The Silver Knight, a Lithuania Timeline
- Thread starter Augenis
- Start date
Because of the fact that Volga Russia had spent centuries fighting against Lithuania and won even with the odds heavily stacked against them.
But that was before modern smokeless Gunpowder. And mainland russia is less developed than that of Volga.
True, albeit the Russians have "russkasya dusha" or "Russian spirit", their version of the Finnish "sisu".
That won't cover material differences. To be fair Lithuania has army on bicycles, Gliders and peat-powered tanks, which is less than most army of countries as strong as lithuania.. But still.
And also the fact Krutov's regime decided to declare war on Lithuania while without any major allies and in the middle of a military modernization program.
Yeah, I'm actually changing to Its Amazing too. This TL is one of the farthest back PODs here in relation to how long it's gone on for. It creates a detailed, alternate world that isn't too much of a time investment to consume. It's honestly IMO one of the best rounded TLs here, if that makes sense. Plus, I believe it's the first scenario originating from this site to get a mod, which depending on popularity could draw more people to the site.
Chapter 85: Hold What's Yours
Part 85: Hold What's Yours (May-Jun 1939)
And weren't the Russians themselves surprised when they realized that Visegrad and Germania were not going to help Krajina at all! And instead, they gave it away in exchange for worthless non-aggression pacts, in what was basically a wide secret conspiracy to the Slavs.
Add another one to the list of times Visegrad has betrayed the Russian people for their own gain. Making a quick peace with Lithuania in 1570 instead of helping the Great Russian Uprising - check. Denying the possibility of a Greater Russia and instead separating the Krajina away from the Russians - check. Making the Peace of Kiev and abandoning the Russian rebels - check. And now... selling away the Krajina and leaving Russia alone. Check. There was no way out of this situation, either, now that the betrayal has been revealed. Lithuania and Russia were at war. One will prevail, the other will die.
And the Lithuanians had a plan of maximizing their chance to be the one to prevail.
Upon the very beginning of the war, the Lithuanian high command approved the execution of the modified Bludgeon Plan against Russia. This planned called for a massive combined arms offensive against the Russians, overpowering their defensive lines and destroying surrounded unite, with the primary goal being to capture the city of Tver and the upper Volga region. It was no secret that while Russia appeared massive on the map, the majority of their population and industry was concentrated in the south of the country, and should the south be captured, the Russian war capacity would plummet enough to force a capitulation, as the theories suggested. The Lithuanians were aware of the situation in the Russian military - of the disorganized chain of command and the unfinished modernization of the army - and thus, even though the size and materiel of the two armies was not all that different, the military was confident.
Lithuanian 1st Experimental Landship Brigade mobilized for fighting and advancing towards the Russian border
Soldiers of the Russian 11th Infantry Division, located in Smolensk
The Ruthenian Front, taking place on the corpse of the former Grand Duchy of the Krajina, was marked by the execution of a Russian offensive into the territory, which could only be opposed by the light invading Lithuanian troops. In this front, it was the Lithuanians who were unprepared. Russian forces, commanded by General Konstanty Kalinovsky, seized control over a number of cities, including the large coal deposits in the Krajina south. However, their advance west, towards the city of Kiev, was slowed down by a number of technical problems - the armored cars and light landships most units had were not prepared for movement through marshes and humid weather, many of them broke down on the way. Meanwhile, the Lithuanian high command sent the 1st Reserve Army under the control of General Stasys Dirmantas to reinforce the failing positions in the front, and this 50 000 men large force successfully halted Kalinovsky's offensive in the Second Battle of the Vorskla River. After about a week of combat, during which the Lithuanian forced managed to nearly destroy a Russian division in the surrounding wet grasslands, the attackers were forced to pull back, and the front stabilized. The Revivalist propaganda machine immediately blasted the news of this victory across the country, and even though only a few skirmishes took place at the Vorskla while the majority of the fighting happened north, the name of the river was given to the battle in order to connect it to the medieval Battle of the Vorskla River, where the "enlightened" Lithuanian armies defeated the "primitive" Tatar hordes.
The fact that the Russians fought in that battle as well and the prince of Moscow, Vasily Vorskloy, was perhaps the main commander of the Lithuanian-Russian forces there, was obviously brushed aside.
A far different situation developed in the Lithuanian Front. Here, although the Russian defenses were strong even in comparison to the contingent in Ruthenia, they were set to face the might of the main force of the Lithuanian Army, one which was getting ready for fighting against their eastern neighbors for years. The invasion of Russia was organized by General Antanas Sidabras, one of the leading theorists of the Bludgeon doctrine and arguably one of the most gifted military commanders in the entire conflict. While Sidabras's loyalty to the Revivalist ideology is... very debatable, the Vadas tolerated him somewhat, only because of his visible talent in grand strategy. In the very beginning of 1939, Sidabras introduced a number of changes to the Bludgeon doctrine as a response to the developments in Germania, Shun China and other nations which adopted a similar style of mobile warfare. A greater emphasis was placed on motorized and glider units to acquire small-scale encirclements and other tactical advantages, for example, and his changes were put to the test.
The Lithuanian offensive started on a narrow part of the front into the Smolensk salient - an awkward Russian salient containing the city of Smolensk deep in Lithuanian borders, a leftover of the borders left by armistice after the Russian War of Independence. While ground troops broke through the vanguard Russian units, air infantry was dropped in strategic railway choke points leading to the salient in order to disrupt enemy traffic, destroy railway lines and prevent the arrival of supplies to troops in action. Air infantry also played an important role in the following Siege of Smolensk. Being deep within Lithuanian borders, Smolensk had become a strategically important town to the Russians, and thus had been heavily fortified during the interwar years. As the disorganized Russian troops retreated from the front into the city, the citizens of the city were being either pushed out or pressed to help out the military, practically turning the city into a glorified military base. Alexei Krutov gave the defenders of the city orders to hold and wait until the disrupted railroad lines can be fixed and evacuation can take place - and the defenders knew that they had few other options. Retreating from the salient on foot, while it is being closed by more mobile Lithuanian troops, would just be a death march. However, the Lithuanians definitely weren't going to let the 85 000 troops based in Smolensk to escape and potentially threaten their positions later on. General Sidabras ordered the execution of an encirclement.
Artillery bombardment and urban warfare in the outskirts of the city took place in the following two weeks, but the Russian morale didn't fade. Time was running out - the first echelons of evacuating troops were already travelling through a well defended single-gauge escape railway within the forests, hard to reach with either bombers or gliders. A meeting of the Lithuanian general staff was divided on the course of action needed to be taken - some wanted to retreat before the siege drains too much manpower, others wanted to end this battle with a single powerful assault to break the enemy. Sidabras, meanwhile, presented a plan which sounded so insane that it just might work - sending the 2nd and 3rd Air Infantry Brigades into Smolensk - in what would basically be a suicide mission - to disrupt the defensible enemy lines and distract the enemy enough for a breakthrough to become feasible. Although the majority of the staff dismissed this plan, the Vadas soon stepped in and gave it the green light.
The plan was put into action on June 1st, and it went even better than expected. The Russian defenders of the city, not familiar with military gliders, took them for approaching bomber planes and did little to nothing to, say, destroy the incoming planes - the city's anti-air defenses had been almost destroyed, even though gliders can safely be shot down with other types of rounds. The two air infantry brigades landed in the center of the city and barricaded themselves in the business district, drawing out troops from the defending forces - and this was the exact time when the Lithuanian Third Army crossed the Dnieper and attacked the Russian fortifications head-on, with the Second and Fourth Armies following within the next few hours. With their organization disrupted and being attacked from both sides, the morale of the defenders finally began to falter, and the 45 000 survivors, along with much of the remaining inhabitants of the city went on a mass retreat. Those who didn't get captured and taken prisoner were later either shot or ripped to shreds by bombardment, only few escaped.
The Siege of Smolensk was a heavy Russian defeat, an entire army perished in that battle, and if a Russian wasn't aware that this was a war for their nation's survival before, they were now. While the defeat resulted in the loss of many people and a lot of equipment, as well as the entire Smolensk Region and the fortress within it, the morale of the Russian people paradoxically grew stronger. Volunteer rates and recruitment numbers skyrocketed. The end of the siege drew out reactions from neighboring countries, too, especially in Volga Russia, whose people supported the Russian side of the war since it's beginning. Gennady Zinoviev, the Chairman of the Vostovsk Council and thus the head of the country, presented the issue to the parliament of the United Communities. Zinoviev was one of the few truly interventionist politicians in the entire nation - the grandson of Russian refugees from the Empire in the 19th century, he believed that it was Volga Russia's duty to help their "homelander" brothers in need. Citing that letting Lithuania restore it's Imperial borders will present a threat to the nation, the Chairman presented a motion of declaring war against Lithuania - however, most of the parliament did not feel as enthusiastic as him, and the motion was killed. Still, the stubborn Zinoviev managed to acquire a few compromises, most notably the Brotherly Support Plan - a motion of materiel and monetary aid to the Russian Democracy for the duration of the war, in exchange for low-interest loans. The Vostovsk Council was in favor of this "peaceful intervention", while Krutov's Russia could not possibly say no to support from the Volgaks. Nicknamed "Zinovievschina", the Brotherly Support Plan amounted to thousands of tons of shipment to Russia, including everything from blankets to rifles to ammunition to natural resources. For Russia, this was vital help for a nation fighting a war which may decide the fate of their nation. For Volga, this was a necessary boost to economic growth and helped the nation get out of the rut it was left in after the economic crisis of the 1930s.
Russian prisoners of war escorted out of Smolensk after the end of the siege
"In the name of the Motherland, forward, warriors!" Russian propaganda poster
The War of the Danube continued without a clear winner, both sides gained successes at this time. The Siege of Pecs was successfully lifted after the encircling Unitarian forces were beaten back by German reinforcements. With this important fortress secure, the position of the German and loyalist Visegradian forces in the south of the country was strengthened, enough that the German army could move additional troops into Slovenia and Croatia to prevent a Turkish invasion of the south of Germania, while at the same time approaching the Danube and getting closer to the city of Buda. At the same time, a combined CUS and Union offensive broke through the demoralized Romanian lines and swarmed into Moldavia. Duke Mihai III was forced to flee from the country and escaped to Lithuania, while his wartime government collapsed and was replaced by a disorganized rebellion of local Unitarian supporters. The Duchy of Wallachia-Moldavia was no more, and now, both the CUS and the Union have one less front to deal with.
An another set of countries was crumbling before a superior foe - the three countries in Central Asia, Persia, Baluchistan and Afghanistan, which had been invaded by the Unified Indian State a few months ago. Everything that could be stacked against them was stacked against them - they had inferior technology, inferior military organization and plans, inferior industry and population, inferior infrastructure and inferior diplomatic situation. As such, it should come as no surprise that despite they fought valiantly, the armies of the three nations were being subdued one after the other and forced to retreat to guerilla warfare. And once the Union joined in on the fun, attacking Persia from the west with an "expeditionary force" two times larger than the Persian military, the case was settled. Now that the west was dealt with, Chairman Nijasure could start considering an eastern turn - especially a push towards Southeast Asia, currently divided between French colonies and a bunch of buffer states, and yet strategically important both because of it's location and because of the large reserves of rubber and other resources within it.
Of course, Shun China was more than aware that the victory in Central Asia has given him free hands for meddling in their sphere of influence, and were ready to respond appropriately. While Europe burns, Asia is busy pouring itself with gasoline...
At the same time, while countries are falling left and right, the first signs of disagreement among both the Commonwealth and the German-Visegradian alliance began to arise. It should come as no surprise that the loyalist government of Visegrad, still led by Sandor Marton, was dissatisfied with the German choice to leave the Polish nationalists alone for now and focus on the Unitarians - especially since the Poles have now occupied much of the former Kingdom of Poland and were even getting close to Krakow, the capital. Prime Minister Augustina Sternberg politely told the Convention of Three Nations to remove Marton from his position - and while this wish was never executed, the fear of the Germans simply withdrawing their support from Visegrad meant that the more liberal members of the Convention told the Chairman to shut his mouth for once. Meanwhile, the Unitarian Congress in Buda was going through divisions of their own. Many of the most radical members of the Congress were infuriated by Samsa's choice to federate the CUS, and this radical blue faction, led by György Köves, believed it to be counterproductive. Köves was bold enough to declare that a federation would be the downfall of the Unitarian experiment, as it will mean that all of the nations in Visegrad will keep developing their separate national identities instead of all merging into the worldwide Unitarian nation. As such, he proposed the abolition of any federate or decentralized authorities, governing everything from the centre, and a program even more radical than that in Turkey or India - forced denationalization. Removing all nationalities which decline to integrate and integrating the rest.
Of course, Köves's faction was on the fringe. Back then.
Map of the world in June 1939
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I'll get back to you in a few hours on that. Need to get back to my PC.
Sidabras is our alt-Rommel?
I wonder if Köves is going to share Trotsky`s fate.
I would like to second all those people who are thanking you for writing this timeline, @Augenis . It continues to be a great pleasure to read. I still remember how I stumbled upon it and thought, oh cool, what an excellent description of alt-Grunwald! I would never have expected it to continue so far into the future and remain so fascinating - global in scope, yet still with a decidedly Eastern European focus of attention, which I feel is among the greatest achievements of this timeline.
I wonder if Köves is going to share Trotsky`s fate.
I would like to second all those people who are thanking you for writing this timeline, @Augenis . It continues to be a great pleasure to read. I still remember how I stumbled upon it and thought, oh cool, what an excellent description of alt-Grunwald! I would never have expected it to continue so far into the future and remain so fascinating - global in scope, yet still with a decidedly Eastern European focus of attention, which I feel is among the greatest achievements of this timeline.