Between March and June of 1913, 3 new players joined the Great War: The Phillipino Empire, The Kingdom of Italy, and The Ottoman Empire.
The Philippines joined the war due to their Anti-British sentiment and their ambitions over Northern Borneo, a British colony. But the Casus belli happened on the 18th of March, when a Phillipino merchant shio heading for Saigon was sunk by the British blockade. The Government of the Oriental Empire, led now by Isabella I, was just looking for a excuse and found one. Sending the navy to Saigon in a attempt to relieve the French East Asian fleet. Clashing against the British fleet at the Battle of Chochina. The British naval superiority guaranteed a tactical defeat of the Phillipino navy, but also allowed the French escape and combine with the Phillipino fleet to create a mighty foe. The British navy would play a game of Cat and Mouse with the Entente ships for much of the war in the East.
Distracting the British fleet, the invasion of Northern Borneo, a old ambition of Isabella and her Empire, was ordered. On the July 7th, the Entente captured Sandakan, creating a bridgehead and starting a long and brutal attrition warfare on the island. They also found allies in the Island Natives, after the brutal treatment under Edward's rule, it was an opportunity to finally break Borneo free from British rule. The native revolts just ended up tying down many more units in the jungle island.
The Italians meanwhile, crossed the border with success, taking several cities before the arrival of French reinforcements that created another Trench front. One particularly brutal due to the nature of the Italian commander Luigi Cardona, a commander that didn't care about the life of his soldiers and was in the army thanks to political allies. Meanwhile, the French forces were led by a competent certain Robert Davout, grandson of Louis Davout. Davout was a superior commander to Cardona (not hard to happen) but was always in smaller numbers and with less resources. The result was a line of trenches going from the Swiss border to the Mediterranean, where both sides would remain for years.
((Italian "General" Luigi Cardona))
((Robert Davout, French General of the Armée d'Italia))
((The Frontlines by July))
The French had to divert forces from Egypt to capture Lybia, and using the opportunity, the Ottomans declared a Jihad to recapture Jerusalem, on the 6th of July of 1913. Ottoman troops were enthusiastic, fighting in the name of Islam to free the Holy City, but were underequipped and not capable of fighting both the Russians in the Caucasus and the French in Palestine. The initial offensive managed to reach the gates of the Holy City, before it was stopped and the Russians launched their own offensive in the North, invading Trebzon and heading to Lake Van. The Sultan Abdulmejid II, in desperation, granted amnesty to Young Turk officers that fought in the army. A force led by Mustafa Kemal managed to defeat the Russian forces in a impressive campaign in Armenia, pushing the Russians to Kars. It wouldn't be the last time that Kemal would be heard of, not even by far.
"This is it then." Said Alphonso, "This is the Ebro, we made it to Spain, for now. But I doubt this river can stop the Bonapartist Legions." "You should have a little more faith, if the Germans stopped them on the Rhine, the Spaniards can do the same." "Luíz, it's not that simple, that was the Rhine, it is much larger than this one. Besides, those were the Germans, I don't think the Spaniards and Portuguese can hold as well as the Kaiser." "Perhaps, but you should trust that to God, he wouldn't leave the French unpunished after all these years." "It's hard to keep believing in a higher being if he keeps screwing you and your race for a century. More likely to believe that God is French and wants to punish us for something." Luíz was about to reply, but was interrupted by a sound thundering the sky, someone yelled "Artillery !" And the second later, the blow fell a few meters behind, killing probably at least half dozen people. Others fell on the ground missing a leg or with the arm full of shrapnel. It was so frequent that many lost their sensitivity and feeling of panic, many desired to be hit and killed instead of being with the mass of refugees crossing the Ebro for Spain. They were a large target of sitting ducks waiting to be tortured to death by the legions of Bonaparte. It was a group of 2,400, at least in the beggining, half of them were dead. They were all from Prades, fleeing south to Valencia, the last great Catalan city that wasn't destroyed, thanks for the French fleet being stuck in Toulon.
They came across a large stone bridge, the Spanish forces were pushed back to the other side of the Ebro where a massive number of trenches and bunkers was built. That's where Alphonso and his brother Luíz expected to find some hope, but the artillery meant that the French were closer than expected, and now the refugees rushed across the bridge, where a Spanish officer and his patrol stopped them. "Enough of this ! We will keep a slow and steady flow, we don't want any possible spies slipping into our defenses. Now I want all of you forming two lines, women and children in one, and men on the other." "This is insanity !" Someone shouted, "The French are coming right behind us, if we don't go now, we will never make it to Valencia !" "You either do that or you aren't crossing !" "I WANT TO LIVE !!!" Screamed someone in the front, a young man of maybe the age of 17 or 18, rushing and trying to cross the bridge, before he was shot down by one of the guards.
What happened next was like if all the fear, horror, and panic that the crowd had lost returned. A thousand Catalans heard behind them the sound of "La Marseillaise" with the French Imperial flag rising across the horizon. The crowd was against both the incoming French on one side and the Spaniards on the other. Alphonso just screamed internally, showing fear in his brown eyes. The Spanish officers sighed and opened the way, returning his patrol to the main Spanish positions. The Catalans wasted no time and crossed the bridge, turning to the left and rushing to the south, until another artillery shell hit them, but this one didn't explode, but released a white cloud. "It's gas !" Alphonso shouted, making the crowd run desperately to escape it, even then, some of them fell. Luíz finally broke, "Everyone stop !" He screamed on the top of his lungs, some stopped and others just continued to run. "My brothers ! The hordes of Bonaparte ransacked Catalonia for a hundred years ! It's time for the payback ! All of those that want to live, keep going, but if we don't stop them at this bridge, there will be no place in the world where the rest of our people can be in peace ! All of those that want revenge and to protect our children so they never be oppressed again, follow me !" At least 500 men came with him to the Spanish headquarters, merely saying that they wanted to fight. Even if he didn't trust Catalans personally, the Spanish commander acquiesced, not wanting to refuse hundreds of extra soldiers. That was it, all of them were handed a rifle and ammunition, becoming the Catalan volunteer regiment. For a entire day, they fought brutally against a wave of dark blue uniforms.
And by the end of the night, they finally were pushed out, most of the men dying or being captured (which was the same as death for Catalans), but they managed to hold the French long enough to allow over 600 refugees, the village of Prides survived. Alphonso and Luíz survived, with the former gaining a scar across the face, and the latter becoming a officer of the regiment. The 2 Catalan brothers and their comrades would fight on, even with the French crossing the Ebro, they would defend Valencia a few weeks later, protecting the last Catalan city from Destruction.
"Let's attack the enemy on the same place 12 times, maybe this time it will work, they totally wouldn't expect us to attack them on the same place again."
As the War progressed towards 1914, both sides had to change strategy. The Trenches made sure that offensives would become extremely costly for the attackers, and the momentum of the Italians and French was gone: Italy became another maze of trenches from the mountains to the sea, and the French supply lines were overextended after taking Zaragoza and being stopped at the gates of Valencia. British troops were pouring in Iberia and filling the gaps of the Iberian lines, preventing the collapse of the Carlist lines. Spain also would become a brutal trench war, while behind the lines Catalonia was under French control. In the East, Germany and Russia were in brutal battles that were little more mobile compared to it's western counterparts, Congress Poland was mostly in German occupation while the Russians still had Memel and Galicia. Further south, the Ottoman Caliphate continued it's fight for Jerusalem, with both sides making a compromise to not bombard the Holy city. The African front continued a Stalemate in Central Africa: The French were outnumbered and the British couldn't advance without risking a native revolt, with Ethiopia joining the French forces in a attempt to retake Eritreia and get revenge on the Italians. North Borneo continued with a slow advance of Phillipino troops, while the French and British continued to be killed by the Thousands by diseases of the jungle and native raids.
((Frontlines in Spain))
The Great Powers adopted a new strategy in common: Bleed the enemy dry, turning the Great War in a attritional one. The Coalition hoped that the blockade of France would eventually collapse the Imperial Eagle, while the Entente was betting on destroying the weaker nations in the Coalition one by one, while inspiring revolts on the British colonies and betting on Russia's mighty resources to make them outlast the Germans. But both sides were looking to find new allies, especially on the Balkans and Americas.
The election of Wilson as president, and the end of the USW (Unrestricted Swordfish Warfare) meant that the US wouldn't play war for now. That didn't mean there was another American Power that couldn't join: The Brazilian Empire. Under Emperor Luis I, the nation was a agrarian titan, supplying 70% of the world's coffee, one of the most consumed beverages of the world. The War just increased the demands, until the exports were affected by the blockade of France and Russia (not much in the latter), besides, the Brazilian nation was literally married into the house of Bonaparte: The Mother of the Emperor was daughter of Napoleon III and he married his son with the younger sister of Napoleon V, Natalié Josephine. Luis was already 60 years old and didn't desire a war during his last years as he prepared the throne for his son Pedro III, but his ministers and his own family continued to press him after the sinking of several convoys by British blockade, the Coffee Barons demanded action. On the 14th of October came a reason to push the Emperor out of the edge: A document called "The Grey Telegram", a British document sent to Argentina and intercepted by the French, detailing a secret agreement to help the Argentine Republic to retake Entre Rios and Cisplatina from Brazil. The Emperor was fuming at the British audacity, especially the fact that Edward Grey, the foreign secretary, told his diplomat straight on that it wasn't a forgery. On the 23rd of October, the Brazilian Empire declared war on Great Britain, invading the Guianas while quickly striking naval bases in the Caribbean. The Naval balance of the war was altered, the advantage of the British navy diminished too: Brazil had the ambition of being a naval power since the independence, as result, the military resources of the Empire were heavily invested in naval power, creating a Armada that could challenge even the US one (at least during peacetime), the addition of over a Hundred ships into the Entente weakened the Coalition Blockade.
The Brazilians only threatened the Caribbean possessions, but the Irish were a threat to the home islands themselves. Led by a branch of the Bonapartes under King Michael II, grandson of Jerome I, the Irish nation had the old ambition of freeing the entire island from the British, and there was only one of the 5 original Duchies under British control: Ulster. And the promise of support and the family relations was all it took to bait the Irish: Under General Michael Collins, Irish troops invaded Ulster by surprise on the 9th of November of 1913, capturing much of the county and being hailed as liberators by the Catholic minority, until they arrived in Belfast. The Irish troops sustained a siege of the city, while Britain started to siege the whole island, isolating Ireland from the rest of the world and planning to starve the island (again). British reinforcements arrived and Belfast survived, starting another Trench front, one Michael knew that they couldn't win at the long-term, with the fate of the island tied to the results of the war in Mainland Europe.
On the Balkans, the peninsula erupted on fire, ever since the end of the Balkan war, the common enemy was gone and the 3 nations (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece) came back to their old feuds over the division of Macedonia, the Greeks and Serbs believing that the Bulgars won a unfair share of it. Only one breath could start a fire again. Hungary was observing the war since its beggining. The King Maximillian IV being a extremely paranoid person, fearing that the Russians had a plot to overthrow him at any time. The Kaiser played on this, giving him "evidence" that the Russians would overthrow him once the War was over to create a new order in Eastern Europe. The plan worked and Hungary joined the Coalition on the 12th of December 1913. But sensing an opportunity and with Russian support, Serbia mobilized to finally take Bosnia and achieve Grand Serbia. The Serbian mobilization played on the Bulgarian paranoia of their neighbors involved in a conspiracy to divide Bulgaria amongst themselves (which is not false, as that was revealed to be a post-war Plan of Serbia). The Tsardom of Bulgaria followed with the mobilization, and Grecce came right behind, being promised by the French the lands promised on the "Megali Idea". One declaration of war was followed by another, and by the 18th of December, the Second Balkan War began.
One nation left was Romania, with long ambitions of taking Transylvania and Silistria, the only reason it didn't join yet was the pro-German leaning of King Ferdinand I. But his assassination by a Russian symphatizer and the rise of Carol I took that off. And on the 23rd of December, Romania joined the Entente.
As the war entered its second year, there was no Christmas truce, the hate of the enemy and the fear of their superiors (That made clear that any non-official truce would be considered treason) prevented anything like 1912. The few ones that were attempted received artillery fire as response. The war became much more windspread across the world in 1913 and in 1914 the two sides planned to end it. There were attempts of a peace treaty, but the French refusal of giving up any territorial ambitions killed it prematurely.
It wasn't only the leaders that were desiring the end of the war, in 1914 several nations implemented wartime rations, increasing the unrest especially in the blockaded nations. In France, a strike ended up brutally suppressed by fire, the rising opposition to war made the Emperor dissolve the Parliament and rule by decree on the 3rd of March of 1914. And meanwhile in Germany, the High Command of the Army led by Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg became de facto military dictators, keeping Wilhelm II as figurehead. Other authoritarian rulings were decreed in most of the other members of the war, with several Pelletist and pacifist journalists and politicians being arrested, especially in Russia. The Tsardom was dealing with a increase of social unrest due to the military defeats, Tsaritst Autocracy, and the rising hunger on the Western lands of the Empire. Every side planned to restore the people's resolve by ending the war as quickly as possible, earning military victories on the battlefield.
The first one to take initiative were the Germans, planning to finally take Scandinavia out of the War. It would not only be one less enemy of the Reich, but would force the Russians to spread their forces thin across the Peninsula. The first objective was to destroy the Russian Baltic fleet to allow the invasion of the Capital Copenhagen. The Ostseeflotte led by admiral Tirpitz started to hunt down the Russian fleet on the Baltic, meeting them off the coast of Gotland. A vicious naval battle happened between the heavy ships of the German and Russian fleets, the Steelboats went into hour-long duels that ended only when one was on the bottom of the sea. The brutality of the battle in the sea was so intense that the Germans developed small fast boats full of explosives to throw at enemy ships like torpedoes. One incident in the battle was when a Russian Destroyer was out of ammunition and being bombarded by a German Cruiser, the Destroyer advanced full speed and rammed the German Cruiser, making it capsize. After an entire day, the two fleets retreated with no winners, only losers. The two navies losing roughly half of their ships in one of the most vicious naval battles of History, it was also the first time that torpedoes were attached to planes and used against ships, creating the naval bombers.
((Artistic image of the battle))
But strategically, the victory was German, the Russian fleet would return to Petrograd and clear the path for the German invasion force. The entire island was under siege and assault, and after 2 months of fighting, the city of Copenhagen fell on April 12th 1914. The Kingdom of Scandinavia was forced to capitulate after losing much of it's force and the Capital city, but the Germans were wrong in calculations: Instead of occupying Scandinavia, the Tsar retreated his troops to Finland, not wanting to waste men to protect a country with no strategic importance. The Eastern Front was instead straightened by the fall of Scandinavia, "Acceptable loss", as Bonaparte stated.
Next move was French, with the Irish distracting the Royal army and seeing how easily Scandinavia fell, Napoleon V doubled up the troops in Iberia, going there himself to lead the troops, leaving his wife as regent. Encouraged by the reinforcements and the leadership of their Emperor himself, French troops invaded Spain with full strength, surrounding Valencia, taking Bilbao and the gates of Madrid itself. King Carlos soon saw starvation in his land, the Pelletists calling a General Strike, the Portuguese troops retreating, and troops seeing no more reason to fight, claiming that to continue to challenge Napoleon would make Spain suffer the same fate as Catalonia. The flags of Pelletists, Liberals, and opposition groups were carried by army deserters over all Spain, all demanding the end of the War and Abdication of Carlos VII and the end of the Carlist Ultracatholic "organic regime". The Syndicates united under the common flag of the "Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo" (CNT), demanding as far as a Popular Republic based on Pelletism. With the French on one side and the people in other, Carlos VII fleed the country, leaving the President of the Council of Ministers to declare the First Spanish Republic and surrender to the French forces. All of that happening in a space of 7 weeks, with the surrender to the French coming on the May 3rd.
((Workers celebrating the declaration of the Republic))
The Spanish Revolution and surrender sent shockwaves around the world, starting a wave of red scare, Monarchs across Europe fearing the same fate of Carlos, especially in Portugal. King Miguel IV decided to crackdown on the Pelletist cells across the nation and appoint the military in positions of power, surrounding himself with security and arresting all those suspect of harboring Republican or Pelletist symphaties, causing an exodus to Spain. French troops demanded the military acess to invade Portugal, similarly to what Napoleon I did centuries earlier. This time although, the King would not flee. With the support of British troops, Miguel prepared the defenses of his nation against the French onslaught.
To distract the French, King Murat of Italy decided it was time to attack. After the 6th failed offensive of Milan made by Cardonna and 100,000 casualties, he was sacked, leaving the command of the army to his son, Prince Umberto di Napoli. Napoli was a much more competent commander than Cardona (It's not really an achievement as anyone else on the General Staff could fill that role), and used the French transfer of resources and troops to Spain as a chance to attack, on the 29th of March, the Italian army launched a much more coordinated offensive that managed to reach the gates of Turin, capturing the city of Milan. But much of the renaissance city was destroyed by the fighting, with the Legendary Cathedral made by Da Vinci being burned to the ground. Still, over 300,000 casualties were inflicted upon the French, compared to 70,000 Italian ones, a clear improvement compared to Cardona, and forcing the French to send in part of the Spanish army to prevent a full collapse.
The Balkans were also full of activity, as Pre-War plans dictated, Romanian, Serbian, and Greek troops invaded Bulgaria from 3 sides. The Prussia of the Balkans held well, but by the 2nd of February, it was about to collapse, with Ottoman troops coming to the rescue at the battle of Sofia, arriving at the last moment against the Serbian flanks, in a ironical comparison to the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Meanwhile, a combined Hungaro-German force invaded Serbia, capturing Belgrade on the 11th of February. Led by the recently promoted General Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a innovative commander, using the mass use of armored cars, combined with infiltration tactics and aircraft to overwhelm enemy defenses. He was also the first Commander to use the "War Trucks", a Anglo-German secret project of a fully-armored cars armed with machine guns. They were slow and usually got stuck in trenches, but were almost invulnerable unless hit by a direct strike of an artillery shell. Hitler was a commander on the Western Front that was born in Vienna in 1880 (Alt-History here, just put in some butterflies), he was the youngest General of the German Army and also very interested in politics, he displayed several Nationalist and Monarchist views, being called the "Ideal soldier of the German Army". By the end of March, his forces led a coalition of Hungarians, Turks, and Bulgarians in sweeping across Serbia and Grecce, with the Greek government reduced to the Pelopponesian and Athens. They also captured Bucharest in April, forcing the Russians to extend their lines into Moldova, to prevent the exposure of Ukraine. The Ploesti oil fields were captured on the 8th of April, 2 days before Bucharest, being used at full power to fuel the German War Machine.
((General Adolf Hitler))
The almost collapse of the Balkan Front happened simultaneously at the Chochina Campaign. To distract the Franco-Phillipino forces, British marines invaded Indochina. From the beggining, it was a rushed proposal to prevent the fall of Brunei to the Phillipino army. Indeed the invasion forced the transfer of troops and saved temporarily the city, but soon the rushed campaign turned into a brutal meatgrinder for the British, that fought in the jungles against the French and their native allies (that preferred French dominion instead of British one), thousands would die on the campaign.
But the main action happened on the Rhineland. Both the French and Germans knew that breaking the river would bring the final victory, and the French stuck first. The "Operation Austerlitz", named after Napoleon's greatest victory, was launched on the 8th of June, with over 3 days of non-stop artillery bombardment and attacks with new gas weapons. Finally crossing the river and attacking the area of Limburg. The French created a bridgehead and started a offensive in German territory, breaking the defenses. But the Offensive coincided with the return of General Hitler and his troops, Adolf led a thunder counter-attack, pushing the French back to the river and bombarding the boats that came to attempt a rescue. The original plan of the operation was push from Limburg and cut the Netherlands from the rest of the Reich, it ended with 570,000 French casualties and prisioneers, with the Germans losing 320,000. The disaster was followed by Operation Michael, the German Counter attack against the weakened French lines in Flandres, planning to take the city of Antwerpen and land over a million troops to support the attack in Flandres. The attack was preceded by an artillery bombardment of 5 days and the first use of mustard gas. German War Trucks invaded Flandres only 2 days after the French surrender in Limburg, on the 7th of July. The German forces achieved great successes, surrounding Antwerpen and going as far as Bruges, but the French General Petain, one of the best French Generals, led a counter attack that relieved Antwerpen and surrounded 400,000 Germans in Flandres, but Hitler acted quickly, using the Anglo-German naval supremacy to evacuate the army. Over 320,000 men escaped in the "miracle of Flandres", but still, the Germans were back to the Rhine, losing 378,000 men but inflicting 180,000 casualties on the French side.
The late 1914 was when the major players started to despair, seeing no end for the war in sight. Portugal was fighting a total war against Joffre and the French, Napoleon V went to Italy, where he started to plan a counterattack against Umberto's forces, Russian forces were overextended from the Black Sea to the Baltic, both the French and Germans were recovering from the Summer offensives in the Rhine front, the British had to deal with colonial unrest, the Ottomans continued to fight on 2 fronts, and the Greeks desperately held Attica and the Pelopponesian. The situation was looking bleak for members of both alliances, and all of them waited for something, anything, to achieve victory.
But first there was a war in the skies. The French and German aircraft battled over the Rhineland, with the first bomber planes being used to attack the industry and infrastructure of the rival. In the skies there were two aces: Joachim Bonaparte, Brother of Napoleon V and air squad commander, and Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron" and best German pilot. The two pilots met several times during the war, having a gentleman's rivalry, both shoot down one another several times during the war. Duel of aces in the air was a matter of honor, a stark contrast to the war in the ground and sea.
((Manfred von Richtofen, the "Red Baron"))
The Entente was in a dire situation with the fall of Scandinavia and majority of the Balkans. But the French had a plan, this time in collaboration with the Russians, the plan was for the Russians to launch 2 offensives towards Warsaw and Koningsburg in October, with the French following up with a western one in November. It was expected that the offensive of Napoleon V in Italy would knock it out of the war, forcing German troops to defend the Alps further South. The plan was to overwhelm the Germans from 3 sides, if enough pressure managed to crackdown on the Germans then the Reich would fall and Britain will follow. The Russians also contacted Czech resistance movements across Bohemia-Moravia, supplying them with weapons and money to declare a uprising against the Kaiser.
On the 7th of October, Operation Suvorov was launched by General Brussilov. The German army was caught completely off guard by the Russian attack, the Imperial army of the Tsar was preparing for that attack for an entire year and that didn't let him down when launched, the attack was different: Instead of a long artillery barrage like the Rhine offensives, it was a short and accurate attack on weak points of the German lines, followed by the Russian offensive. The attack in Poland was a tremendous success, winning almost a hundred miles in one week, reaching the gates of Warsaw. To prevent the arrival of reinforcements, the second phase began, an offensive attacked the Eastern Prussia and threatened to siege Köningsburg. Then on the 1st of November, the French attacked.
Before that, on the 12th of August, the French army launched the Italian campaign, transfering troops from Iberia to Piedmont, Napoleon himself would lead the offensive, outnumbering Umberto's forces by 2:1. He started faking weakness in his lines, baiting the Italians to launch an offensive. Umberto knew something was wrong, but was pressured to attack by other officers. The Italians were surprised when the French forces counter-attacked their lines, pushing a furious offensive that took back Milan in a matter of days. The Italian line collapsed and Umberto ordered a general retreat to the Po river and Veneto. But the latter suffered the full fury of the French Elan, the city of Venice being threatened by the attack. The German Army was forced to transfer several army Corps to Italy to save its ally. The Venetian front had begun.
The French capture of Lombardia and Genoa would send shockwaves across the Peninsula, the fast attack was helped by French mobile troops with the use of modern tactics. The Italian troops were behind the Po river, losing all that took a year to conquer in less than a month. The nation was demoralized, the army was crippled and barely holding the river, and Prince Umberto was sacked from his position after his failures. Many South Italians became opposed to the war, reigniting the old rivalry of Northern and Southern Italians. Wishing to secure his Kingdom and still hoping that the Bonapartes would forgive him, Murat approached Napoleon for a ceasefire, giving Venetia to France temporarily until the end of the war as a gesture of good will. On the 5th of September of 1914, Italy was out of the War.
The second issue was Portugal, the small Nation led by Miguel IV was the last British base in Mainland Europe, and they intended to defend it even if the combined Coalition army was outnumbered 5:3 by the French. The Portuguese phase of the war lasted from the 8th of July (First French attack) until the 9th of November (When French attacks ceased), and it was a desperate struggle of Portuguese independence, but while the Portuguese were defending their mainland, the British and Portuguese forces in Africa had a new challenge. In a secret alliance with the Boer republics (promising them the control of the Cape colony), the Brazilian army invaded Angola while Blockading Cape City, using the thin spreading of the Royal Navy (that was too worried about blockading Europe, all while underestimating the Brazilian navy). Lobito and Luanda were taken, and the Boers backstabbed the British simultaneously. This all happened at the same time of a Native black uprising in the North, and by the 1st of September, British presence in Africa was collapsing, in desperation, governor Rhodes gave the control of the military to the German commander Lettow-Vorbeck, that retreated from Sudan to coordinate the defense of South Africa.
The Portuguese managed to resist, inflicting heavy loses to the French, but is widely believed by historians that Portugal wouldn't survive another attack. Instead, Napoleon V went to Flandres, diverting troops from all fronts to start "Operation Jena" (Name of the French victory over Prussia in 1806), over 3 million French troops stormed over the Rhine, preceded by a gas attack by aircraft: Mustard and Chlorine gas tanks were installed in airplanes and bombers, and used to create clouds over the enemy lines. The French used the German distractions in Prussia, Poland, and Venice to strike at the heart of the Eagle, crossing into Southern Netherlands, taking Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrech, cutting Amsterdam from the rest of the country. The French forces learned from Hitler, using infiltration tactics and War Trucks. The Germans would redeploy troops but couldn't avoid over half million of them getting surrounded in the Netherlands, all they could do was to flood the country to delay them.
The French had the momentum, taking Arnheim and advancing towards the German Industries of Essen. By the 1st of January of 1915, the Kaiser was in his room praying, begging to God for a intervention, something, anything, that could turn the war and save his country.
