A Young Woman's Political Record 50 (Patreon)

AN: Back when I started this fic I never thought we'd get to the big five-oh. Thanks so much to everybody for your support!

ooOoo

April 28, 1941

Our strategic situation teetered on the edge of collapse, and it was all my fault. Despite all the times I had castigated the old general staff for catching victory disease, I had succumbed to peer pressure at the first opportunity and overextended our forces, creating a critical vulnerability. Even blaming peer pressure was letting myself off the hook, in all honesty. I'd seen a chance to tidy up the war with a pair of short, victorious campaigns, and I hadn't spent enough time thinking about how everything might go wrong.

Only the knowledge that the Allied Kingdom was finally moving against the Russy Federation kept me from fully giving in to despair. Even so, their ability to influence the war in eastern Europe was limited. We'd gotten into this mess ourselves, and we were going to have to dig ourselves out of it.

The most frustrating part was that our offensives had been going well before the Rus attacked. The Germanian forces in Ildoa had rampaged through the Po Valley, returning the northern half of the country to Falasca's control. They had been regrouping for a push south when the Russy Federation interrupted. Meanwhile, our forces in Yugoslavia had focused on the salients in the extreme north and extreme west of the country. They had succeeded in cutting them off and surrounding the enemy forces within, but even now they were still working to bring the resulting pockets fully under our control.

"What are our options?" I asked.

I was in an emergency meeting with Lergen, Visha, and Elya. Out of the entire government, these were the three people who I trusted the most to try to salvage the situation before us without playing any personal politics. I also liked to think that it was a collection of fairly capable military minds, although none of us were foolish enough to contradict General Lergen's judgment. 

I hoped he didn't hold my overly aggressive decisions against me. At the very least, in the current situation he wouldn't be able to complain of a shortage of enemy troops to kill.

The map in front of us painted a stark picture of the situation in Dacia. The best that could be said was that it was a disaster unfolding in slow motion. Russy troops attacking from the south had secured a crossing over the Danube river, then spread east and west, rolling up isolated defenders. All the while, they had been building up forces near the initial crossing, ready to make another big push forward. In the east, the Dacian line had been pushed back to the point that they were barely contesting control of the coast. 

It was only a matter of time before the eastern and southern Russy armies linked up, if they hadn't already. The only open question was whether they would spend any efforts attacking Dacian oil production or if they would instead drive straight for the capital.

"First," General Lergen said, "I've already ordered five battalions of aerial mages and every airplane that can be spared to transfer to the Dacian theater to help shore up the defense."

"Good," I said, nodding. In an emergency situation, I didn't want General Lergen waiting for my approval to make important decisions. Shifting our most mobile assets as soon as possible was the obvious choice. I wasn't sure how much difference they would make in the face of the Red Army's onslaught, but at least their transfer wasn't being held up to wait for the end of this meeting.

"Next," he said, "is the question of what to do with the rest of our forces. If we shift one army to Dacia, it should be enough to stabilize their defensive lines. If we commit both, then we can consider launching a counterattack."

"Are there any ripe targets for a counterattack?" I asked.

I was still extremely leery of pushing into Russy Federation territory. Especially since, as far as I knew, they were maintaining a surprisingly heavy level of troops all along the front. Some of them should be under-equipped recent conscripts, but it was hard for us to pick out the juicy targets among such an enormous enemy army.

"Not that we've identified yet," General Lergen said, "though coming to grips with the enemy ourselves should clarify matters."

Most of our reports were second hand. The Dacians were doing their best, but I knew we couldn't really expect completely objective and accurate observations when they were being pressed so hard in a fight for their lives.

"I apologize for our inability to penetrate the Russy Federation," Elya added. "We have been in contact with some partisans who claim that their regions are ripe for rebellion, but you have to take that kind of claim with a grain of salt."

"Well, we knew the Russy Federation would be a hard nut to crack," I said. "Those contacts could be useful eventually."

The Americans liked to say that they'd rather let a hundred guilty men go free rather than jail an innocent man. The communists turned that ideal on its head. It made it difficult to infiltrate any of our agents into any useful positions. I would have liked to have had better information about the activities of our most dangerous enemy, but I'd known better than to get my hopes up.

Elya had been spoiled with her success in Albion, and was still adjusting to the challenges presented by the Rus. Keeping tabs on our home grown communists was hardly a patch on the difficulty of trying to pry information out of a totalitarian state.

"If we could cut off their access to the Black Sea," General Lergen said, "then Yugoslavia as a whole could become an enormous pocket."

"Cut off... with air power?" I asked. We certainly weren't going to get into a naval battle on the Black Sea.

General Lergen nodded. "It's possible, based on our success against the Frankish fleet."

"Hmm," I said, "didn't they have to wait for the perfect weather before that attack? I'm not sure it would go so smoothly if we can't control the schedule."

The idea of corralling our enemy into a pocket that bordered the sea then trying to use air forces to cut off their escape, it was enough to send a chill down my spine. It was just asking to be Dunkirked. A failure that would be even more galling if it came at the hands of a nation with the paltry naval tradition of the Russy Federation.

It would at least be better than Brest, where the Empire had let the Franks escape without any attempt to cut them off whatsoever, but it still wasn't a situation that I wanted to pursue deliberately. A strategy that could be foiled by untimely fog wasn't a strategy that I wanted to make the linchpin of all my hopes.

"I'm inclined to send one army, for now," I said, "and consider shifting more troops over once we spot an opportunity."

"In that case," he said, "I'd recommend moving our army from Ildoa."

"Not Yugoslavia?" I asked. "Aren't they closer?"

"Practically speaking, it's not much of a difference when you take the quality of the transportation infrastructure into account," he replied. "More importantly, we can leave a small garrison behind in Ildoa and preserve our gains. Drawing down forces from Yugoslavia would be far more costly."

I nodded. Our progress in Ildoa had been halted by natural barriers, natural barriers that would obstruct any offensive by our enemies. What's more, the northern Ildoans were overwhelmingly in favor of Falasca. Our troops stationed in the area were hardly an occupying force. All in all, they were far more likely to be pressed into service to stop Muzzioli's deserters who had turned to banditry than they were to need to suppress any kind of true indigenous rebellion.

One dirty little detail that had come to light recently was that Muzzioli's repeated attacks against Carinthia had been spearheaded by northern conscripts. The good news was that many Ildoan prisoners had been eager to sign up with the Free Ildoan army. The bad news was that Muzzioli's own power base hadn't been as badly damaged by the fighting so far as the numbers would suggest.

The situation in Yugoslavia was not nearly so stable. If we were to shift our troops out of Yugoslavia and send them to Dacia, forget clearing out the pockets, we'd be lucky to contain the ensuing attempts by the enemy to force a breakout. We'd save ourselves a lot of trouble in the long run by thoroughly defeating the enemy in the field while we had the chance.

"Also, the natural follow up once we've gained control of the western and northern salients of Yugoslavia would be to continue east," General Lergen said. "Even threatening to open up another front will prevent the Rus from exerting their full strength against Dacia."

"Very well," I said. "We shall reinforce Dacia with the army that has served so well in Ildoa. The Free Ildoans could use the time to get themselves sorted out, anyway."

It would have been nice to remove Ildoa from the war entirely. There were advantages, though, to having the Free Ildoans do the heavy lifting in kicking Muzzioli off the world stage. They would be able to hold their heads high in the post-war world, while we would be spared the casualties associated with even a successful campaign. I was much happier to spend money arming our allies instead of spending lives doing their work for them.

We were still in the early days of the war. None of the combatants were yet on a full war footing. Our army would be growing in the coming months, employing more men and more heavy machinery. Of course, the Russy Federation would be ramping up their production as well. 

The immediate problem was to avoid being overrun by the communist swarm. The longer term challenge was to make sure that their economy would crack first. Keeping up with wartime needs, not to mention researching new technologies, was the kind of thing that could bankrupt the richest nation.

New technology. That reminded me. "Does Dacia make systematic use of our radio wave reconnaissance devices?"

"Systematic? No," General Lergen replied, shaking his head. "They have a few positioned to cover their eastern front."

I clicked my tongue in disappointment. One area where magic had really helped with the adoption of new technology was that it had forced the development of air traffic control by the army very early on. Adapting the idea from using magic detectors to keep track of mages to using radar sets to keep track of airplanes had required some work, but not nearly as much as it would have taken to build the concept from scratch. The ability to keep track of what was going on in the sky was vital to modern warfare.

Of course, it was only natural that Dacia would lag behind. They hadn't even had a mage corps during the last war. Their aerial mages were even now getting their initial baptism under fire. We'd opened up our catalog of technology for them to buy, but that didn't necessarily mean that they would make wise purchases or use them well. We'd tried to advise them, but there was only so much we could do. I would have liked to wait for the institutional knowledge of OZEV to percolate naturally across national borders, but this was an emergency.

"Make sure our armies show up with enough devices to cover the south," I said. "The Rus will be doing everything they can to cut off the flow of oil to OZEV forces. For that matter, I wouldn't put it past those barbarians to start bombing the Dacian capital."

Militarily speaking, unguided bombing wasn't particularly effective for anything but creating random mayhem. Arguably, we'd get more use out of the propaganda we could generate from poignant photos than the enemy would get out of any terror they inspired. Even so, I wanted to get started as soon as possible on the project of sweeping the commies from the skies.

ooOoo

April 28, 1941

While our military situation was more precarious than it had been in a long time, the strategic picture was looking up. The Russy offensive pouring into Legadonia had been the last straw that finally dragged the Allied Kingdom into the fight.

With the Albish entry to the war, I was certain that the Russy Federation was going to lose. I just wasn't sure if that meant that Germania would win. Or, more broadly, to what extent OZEV would participate in the eventual victory.

The Allied Kingdom could draw on a deep well of resources that was effectively out of reach of the Russy Federation, not to mention that its home territory enjoyed the protection of the Albish Channel. It also enjoyed an implicit guarantee of safety from the Unified States. In the end, they'd be able to wear down the commies. That would be small comfort, though, if Germania were to be occupied for years in the meantime and only spring back into existence as an Albish or American client state after the war.

I expected that we'd be on our own on the eastern front for some time. At the very least, though, the Allied Kingdom would help keep the commies tied up in Legadonia. I was cautiously optimistic as I awaited my meeting with Mr. Lloyd, the Albish ambassador, eager to do everything that I could to help the Allied Kingdom and Russy Federation come to grips with each other.

I greeted him with a smile as he entered my office. "Mr. Lloyd! It's wonderful to have you climb down off the fence and join us in the good fight."

"Yes, quite," he said, before pausing to take a sip of the tea I'd had prepared in advance. "I hope that we are able to coordinate our efforts in order to bring matters to an acceptable conclusion."

I'd been steeped in diplomatic niceties for long enough that this level of jargon hardly fazed me any longer. "To begin with, you can slap a blockade on Ildoa and get them out of the war in a month."

Ildoa was heavily dependent on maritime trade. Even more so for Muzzioli's Ildoa now that he had lost control of the northern half of the country. This had cost him most of his industrial base and had also cut off his ability to trade with neutral countries by land. Cutting off their access to civilian shipping would cripple them. Falasca would hardly even need to launch an offensive across the Arno river himself. He could just wait for Muzzioli to open up surrender talks.

"Ah, well," Mr. lloyd said, setting down his teacup, "I'm afraid we're not yet in a state of war with Ildoa."

I was so startled by his declaration that I allowed my true thoughts to shine through. "Eh?"

Even as we spoke, Albish troops were marching through Legadonia to do battle with the Russy horde. The Allied Kingdom had sent a heartfelt declaration of war. Their actions lulled me into putting down my usual paranoia. I had actually thought for a moment that they were done with hair-splitting half-measures. How foolish.

"Our government made a commitment to protect the territorial integrity of the Legadonia Entente, which the Russy Federation has quite thoroughly violated," Mr. Lloyd said. "Ildoa, though, has not made any hostile moves directed at Legadonia."

"Ildoa is a military ally of the Russy Federation," I said. "They started this whole damn war."

I wasn't sure if he genuinely believed the Allied Kingdom would be able to go to war against the Russy Federation and only the Russy Federation. It was only even theoretically possible as long as Ildoa refused to declare war on the Allied Kingdom. Which might work, actually, considering Muzzioli's position. Even that blowhard could eventually figure out to stop opening his mouth and inviting trouble.

Still, the Allied Kingdom's position seemed counterproductive to me. For one thing, they were effectively removing themselves from the discussion of how matters in Ildoa would be settled at the end of the war. For another, any OZEV troops tied down in Ildoa were troops that weren't fighting the Russy Federation. If they really wanted to do their utmost to defeat the commies, slapping Ildoa down was an obvious move.

Unless... if the Albish were just as confident as I was in eventual victory, then it might make sense that they weren't too focused on winning at all costs. Instead, they wanted to shape the course of the war in accordance to their preferences. If I had to guess, their ultimate goal would be a post war order that kept the Russy Federation out, the Americans in, and Germania down.

"Yes, they are allied to the Rus," Mr. Lloyd replied, "but I'm afraid that has nothing to do with the defense of Legadonia."

I really hated it when I found that I had been insufficiently cynical. "So, it's going to be like that."

I was glad that Albish troops would be shooting at Russy invaders, but this was obviously going to be a very calculating sort of alliance. I made a mental note to talk to some American bankers soon about a line of credit. My half formed hopes of going through Albion to get better terms had been strangled before they'd even had a chance to form properly.

"Even if we were at war with Ildoa, maintaining a blockade would be difficult. Much of our fleet is tied up in humanitarian efforts in Bharat," Mr. Lloyd said. "As you've so ably demonstrated, it's dangerous to station ships within the range of land based aircraft."

If memory served, a large portion of the fleet was tied up following our ships around as they secured our new colonial holdings in the middle of nowhere. Well, no, there was a grain of truth to his claims, although calling the mission to Bharat humanitarian was a stretch. There had been rumblings of an independence movement in the Allied Kingdom's most important colony for a while. It seemed that the Albish weren't content to wait for enthusiasm for the war to cause things to die down, and preferred to stomp on their malcontents more directly.

Even so, for the Allied Kingdom to cry poor when it came to naval assets was a bit much. Just their standing forces in the Mediterranean would be enough to give the Ildoans an enormous headache, and it wouldn't take much reshuffling of their forces to give them a decisive advantage. I didn't think their concerns about air power would be enough to hold them back in pursuing a war aim that they took seriously.

"What exactly is the Allied Kingdom planning to do, then?" I asked.

"Well, we were hoping to ship our troops to the eastern shore of Legadonia," he said, "to shorten their trip to the front."

"Of course," I replied. I'd have to send a note to Daneland to make sure that they treated the Allied Kingdom's fleet with proper courtesy. In all honesty, it wasn't like they would have made any hostile moves against Albion even if they had simply steamed past without bothering to reach an agreement.

"We would also be open to a technology exchange," Mr. Lloyd said, "as well as joint training for specially qualified small units such as aerial mages."

My ability to maintain a straight face was sorely tested, but I managed not to burst out in laughter. I had only agreed to share magical training and technology with our OZEV allies due to extreme circumstances, and those were nations that had treated with me fairly and honestly sought to create a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Allied Kingdom would have to pry those secrets out of my cold, dead hands.

"Send us a written proposal," I said. "I'll ensure that it gets all the attention it deserves."

For important diplomatic mail, simply disposing of it in the trash would be woefully inadequate. Fortunately, I always kept a computation orb with me, and I'd had plenty of stress lately that needed an outlet.

ooOoo

I called Elya in for a special meeting as soon as she had seen Mr. Lloyd to the door. Although I generally tried to make sure that our efforts were focused purely on the best interests of the country, I couldn't help but sport a vindictive smile at the thought of our little scheme coming to fruition.

Elya closed the door behind her and took a seat across from me with a smile of her own. She'd heard enough of my conversation with Mr. Lloyd that she was already looking forward to being let off the leash.

"How's our special project developing?" I asked.

She straightened up with a smile. As expected.

Elya's efforts in Albion really had gone above and beyond the call of duty. It was amazing what could happen when a competent employee was given room to do her best. When I'd introduced her to the concept of stealth casting, I'd thought that it would be used to impersonate key individuals and swindle our targets out of information, with perhaps a bit of magical lock-picking on the side. 

That goes to show the limit of an amateur's imagination.

Elya had taken a rather indirect approach. Directly impersonating important people was fraught with danger, the more so the longer the ruse was maintained. Using magic to break into secure locations or records was similarly perilous. In both cases, our targets could easily catch wind of our methods, allowing them to neutralize our technological advantage. 

Instead, Elya had her agents focus on digging up social scandals. Albish high society was a much softer target for magical information gathering than the Allied Kingdom's military. Once she'd acquired a critical mass of data, she'd proceeded to the second phase.

Certain individuals that had particularly scandalous habits, especially illegal habits, were approached and offered a choice. They could take door number one and have their secrets exposed and their personal life destroyed. Or they could take door number two, and sign up to join a rather obscure social club. Naturally, most chose to join.

Attending the club meetings entailed going along with a certain amount of hokey mystic nonsense, but membership had its privileges. Most importantly, members' secrets were kept secret. Their tastes were catered to. And, best of all, their competitors tended to suffer from spectacular runs of bad luck. In exchange, members were expected to do their bit for the good of the group.

After a few years, the club had grown up into a secret society that probably could have sustained itself even if we stopped supporting it. None of the Albish members had any idea that the whole thing was a tool of Germanian intelligence. Elya had most of them firmly convinced that they were part of an ancient order that helped to prop up the Allied Kingdom and fight off its shadowy enemies through their participation in occult rituals.

Looked at a certain way, it was funny. Looked at another way, it was disturbing. Either way, it was a useful tool, even if we hadn't yet managed to snare any members at the highest levels of society.

Our most useful member was a small time aristocrat with an opium habit. He had lucked into a commission from old family friends to investigate the influence of communism on Albion's most important institutions of higher education. Naturally, his friends in the secret society had been happy to provide off the books financial support and a cadre of enthusiastic investigators.

As it happened, the hallowed halls of those ancient institutions of learning were indeed lousy with communists. They were also, more pertinent to my interests, a fertile source of brilliant scientists that the Allied Kingdom often tapped into for its development of advanced military technology. 

"The project is going quite nicely," Elya said. "Of the top ten scientists helping to build their electronic code breaker, five of them were working with the Rus of their own initiative. We enticed two others to join in, and we've established iron clad evidence that another was involved as well. It will be difficult for the remaining two to avoid the taint of suspicion."

Give the commies credit, they knew how to lure intellectuals to their cause. It was just their bad luck that I had come back from the future armed with knowledge of their favorite tricks.

"That sounds like quite enough to bring to the attention of His Majesty's law enforcement," I said.

Rooting out communist infiltrators and setting back Albion's scientific development. It was always a pleasure to kill two birds with one stone. I'd have hesitated to do it if we were truly acting together to prosecute the war. In a situation where we were really just fighting two separate wars against a common enemy, though, I wouldn't scruple at just this level of dirty tricks.

"Excellent!" Elya chirped. "Besides setting back their program, this will be a nice feather in Harmsworth's cap. He'll get some sort of title of nobility out of this, I bet."

"Hmm," I said, "rather than that, it would be better if he could secure a broader mandate to investigate communist infiltration, I think."

The investigation of communists in academia hadn't been a law enforcement operation, strictly speaking. More of an information gathering assignment. Our help had allowed for spectacular results from mere private investigation, but actual coercive subpoenas and arrest warrants were out of reach.

If we could secure control of a bit of real law enforcement power, well, many new doors would open up.

"The beginning of a war does seem like an excellent time for a red scare," Elya said, "now that you mention it."

The best part was that an urgent investigation aimed at rooting out enemy influence was the kind of thing that could cut right through the red tape around military secrets. We'd honestly be doing the Albish a service, rooting out the communist spies hiding in their ranks. The fact that every spy caught would add more power and prestige to the investigators as they continued their wide-ranging search for the enemy within was a nice bonus.

Purging commie infiltrators and digging through Albish secrets. Now that's what I called a win-win situation.

ooOoo

AN2: You thought Albion was going to be annoying as an enemy...