Armistice at Aachen

One

On Sunday May 4th, 1986, tensions between the East and the West boiled over into a conflict of unimaginable proportions. World War Three it was, with all the attendant horrors of that much feared conflict. The battlefields were global and, in the end, it ‘went nuclear’. Before the final bloodlust was had by each side where cities were targeted, four days into the conflict there was a cessation of the fighting agreed on the principle battlefield. The divided Germanies hadn’t been the spark which set the world alight – that was in the Middle East; where else? – but in was here, on West German soil, where so much of the focus of the war was located.

Soviet-led WarPac forces began attacking before dawn that Sunday. NATO was caught with its pants down in Europe. Stunning successes were had by the attackers as they overran much of West Germany. Troops from NATO countries based in the country were caught in their barracks asleep when the shooting started. Targeted there and before they could get into the field to organise a defence, Moscow’s war machine swept over them. Communications difficulties and enemy action destroyed any hope of resistance being mounted in an effective way across the country and also up in neighbouring Denmark too. Mass columns of enemy tanks rolling forward didn’t cripple the defences. Instead, it was the work of raiders, paratroopers and selected air-&-missile targeting of weak points in NATO’s ability to fight which saw the Rhine crossed in strength late on the Tuesday and approaches made into the Low Countries the next day. Most of the big West German cities and urban areas – Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and the Ruhr – were bypassed by the attackers. NATO units were cut off all over the place with some of them fighting heroic efforts despite everything while others were blasted to ruin like they were nothing.

West German mobilisation was too late and there were extensive attacks made against the American REFORGER effort to begin to pour reinforcements in. SACEUR was an early war casualty; joining national leaders from Britain, the Netherlands and West Germany in being targets of assassinations. False orders and disinformation worked a treat from the Soviet’s perspective along with civilian chaos which erupted across all of Western Europe. They didn’t have it all their own way though. In certain places, the offensive westwards went wrong in quite the spectacular fashion. NATO fought where it could in disrupting the attack and then there were the multiple own goals scored by WarPac forces. They fought each other in accidental ‘red-on-red’ clashes. Conscripts deserted, looted and rampaged throughout West Germany when they were struck by all that there was on offer. East German forces were heavily involved in the attack westwards alongside the Soviets though there had been the deliberate exclusion of the majority of military units from other WarPac countries. For the initial attack, few Czechoslovak & Polish units were involved apart from elite elements. There was a plan to have the majority of those second-rate forces move westwards afterwards as an occupation force but that never came to fruition due to outside events. Regardless, those supposedly elite troops from those two nations, East German regular forces and Soviet units too were all involved in the breakdown in discipline and mix-ups. Some of them fought just plain bad too. In addition, the roads of West Germany being crammed full of civilians fleeing the war hurt Soviet efforts just as much as it did those of NATO.

The steamroller went on though. Soviet tank columns raced to catch up with lead units far out ahead. If NATO had been ready, those who’d got over the Rhine so fast would have been massacred – if they had got there that is – because they were so few in number and without proper support. Alas, that wasn’t to be. Thousands of tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and all the other vehicles of the WarPac war machine poured onwards in the direction of the Low Countries. Still not properly mobilised, with civilian chaos all around them carrying on, NATO was still fighting on that fourth day. Soldiers were dying after being thrown into the fight against tanks with only rifles to hand. They kept on doing it too. It was politics which made when occurred at Aachen happen though. Late in the day, many hours after that small West Germany city had been taken without a shot and there were Soviet tanks already far away to the west, an end to active hostilities on the battlefield of Western Europe was arranged.

The armistice at Aachen would bring a supposed end to all of the death and destruction going on.

Three

There are Soviet tanks already deep inside Belgium. The Meuse between Maastricht (just over the border in the Netherlands where the same river is known as the Maas) and Liege has been forced this morning. Belgian reservists, joined by more from France, few of each force armed with any serious armour, were pounded overnight by massed Soviet artillery and crushed under the treads of T-64s & T-72s this morning. One enemy column is racing towards Brussels when the halt order from above comes. The commanding colonel, a Soviet Army tanker desperate to secure his place in history by taking the Belgian capital, is furious and nearly disregards the instruction to stop. There are KGB officers among his mobile headquarters staff though and so he obeys his orders… grudgingly. Elsewhere, while the war has taken invading forces deep into both Belgium and also the southern reaches of the Netherlands, there is still fighting back over in the Rhineland. This region of West Germany is where cut-off NATO forces are fighting like they are doing so all over the place while surrounded. East German motor rifle troops are inside the hilly Eifel region today when they are likewise told to halt. The Ardennes are ahead of here but there are meanwhile Americans and West Germans who carry on with the fight in the Eifel when the East Germans are told to halt. Whether those defenders have been contacted or nor, whether they have decided to ignore the ceasefire, is immaterial. East German soldiers here obey their orders to stop going forward and are only able to fire back in self-defence when attacked by an opponent taking advantage of this to manoeuvre all around the place. Just beyond them, deep inside the Eifel there are several Soviet commando teams. They’ve been here since the war started, causing chaos in the NATO rear and waiting to be relieved. This afternoon, many of them lose their lives with a rescue only a dozen miles away not being allowed to reach them.

Just a bit further eastwards, between the Rhine and the Belgian border is the River Ruh. It is no substantial waterway but its course sees the river a barrier which Soviet forces went over yesterday. The little towns of Duren and Julich were flattened in mass artillery & rocket attacks as part of that river crossing where the attackers made use of captured NATO equipment that they employed along their own to throw crossings over the Ruh. This area is deep in the rear now, away from the frontlines. It is the scene of fighting this afternoon just ahead of the ceasefire taking formal effect but when everything is meant to be slowing down ahead of that. NATO soldiers, those on stay-behind duties ordered to do this but also cut-off others seeking targets of opportunity, once again either ignoring orders or not receiving them, snipe at the invaders and also detonate hidden explosives. Soviet tanks and most of their riflemen have moved on to leave rear-area forces here. There are plenty of juicy targets to strike at. Moreover, in another one of those deadly ‘red-on-red’ clashes which have erupted throughout the war so far, a flight of three Soviet armed helicopters swoop into the area. They make an attack. Enemy equipment is identified and so they open fire with gun-pods and rockets. There is friendly equipment there and their countrymen too. Ignoring all of that, this is the Ruh not the Meuse! The navigation error of quite the magnitude – they are in the wrong country – is compounded by the aircrews ignoring orders to not do anything like this. The flight commander will be shot before the day is out and his subordinate aircrews (five of them) all demoted to privates and assigned to a penal unit on mine-clearing duties.

Also in the rear are various NATO facilities in the Rhineland and nearby held by Soviet forces which came across the Rhine yesterday before they hit the Ruh first and then the Meuse today. The NATO airbase at Geilenkirchen and the British-operated RAF Bruggen are in their hands. The big British Army base at Monchengladbach, the NATO command centre at Brunssum and the command bunker Castlegate near Linnich are held too. Then there is the West German capital, on the west back of the Rhine. East German commandos, joined afterwards by Soviet paratroopers airlifted in, took control of Bonn at the outset of war. They were trying to capture the West German leadership and it was during that that the nation’s chancellor was killed. NATO still believes it was an assassination, not the attempted capture that it was. Regardless of the failure to take him (but they got others) back to East Berlin for propaganda purposes, the presence in Bonn of invading troops distracted the West Germans for several days from the outset of war until the tank columns reached there. Troops which should have been sent elsewhere were redirected towards Bonn where they should have gone to the frontlines. Bonn is one of the Rhine bridgeheads for the Soviet Army now much further west… and thus somewhere which French nuclear weapons are currently zeroed-in upon.

The governments of West Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are those which are seeking an armistice. None of the leadership of each is in the best of state (the Dutch worse off than the others) but they all agree that they want out of this war which they have lost. There is no doubt of that defeat, despite what other allies are saying. The five countries are seeking to leave this conflict and thus their NATO allies too. The reasons are defeat on the battlefield and the looming threat of nuclear conflict. Chemicals have been used in the fighting already and there are reports that nuclear blasts have occurred at sea too. It cannot be long before their countries are blasted to nuclear ruin. The French aren’t the only ones on the cusp of taking the step to use the ultimate weapons of war: the Americans, the British and the Soviets are all ready to do so. Getting out before that happens, making sure that their countries aren’t left as nuclear wastelands, is the goal of these governments in sending their senior military commander to Aachen this afternoon. The Soviets have made the demand for this to be a military agreement and so that will be acceded to. In conversations with allies who they are about to walk away from – unpleasant discussions indeed full of angry words – the message convened from those seeking an armistice is ‘better red than dead’.

The thinking that they are about to save their nations. Others disagree, hence their willingness to keep on fighting.
Certainly the ceasefire then armistice will help NATO but will also aid WarPac forces too. It is a localised ceasefire too: in Western Europe and not everywhere.
France's position is still a great unknown to those involved.
The ultimate outcome of all of this, regardless of what they agree at Aachen, is mentioned in the first update!     

Five

The Soviet general makes it clear at the beginning of the meeting that his ‘guest’ is not here to talk of a permanent peace. That is a political matter to be discussed between governments. Any territorial changes, demands for financial compensation and issues surrounding geo-political affairs such as international organisations will be for those in suits to come to an agreement upon. The two of them here in uniform, the Commander of the Western TVD and Acting SACEUR, will settle military matters pertaining to the ongoing conflict raging in Western Europe. The former commands WarPac troops and the latter leads those soldiers in the service of (as he will call them) the European Five. In the back of the tracked command vehicle parked outside Aachen, the armistice terms are delivered from the victor to the defeated.

Acting SACEUR will ensure that all POWs from WarPac forces who have been captured are returned with haste. This includes any deserters or those who have defected in addition to those being held as spies & saboteurs: prisoners taken when not in uniform and thus not granted POW status. There is to be no reciprocity in this, not on a general level anyway. WarPac forces will turn over seriously injured captives back to the European Five but this will be of a yet unspecified number. Politicians will later discuss a return of European POWs. On the matter of those badly wounded, captives from WarPac forces held will be treated by European Five military & civilian elements in the occupation zones. A map is presented when it comes to areas where there will be an apparently temporary occupation west of the former Inner-German Border. It is an extensive area, stretching deep into West Germany, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands: tiny Luxembourg isn’t included. The length and particular details of this occupation will be up to politicians but the extent of this zone is non-negotiable. Military forces of the European Five will leave all portions of this occupation area and then withdraw further too, back away from its edges for ‘mutual security’. This is likewise to be done with haste and only once completed to WarPac satisfaction will there be a retrograde movement of WarPac forces whose military units have advanced beyond them. A list of current military sites within that occupation zone, those used by the forces of the European Five plus the NATO countries, is provided with those to be turned over first ahead of general occupation. In territory which will remain unoccupied, there are to be no military garrisons or right of use given to ‘outside forces’: other countries can no longer base their troops on the soil of the defeated countries represented here at Aachen by Acting SACEUR.

On the matter of the remnants of NATO as personified by the guest present here in Aachen, the European Five will disestablish all mutual military command organisations with speed. No joint military forces, headquarters or training between them will be allowed from thirty days hence and, before then, it will only be permitted to aid in the end of the fighting and fulfilling armistice terms. The armistice shall not cover final military dispositions nor strengths, but C-in-C West makes it clear that offensive weaponry of war will have to be destroyed or turned over to WarPac forces. Only equipment necessary for self-defence will be authorised: this will, naturally, not include any nuclear, chemical, biological nor radiological weapons. Components of the armed forces of the defeated nations serving outside of national territory – soldiers, aircraft, ships… everything and everyone – must return home. Military equipment and stores captured by the forces of the European Five from WarPac forces during the fighting will be returned and the burden of doing so will fall upon the defeated party in this conflict.

Finally, C-in-C West turns to the question of ‘former allies’. Those who remain fighting against WarPac forces on the soil of the European Five are to be formally instructed to leave. All support to them in any form, including medical assistance too, is to be cut off unless it be of the nature to facilitate their departure. There shall be a demand delivered that they depart with a deadline given of forty-eight hours. WarPac forces retain the right to engage them during that time should there be no indication that they will leave. If after this period there is no departure of those American, British, Canadian & French military units, then the European Five must defend their sovereignty in areas outside the occupation zones. They will have to fight to remove those elements, doing so under the direction of WarPac forces too at a theatre- & operational-level. No exceptions will be made on this matter.

Having brought with him to Aachen communications equipment, Acting SACEUR leaves the company of his ‘host’ and goes back to his helicopter. He makes contact with Bruges (where the governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and his own West Germany currently are) and informs them of the armistice terms set by the Soviets. The message is encoded yet he is in no doubt that it is being intercepted by the enemy seeing as he is surrounded by them and their electronic gear. C-in-C West said that he wanted an answer within four hours or the ceasefire would end and the fighting would recommence. He didn’t make mention of the fate of Acting SACEUR in such a situation… though he didn’t really need to, did he? Bruges is briefed on this all and they will have to talk to those in charge of the Danes and the Dutch wherever they were. Acting SACEUR doesn’t know for sure but he believes that the politicians, desperate as they are to end the conflict before it goes nuclear on their own soil, will agree to almost all of what the Soviets are demanding.

Almost everything but the last of those conditions insisted upon. Fighting former allies isn’t something he thinks they will sign up for. There has to be flexibility in the Soviet terms because that is just… unthinkable!

This is a terrible situation to be in. The terms are harsh and don't cover much at all. They aren't talking at Aachen about political implications and that will be far more important. Once the Euro5 are out of the fighting though, they'll be f**ked.
The last bit, turning on former allies, I got from what Moscow did to the Finns in 1944. Helsinki had longer to act though and wasn't in such a poor state as the Belgians, Danes, Dutch and West Germans are here.

Six

The message which comes back from Bruges is for an extension on the deadline imposed by the Soviets for an answer. Four hours – less now – is nowhere near long enough to make a decision. Five governments have to agree, all five of which have seen immense wartime disruption to their composition. The Danes and the Dutch aren’t at that Belgian city like those leaders of Belgium, Luxembourg & West Germany are: it is no easy feat to contact them and for everyone to agree. Time is needed, more time than the Soviets are giving. Upon informing his Soviet counterpart of this, Acting SACEUR (if such a role existed anymore) is told that there will be no extension. A delay wouldn’t be countenanced. If there is no agreement to the terms presented for an armistice in the time given, then the ceasefire will come to an immediate end and fighting will resume. Back on the radio the West German general soon is, telling those at the other end of the threat made. Contacting his political masters this second time isn’t something he is unable to do though. They’ve departed from Bruges and gone somewhere else. A mid-ranking official explains over the airwaves that for ‘safety reasons’, they are changing locations: as soon as possible, they will be in touch.

He has to go back and tell his ‘host’ this. Such a thing is no pleasant experience. The commander of all WarPac forces in Western Europe calls it a trick and repeats his warning that the offensive will continue. Making an educated guess, Acting SACEUR believes that those who were at Bruges have moved elsewhere fearing that once Soviet electronic warfare units are able to pinpoint their location using his radio calls out of here, they will be targeted ceasefire or not. He opts not to inform C-in-C West of this less it be taken as an accusation of intent and instead asks him to consider the need for a delay. It is a matter of almost half a dozen governments having to agree to something when they speak different languages and under wartime conditions. This is also no easy thing to agree on. Acting SACEUR is told to leave the command track after this comment and going into meet with his counterpart is one of the senior KGB men which his aide has identified as likely being here to exercise ‘political control’ over the Soviet Army. He’s called back in within five minutes. A two hour extension is given. Relieved, but still fearing it is no longer enough, Acting SACEUR goes to his helicopter – he’s sprinting around like a young officer again – to tell that to Bruges so they can pass the message on. Before he reached his UH-1D where the long-range radio transmitter is located, panic erupts at the Soviet field headquarters.

‘Air attack!’ The shout is made in Russian but Acting SACEUR doesn’t need the services of his translator to tell him what that call means. Everyone is taking shelter where they can and, under guard by Soviet paratroopers, he and his party do so too.

A quartet of F-4E Phantoms race towards a target outside Aachen. They come in low, skimming above the tree-tops and avoiding guns & missiles trying to shoot them down. These US Air Force aircraft are flying from an RAF base in Britain and need tanker support for their mission. Whereas the day before, they would have made use of facilities in the Low Countries, even West Germany away to the south where the Soviets have yet to occupy, today their aircrews cross unfriendly skies. There will be no divert for refuelling to a Continental location and only in the dire-most emergency will they land due to combat damage at a former friendly base less they be interned. It isn’t the site where armistice talks are taking place that they fly towards. Instead it is a civilian airstrip being used by WarPac aircraft to the east of the city where they make their attack. The Phantoms drop bombs and fire rockets against the enemy there in a lighting fast attack before they turn back for Britain. Soviet and Polish aircraft at Merzbrück are blown up, there are dozens upon dozens of casualties and massive disruption is caused to flight operations there. One Phantom wouldn’t make it back over the North Sea after being struck by an enemy long-range SAM. The aircrew will bail out over the Netherlands despite orders to do so over the water: possible capture is preferred over likely death in the North Sea.

Merzbrück is several miles away from the site where the armistice talks are being held. The explosions there are felt, heard and seen though. A real big fire gets going there with Acting SACEUR rightly suspecting that the attackers must have hit aviation fuel storage. Those American jets have just bombed his country, but he is pleased for them and their success. They are killing those who have invaded his nation and killed countless Germans. Of course... that doesn’t bode well for the future though. This war is still ongoing despite everything his government and those of the others who form the European Five are trying to achieve. It only increases the chances that soon enough this conflict he is here trying to end will see Germany bathed in nuclear fire. In addition, he also has to consider something else. The airfield at Merzbrück is an important target – he’s seen the intelligence reports before he came here about WarPac use of the place – but hardly the most-important. Jets from the air forces of the European Five are no longer flying combat operations and thus, while the Americans are bringing in many more from bases in their homeland, the removal of all that surviving air power from the countries he is representing will bring about a shortage. Did the Americans have the air power to spare to bomb a place like Merzbrück today? Have they done it deliberately so the attack could be seen from here by all those present?

He ponders these questions while he waits for a reply from his political masters on the harsh Soviet armistice terms. Acting SACEUR still expects a rejection from them on the matter of turning against former allies. He is waiting for them to make a counter-offer when C-in-C West has already told him that there is to be no negotiation.

Wait he does.