Affenberg Internment Camp
21km East of Affenberg | Volksrepublik Wanka
Day 7 | 0100 hours | March 18th, 2016

Private Karl Negar was standing guard over the courtyard, where two Sylvan prisoners-of-war were busy sweeping the floor. The sky was clear and the moon shone brightly on the dusty prison camp. He didn't mind his assignment. Coming from a poor family and growing up in the slums of Ulm, being in the military sure did have its benefits. What's more, he didn't actually have to fight- at least not yet- and getting paid to occasionally shout and kick around some Sylvan dog wasn't too bad at all. It was a cool time of the year, not too hot to make one sweat yet not too cold for one to have to put on thick layers of clothing. The non-stop urban chaos of Ulm, along with the stinking pollution and waste and gangs were hundreds of kilometers away. Here in the countryside, together with his new comrades, Karl Negar felt truly at home and at peace with the nature around him. The light swishing sound of the brooms filled him with pleasure; perhaps not so much that but the power that lay in his hands. Whenever he felt like it, he could give them a good beating, he could have them sent to solitary confinement (what was called the black hole) or let them starve by forbidding meals. Those inhuman dogs sure were paying for starting a war with the Wankan eagle.

Just as he was about to happily doze off, the air was suddenly filled with muffled thumping noises. What he didn't know was that in the past half an hour, the Sylvans had violently forced control of the air space above him. The strong network of radars and SAM defences at the Potsdam Airbase had been obliterated along with any air defense systems on the frontlines of the advancing First Army.

The intruders hardly bothered with staying quiet. They hit hard, and they hit fast. Airborne snipers had already eliminated all the guards on the perimeter that they could lay their sights on. Choppers black as the night came to a hovering halt above the courtyard, prison and administration building. Soldiers rapidly dropped from the choppers, landing with deft and rhythmic thumps on the surface. Karl Negar threw himself to the ground as bullets began pinging around him and alarms started blaring. He raised his rifle and began firing wildly, the loud shots the first of few bullets which exited Wankan rifles. Shouts in english, which Negar couldn't comprehend, echoed around. If he did understand, he would have learned that the Sylvans had quickly taken control. The Wankan guards stood little chance with most of them dying in or near their beds. Negar himself had been thrown to the ground by a rifle round to his stomach and was bleeding profusely. As he coughed out blood, he saw that his uniform was drenched red. Two looming figures appeared above him, the two POWs he just recently had sweep the courtyard clean. This wouldn't end well he thought, and he was right. For the two Sylvans had suffered enough, and did not waste their chance. Until they were ordered by the Sylvan commandoes to move out of the camp, he was treated worse than Islamic militants at Guantanamo Bay. Negar's short life was ended with an unceremonial bullet to the head.

The takeover of the camp lasted barely eight minutes. The POWs were quickly brought to the nearby designated landing strip, where a specially modified Hercules was waiting with a second one approaching quickly. But there was a problem. More prisoners had been taken in the days since the Admiral sent the report over, and an extra plane was needed to fit them all. It was on its way, but would take another half an hour to arrive. Unfortunately, enough time for the Wankan 312th Füsiliers to respond. The two Sylvan special forces companies, reinforced by some Saxon prisoners of war, prepared to meet the enemy as they waited the arrival of the final Hercules. The commandoes' choppers were hidden away, with the pilots ready to take off on short notice.

But the fight never came, no enemy showed up in the next half an hour. The officers had been killed first and with telephone lines cut by the DIKK, they weren't able to alert the troops just around two dozen kilometers away. And so the elite soldiers waited in a somewhat unnerved manner, not believing their luck but still maintaining calm. In Affenberg, regular army soldiers chilled in the barracks or were mostly fast asleep, oblivious to the enemy presence just barely twenty minutes away. Still, The mission wasn't over yet.

Except that it practically was. Without any further incident, the aircraft and choppers shot into the night sky into the protective umbrella of the League air forces. Left behind were some sixty mangled and dead bodies in an abandoned internment camp, ready to be discovered by the Wankan army whenever they decided to check on it.

Second Army | Central Sector
Hill 869 | Saxony
Day 7 | 1500 hours | March 18th, 2016

The south bank of the Weser looked like a scene from an apocalyptical movie, the surface resembling that of the moon. Bits of hot metal still lay around, and the occasional undetonated mine took the life away from the unlucky soldier. The ground, dug up not only by trenches and foxholes but also by the thousands of artillery shell impacts, was still muddy from the rain and the tired Captain Roland Katsnaroff struggled as he walked toward the river. The stench of decaying bodies and burnt metal was overpowering, and he did his best to ensure that he didn't throw up. Only today did the army start to clean up the hellish mess it had made together with the SDF and COSAF forces. At least, with so much natural, organic fertilizer in the form of human bodies, crops could one day grow well in these areas again, the tank commander thought.

A Wankan Bergepanzer meanwhile rolled past him, towing along a damaged Gepard. That might as well have been Katsnaroff's latest destroyed tank. He really didn't know how he was still alive. But he wasn't about to complain. He arrived at a temporary prisoner-holding compound, where the remnants of the famed 7th Airborne Division was being held. An argument had broken out at the gates between two uniformed Wankan officers. One of them, he recognized, was his regiment commander. Katsnaroff could guess what the ruckus was about. He'd discussed it personally with his superiors the day before.

"…verdammt nochmal, I repeat, we don't have the time nor space to take care of your insignificant business! See those trucks there?" the Füsiliers commander, a Colonel, pointed towards endless columns driving slowly toward the Weser bridges. "I will organize their transportation when the time is right, when we can do so without killing off our combat ability!"

"Bringing the prisoners to safety is of utmost importance to us." responded the other angrily, also a Colonel- a reservist. "See these orders here? We need to have this scum sorted quickly and sent to prepared camps where they can be put to good use. Any interruption- hello?" the Colonel asked surprised, as Katsnaroff strode up to him.

Without breaking stride, the towering Captain grabbed the Colonels spick-and-span uniform by the collar and hoisted him upward, slamming him violently against the gates. Behind him, the Sylvan POWs looked up in surprise. Katsnaroff's regiment commander stood back as he tried to suppress an amused smile.

"Listen up, you criminal reserve piece-of-shit," Katsnaroff growled in a quiet, threatening voice, "we know what you're doing to prisoners of war. You like holding slaves, do you? Beating up defenseless people, like you used to do in the streets of Kronstadt? Well, that's your business. But these soldiers here are possibly amongst the best in the world. Their weakest is still better than you'll ever be, by far. Lowly assholes like you belong in our prisons, not the army."

He slapped the reservist colonel. "And don't even try court-martialling me, we'll ensure that you'd get your ass handed back to you. Now go back and don't bother coming again. We will sort it out ourselves. Maybe if you land on the front lines, you'll grow up."

The colonel's face contorted with rage, but that subsided quickly as he realized that this had little point. He could see the other Colonel smirking, and with the military already lacking good officers, he knew better than to raise a fuss. The reservist Colonel shrugged and walked away.

"You didn't have to slap him, but that's what he deserves. Actually, the least he deserves. Well, thank-you Captain, for sparing me that confrontation. As agreed, I'll look to have them sent to more of a proper human being. I have contacts in Wanka, I already have some ideas as to who'll take them in and not work them to death."

Katsnaroff saluted and continued on. His destination was a field hospital of the 15th Füsiliers, where his sister had landed in after being shot-up pretty badly. At least she was alive- for now- he'd heard. The incoming traffic was especially heavy. There would be a day or two of respite before the offensive would resume. Truckloads of artillery shells, followed by self-propelled guns and towed howitzers were being brought up to Hill 869. From that position, they could accurately shell League lines all along the Central Sector. Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles with Füsiliers inside, most from the 5th Panzer-Division, rolled toward the front. The salient that had developed around Cottbus was to be eliminated, and the General Staff was throwing the weight of three Panzer divisions, the 4th, 5th and 6th, in an effort to surround the League troops in the area. The offensive was scheduled for the 20th of March, whereby up to then all necessary troops, material and supplies should have reached the frontlines. The offensive was to be coupled with a massive artillery bombardment along League lines potecting the El Camino Royal highway to pin them in place.

The Captain wondered how the the hundreds of doctors and nurses could stand the smell. Probably got used to it by now. It was so much more worse here in the hospital than outside, of course. He was greeted by a scene of pure chaos. Alarmed and shouting doctors hurried around, their white uniforms stained with blood. The screams of wounded soldiers, a mix of English and German (for here, the captured Sylvans were not discriminated against), were heard above all. A seemingly constant stream of dead, mangled bodies were rolled out of the door. His respect for the medical corps had always trumped all other roles, and his belief was reinforced even further with his visit to the hospital. It was definitely worse here than on the front.

Fourth Army | Southern Sector
Upper Seine Valley | Volksrepublik Wanka
Day 7 | 1600 hours | March 18th, 2016

"Verdammte, verfluchte Scheisse!" swore Generaloberst Albert Zicher loudly. The commander of the newly formed Wankan Fourth Army could only watch as the situation deteriorated even further. He'd been given command of two frankly useless divisions manned by drunkards, one who somehow managed to run out of ammunition several hours into a fight and one mechanized division- his former command. Having diluted the 28th Mountain Divisions fighting strength to compensate the losses suffered by the 29th Division, he'd quickly got them into building temporary fortifications along the western edge of the still mountainous Cloysteric Highlands. The mountain divisions were designated as light divisions and were equipped as such and he knew that their combat effectiveness would be significantly reduced if faced in open combat in the Upper Seine Valley. The Sylvans were supposed to be stopped in the Highlands.

But somehow, some genius on the Sylvan side managed to bypass all his defenses on the main road and pile tanks in a risky but eventually successful maneuver through tight passes north of the main Highlands Mountain Pass. Thinking that they wouldn't risk advancing through that area, as simple, easily-laid ambushes would result in casualties the Sylvans couldn't accept, he concentrated his defenses further south. He was wrong. The Sylvans faked an attack on the Highlands Pass, eliminated recon units in the northern flanks and simply drove unopposed into the Upper Seine Valley.

And as such the situation had developed as Zicher had feared. In desperation, arriving panzer and Füsiliers were immediately thrown in a disorganized fashion at the rampaging Sylvan 29th Armored Cavalry Regiment which tore apart every unit in its way, soon seizing the main road and rail supply route. Ordering a quick withdrawal, the 28th and 29th Mountain Divisions proceeded to dig in around the small town of Wallis. But soon he had to recognize that his situation had become extremely difficult. In heavy fighting throughout the night, the Sylvan 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team had managed to reach the Seine river to his south.

To complicate the situation even further, it seemed as though, while he couldn't confirm it because the reports were so inaccurate and varying, the Septentrion League had managed to smuggle large units of special forces into the Wankan rear. The bridges along the Seine river behind the Fourth Army were quickly blown up by bizarrely accurate air strikes. Supplies running toward the Fourth Army never arrived at their destination.

Added to that was the failure of the 30th Mountain Division to prevent a Sylvan crossing of the Seine river. The division fought well at first, it seemed, but planned ammunition resupplies somehow failed to arrive at Bad Eisenach. Surviving logistics troops told of groups of lightly armed enemy troops hunkered down along the roads, destroying supply columns, even protected ones, one by one. And when help could be summoned in the form of attack and transport choppers, the enemy soldiers vanished like ghosts into the forests and mountains. Bad Eisenach was given up without a fight on the 19th of March and the 30th Mountain began a fighting retreat northwards along the A53 highway. He was worried, however. The enemy special warfare operators (if that was the case) sure knew how to conduct their business. They might've even learnt it from Wankan tactics in the Sellenland. The problem was that the Wankan military knew well how to organize such campaigns, but was hopeless at combating it despite decades of experience fighting a variety of insurgent groups.

The 30th formed the defense of his southern flank. Were they forced to retreat north, the majority of the Fourth Army east of the Seine river would be properly trapped, with a river and Sylvan troops sealing off their rear. It was incredible. The Fourth Army was practically encircled now, having lost every single fight up to this point despite outnumbering the enemy, and fighting a defensive war.

20th March

The lines were still holding steady, with the enemy consolidating their positions. It made sense for the Sylvans, who as the besiegers were outnumbered by the besieged. The airspace above them was still being contested, indeed above the entire theatre it was being contested, but unlike in Saxony here in the south the Wankers lacked the infrastructure, while the League did not. It kept Zicher from launching breakout attacks with help of his superior numbers (and armored units of the 23rd Füsiliers) to recapture the strategically important Highlands Pass. Wallis did have significant ammunition, fuel and other basic supply stocks, but Zicher knew that they would run out within days if forced to fight. His only hope was the 22nd and 24th Füsiliers, who were approaching from the west. Their firepower was urgently needed, and perhaps with the addition of over 30,000 troops Zicher could turn the tide of the war in this front. But it did depend on them being able to cross the Seine without opposition. He had little idea whether the Sylvans had already thought of fortifying that area; if they did, the outcome of this battle would look less rosy.

The Home Front
Baiern | Volksrepublik Wanka
Day 9 | 1800 hours | March 20th, 2016

Dear Erika and Lena,
My sincere apologies for not writing for so long. I'm writing this letter from a field hospital south of the Weser. I've been on the frontlines in the midst of fighting for the past week, and now I'm completely mentally and physically exhausted. My dear sister, Hanna, has been badly hit in the stomach, but she's fine and recovering. She'll be joining you soon, if all goes well.

The battalion has been moved into the reserves, so I won't be seeing any action for a while. The 14th Füsiliers has been nearly completely obliterated in the brutal fighting, it now hardly has any combat maneuver units left. Don't listen to what the newspapers are saying. I've never seen such intense combat in my lifetime, and I thought the Sellenland was bad. There, we faced Aemen conscripts who had little motivation to fight for that small patch of land. Here we faced the best of the best, regular, experienced and all in all the most elite combat unit. The Sylvan 7th Airborne managed to hold off nearly single handedly the weight of practically five Wankan divisions for an entire week. Forget the media jubilation. When they surrendered, at most barely a thousand were left. You could say they literally fought to the last man.

That isn't to say the war is going badly. With rapid progress from the Third Army, we've formed a salient which, with any luck, we will capture in the next days. We call it the Cottbus Salient. It's an important area. If we capture it, our logistical situation will be greatly improved with help from road and rail running through Cottbus. The Sylvans have dug in well along the main highway, but with Cottbus in our hands we can easily concentrate our forces and break their line.

The determination of the Sylvan soldiers impresses me. Unlike the Saxons, they fight as if this was their own soil and their family's livelihoods depended on it. But they're outnumbered, our Air Force is keeping theirs in check and with the way things are looking Saxony will soon be freed. How are you two? I'm pushing to get a hinterland assignment, maybe training some of those new recruits that are flooding in. It'd be much easier for us to meet. I promise that I'll do my best to stay safe and sound.

Many loving greetings from your Frontsoldier,

Roland

A tear rolled down Erika Katsnaroff's face as she held the precious letter in her trembling hands. She hadn't heard from her tank commander for nearly a week, and no message had arrived through from other relatives in the army. Waiting without any knowledge of whether the one man who meant the world to her, indeed, the father of her child, was a slow, insidious killer. Especially when he was a soldier on the bloodiest front in the entire war. Lena, perched on her lap, meanwhile was carefully deciphering her fathers' letter. Her fingers traced along the paper, which was stained with several drops of blood.

"… schreibe die…sen Brief in… einem… Feldla- Feldlaza… Mama?" she looked up at her mother, surprised. "Why are you crying?"

Erika just stared at her daughter, kissing her lightly on the forehead. The air around her suddenly felt warm and comforting, the cold spring winter suddenly nonexistent. She could once again make out the pleasant sound of singing birds and the children playing outside. The war seemed so far away…

And to any casual observer, visitor or tourist, the war would really have seemed far away, particularly on the densely populated West Coast. League aircraft dared not to venture that far into Wankan territory, not that there was any point in doing so. Except for the ubiquitous propaganda, military parades and other show-of-force demonstrations, life seemed superficially normal. Despite the heavy militarization, loans from Achesia and Erquin ensured that public life was generally unaffected by the war, and the economy stayed afloat. The term "total war" was often implied by Sonneborn but not taken seriously, as the nation was far from turning to such desperate measures. The idea of rationing was dropped. Businesses remained unaffected and weren't forced to mass-produce weapons or uniforms (not even the arms industry was particularly busy, Wanka had massive equipment stores- just not the personnel to man them). But the life-as-usual impression that was seen was merely an illusion.

Already over five thousand Wankan soldiers, in addition to another thousand civilians, had died so far. With every soldier that had to be buried, the mood got ever darker. The numbers weren't staggering, but news traveled quickly and news of the deaths of relatives and friends serving spread like wildfire. Not to mention the number of wounded, which was over double the amount of fallen. They talked about the gruesome conditions on the front, and, depending on who was talking, the necessity- the truth- of the war. Nevertheless, through this, the once fractioned Wankan society mostly found itself united as one against the common, historical enemy. Orwell wasn't wrong- War is Peace.

Sonneborn and his government made good use of these fears and distractions from what he was doing behind the scenes. Critics of his regime, Meinhof supporters, journalists, disgraced officials, pacifists- suddenly found themselves in very difficult conditions. The Gepo was out hunting like never before, albeit silently. As the war progressed, Sonneborn slowly but surely planted himself as the undisputed dictator of Wanka, and with a rising cult of personality not unlike that of Meinhof, he was turning the country into a totalitarian state.

Yet the planned "reintegration of Saxony" policy wasn't going well. Half a century apart from their motherland resulted in a grossly different society with disparate cultures and norms between Saxons (the ethnic Wankers, as ethnic Sylvans were shoved into stinking rubbish ghettos) and Wankers, coupled with insecurities sparked with the massive influx resulted in high tensions between the two ethnic kins. Violence was not uncommon and voices demanding the expulsion of Saxons "back to their country" or any other place grew in number. It seemed as though Wankers didn't want to have Saxony, and the Saxons didn't want to be part of Wanka. Not a comforting thought for Sonneborn and his "Heim ins Reich" (all german speakers in one realm) goal.

First Army | Northern Sector
50km northwest of Chemnitz | Saxony
Day 10 | 1000 hours | March 21st, 2016

The air inside and outside the tank was scorching with heat which was certainly not only caused by the sun which angrily stared down the humans who were slaughtering each other. Yet another attack had failed. The Wankers weren't learning. When some kind of weak point was detected, an armored breakthrough was attempted but more often than not it was a carefully laid trap. As in this case. First Lieutenant Darmietzel only realized too late that their flanks had been wiped out, the attacking panzer spearhead soon chopped off from its support. Once again, the force was isolated, and now Sylvan-made Trojan tanks charged out from all directions.

The fighting distance closed rapidly. From their Schützenpanzer infantry fighting vehicles, Wankan Füsiliers clambered out as Saxon tanks mixed with Wankan ones. Darmietzel watched as a young private loaded his Panzerfaust and fired it at a Trojan-II. It missed, instead blowing up a friendly Gepard just several meters away. Elsewhere, a Sergeant disappeared with a sickening crunch under the tracks of a marauding Saxon tank.

"Alle Panzereinheiten, zurückziehen!" ("All armored units, fall back!") the desperate voice of the company commander screamed over the radio. More Trojans were streaming over the hill at the Wankan force. Darmietzel's Gepard, its turret perpendicular to the hull, fired off another round, bringing an enemy command tank to a skidding halt. The other two of his platoon each fired too, one missing and the other hitting its mark.

"Feindlicher Panzer, zehn Uhr. Feuer!" the 125mm cannon roared, another armor piercing round digging into Sylvan steel. The enemy responded in kind, with shells striking both other tanks in his platoon. The Lieutenant watched anxiously for survivors to climb out. None did. The situation was desperate, where were the reinforcements? Mud splattered the side of the grey Wankan monster, a round that could easily have killed him.

In the distance, he finally saw them. Firing angrily on the move at the Saxon tanks, who quickly withdrew in face of the massive firepower arrayed against them. But it did not get rid of the fact that once again, the Wankan advance had grinded to a halt. Seemingly every meter of Saxon land had to be fought over, and with League aircraft persistently striking at the First Army's supplies, moving forward seemed to be the exception. With huge population centers in Chemnitz, Leipzig and the capital, Dresden, it made sense for the League to ensure the defences stayed upright around these areas, but the Wankan General Staff had no interest in fighting prolonged urban battles. Instead, individual units were temporarily sent to the Second Army in the Central Sector to make up for the losses there, thus diluting the combat strength of the First Army. And then the General Staff still demanded that they make progress into Chemnitz itself. Well, good luck to us, Darmietzel said under his breath.

Erquin-Sylvan Border
Day 11 | 0100 hours | March 22nd, 2016

The Koppa squad was all but invisible, for now, and the darkness helped. They had waited for two hours already, but the Captain knew that his men could easily wait for a whole day while hardly moving a muscle. It was all about the timing. He was aware of the numerous creepy crawlies which inhabited this forested place and he hoped that his team would be left alone. If all went well, they needn't have to disturb their homes.

In the distance, they could make out the sound of another military patrol. Would this come the way they wanted it to come? Turns out it did. Soldiers on foot, accompanied by an armored car of some sort. The troops on both sides of the border remained on high alert due to the war in Saxony, and the fact that Erquin was a member of the NAZI.

"Adler Zwo, Tiger, we have spotted an Equinian patrol…" the Captain rattled off the coordinates and a Koppa lieutenant several hundred meters away, receiving the orders, had his own team prepare their mortar. It was a standard Sylvan M2 mortar, and it was to be fired from near a Sylvan military checkpoint. Shooting with rifles was all well and good, but it didn't have the punch like a mortar round did. That would have to provoke some response.

The first round fell several meters ahead of the convoy, and had its desired effect. One Erquinian private was sent flying, although it didn't look as if he was injured. The second exploded several seconds later, and this time was accompanied by bullets by the Captain and his team armed with Sylvan SAR-15s. Wanka and Erquin were allies, and it would make sense for the Koppa soldiers to intentionally miss, but blood would provoke the greatest and angriest response. And that was what they were aiming to do. The Captain himself brought down a surprised Erquinian soldier down with a bullet to the head, while another fell with several shots to his chest. The others took cover behind the armored car, returning fire in the general direction it was coming from. The mortar team had stopped firing, packed up and quickly slipped away as alarmed Sylvan troops ran to check on the disturbance. As expected, the bullets that flew into the Sylvans direction weren't few, who immediately assumed that they were being targeted and returned fire.

As both sides called in reinforcements and reported that they were under attack from across the border, the Wankan Koppa operatives quietly exited the scene.

Schleswig | Volksrepublik Wanka
Day 11 | 1900 hours | March 22nd, 2016

Every few days Admiral Kanaris and his band of determined plotters moved their commanding headquarters, often switching between the large homes of his more well-off contacts. Several more important figures from Meinhof's regime had been released in daring rescue attempts and while the Geheimpolizei had arrested dozens in connection with the DIKKs activities nobody who actually knew anything had been captured. Thus, the organization continued to grow in the shadows, its agents everywhere, spreading rumors (whether false or true) about the war, exaggerated claims of imprisonment and torture of dissenters by the government and just generally launched a campaign to discredit the Sonneborn administration.

But all that was useless if what he thought had happened was not true. He could attempt it himself, but risked lack of public support and as such the likely failure of the mission. While several ministers under his protection were known public figures, nobody really had the soft power- the trust of the masses- to bring things back to the status quo. The lack of news and responses to the press during inquiries as to what had happened to this person made Kanaris pretty confident in his deduction. But he had to be sure.

He had been trying to find out all along. As with every operation, however, there had to be a balance. If his agents were too curious, it would blow their cover. It seemed as though the Gepo had finally gotten something right. This vital piece of information had eluded Kanaris for weeks, amazingly.

The ceaseles clicking by his officers in the room unnerved him. He was nervous, that was for sure. Loosening the buttons on his shirt, he made a few restless circles around the room while checking his watch. The one woman in a position to discover this fact would be reporting in in two minutes. Several officers turned to look in surprise at the usually calm and composed Admiral.

The message arrived, and one of the men on the computers quickly decrypted it. He waved at the Admiral once he was done. The latter roughly shoved the officer away as his eyes took in the characters on the screen. The message consisted of four words.

Sie ist am Leben. She is alive.