A Young Woman's Political Record 47 (Patreon)

AN: First chapter of the week, per my patreon commitment. Second chapter will continue last week's original fic.

ooOoo

April 2, 1941

With the rapid capitulation of the Francois Republic, a great deal of Germanian troops who had been slated to go to the Western Front were suddenly without an enemy to fight. The resulting strategic freedom offered us a unique opportunity to reorient our strategic posture in the middle of a war. Well, that was a polite way of saying that we were in a situation that wasn't part of our strategic plans. Usually, that kind of thing happened when an army completely went to pieces. In our case, not even the most optimistic pre-war planning had considered the scenario in which we found ourselves.

I had a meeting scheduled with the leaders of OZEV for the end of the week. As I didn't want to look like some kind of amateur running a war by the seat of her pants, I needed to determine at least a rough idea of our feasible strategic choices. Accordingly, I had commandeered the first bit of free time that General Lergen had available and invited myself to his office.

The man was as impeccably dressed as always, but the deep bags under his eyes told the story of the late nights he had been putting in. Also, his usually tidy office looked like it had been struck by some sort of paperwork tornado. Reports covered with handwritten notes were scattered on top of a map that was criss-crossed with scribbled notations. I even saw one cover sheet marked with a telltale ring of coffee. 

The fact that General Lergen had allowed even the hint of food-related waste to remain in his office long enough for me to see it suggested that he was pretty close to the edge. In all probability, it was only his inherent love for war that was keeping him going.

"Chancellor," he said, reluctantly dragging his eyes away from the report he was reading as I entered the room.

I nodded in greeting as I took a seat in the chair before his desk. The press of events was naturally cutting formalities to the bone.

"General," I said. "We need to discuss where to take the war from here."

"There were some lessons learned from the fighting with the Francois," he said, before leaning across his desk to fish a small packet out of a pile of papers that didn't look much different from any of the others.

"Oh?" I asked. While I had intended to get straight to the question of our force disposition, I trusted General Lergen not to waste my time. Besides which, this might be an opportunity to jar loose some tidbit of future knowledge that I had neglected to put to work.

"Reviewing the recordings of the rocket artillery our mages used to delay the initial advance," he said, "while the rockets themselves weren't very accurate, the proximity fuses were devastating."

The ability of mages to take video recordings itself was an enormous advantage over the technology of this era in my previous world. Rather than simply relying on infantry grunts to report back the effectiveness of weapons and tactics on the front line, higher officers could watch what had happened for themselves. Here, instead of having to interpret some eye witness's idea of how useful the rocket had been, the video could be used to make an objective judgment.

The basic idea that a proximity fuse would be useful in an artillery role was obvious enough, though having a practical demonstration helped drive home the urgency. Unfortunately, the obstacle we faced was more technical than anything else.

"Has research and development come up with a fuse that will work in an artillery shell?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "though they have reduced the number of vacuum tubes used in the rocket fuses."

Not the best news, but not the worst, either. We were going to be making an awful lot of those fuses, so any increase in efficiency would pay off greatly.

Actually, while the ideal situation would have been a fuse that worked with our existing artillery guns, it wasn't strictly necessary. We had already used proximity fuses in an artillery role, after all. We just had to be more efficient about it. Fortunately, I had no qualms at stealing another idea from the commies.

"We could just make heavier use of rocket artillery," I said. "They should be lightweight enough to put multiple launch rails in the back of a truck."

If memory served, that kind of setup would allow for a one time saturation bombardment well in excess of a similarly heavy big gun. That was not to mention the effect of the proximity fuses. The downside would be the long time required to reload, but I generally held to the opinion that the most important factor in an artillery bombardment was the peak impact.

"I'll have our researchers look into it," he said, taking a note, then sighed. "This only reinforces the next point."

I raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

"We have been making too many Armored Personnel Carriers," he said. "The success of Romel's encirclement suggests that trucks are almost as good when it comes to strategic mobility."

I clicked my tongue. I should have caught that. I'd been too excited about the idea of putting our whole army on tracks. The APC took a lot more metal than a truck, though, and it wasn't much better when it came to movements that weren't under fire. When you looked at large scale strategic movements, most of them were unopposed. The logical response would be to build enough APCs to be used for tactical advantage while focusing most of our efforts on building up the truck fleet.

"Well," I said, "you can never have too many trucks."

Fortunately, it was still relatively early in the war. We were still ramping up our war production. It was unfortunate in that our divisions were still lighter on artillery than we would have preferred, but the fact that we could still adjust the production schedule based on new lessons learned was a real saving grace.

He nodded. "Although I shudder to think of our army requiring even more gasoline."

"This isn't the kind of war where we should pinch pennies," I said. "With the blockade gone, we can buy all the oil we want from America."

It hurt my heart every time I reviewed the enormous sums of money our army burned through just moving around. Not to mention the second order effects on the economy. All of that was cheap, though, if it was the price of keeping the Red Army from getting their hands on me.

"Unless the Allied Kingdom imposes a new blockade," he replied.

"If the Allied Kingdom declares war on us," I said, "having too many trucks will be the least of our problems."

Well, my biggest problem would be figuring out how to surrender while preserving my and Visha's personal safety, both from enemy forces and from General Lergen's inevitable coup. I could only hope that it wouldn't come to that.

He replied with a glum nod. Not knowing my plans, he was probably concerned over the prospect of war with an enemy that could hide behind the protection of their navy indefinitely.

It was bad enough that we were up against the Russy Federation without any other heavy hitter in our corner. I shook my head. I needed to focus on what to do about the existing dire situation, instead of sitting around worrying about how things could get even worse.

"Setting aside our future production plans," I said. "I also need to know what our army is prepared for right now."

He nodded, before pulling yet another report out of the pile. This one at least looked like it was brief.

"We have almost finished taking possession of the Francois Republic's fortifications and heavy weaponry," he said. "By the end of the week, we will be able to remove the bulk of the army from their territory without risking a renewed invasion."

Ordinarily, I would have said that he was casting the situation in a paranoid light. Considering that the Francois Republic had used its last armistice to set themselves up to continue the war, though, I could only applaud his caution. I hadn't gotten the impression that the Franks had the heart to jump back into the ring, but I didn't want to bet my life on it.

"So," I asked, "what should we do with those troops?"

General Lergen pushed up his glasses and turned to contemplate a map hanging on his wall. This one had been put behind a pane of glass that had then been covered with scribbles that looked like our estimates of the enemy's troop positions. After a moment he nodded to himself and turned back to me.

"Consistent with our strategy of defeating our enemies in detail," he said, "we can attack either Ildoa or Yugoslavia."

That much I had figured out for myself. It was a relief to find that General Lergen and I were on the same page. I decided to draw him out a bit to make sure that we were working off of similar reasoning.

"Not the Russy Federation?"

"That would hardly be a fight against a small part of the enemy forces," he replied. "Also, an invasion of the Federation would benefit greatly from more time to mechanize our forces."

It was a relief to confirm that the man in charge of our armed forces wouldn't fall for any nonsense about the Russy Federation being a house of cards. Give the commies credit, if they were good for one thing, it was forcing their country to fight to the bitter end. President de Lugo had surrendered in part because if he didn't he had to worry about being shot by a mob in Parisee. In Moskva, it was the mobs who had to worry about being shot by the NKVD if they spread defeatist sentiments.

"Ildoa or Yugoslavia, then," I asked. "Not both?"

Strictly by the numbers, our army outclassed both countries put together. It would have been nice to clear them both off the board at the same time, leaving us free to take the war to the Red Army.

"Not if we want to maintain a reserve against a Russy offensive," he said. "It depends on how much we trust OZEV to hold the line in the east."

When he put it like that, I could feel a chill running down my spine. Sure, the direct path to our territory was blocked by the Pules, who were more or less up to our standards. But the oil coming from Dacia was vital to our war effort. The cost of the war was already exorbitant. Massively increasing the volume of oil we imported would make it downright unsustainable. Was I willing to bet the survival of the whole war effort on Dacia's ability to stop the enemy cold?

Dacia had been taught a harsh lesson in warfare after their attempt to invade the Empire. They had also spent a great deal of money bringing their military up to a modern standard. Even so, it was hard to get the image of those musket squares blithely marching across the border out of my mind.

So we'd have to prioritize. "Hmm. The only action so far has been in Ildoa and Croatia?"

"Ildoa's attacks have been stopped at the Isonzo river," he said, "while Croatia has lost control of the city of Knin. It's possible that the Dalmatian coast could be cut off."

A casual look at the map suggested that Yugoslavia was the more pressing concern. It's territory created annoying salients, not to mention the threat of opening a second front on Dacia's southern border. Knocking them out of the war would mean that, setting aside the Russy Federation, all we would have to do was defend the Alpine passes and the harsh terrain of Carinthia.

On the other hand, Ildoa was a much richer and more populous country. It was weakened now by the lingering wounds of the civil war, but Muzzioli's grip on the country would only grow more secure as time passed. If we left them alone for long enough to get their act together, they could pose more of a threat than the Yugoslavians ever would.

Well, I could punt the issue down the road for now.

"Start arranging the army for both invasions," I said. "We'll decide which group to pull back and hold in reserve after the OZEV conference."

"Very well," he said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued. "Will the goal of these invasions be to impose unconditional surrender?"

It was a tricky question. Setting our sights too high could see the war drag on, getting soldiers killed to no real point. Setting our sights too low might mean another war would spring up as soon as we showed weakness. Of course, after the chewing out I had given our top military brass for going into the last war without a plan, it was a perfectly fair question as well.

Luckily, I could also delay this decision until I had a group of people ready to share the blame.

"Ideally, yes," I said. "I want to speak with the other OZEV members before deciding what our minimum acceptable goals will be."

He nodded. "I was surprised that the Francois Republic received such favorable terms."

Considering General Lergen's tremendous respect for procedure and authority, that was the closest he would ever come to voicing a complaint. I could understand why he was frustrated. After the loss of the last war, he had been champing at the bit to get his revenge on the Francois Republic. I had avoided war with them time after time, then when Parisee was finally at our feet, I had let them off the hook. Two weeks of fighting had just begun to whet his appetite for vengeance, then a negotiated surrender had ended the war almost before it had begun.

I was lucky that I had the Russy Federation around to serve as an outlet for General Lergen's frustration. And, to be fair, he was usually able to channel his bloodlust through the rational calculations of war. I shouldn't just assume that he wouldn't understand my reasoning.

"Well, I couldn't be too rough on them with the Allied Kingdom lurking behind them," I said. "Besides, this is a more efficient use of human resources in the long run."

He gave me a questioning look. A bold claim like that needed further explanation.

"If we really put the screws to them, we'd have needed to heavily garrison the whole country just to stomp out resistance," I said. "Not to mention tying down our soldiers to force them to work for us. And the inevitable losses due to sabotage or just plain shoddy work."

While moralists might disagree, the simple fact was that slavery had disappeared from the earth because it was less efficient than the capitalist system. Otherwise, some country or other would have stuck with it and dominated their freedom-loving neighbors. Moving from a market economy to an economy built on theft and slave labor would mean a big step back in production levels.

The difference became even more stark when you considered the likelihood of foreign intervention. Not to mention the public relations nightmare.

"Now, thanks to the wonder of capitalistic exchange, those same Frankish workers will man those same factories, sell us the output, and thank us for the business. They'll even compete for the privilege," I continued, smiling at the thought. "A manager who smells a profit will work a lot harder than a man with a gun to his head. In total, it probably won't even cost us more than the gold we stole from them."

"The free market is a machine that supports our war effort," General Lergen said, sounding as though he was having a bit of trouble wrapping his head around the idea. "It doesn't need our soldiers to do a thing to keep it running."

"Exactly," I replied, clasping my hands together. "The best part comes later, though. Once their prosperity depends on doing business with us, their government will be forced to behave reasonably."

I couldn't blame General Lergen for focusing on the military benefits. It was his job, after all. To me, though, the most important reward for embracing the capitalist was the possibility of bringing peace and prosperity to all corners of the globe thanks to a web of voluntary exchange.

ooOoo

Later, in the afternoon, I had to engage in that most dreaded event, the pre-meeting meeting. The company was pleasant, at least, as only Elya, Visha, and myself were in attendance. The topic was decidedly unpleasant. I'd been worried about the Russy military machine before, but I had always taken some comfort in the advantage we held thanks to their disdain for aerial mages. Learning that they had a secret force of aerial mages using dual core orbs, though, had shattered that delusion. Our OZEV allies might actually be at a magical disadvantage on top of all of our other problems.

I accepted my mug of early afternoon coffee from Visha with a smile. At least my personal life was going well.

Back when I worked in HR, my co-workers had been all to eager to bellyache about romantic cohabitation. To hear them tell it, life could be divided clearly into the times before and after their significant other had moved in, with most of the fun moments sitting in the before category. Like all self-pitying gossip, their words had proven to be highly exaggerated if not outright lies. My own day to day lifestyle had hardly changed now that Visha and I were together.

The nights had improved, of course.

Elya brought my attention back to the matter at hand. "I can't apologize enough for my oversight."

"Don't worry about that," I said. "What do we know, now?"

While I appreciated her sense of responsibility, I had long known that it was going to be an uphill battle to get information out of a communist police state. It was pointless to try to assign blame, now. The only thing to do was to take Koenig's discovery as a lucky break and try to build off of it.

"The orb the Russy Federation is using is almost identical to the Type 97," Elya replied. "Their mages were able to use a dual core orb competently, but lacked the reflexes you would expect from combat veterans."

"They haven't sent their mages to war yet, then," I said.

That was a relief. A big group of veteran dual core mages, on top of everything else the Russy Federation could bring to bear, might just let them steamroll right past the Pullskan defense line. If their mage program wasn't fully combat ready, then we had some time to come up with countermeasures.

"Not just that, they haven't used magic anywhere close to the border," Elya said. "The Degurechaff line has comprehensive magic detection built in out of an abundance of caution. The other countries bordering the Federation have installed magic detectors as well, though not to the same extent. None of them have ever detected any magic usage whatsoever."

"Have they just been waiting for the right moment to throw their mages onto the battlefield?" I asked.

Tossing a bunch of green mages into the thick of the fighting was one way to get veteran mages. It made for a lot of dead mages, too, but the Russy Federation didn't seem like they would be fussy about that kind of thing.

"Traditionally, the NKVD has focused on internal security. The mobility alone of an aerial mage would be valuable, considering the Federation's size and infrastructure," Elya said. "They might be suited for infiltration and sabotage, but I wouldn't expect them to be deployed as front line combatants."

I wasn't exactly thrilled to be facing magical communist spies, but it could be worse. While it was unfortunate for any poor souls who might want to overthrow the commie bastards, I'd count us lucky if the only use the Russy Federation got out of its mages was to make itself more efficient at repressing the populace.

"That's assuming that the army doesn't have a corps of new socialist mages that we haven't discovered."

Elya grimaced. "Yes."

The real problem with running across a nasty surprise like this was that you started to wonder what sort of nasty surprises were still out there waiting to be discovered. There was only one real way to find out things like that for sure, though. Bitter experience. That was how the Empire had discovered that the Francois Republic considered the conquest of Legadonia to be unacceptable. And that the Allied Kingdom had considered the conquest of the Republic to be unacceptable. At least the OZEV nations would be sharing the load with us this time.

"Well, keep doing your best," I said. "Do we know how they got their hands on the Type 97?"

"Most likely the Americans," she said.

I nodded. I remembered enough of my world's history to know that the Americans ought to be riddled with commie subversives. I wouldn't have thought that they would let high level military secrets slip out of their grasp so easily. Now that I knew the secret had slipped, though, I thought it more likely to have been the Americans who screwed up. 

I wanted to have more than just my gut feeling backing me up before my meeting with the American ambassador, though. I gestured for Elya to continue.

"The damage to the orb makes it hard to say for sure, but it appears to have some of the modifications that were made before we exported the design," Elya said. "Also, the first pass of my internal investigation didn't turn up any obvious suspects. We'll continue to investigate, of course."

"Of course," I said, then sighed. "What a mess."

All my efforts to cozy up to the Americans would become much more complicated now that I had to worry that any secret I shared would find its way to the Federation. Really, the only thing more frustrating than being a friend to America was being their enemy.

"It might not be that bad," Visha said. "The communists would only give such powerful orbs to their die hard fanatics."

That was a fair point. Germania was a democracy with a meritocratic tradition. We could give computation orbs to soldiers who had proven themselves competent and trust that they would live up to our national ideals. The commies would have to put a lot more weight on factors like political reliability, inevitably hamstringing their military development.

"Yes, and their first introduction to combat will be costly," I said. "Still, the thought of the Federation eventually building up a competent mage force is worrying."

A nation the size of the Russy Federation could afford to screw up and waste a lot of human resources in a way that a smaller nation like ours couldn't match. The growing pains would hurt, but it wouldn't be fatal to their cause the way it would have been to ours.

"We should still have an advantage with our mages," Visha said. "Even if it isn't as much."

"That's true," I replied, "I guess it was too much to hope that our enemies would completely neglect such an effective weapon."

Besides the gap in training standards, we were after all using the Type 99 while they were stuck with their stolen Type 97s. I knew from the history books that trying to beat the Red Army with quality over quantity was a chancy strategy. Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a choice.

ooOoo

Soon after our little meeting broke up, I welcomed Mr. Johnson into my office for what I expected to be the last time. His replacement had recently been approved by the Unified States Senate and was already en route to Berun.

"Ambassador," I said, "looking forward to leaving this war-torn continent?"

"It'll be nice to see home again," he replied. "Though I might stick around for a while to help the new fella get settled in. Maybe just take the chance to tour the city while I'm off the clock."

He seemed a bit wistful as he looked around the room. I suppressed a frown. I had hoped to rely on his professionalism and sense of patriotism. Well, even if he had adopted the attitude of a short-timer who had given his two weeks' notice, the news I was giving him should snap him out of it.

"I have a message I'd like you to pass along to the President," I said. "In strictest secrecy."

He perked up at that news. "What's that?"

"The Russy Federation has dual core orbs," I said. "As far as we can tell, they came from America."

He rocked back as if I had just physically attacked him. I relaxed, just a little. At least the worst case scenario of the Americans selling the technology to the communists didn't look like it had come to pass. The last thing I needed was America going red.

It didn't take him long to recover. "We wouldn't give those commies the time of day, let alone-"

"I know," I said, holding up a hand to silence him. "But I also know that you haven't been quite as thorough as we have in weeding out communist infiltrators."

He scratched his chin for a moment, lost in thought, then fixed me with a serious look. "You're sure about this?"

"I'm sure they have the orbs," I said. "I'm fairly certain they stole the plans from you."

In order to confirm my suspicions, I would need to get Elya's girls permission to rifle through the records of the Unified States' military. I wasn't going to insult him by asking for that. It looked like I didn't have to. Mr. Johnson must have harbored his own suspicions about Russy spies, as he responded to my statement with a slow nod.

"Under the circumstances," I said. "I intend to begin sharing dual core technology with the other OZEV nations."

I had been keeping the detailed knowledge of dual core orbs close to our vest. In part, this was a courtesy to the Unified States. After they paid so much for the technology, they would have taken a dim view of any attempt to spread it around. I had also been leery of the balance of power between Germania and the other members of OZEV. However unlikely it might have seemed, I didn't want to wind up, for example, sharing dual core orb technology with Dacia only to have them break free and establish an independent arrangement with the Allied Kingdom.

With this latest revelation, the Unified States would have to have phenomenally thick skin to complain about anything I might choose to do with dual core orbs. As for my other worries, it was clearly time to put them aside. The communists had put aside their ideological purity in order to wield the power of magic. That in and of itself wasn't too unusual. Hypocrisy was an integral part of the functioning of the Russy Federation. They had also, though, put aside Secretary Jugashvili's very real concerns about creating a rival power block within the communist system. 

They were treating this war as a matter of survival. It was only fitting that I do the same.

ooOoo