Paradox AAR - Saga of the Slavs

**Ronnocius** · 2022-03-10, 09:43 PM (ISO 8601)

Fiction can often mirror the real world (even if inadvertently), sometimes in uncomfortable ways. I'm glad to hear the story will be continuing; I am nearly caught up and the efforts you've put into fleshing out this alternate world are immense. Take all the time you need.

**SilverLeaf167** · 2022-03-21, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)

Truly tragic that the conversion was done before No Step Back came out, because redesigning the whole world's railways (and trying to make some of these silly-shaped countries work) is exactly the kind of thing I would've loved (to loathe) doing.

**SilverLeaf167** · 2023-09-06, 04:39 AM (ISO 8601)

As I currently have a lot of free time, and a momentarily rekindled interest in HoI4, it seems like a "continue now or abandon forever" kinda time for this AAR that's been on break for nearly two years.

So, new chapter coming in a bit!

**SilverLeaf167** · 2023-09-06, 06:10 AM (ISO 8601)

Chapter #84: A Week Into War (September 1939)

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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.

Spoiler: War Status

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Spoiler: Comments

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Right now, there are so many things happening around the world – some of them only coincidentally at the same time – that it’s a little disorienting to try and keep track of. In vanilla HoI4, you can basically ignore the Americas and even most of Africa, but here we have no such luxury. I did notice, back when I was creating this mod, a certain desire to make every possible crisis erupt, because from an AAR perspective this is the last and only chance they’ll ever get to do so, and any chunk of the world staying peaceful feels like a “waste”.

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...

The tirade about Russia at the very start of this chapter was actually written way back in January 2022. While inevitably colored by my general thoughts as a Finn, it was mostly building on in-game and historical concepts, and not really meant as a commentary on any current politics. Yet after coming back to look at it, I decided to keep it more or less unchanged. If any of it seems weirdly topical or perhaps ironic to you, just do me a favor and mutter “War… War never changes” or something.

I’m still playing this on the same 1.10.8 version of the game from two years ago, which means no No Step Back or By Blood Alone content. Mostly I wish I could have the modern supply system, but alas. The other miscellaneous mods I had installed no longer work with this version, but luckily I don’t really need them, and the main conversion mod is fine.

The way HoI4 handles volunteers is kind of funny from a real-life perspective, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure that in this time period, countries sending out fully equipped divisions to fight in wars they’re not directly part of basically represents the communists and fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and not much else – even the game acknowledges that by making it very hard for democratic countries to send volunteer divisions, representing how their many volunteers to the SCW were just private citizens who made the trip themselves. As far as I know, even Spain’s Blue Division that fought on the eastern front was equipped by the Germans. This means that anywhere outside the SCW, the volunteer system becomes basically an abstraction for gameplay reasons. Narratively, I’ll mostly treat e.g. the Free volunteers to Poland as such private citizens rather than try to explain why the leader of a completely different faction whose whole point is to stay out of this war would send me 50,000 armed, trained and organized soldiers.

Speaking of, in some of these screenshots, you might notice a conspicuous number of Moldavian soldiers all over the British colonies, Brittany and more. I think this is a result of the Moldavian AI deciding that since its only hostile land border (that with Russia) is rather short, it should send its surplus army to man its allies’ undermanned borders. Very helpful of them, but hopefully they don’t neglect their coastal defenses and whatnot. And it’s slightly odd, narratively, so I may gloss over it a bit and just call them “Commonwealth troops” if relevant.

On a general note, I'm not always sure how to view the total casualty numbers. On one hand I'm inclined to split them roughly into 1/3 dead, 1/3 captured and 1/3 wounded, especially as the game lets some of them return to the field later, and e.g. quickly encircling 30 enemy divisions in a tile probably doesn't actually mean 300,000 dead but mostly captured. On the other hand, the real-life numbers of dead soldiers in WW2 (over 5 million for Germany, 10 million for USSR) match the total casualty numbers in HoI4 pretty well even before adding on any captured and wounded. And naturally, depending on the course of the war and even their respective tactics, some countries had more or fewer captured than others (e.g. an absolutely negligible number of Japanese POWs compared to over 2 million dead).

**InvisibleBison** · 2023-09-06, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)

It's great to see this AAR start up again! The Commonwealth sure has a lot of work ahead of it. But if the Russians keep up the level of strategic competence they've displayed so far, it might not be that hard.

**SilverLeaf167** · 2023-09-06, 12:56 PM (ISO 8601)

Good to still have you around!

And yeah, whatever else, it may become a slog, haha. For me, anyway, not the readers, assuming (boldly) I know how to moderate my writing.

**SilverLeaf167** · 2023-09-08, 10:41 AM (ISO 8601)

Chapter #85: Start of the Long Run (September 1939–February 1940)

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26 September, 1939
32 days into the war

The small Polish force in Calais, originally intended just to hold the fortifications there, has exploited the weakness of the Latin defenses to push out and across a bit of northern France, even reaching the outskirts of Paris. However, doing so has obviously left their lines a lot thinner, and after finally facing resistance, they’ve been forced to stop their advance and even prepare to retreat if need be.

For a brief moment, the Breton line seemed to have stabilized, only for a Latin armored push to punch through and take nearly a quarter of the country. Despite the march on Paris, the Latins' momentum still hasn’t quite stopped. The Polish Crown Army is too busy fighting Russia, but a relief force has been deployed from the Yugoslavian army that is just now finally starting to arrive.

Immediately upon arrival, those Yugoslavs are thrust right into the line of fire, as the Latins – thinking it’s now or never – drive a wedge right through the country, splitting it in two. With barely any time to get their bearings, the Yugoslavs have to get to work trying to turn this breakthrough into an opportunity by encircling the overextended tanks from the rear. More than just an opportunity for some wins, it’s a matter of survival for Brittany. The Yugs do come with anti-tank guns of their own, but some of their hasty holding attacks still turn out extremely costly.

The distraction was also sorely needed by Germany, which has managed to capture a tiny bit of territory without losing any of its own, but is hardly seeing great success on its front.

As the West Indies Fleet stationed in Singapura currently has uncontested control of its region, and the recently expanded Indies Command is the only part of the Crown Army without much to do, it is set to take control of all the Asturian island territories east of Africa to deny the Covenant the ability to return to the region if it wanted to. This involves numerous, but individually small naval landings. None of them meet any real resistance beyond the most basic garrisons that surrender after only a few shootouts – judging from the sad state of the defenses, Asturias has already declared the islands a low priority and diverted its forces to the west or, in fact, to Arakan.

The Polish cavalry has distinguished itself as part of Hatchet Force, as well as posed in many a magnificent photograph, proving to naysayers – and perhaps to itself – that it still has a place in the modern military. Although, there are also those who say it only has a place because Poland doesn’t yet have enough modern equipment to replace them, and is forced to make do. True or not, the main takeaway from Hatchet is that the cavalry maybe doesn’t need to be downsized, but the motorized and armored divisions are really the ones that need to be expanded upon as soon as more industry becomes available.

The gendarmerie is a similar hybrid force, with horses being slowly phased out in favor of machines but still serving side by side for the time being. While the gendarmerie in its entirety is part of the Crown Army, the special “forward gendarmerie” units are the ones that follow the advancing frontline into occupied territory to maintain order there, and are constantly recruiting from civilians, soldiers and police back in Poland to fill their expanding demand. The cavalryman is a traditional symbol of vigilance and crowd control, but more and more often, they are seen escorting – or being escorted by? – armored cars. These aren’t exactly cutting edge, but frankly obsolete tin cans unsuited for combat use, yet in peacekeeping duties, they cut an imposing figure quite impervious to anything an angry civilian or even most resistance members could throw at them. Of course, gendarmes also get to drive around in cars and motorcycles, especially in less tense areas. In the worst parts, the most dreaded places to be assigned, they can face outright guerrilla warfare from the locals.

(A convoy – or parade, rather – of SP wz. 34 armored cars.)

Slube intelligence and the foes encountered by the gendarmerie seem to confirm that the resistance in occupied Russia isn’t merely organic, but the work of soldiers and MGB agents intentionally left behind Polish lines, especially during the recent “general retreat”. The situation will surely only get worse when – when – more territory is captured, more agents are inserted, and the ones already there have more time to connect and rile up the civilians. Poland will have to be proactive about rooting them out while they’re still just getting started.

11 October, 1939
47 days into the war

One not-much-advertised thing about the eastern front is that Poland and Moldavia combined, so boastful about their successes, are only really facing about a third of the Russian Army. Meanwhile, East Command forms about half of the Crown Army; but this isn’t a matter of bragging about whose quality is superior. The point is to emphasize that things won’t be nearly as easy should the Russian Army manage to wrap up its other fronts and focus its full wrath on pushing back the Poles.

Chernigov is finally taken, but alas, the Russians have managed to hold the corridor open long enough for most of their troops to pull out beforehand. A good 8 divisions have been trapped to the south of it, though. The people of Kiev have been leaving or at least sending their children to safer regions, which is probably still a good idea, but the city should be a lot more secure now.

The Army of Odessa has made some halting progress along the Sea of Azov coast, getting all the way to Mariupol, but as they’re still working exclusively with infantry, the Russians have mostly been able to retreat before them. To the south, the Marines who took Novorossiysk have succeeded in securing the area and the city of Krasnodar, but more and more Russians have been building up for what seems like a coming counterattack. The Marines aren’t really trained or equipped to dig in and hold territory, either; they’re in dire need of backup.

And to the south of them, the rest of Caucasus Command – the elite Mountaineer divisions working in tandem with Moldavia – have been moving roughly as planned. The fighting in these mountains could’ve turned out a lot worse (knock on wood) had the Russians been more prepared. The Mountaineers have linked up with the Marines, taken Darial Gorge (the so-called Caucasian Gates, one of the only real paths through the mountains) and continued their fighting advance towards Baku on the Caspian Sea coast.

While preventing an attempted naval landing from Italy to Greece, Adm. Wilk and his Moldavian colleagues sink a grand total of 12 Latin cruisers and 26 destroyers with only a few planes lost on their own end. Poland has also been losing ships here and there in smaller skirmishes where they were caught out, but overall the war at sea has been vastly in the Commonwealth's favor – as was roughly to be expected, given the combined naval strength of Poland, Moldavia and Britannia.

24 October, 1939
60 days into the war

After some failed attempts, the pocket is closed, and Brittany is safe. Meanwhile, though, the Calais force’s offense has proven untenable after all, and it has been forced to make a controlled retreat back to its original positions.

Around the same time, an unfortunate milestone is reached: some 100,000 Poles have died in this war. That number could be a lot smaller had they simply been content to defend rather than aggressively push, but of course, if they wanted to twiddle their thumbs in their bunkers, they also could’ve done that by just not declaring war and waiting for the Russians to come when they're ready. Meanwhile, just like the Great War, this has proven to be a “total” war, with all of society having to serve the needs of the military. This includes the workers having to deal with less than perfect working conditions and cut back on their standard of living, a sore spot for Premier Bart Stawicki and the SDP; but on the other hand, the capitalists aren’t getting off too easy either, with the government making a hard stand against any (most) attempts at profiteering, taxing every bit of profit it can and effectively forcing them to sell their products at substandard rates. To supplement that, even more production is being concentrated under direct government control, be it newly constructed or nationalized from private owners.

1 November, 1939
68 days into the war

A mighty bellow is heard from the far east: Japanese forces previously amassed on the borders have opened fire on their Manchurian counterparts first in Korea, then elsewhere. The official declaration of war goes out to the world the next day. Fancy rhetoric aside, it seems the Japanese Empire plans nothing short of the eradication of communism – its great nemesis – from all of East Asia. That will mean Japan and the Shan taking on Manchuria, the People’s Republic of China, and all the other members of the World Worker’s Front.

And indeed, the ramifications of this war will be vast and widespread. Japan is likely aware of this, but also correct that this is the best time there can be to fight the communists, as they have moved a considerable portion of their forces far across the continent to defend Siberia and Uralia. However, besides the Indochinese Union, the WWF has in the past couple months expanded to also include Tibet, the Gangetic Commune and Gondwana, making this defensive alliance stretch all the way across the Himalayas into India. No matter what, it’s not going to be easy even now – especially depending on the condition of Japan’s large but notoriously inefficient army.

This doesn’t come as a complete surprise to Krakow, but a highly unpleasant one. By invading Manchuria, Japan is attacking the ally-of-convenience of Poland’s ally-of-convenience. Whether this means that the communists draw their troops back home, or that they simply collapse, Russian pressure on Poland’s front just might increase a whole lot in the near future. There are few protests and sanctions Poland can levy against Japan that it hasn’t already. The only upside is that now there’s certainly no worry of Japan invading the Commonwealth colonies in the immediate future; however, if it manages to eliminate the communists to its rear, that risk will probably shoot up higher than ever.

If this war didn’t have to be a conflict between Poland and Japan, Japan seems to insist on making it one by lodging protests against the support Poland is giving to Uralia. They are almost petulantly dismissed, of course.

Though the League Under Heaven doesn’t consist of outright primacists, but merely authoritarian monarchies, Great Viet finally finds an alliance willing to take it and support it against Indochina. It is known that the Shan Empire has designs on the entire region to its south, but it seems they are either willing to share, or just planning to take care of the Vietnamese at a later date.

As the final cherry on top, Japan finalizes a treaty it apparently had in the works with the Maratha Confederacy, drawing it into the war against the Indian communists. They start making fast progress into underdeveloped Ganges.

28 November, 1939
95 days into the war

The Latins have gotten into the habit of launching constant raids and small-scale landings on the Moldavian Greek coast, mostly Epirus. Most of these have been repelled at sea, while some have managed to drop off individual stranded units that have then been hunted down. Poland has had to extend its forces formerly dedicated to the Yugoslavian coast to cover some of Greece as well. However, Moldavia’s defense of its own territory has proven terribly lacking, as now the Latins have suddenly managed to seize a sizable foothold in the Peloponnese and Attica, i.e. even Athens itself. Now that they are dug in on the narrow, mountainous peninsula with a good port, this is an extremely annoying position to dislodge them from. It is debated whether the previous repeated attacks on Epirus were just a feint to make the Commonwealth focus its forces there, or if that's giving the Latins too much credit.

The good news is that around this same time, Caucasus Command finally finishes taking Baku, having first enveloped and eliminated many of the Russian defenders to the south of it. Besides being a highly strategic and defensible location, this one city is the center of a lot of Russia’s total oil production – albeit not all of it, especially as Russia has invested into finding other sources precisely in case this happened. Regardless, now that it's done, rather than trying to push up, across the mountains, those Mountaineers are sent to provide what little support they can in Greece.

(Russia’s Central Asian oilfields have been buffed in this mod, but Baku is still significant.)

Speaking of naval invasions, though: even as Africa Command managed to pull together enough troops to set up defenses across Namibia, giving up the southern desert to defend the main port and capital – very thinly, of course, with 3 divisions to spread across 300 miles – the Brits and Moldavians have proven disappointing here as well. They have let covenant forces run wild across East Africa, even reaching Polish Zambia. To try and disrupt this advance, the Army of Singapura – part of the Indies Command that seized the Asturian islands – has been brought quite far from its usual home base to launch an invasion from Moldavian Madagascar right into the Esperanto heartland. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria provided both the opening and the incentive to take radical action here.

The landings aimed directly at the largest population centers, Esperanza City and Durban, face some resistance. The former succeeds with support from the troops that did manage to land, while the latter attack has to be abandoned. The enemy seems completely unprepared. The capture of the Esperanto capital is too fast for more than a few officials to be evacuated, but those who do, including Viceroy de Granada, set up their ragtag resistance government in Durban. With so much of the population and critical coastal region now occupied by the Army of Singapura, the fall of Esperanza is just one good punch away, but it seems that blow can’t be delivered without first fighting over wide swathes of wilderness.

The Kingdom of Estonia – former Russian province, Nordic protectorate and now fully independent – has tried to stay neutral in all ways possible. As a small country of just a couple million, it’s had little to gain and everything to lose. Given the situation of its neighbors, it has become a hotspot for refugees of the Nordic Civil War, the aftermath of the Nordic Civil War, the Russian primacist state, and this current war. With refugee camps in the “tent village” sense being death traps this far north, most have been housed in improvised or newly constructed, typically overfilled barracks.

For no conceivable military reason, a Russian bombing run strikes a refugee center near the border, killing dozens of civilians. The northern part of the Polish-Russian frontline hasn’t moved in a while and has only seen some scattered attacks from the Russian end, making it impossible to see this as a random mistake. Russia’s intentions are inscrutable, but the main theory in Poland – where the press obviously jumps onto this display of Russian terror – is that the point is to deter Estonia from taking any more refugees, and Russians from becoming refugees. The idea that Russia is bombing its ideological enemies just out of spite is also attractive, but a little too pointless even for them.

As more violations of Estonian airspace and threats towards its sovereignty occur over the next month, the Estonian government finally seeks Polish guarantees against Russian invasion. Of course, Estonia being unallied was always something of a legal fiction meant to keep Russia appeased, but apparently that appeasement has lost its purpose. Somewhat predictably, though, much like the Latins invaded Brittany, Russia takes this alliance as a provocation and good reason to invade Estonia as soon as possible, bringing them into the war. There’s a good chance this was their goal from the beginning.

The Estonian military is decent for a country its size, which is to say, still small. However, it can more or less cover its own border.

Whatever satisfaction Poland might feel over this northern ally proves short-lived, as on 30 December, the Nordic Kingdom takes an equally predictable but much more unfortunate political turn. Despite the White reconstruction being seen as obviously problematic, the Nordics have been mostly ignored since the start of this war, which they thankfully stayed out of. However, now the Nordic National Folk's Party has won a majority in the parliamentary election, launching its leader Ivar Thorsson to the seat of Prime Minister. Despite being a constitutional monarchy, the system has become very PM-centric in the past few decades, and Thorsson is likely – has promised, in fact – to expand his own powers even further. He has campaigned heavily on Russo-Nordic friendship, partnership and even military alliance, painting especially the Polish “occupation” of Denmark as a stain on the map (while brushing aside Estonia and Yegorgrad/Nevanlinna). With the White victory, Russian pressure, and Solmark and Paraland existing, there has been no shortage of primacist influence on Stockholm.

Even before the election, the Nordics have allowed Russia to use their ports both for trade and as military bases, giving Russia a much-needed coastline besides its own; and now that this Russian puppet in all but name rules the North, Poland expects things to get worse. It has been less than a year since the Nordic Civil War ended, and it’s neither politically nor materially ready to do anything drastic right now, but it’s only a matter of time...

6 January, 1940
134 days into the war

Clearly expecting Asturias to be the weak link in the Covenant, and perhaps encouraged by the relative success in Esperanza, rather than focus on shipping troops to Africa, the Brits and Moldavians have decided to throw away tons of them in an ill-fated invasion of mainland Asturias. This will go down in infamy.

The new year is getting off to a damn rotten start for the Commonwealth. The Alcadran theater has been rather stagnant since the first weeks of the war, only some large but inconsequential bits of jungle really changing hands. However, after finally having a bit of success advancing down the Panama Isthmus, the British have apparently fallen victim to their own cleverness, as the thinning of their lines gives the Solish the ability to finally push them away from the canal itself. While there aren’t really any operations in this war that acutely require the use of the canal, the British have so far kept it open for any international shipping brave enough to use it; besides being a big moral victory for Solmark, this gives it a stranglehold on the jugular of the western hemisphere that it may use however it wishes. The war is starting to cause even more worry in the neutral parts of Amatica and Alcadra, especially with the presence of many Free volunteers in Panama.

Despite having been reinforced by the Army of Odessa, Caucasus Command is on the verge of retreating from Krasnodar, which has become an unwieldy bulge in the line.

Apparently not yet disencouraged from attempting naval landings into European territory, the British have launched a “hop” across the English Channel to try and outflank the Latin troops engaged on the Calais front. It might amount to little more than a raid, though, as the number of divisions assigned is rather small. Rather than let this turn into another suicide attack, the Yugoslavian Expedition Force – which has been content to just hold Brittany and stare down the Latins without much fighting – launches a wide-front offensive to try and take some pressure off. In the end, the Yugoslavs will make a tiny bit of progress, but the British be forced to pull out in disgrace.

No one does it like the Poles, it seems – although, to hear the soldiers say it, it’s actually become a matter of East Indian pride. After gauging her options, reluctant to enter into a long land campaign, the Army of Singapura commander Vera Saragih has decided that the road to Durban is more or less open and that she should just take it. Indeed, with that, all the major Esperanto cities – and every port available to the Covenant – are in Polish hands, and the government becomes the first in this war to fully collapse in on itself and capitulate. The Esperanto forces put their arms down and their hands up, while the still fighting Latins and Asturians are left stranded, with no supply lines, across a vast continent. Operation Hope, as it has been named, is a great success.

As another bit of good news, after several halted attempts, Hatchet Force finally takes the city of Kursk and creates a nice little pocket of Russians in the process.

And finally, while Russia was correct to assume that Poland wouldn’t have troops to spare for the Estonian border, it has apparently become an outlet for frustrated Germans and Moldavians to push into territory without a single mountain in sight. A month after Estonia was pulled into the war, the Commonwealth finds itself in the suburbs of Yegorgrad. East Command also decides to exploit and support this offensive by launching another large push of its own.

1 February, 1940
160 days into the war

The communist states of former New Svea have been fighting their own, internationally almost invisible war for a while now. The spark that ignited the powderkeg was the Confederation of Anahuac’s invasion of Yucatan, led by a personal rival of the strongman Texcoco and generally considered the weakest of the states. Xalisco assumed Anahuac was going to attack them as well and decided to preempt this by invading while the enemy was still distracted. However, the anarchists of Oaxaca, not willing to let Anahuac occupy their entire northern border, decided to intervene with their own march into Yucatan, blocking off the Anahuac advance in the process. Shortly after, Oaxaca also invaded Guatemala, having apparently determined that the only way to survive this conflagration would be to fully unify the people of the south and then turn their combined forces against Anahuac.

As such, the forces of Xalisco and Anahuac are now deadlocked on their border, while Oaxaca is fighting the smaller states to its east. The entire region being so mountainous, forested or often both means that although the locals are at least used to the terrain, most of the fighting devolves into ambushes and raids against far-flung strategic points, and the defenders have a big advantage regardless of numbers. This de-facto civil war might as well go on indefinitely.

(Screenshot taken with fog of war turned off.)

Spoiler: War Status

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The Latin Empire’s number of divisions has gone up by 35 since the last chapter. Russia’s has gone down by 29, but I don’t think I’ve encircled that many; it’s probably been throwing them down a number of pits, like Greece. Similarly, Russia has lost a fair bit of ground and had a small drop in number of factories, while the Latins' continues to go up.

Yugoslavia actually has 33 divisions, but 24 are currently loaned to me.

Spoiler: Comments

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Though I’ve always been in the habit of writing the chapter as I play rather than afterwards, that’s always included coming back to remove some stuff that didn’t lead to anything, or stringing together related events that actually took place over several weeks. I’m still doing that here, but I feel like HoI4 being so completely focused on this one global war means there’s more value in keeping in operations that ultimately failed, showing how gradual the progress is in some parts of the map etc. rather than just showing the end result and saying that it was really hard-fought. I think it might (?) be fun to give my initial impressions on a situation even if they quickly prove to be wrong.

For the record, I’m not actively holding back or anything; but I’m also not very good at this game.

In some ways, you might imagine the atmosphere in inner Poland to be more comparable to e.g. Germany in WW2 than defending countries like France or even the UK. While the regime is obviously very different from Germany’s, the basic fact is that although we see ourselves as defending ourselves and our allies, and the fighting is taking place on our borders rather than exclusively overseas, we are the ones progressing into enemy territory, which is good news but also makes it harder to feel like the victim. I’m sure the reaction to news of success and people coming home in caskets has to be full of mixed feelings, especially as the press can’t or won’t apply as much spin and unflinching support as it did in Germany. But also like Germany, our civilian population isn’t feeling the hurt directly. At least before the bombing runs start…

In the Flower Wars, all the countries kinda suck in terms of stats, but relatively speaking: Yucatan and Guatemala are basically just fodder or distractions, Oaxaca has a small population but can better recruit in non-core provinces, Anahuac has the most quantity, and Sayula has the best quality. With the exception of Oaxaca City (held by Anahuac), no one has cores in anyone else's lands. The Flower Wars event gave all of them casus belli on each other that they can use at their own discretion.

Random fact: in real life, most of the city of St. Petersburg is on the southern side of the Neva River. However HoI4, probably for gameplay reasons to make the German offense harder, places the city on the north side instead. This has been retained in this mod for Yegorgrad/Nevanlinna, mostly because I just didn’t remember to fix it at the time. However, the city’s entire history is completely different in this timeline anyway, so it’s a matter of interpretation whether it’s actually located on the north side or if I’m just doing the same abstraction for the same reasons as vanilla HoI4.

Other random fact: I figured I found and renamed most of the communist place names in Russia, but not all. Apparently I missed at least Kropotkin, visible near Krasnodar. I'm sure no one cares, but we can just pretend it was named for his work as a scholar rather than as an anachist! Or maybe he was a primacist, who knows.

**SilverLeaf167** · 2023-09-12, 08:16 AM (ISO 8601)

Chapter #86: Push and Pull (February–June 1940)

Spoiler: Chapter

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The political importance of the royal consort has never been particularly great in Poland, ever since the late Middle Ages when the Polish succession started to become less directly dynastic and it felt less relevant, or even appropriate, to care too much about the monarch’s spouse or their children – which almost all of them still had, of course. While all still had ceremonial roles and shared in the majesty of their significant other, and some defied this trend to become more actively involved, most of their time was spent at court, entertaining guests, and taking care of other routine matters. Most Polish rulers’ husbands and wives are only really remembered by history buffs, or those otherwise involved in keeping track of them.

Queen Consort Bogdana, wife of Lechoslaw IV ever since he got back from the Great War, before he was High King or even the official heir, is one of those rare exceptions. While not so involved in politics per se, for the past few months she’s been making frequent appearances on public radio, reading both general announcements and ones she wrote herself, all from the safety of a private studio specially set up within Grazyna Palace. Unsurprisingly, the Polish Radio Institute – the world’s oldest, largest and definitive state broadcasting service – is more than happy to indulge her. As something of a born-again pagan from a half-oddani family, her distinctly “syncretic” and deeply spiritualist style has been said to be simultaneously alien to every possible church, yet familiar to every possible believer. By those inclined to praise it, anyway. There’s a good chance that if not for her status, she wouldn’t be let on the radio at all; but as it is, she’s actually very popular. Given the way she talks about her experiences, there are even a good number of people left in Poland who actually believe she is some manner of witch or mystic – of the good kind, of course.

Bogdana is never introduced at the start of her speeches. Whether that’s a sign of humility or pride is of course a matter of perspective. Regardless, her steady but passionate Prague dialect voice has become a close acquaintance to almost every Pole.

“Good citizens. War has once more come to our doorstep. People are suffering. This state of agony is so great, one can only believe it will not last for long. We are all together, like a family whose home is threatened by a circling pack of wolves. We love one another. We help one another. We all suffer together. Our common fate, and our common salvation, is the only thing on our minds.

Yet as this all is going on, we feel just how beautiful life really can be. We feel great gratitude towards the gods, for everything we have gotten to experience. Now, I have spoken to my god, for I know that through prayer, a human can reach that state of mind we call Great Providence. This Providence is obvious to anyone, any person of good will. Long has Poland walked an arduous path. Long has Poland tried to do right by itself, as well as by its neighbors. We have always been aware that our gods were there for us in our trying times. When I was restless about the fate of Poland, a voice within me spoke: ‘Have no fear. Poland is the lighthouse of the world. Poland is the star of humanity. It will be saved.’

I believed these words with such a burning faith, I had no shred of doubt about the meaning of this great message. This faith has carried me through all suffering. It has awakened in me those unconscious powers that, inside a human being, await their chance to emerge. We have an enormous strength within our own soul. This strength grows apace with our faith in the gods. As soon as we realize that our lives are for the gods to use, so soon are we obligated to sacrifice ourselves in their work. This work is for the good of humanity. We need not face it alone. So beautifully has everything been arranged. We always get what we deserve. The Law, the Law of Heaven, is never wrong. People merely do not know how merciful the gods really are. If we work according to their will, the result is already predetermined. I would like to assure you: there is no man whom the gods won’t reward for good will.

Today, this radio event has been organized for the good of the fighting reservists and their loved ones. It brings the people of Poland a suggestion on how we could best support the entire Polish family. Every citizen has the chance to materially contribute so that not a single member of this family will suffer from need. Society is thankful for every zloty sacrificed for this cause. You can find lists at all banks and credit unions…”

1 February, 1940
160 days into the war

Uralia is on its last legs. The fact that it’s held on for as long as it has is an effect of the terrain, the distances, the enormous support from the rest of the World Workers’ Front, and to hear the Poles say it, great tenacity. Even then, while the underequipped Uralians have been doing what they can, it hasn’t been a master class in defense but rather mass sacrifice, as they have been losing men at twice the rate of the Russians. Now, with the Japanese invasion of their own homelands, the Manchu and Chinese are scrambling to pull out, leaving the Uralians and Siberians alone to their fate. Of course, it’s not unjustified to see it as a reasonable evacuation given the already imminent collapse of the Uralian state. It has lost all its notable holdings west of the Urals, and even the remaining government in Iset-Sheher (Yekaterinburg) has largely started putting the lights out, trying to save as many people and make the coming occupation as difficult for the Russians as it can. (In particular, it’s waged something of a scorched earth campaign against its own bureaucracy, making it harder for the Russians to find anyone or anything they’re looking for.) Chairman Shishigin and what remains of the Central Executive Committee have yet to decide their own fates. The Polish military attachés have long since evacuated by plane, the way they came.

Japan and its League are technically fighting more than just the communists. When they accepted Great Viet into their alliance and started pushing into Indochina, Asturias presented them with a firm demand (and whining and stomping of feet) to return the land to its rightful owner. However, Japan’s ideal Asia is one without any colonial powers other than itself, and Asturias had basically no bartering position regardless. As such, the League Under Heaven also ended up entering into war with the New Covenant. They don’t really see this as a major issue, as – partly thanks to Poland – the Covenant has no fleets or bases east of Africa, and thus this war mostly exists on paper, especially as most of the Covenant seems less than enthusiastic about it.

Except for Arakan. The Shan were happy to invade Arakan and expand their sorely lacking coastline in the process. However, 5 stranded Asturian divisions are using Arakan as their last remaining foothold, and Arakan itself has mobilized damn near every man it can. Partly due to Shan carelessness, these strange bedfellows have actually been holding very well, even managing to push into Shan territory and get themselves some buffer room. Surely just a matter of the League having to divert more force there, but it’s already fighting on quite a wide front.

(Some Commonwealth members are doing that thing where they get military access from random countries they have a common enemy with. Narratively, pretend they're not there.)

Down in Indochina, the Shan and Vietnamese seem to have a good momentum going to eventually push down all the way to Ligor and the border of the Polish East Indies. Ah, Ligor. What a mess that little republic made...

In Manchuria and China itself, the fighting has clearly been in Japan’s favor so far, but frankly, the fact that they haven’t taken more than this despite their enemies’ situation has been a great humiliation to the Japanese and their colonial conscript army. The Polish and British colonies have frontside seats to spectate these events, and stay out of them as best they can. Here too the Shan have been struggling a bit, even letting the Chinese and other communist forces penetrate into some of their territory.

Given Poland’s global empire, the Marine Corps has a long and storied history, albeit not really in its modern form. The Mountaineers in the sense of specialist infantry recruited from the Carpathian provinces have also existed arguably as long as the Crown Army, but have been famous mostly for their fanciful uniforms and never as prominent as they have been in this war. Both these corps’ escapades in the Caucasus have created a will in the leadership to expand them and, conveniently, in the common troops to join them. Their emphasized status as ”special forces” brings them actual privileges here and there and better pay, but more importantly, an aura of prestige. To make it possible for this demand and supply to meet – without simply inflating the corps with unfit candidates, anyway – the selection and training processes must be redesigned for efficiency.

The Mountaineers, redeployed from the Caucasus to much more temperate Greece, have been holding the line and making some probing attacks of their own, but the narrow frontline with the Latins occupying Athens has been more or less static, both sides having chosen a very defensible hill to die on.

Meanwhile, the decision has finally been made for the Army of Odessa to take over the Novorossiysk beachhead and let the Marines do something else, even if it means having to thin the line north of the Azov. As it happens, the Russian lines are also exceptionally thin here, and not much later, the infantry manages to find an opening to walk right into Rostov. Every Russian port in the Black Sea is now neutralized, not that there’s been a fleet there for a while; the Army of Odessa tries to push its luck by linking up Rostov with Novorossiysk to create a single long front.

(Capture of Rostov happened after this screenshot, apparently.)

15 February, 1940
174 days into the war

Uralia finally goes. It is an ignoble affair: in the end, Chairman Shishigin is convinced by his comrades to take the last train out with the retreating Siberians and hopefully live to see the liberation of Uralia one day. While he may have started this war as just another bureaucrat dictator, by now he has certainly become a symbol respected by his countrymen and sympathetic foreigners alike, even if this escape is sure to split some opinions. Of course, there is no such thing here as a peace treaty; Shishigin’s departure just marks the fact that organized Uralian resistance only continues deep in wilderness and all the country’s institutions and infrastructure are in Russian hands. Given the somewhat chaotic nature of the communist cooperation, hundreds of thousands of Manchus, Chinese and Siberians are left stuck there as well, their capture being only a matter of time. So is the turning of Russia’s attention to Poland.

The Poles feel obligated to make use of what might be their last chance for a big push before that happens. That push… vastly exceeds anyone’s boldest expectations. The Russians have either bungled or just been forced to compromise badly enough that when push comes to shove, there is precious little standing between the Poles and Moscow. The Army of Minsk, Army of Kiev and Cavalry Corps in concert are able to make a mad rush through and overwhelm the defenses, finding themselves in Moscow – almost a little dumbstruck themselves – on 27 March.

While the Russians don’t appear to have expected this final push, they were clearly prepared for it in the long term: Moscow has been evacuated of officials and equipment, albeit not citizens, in a way that makes it clear it was already planned beforehand. The first jubilations at the ”fall of Moscow” bring many to believe the war in the east might be ending altogether, but alas, while this is a major blow, there is no sign of peace. The better question is whether the Poles really have badly overestimated Russia’s military might, or if things are about to take a turn for the worse as they fear; in either case, it seems this invasion may well become a cross-continental march akin to that in the Great War.

It’s not just Moscow, either: Yegorgrad has been taken and Novgorod besieged by the Germans and Moldavians pushing out of Estonia, a country with only 9 divisions to its own name. If Novgorod falls, that’s more or less all the Russian cities that most Poles can name. What else do they have left?

Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad), for one, a major industrial center on the Volga. However, with the Moldavians pushing out of the Caucasus, and the Motor Corps helping to encircle and destroy the troops on the Black Sea, that also isn’t too far out of reach.

15 May, 1940
264 days into the war

Progress slowed down after Moscow, but the Poles’ momentum has finally brought them those few extra miles to Gondyr-Ola. It’s a strange occasion, though. The liberation of the Uralian capital only three months after the country’s total collapse is an important symbolic event, and an important railway hub and all that, but what now? Uralia has come to be treated as a de facto ally, despite its communist nature, and it’s clear that the Red side of the Red-White Coalition feels a bit more sympathy towards them, but the SDP really is not communist either. What are the troops on the ground supposed to do with this bit of territory in the middle of nowhere they’ve liberated? Hand it over to whichever local communist says he’s in charge? Keep it under military law like any other occupied area? Well, obviously the latter for the immediate future, but does Poland even have a long-term plan for Uralia?

With the Commonwealth pushing in on one end while the Russians are still advancing into Uralia on the other, this war looks very strange on the map indeed. Its shape has become quite difficult for Polish commanders to really ”get”.

The people of Gondyr-Ola aside, the WWF has little time for celebration, as Beijing officially falls to the Japanese on 20 May. After a somewhat halting start, it would seem the Japanese have gotten their act together, broken the back of the communist defenses, and nearly linked up their various bridgeheads, taking control of the entire Pacific coast. In India (a theater the Poles think very little about), Gondwana is still holding admirably well, but the Gangetic Commune has entirely collapsed and been occupied – de facto annexed – by the Maratha Confederacy, whose goal is the total unification of India.

23 May, 1940
272 days into the war

On the completely opposite side of the world, the Polish Marines have been given a bit of a ”vacation” from their long stay in Russia to go visit tropical Solmark instead. In cooperation with the Santanans, they are to launch an invasion from the British island of Martinique, take Karlstuna and hopefully behead the snake so to speak, finally turning the tide in this stagnant but slowly worsening theater of the war. This is the first time in this war that Poland puts boots in Alcadra.

(I started planning the invasion first and shipping troops over, only for Santa Croce to somehow do the exact same thing just a couple days before me...)

After being forced to partake in quite un-marinely operations for the entire time since they landed in Novorossiysk nine months ago, this is an almost pleasant return to form. Of course, that pleasure is going to be short-lived, as after their easy landing on ground already secured by the Santanans, next up they’re going to participate in the land campaign to seize the critical parts of the country before too much of the enemy army can deploy to stop them.

14 June, 1940
294 days into the war

With the defeat of Esperanto, Latin and Asturian forces, the precarious African front has finally stabilized, but isn’t still quite solved. The western front near Accra has managed to hold this entire time despite persistent attacks from Benin, apparently unable to bring enough force to bear across the Volta River on this narrow front. Polish Kamerun has fallen, but the troops there retreated to form a defensive line on the Sanaga River and hold it to this day. Rather than take the all-important coastal colonies, the Beninese were forced to head west, inland, and waste a lot of strength wading across Central Africa. That being said, even after Africa Command was able to free troops from the south and bring them here, it hasn’t been able to push the Beninese back. The Army of Singapura, having done an admirable job here far outside its own purview, was ordered back home, leaving Africa to take care of itself again.

That being said, Poland was able to take the Asturian islands of Ascensión and Santa Elena, continuing to shrink the Covenant’s global reach bit by bit; and as far as anyone in Krakow is concerned, the situation in Africa seems quite acceptable for the time being. The line is relatively stable, and maybe stability is really the most you can hope for in Afri—

Spoiler: War Status

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Spoiler: Doctrines

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The main reasons that the Great War was the bloodiest war in (non-Chinese) history despite lasting only 3 years are threefold:
a.) the unprecedented scale of conscription and total mobilization on all sides
b.) the technology of the day having produced powerful defensive weapons but no real way to counter them, leading to pointless massacres and prolonged trench warfare
c.) certainly, some commanders still being stuck with antiquated notions of warfare.
The last point has been somewhat exaggerated in hindsight – most did their best to adapt with what they had – but was still a real problem. 30 years after said war, all participants can be divided into two main groups: those who haven’t greatly modernized their military doctrine due to lack of resources, inspiration or perceived need – and those who have taken one of several paths to try and stop the next conflict from being such a mindless meatgrinder, or at least to make sure they come out on top.

Poland has of course been known for its artillery for a long time, but since the Great War, both the artillery and the art of its usage have been refined further. The basics of the Thunder Doctrine have been discussed before, but in the ideal Polish offense, a holistic approach of concentrated, or scattered, but always carefully coordinated firepower is used to wreak havoc on enemy defenses, infrastructure, and the troops themselves. Finally the ground is ready for a targeted attack by the infantry et al., with clearly defined objectives and preferably minimum casualties. While on the surface this sounds like an inherently slow approach, it doesn’t always have to be, but it is methodical and cautious – not least as a reaction to the horrible casualties of the Great War, and the perceived need for a democratic nation to keep its wars as “clean” as possible (at least for its own populace).

All this talk of artillery as a jack-of-all-trades wonder weapon would be worthless without something concrete to back it up, but in addition to the famous quality of Polish-made guns, the artillery corps has retained its strictly professional and elite nature (the closest a conscript is allowed to a big gun is behind the wheel of the ammo truck). Communications and aim have been perfected to the point that, at least in field test conditions, every artillery piece in range can hit the same spot at the same time (or whatever time they want) regardless of their distance to it. Multi-gun maneuvers such as creeping or covering barrages can be deployed at a moment’s notice in close cooperation (and in terrifyingly close proximity) with infantry, as can pinpoint “sharpshooter” shots to destroy a single hard target.

However, this doctrine does have a few visible problems: it emphasizes artillery over newer technology such as tanks and aircraft, which have proven very powerful in this war (forcing people to rethink the way they’ve been viewed as artillery alternatives, rather than their own unique weapons). The focus on “choosing the easiest battles”, while a timeless wisdom passed down from Sun Tzu, can lead to an abundance of caution and missed opportunities when faced with tough decisions. Experience has shown that artillery can never truly destroy the enemy, and the infantry can never avoid having to fight. And, though efficient on paper, no coordination is quite so perfect on the field of battle with its own randomness, fog of war, logistics, and disruption by the enemy.

Of course, even the most armchair-bound theorist isn’t blind to the fact that there won’t always be a full line of artillery covering every little skirmish, and few battles are going to follow this “textbook” formula. That said, artillery in some form is attached to basically every possible division, often together with anti-tank and anti-air weaponry. Even in battles with little or no enemy airforce, anti-air guns have proven devastatingly effective against light armor and soft targets as well. They've been critical to compensate for the fact that even Russia actually fields a lot more tanks than Poland, albeit dispersed across the front in a rather nonoptimal manner.

The Russian solution to the “Great War problem” seems to have been to double down on the infamous infantry charge and refine that into an art (supported by modern artillery, tanks and aircraft, of course). In the ideal Russian offense, a suitable weak point – or every weak point available, rather – is to be assaulted by overwhelming force, and when any breakthrough is achieved, all available reinforcements must be thrown in to flood the enemy positions all around. In that same vein, what pass for “reserves” in this bloody-minded mentality are meant to be kept right behind the frontlines, where they can either move in immediately or provide “defense in depth” should the enemy try to counterattack, blunting any spearhead with an elastic mass of men.

Though this does betray a certain callousness towards human life, there is a method to their madness, even if the realism of it is yet to be seen: statistics and morale. After all, even if manpower is treated as a resource, resources are not to be wasted. The maxim underlying the Russian doctrine is that a sufficiently determined and relentless attack now, even if it leads to more immediate casualties, will cause fewer overall losses than indecisive, prolonged fighting over the same position, in addition to quicker (and more favorable) results. At least with the help of primacist propaganda, the morale boost of charging from one success to another is supposed to exceed the morale cost of any losses suffered in the process. If an attack fails, then either resources, intel or determination simply weren’t sufficient. Denial and scapegoating are integral parts of the system. And of course, even when a general offensive is ordered, what the soldiers do on the ground level isn’t at least intended to be just a blind charge, but they are in fact trained in how to make use of the battlefield, advance effectively, what to do afterwards, and so on.

It is somewhat darkly amusing that even though the idea of inherent Slavic supremacy has been elevated to the point of factoring into military doctrine (and being explained in training manuals), said doctrine is actually self-aware enough to point out that Poles and Moldavians are fellow Slavs and shouldn’t be underestimated (even weakened by degenerate ideologies as they might be). Positions manned by “non-Slavic co-belligerents or subject peoples” are to be exploited as likely weak points in the enemy lines. While it isn’t explicitly stated, this also doesn’t imply much confidence in Russia’s own western “allies” such as the Latins, who seem to be thought of mainly as a useful distraction.

Whether the problem is in the theory, the execution or the circumstances, the Russian army hasn’t performed too great in this war so far.

The Latin military with its vaunted ”legions” is, by most objective measures, top of the line. After getting a headstart in airplane and tank design and use, it has made modern weaponry and mobility the cornerstone of its doctrine, focused on pinpoint attacks, encirclements and maneuver warfare. Rather than grinding down or overwhelming the enemy, it ought to be outflanked and surrounded, the objective grabbed and presented as a fait accompli. The Latins were the pioneers of the highly effective tactics adopted by the Hatchet Force. While, again, the circumstances and geography also play a role, the legions have resisted the Commonwealth forces far better than Russia has.

The legions are estimated to have more tanks than the entire Commonwealth combined, but they haven’t been performing as well as they could largely due to the terrain along most of the Latin-German front – a known quantity that they should’ve expected, of course. The armored legions have proven fearsome in the relative flatlands of France and Brittany, but far less so in the Alps, and the few that were sent to the colonial theaters might as well have been thrown in the sea. That being said, the Latins aren’t really losing to Germany, either.

However, reports from the battlefield and from Slube imply that the Latins are rapidly losing their technological advantage: whereas Poland, Russia and even Germany are gradually starting to field somewhat larger ”medium” tanks with more armor and firepower, the Latins seem to be fixated on speed over all else and fail or refuse to innovate outside their mass-produced light tanks. They are also falling behind in airplane development, although that seems to be more for technical than for ideological reasons; and in terms of numbers, their current models still dominate the skies above Italy and France.

Spoiler: Comments

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Bogdana’s speech is a near-direct adaptation of a radio speech given by Gerda Ryti, first lady of Finland during WW2. It’s always stuck with me not because it especially resonates with me, but because it’s pretty unusual. Gerda was a Christian, of course, but an avowed spiritualist (which of course was in vogue in the early 20th century, but already kinda on the way out by the ’40s). The way that it’s revealed to be for a random fundraiser also adds a bit of comedy, to me.

I felt it would be an interesting fit for our Poland, given how the religious aspect has rather faded over time.

A lot of HoI4 AARs tend to go all in on the characters and politics, likely because of the shorter timescale of the game, but as I may have mentioned before, that doesn't really come naturally to me with how few prompts HoI4 gives you in that regard.

The doctrine section isn't gonna be a recurring one, I just threw it in now since the chapter was a bit shorter but I wanted to end it here.

**InvisibleBison** · 2023-09-12, 03:02 PM (ISO 8601)

I found the doctrine section to be quite interesting! Is there some aspect of the Polish and Russian armies that explains why the Polish offensive was so successful, or was the AI just making bad choices?

**SilverLeaf167** · 2023-09-12, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)

Thanks!

In universe, I think I'm content to explain the Russian failures with strategic rather than tactical reasons for now, although the doctrine section implies that their tactics might be a bit questionable too. In gameplay terms, I don't think I'm doing anything too special either in tactics or army design. The AI is just being its beautiful self, which means careless troop placement and inability to, say, use its formidable tank corps for concentrated breakthroughs like I've used mine; when the tanks come at me one at a time, my standard infantry (and even cavalry!) has the heavy guns to handle them. All of my divisions not on the Russian front are working without AA and AT, though, because there just isn't enough to go around. Except the Yugoslavians, they brought their own AT.

Me and Russia's infantry frontlines are both about equally shallow most of the time, often only one division per tile. My individual infantry units are more heavily equipped than theirs, but they have those Difficulty buffs giving them at least a bit of an edge. But I'm not kidding to say that we've been facing a minority of their army so far.

What I don't know is whether they'll actually pivot to focus on me like they should, or if they'll keep overfocusing on the east, in which case I can keep inching forward. I'll have to count the divisions on the frontline in the next chapter.

**HIMDogson** · 2023-09-18, 09:28 PM (ISO 8601)

Really glad to see this back. This is one of the best mega campaigns I've read with a really interesting world and im happy its getting a conclusion

**HIMDogson** · 2023-11-02, 06:02 PM (ISO 8601)

OK sorry to double post but something that occurred to me- this Poland is effectively Imperial Germany but without Bismarck. In this timeline the traditional elite of Europe's most powerful emerging industrial economy failed to give the lower classes any buy in to their system resulting in the electoral dominance of socialists and eventual revolution; in this case, however, a very healthy democratic society managed to emerge due to the utter discrediting of the old elites and the monarchy ultimately surrendering political power voluntarily.

**SilverLeaf167** · 2023-11-06, 07:58 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by HIMDogson

OK sorry to double post but something that occurred to me- this Poland is effectively Imperial Germany but without Bismarck. In this timeline the traditional elite of Europe's most powerful emerging industrial economy failed to give the lower classes any buy in to their system resulting in the electoral dominance of socialists and eventual revolution; in this case, however, a very healthy democratic society managed to emerge due to the utter discrediting of the old elites and the monarchy ultimately surrendering political power voluntarily.

That's definitely an interesting comparison that checks out for the most part!
We were lucky to avoid the fate of Weimar Germany, though. Partly because we won the Great War, surely, and partly because I as the player didn't exactly want the primacists to thrive.

Apologies for the radio silence again, by the by. Some weeks were spent busy with other projects, some off the computer, and many simply procrastinating; but I'll admit I am once again not feeling the most enthusiastic about fictional wars.

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