The Silver Knight, a Lithuania Timeline
- Thread starter Augenis
- Start date
Heh, Monarchist Unitarians.
But it's cool to see the original comparison to an Ant Colony actually result in something like this!
But it's cool to see the original comparison to an Ant Colony actually result in something like this!
Another word for the insane Juche ideology in North Korea.
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Well, that's just another remainder that Unitarianism is not just Marxism with the names changed. In the hindsight, I would expect that a socio-political theory risen from observing the social insects would be rather corporatist/organicist than communist, or at least would have some clearly visible corporatist streak. So in a way, the Ethiopian monarcho-unitarianism is a return to its sources.
We can only hope that they aren't depopulating their cities in some pursuit of "Year Zero".
Well we can nominate/vote for this when nominations open again, whenever that might be.
I am guessing that @Augenis From Silver knight TL would be writing The Stone Castle, where stone kremlin was completed in time, leaving Algirdas defeated.
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Before Gregor Samsa destroyed it, I'd say Visegrad had the best generals.
Chapter 89: Reinforce the Line
Part 89: Reinforce the Line (Mar-Jul 1940)
Adam Schicklgruber, a columnist for the Wiener Zeitung specializing in Eastern European politics, when detailing the events of the Russian-Lithuanian War to an audience which was much more focused on the War of the Danube this past year, used this expression to describe the situation of Lithuania in March 1940: "The Lithuanian Army is a train without coal, or a plane without fuel [...] it runs purely through inertia."
Certainly an odd, maybe a bit arrogant description of an army which was currently winning in the described war, but not an inaccurate expression. The Lithuanian Army, which started out it's invasion of Russia with such great momentum, was no Imperial army, supported by the resources and population of the entire Eastern European Plain - it was rapidly exhausting itself. Manpower reserves were not in their best shape, while the industry found it tough to keep up with the massive needs of the military. While the Krajina was officially under Lithuanian control, numerous resistance organizations like the "Alliance of the Dnieper" were disrupting communications, infrastructure, pressing the Ruthenians to not work and not serve, which was seriously hurting the Revivalist integration of the Krajina. Don't even get started on occupied Russia - the resistance movements there were so wide and powerful that the Army sometimes had to fight whole pitched battles with the guerillas. And this meant that the Lithuanians could only fully exploit the resources and manpower of roughly 25 million people living in what used to be Lithuania - and it's certainly not enough people to easily conquer all of Eastern Europe with. What the Lithuanian Army banked on, knowing about this situation, was a quick war which would take less than a year - but that's not an option now, is it?
However, all of this knowledge was safely kept away from both the Lithuanian public and it's civilian administration, including the Vadas himself. Nobody in the Army wanted to be the bearer of bad news - even if the reasons for your failure were reasonable and not your fault, or, God forbid, you were the one who made the mistake which caused the operation to fail, then do not expect mercy. As such, official military reports were always sugarcoated - any victories, no matter how minor, were heavily exaggerated, while any defeats had the additions of "the enemy suffered severe casualties and is weak" or "the enemy failed to use the victory successfully" or "the enemy is exhausted and can be overwhelmed next time", stuff like that. And if these are the reports the government received, then just imagine what the civilian population, informed only by Pakalka's Revivalist propaganda machine, could think. If you didn't have access to any underground media (which many people did) or lived somewhere near the front yourself, then you'd perhaps imagine that the invincible Lithuanian army has already overrun both Russias and will soon restore order to the squabbling degenerates and Unitarians in the West.
In this climate, in summer, starting on June, the Lithuanian began what they hoped to be the final offensive in the war - Operation Pacas. Executed by the majority of the Lithuanian forces on the Russian front, it aimed to capture Nizhny Novgorod, the provisional capital of Russia, and destroy the Krutovist government. At the very beginning of the offensive, the Lithuanians scored a number of victories - however, the odds were soon minimized, as the element of surprise they held in 1939 was now gone. Throughout the winter and spring of 1940, the Russian Army had finished it's modernization program, even exceeding the original plans in some cases due to wide Volgak materiel support, and by the time Operation Pacas kicked in, it was a strong modernized and organized force. That's not to say that they were something unbeatable, either - far from it. After a series of defeats along the Volga and in the East European Plain, the Lithuanian Army pushed towards the outskirts of Nizhny Novgorod. As much of the Russian nation was occupied, manpower reserves were waning and hunger was starting to kick in.
Even if Lithuania was not doing well by themselves, it appeared as if their opponent was in even worse shape.
Lithuanian soldiers crossing the Oka River
Lithuanian Dobi-80 reconnaissance airplane. One of the first dedicated reconnaissance aircraft designs in Europe, it also served as a competent lightweight fighter. 350 Dobi-80 planes served in the Lithuanian Air Force during the Russo-Lithuanian War
The Lithuanians were not the only ones making mass land offensives this year, far from it. An event to the west wiped their nose in scale and grandeur.
After almost a year of preparation, building up forces and drawing up plans for the attack, the German Army finally executed their battle plan for dealing with the Confederation of Unitarian States, titled simply Operation Schwarzburg, after the hero of the Kingdom of Germania himself. Involving almost a million active personnel, three thousand landships and two thousand airplanes, among other equipment, the plan for the operation, presented upon the German general staff back in October of 1939, was always seen with a lack of confidence, and perhaps it would be impossible if not for the combined Unitarian declaration of war on France earlier this year... During the first stages of the War of the Danube, Germania, even while trying it's best to fight against the Unitarians, had it's hands tied because of a threat of war with their Western neighbor. You could never know when the French might turn their dreams of a rematch to a reality, and thus two entire armies were kept on their border at any time to deter such a threat. But now, now that France was busy being distracted by the same opponent Germania had to face, those reserve armies could safely be brought in to participate in what was, at the time, one of the most massive military operations in history.
The operation was masterminded by German generalissimo Bertolt Brecht. Brecht and Lithuania's Antanas Sidabras are often called "the German Sidabras" and "the Lithuanian Brecht" respectively, depending on who you ask - both of them championed a similar style of lightning fast mechanized warfare, and were both also generally political and somewhat opposed to the civilian government, although also with differences of their own. For one, as they had far different levels of resources and manpower to work with, the strategies and ideas they pulled off were often noticeably different. Brecht's "Gasoline Horde" focused on mass mechanized breakthroughs to overwhelm and encircle the enemy, with second-line infantry contingents to destroy such encirclements and open holes in the enemy lines, and this strategy was employed in Operation Schwarzburg. The offensive begun in the form of two mechanized spearheads, one from Sopron in the Western Hungarian Plain and the other from Silesia, biting into the Unitarian salient in Bohemia like teeth. In the span of two weeks, much of Moravia and Silesia was captured, cutting off 200 000 Hungarians and Turks in Bohemia and turning the first stage of the offensive into a gigantic encirclement. The Bohemian Cauldron lasted two months until the first days of July, and resulted in the destruction and capitulation of the surrounded Unitarian forces. In this single sweep, what once looked like a brewing victory for the Commonwealth turned into a shattered retreat and a massive strategic and tactical defeat. Not to mention that Buda was,now in danger of being captured as well - and that, if successful, might mark the end of the Unitarian experiment in the former Visegrad.
Panic and terror spread across the CUS, panic which extremist movements would love to abuse.
Of course, the Commonwealth scored some victories of their own, namely in Southeast Asia. After the pacification of Malaya, the Indians leaped to French Indochina - Cochin and Cambodia, which was ongoing a mass local Unitarian insurgency. Indian marines soon landed in the coastal cities of the former colony to sweep out the French, and then, carrying the Nijasurist foreign policy of controlled revolution - in a layman's terms and ignoring all the propaganda packaged with it, only tolerating revolutions aligned to and started by the Indian Unitarian regime (Ethiopia, being too distant to be in India's direct sphere of influence, was the exception which proved the rule) - purged the local revolutionary movement led by Phan Đình Khải, a Vietnamese revolutionary following the tenets of Burmese Anarcho-Unitarianism. Instead, a loyal puppet Union of the Mekong River was founded in it's wake.
And then, the Indians stopped. There were no attacks on Ayutthaya, Assam or the other Southeast Asian states. Troops were being pulled back from their borders, with only small contingents left just in case.
So wait. But... why?
What happened to starting the war with China?!
That's what the government of the Union of Japan spoke. Or, would have spoken, if it was a singular entity and not, you know, a government.
For all their existence as a Unitarian state, Japan had been gearing for conquests on the continent and overcoming the Chinese goliath. The realization that they will be unable to take on China alone brought them to the Commonwealth, but now that even the Commonwealth seems unwilling to fight the Chinese... what's the plan now?
The government of the enlightened Nagai Takashi decided to take the matters to their own hands, aiming to repeat the surprising total success of the Battle of De-Foix by executing the Attack on Okinawa in July of 1940. Okinawa, the largest island in the Ryukyu Archipelago, known in Japan as the Nansei (Southwest) Islands, once used to be the seat of the old Kingdom of Ryukyu, which later ended up as a part of the Toyotomi Shogunate during their brief expansionist phase. The Japanese Revolution resulted in the islands changing hands from the Union of Japan to the Shun Dynasty, which, after officially annexing the territory with a referendum, turned the islands into a powerful "eastern outpost", capable of holding much of the Chinese ocean-going fleet within striking distance of the uppity and annoying Japan. An easy target, right?
Well, the undeclared Japanese aerial and naval assault met a prepared and ready Chinese base and fleet. You cannot repeat the same tactic twice and expect to get the same level of shock. The Attack on Okinawa lasted for a total of six hours, and while the defenders lost a couple of Magenta ships, most of them old designs, a number of light vessels and one aircraft carrier, the majority of the attacking Japanese forces were taken down, and up to 30 pilots were captured after being downed. The Attack on Okinawa was a failure, and that wasn't even the only defeat Takashi's regime suffered in that week. On the very next day, when East Asia was still reeling from the impact of the attack and peace was rapidly breaking down, a diplomatic note from the Commonwealth alliance arrived to Kyoto, declaring that the Japanese delegation is no longer welcome in Nijasure and they can no longer expect Indian and Turkish backing if they end up embroiled in war.
And the day after that, the government of Yang Long safely used the casus belli given to them by the Japanese attack on Okinawa to declare war on the Union of Japan.
Indeed. The Commonwealth freely sacrificed one of their members to not extend the wars they were already embroiled in.
Map of the world in July 1940
Sheesh.
It has been over a week since I posted.
I was forced to watch these discussions and merely nod as I could not simply delete the half-cooked post I had drafted.
Unitarianism and everything that comes with it are perhaps one of the original ideas in this TL I am most proud of - because there is just so much to explore out there, and yet at the same time it's not treading the same ground as Marxism.
Inspired by Revivalism, indeed.
:3
My existence in OTL arose from the fact that there once was an influx of Tsarist colonists in Lithuania during the 19th century, so chances are I would not be around in TTL to write anything.
Really depends on what point of view you are asking about. If you are generally an uninteresting, boring low class worker who is not trying to challenge the government or do something stupid, like visit a mosque, then you could probably live through your life relatively safely. If you are, say... a writer or a member of the highly educated class and you have not gained the ruling government's trust somehow, then you could and would feel the full pressure of the Unitarian government's censorship, influence and totalitarianism.
It has been over a week since I posted.
I was forced to watch these discussions and merely nod as I could not simply delete the half-cooked post I had drafted.
Unitarianism and everything that comes with it are perhaps one of the original ideas in this TL I am most proud of - because there is just so much to explore out there, and yet at the same time it's not treading the same ground as Marxism.
Inspired by Revivalism, indeed.
:3
My existence in OTL arose from the fact that there once was an influx of Tsarist colonists in Lithuania during the 19th century, so chances are I would not be around in TTL to write anything.
Really depends on what point of view you are asking about. If you are generally an uninteresting, boring low class worker who is not trying to challenge the government or do something stupid, like visit a mosque, then you could probably live through your life relatively safely. If you are, say... a writer or a member of the highly educated class and you have not gained the ruling government's trust somehow, then you could and would feel the full pressure of the Unitarian government's censorship, influence and totalitarianism.
It's really hard to say, because each nation has different doctrines and ideas on how to wage war which make objectively determining something like that difficult. As was stated before, Visegrad used to have a strong cadre of officers, although now they have scattered about in all directions - some are now under the CUS, some are fighting the regime, some are in Poland, some have fled and distanced themselves from military careers. Most other major countries have strong officer cadres as well, including, but not limited to Germania, France, India, Turkey and China. Lithuania has had an unusually talented generation of military commanders, too.