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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 18:53:50 GMT
Part 1: Buildup to War.
For over a century the Dutch Commonwealth had supported the Chinese government with advisors and material to turn the ancient empire into a modern country. The Chinese civil war in 1927 did not change that, instead support for the nationalist government only increased with an entire volunteer force being mobilised to help train and equip Nationalist troops. What did throw a spanner in the work however was the Japanese invasion of China. While Tokyo claimed that they only did so in order to help restore the legitimate government, Den Haag did not see it that way. What they saw was an upstart country moving in on their turf. Their backing for the national government doubled and they even convinced Germany and Sweden-Russia to help them. The Swedish and German media were quick to criticise the “Nederlands-Duits-Sweedse Vrijwilligers Korps” as government money-wasting, with Der Spiegel stating that: “these brave men will serve no purpose but as food for the condors.” The unit would forever be known as the Condor Legion.
Publicly the legion’s mission was still only to train and advise the Nationalist army and test out new hardware, in reality they were there to deter Japanese troops from attacking vital areas.
Tokyo was furious over this development and publicly demanded that the Condor Legion was withdrawn, a demand which was blankly refused.
With supply lines running through India and the shear difference in strength between the two powers, there was little Japan could do. Or so analysts in Amsterdam thought. Unlike the Dutch military, the VOC did not have access to the Indian supply lines and had to instead covertly use the few harbours open to foreign ships.
Tokyo had had its suspicions for a long time and during a surprise inspection of a VOC convoy, they found the goods. In the battle that followed all nine ships would be sunk, including the escorting frigates Aanbieding and Uitverkoop.
The VOC immediately went into a state of semi-war and deployed its navy and private security forces to protect their resources. While fighting a company with the military resources of a small country was not that much of a problem for Asia’s rising power, attracting the attention of the Dutch Commonwealth was.
Amsterdam might have looked the other way to the VOC’s business adventures as long as they were promoting Dutch interests, but the killing of their countrymen was another matter entirely. “Who did those upstarts think they were?” Was asked more than once in the First Chamber.
Only the combined efforts of the Swedish and German diplomats kept the Dutch Pacific fleet from sailing out to knock the Japanese down a few pegs, a process that would inevitable have led to war.
Instead all import to Japan was shut down while the Condor Legion went on the offensive, booking several victories against an army only experienced in fighting poorly led militias. As their enemy adapted to this new war, so did the Allies. Panzer IIIs and T-30s were gradually switched out with Panzer IVs and T-40s, which boosted superior armour and firepower to anything the Japanese had in their arsenal. The Germans even brought in a few examples of their new heavy tank, the Tiger I, and fooled the IJA into thinking they had an entire army of them by driving them in circles inside a forest.
Unfortunately, Japan was not the only one watching. The Axis were keeping a close eye on the Condor Legion as well, interested in the latest of Allied weapon technology.
They did not take the news of an army of modern heavy tanks well. Doriot immediately ordered the development of a tank that could beat the Tiger while strategists hurriedly pushed the timetable for the war forward.
If the Allies could afford to send weapons like this to China, who knew what weapons they had at home? Rumours were already flying about fighters that could break the sound barrier and bombs that aimed themselves at the enemy.
In Tokyo the situation was likewise grim. Resolute resistance had slowed the IJA’s advance had to a crawl while they struggled to gain air superiority and develop new anti-tank weapons.
The war against the VOC had effectively become a sideshow at this point, with the Company’s navy having been ambushed and swept from the sea by the 1st mobile fleet at the battle of Singapore. That victory was a small comfort for the Diet, for while the VOC had been forced to sign a ceasefire, the DC maintained their embargo. With Japan threatening to run out of vital resources, the diet was only seeing one way out of this crisis.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 18:54:51 GMT
Part II: The Rise of the Fourth Empire.
"The only Thing necassery for the victory of tyranny, is for free men to do nothing." Swiss president Rudolf Minger.
After the devastation of the first world war, it was hoped that it never would happen again.
The difference between the first world war and the second is not only in the weapons and tactics used, but also in the causes. WW1 was primarily caused by extreme nationalism and an intricate web of alliances.
The cause of WW2 was more simple: revenge.
The war killed almost four million Frenchmen and injured millions more, only to end in a resolution that changed essentially nothing but was still hard enough to make people feel like they had lost.
The National Party led by Jacques Doriot thrifted on all the resentment. Running a far-right platform based on blaming the Dutch and various minorities for everything that had gone wrong during the war, he preached to the masses. Without the Dutch, the Central Powers would not have been able to outflank the Allies badly enough for their leaders to sue for peace. Without the Jews, France wouldn’t be forced to pay back all those loans that had crippled the economy and caused the collapse of their colonial empire. Without the Germans, France wouldn’t be denied her rightful place as ruler of the continent.
His extremist views struck a chord with people and in 1935 Doriot was elected president. From there he began to gradually dismantle the democratic foundation of France while keeping the population happy with state sponsored projects to get the economy going again. His ambition did not end there, and in 1936 he claimed the annual Dutch-German war games were practice for a new invasion of France. To defend against such an invasion the military must be rebuilt into a force that would have made Napoleon proud.
With the risk for a war in Asia and North America growing, niether Berlin nor The Hague was especially willing to confront Doriot about his warmongering or the atrocities he committed against the minorities under his rule, even as their borders were flooded by refugees.
They only began to react when French troops marched into Switzerland in 1938, under the argument that “they speak French, thus are a part of France”. In reality, Doriot’s motive were only partially fueled by nationalism. The economy, despite generous “donation” from the minorities and some shrewd bookkeeping, was starting to tank and raiding the Swiss banks would be enough to keep the money flowing for the coming years.
Rather than take a hard stance against Doriot, the Allies chose to appease him by letting him have Switzerland in return for a non-aggression pact. The image of prime minister Colijn holding up the pact while stating that he had secured “peace in our time” would go on to become widely mocked before the year was over.
Many people forget that Colijn’s plan was not to buy peace, it was to buy time. Commitments in China, Canada and Africa had taken their toll on the Dutch strategic reserves, and even the mightiest military could not wage war without ammunition or weaponry.
In that effect, Colijn succeeded. His appeasement secured the United Provinces precious time to rearm and redirect resources to protect the homelands, avoiding a swift defeat when Doriot allied with Louisiana and invaded the United Provinces.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 18:57:15 GMT
Part III: Equality for All!
“Rather red than dead.”
Communist slogan.
In Britain the situation was similar to that of France. After years of watching their fellow men being shot down without care for title or fortune, the average man had become thoroughly disillusioned with the class system and began demanding change. The economic crisis only made things worse as thousands took to the street in protest against the elite, who were blamed for everything wrong in Britain. In these conditions Mosley gathered enough followers to commit a coup of the sitting government , planning to create the perfect communistic society.
While in theory the army should have immediately stormed the capital to arrest Mosley, most of the soldiers were sympathetic to the communist cause and refused to remove him. Some enterprising soldiers even arrested their officers for “un-communistic behaviour” when they were ordered to reinstate the queen.
The ensuing chaos forced most of the royal family to escape to Canada until order had been restored. Only Edward VIII remained, sympathetic to the communist cause and confident that they could be reasoned with.
It was a wasted effort. Feeling secure in his new power base, Mosley disbanded the monarchy and replaced it with the Democratic Republic of Britain.
Despite being driven from her home, Queen Elizabeth refused to accept Mosley’s posse as the new government and called upon the international community to help.
The only response was a public denouncement of the coup and nothing more. Despite there being plans in place for a proposed invasion of England, no actions were taken. There was simply no appetite for a war so close to home.
Mosley however, had an appetite for war. Having purged the government and military of anyone deemed to be “non-communistic”, he needed a way to show himself as a strong leader. In his opinion, the best way was to take control of Canada. By doing so, the rest of the colonies would inevitably fall in line with his way of thinking, or so he thought.
In May 1936, he declared war on the “Canadian terrorists”
The war would be far from as grandiose as people thought, with little happening for months beside the occasional raid and bombing of Canadian ports. Gradually, People began calling the war the “Phoney War”.
It was first in September 1936 that the war entered a new phase as the Red Navy trapped and forced a battle with its Canadian counterpart. The victory paved a way for Red marines to land and capture Halifax, opening the country for a more general invasion. By October, almost half a million troops had landed and despite repeated counter-attacks, the Canadian army had failed to do more then slow the Communist invasion down.
With the situation grim, Queen Elizabeth had no choice to ask for foreign help. She was met with a lackluster response. Berlin had little interest in conflicts halfway across the world when they were already busy supporting China and pacifying their Middle East colony and Sweden refused to break their isolationist stance.
Amsterdam was more willing to listen, but only offered military equipment and volunteers. The last thing they wanted to do was get involved into another conflict when war was threatening in Europe itself.
Their hesitation proved disastrous when Louisiana invaded Canada from the South. With most of their forces tied up defending against the Red Army, Louisianian troops met only minimal resistance as they advanced.
With New Netherland being the obvious next target should Canada surrender, the Dutch Commonwealth and United States began preparations for a pre-emptive strike. It was hoped that a swift assault on Louisiana's vital areas would be enough to force them to a favourable peace. If not, Allied generals were ready to continue the war until they got the peace they desired.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:07:21 GMT
Part IV: Tomorrow, when the war began.
"Flanks broken, front penetrated, rear comprised, I am attacking." Marshal Gunderian before the Battle of Dresden.
The opening phase of the war began on the the 9th of April, 1940, when France and the BWR, pressured by economic trouble at home, declared war on Germany and the United Provinces. Less than an hour later, bombers blackened the sky as they attacked Allied airbases and defences.
Seventy percent of Dutch fighters would be destroyed on the ground, unable to defend the country as French paratroopers dropped behind their defensive lines and captured most of the fortresses. From the sea, the British navy attacked the Dutch Home Fleet, sinking many ships in port before they were able to organise an effective defence.
Despite the surprise attack, for a while it looked like the Dutch army would be able to defend themselves long enough for German reinforcements to arrive. Then, on the 17th of April, the Polish-Lithuanian army attacked Germany from the east, forcing to the Wehrmacht to commit their reserves. Warszawa cared little for fascisme, for them this was a simple opportunity to remove a powerful rival from the playing field.
Despite initial success, the offensive quickly developed into a stalemate. Poland was inexperienced in modern warfare and was up against one of the best trained armies in Europe, only the fact that most of the Wehrmacht was tied up at the western front prevented a rout and a German counter offensive. Beside tying up vital German forces, it also had the effect of finally getting Sweden-Russia to honour its agreement and declare war on the Axis powers as well. Their invasion of Poland-Lithuania was a failure, lacking preparations and being even more incompetently led then the Polish one.
The next week, the Axis navies achieved a breakthrough and managed to land forces in Friesland. Despite heavy attacks, the Royal Army was unable to dislodge them from their bridgehead, nor prevent a link-up with French forces that had broken through the Siegfried line. Rather than surrender as the Axis leaders had expected, the Royal Army fell back to secondary defensive lines built inland. Fortress Holland would fight until Allied help arrived or the last man fell, whichever came first.
Despite the intense resistance they offered it was all for nothing, in June Germany surrendered and Allied forces were in full retreat to Norway. During the miracle of the Sont, over five hundred thousand Allied troops were evacuated by civilians in everything from rowboats to cruise liners. The celebrations in Christiana over this perceived “victory” were so great that Colijn had to remind everyone that “wars were not won with evacuations”. It would be the last victory Norway would celebrate for a long time.
If Mosley and Doriot thought the war was over and they could get to the negotiation table, they were sorely mistaken. Berlin may have surrendered, but over almost a million Wehrmacht troops had escaped over the Sont or through the Swedish corridor through Poland and were gathering under von Manstein’s Freie Deutsche Reich. From his base in Argentina, von Manstein pledged to continue the war in any way he could.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:13:30 GMT
Part V: The Sun Rises on a New Asia.
“The marines are the sword and everyone else is a distraction. If the sword fails then clearly the distractions are not doing their job good enough.”
Major Johan Ording.
While the French and British were on the offensive in Europe, the Dutch were on the offensive nearly everywhere else. Dutch troops from Indonesia and Java landed in French Indochina while the vast Indian army invaded Burma. Even the Mughal empire and kingdom of Nepal declared war on the Allies and deployed an expeditionary force each. They served with distinction.
In Africa, Abyssinia was quick to blockade the Suez channel while the Boer Republics began a general mobilisation of their forces. Plans were already in place to invade Algeria and Libya and use their airbases for a bombing campaign of Europe.
Perhaps the greatest Dutch success at this stage was the bombing of Pearl Harbour on the Sandwich Islands, home to much of the Axis Pacific fleet. Taking off from the carriers Vrijheid, Overwinning, Onafhankelijk, Onderneming, Wesp and Horzel, naval bombers successfully sunk or damaged most of the Axis Pacific squadron in port.
An hour later royal marines established a beachhead and began pushing inlands, supported by the gunfire of sixteen destroyers. After two weeks of heavy fighting the British troops scuttled their remaining ships and surrendered.
Mosley’s hopes for a Pacific raiding campaign would effectively die there.
By the beginning of 1941, this situation was repeating itself across French Indochina and the Philippines as well. The Royal Indonesian Air Force achieved air superiority in February and under their cover marshal Jan de Vos’ 5th army gradually conquered much of French Indochina.
Not to be outdone by the army, the marines and navy cooperated to invade the Philippines. Unfortunately, their cooperation ended there. The navy set off quickly to find and discover the remaining Axis ships in the area, the army regularly accused the marines of using them as a meatshield and the air force of never arriving on time.
The inter-service rivalry grew nearly outright hostile at times, with the army hoarding all the tanks because “they needed them more” and the marines hoarding almost all the artillery in revenge. An attempt by the air force to mediate instead ended up turning the entire argument into a brawl that forced the military police to intervene. After that nobody wanted to cooperate anymore.
Despite the rivalry going on behind the scenes, the Dutch gradually pushed the British back from all of the main islands, but at a heavy toll. Of the initial landing force of fifty thousand troops, only a third would still be in fighting shape at the final victory.
The Bataan Death March would go on to stand as a dark example of what inter-service rivalry could lead to and be used as one of the reasons for the creations of the joint chiefs of staff in 1953. But the grudges created during that campaign have neither been forgotten nor forgiven.
For a time, it looked like the war in the East would be over soon and the Commonwealth could focus on Europe and North America. They were sorely mistaken.
With a fuel crisis on the horizon and the very real possibility of being walled in by Dutch military bases, the Japanese started their own invasion of French Indochina in March. With the defences focused southward to ward of advancing Dutch troops, the IJA easily punched through what remained of the French defences and reached Ha Noi within days. In the battle of Thanh Hoa the overstretched 5th army was soundly defeated and forced to retreat post haste, the IJA in hot pursuit the entire time. The situation was worse on Formosa, where the Air Force was fighting tooth and nail to hold back Japanese bomber fleets while the army barely repulsed a landing force. What hope Formosa had of salvation would be shattered when Force F was ambushed and lost half its ships to Japanese torpedo bombers. With the loss of their trump card, the battleship Koningin van Ceylon, vice admiral Veldstra decided to retreat back to safe waters. He failed. Before they got very far, Force F was attacked and destroyed by the Nagato and her destroyer escorts.
Similarly, an attempt by Force W to stop an invasion of the Philippines ended in the loss of the Horzel and the Wesp suffering heavy damage.
The next day a general retreat order was issued to all Allied naval forces, command had decided that losing Formosa and Hainan was preferable to losing any means of fighting back.
On land, the Imperial army encircled the Dutch 5h army and defeated the 7th and 10th army, forcing them to retreat. March, 1941 is often considered one of the darkest times in modern Dutch history with military casualties reaching in the tens of thousands.
And the world war had only just begun.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:26:10 GMT
Part VI: The Scandinavian Front.
“That fool is going to lose us the war if he continues on like this.”
Marshal Montgomery.
At the outbreak of war, the Dutch navy outnumbered all the Axis navies put together. What evened the playing field was that at the outbreak of hostilities the vast majority of the Axis fleets were in Europe, while the Royal Navy was stretched across multiple theaters. Further reducing the odds was that the French and British fleets had scrapped many of their older ships after being forced to comply with tonnage limitations, while the Royal Navy’s more generous terms had allowed them to keep many older ships still in service. This meant that the Dutch fleet was de facto split into a pre-dreadnought and an after-dreadnought generation, all with various levels of modernisations.
So not only did the Axis possess an almost equal number of ships in Europe as the Allies, they were also on average more modern.
This difference was made evident in the opening months of the war, where the Royal Navy lost dozens of ships to the Axis while only inflicting negligible casualties in return.
A Dutch offensive in the Mediterranean to take Malta as a forward base was only successful in the loosest sense of the word, with marines being able to capture it but the navy quickly being driven from the area, losing three cruisers in the process.
It was thus an optimistic Mosley who ordered the start of Operation Viking, the invasion of Scandinavia and Iceland. He believed that after destroying the vast majority of Dutch and German military on the continent, taking the peninsula would be a simple matter of marching in and shooting some peasants. The only possible obstacle he considered was the Royal Navy, but it would only be a matter of time before they were broken as a fighting force.
As history would go on to prove, he had vastly underestimated his enemies.
Mosley got the chance to put his theory to the test in 1941, when the Axis launched a campaign of submarine warfare to weaken the Allied position, followed by a massive air and naval campaign to finally break it. The Swedish Baltic fleet was virtually destroyed in two separate battles, thus opening Gotland up for invasion. The island fell after a week of heavy fighting, and with the road to Scandinavia open, the Axis landed in the Swedish heartland shortly afterwards. As had become standard by this point, the Swedish military failed to dislodge their beachhead despite throwing thousands of troops at them.
But the British had been too hasty.
Scandinavia is an region that heavily favours the defender, being dominated by mountains, forests, rivers and almost no roads. With an area where a destroyed bridge could delay any advance by days, the Axis were only able to take Stockholm, Christiania and Gothenburg three months behind schedule. This gave the Royal Army precious time to prepare for a final battle at Bergen.
Being both an important population centre and housing one of the few large industrial bases the Dutch had left in Europe, this city was a target the British would not be to resist.
Taking Bergen was another story entirely though, with the city being surrounded by mountains and having an extensive network of defenses prepared to hold of any assault.
The Axis would get to experience this first hand when they attacked the city and were met by the fire from machine guns, AT guns, tanks, artillery and the main batteries of the heavy cruiser Hr. Ms. Purmerend.
With the initial storming having failed, the Red Army began to infest the town instead. But as days turned into weeks and casualties continued to mount without visible gain, even the most optimistic soldier started to lose hope of victory, especially with winter on the horizon.
The prospect of fighting meters of snow and ice besides Allied troops made Montgomery repeatedly recommend to Mosley to just leave a token force to bottle up the defenders while his army continued north, but the dictator would not be moved. Bergen would fall, no matter how long it took.
He would not tolerate that the Red Army looked weak while France was booking successes in the Middle East.
As the situation got more desperate, so did the Axis attempts to salvage it. The pride of the British navy, the super-battleship Arthur Pendragon sailed out to the North Sea and fought the Royal Navy for a week before being sunk by the light carrier Hr. Ms. Fokker’s biplanes.
A campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare caused a spike in lost cargo ships that was offset by Axis submarine losses. At the most intense superior German ASW technology sank a submarine every second day.
In September Montgomery made the decision to unofficially halt the assault on Bergen and resumed his march on Tromsø, hoping for one last chance at a decisive victory. The battle of Hamar was a tactical victory with him routing a Swedish army, but a strategic defeat. Winter had arrived, and the meters of snow prevented any further advance until spring.
The Allies did not let the snow stop them, instead using camouflaged ski troops for recon, assassination and to generally sow chaos among the Axis soldiers. Their greatest success was the battle of Lofdalen, where an elite red guard division was isolated and lost fourty perchent of their manpower before managing to fight their way out. Major Churchill was later awarded the Hero of the Workers Union medal for her leadership during this Battle.
Encouraged by their advantage and with the Swedes drawing the Axis attention towards Poland-Lithuania, the Allies launched operation Typhoon. Suprising the British With their overwhelming suprise attack, they managed to break the siege of Bergen seemingly overnight and defeat a hastily assembled counterattack.
A panicked Mosley ordered a retreat back to more fortified positions, despite Montgomery’s insistence that it was all a ruse and the Allies had more from as many troops as they made it seem. He begged for one last counterattack, pointing out that recon flights had revealed that Dutch and German lines were far thinner than they appeared.
Instead of granting marshal Montgomery's request, Mosley blamed him for causing this situation in the first place and had him removed from command. Monty was given one last chance to redeem himself: by liberating Yugoslavia from the capitalists influence.
Premier Ivan Milhailou officially supported the BWR, but Mosley had doubts of his allegiance. With the Dutch and the VOC having sponsored and helped organise the country when it declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire, it does not take an expert to predict where those doubts came from.
Operation Crusader was one of the European Axis last big successes outside of Central Sweden. Within ten days Yugoslavia fell to the British, French, Italian and Hungarian troops and was swiftly parceled off to the various victors. With Italy having secured their war aims for the time being, Mussolini sought to make a separate peace with the allies. It is often speculated what would have happened had Doriot not found and pressured him to stay in the war until the Middle East theatre was won.
At the time it seemed like they were just a few weeks away from Cairo and closing down the Suez channel.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:28:53 GMT
Part VII: Last month of British Argentina.
“The revolution is dead, long live the revolution!”
Radio Free Argentina after the final surrender of general Percival.
In a year of defeats and costly victories, the liberation of British Argentina stands out as the Allies only resounding military success. While the Royal Army and Wehrmacht were fighting tooth and nails to defend their countries, marshall Bouwmeester ordered the start of Operation Tango, the invasion of British Argentine.
One week later, the Brazilian army stormed across the Argentine border.
Rather than the heavy fighting they had expected, they were met with mass surrenders.
Only a handful of Argentinian divisions fought with any degree of enthusiasm, and that usually only lasted until the local commissaris had been killed (sometimes by his own troops).
Within a week even the most faithful soldier began to realise the he was fighting for a lost cause and hid in the mountains to continue fighting for the revolution from there. Most of them were quickly ratted out by the locals to the foreign liberators. There was little love for London in Argentina, and much more willingness to join the Dutch or German empires in order to restore the good old ways.
Truth was that the Axis never intended to hold Argentine, to them the colonials were merely secondary citizens whose only use was tieing up Brazilian resources for as long as possible. In that aspect their plan was a success, the Imperial Brazilian Army was unable to bring to bear its 3rd army in time to assist in Operation Biefstuk.
Where the plan failed was when it came to the Kaiserliche Marine. The plan had been for the fleet stationed at the Falklands to sink the German task force operating out of River Platte and then escape back to England before the Brazilian navy had the chance to show up.
As the Battle of Montevideo proved, the British had severely underestimated their enemies. During the battle almost the entire fleet of thirty ships would be wiped out, with only the Hood, Wales, Ajax and five destroyers escaping. With the original plan abandoned and Falkland under siege, first priority quickly changed to trying to escape back to England. This was easier said than done, for the area was crawling with Brazilian squadrons searching for them.
They were spotted already after two days by a flying boat following the Ajax’s oil leak and just a few hours later the KMS Bismarck herself and her escort showed up. In a two hour battle the remains of the British Southern fleet were wiped out, with the crew of the Wales scuttling the ship after the damage had become too great.
After their victory the German River Platte squadron was transferred to North America as part of Force ABCD and according to captain Lindemann, “fight another worthy opponent”. In London however the regime claimed that the Hood had been sunk preventing a Brazilian invasion of the Falklands, taking two battleships with her in the process, while the Wales managed to evade all patrols and had managed to escape to Louisiana.
So pervasive was this lie that nobody in England knew the truth until after the war had ended.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:43:55 GMT
 Part VIII: The Rise and Fall of the Afriqua Corps. “I was once told that when Martial Valin heard I was appointed KLSKMO, he said a woman would never defeat his air force. I wonder what he said when BW-35s started bombing Paris?” Lieutenant colonel Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke. For both the Axis and the Allies, the Middle East was strategically vital. The many oil fields in the area made up almost half of the Commonwealth's annual fuel production and would mean a permanent end to Axis fuel troubles while closing the Suez channel would block the Royal Navy from entering the Mediterranean. To prevent such a scenario, the Dutch send in marshal Jeroen Pietersz to lead operation Telegram. A World War 1 veteran, Pietersz was a traditionalist through and through, viewing anything modern with suspicion. The most hatred he reserved for Air Force general Rudolf van Brugge, who was nearly his polar opposite. The son of a minor noble, van Brugge had been handed a high ranked position right out of officer school and never went anywhere without his butler and maid. The hatred between him and Pietersz went beyond simple branch rivalry, with one looking at the other as a simple peasant afraid of everything electrical and the other seeing his rival as everything wrong with the country. It goes without saying that with the two never agreeing on anything, the Libya campaign was doomed before it fully got started. The RAF regularly performed bombing missions over the Axis colonies, but adamantly refused to provide anything but the bare minimum of reconnaissance data and air support that Van Brugge judged appropriate for the Army to complete its task. He was more interested in sinking Italian capital ships, especially the carrier Aquila, and ensuring Dutch naval superiority in the Mediterranean. Both to get Van Brugge to focus his attention where it mattered and out of revenge, Pietersz withheld RAF supplies unless they did what he wanted them to. This created a vicious cycle where the RAF was forced to barter for supplies by performing raids they deemed too dangerous or wasteful and then would refuse to provide air support out of revenge. Despite the two branches being more interested in fighting each other, incompetent Italian command and mostly obsolete Equipment meant would take until mid-1942 for the Dutch to be stopped in their conquest of Libya and Algeria and even then it was more because of French interference than Italian effort. The prospect of Allied bombing raids over France caused Doriot to general Leclerc as leader of the newly formed Afrique Corps. An expert on leading operations over vast distances, Leclerc’s efficient leadership, capable tanks and mobile warfare caught the Dutch by surprise and, over the course of three large battles, drove them all the way back to Cairo. Despite the setback, the Dutch were now actually in a stronger position than they were before the the war. For one the Kaapstad-Cairo railroad was finally completed on 12 May, 1942 and with it supplies and reinforcements from the Boer States could be delivered at a much faster rate than previously. Another help was MID finally cracking the Italian Naval codes. With the discovery that the Regia Marina rarely sortied in force unless absolutely necessary due to fuel shortage, Force S went on the offensive. Armed with the knowledge of the location of every Axis ship, no Italian sailor could feel safe as entire convoys would sometimes be sunk literally overnight. With their back against the wall and being informed by a spy that the enemy capital ships were gathered at Alexandria, the Regia Marina set out for one last decisive battle. After frogmen disabled the battleships Eendracht and Juweel van India with guided torpedoes, the carrier Aquila and the battleships Littorio, Roma and Durnesque launched an assault on the port of Alexandria. It had been hoped that this would be the Pearl Harbour of the Mediterranean and destroy Force S once and for all. Instead, after a half hour battle the Littorio, Roma and Durnesque were forced to limp back to port, all having suffered damage from the aerial counterattack, and without the Aquila. The carrier had been sunk by a bomb penetrating her flight deck and hitting a fuel tank. On the Dutch side the battlecruiser Adwa had been sunk and the battleships Koninkrijk der Nederlanden and Juweel van India had suffered so much damage they spent the rest of the war in drydock, ensuring that Force S lost most of its heavy hitters for the foreseeable future. Unlike their Axis counterparts the survival of the battleship Evertsen and the carrier Triomf meant that the Royal Navy was still capable of projecting offensive force in the Mediterranean theatre. This was very different from the Italian ships, which spent the rest of the war cowering inside their harbours. At land things were not going much better for the Afrique Corps. A reorganisation of the general staff had moved general Van Brugge to the North American theatre and Goering had taken the opportunity to sneak in one of his rising stars. A former ace pilot With exstensive experience from the American fronts, Lieutenant colonel Minna-Dietlinde was an capable officer who led her air forces With a steady hand and finally made sure air support arrived on time. Despite this, she got just as much hate from Marshal Pietersz for being a women and a foreigner at that. Before a new rivalry could ruin another operation, Field marshal Sir Wouter van Ghent intervened. Having decided that Pietersz obsolete tactics were the reason for the failure of Operation Telegram, Van Ghent had requested that he should be removed from command. His request was denied by the minister of war. Pietersz was considered a war hero in the Boer States and firing him would ruin his propaganda value. With outright firing him out of the question, Van Ghent did the second best thing and promoted him to commander Allierte Strijdkrachten Midden Oosten, a position that sounded far more important than it actually was. To replace Pietersz he brought in another German officer, one who had also previously distinguished himself on the North American front. The moment he assumed command, general Erwin Rommel reorganised his new army. Unlike his predecessor he had realised that in the desert, mobility was key and that meant that everything without an engine was essentially worthless. The strategy shift from gradual advance to a campaign of mobile warfare soon started booking successes. Capitalising on his superior logistics, Rommel managed to repel the Axis assault on Cairo and turn the tide at Tobruk. Now it was the Afriqua Corps that was on the retreat. But despite the massive supply difference between the two sides, Leclerc intended to go down fighting. He built an entire army of false vehicles, stored at fake bases and running on a realistic schedule to act as decoys for RAF recon flights. He had his tanks drive in circles in the desert to kick up massive clouds of dust and give the impression that he had more tanks available then he actually had. And in one last act of spite he had his retreating troops put up fake signs at every oasis they passed that the water was poisoned. The time not spent pulling new tricks out of his bag was spent in Paris, begging Doriot for more tanks and planes. There Leclerc was promised that as soon as operation Charlemagne had been completed and the Swedish empire surrendered, he would get all the new Char B4 heavy tanks he desired. Despite Doriot’s delusions, Rommel had no intentions of waiting for that to happen and continued his merciless drive on Tripoli. On 23 February, 1943 the Afriqua Corps finally surrendered. Leclerc was offered the opportunity to escape back to France on one of the last evacuation flights but declined, he preferred to stay with his men until the end. With their victory over the Axis in the Middle East, the Dutch had done more then just secure their continued access to oil. Exactly as Doriot had initially feared, the RAF used their new air bases to launch operation Kruisboog, a massive bombing campaign aimed at breaking the people’s morale. This was not the first time that the Allies had launched a bombing raids against the Axis home soil, with operation Blitzer having begun some months earlier, but it was the first time a campaign of this scale had been launched. By the time it ended in 1944 it had caused the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and made millions more homeless. On the Allied side it was one of the most dangerous assignment among flight crews, with only thirty percent surviving long enough to have completed a tour of duty. |
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:51:22 GMT
Part VIIIb: The struggle to create something from nothing.
“Seems I pissed off command, guess it is off to Australia with me.”
Joke among Dutch Soldiers.
Compared to the grand campaigns in Europe and Asia, the liberation of what remained of the Axis colonial empires was barely worthy of a footnote. The fall of French Madagascar for example could be summed up as Boer troops landing at the beginning of May, overthrowing the unpopular regime, establish a pro-Dutch government and leaving the moment additional garrison forces arrived a month later.
The situation in Australia was much worse. There are a civil war had been raging since the Dutch victory at the Sandwich Islands in 1941, with far-right independence groups fighting against far-left loyalists, various groups of extremists, warlords and everyone who was not them.
It was this mess that general Nieuwdorp got the thankless mission of turning into a country, using the small amount of troops command was willing to delegate to this theatre. Begrudgingly he began the gradual process of conquering the better part of a continent and the process of setting up a government, minus the parts that New Holland wanted to annex. Nieuwdorp was in command until 1943, when he placed John Curtin in office as president of Australia (or at least the part under Dutch control) and resigned, stating that the stress had become to much for him.
To replace him marshal Berenschot appointed marshal Pietersz, who was judged to be perfect for this position and would no longer be in the way of more competent commanders. Pietersz didn’t care what command thought about him, the only thing he was interested in was that he got an entire theatre to command and he didn’t have to worry about Van Brugge or his aircraft ever again.
The average soldier serving in Australia did not share Pietersz enthusiasm. For them the war was a miserable experience, far off from civilization, struggling to survive in one of the most hostile environment on Earth and fighting people for no other discernible reason than that they “were the enemy”.
As the war progressed and the borders gradually expanded, so did Menzies’ ambition. He dreamt of creating a pacific empire of his own, an Australian superpower to rule his corner of the globe.
In 1948, when the last warlord was defeated, he took the first step towards fulfilling his vision by demanding that New Holland, New Zeeland and Tasmania all joined as part of his “glorious republic”. All of them refused, after having spent six years fighting expansionist powers they had no desire to roll over and surrender to the newest guy on the block.
Angered by their refusal, Menzies began preparations to take his neighbours by force and declared that he would even support India in their struggle for independence. He never got that far. In order to avoid another disastrous war, Dutch marines from the assault carrier Hr.B.Ms. Indringer took control of the government in a coup, executing Menzies and placing army general John Curtin in charge. Besides being an excellent statesman, Curtin knew his place and was keenly aware of who had put him in the office in the first place.
In the coming years, he would go on to rebuilt Australia into a modern democratic society and become one of his country’s most beloved presidents.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:56:53 GMT
Part IIII: Turning Point of the Pacific War.
“Afflavit Deus et Dissipantur”
Motto of the Hr.B.Ms. Onderneming, coined after the Battle of Java Sea.
After their victories at Formosa and the Philippines, the Japanese Navy was free to do whatever it wanted, striking wherever they pleased throughout the South Seas. They even launched a raid into the Indian ocean, where they attacked shipping, bombed Nieuw Delphi and damaged the Ceylonese carrier Hr.C.Ms. Stille Oceaan during a brief skirmish. The commerce raider Unebi would stay behind to continue raiding Dutch shipping, gradually becoming so infamous that the Ceylonese Navy put together a strike force dedicated solely to sink her.
The Unebi was not the only ship to become infamous. During the second battle of Brunei, the Yuudachi launched an one-ship attack on the Brazilian fleet, using the cover of night to sink a heavy cruiser and cause general confusion among Allied ranks. After regrouping with other Japanese ships she launched a second charge, this time joined by fellow destroyers Shigure and Harekaze, that sank eight more ships and broke the Allied offensive. Revealing that a third time is not always the charm, her last charge backfired when she was surrounded and eventually sunk by Brazilian destroyers.
Lulled into a false sense of confidence after their easy victory at Borneo, the Imperial Navy sortied to break the back of the Commonwealth Pacific fleet in one last devastating battle. The outcome of such a victory would have been the fall of Borneo and an invasion of Java, but the most ambitious generals did not limit themselves to such possibilities. They dreamt of invasions of both Australia and Ceylon, despite Japan never possessing anywhere near the logistics required for such a feat.
The plan for Operation JZ was to use the Akagi, Kaga, Ise and Hyuuga as a diversion to draw out the Dutch carrier fleet and create an opportunity for the other four fleet carriers to attack them from behind.
The failure of the plan was caused by their sketchy intel, with the IJN thinking that the Commonwealth had only three carriers available, rather than the six they actually had, and not being aware that their naval codes had been cracked. The battle of Java Sea was an ambush, but it was one for the ambusher.
The first clue that the Kido Butai had walked into a trap was when the Hyuuga was torpedoed by the O-57, with the rest of the carrier group suddenly finding themselves surrounded by destroyers previously disguised as islands and under attack by bombers from the Hr.B.Ms. Onderneming and Hr.B.Ms.Vrijheid.
With half his force suddenly being under attack, admiral Yamamoto made the decision to turn around and save the remaining carriers from total destruction. This gave the impression of a general retreat and convinced admiral Doorman that his trap had been discovered.To achieve the most destruction and glory, he ordered the rest of his battle fleet to attack. At top speed, the DC’s two battleships and sixteen cruisers charged right into the Japanese vanguard, consisting of the Ashigara, Nachi, Yukikaze, Tone and Mutsu.
Despite the Allies best effort to break through, the defensive line improvised by the Japanese ships lasted long enough to allow most of the fleet to escape, losing only the Hiryuu to a lucky salvo from the Hr.C.Ms. Jaffna.
Despite their failure to completely destroy the Japanese carrier fleet, they had still won an important victory. It would take two years for Japan to replace its lost carriers and pilots, by which point the Dutch Commonwealth would have built over thirty carriers of its own.
Just as important as depleting the IJN’s numbers was gaining the initiative. A process that would have gone much smoother if the various branches of the Dutch military could ever agree on anything. Instead they had directly competing ideas of how to win the war, with the Army advocating a route that went through French Indochina, China and Korea before ending with an invasion of Japan proper. The Navy and Marines Corps disagreed with that plan both on principle and because it would sideline them for most of the fight. They delivered their own plan, proposing a route that went through the Phillipines and then launching an invasion of Japan, liberating Hainan and Formosa on the way. On paper the Air Force was in favour of both plans but they would be damned if they agreed to the same thing the marines did, and thus threw their support behind the Army.
As a compromise, the minister of war decided to go forward with both plans at the same time, promising that the side that arrived first would get to invade Japan. It was a solution neither the Army nor Navy was in particular favour for but it was one they could both agree with.
With the path cleared, the Dutch Navy sortied for Borneo once again. There they fought and defeated the Japanese task force defending the supply lines from Singapore, isolating the troops fighting on the island.
Catching the IJA with their back against the wall, the Royal Indonesian Army was able to wipe out their enemies to a man. Operation Huzaar marked a turning point in the Asian war. Not only was it the first time that a large scale Japanese offensive had been defeated, it also marked the point where Japan decisively lost the initiative. Despite multiple attempts to regain the initiative, they could only defend against the Dutch onslaught.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 6, 2017 19:59:43 GMT
Part X: Backwards, forwards and back again.
“Just pissed in the Missouri River, for God’s sake send more tanks.”
Patton’s message to high command following his victory at Columbia.
When they were informed of the plan to invade Louisiana, most people in the US immediately wrote it off as national suicide. The rest criticised it as the Dutch cashing in on the gratitude debt they owed by dragging their country into wars they had no interests in.
One of the few people who believed it to be possible was George “Blood and Guts” Patton, hero of the Independence War and general of the US Army.
He believed that a devastating first strike would secure the Allies sufficient advantage to carry the war. His support was vital to getting operation Biefstuk approved.
In 1941, right after the war started, transport planes dropped three regiments of paratroopers behind Lousianan lines. There they covertly cut telephone lines and blew up railroads, laying the stage for the second and most famous part for the operation.
On the 4th of July, the entire American and Dutch bomber fleets took of in what would later be known as "the first five-hundred bombers raid" mercilelly attacking Lousianan airfields and depots, destroying hundreds of planes on the ground and crippling their defenses. Paratroopers stormed radar stations and those few airfields not bombed to pieces, hijacking the radios to bombard the Lousianan high command with false information. For several crucial days they had no idea what was going on, providing an opening for the Allies to attack.
Modified dive bombers armed with 37mm cannons were one of the most important hammers of the Patton’s “shock and awe” strategy, clearing the way for his tanks to advance.
The RNNA lacked the modified dive bombers or the over-armoured tanks their allies had, but made for it by sheer ferocity. General sir Edmond Vleiland was nicknamed “General Forwards” by his troops for his strategy of constantly driving forward, no matter the enemy resistance or the state of his supply lines.
After one month of fighting the American and Dutch troops met in Columbia, encircling thousand of Lousianian soldiers and leaving them for newly arrived Brazilian 3rd army to mop up.
The encirclement at Columbia went right into American history books as one of their greatest victories, with over four hundred thousand Lousianian soldiers surrendering to the victorious Allies and the entire front having to be recreated almost from scratch.
To cope with the situation, Lousianian troops were being re-deployed en masse to deal with the new threat, allowing the battered Canadian army to catch its breath.
Riding their momentum, an Allied army attacked north to expel the British from North America and allow Canada to fully concentrate on defeating Louisiana.
Rather than the quick victory they were expecting, the Brazilians found themselves fighting general Ironside. One of the few Axis generals specialized in defensive warfare, he developed the tactic of emptying the trenches before the enemy bombardment started, and when the shelling was done the troops would rush back in to defend themselves from the incoming charge.
This tactic allowed him to hold the Concord front for ten weeks, despite impossible odds. It was first in October that he was forced to retreat back to Maine, and even then it was more because of the shifting situation in London instead of pressure from the Allied forces.
Ever since the siege of Norway began, Mosley began doubting more and more that his fleets were capable of defeating the Dutch Home Fleet and German High Sea fleet.
This doubt became certainly with the sinking of the Arthur Pendragon, his finest warship and personal pride.
After spending a few days isolated in his mansion Mosley ordered the navy to stop all offensives and to concentrate on submarine warfare and escort duty. The invasion of central Sweden-Russia drew near and compared to that everything else could wait.
The British troops in Canada would spent the rest of their campaign at the bottom of the logistical pecking order, not helped by their deteriorating naval situation. The Lousianian navy proved to make a poor opponent for Force ABCD, spending most of their time cowering in their harbours after getting soundly defeated by admiral Nimitz. Admiral Sir Hendrik’s Force N experienced more action, with his fleet regularly clashing with the British ships operating out of Halifax when he was raiding Axis convoys or Canadian coast.
By the time 1941 rolled over into 1942, the American advance began to stall. With the initial shock having worn off and fresh reinforcements arriving, Lousianian marshal Gerard forced Patton on the defensive.
In the hopes of finally breaking the deadlock, a joint Canadian-Brazilian army tried to drive through Monticello to reach Olympia and force the Lousianians to redirect troops to stop them. The operation was a miserable failure, with the Allies barely reaching Everett before being stopped, at the cost of 30.000 casualties.
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Post by eurowatch on Aug 27, 2017 20:23:08 GMT
Part XI: The Great Asian War.
"In Asia the attitude towards the war Depends on where you ask. In Indonesia it is thought of as a time of glory, where brave and honourable men helped found modern Indonesia. In India it is remembered as the war where five thousand men died so a general could move his desk a meter closer to Tokyo."
Historian Jan Kampes.
Despite being one of the largest armies in the world, the Imperial Indian Army was also one of the most backwards. Here infantry charges and trenches were still standard doctrine, even as Nepal, Ceylon and the Mughal Empire all established armoured divisions and air forces of their own. Contrary to popular belief, the reason for this was not simply money (though The Hague refusing to foot the bill was a factor), it was to make sure that any potential uprising would always lack the power to be a serious threat against a punitive expedition. To further weaken any potential uprising all divisions were raised in different parts of the country and taught to hate each other with a passion, so that no rebellion would ever have the full support of the military.
This proved to be effective in keeping control of India, but caused problems when fighting a modern army.
Lacking the tanks or monoplanes standard in the rest of the Dutch Commonwealth, the Imperial Indian Army instead tried to overwhelm the Japanese through sheer numbers and died in droves. Gradually the frontline began to resemble something straight out of the Great War, with artillery fire and an infantry charge driving one side out of their trench, only for counterfire to allow said side to retake the now slightly more damaged trench. The battle of Bilin River would go back and forth for weeks, costing tens of thousands of lives each time.
The armies of Ceylon, Nepal and the Mughal Empire all fared much better, coordinating their efforts under marshal Anil Choudhary to first drive the Japanese advance to a halt and then gradually drive them back, even managing to relieve the encircled 5th army.
So it caused a great deal of outrage when the orders came that they had to retreat to patch the hole in the frontline caused by the Indian army being virtually routed in the battle of Toungoo.
Enraged, the generals brought their grievances to field marshal Sir Berenschot, who complied by firing general Jonkman and replacing him with general Naut Stellingsma. Possessing the dangerous combination of hatred for Indians and an admiration for marshal Zhukov, general Stellingsma drove forward without care for casualties. To keep a fresh stream of recruits flowing he had his military police divisions forcible enlist hundreds of thousands of people and send them to the frontline. To keep those conscripts from deserting he created socalled blockade regiments, who served the double function of shooting any attempted deserters and acting as reserves for when the conscripts were inevitably killed to soften up the frontline.
His strategy was so heartless that even his fellow generals were disgusted by it but even his most vocal critic had to admit he deliver results. Having no concept of retreat in the same way Westerners had it, Japanese troops would rather fight to the death in often pointless battles rather than retreat and live to fight another day.
This meant that despite on average killing twenty Indians for every one of their deaths, Japan was still suffering casualties on an unsustainable scale. To hold Burma, they were forced to redirect significant amounts of troops and material from Malaysia, weakening the frontline there.
Using the kink in their armour, Indonesia scraped together every landing craft they had and attacked. Consisting of 60.000 troops, the Benut landing were the largest landing of the war to this point, only surpassed by operation Sealion in 1945.
Rather than a quick advance like they had expected, the Indonesian army found itself bogged down by an enemy determined to drive them back in the sea, or at the very least to contain their beachhead. This caught marshal Berenschot by surprise, his staff had not expected a defence in depth, nor anti-tank guns that could penetrate the armour of a Paladin tank.
With their entire battle plan thrown in shambles, Indonesian generals were forced to come up with ways to salvage the situation. A second landing at Sungai Rambai was proposed and swiftly rejected. At the moment, Indonesia had neither the reserves nor the logistics to support another landing of that scale. Waiting for the Indians to reach Malaysia was considered the safest option but also the most unacceptable. Nobody in the RIA wanted to sit on their thumbs while the India got all the glory.
With their options, it was decided that a sustained bombardment from the air and sea, followed by an assault would be the best option.
The following week saw the Japanese positions come under a so intense bombardment that even the sturdiest bunker started cracking and many outright collapsed. When the sun rose the next morning the RIA launched their attack and stormed the Japanese trenches… only to find them empty.
Under the cover of darkness general Nishikino had evacuated his troops from the bunkers and began a retreat to the Hoshido line, the first of three pre-established defensive lines that blocked the access to Rangoon.
Unlike many of his colleagues he had extensively studied western battle doctrines and knew his army was no match for the RIA in a straight up fight. Instead he would fight on places that negated the RIAF air superiority, the rest of the time he would just slow the down with continues hit-and-run tactics or raiding their supply dumps.
Enraged that he had been denied a glorious victory, general Boudewijn Eerbeek launched a large scale campaign to liberate Singapore. The battle for Singapore would last for three weeks, in which much of the city was bombed to rubble or burned to the ground. When the city was finally back on Allied hands it was less because the RIA was in control and more because there were no Japanese troops left to offer resistance. All but fourteen had chosen death before surrender.
With their rear secured and supplies flowing through the harbour, the RIA pushed relentlessly against the Hoshido Line and launched another continues bombing campaign to break it.
In the end what forced general Nishikino to retreat was not the RIAF’s bombs, but the Indian army. Begin 1943 they succeeded in liberated Burma and all Japanese forces on the peninsula were forced to retreat through Thailand to avoid being cut off and destroyed.
General Eerbeek was furious at again being denied a glorious victory, something he didn’t hesitate to make clear to sir Berenschot. His disdain for Indians was far from unique. The general Indonesian soldier shared his sentiment, seeing the IIA as a glorified gang of thugs whose only goal was to plunder and rape their way across Asia.
The hatred was mutual and Indian soldiers would often raid RIA stockpiles whenever the two armies came in close contact with each other.
The problems did not end there, rather than continue its campaign across Indochina the IIA was to march through China to support the beleaguered Chinese forces in their war against the Japanese (with specific orders to focus on helping the Kuomintang, the communists could all get killed for what Recife cared).
This did not improve the relationship between China and the DC, especially as the Indians continued pillaging and raping their way across what was supposed to be their “ally”. To defend their families the communists began attacking IIA troops wherever they were encountered, leading to the war turning into a vicious free-for-all war that would go to permanently sour relationships between the two countries
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