The Dragon and the Bear: The Liberation Begins
By Matthew W. Quinn
The second phase of Operation Dragonslayer began in May of 2001. Supported by massive orbital kinetic bombardment-as the environmental problems mounted, the Alliance made the same decision Eric Von Shrakenberg did in the canon timeline-Turkish and Russian troops forced the Taurus passes, liberating Antakya, Al Ladhiqiyah, and Aleppo. At the same time, troops dropped from orbit seized Cyprus and other Mediterranean islands controlled by the Domination since the defeat of Napoleon.
At the same time, Russian and Turkish armies marched southward along the Tigris, liberating Kurdistan. The armies besieged Mosul while moving southward towards Baghdad. At Baqubah, the Draka attempted a stand when the cloud cover interfered with orbital bombardment. The fighting lasted until the skies cleared and the Alliance orbital hammer could fall once more. It was a brutal fight-in addition to small numbers of fully-trained Homo drakensis soldiers, many younger drakenses from the cities and plantations joined the main army. Even the youths were lethal-a twelve-year-old literally tore a Russian soldier's arm off with her bare hands and took five bullets to kill. Very few were taken alive and most of them were children or even infants.
Meanwhile, Persian and Russian units crossed the Shatt-al-Arab and besieged Basra and Kuwait City. Another Perso-Russian force began marching up the Euphrates, liberating plantations there in a manner reminiscent of Sherman's march to the sea. Najaf fell at the same time as Basra and Kuwait City, leaving most of the Draka's Mesopotamian province in Alliance hands.
The Draka army, pocketed in Baghdad and the western deserts, was soon on the receiving end of a punishing orbital bombardment. It was not until every known Domination aircraft and tank had been destroyed that the Alliance armies moved. All of Mesopotamia was free by July 2001, though the fall of Baghdad took a terrible toll on the Allied armies.
In Europe, the long-awaited liberation of southern France began. French and Italian troops surged forward, backed by Germans and Russians. A French army marched down the Rhone, taking Lyon and Villeurbanne by storm. Another French army moved southward along the western coast, liberating Bordeaux before turning southward to threaten Toulouse. All across France, serfs who'd been taught their nation's history in secret by the older people who survived the war revolted. Though enormous numbers of rebellious serfs were killed-a single drakensis could dominate a much larger number of ordinary serfs-the Alliance supported these revolts with air and orbital attack when they could. The Draka lost control of the Central Massif, with waves of Citizen refugees and loyal serfs retreating towards the Pyrenees. Marseilles fell in late July, while Toulon, jointly besieged by French and Italian armies, fell in early August.
As the Draka fell back on the Pyrenees, the Alliance made sure they could not escape. The passes were kept under heavy bombardment from space, trapping the Draka in the cities along the northern border. The Gascogne campaign would be a particularly brutal slog that would not end until early September.
The Italians began their campaign by an enormous and space drop on Sicily, greatly reducing the Domination's ability to supply southern Italy from North Africa. Sicily fell quickly and Italian troops used it as a springboard to land in southern Italy, moving north to meet the Italian armies moving south from the liberation of Rome. The last Draka holdouts in Italy were destroyed by the end of September. Yolande Ingolffson and Mwyfany Venders died fighting back-to-back in the ruins of their plantation, provoking grudging admiration from the Italian troops responsible.
Meanwhile, the Allied powers of the Western Hemisphere launched a particularly daring move-an air-space-sea invasion of West Africa. American, Brazilian, Argentine, and Grand Colombian troops land in what used to be Liberia, a colony for freed slaves overrun by the Draka soon after its foundation, with other landings elsewhere. A liberated zone is established from the Gambia to the Sassandra River, with Draka attempts to push the Alliance back into the sea thwarted by orbital bombardment. Plans are made for Alliance troops to force their way inward along the Niger and other river valleys.
An attempt to immediately land in Angola near Luanda, however, was beaten off despite Allied aerial and spatial supremacy. This was accomplished by the gratuitous use of antimatter and nuclear munitions, particularly mines and artillery that could not be shot down by orbital projectiles. This landing prompted the first slave revolts in the region in centuries, revolts that were brutally put down but tied up resources anyway.
Not to be outdone, the Russians launched a similar campaign of their own. They leapfrogged all of the sparsely-populated Arabian interior to land along the Indian Ocean coast, relying on units from India (which had already fought off a Draka incursion launched from Ceylon and liberated the island) to keep them supplied. What would be Oman and Yemen in our world fell quickly, with Draka units destroyed in the open desert from the air or from space. Some Draka retreated into the hill country and waged sporadic attacks from there. Russian troops began raising an all-Muslim army for a campaign up the Hejaz to liberate the Islamic Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. The ultimate goal of this army would be to link up with Russian and Turkish forces moving southward from Syria somewhere in Palestine for a massive push against the Suez Canal. This campaign began in October and by November, Mecca and Medina had been liberated.
The Russians began using southern Arabia as a base to menace the East African coast, the first foreign threat there for centuries. Landings were made along the coasts of our world's Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. These coastal territories quickly fell under Russian control, though the Draka continued to hold out in the highlands. Serf escapes from the plantations in the region, however, were enormous-a modern-day Exodus was taking place toward the Russian-occupied regions of the coast. The Draka wasted artillery shelling the escapees, artillery that was soon targeted and destroyed from orbit.
By the end of 2001, the Draka outside of Africa have been reduced to Spain, Syria/Lebanon/Palestine, and the northern half of the Hejaz. Chunks of western and eastern Africa are under Alliance control, but the cost has been so huge that Alliance operations have had to slow down, particularly since the use of large numbers of nuclear and antimatter weapons are affecting the climate.
Despite these losses, the Draka are far from beaten. New armies of ghouloons are being raised in various hidden facilities, while more and more drakenses are being called to the colors at younger and younger ages. In his Angolan lair, Gaynor decides that if the Domination will fall, it will be the bloodiest conquest in the history of mankind. For a moment, he wishes he'd given his approval to Fenris, a superbomb that could theoretically crack the Earth's crush open. Dropping that one on the New Madrid fault line in North America could win the Domination the war, even at this stage.