3 September, 1939
9 days into the war
While it becomes clear in retrospect that the High King’s uncharacteristically rambling speech had its strange strategic purpose, the actual contents of it will still be analyzed for a long time. One thing noted by perhaps more cynical readers is that while Lechoslaw IV referenced the Latin Empire’s “crusade” mentality in contrast to Poland’s tolerance, he didn’t specifically draw attention to Russia’s just as prominent Slavic pagan zealotry. He also talked in broad terms about how Russia is oppressing “its own citizens” and, basically, the Russian people as a whole are victims of Morozov and his goons. In this, he failed to note how Russia may indeed be an overall oppressive terror state, but the sharpest point of that terror has always targeted the nation’s various minorities in the name of High Russian superiority. He spoke of Bolgharia and Uralia, which are unanimously independent countries, but not for instance Khazaria, the Caucasus or Central Asia.
This seems like a double standard; and to an extent, it definitely is. Of course, in the context of all the other speeches given by the High King and other prominent Poles around this time, Poland has explicitly made cross-religious, cross-cultural, pan-human “Solidarity” the foundation of its ideology and rhetoric, and presented this in direct contrast to the oppression of minorities in Russia. The exact details have perhaps been a bit fuzzy, but much noise has been made out of it, so it can’t be said that the issue has been hidden or ignored. However: it is also true that Poland is more awkward about acknowledging pagan zealotry than Christian zealotry, and that minority rights are also a tricky subject, lest they veer into matters of independence and self-determination that also question the legitimacy of the Polish, Moldavian, or British colonial empires. (At least European Poland has no major flashpoints at this time, after the border deal with Germany, though Hungary is a long-term problem. The same cannot be said for Moldavia or Britannia.) This goes double for the High King, whose role requires him to be careful and “centrist” about such things,
and who also happens to be relatively conservative in his personal beliefs.
However, besides having to tiptoe around the biases and realpolitik of the Commonwealth of Sovereign States when making such grand declarations as this one, the choice of rhetoric towards Russia has another purpose: it is hoped that by focusing on the fault line of “Morozov vs. the people”, said people might prove more receptive to Polish overtures – and less enthusiastic about serving Morozov’s regime – than if Poland painted the Russian people as oppressors of their countrymen and played right into the “us against them”, “war of national survival” mentality that primacism tries to foster. Any hint of emphasizing their collective guilt could even give them reason to fear harsh measures from the invading Poles. Poland would much prefer that they solve the problem by overthrowing the regime, rather than rally around it as some kind of lesser evil.
As a case study of how the (mostly Polish) Commonwealth invaders are being received in the very first days of this war: in Batumi and the rest of occupied Georgia, which is expanding by the day, the Georgians and other non-Russians do in fact receive them with enthusiasm, at least as far as the troops can tell while they march through the streets. This goes double as the border region has been targeted by “cleanup” and “preparation” actions by the MGB in recent years, in a vain attempt to eliminate anyone who might try to collaborate in just such a manner. However, a good chunk of the population, probably the majority, aren’t out in the street greeting the troops, but hunkered down in their homes, rightfully afraid of
any given army in their town; not to mention being punished if Russian rule ever does return. The Russian minority that lives in the region, for that matter, is also in a difficult situation: some flee before the Commonwealth arrives, some melt into the countryside in hopes of forming resistance groups, some simply sit tight at home, some are targeted by spontaneous outbursts of violence from their neighbors, and some are turned in to the occupiers for one crime or another. The Commonwealth tries to be quite strict about containing any violence, but more indecisive about what to do with that last group. Some sort of occupation government needs to be set up to administer Free Georgia, as well as any future occupied territories. The situation is similar to the southeast in Gyumri, where the Moldavians are pushing into Russian Armenia (not to be confused with the independent, neutral, Kingdom of Armenia) but struggling to present themselves as liberators, considering their centuries-long colonizing efforts in the general region.
Novorossiysk, the main target of Operation Novelty, provides a stark contrast. While traditionally considered part of the Circassian region, this area north of the Caucasus has been quite thoroughly Russified over the centuries, especially the cities. Whether or not Russia expected the Commonwealth to actively invade, Novorossiysk of all places clearly wasn’t expecting to be the first one hit, and despite the operation being somewhat fumbled, the Polish Marines were able to land and take the city with shocking ease, to the point that the later arrivals didn’t even “land” but simply sail into port and unload in peace. Unlike Georgia, this part is for now under the sole occupation of the Poles, and the Marines are the only boots on the ground.
However, the lack of military resistance clearly doesn’t mean that the locals are pleased: at the same time that the Poles prepare to ship as many POWs as possible over the Black Sea where they can be more safely interred, regular citizens who have been primed to hate and expect hate from the Poles are, for now, completely refusing to cooperate. Many of them even personally remember the Great War, where Poland used this same city as a supply center in its extensive push east. They may be resisting for the same pragmatic reasons as some of the Georgians; but from what reports are coming in so far, there is reason to think that they also consider theirs a righteous resistance. Compared to Georgia, this passive resistance from nearly all citizens, including both workers and bureaucrats, makes it very hard to establish order in the sizable city and its environs, especially as the Poles’ own supplies and people all need to be shipped in from over the sea.
Of course, both Georgia and Novorossiysk have only been in Commonwealth hands for a week or so. Neither the administration nor the resistance
could be very organized at this point; the citizens are even justified in thinking the Commonwealth could just as well be pushed back as soon as the Russian Army mounts a decent counterattack.
The Russian front of the Great War more than 30 years ago was more or less decided by the famed Step Forward Order, passed down from (even if not conceived by) High Queen Wieslawa herself. From the very first days of the war, the bold decision to advance across the entire front caught the Russians underprepared and gave the Poles an unstoppable momentum that brought them all the way to Samarkand and total victory against Russia, even when the Latin front was much more slow and grinding.
This time there’s no idea of such a thing. Even with the Russians fighting Uralia and the other communists at the same time, their border with Poland is just too heavily fortified and manned to make such an attack anything short of… gory. And not just that, a failed offensive would leave Poland’s own defenses weakened and open to a counterattack. Given the length of the border, most fortifications on either side are rather shallow – i.e. not very layered – and one breakthrough could easily spiral out of hand. Instead, as Operation Novelty kicks off and the rest of the army starts being fully mobilized, most of the eastern front is ordered to hold position for now and not advance before the Russian lines are clearly weakened. However, the Polish invasion of Russia is still meant to be an
invasion, and just sitting by would squander the whole point of intervening to save the Uralians, not to mention endangering all of Poland close to the border. The fight needs to be taken to the enemy, one way or another.
Poland’s most powerful offensive forces – the armored divisions – have all been concentrated into one Hatchet Force, deployed to execute Operation Hatchet, a lightning offensive against the Vitebsk-Orsha Gap. As one of the only zones not protected by a large river, it’s a rather obvious place to try and pierce through, yet the Polish strategists have decided that even so, it’s their best shot. The armored and motorized spearheads under Gen. Musa Ibragimov will lead, while the cavalry under Ludomir Krakowski (in a rather novel situation) does the job usually meant for infantry, covering the tanks’ flanks and rear. They will be especially vital when the fighting moves into more wooded, less open terrain. Where Caucasus Command includes 130,000 troops total, Operation Hatchet alone has been assigned around 160,000. However, this is of course a lot of high-value divisions to be throwing into one offensive, which is why the Army of Minsk – even while not participating in the attack itself – will follow close behind and make sure the spearhead isn’t too easily cut off.
A week after starting, Operation Hatchet has achieved great initial success, stormed right through the border defenses and penetrated all the way to Smolensk, a major city and provincial capital. Alas, it’s clearly starting to lose momentum as its supply lines lengthen and more Russian reinforcements arrive. It probably won’t be reaching Moscow any time soon, but the hope is that a disruption on this scale will create openings elsewhere for the Poles to exploit or, perhaps even better, give the Uralians a fighting chance as the Russians scramble to protect their capital.
As the fighting has been limited to a few hotspots, it has still been relatively “clean”, with few casualties for Poland and most of the Russians’ consisting of prisoners taken in the rapid advance. However, while the media back in Poland is reporting these early victories with glee, they’re being a little short-sighted if they think it’s going to stay that way…
The war continues to rapidly expand, or rather, unfurl towards its true size.
The entry of Germany into the quickly unfolding world war is hotly speculated even in layman circles from the moment they adjust to the initial shock of Poland’s declaration. More astute people suspect, and a few select individuals know, that Germany was just as much aware of the plan as Moldavia and Britannia. The day after Operation Novelty, Germany declares its own war against the Latin Empire. Soon Germany also signs a treaty effectively giving it full access to the Commonwealth’s military alliance, though it still resists becoming a full member of the Commonwealth itself. Of course, Germany isn’t doing this to help Poland, Uralia or anyone else, but to continue where the Latin-German War left off in 1930.
Much like their “Coalition” in the (First) Great War, this is an alliance of necessity, and none of the now-allies have any illusions about that. However, they
are on better terms than ever before in the last few centuries.
The German-Latin frontline is a rather straight-forward one: they have one long border, most of it very rocky, gonna be a hard fight. Germany is not happy about, but broadly accepting of the fact that this front will mostly be its own responsibility for now, as its allies are busy elsewhere. After all, it entered into this war with the understanding that the Latins would
also be quite distracted in Alcadra and elsewhere. Yugoslavia is nearby, though, and in the best position to provide backup.
Besides the border between those two, the western theater includes Calais and Brittany. Calais is heavily defended, and should hold, but both Germans and Poles have hopes of a drive towards Paris, while Britannia would love to secure the coast. The lesser Brittany, however, finds itself in a very precarious position, as a young nation only recently liberated from the Latin Empire and with no real fortifications or terrain to protect it. Being a mere “protectorate” of Britannia, it is not a signatory of the declaration of war, but the Latins immediately invade it regardless in order to try and deprive the Commonwealth of a vital position it’s obviously going to use. Some accuse its allies of having thrown it under the bus. The wobbly defense of Brittany is mostly in the hands of British and Moldavian troops.
The first conflict that started this current war, or is at least retroactively included in it, was the Latin invasion of Santa Croce, aided by the primacist nations of the so-called Southern Axis. Now there are two more distinct fronts in Alcadra: Panama and New Wessex-Guiana. A large concentration of British divisions is pushing out of the naval base in Panama City to try and secure more of the isthmus as a buffer for the all-important canal. The fighting is almost entirely over the single real road that runs along the isthmus, flanked by hills and forest, but at least for now, the momentum is on the British side: with the Panama Canal
always being a hotspot for shipping, the amount of troops being moved there seems to have caught the Solish defenders off guard. The existence of the canal and the possibility of seizing it were some of the main things that made this alliance attractive for both Solmark and the Latins in the first place.
However, be it a knowing sacrifice or a miscalculation, the transfer of British troops to Panama seems to have left New Wessex and Guiana undermanned. On this much wider and less defensible front, Solmark seems to have Britannia outnumbered and on the ropes. These colonies aren’t as strategically important as the Canal, and the island bases should be untouchable, but they are quite large and decently populated with British nationals, making their occupation a painful prospect.
Santa Croce has, naturally, been invited into the Commonwealth alliance under similar terms as Germany. The jungle-covered western front seems not to be moving much. Meanwhile, the Latins have once again made landfall on the coast, this time near Fortaleza, but have failed to secure a proper port and are doomed to fail once more. Santanan sources are obviously shouting for someone to
help already, but the situation should be possible for them to contain. In addition, the country is huge, with its important cities spread out across 2,500 miles of coast. With armies in much higher demand elsewhere, the current Commonwealth plan is to protect Santa Croce by taking control of the sea instead and cutting off Latin access to Alcadra.
South of the fighting, Vanaland, Andeland and Patagonia remain one of the main bastions of unaligned neutrality in an unfriendly world. While their sympathies are mostly with the Commonwealth, both sides are vying for their favor, and it seems they are proving less than eager to restrict the lucrative trade of supplies and raw materials to the Covenant…
Also part of the Covenant, Benin has launched ambitious attacks towards the Polish colonies in the Gulf of Africa. Even though this was foreseeable, Poland’s notoriously underfunded and undersized Africa Command seems like it’ll have no choice but to abandon some areas and consolidate its forces; however,
right now would probably be the best time to stop the Beninese advance, as otherwise all the Polish and British colonies will be left wide open. Geographically, this is the narrowest the front will ever be; the only upside would be stretching out the Beninese supply lines and occupation forces into less developed territory. Under its primacist dictator, modern and densely populated Benin has built a thoroughly militarized economy and large army and set its ambitions on African hegemony. Its only real obstacles are the European colonial powers and underdeveloped Kanem-Bornu.
Before the war, Africa Command’s main purpose was to garrison Polish ports; however, now it seems it might have to leave that job to the navy and redirect its forces to the front. At least the completely surrounded port city of Lagos was already evacuated ahead of time.
While the Beninese offensive is proving more tenacious than expected, it at least
was expected. What the Poles didn’t fully grasp was the eagerness of the Dominion of Esperanza, led by a primacist sympathizer, to exploit Asturias’ half-membership in the Covenant to also invade the Polish and British colonies to its north. The Esperanto military is decently small and supposedly poor, and fighting across an entire continent shouldn’t be easy for them either, but it’s an unwelcome distraction for the already overstretched Africa Command.
Asia (not including Russia-Siberia) currently has no European powers engaged in combat – Asturias has been pushed out. Instead, the communist Indochinese Union is continuing its own expansion by finally declaring war on the elephant in the room, primacist Great Viet. No one could expect the two to exist peacefully while both claim dominion over the whole region. The much smaller primacist country of Arakan is also dragged into the war.
The politics of this are rather messy: the Covenant has made declarations of support for the anti-communist struggle, which Arakan has received with enthusiasm and effectively joined the Covenant as what some people call a glorified treaty port. Of course, no material aid is likely to be forthcoming any time soon. However, while the same thumbs-up is also extended to Great Viet, it is currently at war with and occupying Asturian territory, and thus can’t be invited into the Covenant in the same way. An advisor in Krakow suggests that Great Viet could theoretically be convinced to take support from the Commonwealth instead; alas, even putting aside the primacist nature of the Vietnamese regime, Poland would be jumping into a terrible diplomatic quagmire and sabotaging its already strained relationship with the World Workers’ Front for no real gain (as well as supporting anti-colonial forces in a region where it too has colonies). This suggestion is immediately dismissed.
The Commonwealth of Sovereign States arguably dominates the world, most of it in a less than virtuous manner. The Covenant is just a bunch of individually self-interested dictatorships united in the desire to divvy up that pie, but from Moscow to Rome to Karlstuna to Edo City, they are very happy to highlight their position as the persecuted underdogs in the Polo-British world order. In a sense, they’re not wrong; but it’s probably clear that their suggested alternative isn’t much better.
Amatica is the only continent with no fighting at all. The founding of TOTO (Trans-Oceanic Treaty Organization) formalized the republics’ desire to stay well out of it. However, this doesn’t mean they or their citizens are truly unsympathetic to the Commonwealth. Private organizations and governments alike are organizing aid in the form of food, medical supplies and even weaponry to be sent to democratic countries in need. In addition, it turns out the leader of TOTO, the anti-interventionist Free Nations itself, does have a sizable pro-interventionist opposition. While it’s one thing to support intervention from the safety of your home, the more zealous believers in this cause are packing their bags to journey to Europe – alone or in groups – and join the Polish Crown Army as volunteers. Of course, the Free Nations’ cultural ties to Poland do play a part, as does Poland’s active campaigning within the country. And they’re easy to integrate, since they all speak Polish anyway! Although, the Free Nations doesn’t have compulsory military training like Poland does, meaning that a lot of these people are either less-than-experienced idealists or self-taught bushwhackers. The Free embassy in Krakow hesitantly takes on the task of keeping track of them, as they
are Free citizens traveling to Poland, but the government in Radziwill refuses to take any responsibility for them as a fighting force.
Volunteers are good (if also risky) for optics, but Poland honestly needs guns more than men. The deficit has been all but eliminated, as the choice was made to stop enlarging the army until the stockpiles could catch up, but from this point forward, equipment just as well as soldiers will also start being lost in the field.
The Atlantic is far from safe, too: what civilian traffic there still is will have to sail as far north as possible, as the farther south you go, the more Covenant forces there are. On 3 September, the British Home Fleet encounters what seems to be the main Asturian fleet in the English Channel. While Britannia’s navy on the whole is larger than Asturias’, these two forces are quite closely matched in numbers and firepower.
When the Grand Marynarka (Poland’s North Atlantic fleet) under Adm. Adelajda Sokól arrives on the scene, the Asturians clearly realize they’ve been outmatched and beat a desperate retreat under the cover of a heavy autumn rain. This somewhat negates the Commonwealth’s overwhelming air advantage (with five carriers against Asturias’ zero), but Asturias still loses one of its few battleships and several other boats. Britannia suspects Asturias was probing for the possibility of a naval landing on the Irish side of the country. Whatever the case, this finally convinces everyone that Asturias itself is also a full belligerent in this war, probably trying to reclaim its past glory, rather than just a victim of circumstance dragged into it by the Latins.
Not long after, Adm. Janusz Wilk reports that the “barrel-shooting” of the Russian Black Sea fleet is all but finished. All the ships that escaped from Novorossiysk have been handily destroyed, and only some submarines still survive. Here, too, the naval bombers get their fair share of the glory, having been the ones to land the killing blow on the Russian flagship
Timur Morozov. Unfortunately, intelligence will later report that those submarines have docked in the remaining Russian port in Rostov, having managed to sneak through the Kerch Strait. The naval bombers in Crimea are given the task of hunting them down to the last: they can bomb the port to force the submarines out to sea, and then wait until they are forced to surface. They’ll be done by the end of the month. Wilk is given the go-ahead to relocate to Moldavian ports in the Aegean.
The originally somewhat mixed success of Operation Novelty is clearly becoming more and more vindicated in hindsight. Novelty and Hatchet together have succeeded in throwing the Russian lines into enough disarray that, apparently by order of Vozhd Morozov himself, the Russian Army has completely abandoned its expected strategy of holding the fortified border. After barely any fighting, the majority of troops are being pulled away, leaving much of the line outright undefended. Marshal Rokossowski, an adherent of offensive and mobile doctrine, is obviously not going to let this chance pass him by, and no one would order him to; all of East Command is given the order to advance, some meeting more resistance than others. Guess that Step Forward happened after all. But at the same time, this seemingly ridiculous decision on the Russians’ part causes a stir in the Polish leadership.
Slube’s infiltration of the logistical side of the Russian war machine is supposed to be almost complete, and it likes to boast that it has a more accurate image of it than Morozov himself. Yet apparently even it cannot say for sure why and where these troops are being redeployed, lending credence to the belief that it was a snap decision made by Morozov. Whether it was out of genius or idiocy, though, only time will tell. Russia is large and all, but it hardly seems worth it to give ground
just because.
That intel certainly suggests that while some of the Russian troops are repositioning parallel to the border, most are being loaded onto trains and ferried far to the east. The leading theory is that Morozov wants to crush the Uralians first and free up more troops to push the Poles back afterwards. That's exactly what Poland joined the war to prevent, so there's little choice but to keep up the pressure.
That’s no reason to fall right into the Russians’ trap by overextending, though. Once the lines run into resistance again and recognize that it’s not going to be an unopposed drive to Moscow, on 16 September, Operation Hatchet is declared a success and the mobile task force – which shall now retain the nickname “Hatchet Force” – is prepared for redeployment elsewhere. The bulge around Smolensk has been expanded and secured, and many Russian divisions have been liquidated, two of them being encircled in Vitebsk even now.
That “elsewhere” is Chernigov a bit further south, the “second capital” of Russia and a heavily defended strongpoint. Hatchet Force makes fast progress towards finally encircling it and securing that major city of Slavdom, the capital of a former kingdom Poland once considered its brother nation.
26 September, 1939
32 days into the war
The wind carries the flames of war everywhere it blows. With relatively little notice from outsiders, one of the most wretched and poorest parts of the world is about to get even poorer.
However, presumably some of the fronts will either stabilize or be eliminated, and I can focus more where it matters. The fighting shouldn’t continue to require such dense coverage, either. We've made good progress in the first month of the war, but history shows that this doesn't always mean a fast victory...
Re: Paradox AAR - Saga of the Slavs
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