blah the Prussian

Chapter 4 The Turn of the Tide On the Western front, 1938 had been a year of stalemate. The German army was besieged on most fronts; in the Rhineland, it was faced with the French Army, in Northern Germany it was faced with the British, and in the South, it was faced with the combined armies of Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Southern Front was in actuality rapidly shifting to become the newest epicenter of the war. 1938 had played our, on paper, like something of a repeat of the stalemate of the First World War. The French were no longer advancing along the Lotharingian fields, they were now fighting in the urban heartland of Germany. Each city became a fortress as the Germans, having evacuated all civilians, garrisoned every room in every house in every front line city. The streets of Western Germany became deathtraps. In the gaps between cities, the Germans had adapted well to the logistics of Tank warfare; if the French committed any large amount of soldiers to battle, the Germans would merely use their tanks to strike at the enemy’s flanks, leading to the risk of encirclement and forcing a withdrawal. At the same time, Germany lacked the manpower to launch any offensives of its own. So it was that the stalemate continued. In the beginning of 1939, German high command decided to focus on the weakest link in the Axis: Italy. The Italian army had proven itself to be poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly led. Further, they lacked something that had proven to be crucial to the success of any army in the war so far: their tanks were some of the worst in the world. This was a weakness the newly promoted German Field Marshal Hienz Guderian was determined to exploit. Guderian planned a massive three pronged German offensive to encircle and destroy two full Italian armies, an offensive that was launched on May 3, 1939. Prong one would reach the Mediterranean coast around the city of Udine. Prong two would take Trieste, and prong three would take Dubrovnik.The Italian army had nothing that could really compete with the German tanks. Their Bersagliare light infantry were lethal in the mountains. The northern Balkans, however, were not the mountains. The Italians were crushed by the Panzer offensive. By July, the encirclement was complete. A large portion of the Italian army was destroyed. The Italians rushed to garrison the new front line at the Alps. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians, Romanians, and Hungarians rushed to guard the Balkans. The Southern Front was divided in half. Meanwhile, the British, smarting from the defeats in Canada, were preparing a new victory in Europe to placate the public. German factories in the Rhineland were operating at a reduced capacity, due to the heavy fighting going on in the region. As such, the Germans had transferred much of their industry to the province of Saxony, which had become the new industrial heartland of the German Empire. Mosley planned a massive air offensive against Saxony. The idea was to threaten the German industrial heartland with bombing, luring the German Luftwaffe out of hiding. The decisive air battle would be fought, and, it was hoped, the Royal Air Force would achieve air superiority once and for all. From there, they could devastate the German industrial heartland, hopefully breaking the stalemate in the Rhineland. Mosley was convinced that the war would be won or lost in the air. What would be known to future generations as the Battle of Saxony began on June 13, 1939. A massive armada of British aircraft took off from airfields in the occupied Netherlands and northern Germany. As they moved towards Saxony, they met the Luftwaffe in the air. At first, the Royal Air Force slowly moved to control the skies. However, Luftwaffe airfields were closer to Saxony than the British airfields, meaning that more German planes could be brought to bear in a given engagement. On July 20, the British prepared what they hoped would be the decisive strike. However, the Germans sent several squadrons of fighters and bombers to London, as a diversion. It worked; 25% of the British planes moved to defend London. The Luftwaffe then proceeded to decisively beat the RAF over Saxony, even taking out some of their airfields. For the Germans, it was an important triumph. German air superiority had been established. By winter, Guderian prepared for yet another offensive, this time to tidy up a front that had been regarded as a sideshow before, but now had been elevated to an extremely important theatre. The Balkans now threatened the flank of the German front against Italy, and had to be cleaned up before any push against Italy could be made. So it was that, beginning in August, Guderian launched one of the most rapid conquests in history. German air superiority over the Balkans had long been a fact of life, but Guderian took advantage of it like no one had before. Launching the largest airborne assault in history, the Luftwaffe dropped paratroopers behind enemy lines all across the front. Meanwhile, The German Panzer crews started their engines, blasting through enemy lines. They were assisted in this assault by partisans in occupied Yugoslavia. Belgrade, capitol of Yugoslavia, fell in early September. The Bulgarian army was crumbling. Meanwhile, against Hungary, the German blitzkrieg was even more successful. Two German pincers closed around roughly half of the Hungarian army. Meanwhile, a large German force too Budapest. The capitulation of Hungary took roughly a month. The Germans then moved against Romania. Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu vowed to fight to the end. Romanian King Micheal I, however, had other plans. Micheal staged a coup against Antonescu, taking control of the government and capitulating to Germany before Romania was invaded. Bulgaria capitulated soon after. Thanks to Guderian’s brilliance, the Balkan Front was closed in two months. Meanwhile, on the Western Front, General De Gualle once again saw opportunity. Guderian had withdrawn a great deal of soldiers to the Balkans to aid in his offensive. De Gualle planned a new strategy to counteract the German fortifications. On September 1, 1939, the French tanks, with their new Louis XIV heavy tanks, launched a full frontal assault on the German positions. The Louis XIV was superior to any tank the Germans had, and they managed to make quite a bit of headway by the end of the first week, threatening to encircle German positions in the cities of the Rhineland. The German commander, General Franz von Epp, feared encirclement, and panicked, withdrawing from the Rhineland completely. The French had taken the Rhineland relatively bloodlessly. Despite all of this, 1940 began with yet another stalemate. German and French troops stared each other down across the River Rhine. So it was that, from the River Rhine to the mountains of Northern Italy, the stalemate had returned. And yet, in the Asian front, the action was very real.

Actually, thats a really good point. War crimes should be prosecuted primarily against those who hurt their own people. The grey area, though, is in cases like ISIS, where it is arguably a country, but if we admit that it hurt "its own people" we give it legitimacy. Then again, ISIS does claim sovereignty over all of these people, so it should probably be held responsible.

Why stop at Emperor Nero? Make him a Caligula! Kamui- making his troops wonder why they aren't supporting Garon since the start of this game.

Nope. Polygamy, after all, is the work of Satan. If you do it you shall be burned at the stake to purge the sinfulness from your body.

Yeah, the forum didn't support Imageshack for some reason, so I switched to Photobucket.

That looks kind of like if Greece and Italy switched places.

Well, if I may make an extremely tasteless joke... it makes sense at least for Hoshido, if you know history, and what Hoshido is based on. Concubines and the like.

Eh, incorruptible pure pureness always was a bad trait for a leader. I'd want her to be the woman wearing the queenly mask, myself.

Hello and welcome back to Pokemon Firered! Last time we humiliated an international crime syndicate, this time we calm a spirit by beating the shit out of it! Before anything else happens, I need to take care of something... wait... do my eyes deceive me? Are those... Images?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Yes they are, and the first thing you get to see is the newly christened Blitzkrieg! Images aside, the time is now to head into the Pokemon tower! Oh. Wonderful. The better question, Woodrow, is what are YOU doing here? I bet you're visiting the graves of all the soldiers who died in WWI. THEIR BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!!!!!!!! Well, they're dead inside now. As am I. Woodrow, you are not Dr. Frankenstein. Stop pretending to be. You know what, just for that I'm going to shock your Pokemon for a while, okay? Historically, the Allies stopped the German Blitzkrieg at the Battle of the Bulge with planes. Fortunately, Pidgeottos are not planes. I'll give you all three guesses as to how this one ended. Kadabra was finished with a bite and an ember, forever proving that Dogs are better than Wizards as pets. Ivysaur, as you can see, was a bit more of a problem. After a few recovery items and a few embers, however, it is cast aside like the rest. With your Mom. ...yeah that was a bit too easy. This is also apparently a home for the vocabulary challenged, as their vocabulary appears to be limited to grunts and moans accompanied by "BLOOD! HYPER REALISTIC BLOOD!" Hmm, have a new enemy: Creepypasta fans! At the top of the tower, I encounter this ghost. Personally I don't name him; I would be sick of human contact too if my company was a bunch of Creepypasta fans. Ah, hey there Marowak. How was Woodrow's mom? The indignity of my suggestion infuriated the ghost of Marowak, forcing me to use Guderian to defend myself. The Marowak, already depressed from Creepypasta fans, departed of depression after my insult. OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!! Team Rocket is here again! Maybe they're here to learn how to be effective from the Creepypasta fans? It turns out they had this old man here, probably to protect him from the horrors of the bad Creepypasta. In any case, he took me home and gave me this thing called a Pokeflute. Whatever. Next time on Pokemon Firered, we do battle with the most evil group of all...

To be fair, the vast majority of dystopias are set in the real world as well. And I wasn't saying modern dystopias aren't evil, just that it's kind of telling that humanity actually tried something worse than what villains in children's stories dream up. The rise of fantasy is unfortunate, as it is much too easy to fall into a simple good vs evil formula in fantasy, but I digress. @Severlain: Oh yeah, I forgot about old Adol- I mean Rudolf von Goldenbaum. Then again, Rienhard does a pretty good job of averting the dystopia, so whatever floats your boat, I guess. I am not, however, farm iliac with Oryx and Crake.

Innocent until proven guilty. If any civilians die under these circumstances, their deaths were the fault of one of the most cowardly and despicable strategies ever conceived.

Well, Bravely Default had a twist like that. The problem was that it took entirely too long for the characters to figure it out. If there was a revelation like that for Hoshido, I'd want there to be a choice about continuing to serve them.

So, recalling all the recent dystopias that have come out (Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.) I've noticed that none of them actually match real world evil at all. 1984' Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia were horrible, but that was published in 1948. Since then, I can't think of a single far future dictator that even approaches the evil of Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot. The closest atrocity I can think of is the Hunger Games, but really, in the grand scheme of things, having 24 children a year kill each other for sport isn't that bad compared to shit like the Holocaust. Honestly, dystopias in general are just losing their touch. They're no longer brutal, totalitarian tyrants, dystopias today are pretty much tinpot dictatorships with some prose thrown in. At this point, I'm just ranting though. Thoughts?

To be fair, Wu never killed her husband, and her son was legitimately plotting against her. She did, however, kill her female competition in the regent department, but I would say that was justifiable as she was a fairly benevolent autocrat.

I would want her to do nasty, manipulative realpolitik stuff, but to not be outright evil. Kind of like my profile pic.

@ Eclipse: No, it was actually the Japanese noticing. Historically they didn't and some ridiculous number of Chinese were saved. Thank you for the compliment, also.

The notion of war crimes as a whole is flawed. There is no military on earth that has not committed war crimes. I don't think, however, that said soldier would go on trial. There were some legitimate war crimes committed by Allied soldiers, like the Red Army gang raping German women at the end of the war, and they were never brought to trial. "War criminals" are anyone the victor wanted to get revenge on. It could be for good reasons, it could be because they merely were a good general who won many victories. Whatever the case, war crime trials are never fair; if you have lost a war the mainstream media has probably already made everyone biased against you.

Hoo boy; I'm absolutely shit with romance. Well, hopefully I can pull through.

I only hope those in charge of the armed forces of the anti ISIS coalition realize this; ISIS certainly isn't afraid to inflict more than collateral damage on civilians.

Can you review our stories as well?

I said valuable military target, so not some outpost. It would be more like killing 100000 civilians with a nuke to blow a hole in the enemy front lines.

To add to this, I do not approve of targeting civilians as a terror tactic. However, any amount of civilian casualties are acceptable as collateral damage. For example, Hiroshima was the garrison of the Imperial Japanese fifth army, which was wiped out by the blast. Essentially, if civilians are in the way when targeting a valuable military target, that is not High Command's problem. Arguments advocating for taking ridiculous measures to protect civilians are usually appeals to emotion anyway.

ISIS is NOT an insurgent group. When will people realize this? They are fighting a conventional war against a rather large coalition. Al Quaeda was at most an annoyance. ISIS is threatening to conquer Syria and Iraq. No "insurgent group" has ever set up their own nation. RE civilians, of course we would express shock and outrage. We would also express shock and outrage over our soldiers being killed. Does that make killing soldiers wrong? Also FYI in the War of 1812 the Brits and Canadians burned down the White House. So yeah, just adding on to what Eclipse said.

The Battle Test isn't the real deal for competitive Pokemon anyway. If you want to not have to deal with the Battle Tests Bullshit, try Battle Spot. It's good for actual strategy.

@Formina Sage: Derp. I am clueless about Chrono Trigger, so when I saw the name Chrono I suppose I just naturally thought it was a Chrono Trigger fanfic. My fault. In any case, I see what you're saying, and I do actually have an ongoing story here that is very similar to my entry in format. Thanks for the feedback.