Armistice at Aachen

Seven

While waiting for an answer from the governments he is in Aachen representing, Acting SACEUR is informed that the French are now taking part in a ceasefire too. This is an independent one, not co-ordinated with the European Five, but it is an end to French forces actively fighting the Soviets for the time being. When and where any armistice talks between the French and WarPac are going to happen, the information he receives didn’t specify that. However, it happens today while he is here at the Soviet field headquarters. The Americans, the Brits & others are still undertaking war operations and are once more screaming ‘betrayal’. Those countries, his nation’s former allies, show no sign of giving in, he is told… yet neither did the French a few hours ago either.

Spirits lifted, Acting SACEUR believes that the chance of his country ending up a nuclear wasteland are now seriously reduced. The feared French threat of them deciding to make attacks on the Soviets in West Germany using nukes is gone now that politics had seemingly won the day. Of course, he would have preferred that French conventional forces – alongside those of his nation and a NATO which hadn’t fallen apart – would have beaten the Soviets back across the Inner-German Border. That isn’t to be though. Maybe Paris might throw his nation under the proverbial bus in diplomatic discussions to save themselves… but that is better that their Pluton missiles destroying Soviet tank columns going over the Rhine. This news comes from Bruges where he is still in contact with but not where his government (and those of Belgium and Luxembourg) are anymore. Still not told their new location for while they make their decision on the Soviet armistice terms, Acting SACEUR remains waiting on them to do that. He considers more about the French stopping fighting when it comes to that final condition of the terms for an armistice. There will be no need to fight the French as former allies and that country is dropping out of the war, it will fatally damage the ability of the Americans and British to carry on as well. Things are still bad but not as terrible as they were a few hours ago.

Twenty-five minutes short of the extended Soviet deadline, he is told that a decision has been made by his European masters. The Danes aren’t on board but his West Germany and the three nations in the Low Countries are: they were the European Four now it seems. Regardless of that refusal from the Danes, good news comes from the politicians that would allow all the killing to finish. They are willing to accept the terms presented for an armistice to be agreed at Aachen. On all but the last point, that of forcing former allies off their soil, there is acceptance. With regard to them ‘defending their sovereignty’, as C-in-C West put it for WarPac forces, the politicians present a counter-offer. They will only do so after ninety-six hours, not the forty-eight as the Soviets want. It is explained that this extra time will give former allies time to consider the reality of fighting on unsupported and therefore allow them to see sense and withdraw. Acting SACEUR is instructed to put this to C-in-C West with the hope that his own political masters will be flexible in their understanding.

He takes a moment before he leaves his parked helicopter where the radio is. There are East German and Soviet soldiers here on West German soil and across a large chunk of his nation. They, and the KGB & Stasi who’ve followed them, have committed all sorts of unimaginable terrors upon the West German people as well as those within neighbouring countries too. There will be horrors to come under occupation for those identified as enemies of what surely will be a new order. His country will be likely stripped of true democracy and have to suffer under a dictatorship bent to the will of Moscow. There will no longer be membership of the European Economic Community and instead a subservient role under COMECON. Demands for war reparations will come and there will be demilitarisation so that West Germany will not be able to defend itself again. A grey cloud will descend upon West Germany and Western Europe as a whole where freedom will be curtailed.

But…

…that is a price willing to paid for not dying in nuclear fire and bringing the complete end of the lives of tens of, maybe hundreds of, millions of people. The war is lost and this will be the price of peace. He is willing to see it happen and the politicians agree. Better red than dead.

Acting SACEUR goes back to that command track to do as he must and sign the armistice imposed by the Soviet victors of this short conflict.

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Nine

Seventeen minutes after departing from Aachen, both West German helicopters were shot down. They were on the edge of WarPac-controlled territory inside Belgium and heading towards the deep interior of the country where Acting SACEUR had earlier left his mobile headquarters. Firing from above and some distance away, a French pilot flying a Mirage F1C light fighter, in the service of the Armée de l'Air, made the attack using a pair of R550 Magic air-to-air missiles. He didn’t see his targets but didn’t need to. Acquired on radar with the identification saying that they were using NATO transponders, the pilot believed that they were Soviet helicopters doing what had been seen throughout the war in making use of stolen IFF codes to escape attack. They were enemy aircraft, he believed, and his two kills of hostile helicopters coming towards friendly lines was justified according to his rules of engagement. Onwards he flew afterwards, celebrating his third & fourth kills of the war as he sought to make himself an ace further east tonight.

Acting SACEUR was in the lead helicopter. The UH-1D was struck in the rear fuselage despite last-minute evasive manoeuvres. He was killed in the warhead blast, long before the wreckage would hit the ground near a party of East German motor rifle troops close to the Belgian village of Liers. The second helicopter, the one carrying those WarPac staff back to Acting SACEUR’s headquarters, took less immediate damage though needed to land urgently due to the missile impact. A crash occurred though despite the pilot’s best efforts and there was a resulting fiery explosion. The wreckage landed inside Liers itself, killing a trio of female civilians who’d only in the past few hours survived the unwanted attention of the occupiers. One of the Luftwaffe aircrew managed to crawl away from this second wreck, just about alive. He was the only survivor of twelve aboard the two downed aircraft.

The French Armed Forces – Armée de l'Air included – were supposed to be taking part in a ceasefire arranged with the Soviets a few hours ago leading to armistice talks of their own. Well… that was a lie, one told to foes and former friends alike. In secret co-operation with the American President and the Prime Ministers of Britain & Canada, the French President had played a little game of pretence. Nothing formal had been agreed with the enemy when it came to a cessation of hostilities. There had been false communications between France and its allies giving the impression of a sudden, irreversible split in similar fashion to what had so very recently happened with the European Five. The trick brought NATO (it still existed as far as these countries and others were concerned) a few hours of grace. That all came to a sudden end just ahead of 2000 hours local time. The Americans, the British and others had been slowing down their underway operations to help with the lie while the French had made out they were going to just roll over and play dead while Moscow gobbled up West Europe and put the victorious Soviet Army on their border. That wasn’t happening, not while France could still fight.

Strength was gathered, especially air power, and a fierce counterattack was made. A small part of this involved that French fighter (along with the pilot’s wingman) flying near Liege tonight. There were hundreds of jets in the sky, shooting down anything that was flying and deemed hostile. Only an accident it was that Acting SACEUR was killed. It was nothing more than thet. What wasn’t an accident was the sudden furry of diplomatic threats unleashed against the European Five by the allies which they had just abandoned. The smaller four were given more stern warnings of what would come their way than the West Germans were. Still, those politicians who formed the surviving government of the Federal Republic were told like their Belgian, Danish, Dutch & Luxembourgish allies that if they chose to fight against NATO forces, then they would be attacked. If they were out of this war, such was the case. Their territory was what NATO was going to defend though. They could change their mind if they wish, and return to the fight, but they would be engaged if they stood in the way. There had been much discussion of the wording over these threats between the NATO leaders and there was still much anger in them at what had happened earlier in the day. Perhaps they could have phrased things better yet they did want to shock, to frighten in fact, former allies into returning to the war or standing aside.

The war continued. The armistice signed at Aachen had happened but West Germany, the Low Countries and Denmark remained battlefields. All night the NATO offensive went on, in the air especially. There were armoured counterattacks made too though with not as much strength behind them due to the Americans still in the midst of a contested REFORGER. The French Army manged to get a column of tanks to Liege though when aided by air power of their own and also the RAF too. As the following morning approached, NATO looked in a far better shape than they did the day before with the Soviets suddenly on the back foot. It wasn’t a fatal blow struck and there was still the possibility of them winning the war on the battlefield of Western Europe. WarPac still had much territory held and great strength. However, all that aside, World War Three went nuclear the next morning. On May 8th, due to further use of nuclear weapons at sea once more – that had occurred on the war’s first day – this war was no longer to be all about tanks, jets and riflemen. It was all about splitting atoms now.

In a wild escalation, nukes at sea suddenly became nukes over land. The use of tactical weapons turned to strategic weapons soon enough. Where first military formations were targeted, it wasn’t long until it was cities in the firing line. A nuclear holocaust it was, all with those who’d tried to stop that with their battlefield armistice failing to do anything about it. What had happened at Aachen was unimportant when so much of the world was on fire.


The End

This reminds me a little of Protect and Survive, James G...

Lots of many bangs.
That was what I was going for, yes.




Thank you: that was why I was going for.


No one would want this. It what seeking an armistice was all trying to avoid... and it failed.