A Young Woman's Political Record 51 (Patreon)

AN: The war continues...

ooOoo

June 9, 1941

The war didn't go as badly as it might have after the Russy Federation made their big push into Dacia. Our army was able to stabilize the Dacian front, although the sheer mass of Russy troops prevented us from pushing them back. In Legadonia the Rus had kept pushing forward for a bit longer, but gradually stiffening Albish resistance and the limits of their own supply lines eventually caused their offensive to grind to a halt.

One bit of unadulterated good news was the dominating performance of our aerial defenses. The Rus were completely unable to damage our oil production, and it wasn't for a lack of trying.

In the war against the Akinese, the Russy Federation had adopted massive formations of heavily armed airplanes. The combined firepower made sending mages after their bombers far too dangerous. Even Germanian mages would have been taking their lives into their own hands to take them head on.

Fortunately, we had missiles and radar. Detecting their bomber streams at extreme range gave more than enough time to get our fighters up in the air. The massed Russy formations were meat on the chopping board to our proximity fused missiles, especially when we had the chance to coordinate large volleys.

The few times the Rus tried breaking up their bombers into smaller formations in a scatter shot approach, our close in surface-to-air mage defense system picked them off with ease. It didn't take long before the Rus stopped testing our defenses. Mostly they held their planes back to defend the sky over their own troops, but they also probably transferred some up to the northern theater. Compared to our wild success, the Legadonian efforts in the air could be described as good, not great.

We also enjoyed good results in Yugoslavia. Our invading forces cleared out the pockets of enemy forces in the northern and western salients. The ensuing march soon encountered Russy forces, and after a week of push and pull the Yugoslavian front settled into a stalemate that was similar to the situation in Dacia. 

There was a certain amount of partisan activity in occupied Yugoslavia, but fortunately our civil defense mages were able to stop that sort of thing without resorting to any of the atrocities that the Rus were inflicting on occupied Dacia. Mages who didn't have to worry about magic detectors and artillery were a formidable tool for counter-insurgency work.

In the final theater of the war, Ildoa, matters had been quiet since the bulk of the Germanian army had left. Of course, it would be silly to think that the lull was a result of peace descending on the land after a sudden outbreak of good sense. No, the two sides in what was shaping up to be a second round of the Ildoan civil war were each gathering their strength. In fighting made all the more vicious for the familiarity each side had with the other, neither wanted to launch a major campaign until they had the power to see it through to victory.

Farther afield, we had completed the official handover of power in Malagasy. Our aircraft carrier and most of our destroyers were already heading back for our home waters. It would take a while for the military governor to establish actual control over the island, and a while longer still for a civilian administrator to build up useful governing structures. Still, well begun was half done, as they said. The sooner we could stand up the colony's civil institutions, the sooner we could wish them luck and send them on their way.

Although, speaking of ordinary governing structures, the Diet's committee was taking an awful long time to sort out how we'd run the election. There was a war on, of course, but it was a little embarrassing to have so much of Germania's governing authority technically in my hands when I was out there condemning Jugashvili as an authoritarian despot. I planned to check in with them once I had a moment free.

On a more ominous note, I hadn't stirred up as much of a furor as I'd expected with my first little experiment with the arbitrary exercise of power. I'd ordered that as part of the takeover of the Francois Republic's territory in the South Bharati ocean, all of the current residents would be removed from what was now Germanian land. Practically speaking, that meant shipping the two hundred thousand odd residents of Reunion Island to a new location.

I'd tried to soften the blow a little by offering the choice of a new homestead in Malagasy or free passage back to the Francois Republic, but there was no denying that it was a blatant act of tyranny. I had been prepared to shoulder the outrage in order to obtain a completely secure, conveniently located outpost where our scientists could work, but it hadn't materialized yet. To be fair, there were a lot of troubling things happening in Europe to keep everybody distracted.

Of course, while I hoped that the power of Germanian research and development would give us an insurmountable advantage in the long run, I still had to worry about keeping the war tilted in our favor in the mean time. We were no longer facing an imminent disaster as a country, thankfully. However, I was facing potential disaster for myself personally, in that I would have to make a decision for which I might actually be held responsible.

"What would you suggest, General Lergen?" I asked.

The two of us were meeting in my office. Our task for today was to decide our armed forces' strategy for the coming months. I had put off this conversation for as long as I could, but we had reached the part where further delay would start to take options off the table.

Clearing out the pockets of Yugoslavian troops had freed up a lot of our own soldiers. Some were still needed to man the new defensive line, but that wouldn't take nearly as many men as we had sent down on our initial offensive. Adding those available troops to the newly mobilized men who were ready for service, not to mention the motorized and mechanized units that weren't needed for purely defensive work, and we had a whole army group ready to be deployed in a manner of my choosing.

It was a luxury to have a choice like that at this stage of the war. It also provided a nice, obvious decision point that would be second-guessed to hell and back if I screwed it up. Or even if I didn't, to be honest.

"There are times," General Lergen said, "when military objectives must be dictated by political considerations."

The generals in the last war had been eager to usurp power for themselves in order to implement their pet military projects. General Lergen had figured out at some point that taking the power to make a decision meant being on the hook for anything that went wrong. This was the problem with intelligent subordinates.

Broadly speaking, the first question was whether we were going to launch an offensive or focus on shoring up our defense. The fact that General Lergen wasn't lobbying hard for the chance to go on the attack suggested how appealing it could be to stand on defense.

It's tempting, once you have a tank battalion or two, to feel like you should be attacking all the time. Really, though, that was glossing over some very important details. Attacking into prepared defenses, even with our current level of technology, you could expect to suffer something like two casualties for every one casualty you inflicted. The numerical breakdown only tipped in favor of the attacker if you were able to manage a breakthrough and start encircling the enemy on a massive scale.

From a cold, rational, perspective, the Russy invasion of Dacia was something that I ought to prolong as much as possible. The Russy Federation spent its money and resources arming its soldiers and transporting them all the way to Dacia. Then they spent their lives, losing two for every OZEV soldier they took out. All the while, the battle might ebb and flow, but the map didn't really change. Of course, the calculation would change in a hurry if they were to achieve a breakthrough and knock Dacia out of the war.

It would make sense for us to go on the attack if I thought we could do even better than we already were. Or if I were desperate and needed to roll the dice on the outside chance that we could do better.

"To be honest, I'd like to take a bite out of the Federation," I said, leaning over the map to trace a line from the southeastern corner of Pullska to the southern Bug river. "It feels a little risky, though."

If we could make the drive across central Europe and down the length of the Bug to the Black Sea, it would greatly shorten our front. It would cut off the Russy army's ability to resupply by land, and let us threaten to encircle the commies completely. It would also give us control of an area that was home to a lot of people who ought to be eager to rise up against communist tyranny.

If.

The problem with sending your troops to conquer enemy territory is that they themselves can get cut off from resupply and surrounded. Especially if you were attacking into a numerically superior force. As far as we could tell, the Rus were keeping an awful lot of troops all up and down the front. Although, if they had that many men under arms, then we were in serious trouble even with our two to one kill count.

The bottom line was that with the Allied Kingdom on my side I didn't need to take any crazy gambles. As long as I could drag out the war, the combination of Albion's wealth and productivity and our own productivity and martial prowess ought to be too much for the Russy Federation to handle.

"Let's solidify our defenses for now. Rotate worn out units off the front line, and all that," I said. "We need to be ready when an opportunity comes, not try to force an opportunity that isn't there."

Sitting around and waiting for things to get better wasn't a particularly inspiring way to wage war. Honestly, though, despite what people might say about me, I didn't like to roll the dice if I didn't have to. When we had the advantage in the long run, I just had to make sure we didn't blunder the war away in the short or medium term.

General Lergen nodded, taking a note. Before he could excuse himself from the room, though, we were interrupted by a knock on the door. A moment later, the door opened to admit a nervous messenger.

"Message from Legadonia, sir, ma'am," he said. "The Russy Federation has renewed their northern offensive!"

He passed over a note with a few more details before dismissing himself from the room. I looked down at the map again, focusing this time on the notations giving troop distribution in the north.

"We'll stand on defense, but keep a close eye on the overall situation," I said. "The Albish should present us with an opportunity soon."

It was one thing for the Russy Federation to bully the Legadonia Entente, but the troops of the Allied Kingdom were made of sterner stuff. It wouldn't take long before they stopped this invasion cold. Naturally, any Rus fighting in Legadonia were Rus who weren't guarding the border with Pullska. If the Federation was lured into committing too many men in the north, it was just common sense for us to take advantage.

ooOoo

June 30, 1941

General Henry Law stared down at a map of Legadonia as though it had personally offended him. He was safe enough, at his command tent behind the lines just outside of Anslo, but the Albish Expeditionary Force under his command was in a precarious state.

The sheer ferocity and weight of forces the Rus had committed to their renewed attack had caught him off guard. In scrambling to reply to the massive advance, the clever planning behind the Russy thrust had been hidden until dangerously late in the day.

There were three land corridors that allowed travel north and south within the Legadonia Entente. One on the west coast, one on the east coast, and one down the middle. The Russy advance had pushed hard on all three. Simple, straightforward, brute force was still an effective weapon of war, and the Rus had seemed determined to prove it. 

What had been obscured in the opening days of the attack, though, was that the heaviest Russy commitment, by far, was to the west.

Now, as he looked at the map, the western prong of the Russy offensive had advanced twice as far as the center, which had reached twice as far as the east. The Rus had almost reached the major east-west thoroughfare at Trondheim. From there, they would be able to hang a left and cut off the Allied Kingdom's forces that were still trying to hold the line farther north.

He'd committed everything he could spare to the west, but hadn't managed to do anything so far other than slow the Rus down. Any time the attack was in danger of stalling out, a massive weight of artillery would combine with the Russy's tactic of saturation bombardment to open the way south once more.

His last hope for a positive outcome lay with the men tasked with the defense of Steinkjer, just north of Trondheim. If they could stymie the Rus offensive at last, well. The other two branches of the defense had been retreating with all deliberate speed, but they had stayed well organized and were champing at the bit for a counterattack. He'd love to have a go at cutting off the supply line to that overextended Russy force in the west. He wasn't confident, though, that he'd ever have that chance.

Things were bad enough that he'd reached out to their so-called friends in Germania to ask for help the previous day. He hadn't heard anything back, and he wasn't expecting much. It wasn't like their armies were actually working together, so much as that they happened to be fighting the same foe.

Motion from a radio operator caught his eye. As he watched, the man jotted down a note, then stood and approached to make his report.

"Bad news from Steinkjer, sir. The Rus will be through by the end of the day."

Law nodded in acknowledgement. Only long practice kept any hint of despair from showing on his face. Such an early collapse meant that their retreat was going to be tricky. To get all of his forces past the Russy attempt to cut them off would take, as best he could tell, six days. He had men positioned to guard the east-west highway who could slow down the Russy attempt at encirclement, but he had a hard time seeing how they could hold out for more than four days.

All he could do was try and get as many of his men as possible out of the trap in four days. He'd worked out the orders ahead of time, but he still hesitated to put them into effect.

"Magical signatures, in close and closing fast! Eighty mages at least, maybe more." 

Law looked up. He'd been told the rumors of secret Russy mage forces, but he didn't see how even the craftiest communist could have made it all the way to Anslo. That meant-

"They're Germanian!"

The radio operator's announcement sent a wave of whispered conversations through the tent. Law let the men have their moment. Goodness knew they were short of morale boosters, these days.

He spoke up before the temporary excitement could go too far. "Keep yourselves together, men! I don't care if the Devil of the Rhine herself were here, two battalions of mages aren't enough to stop an army."

"Well, I'll do my best."

The voice sounded familiar, but General Law couldn't fully trust his ears until Germania's most famous politician strolled right into his command tent. She looked much as she did on the newsreels, though she wasn't as tall as he had expected. She had also changed out her usual dress and jacket for an aerial mage's flight uniform.

Law pulled himself together. "Chancellor, this..."

He couldn't quite settle on what to say. Law considered himself both a gentleman and a soldier, but neither his etiquette lessons nor his officer's training had covered what to do when an allied head of state decided to pop by for a visit.

"Relax. I'm just visiting for a day," Degurechaff said, before gesturing towards the man who had followed her into the tent. "Major Neumann will be the point of contact for our international cooperation."

"Visiting?" Law asked.

Degurechaff flashed him an impish grin. She had the look in his eye that his daughter sometimes showed when she was about to ask him to buy her a new dress.

"Did you know," Degurechaff said, "I was in the army for eight years, and I didn't get to shoot a single communist?"

Law had heard the stories, of course. That the Devil of the Rhine's greatest regret was that the war had ended. Not because her country had lost, but because it meant there was no more battlefield on which she could ply her bloody business. He had always dismissed such tales as over-the-top propaganda. It was harder to do so when the woman herself was standing in front of him, looking for him to empathize with the injustice of the fact that the Empire had never thrown her into war against the Russy Federation.

"I could only get away for a day, unfortunately," Degurechaff continued. "I'll do my best to make it count."

Law just stared at her. Having the Germanian Chancellor participate in the fighting personally for even a day was far more than he had ever expected, of course. Still, one person, however skilled, couldn't hope to affect the course of the battle in an entire theater. He didn't see how the risk could possibly be justified. 

It was hard to put his objections into words in the face of Degurechaff's reputation. Not just that, but the fact that she looked so cheerful.

Their impromptu standoff was interrupted by the sound of airplanes flying overhead. Just from the sound of the engines, it was more planes than the Allied Kingdom had bothered to station this far south.

"If you'll excuse me," Degurechaff said, "they're with me."

Law nodded automatically. Degurechaff ducked her own head in acknowledgment before flying out of the tent. Turning, Law was able to see on the monitoring station that eighty dots were joining her in the air. Shaking his head, he turned back to face Major Neumann. The man was something of a celebrity himself to anybody who knew anything about aerial mages. Only Degurechaff could so thoroughly overshadow his presence.

"So," Law said, "international cooperation."

Neumann had been staring after his Chancellor, looking about as nonplussed as Law felt by her sudden departure. The man pulled himself together at the reminder that there was still work to be done.

"Three battalions of mages, several wings of land-based aircraft out of Daneland," Neumann said, "as well as carrier-based air support once the Count Bützow is in position. We'll do our best to harry the Russy advance." 

"Good, good," Law replied. "Every minute of delay will save lives."

Three battalions of mages was nothing to sneer at, not to mention the rest of the air support. The Germanians hadn't sent enough men to turn the tide. But they may have sent enough to save the Albish Expeditionary Forces.

"We'll do our best," Neumann said. "If we can cooperate well with your men on the ground, all of us will be better off for it."

"Yes, well..." Law began, before trailing off as the display on the magical detector caught his eye. For everything Degurechaff had said, part of him still hadn't wanted to believe her. "I'm sorry, did your chancellor just fly north to escort the first wave of bombers?"

"Yes," Neumann said, sighing.

Law stared at the man who seemed more resigned than horrified at his political leader charging off into battle. "There's hundreds of thousands of Russy soldiers advancing towards us as fast as they can."

"Well," Neumann said, shrugging, "at least she won't run out of targets."

ooOoo

The first time Carl Troeger had flown out of Daneland it had been part of a strike force executing a meticulously planned mission. He had been briefed on his target time and time again. He had known exactly where they were going, exactly what heading to fly and exactly how long it would take. The mission had been delayed time and time again, and had only been sent forward when the weather provided a perfect opportunity.

His second flight out of Daneland was a very different experience. He had awoken the previous day in Dacia. He and the rest of his flight crew had been yanked out of their usual duties and sent on an emergency flight to Daneland. After a fitful night's sleep they had been told of the disaster of the ongoing Russy offensive. They'd been given a few blurry aerial photographs and the direction to try to knock out something important. With that, they were on their way.

Worst of all was the weather. Low lying clouds had kept most of the Legadonia Entente hidden from view from the first few moments after takeoff. 

The only stroke of good luck was that their massive escort of aerial mages had drastically outmatched the few scattered Russy patrols that had run across them.

"You see anything Troeger?" Alspach asked. Even the veteran pilot was a bit on edge, considering the situation.

"Nothing," Troeger replied. "these fucking clouds."

Honestly, the cloud cover was so thick that he felt he was doing a good job keeping them pointed in more or less the right direction. Expecting to guide Fritz home to a precisely chosen target was pure fantasy in these conditions.

"Hang on," Heuss said, "what's that?"

From his position as the rear gunner, lying down in the belly of the plane, Heuss could see the ground nearly as well as Troeger. Better, when it came to looking behind them.

Alspach brought them around in a slow turn. Troeger saw what Heuss had been talking about as soon as it came into view. Far beneath them, and just above the clouds, a mage was hovering in midair. The mage was only visible as a tiny speck, but their spell was far more visible: a glowing red bullseye painted on top of the clouds.

The mage must have popped down beneath the clouds to find a target, then come back up to give them somewhere to aim. What they were doing was risky, considering the Russy love for magical detection and anti-aircraft fire. Troeger wasn't going to waste the chance.

"That crazy bastard," Alspach said, shaking his head. "You think you can hit the target?"

"Yeah, yeah," Troeger said, already lining up the view through his bomb sight. "Just get us pointed in the right direction."

"All right," Alspach said, continuing the turn to line them up with the glowing spot below.

They'd started a little closer than Troeger would have liked, but he didn't want to give the Rus any more time to prepare a response by circling around and trying again. His fingers fairly flew over the controls, centering the glowing spot in his sights no matter how it tried to squirm away.

As always, the actual dropping of the bomb took him by surprise. Alspach responded with practiced ease, yanking them into a climb to shed speed before leveling back out. Troeger didn't take his eye off the sight the whole time.

"There's Fritz," he said, as the glow of the flares came into sight, brighter even than the magical glow of the target. "I like this. Bridges don't dodge."

Rather than trying to strain his eyes tracking the movements of a ship twenty thousand feet below, all he had to do was keep one glowing spot moving towards another. Besides his worry for the mage below, it was the easiest drop he'd had since training.

As fit the efforts of a veteran taking on such an easy target, Fritz plunged through the clouds right down the center of the bullseye. 

"Got it!"

"Hope the mage had it right," Alspach commented as he brought the plane around to point back south.

"You and me both," Troeger said.

"You know, my cousin says the new planes will be able to carry two bombs," Fieser said. The rear gunner hadn't had much to do so far. Troeger hoped that held true all the way home. "Won't that be something?"

Troeger shook his head. Part of him liked the idea of being able to do twice as much damage. Another part of him already hated having to fly straight and level over the enemy long enough to put one bomb on target, let alone two. He couldn't help but think it was only a matter of time before the enemy's anti-air fire caught up with them.

"They should pay us twice as much," Troeger grumbled, "if we're going to do twice as much work."

Any response was cut off by a knock on the side window. Troeger looked up in shock to see a face that he had last seen in person at the World Cup stadium in Berun. Chancellor Degurechaff was flying next to them, easily holding her relative position even as Alspach finished the turn and settled in to level flight.

She smiled when she saw she had their attention, then gave them a thumbs up. A moment later she waved and accelerated away, disappearing into the formation of escorting aerial mages.

"You want to go ask her for a raise?" Fieser asked.

Troeger just shook his head. If the chancellor was willing to pick up a rifle and fight, he shouldn't complain about being asked to do his duty, even if it did mean he'd have to work a bit harder.

ooOoo

AN: Campaign map to follow.