempted to grow into the strength of a Division, they fought partisans in the Karst Plateau Slovenian Coastal region against local anti-Axis Central Powers partisans. Because of this they were equipped with specialized mountain troops equipment. During these anti-partisan operations, they fought local socialist, communist and even Slovenian nationalist alike who opposed the Austrian Empire and United States of Austria. They helped with the disarmament of Bosnian Mohammedan forces, after those had betrayed the Austrian Order and joined local independence and resistance fighters to protect ethnic German, Hungarian, Italian and Slovenian in the region. They saw direct action, when they started disarming these Bosnian Mohammedans and successfully kept the local ethnic German, Hungarian, Italian, Slovenians and Croatian settlers in the Croatian region of the Austrian Empire. There they would fight local rebels supplied by the British and Soviets alike, so the Austrian Order Division Number Nine, Slovenian Number One had to patrol and control areas to stop this smuggling of weapons, ammunition and propaganda as best as they could. In the meantime the British and Soviets used civil transport ships under false flag, as well as submarines to smuggle in whatever they could, as they knew to well that all Axis Central Power forces fighting partisans and insurrections would not be available to reinforce and supply their main front-lines in this Second Great War. Because of that the Anti-Partisan War had taken on a major role of it’s own for all factions involved in this global struggle, especially in Europe and Asia as the main theatres of war and local civil resistance movements against the Axis Central Powers and the Co-Prosperity Sphere alike.



Secretly however the Italian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy had a blind eye and supported the local rebels against the Austrians as well as they felt cheated during the annexation of Tunis from France and had had hoped to acquire the French Alps and all land up to the Rhone at least. Because of this they now aided the resistance and local independence movements in Austria, as the Austrian Empire had collapsed once before and if I would do so again, Italy might gain influence, or even total control of the whole Adriatic Sea to the East, maybe even more. The Austrian Division Number Nine, 1st Slovenian Slovenian would also surrender some of the last local resistance forces that had been fighting against the Austrian Empire all the way until the End of 1950 and into 1961, years after the Second Great War itself. However the Italians knew how to hide their support and reinforcement of local rebels, as they feared otherwise the rest of the Axis Central Powers might see them as traitors for their actions and that then the German Empire was more likely to side with their German Austrian Brothers against them. This could also mean that the local rebels no longer received Italian support and supplies whenever the Italians felt the other Axis Central Powers might caught them in the Act, which in return lead to some local resistance groups outright blackmailing the Italians and telling the Germans and Austrians that Italy had provided them. This then lead to the Italians claiming they had captured Italian weapons and equipment during border skirmishes with Italian forces and cut of all ties and support both groups have had for one another. At the same time the Austrian Order, much like Austria had ambitions to regain and annex North and South Italian lands that had once been part of the Austrian or Habsburg Empire, so Vienna had plans to retake them in the event of the Allies landing in Italy, or Italy openly switching sides despite their allegiances, like the had done during the First Great War as well in the eyes of the central powers. Because of this ambitions the Austrian Empire and the Austrian Order supported pro-Austrian and pro-Viennan groups in Lombardi and Venetia, which partly consisted of Italian Socialists and Communists opposing the Italian Kingdom and Fascist Monarchist rule.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 850: Austrian Order Division Number Ten: 1st Hungarian

The Austrian Order Division Number Ten 1st Hungarian, was an infantry Grenadier Division, created in October 1944 and supported by Miklós Horthy, consisting mainly of troops drawn from the Royal Hungarian Army. While not properly formed, trained and equipped it used much of it’s old Hungarian equipment and went from it’s training camp right into the north of former Yugoslavia that Hungary had attacked outright, mainly the areas around Subotica, Novi Sad and Osijek. There they would help the Hungarian National Monarchists to drive out the local Croats and Serbs and increase the number of ethnic Hungarian settlers instead to reintegrate this region fully into Hungary once more, this time for good, so that no one ever could claim these lands weren’t fully Hungarian like they had done after the First Great War. It was among the few Austrian Order Divisions that faced rebels armed by the Americans, supplied by airdrops and submarines, as well as instructed by American advisers, which were often more numerous and motivated to do so then the Soviet Agents. The only one beating them in that regard were the British, who would send over experts who had trained forces of their Dominion and Commonwealth before, even local soldiers and militia and therefore had the best experience and skills in doing so, while the Soviets simply hoped for the spirit of local socialist and communist militia, no matter if they had training and equipment or not. Because of that the 1st Hungarian faced rather differently trained, equipped and agitating rebels and partisans of the local resistant then most other Axis Central Powers garrison the area of former Yugoslawia and Romania in Axis Central Powers annexed parts of Europe during the Second Great War. At the same time they like the rest of Spain, Southern Italy, North Africa and the Balkans were target for long-range Allied bombing runs to target Axis Central Powers infrastructure and industries, while the Allies coming from Britain in the North focused more on France, the Benelux Countries, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Austria and parts of Poland. Afterwards they were send to Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) to aid Hungarian colonists and settlers there by getting Romanians deported into what remained of the Romanian State after Hungary had annexed it’s old possessions in the region once more.



During this operations they would also be send eastwards to Romania to aid in the defense of Romanian Oil Fields from rebels, partisans and Allied bombing raids, as they had gained experience with that in former Yugoslavia. At the same time some Hungarians believed their side of the Carpatian mountains could hold oil of their own and started digging in hopes they would find as rich sources there as in Romania itself. Formerly Romanian Minority Regions of the old Hungarian area still sparsely populated were the first to be Hungaryized once more, followed by the rest of the region. At the same time the Hungarians, just like the Germans with the Dutch and some Polish, or the Austrians with Wenden (Slovenes) and Czechs, Hungary attempted to Hungarize the Transylvanian Banatean, Crisanean, Maramures and other Transylcanian Romanian dialects and culture groups which had been a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for longer and been divided by the rest of the Romanians and the Romanian Kingdom trough borders and the Carpatian Mountains. If they could be Hungarized the Hungarian claim on the Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) land and areas would become more pronounced and solid the government in Bukarest felt and therefore a Hungarization policy was enacted with draconian punishment and even forced deportation for all who would oppose partaking in it. The 1st Hungarian Division of the Austrian order was at the forefront of this and committed a couple of war crimes, including deportations, mass executions, looting's and rape which were condemned by the Romanian Kingdom and after these stories came out of Europe also the Allies and the Soviet Union. All such reports and files however disappeared when the Romanian Kingdom was later incorporated into the Austrian Empire, the United States of Austria and the Danubian Federation to become an integrated part of the Austrian Balkan Empire, which also hoped to fully integrate regions like Albania, Bulgaria and Greece later on.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 851: Austrian Order Division Number Eleven: 2nd Hungarian

The Austrian Order Division Number Eleven, was an Infantry Grenadier Division, known as the 2nd Hungarian that fought alongside the Austrian Imperial Army during the Second Great War. They supported the regime of Prime Minister Miklós Horthy under the Hungarian King as a part of the United States of Austria. Formed in October 1944 it was formed, trained and equipped with mainly older weapons and vehicles from the Hungarian Army. It had reached a strength of 8,000 soldiers, including 3,000 members of the Royal Hungarian Army and 5,000 civilian conscripts and volunteers, a number that would soon rise to 10,000, bringing the overall number of the Division to 13,000, who not all would be given enough uniforms and weapons at first. Send to Operation Barbarossa, the Eastern Crusade were they would be a part in stopping a Russian counter-offensive along the Volga river launched in December 1944. Fighting against local socialist, communist and national independence movements, rebels, guerrilla and resistance factions opposing the Axis Central Powers. Supplie and reinforcements were so low, that they had to scavenge for food and enlist some local Volga Germans for their cause as reinforcements. With Soviet forces approaching them, the Division retreated back into the defensive position behind the Volga river, leaving the bridgehead they had formed behind the Volga river as the Germans, Russians, Romanians and Ukrainians had countered their assault by pushing into week areas of the Soviet Union Red Army defenses. Fighting in Stalingrad, Raigorod, Krasnoarmeisk, Erzovka, Krasnaya and Sloboda their forces suffered heavy causalities and started fortifying themselves in the island in the central of the Volga River to block off all Soviet supply shipments across it in this region. Securing the flank of the mainly German, Russian, Ukrainian and Romanian forces. Following Soviet air raids and heavy artillery barrage, they suffered growing causalities and were soon reinforced by German and Russian forces, so the 2nd Hungarian Division of the Austrian Order itself could retreat back to Crimea, were they would rest and await fresh reinforcements from Hungary coming down the Danube River to rebuild their numbers to fighting strength.



Once their forces had replenished and were even a little better equipped then before, they were send to the Kingdom of Urkainia and the Caucasus region to fight of local rebels, saboteurs and resistance forces to train their fresh recruits a little bit in the field. They then turned eastwards once more to fight the Red Army, but were soon instructed to train fellow Uralic ethnic groups, like the Finnish, Karelian, Estonians, Vöro, Vespian and later even Mokhsa, Mari and Erzya, as well as Komi, Nenets, Mansi, Enets, Khanty and Selkup. This shift to Nrothern Russian Lands was meant to increase local national ethnic resistance against the Soviet Union and the Red Army, while also recruiting fresh forces among them, even if most of those would be included in the Teutonic Order and partly even the Gothic Order, instead of the Austrian Order, who more directly aided and trained them. Because these orders had more direct support by the Germans instead of the Austrians, they often also had better German equipment, more coherent uniforms and other supplies in large enough numbers. Because of this the Soviets on their side would increasingly start to deport such minority populations to Siberia, were they would be forces to hard and often deadly labor, so they could fuel the Soviet War Machine for as long as possible. This in time lead to more anti-Soviet rebellions and uprisings against the Soviet Union that while often regional isolated, limited in numbers and equipment still sabotaged some of their supply lines, local successors gathered, or even ambushed Soviet Forces, leading them to redirect more of the Red Army away from the front-lines to deal with this insurrection in their supply and reinforcement lines. Together with the Loss of Stalin after his Death and a general mistrust among the High up Politburo and the Soviet General Staff, this lead to even more distrust, as some factions outright accused the other of sabotaging them from the inside to get rid of them. Other times this would have lead to a break-up of the Soviet Union and full-out Civil War, but with the New Whites, the returning Monarchists, Aristocrats, Fascists and Nationalists attacking the Soviet Union from all sides and executing Red Commissaries wherever they found them, they needed each other for bare survival.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 852: Burgundian Order Division Number Five: 1st Flemish/ 1st Vlaams

One of the Burgundian Order Divisions formed in former Belgium by Dutch-speaking Flemish volunteers from Flanders during the Second Great War. They were send eastwards to aid in Operation Barbarossa, the Eastern Crusade, the War against the Soviet Union and it’s Red Army, were they fought alongside other German Order forces. Created in June 1941 by the Flemish National Union (Vlaams Nationaal Verbond, or VNV) as a means of maintaining its status as the principle collaborationist party within Flanders since the German invasion of Belgium it had been formed after the VNV had aided the Germans and Greater Netherlands new collaboration government with the aim to recruiting Flemish volunteers for Burgundian formations and was depicted as the future army of a Greater Dutch, or even independent Flemish state that could serve as an elite force. Because of that it’s personal was formed as a 1,000 soldiers strong national independent 1st Flemish/ 1st Vlaams Division that suffered causalities during the Battle and Siege of Leningrad, liberating it into St. Petersburg. Send back to refill it’s losses and gain fresh volunteers and recruits to finally become a fully operational division, growing their number to 12,000 men, who were often badly trained and equipped, using older, outdated Belgium and Dutch equipment and weapons. They all swore allegiance to the German installed new Greater Netherlands Kingdom with 200 of them being so devote and loyal, that they would end up in leadership positions of officers and higher. Fully reorganized with several brigades, they were send westwards after fighting in Estonia and Ukraine as well. After fighting there they were reinforced and refreshed in Flandria again when the Allies landed in Normandy France, leading to them being send westwards to aid in the defenses against the Allied Invasion. There they would however not join the Axis Central Powers forces fighting off the Allied Invasion, but instead be send trough Pas-de-Calais, were many German Admirals and Generals would await the true Allied Invasion there, as many of them believed that the Landings in Normandy were just a distraction to redirect their focus from the true later coming Invasion heading for Pas-de-Calais.



Because of this they did not take action in the immediate counter-offensive pushing the landing back into the English Channel, but would instead be send over to Normandy ready for the Battle of Cherbourg were they would aid in the storming of the city to prevent the Allies form using the last intact harbor they got in Normandy for Evacuation. This way they hoped, they would be able to take much of the Allied Invasion Prisoner, or kill them, to diminish their possibility of another Invasion into Western Europe, forcing them to leave much of their equipment behind. Some of this would be later repainted and used for the Axis Central Powers counter-offensive in Northwest Africa, were they would lead an operation to disguise themselves as Allied American and British Forces to cause confusion and problems behind enemy lines to aid the Axis Central Powers push in French and Spanish Morocco and Mauritania, but Allied air support from the Canary Island would prevent them from fully pushing the Allies into the Atlantic Ocean. At the same time the 1st Flemish/ 1st Vlaams Division, as well as many Flamish and Greater Netherlands Nationalist wished to claim even further lands from the French, even if only a few aimed to regain all lost Burgundian or German lands that had fallen into the French hands over a couple of wars. Now with France defeated and their possible new good allies and friends, the Germans eager to weaken France after the War in a Peace Deal, maybe even grand Breton Nationalists their Independence, some hoped their revanchist dreams could be fulfilled as well. Because of this the 1st Flemish/ 1st Vlaams Division was also not very modest in how they treated Walloon and French civilians in areas of operations against local partisans and resistance fighters. Especially in regions that their most fanatic members viewed as rightfully Flemish, Dutch and Burgundian and where they purposely would commit War Crimes and execute whole town populations when just a few reports of partisans operating in the towns area were becoming known. Because of this local French Militia, Gendarme, Police and Army forces not supporting the German, Dutch or Burgundian Order ambitions whose plans for France territory and the people living there were nothing they could support, despite being all part of the Axis Central Powers.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 853: Burgundian Order Division Number Six: 1st Walloon/ 1st Wallonian

The Burgundian Order Division Number Six, also known as 1st Walloon or 1st Walloon was recruited from collaborationist security formations of the local militia and police inside French-speaking Wallonia in former Belgium that had been occupied by Imperial German Forces and later been given to the collaborationist French Kingdom, the later French Empire in compensation for Alsace-Lorraine (Elsaß-Lothringen) which the Germans had annexed into their own Empire once more. They would be deployed to the Eastern Front, the Eastern Crusade during Operation Barbarossa were they would fight alongside other Axis Central Powers Orders and regular forces. Léon Degrelle who had aided the establishment of the Dutch Flemish Division before, himself a member of the Burgundian Order later on. Much like th Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV), the Walloon Rexists whose land had been integrated into France as compensation for Alsace-Lorraine (German: Elsass-Lothringen), which the German Empire integrated into itself once more. Established in 1941 to demonstrate the loyalty of he Walloonians to the German Monarchist Empire and the French Fascist Kingdom alike, as well as t other Burgundian Order itself, they were formed after the similar 1st Flemish Division, bot secretly preventing Degrelle to create a unified Belgian Division as a means to protect the integrity and independence of the Belgian Kingdom itself, but it was soon dissolved into the Greater Netherlands Kingdom and the Kingdom of France, which soon declared itself the French Empire. The goal was to show the Germans to consider an independent Belgium with the aid of the Flemish and Walloon Divisions and originally they had been part of the Dutch, French and German armies, until Degrelle and his supporter realized that the Burgundian Order with it’s goal to recreate the Burgundian Kingdom and unite the Dutch, Belgian, French and German lands that had once been a part of it. Secretly, Degrelle realized that these two Burgundian Order Divisions from former Belgium had much more importance political for his Belgium and pan-Burgundian ambitions then anything else the Belgian Nationalists could do during the French-Dutch-German occupation and the Second Great War.



The 1st Walloon or 1st Walloon Division would fight along the Eastern Front, during the Eastern Crusade, Operation Barbarossa in January 1942 with what all available recruits and volunteers they had found and trained by them, even if this meant many of them were send to Russia without proper uniforms and equipment, so they had to use older, outdated Belgian Royal Army ones. Only the strength of a few Brigades they would fight a Soviet Union counter-offensive in Gorky east of Moscow and be part of the fighting in the former Soviet Union capital itself, until in May 1943 they would be send back to Wallonia to reinforce with fresh recruits and equipment given to them by the Germans. Reinforced with French and even Spanish volunteers they were now however send to aid the Axis Central Powers defense of Northern Africa, especially in Morocco and Algeria to halt the Allied push there to reach Tunisia and invade Spain, Sicily and Italy from there once the Allies would have taken all of North Africa and secured it. Turned into a Grenadier Division with their new equipment, heavy losses in the Atlas Mountains once more forced the 1st Walloon or 1st Walloon to retreat, this time to to the Provence and Marseilles, which the Burgundian Order claimed for their own future State as well, before they would be send northwards to oppose the Allied Invasion of Normandy alongside other Burgundian, German and French force. Receiving heavy losses once more they would be send to deal with Dutch, German and French Resistance Partisans afterwards in the former Burgundian regions of Western Europe and not see direct action on the Front-lines for the rest of the Second Great War ever again. Instead they trained for a more defensive role of the region by manning freshly build bunkers in the area and helping against Allied air-raids with their own anti-air vehicles and ground weapons supplied to them by the Germans. Surprisingly enough those weapons would also prove rather efficient against local resistance, partisan and guerrilla ambushes and attacks against their convoys, forces and positions alike throughout Northeast France and former Belgium.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 854: Teutonic Order Division Number Eleven: Russ

Creates as a Russian Collaborationist formed from Russian nationals in Axis Central Power liberated territory of the Soviet Union, the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, in 1941 out of original only 200 people, the Division Russ (for Kievan Rus and Russia alike) soon had 12,000 members, mostly made out of auxiliary police, militia and army member captured as prisoners of war by the Axis Central Powers and equipped with captured Soviet tanks, artillery and other weapons and equipment. They would be lead by Bronislav Kaminski, who alongside General Andrey Vlasov would aid the Russian Empire further into creating the Russian National Liberation Army, the base for the later Imperial Russian Army. They would fought in Northern and Central Russia against the Red Army and other supporters of the Socialist and Communist state, they wished to preserve for various reasons. As Russian National Monarchist Whites they would be committing numerous atrocities against the civilian population if they suspected them to be Soviet Union, Red Army or Red militia, rebels and partisans supporters in any way or form. Used against uprisings by partisans, guerrilla and rebels in White Ruthenia, Ukrainia and Russia alike, they would serve as an elite force of the Teutonic Order, even if at first only ethnic German Russians were allowed in the officer and higher ranks of the forces. Like all of the Teutonic Order filled with leftover Nazi’s, Fascists and others that had fled Germany after the assassination attempt on Chancellor Hitler and Emperor Wilhelm II, they had found refugee in the Baltic States, as well as the Northern Scandinavian Germanic States, the Benelux States, Austria and Switzerland alike that they saw as rightfully Germanic areas and therefore German inherited and ethnic land that should one day be integrated into the German Reich to unify all Germanic people. In this operations to secure the Axis Central Powers supply lines they committed war crimes by directly searching for former members of the Red Army and the Soviet Union administration, from Commissaries to Soviets alike and outright shooting many of them on the spot if they were certain they had identified them. This clearly had the cause of many innocent suffering torture or even death at the hand of the White Movement in the goal to cleans Russia from the Red Terror that had won the First Civil War and ruled it for decades.



In their fight against the Red Army and other supporters of the Soviet Union, the Russ Division, also known as the 1st Russian of the Teutonic Order was not only operating behind the front-lines to secure and clean Russia from socialist and communist elements, but to also to cleans some areas of their previous settlers, as the Germans leading the Fascist Nationalist Teutonic Order secretly planned to not only grow the number of ethnic Germans in Russia, but to create colonial provinces, as they saw the future Russian Empire as a German puppet, a depending vassal and colony for German settlers heading eastwards. While not all Russians in the unit knew, or supported such plans, others were open to welcome German settlers, as they believed German engineers, mechanics and scientists could aid the Russian Empire and the Russian people in modernizing Russia to truly become part of the European Civilization, not only in ideas and philosophy, but finally in infrastructure, industries and modern, beautiful cities and towns as well. While to some the Church Bells of the Russian Empire meant freedom of religion, democratic elections of the Duma and the returns of the church and old nobility alike, for many more it meant true liberty from being serves, forced labor, slavery and the despotic, tyrannic rule of socialism, communism and Stalin himself. The Russ Division itself was notorious among it’s German officers and commanders for often being undisciplined and unreliable, especially if the Russian soldiers got drunk on captured liquor and other beverage. This would change once General Andrey Vlasov would lend them some Russian Officers and Commanders that would implement stricter rules then even the Germans and more important actually follow trough with draconian measures to ensure this rules were followed to the letter. With this the Russ Division, as well as the Russian Liberation Army/ Russian Imperial Army turned into an efficient and skilled fighting force, even if they were sometimes not as good equipped, trained and armed then the rest of the Axis Central Powers.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 855: Burgundian Order Division Number Seven Italien/ Italy Austrian Order Division Number Twelve Lombardo–Venetien/ Lombardy-Venetia

The Burgundian Order Division Number Seven, known as Italien (Italy) formed out of Fascist Royalist Italian Kingdom supporters in 1943 by the Burgundian Order initially. Formed as an Italian Militia under Pio Filippani Ronconi, the 15,000 volunteers trained in Burgundy, with about 9,000 of them coming from police units, or the Black Brigades. They would later on change to be renamed the Austrian Order Division Number Twelve Lombardo-Venetien (Lombardy-Venetia), as the Austrian Orde claimed far less Italian Northwestern lands then the Austrian Empire did in Northeastern Italy. They would keep the peace in northern Italy and then be redirected to former Yugoslavia, especial Slovenia, were they would protect Italian and German Austrian ethnic groups from local socialist, communist Bosnian or Serbian partisans alike. With Vendetta Units under former Blackshirt Lieutenant-Colonel Degli Oddi, they would seek revenge against these groups, as well as all Bosnian, Serbians and Slovenes suspected of supporting rebels and guerrilla, or at least supposed to have done so, as it made the Austrian Order act against them more easier. While fighting these local resistance against the Austrian Empire, they were partly surrounded and their position overrun by the partisans who had gained access to their march route during one of their latest raids on an Austrian Army communication center. They were later send back to Lombardi, Italy with the goal to fight local partisans as a Grenadier Division. They were however also recruiting from Austrian Germans, including Wenden (Wends) in Slovenia, who were considered Germanized enough to be true Austrian Empire citizens and racial more Germanic then Slavic in the eyes of some Axis Central Powers race theorists, as were the North Italians (Padania, the Po River and Po Valley region) the Division recruited the majority of it’s forces from. For the same reason, much of the Division was actually equipped with much of the older, outdated Italian equipment, with only a few of their brigades and regiments being equipped with more modern German and Austrian equipment instead.



Operating in Milan, Bergano, Verona, Venice and even Bologna, the Italian Division operating trough all of Lombardi and Venetia with their roughly 15,000 forces to patrol the area and ensure that Axis Central Powers supply lines, as well as industry and factory areas sabotaged by local Communist rebels. Because the Fascist Italian Kingdom was an ally of the Axis Central Powers, too harsh operations weren’t allowed and the rebels themselves took full use of this fact, as well as from the Alps were they would continuously cross borders to bypass local Austrian, German, Italian and French forces of the Axis Central Powers in hopes of bypassing and flanking them this way. Cooperating with Italian Militia, Police and Soldiers alike they would manage a certain series of victories against the enemy and capture many enemy rebels fighting the Austrians and mainly the Italians, leading to many arrest, who unlike in former Yugoslavia, were not executed on the spot, but rather imprisoned and forced to do labor for the Axis Central Powers, no matter if they were prisoners of war, armed civilians or anything else. This meant the Division was involved in a series of war-crimes that were never uncovered until decades after the Second Great War. While some in Italy were not pleased, decades of anti-Socialist and anti-Communist propaganda and teachings had made many to believe that doing so had been necessary in a time of war. Because of the nature of their Divisions operation, the Italian, or Lombardy-Venetian was lend some recon airplanes by the Austrian and Italian Air Forces to keep a better eye of the on the rebel guerrilla operating in the mountains, hills and forests of northern Italy. In the hope of this way securing the Axis Central Powers operations in Northern Italy and secure their supply and production lines in the homeland far behind the front and any enemy armies against enemy saboteurs and rebels. This protection would work until 1943/ 1944 when Allied bombers operating from Northern Africa would manage to reach Spain, Southern France and Italy alike. Because of that the Division alongside many others was given anti-air guns as wel las anti-air vehicles and even anti-air tanks to counter this.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 856: Teutonic Order Division Number Twelve: White Ruthenia

The Teutonic Order Division Number Twelve, also known as White Ruthenia Division had been created by White Russian, Russian and Ukrainian personal serving for the Teutonic Order in July 1944, made up by four infantry regiments (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th White Ruthenian) includign an artillery batallion, a cavalry batallion and a training batallion that formed a Grenadier Division made up majorly by non-German ethnics, with the exception of it‘s officers and commanders, who were German. It‘s 11,600 soldiers were mainly coming from White Ruthenia (White Russia) giving the Division it‘s name and equipment came form Germany, the Baltic States and formerly Soviet Union Red Army equipment captured in the Belarussian SSR encirclements that had been repainted in White Ruthenian Royal Army colors. Serving for security operations behind the frontline of the Eastern Crusade, the Operation Barbarossa, the War against the Soviet Union, they suffered from soem illoyalities as a group of the Division shot theri German leadership and defected to the woods with 475 soldiers, taking with them 45-mm antitank guns, 82-mm and 50-mm mortars, 29 heavy machine guns, as well as large amounts of small arms and small-caliber ammunition. These defectors became a core of the White Russian Independence Army army and fought the Soviet Socialist and Communist Partisans as much as the Axis Central Powers Fascist Royalists and National Monarchist Government set up in the White Ruthenian Kingdom. Further Investigations by the Teutonic Order, the United Batlic Duchy and the German Empire lead to the fireing of 2,300 furhter soldiers who were deemed unreliable and isntead transferred to the White Ruthenian Militia. After this and losses fighting local partisans, the Division had only 5,500 soldiers left. Therefore it was send to Minsk to be reinforces with fresh recruits and volunteers alike before being send in the coutnryside, especialy the Masurian Lakeland, were they fought local socialist, communist Russian and Polish rebels alike opposing the White Ruthenian Kingdom, yes even a few White Russians were part of the various rebel groups hiding in the rivers, canals and forests of the area.



Fightign alongside the United Baltic Duchy Army, the Imperial German Army and the Imperial Russian Army, the Teutonic Order Division Number Twelve, White Ruthenia was seen as a elite Grenadier Division that would hold out against Soviet Coutner attacks near Mosvow to retake the city. By now reinforced with a additional cavallry and artilelry batallion, the White Ruthenian Division managed to hold back the Red Army coutner-attack and instead raid the Soviets supply and reinforcement lines nar Gorky to a extent that the Soviet General Staff outright stopped the whole operation. At the same time the internal divisions and rivalries inside the Soviet Leadership and Military after the Death of Stalin lead to soem holding back reserves and reinforcements loyal to them, as they believed they would need those to fight in the upcoming Second Russian Civil War among one another and against the Monarchist Imperial White Russians. Therefore many units the Soviets had were not outright used, including some of their best ones, but the freezing Russian Winter, as well as the hard resistance by the Red Army and local partisans meant that the Axis Central Powers made only slow process furhter, deeper into Euroepan Russia. As a result the Axis Central Powers, especially the German Empire now started to use it‘s superior air forces to bomb Soviet Union Red Army entrenched and fortified positions, motorized, mechanized and tank forces, as well as bridges, railroads and other infrastructure alongside factories to weaken the Soviet ability to continue the fighting and the Secong Russian Civil War against the Russian Emprie overall. The quicker the Soviets were beaten, or broken apart into smalelr factions and warlords, the earleir the Imperial Germans believed they could End their involvement in Russia to concentrate theor power to secure the conquered regions of Northern Europe, Western Europe and Southern Europe, so that the Allies would stand no chance of invading the Fortress Europe (Festung Europa) anymore, wich in turn, at least in the minds of the Imperial German Military High Command, would then force the Western Allied Powers to accept peace, or at least a stalemate on German tearms.

 

[CountofDooku]

Chapter 857: Austrian Order Division Number Thirteen: Banat of Temeswar/ Temeschwarer Banat/ Temesvári Bánság

The Austrian Order Division Number Thirteen: Banat of Temeswar/ Temeschwarer Banat/ Temesvári Bánság was a Grenadier Mountaineer Division created in August 1944 mainly from ethnic groups of the Banat region, including Hungarians, Danubain Swabians (German: Donauschwaben), who besides some Romanians and Serbians who were deported east and south respectively by the Hungarians made up the majority of the region. Recruited and trained in in Neusatz (Novi Sad) to secure the Banat Region. After initial patrols and fights against Socialist, Communist, Serbian and even a few Romanian partisans, rebels and bandits however the Division was send eastwards across the Second Ottoman/ Turkish Empire to aid the Axis Central Power forces in the Mountains of Northern Iraq, across Kurdistan were Turkish and even some Kurdish forces (thanks to the promise of independence) aided them alongside French and German ones. Outfitted mainly with older, outdates Hungarian and captured Yugoslavian/ Serbian equipment, the Division later recieved more and better modern Austrian and German equipment and vehicles alike. Originally it had been planned that the Banat Division, as it was nicknamed would recieve even a few river patrol boats for the Banat region along the Danube River, but since none of these forces would be usable in the Iraqi Mountains, instead theiy got reinforcements in form of an additional Mountaineer Brigade and fitting equipment. While they would not directly secure and protect the Axis Central Powers conquered Northern Iraqi Oil Fields, they would greatly support them by securing their northern flank against the British and nearby Persian forces alike. At the same time they hoped that fresh German reinforcements would soon come in to help them gain the advantage in numbers and allow them to push the British into Kuweit and then into the Sea, so the whole Middle East, as well as it’s oil was secured. Then they could push onward against Africa, or even India the Imperial German High Command hoped. Instead however the Allieds held on and the Banat Division fought them in Dibis, Altun Kupri, Taqtaq, Mokhmur, Arbil, Hiran, Shaqlawa, Batas, Bakhma, Rowanduz and Haj Umran in the Kurdish Mountains, before also facing them in Shirqat, Hadhar (Hatar), Jirnaf, Mount Huwash, Qaiyara, Tal Hassuna Shora Mountain, Hamman Al Alil and even Mosul, before Axis Central Powers reinforcements and Iraqu Auxillary forces managed to drive the British back south once more.



But as the Axis Central Powers and German Imperial High Command concentrated most of it’s forces, equioment and reinforces on the Eastern Crusade, Operation Barbarossa, the East European War against the Soviet Union for the Liberation of Eastern Europe and it’s Ethnic Groups into Nation States, other Fronts like the Africa or the Middle East. Because of this troops there had to manage with few to none reinforcements and modern equipment, at least not large enough numbers. Because of that the Banat Divisions and other had to do with what little they had, forcing them to get creative, enlist local auxillary forces and even use captured Allied equipment that was hastily repainted in some chases. Therefore the Banat Division would attempt to make the best out of this by servign as a elite division patching up holes in the Axis Central Powers defensive lines. This would however leave the Division itself very exhausted and very clearly also very short on manpower after many losses inflicted on them by the British. The problem of the Axis Central Powers mainly was that without sufficient Air support and reinforcements, the Banat Division and it’s Axis Central Powers supporters clearly had to make up for it by being creative, using the terrain and ambushes alike to keep the Allies out of Northenr Iraq long enough for their main reinforeces to arrive under General Erwin Rommel, who would reorganize this few forces to redo his North African Blitzkrieg and fast movements along the Euphrat and Tigir to outsmart, outflank and outdo the Allied British Forces, who would be cut off, surrounded in encirclemens and forced to surrender, so that the Axis Central Powers would rush down Iraq and soon stood befor Bagdad and fight for the liberation of Iraq and be supported by the locals in form of militia, auxillary forces, or outright Iraqi forces servign the British and Allies originally, who had switched sides.