AYKRR Chapter 15
Morale Booster
2nd September 1942,
The Rathaus, Wien
It had only taken every single leader of the eight OZEV member nations nine hours to all arrive at Wien. I also noticed that every OZEV member had brought their Minister of Defence or equivalent with them. I had brought my usual coterie with me, with the addition of Lehrgen.
To say that this was the tensest OZEV meeting I've ever been in was an understatement. Every OZEV head of government either had tense faces or clenched jaws. Both Adamovich and Mikael Karlsson, the Legadonian Councilmember of Foreign Relations, were grim. One would think that it had been their countries that were being invaded. Although that might not be very far off. Legadonia or Kieva would be next if the Russy Tsardom fell.
"The Moskva faction's bellicosity cannot go unpunished! OZEV must unite as one and put the threat of the Russy Federation to the ground! We should oust the communists out of Europa altogether! Make them retreat behind the Urals!" Karlsson was perhaps the most passionate advocate for OZEV to participate in the defence of the Russy Tsardom. It made complete sense, the Russy Tsardom was a valuable trade partner and a defensive bulwark for Legadonia.
"I agree. The Russy Federation has proven that it has recovered enough to be a threat to OZEV's security." Adamovich nodded.
"To join in another war so soon is unconscionable. OZEV has already lost so many young men and women after the Second Great War. War weariness amongst the public is still high. We wouldn't be able to sustain another war for very long." Boris Marinko, the Prime Minister of Carinthia spoke. There was truth to that. We likely would not receive much public support to declare a war on the Moskva faction, even if they were the aggressor.
"And if we stay out of this war, we risk losing more in the future. The Moskva faction is a mere shadow of the Russy Federation. It will be crushed under the combined might of OZEV." Karlo Nazor of Croatia said with a certain sense of finality.
"Can we even economically sustain another war? And after we just finished demobilising our military?" Thorvald Buhl, the Prime Minister of Daneland asked. That was also true. OZEV just drastically reduced the number of active soldiers in its military. OZEV's economy has also almost finished transitioning to a peace-time economy.
"It is possible. The Moskva faction only has a mere fraction of the Russy Federation's might. We won't need to mobilise our reserves at all. Just active-duty soldiers should be enough." I stated.
"We might be exposing our Western flank to TATO if we focus our attention on the Moskva faction." Luigi Falasca brought up an issue that did not even exist a mere week ago.
"TATO has shown no sign of mobilisation for an attack on either Germania or Ildoa, we don't have to be wary of a two front war yet." Lehrgen from behind me assuaged his worries, and the Ministers of Defence of other nations murmured agreements.
"The Russy Tsardom is not part of OZEV, but its existence is paramount to OZEV's security. It needs to be maintained as a buffer state." Constantin Groza of Dacia argued.
There was a bit more back and forth arguing, but it was decided in the end that the Moskva faction has to be stomped out at all costs, lest they grow more powerful in the future. The vote to hold an intervention in what is dubbed the Russy Civil War passed unanimously.
The first step in the intervention was the declaration and addition of another clause in the alliance's treaty. The Lend-Lease Act. OZEV countries may lend or lease war materials, food and supplies freely to another nation, if that nation's security is essential for the defence and security of OZEV. As we still have a small surplus of weapons and vehicles, many OZEV countries were glad to offload them to the Russy Tsardom.
The second step was devising a strategy for OZEV's strategic intervention in the Russy Civil War. Another OZEV meeting would take place in three days to establish our objective and strategy.
After the emergency meeting was concluded, I immediately had my entire party flown back to Berun to discuss what we could lend to the Russy Tsardom. In the end, we discovered that what we could spare was a lot. The factories that were manufacturing weapons and munitions for the Second Great War had only been recently shut down. It was a simple matter to hire workers and start them back up. We had a great deal of tanks and trucks that would soon be replaced by newer models, so we also decided to give them to the Russy Tsardom. I also chose to send nearly all of our propeller fighter planes to the Russy Tsardoms, since they would soon be rendered obsolete by jet fighters.
I ordered for more military rations to be produced, and for more medical supplies to be manufactured. However, I added a special note for K-brot to NOT be sent to the Russy Tsardom. Wouldn't want them to think we were trying to poison them after all.
Our biggest roadblock had turned out to be how to transport such enormous amounts of supplies to the Russy Tsardom. Since only Legadonia shared a border with the Russy Tsardom, it meant that all the supplies that OZEV decided to send had to go on ships to be sent to St. Petersburg. The problem was that there were not enough cargo ships, and it was impossible to transport it all with planes. In the end, we just decided to also load the supplies onto our idle warships and send them to St. Petersburg. For the large vehicles like tanks, trucks and planes, I decided to send them on our aircraft carriers.
4th September 1942,
Wien,
That night, me and my cabinet were busy discussing what else we could do to help the Russy Tsardom. Any ideas that we brainstorm today would be presented at the OZEV war meeting tomorrow.
Given that OZEV's level of war weariness was high, our intervention had to be swift and decisive, preferably defeating the Moskva faction within just a few months before the public sentiment could turn for the worse. That was likely why the Moskva faction had chosen this time to attack.
My generals said that the Moskva faction's objective was likely to conquer as much of the Russy Tsardom as possible before the infamous Russy winter arrives in December. The bitter cold of the Russy winter would halt nearly all military operations, as men would easily freeze to death and even oil would become solid chunks, rendering all vehicles and machinery non-operational.
While winter would stop the Moskva faction from conquering more of the Russy Tsardom, it would also stop OZEV from a counter-invasion. When the Russy winter sets in, the Moskva faction would be allowed a three-month long reprieve while OZEV would have to deal with anti-war public sentiments back home. We also could not discount the possibility of them sending spies into OZEV territory to foment anti-war protests and demonstrations. The Moskva faction was likely banking on us not being willing to fight a war until next year. As such, as long as they could conquer the majority of the Russy Tsardom before winter, they would achieve their objective.
This also gave OZEV a deadline. We had less than three months to defeat the communists and push them out of Moskva, if not to the other side of the Urals altogether. Maybe four months if we prepare adequate winter gear and food to keep fighting in December.
If we failed to do it before winter set in, it would allow the Moskva faction to gain more territory and consolidate its position as the successor faction of the Russy Federation. Its triumph against the might of OZEV would inspire other Russy factions to unite behind the Moskva faction, likely hastening the reunification of the Russy Federation. That was an unacceptable outcome.
We also had to be wary of TATO to the west. There was no doubt that they were watching OZEV's response to the situation closely. The communists just bought them at least three precious months to economically catch up to OZEV. I wouldn't even put it past them to indirectly support the communists to distract OZEV for longer. An enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all. My collaboration with a socialist leader to make a TATO member lose their most precious colony likely didn't help convince them against working with communists either.
Whether I liked it or not, OZEV and TATO had likely already entered a Cold War with each other. And if I let the communists in Europe recover and reunite with the communists in Asia, it might just become a three-way Cold War between OZEV, TATO and the Communists. I couldn't retire in an unstable world like that.
I had immediately shot down the first proposal to drop a nuclear bomb on the outskirts of Moskva, brought up by Ludwig of all people. Such willingness from my chosen successor to use a weapon of mass destruction ran incongruent to my initial impression of him as a man of peace who was forced to fight in a war simply because of his sense of duty. If anyone else had said such a thing, I'd immediately assume they were a warmonger.
Then I realised why he had proposed such a drastic solution in the first place. It was to prevent the loss of more lives and ensure a swift victory. After all, both Russy factions were going to throw armies of men into the meat grinder, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, not including those that will be sustained by OZEV. By dropping a nuclear bomb right on the outskirts of Moskva and not the city centre, Ludwig would ensure the capitulation of the Moskva faction while still leaving a government that could offer us a surrender. It was actually not a bad idea, if it wasn't for the fact that it would reveal that Germania possessed a nuclear arsenal. After the meeting, I intended to pull Ludwig aside to explain that I agreed with his logic but couldn't approve of it due to it revealing the existence of nuclear weapons.
"I will only approve of the use of the atomic bomb if the Russy Tsardom is close to defeat, or if an OZEV member is directly attacked." I declared. Strangely, Lehrgen had agreed with me. He must have thought that the Moskva faction wasn't large enough to be worthy of having the first nuclear bomb dropped on them.
Another idea was proposed by Elya to just have whoever was the current head of the NKVD assassinated. Once again, I shot down that idea. We couldn't afford to have the assassinations of leaders become commonplace. Furthermore, we weren't even sure who the head of the NKVD was, or if he even held the highest position of power in the Moskva faction.
Economic sanctions wouldn't work. The communist factions only ever traded in large amounts with other communists.
Diplomacy was no longer an option. The Moskavites had started this in the first place.
It was hard for us to estimate the chances of both sides in this war since we were unclear on the military capabilities of both the Moskva faction and the Russy Tsardom. The little information we had didn't paint an optimistic picture for the Russy Tsardom.
The Moskva faction had the only trained combat mages in the Russy Federation, as all the combat mages we encountered during the Second Great War had been NKVD agents. They were also equipped with dual-core computation orbs, with almost identical performance to the Type 97. The first time OZEV forces had encountered NKVD agents, many of them had been somewhat clumsy with their new orbs. After months of fighting, only the best ones were left.
The mages that the Russy Tsardom would be facing would all be elite veterans. We had no idea how many mages the NKVD could possibly field, but even our lowest estimate was at least eight full battalions, judging by the number of unique magical signatures that were detected. At least the latest reports said they were still using bolt-action rifles.
On the other hand, the Russy Tsardom only had the single squadron of volunteer Legadonian mages that they had been sent last month. However, the quality of mages that they sent was quite high. There were multiple aces and even an ace of aces present. I had been quite shocked when I saw that the White Death himself was a mage in this world, and it seemed that he was still employing sniper tactics to vast success.
However, no matter how skilled the Legadonian mages were, they'd be hard pressed to defend against the NKVD mages. This meant that getting the Russy Tsardom more mages to balance out the field was imperative.
Our lack of information about the Moskva factions' non-mage forces was exceedingly frustrating. We had no idea how many troops they fielded, their number of armoured vehicles, fuel reserves, industrial capacity, etc. We could only speculate that they likely had more than what the Russy Tsar had. Hopefully, Legadonia would be able to give us more information tomorrow, given that they were the closest country to the war and had likely already sent reconnaissance mages to obtain military intel.
Fortunately, the Russy Tsardom had given us information about their own defensive capabilities quite freely. They had a whopping 1,600,000 infantry soldiers, around 400 tanks and thirty-nine planes, including four jet fighters that they bought from Legadonia. Such an imbalance of forces was hard to not notice. The Russy Tsardom's military was practically all infantry, with little armoured vehicles and planes. It would likely be a slaughter for them if we did not send more vehicles and mages for them soon.
We also needed to get more footage of both side's tactics and how they fare against each other in battle. We have seen footage of smaller past raids by the Moskva faction, but by the time that the mage recording the footage arrived at the scene of the battle, the NKVD mages were already retreating. This did, however, suggest that the Russy Tsardom's responses to surprise raids were quite slow.
There had been only one large scale battle in the Russy Civil War so far, on the day of the escalation of hostilities. The reports that came back showed us that the Russy Tsardom suffered a devastating defeat, losing 70,000 men and failing to prevent the Moskva faction from conquering Novgorod. The Moskavites were now one step closer to St. Petersburg. Any footage recorded by the mages who participated in the battle was too chaotic to make any sense of. The only thing we could determine was that the Moskavites were not using human wave tactics.
The following days after the Battle of Novgorod, the Moskva faction sent squadrons of mages to conduct dozens of raids and skirmishes, gradually whittling down the Russy Tsardom's forces and morale. Sometimes, their volunteer Legadonian mage squadron managed to intercept the enemy and beat them back, but that was less than one in ten of all attacks.
I couldn't imagine morale being stellar for the Russy Tsardom. They had been under attack from numerous raids over the past few weeks, suffering casualties numerous times while their enemies almost always left unscathed. The humiliating defeat they suffered at the start of the war didn't help either.
The Russy Tsardom's morale would be raised if they started winning in these skirmishes. However, that would require them to have more mages on hand to guard their borders. Merely twelve mages to guard the Russy Tsardom's borders was like using a band aid to patch up a grievous wound.
It was imperative that OZEV start sending mages before all other troops and supplies.
The next day before the OZEV war meeting, Ludwig and his friend Walther von Schiel approached me to propose a solution that would not only boost both the morale of the OZEV mages we were sending to the Russy Tsardom and the Russy Tsardom's soldiers themselves. Depending on my response, von Schiel could even whip up a few propaganda posters to inspire a more pro-war attitude amongst the public.
After hearing them out, I admitted that I was not averse to the proposal. It would indeed boost the morale of the troops while not requiring me to do much. However, there was no way I could accept it without consulting Visha first. She would chew me out if I said yes to the proposal without her permission.
6th September 1942,
St. Petersburg,
Milicent Caldwell snapped another picture of the Russy Tsardom's White Army's 17th Infantry Division marching to reinforce the southeastern border of the Pskov Oblast. The dawn illuminated the men's back as they marched, giving the picture a cinematic feel to it. It had been merely four days since she had arrived in St. Petersburg, yet this was the eighth division that the Tsar had sent to reinforce the Tsardom's borders.
Beside Milly, her aged guide assigned by the Tsar, Nikolai, sighed. "It is a sad sight for an old man to see young men being sent to die." The balding man in his sixties had a face scored by wrinkles formed from decades of hardship. According to him, he had been a soldier before taking a bullet to the knee and retiring from active service to become an interpreter. He had fled to the Russy Tsardom because of nostalgia for the past, but also because the communists had thought he was a bourgeoisie in disguise merely because he knew four languages.
"Are you truly so pessimistic about the Tsardom's chances, Nikolai?" Milly asked.
He shook his head. "Our army is strong. But our enemy's army is even stronger."
"You won't be fighting alone. OZEV is sending soldiers to help." Milly had not been surprised when she had read yesterday's newspaper proclaiming OZEV's pledge to intervene in the war on the side of the Russy Tsardom. The news had certainly improved the morale of the people of St. Petersburg.
Nikolai nodded, but his pessimistic tone remained. "That is good, yes. But how long until their troops arrive? Two weeks? A month? The NKVD would slaughter half of the White Army by that time. Yesterday's battle proved that."
Millicent winced at that bluntness. Yesterday afternoon's return of the 15th Infantry Division had drowsed the initial optimistic mood of the city in ice cold water. She didn't have a clear idea of what had occurred in the battle to the south, but the state of the 15th Infantry Division had told the people everything. Of the 10,000 proud young men sent to reinforce the southern border of the Russy Tsardom, less than a third had returned. Many of them were missing limbs or fingers. Many more were missing their sanity.
"Let's go back to the Winter Palace, Nikolai." Milicent nudged the old man, and the two of them trudged back to the Tsar's residence, where Tsar Aleksei had been generous enough to let her stay as a foreign war correspondent.
When they got back, Nikolai entered the Palace with her. He was one of the Tsar's trusted interpreters, who would keep the contents of sensitive conversations between important people secret. Naturally, he was also allowed to live in the Palace.
No matter how many times she walked the halls of the Winter Palace, Milly felt dwarfed by the sheer grandness of it. The rooms often felt like it was made more to be admired than to be lived in. Each hallway and room told of the history of the Tsar's ancestors. Many of the priceless artifacts that had been looted from the Palace during the October Revolution had been recovered, returning the Palace some of its lost splendour. Milly couldn't imagine how the place would have looked at the height of its glamour.
She and Nikolai walked together to grab some food at the breakfast hall. To her surprise, the Tsar was there himself sitting down to have breakfast with some of his ministers and his security details. When he spotted her from the corner of his vision, he waved at the two of them, inviting them to come to his table.
When she first met him, the Tsar was not how Milly had expected Russy royalty to be. Instead of looking dignified and giving an unapproachable aura, Tsar Aleksei the First was the opposite. Instead of a serious-looking man in his forties like she expected, Milly was greeted by a charismatic young man that looked to be around her own age.
The Tsar looked more like the type of person to be put up on advertising posters for men's fashion stores. His neatly combed strawberry blonde hair and sharp jawline certainly helped. The man was also friendly, charismatic, quick to laugh, and could even be relatable. She often saw him treat the common men as equals despite his own high birth. He empathised with his citizens, often wishing that the Moskva faction would leave the Tsardom alone to develop itself and prosper. The only negative trait of him that she could think of was that he could be a bit too loud.
"Ms. Caldwell! How surprising to see you at such early hours. I had the impression that you had not awoken." The Tsar thundered with his booming voice that could shatter eardrums had she been closer; a wide grin spread on his face. For as long as Milly had known the man, he had always been cheerful like the sun.
Although Milly had already planned to travel to St. Petersburg when the Russy Civil War began in earnest, she had been surprised when Nikolai had arrived at her apartment in Parisee to offer her a trip to St. Petersburg, fully paid for by the Tsar. Apparently, the Tsar wanted the entire world to know about the war and come to the aid of the Russy Tsardom. The man had chosen Milly to be the journalist for that task, out of the thousands of known war correspondents in the world.
As for why she had been chosen, apparently the Tsar was impressed with her past journalistic work, especially those involving Chancellor Degurechaff. His favourite article had been the one detailing the Surrender of Parisee last year. He had even confessed that he was quite a big fan of the Chancellor, stating that he had never been so quite inspired by a young woman's political record.
"I just couldn't miss taking in the sight of your army, Your Majesty." She replied politely.
The Tsar's jubilant mood turned slightly dour. "Yes, it is good that you saw them depart. Many of them will not make it back to the embrace of their loved ones." It seemed pessimism had infected even the Tsar.
"Pskov is well defended, Your Majesty." The Minister of Defence assured. We stationed the White Death himself there. The cowardly communists will be too scared to enter his range."
"Then they'll just attack another section where he is not present. The south, for example." The Tsar said. "But please, don't discuss the inner workings of war when we're in the presence of civilians." He gestured purposefully at Milly.
"Ah, yes, of course. I apologise, your Majesty and Ms. Caldwell." The general looked embarrassed.
"It's okay, general Abramov. Besides," The Tsar's cheerful mood picked up again when his adjutant brought over a newspaper. "We have good news today. The newspaper is for you, Ms. Caldwell, OZEV already informed me of it two hours ago."
She accepted the folded newspaper from the adjutant and opened to the first page. Instantly, she saw the picture of Chancellor Degurechaff in her military uniform, the iconic Silver Wings Assault Medal on her chest, rifle slung over her shoulder, boarding a troop transport plane with a battalion of mages. She was giving a casual salute to a crowd that had gathered to see her depart. In the background were similar planes being boarded by mages.
She then noticed that the newspaper was printed in Germanian, not Russy. The Berun Times. The bold title announced in all capitals: "CHANCELLOR DEGURECHAFF LEADS MAGE VANGUARD!"
Milly's eyebrows shot up her forehead. The Chancellor was once again taking to the field! She knew that the woman certainly had a love for action and the dramatics, but she didn't expect her to personally come to the Russy Tsardom.
She read further.
Just yesterday, OZEV announced that the alliance will be sending a coalition force of six mage battalions as a vanguard to reinforce the Russy Tsardom, righteous in their mission of preventing the insidious spread of communism. At their head is Chancellor Degurechaff, the Argent Silver herself, who vowed to the OZEV Executive Council to personally oversee the war from the frontlines. Confidently, she declared that the war will be over before Christmas!
"The communists had faltered before us once before, when they were a behemoth casting a long shadow over Europa. Now, they are a shadow of themselves. They shall falter once again, this time mere light resistance." The Chancellor stated in front of the crowd gathering before her cargo plane, soon to deploy for the Russy Tsardom.
This courageous act to put herself on the front lines from our Chancellor, a veteran of the First Great War, has inspired many retired veterans to declare themselves available for combat. War bond purchases for yesterday had reached a historic high.
This announcement followed the news of OZEV declaring an intervention in the Russy Civil War and vowing to support the Russy Tsardom to the best of its abilities. Already, shipments of food and materiel are en route to St. Petersburg, guarded by the formidable navy. As many as half a million active-duty soldiers, along with hundreds of the most advanced tanks and planes will be transported to the Russy Tsardom over the following weeks.
Milly put down the paper in amazement. No wonder why the Tsar had been ecstatic this morning. He had always complained about their lack of mages putting the Russy Tsardom at a severe disadvantage. And now, six whole mage battalions, including possibly the best mage in history, was coming to his aid. This was likely the best reinforcement that he could possibly ask for.
"A great morale booster for the White Army, da? Wouldn't you agree, Ms. Caldwell?" The Tsar's eyes twinkled with joy as he watched her reaction to the news.