Battle of the Marne

The Holy Roman Empire has amassed a force large enough to launch a vital push towards Paris. If Operation Mordhau succeeds, the Imperials will have snuffed out the heart of French resistance, and the country will be forced to either surrender or move their military efforts into a more spartan insurgency. The New French Republic is meanwhile in the process of recovery from two years of mismanagement and abuse, as the new regime hopes to stay more true to the revolutionary vision that was promised. While they find their footing, they will have to rely on their allies for aid, as the American war machine finally lurches to life, rallying to the defense of the nation’s oldest friend.

I: 1940 Status Report

After almost two years of stemming the tide, the Holy Roman Empire has gained much needed momentum. The 4th Army Group’s stalwart defense of Frankfurt proved its worth, ushering in a new emperor and surviving multiple long-term sieges. They had been relieved by Oleksandr Hrekov’s 5th Army Group, who had opened a southern corridor after taking the city of Mannheim. Even so, the veterans of the 4th were certainly not ready for another high-stakes encounter with the French 2nd Group, even when their morale had crumbled in the wake of the Officer Rebellions in June. Colonel-General Ludvík Krejčí and his 4th instead took the summer to regain their composure, spreading their net westward, but not engaging in any large-scale encounters. They would need to recover what strength they could for their part in Operation Mordhau.

Similar to the 4th in Frankfurt, the 1st Army Group had an equally harrowing time in the war thus far. Its current commander,  Acting Field Marshal Eugen Bregant, had witnessed many of his former leaders fall in the campaign while surrounded deep in enemy territory. The combined success of the 5th and 4th Groups had paved the way for their liberation, but they were far from fully-staffed, with some units under 25% fighting strength. This was especially clear with his former 3rd Field Army, which he handed off to one of his aides in a special field promotion. Franz Brecht had not seen much real combat, even in the entrapment, focusing largely on the logistical situation as the Emperor’s airfleet graced them with safely-delivered supplies. He had additionally elevated another one of his subordinates to assist in the command of the 3rd, but the man in question was admittedly a force of personality…

“Pro Tempore” Major-General Baron Lajos Dolmán de Szolnok was a highly capable commander, but a callous conversationalist who hated wasting time on those undeserving. His tenure with the 1st Imperial Hussars had seen his men single-handedly hold an entire flank alone, so Bregant hoped that putting Brecht with someone more senior and experienced with the frontline would allow him to grow into his role. He even gave de Szolnok direct command over the 1st Cavalry Division, practically splitting the command of the 3rd between the two men. Unfortunately the elder hussar could not stand Brecht, and it was only a matter of time before something set him off.

The public’s ire for the slow, painful conflict had been satiated by the early successes of Operation Mordhau, but a job could not be left half finished. By late July, Imperial forces from the 5th Army Group spilled far across the French frontier, reaching deep into the Bourgogne region in the south, and Ardennes region in the north. They had to hurry their plans along as soon as possible; the French would only fight amongst themselves for so long, and the troubling sightings of American raiding parties spelled ill portents if they could not end the war soon. In order for Mordhau to succeed, the Empire would need to strike at the heart of the republic, and capture Paris before their enemy could recover.

The French did not fully realize the plans of their enemy, and were still focused on minimizing losses while they brought the military back to its senses. In August they made the first steps to restoring order, appointing a first of its kind Field Marshal to head its military restoration free of the overbearing Commissariat. Ironically, while the “Greatest among Equals”, Field Marshal Marius Bourreau’s first act was to bestow the same rank to all existing army group commanders, simultaneously recognizing their wealth of experience and bringing them to the table for getting the country back on track. The new “Board of Marshals” would coordinate their actions more efficiently, as while they always had their own independent operations, there was no central military apparatus to strategize through that did not require the approval of the state. These five other Marshals were no longer beholden to government inquiries, that was up to Bourreau now. In exchange, the innovative young commander only asked for preferential authority as commander-in-chief in moments of indecision, a release valve for democratic paralysis. The results of this shakeup, as well as his many other reforms, were unfortunately not to be felt immediately, and their success would only be clear if they could survive the current surge.

The 1st Army Group was in the most immediate danger, and was suffering from higher attrition than most groups, likely a result of the rough sub-alpine geography they found themselves in. Field Marshal Antoine Besson and his 3rd Armée were mostly past the effects of the rebellion, but fighting with the 13th Field army and “Von Moltke’s Pandurs” had left his main force out of supply and heavily injured. On August 13th, Besson ordered his men to return to their fallback HQ in Bern, Switzerland. He left the Basel front to the 2nd Armée, under the command of Army General René Olry. Olry was a capable enough general but had greatly mismanaged the protests in his ranks, which had left morale on the floor. As a result, his troops upon being even slightly pressured by Kuno Ludwig von Moltke’s ragtag army broke like paper, falling back closer to his base of operations in Dijon. The General of the 13th, having drafted the original Mordhau plan, expected this to happen, and continued to march westward. He had no time to mind a potential envelopment. Phase 2 was about to begin.

II: The Great Push West

The newest stage in Operation Mordhau was scrawled into the margins of von Moltke’s notes as “The Irresistible Distraction”. The wounded but still numerous 4th Army Group would proceed west out of Frankfurt, relieving the 15th Field Army under Field Marshal Lieutenant “Sieg” Schrader as they pushed south. General Ihlefeld’s 2nd Field Army would push Trier from Luxembourg, and the combined pressure would cause the already faltering 2nd Army Group to collapse, routing deep into Flanders. Once successful, 3rd Field Army and its dual leadership would surge into Sedan; simultaneously as Franz von Galen’s 5th Field Army marched on Aachen. With years of being on the offensive, the disorganized French had not planned defensive lines in these positions, and it would be easy to blitz with acceptable casualties. With three victories on the borders of Flanders, the stage would be set: The French 2nd Group is disabled, the 3rd Group is under direct threat from three angles, and the 5th is too busy fighting on the coastline to provide support.

The threat of a northern invasion was impossible to ignore. The best chance for survival in Flanders was to fortify a defensive line around Liege, and hope the 3rd could buy time for the 2nd to recover. By mid September, more than half of France’s domestic forces were now tied up fighting against the weakest, most exhausted armies in the Holy Roman Empire. The distraction was a smashing success, and the only real obstacle on the road to Paris was the French 4th Army Group, and its new Field Marshal Bourrreau. 

Phase 3 was a mobilization of the main Paris force, a three-pronged push across the Ardennes and Bourgogne regions. The fastest and healthiest units, General Friedrich Borojević’s 14th Field Army would take the tip of the spear, advancing quickly to Nancy to engage the 10th Armée. General Charles-Marie Zola was a recent selection for command, and was ill-prepared for such a quick strike. Given the seemingly direct course for Paris von Moltke knew Zola would call out naval support from the capital, providing an opportunity for the Emperor’s own fleet to surprise and pick off some heavier, aether-ground assault ships ill-equipped for open combat. The 14th would likely take considerable casualties, but the way would be clear for the more susceptible units in the north and south to push as well, securing outlying cities as potential launching points for the final battle.

On September 12th, the Battle over Nancy began. All three branches of the Imperial military were present at the city, with 9 vessels from the aether navy escorting a massive airship fleet under the command of Air Marshal Manfred von Richthofen. Richthofen, who was eager to test the upper limits of his fleet’s altitude climbing ability was waiting patiently aboard the Emden, an unassuming frigate in the middle of the escort. His smaller fixed-wing vessels found it much easier to climb, with the heavier vessels opting to instead provide fire support for the attack. One of the French craft, the Dunkerque was even boarded after the zeppelins fleet managed to ascend to the aethership's deck while it was in the upper atmosphere, nearly tying a world record while under fire. The excited Air Marshal was then rudely reminded that there was in fact a battle going on outside his window, as the impact of a stray shot perforated the moment. He reportedly chuckled nervously after the close call, and calmly ordered the captain to pull back.

Down below, the fight was quite a bit more brutal. Zola’s forces were ready to face the enemy, but tales of the HRE’s strategy for the past two years did not prepare them for the sight of an Imperial charge. First the armored cars announced their approach, lighting up the defensive positions with turret fire. Thunderous cannons fired overhead as steel giants screeched across the sky, blasting each other with enough explosive yield to level any rural farmhouse. Then came the Knechts: massive lumbering steel bodies running from far afield, charging down their bunkers and sandbags without much concern for the suppressing fire that clipped their shields. Poor recruits recently brought to the front hid behind their walls, only to be ripped out of cover by the servo-assisted limbs of the battlesuits. The French, who had previously fought the war like an enraged swarm of bees, now were run down like drones cowering in the hive. For many the last sight before their untimely demise was the crashing of ships from above, burning metal skeletons ushering them into the underworld with an oddly calming destruction.

Fighting in Nancy lasted only three days, largely thanks to the loss of French aether support. Existing morale issues and the greenness of soldiers meant that the rate of attrition was extreme, and the lack of proper supply meant that infantry positioned in the city could not do much against enemy battlesuits that made it past the cordon of tanks patrolling the outer extremities of the battlefield. Out in the open, French armor did not fare much better, as tanks were literally hunted down by Imperial Arpads. General Zola had barely escaped on the second night, falling back to Reims to personally warn the Field Marshal of what had transpired. Half of the 10th Armée was now either dead or captured. They had not expected the Imperials so soon, but regardless they would need to adapt if they wanted to survive.

III: The Verdun Quagmire

On September 15th the second and third prongs of the Mordhau assault made their move, pushing west as the 14th Field Army had already done. In the south, Von Moltke’s Pandurs were sweeping up the French 1st Army Group single-handedly, only to keep surging forward. His forces ignored the 3rd Armée retreating into Switzerland, and passed within 60 kilometers of the 2nd’s headquarters in Dijon as they made their way towards Troyes. The 1st Armée, under the command of General Hercule Lefebvre, was more capable at resisting the approach, but was under strict instructions from Field Marshal Besson to limit casualties. His highest morale regiments were deployed to Vesoul to stall the approaching Pandurs for a few days while he set up defenses in Troyes, as he knew the city would be integral as a launching point for an invasion of Paris. Resistance at Vesoul proved to be just the right balance of calculus and care, as while many of his men were sacrificed, he bought the rest of them five days of peace. Command would likely be upset, but he was ready to die himself to hold the city if it meant Paris would be safe.

Lefebvre, fortunate in many ways, would not get the chance to defend Troyes, as his enemy turned northward just short of the city. Von Moltke was the architect of Mordhau, he knew best that a drawn out battle for a shielded town was a waste of time. He had also planned for this scenario, as while the attack called for preparing two staging grounds, only one would be used to assault Paris. With Troyes serving as a superfluous limb anyway, the General decided to cut it out of his plan. He instead marched northward via the A26, looking to meet up with 14th Field Army in a couple of days.

Army General Lefebvre was left stunned by the fakeout, as he was unsure how to respond. He needed to ensure the position was safe, but also could not allow his enemy to move on uncontested. Conversely, his men were already entrenched, and with concerns for morale among command it was not clear if following the enemy at this moment was the best call. Perhaps waiting was the best course of action, so that his men could be ready for a future fight. The general’s personal answer would prove irrelevant in the end, as von Moltke had one last trick to dissuade any flanking pursuits. The 1st Aether Squadron assigned to assaulting Nancy a week prior was sent to escort the Pandurs as they reunited with the 14th Field Army at Sommesous, and were given orders to sabotage any potential pursuers. For 8 hours, bombers were deployed along the A26 highway, damaging infrastructure leaving a clear message for the 1st Armée; don’t try it. War Group Mordhau was almost ready for Phase 4, it was just waiting for its commander.

Oleksandr Hrekov and the 15th Field Army were meant to have the easiest job. As his army had liberated the Luxembourg pocket, they were the most exhausted in the War Group. The stronger two armies were meant to travel less direct routes in the south to confuse the Paris defense, wasting resources on the southeastern flank that could have been used on the northeast instead. The 15th, under Hrekov and his Field Marshal Lieutenant “Sieg” Schrader were meant to wait until mid-September and then slowly make their way west towards Reims, meeting up with the rest of the group as they established a forward base in the city. The only obstacle on the journey was the heavily forested area around the city of Verdun, and any half-abandoned defenses within.

The reality of Verdun was unfortunately in far better shape than Hrekov had hoped, as the shoring of defenses across the region was a top priority of the new commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Bourreau. Once the pocket was lost, the HRE’s nearby front had lulled in an effort to recover for the next attack, which gave the French time to regroup as well. While Zola’s defeat at Nancy was a setback, his warning had given him the necessary evidence to harden the resolve of his officer corps in the 4th Army Group, elevating morale on the grounds of revolutionary preservation. Still more would need to be done to blunt the elite fighters of the HRE 15th Field Army.

To relieve the 12th Armée from the sole responsibility of defending Verdun, Bourreau ordered the 11th Armée’s 1st Infantry Division, known by many as the “Grognards” for their stoic resolve and loyalty, to hold a defensive line along the Meuse River south of Verdun. These well-tested veterans would not easily break, and would deter the enemy from simply charging through the open fields surrounding Verdun. The 12th Armée’s General Emmanuel Sarrail would take his most fatigued forces and shore up defenses in and around Verdun itself, and secure supplies from behind the line. The remainder of the 12th would take position in the forest’s infamous forts, Douaumont and Vaux, punishing any units that attempted to assault the Grognards, while also providing a near-impregnable position if the 15th Field Army were to assault from the trees. The resulting defense was a far harder target than Hrekov was ready for.

The 15th arrived from Metz on the 17th of September, and the situation was grim. Scouting missions had been met by an enemy well-prepared for a protracted battle, nothing like the French he had fought before. Many of his recon units had also not reported back, likely killed by concealed units in the forest. Even still, Hrekov believed he could break through, he had to. If he failed, or if he was forced to divert course, he would never make the deadline set for Mordhau. What's more, he was meant to helm this operation, he wouldn’t dare miss it for the sake of some damned forest. Would he? 

Within the first two days of battle, even Hrekov could see the writing on the wall. His first foray into woods resulted in two separate regiments getting ambushed, unable to effectively navigate. He tried to deploy scout zeppelins to chart a path from above, but that also ended in disaster. The forts within were backed up by a half-dozen Carnot walkers each. This also meant that he could not risk the fleet for fire support, as the infamous heavy walkers were deadly to would-be aether bombers. The next day was even worse, as he tested the lines south of the forest. The Verdun defensive plan was working as intended, with the Grognards holding firm along the river, and troops from the forest proving too annoying to ignore without losing half of his men. This was no simple speed bump to his advance; properly taking on Sarrail and the 12th was going to take weeks at best, he had to make a call to the War Group, and adjust the plan accordingly.

IV: Converging on Paris

Operation Mordhau was forced to pivot hard, but all was not lost. Hrekov’s glory notwithstanding, much of the plan could still succeed without him, albeit with higher casualties than the Imperial public would like. Kuno Ludwig von Moltke was now in charge of the operation, with the support of the 14th’s General Friedrich Borojević, Air Marshal Richthofen, and Admiral Wolfgang von Tirpitz 1st Aether Squadron. The latter two were necessary for the next stage, as without help from on high, he would not have enough men to make the final push into Paris. Von Moltke still needed his staging ground for the assault.

After his maneuvering around Troyes, the main candidate for his invasion was the city of Reims, the midpoint between Verdun and Paris. He chose this location back when he still believed Hrekov was going to be joining the assault; Troyes in hindsight might have been a more prudent decision. The city was under the guard of forces from the 11th Armée, the personal army of the new French Commander In Chief. He was not fully aware of what the enemy was planning yet, but still could see the importance of the position. Unfortunately, he could not spare many of his forces to the defense, thanks to both previous attrition and the 1st Division he had loaned to the defense of Verdun. Committing all available forces meant that the Reims garrison was still outnumbered at least five to one. No, he needed to give those most harmed by the previous regime a chance to recover faith in the revolution, he couldn’t dare sacrifice so many in a losing battle, he had to keep going.

Field Marshal Bourreau’s new battle plan was simple: he would half his forces once more. His remaining infantry division would accompany him on a retreat to Paris, escorting a mandatory evacuation of the city as they fled the invading forces. His motorized forces would load up as many supplies from the city as they could in twenty-four hours, making one last run to Verdun before they were potentially cut off. His armored units and engineers would remain behind in the city, fortifying the position the best they could. Their inevitable sacrifice was considered by Bourreau to be the biggest disruption possible with the fewest lives on the line. He hated such cold-blooded calculus, but he had inherited a mess that could only be solved through more struggle.

The 11th now being split, the command of the Reims defense was now left to Brigadier General Claude Micheler, a man lacking in experience but brimming with vigor. A man devoted to revolution even more than Bourreau, he accepted the assignment knowing the risks. As the Imperials arrived on the outskirts of town on the 23rd of September, he deployed his light tanks to greet them, hoping to out-maneuver the fatigued invaders before they could set up camp. The sudden strike was effective, but only instilled a sense of spite in the enemy vanguard, a feeling they’d utilize well the next day. The Pandurs secured the outlying towns on the 24th, half-encircling the city by nightfall. 

In the autumn darkness, a series of flares were shot into the city, the harbingers for a new, brutal attack. Under the cover of darkness the Imperial air unit accompanied by two vessels from the Naval group set the city ablaze, bombarding it from high above. As the city was evacuated prior, Richthofen had no qualms with an indiscriminate shelling of Reims, as then he could remove much of the defenses the 11th’s engineers had set up. The fires could be seen for tens of kilometers all around, with even the local Cathedral not surviving. The forces within did their best to suppress the flames, but as many as 15% of Micheler’s men died overnight. The war machine of the Emperor was truly a menace when it had the right motivation. The defense had to continue regardless.

Three days later, happenings in the north would seal the fate of Micheler’s holdout. Fighting in the Meuse diversionary front was ongoing, with the 1st and 4th Army Group maintaining a half-hearted push towards Liege. Not everyone was happy with this plan of action, especially as the main assault was clearly the better front for any glory seekers…

“I joined the military to defend the homeland from the Emperor’s enemies, to run them down they could do the same to us, to do the hard work because I can. For two years I did that, I served my purpose even when the simpering cowards hid in their festung. My men were out there, and we still are! We do not tire, we only ask our masters ‘who’s next?’ And they expect me to sit back and watch? They want me to pretend to win battles while real ones are fought to the south? Our enemy is in Paris, if we want it it’s ours for the taking! Damn Von Moltke for his foolish plan, damn Bregant for not being half the man his predecessors were, and damn this whining pup they put in command with me. I am going where I am needed, I will not be the au pair to someone beneath me!”

-(Acting)Major-General Baron Lajos Dolmán de Szolnok, 1st Cavalry Division

Baron Dolmán had grown tired of his role in the diversionary attack. His army had been tasked with the job due to their perceived exhaustion after the encirclement, a weakness he and his hussars lacked. Major-General Franz Brecht was green, a desk jockey for most of his career. He was precisely the kind of man he despised; a man not befit life in the Imperial core. For weeks the duo had contested with NFR forces south of Namur, passively whittling down the enemy positions in what Lajos saw as “play-fighting.” Brecht consistently ignored requests for him to lead a charge, to actually gain meaningful ground. He finally got a chance to wriggle free from the fool’s grasp in September; a regiment of French forces were regrouping in Sedan further to the south. The baron suggested that if he didn’t take them out they risked their flank, appealing to Brecht’s weaker fortitude. With his “superior’s” approval, he deployed to the city to deal with the enemy on the 15th.

Killing the half-formed force was a simple matter for him, his horse and steel crashing over them in the streets of Sedan. What little resistance he faced was when he turned to the castle, which he ordered his tanks to shell through the night. When the enemy commanders came out the next morning to surrender, he put them all to the sword, displaying their corpses on the walls; he was done playing games. When Brecht heard of his success, he radioed to recall him to the northern line, but Baron Lajos Dolmán de Szolnok was done listening to him. After cleaning up things in Sedan, he continued to charge south, his new target was the city of Reims.

On September 28th, a column of tanks was spotted charging straight for Micheler’s northern flank. Von Moltke himself was caught off guard by this sudden arrival, as the baron had rode through the night and not radioed anyone in the War Group. He radioed Richthofen, as he was technically the senior officer in their mixed chain of command. What should he do in this situation? “If we reprimand him now it would only be a waste of armor. We asked God for another army and instead he sent us a crazed Hungarian. At least He has a sense of humor.” Unable to let the opportunity slip, the southern flank joined the charge.

The battle was over in two days, the second of which in actuality resembling more of a cleanup job. The Reims task force was already at a severe disadvantage before they were flanked, the baron only making a bad situation more lethal. Very few survivors were able to escape, a dozen or so tanks that slipped out at the orders of the commander. Brigadier General Claude Micheler was captured by the Pandurs, a preferable fate to whatever some of the other officers would have done to him. He had held the city for a week, certainly no great siege like Frankfurt, but hopefully Bourreau had made it back to Paris in time to shore up defenses.

V: Christmas Comes Early

As the New French Republic was whittled down, their greatest ally prepared for an explosive arrival on the front. The armed forces of the United States of America were still making way for Europe, a slow process made worse by growing tensions with the British presence in the Atlantic. While the country had not yet been at war, Americans had left their mark on the front long before the autumn of 1940. Volunteer units from the American public were organized by soldiers who refused to wait for their country to deliberate, and deployed to France as early as January of 1939. The most famous of these units was the 185th Volunteer Brigade, whose two regiments were formed out of predominantly black communities in New York and Chicago. Led by Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the unit had served honorably assisting the encirclement of Luxemburg. With the onset of the Officer Rebellion, the brigade had been recalled to Paris; the previous regime suspecting the presence of ‘capitalist’ forces might agitate the situation further. As a result of this discrimination, their units were mostly intact, unlike their comrades.

With America now properly in the conflict, the 369th Regiment “Harlem Hellfighters” and 370th Regiment “Bronzeville’s Best” were folded into the Expeditionary Forces’ 1st Army, under the command of General Hugh Aloysius Drum. The general was sent here after his poor evaluations the past year, as Rockefeller deemed assisting France to be secondary to the fight with Russia. Drum was a perfectly adequate commander, even if his methods were considered ‘too orthodox,’ in his words. His early efforts to fortify the countryside, while in many ways futile, were able to give Paris HQ early warning of Operation Mordhau, as the 6th Regiment Engineers were the first to spot and engage the incoming Pandurs in the south. Fortunately, the 6th and their accompanying 29th Concordian Cavalry were able to fallback to Paris amid the initial skirmishes, stopping only briefly in Troyes to warn and supply the French 1st Armée. 

The only other forces at Drum’s disposal in Paris was the I Corps, commanded by Lt. General John P. Lucas. The bulk of the I Corps had only arrived only a month before, and were likewise lacking in supplies. To ensure the men were in position as soon as possible, they had outrun their supply lines, which were slowly being offloaded at the port in Nantes. Standoffs with the British Navy had delayed them heavily, as well as the II Corps that was tasked to escort the convoy. If they could hold out until both the supplies and manpower could arrive in Paris, Drum was confident they could survive any immediate threats to the capital.

Drum, Lucas, and the 185th’s Davis were in close communication with Bourreau and French command, and the two sides of the conference room couldn’t be more dissimilar. The elder Drum often disagreed with the youthful Bourreau, the confusion of age and rank making existing political tensions worse. In Bourreau’s eyes, Drum lacked the situational awareness to make the right call, while Drum saw a man who had command thrust upon him far too soon for a situation of such magnitude. Lucas and Davis were thankfully more agreeable, often gently pushing their commander to cooperate with their ally’s defense plan. While he was forced into passivity, Drum did however contribute one critical aspect to the strategy that would buy them more than a week’s breathing room. 

The Imperials had halted at Reims after taking it, likely preparing for the next, and potentially final assault. Colonel Benteen’s 29th Concordian Cavalry was sent in secret to harass the War Group as they tried to form up in the north. These small, unpredictable raids were able to disrupt supply lines, slow construction efforts, kill scouting parties, and dissuade any efforts to flank Verdun. The extra preparation required for the assault was delayed by several days thanks to the attacks, and Hrekov was forced to continue his fight in the forest alone. The best part of this strategy to Drum was the cost; it was the most efficient way to slow the enemy. The 29th was experienced at fighting with razor thin supply lines, and could do a lot of damage with minimal blood and lead spent. The AEF’s munitions were running dry, and a majority of the American soldiers were not trained with French equipment. With the Imperial march all but inevitable, it was fortunate his forces would only have to wait a few days more for supplies.

The help in question arrived on October 25th, delivered in the hands of an unexpected individual. The supply shipment arrived in Paris via a costly aether convoy manned by merchant marines, interspersed with a small contingent of plain-clothes Army soldiers. The ruse was an effective way to not arouse suspicion with the British, who in spite of rising tensions were still not aggressive enough to fire on civilian vessels. The head of this convoy was a portly, elderly man with a dense white beard, one General Nicholas Winters. The general had for the past year been heading the War Bonds Program, meeting with both corporate elite and common laborers alike to raise additional funds for their inevitable conflict in Europe. Using these funds, he had purchased a large amount of civilian rated munitions from companies in the public sphere; bullets that normally would not pass quality standards for usage in the armed forces due to lower grain counts, metal impurities, or other minor concerns. The flaws were considered negligible when the alternative was empty magazines. For larger artillery shells, Winters used his publicly acquired funds to cut a deal with sellers in the Haitian gray markets, diverting shipments already in air to head for Paris. 

The jolly retiree was a true blessing to the advance forces of the AEF, who quickly dismantled the shipment for everything that could be used. One notable exception was the forces of the 185th Brigade, who had been there the longest. Their camaraderie with the French had made them accustomed to French equipment, and as a result they largely mixed and matched pieces of their uniform to show their continued commitment, including the distinctive Adrian helmet. Drum accepted this, especially as it meant he could get Bourreau to foot the bill for a few thousand men. Now with the whole army supplied, the Americans were ready to finally clash with their new enemy in earnest.

VI: Hell’s Highway

Just five days after Winter’s delivery, the Mordhau War Group initiated the penultimate stage of Von Moltke's master plan; the march for Paris. The composition of the force was not as expected, but it had to be enough. Hrekov was still fighting hard to break through the Verdun line, and the group couldn’t fall back to flank them if they wanted to follow through on Paris. They had momentum, and had to hope the unexpected hussars from the north were enough to fill the gap. The delays caused by the American cavalry had been annoying, but easily deflected. In the meantime, he was able to set up a fallback headquarters in Reims for the time being, a perfect place to station the wounded and fatigued forces that could not partake in the final assault. If his calculations were wrong, he would need this city for much longer.

The benefit of using Reims was its infrastructure, as the city was on a main arterial highway into the heart of France. Constructed in the early 30s, the A4 was a direct route to Paris, allowing the army to march quickly into the capital within only four days. Verneuil and Château-Thierry would be raided for supplies by the motorized scouting units, with zeppelins providing some overhead support. The aetherfleet accompanying the attack joined up with the unit on the fourth day, conserving fuel for the next day’s push. The night of the 3rd of November, the group made camp just beyond the Marne River, using the waterway as a deterrent for any night raids. They had no time for last minute raids from the enemy, as surprise was to be in their favor tomorrow.

The dawn of the 4th arrived over the camp; the time for the final battle had come. The armored and motorized units of the 14th Field army were the first to deploy, followed closely by General Friedrich Borojević and the infantry. They rushed down the A4 thanks in part to armored cars they commandeered from the Pandurs, who would not need them for this battle. This massive unit of troops could be seen easily from Paris, as Bourreau’s forces were prepared for the attack. He had established the main defense line a few kilometers east of Chessy, the vanguard under the command of the 10th Armée’s Charles-Marie Zola, who hoped for redemption after Nancy. The plan was to establish the front outside of Paris at the optimal distance to use the city’s infrastructure to safely supply the remnants of the 10th with relief troops and supplies, all without endangering their logistics. The eastern perimeter of the city had already been evacuated, so enemy proximity could not be a serious issue, at least in most scenarios. As the 10th weakened, Marius planned to fill the line with forces from the 11th, who were still reorganizing after Reims. This meant the A4 had roughly 70,000 men guarding the entrance to Paris, and morale had improved enough to ensure the front could hold for weeks as his forces convalesced.

The morning was foggy, scouts struggled to observe the horizon on the highway. They watched the approaching army to the best of their abilities, catching dark forms amidst the haze. As the 8th hour passed, and firefights along the periphery broke, a few recon troops north of the A4 noticed something peculiar; this force, already comparable to their own, was roughly half of the expected size. Only two hours went by before the reason was uncovered; the declaration shouted loudly over the radio back to headquarters: “The enemy is diverging! A second force is heading towards Meaux!” This was the real plan all along.

Paris had more value as a target than just being the seat of power. Logistically the city was the center of the French rail, river, road, air, and aether networks; the biggest singular nexus in all of continental Europe. The last of those points was the biggest resource the French had that the Empire envied most. The food provided by the Germinal colony was responsible for sustaining France’s mighty population, and isolating it would start the clock on national starvation. A headless revolution could keep writhing for years, but a hungry one wouldn’t last a single winter. The push for the government seat was inevitable, but the push for the Germinal Gate was far more important.

The A4 was truly the best route into the center of Paris, but diverting forces along the N3 put the second force, commanded by Kuno Ludwig von Moltke and Baron Lajos Dolmán de Szolnok, on a direct course for the northeastern quarter, where the jump gate was located. The Baron’s forces would smash what meager resistance the French had on this secondary front while Von Moltke’s forces secured the ladder leading up to the gate. At their back was the entire aether complement, as well as half of Richthofen's air forces. A dual assault of both the gate and the ground beneath it would ensure the jump lane’s capture, cutting France off from its breadbasket. His maneuvers were foolproof; Bourreau did not have the manpower to blanket all of Paris in active troops while the capitol was in danger in the south. He had won.

VII: The Battle of the Marne

As the Gate Task Force arrived in Meaux, red signal flares and trench whistles blew out from the town, and soon volleys of gunfire rang out through the streets. Defensive lines had been carved through the community, armed to the teeth with heavy armaments and machine gun emplacements. Cacophonous artillery then shelled the area at close range, shattering the will of the horses leading the charge. The long range strikes were danger-close to the defensive front, but this seemed to not phase the enemy. As reports from the front trickled back to Von Moltke, he realized the truth. The soldiers blocking his path were the Americans.

Bourreau fortunately did not have to fight this battle alone. While he had assumed the government would be the main target of the War Group, he knew he could not rule out all possibilities. To cover the most likely secondary target, he requested that General Drum’s AEF 1st Army take the northern flank. His short-range 3rd Division artillery would take positions between the two armies along the river, providing cover fire to whichever front needed it at the moment. Longer ranged armaments were still safely in the city, and were used to great effect to wake up the hussars blindly stumbling into Meaux. The troops heading the vanguard, under the fire of their own guns, were the Harlem Hellfighters and Bronzeville’s Best. They had been briefed on the dangerous job they were taking, but the two regiments refused to not give their all to defend the nation they had already spent so long fighting for.

Brave as they were, the front line was understood to merely be a beach head; Baron de Szolnok’s ferocity in a charge had already become known to the Americans in recent weeks. His hussars would eventually break through, but not without significant pressure from the volunteer regiments at the first line. The melee was fierce, continuing for hours before the 370th’s positions in the heart of the town started to weaken. Fortunately, this situation was already accounted for. The gallant riders of the 29th Concordian Cavalry erupted from the front line, crossing swords with the advance troops of the Gate Task Force. Their counterstrike was fierce, but their lack of armor meant any protracted fight with De Szolnok would end in excessive casualties. Luckily for Colonel Benteen, this sacrifice was not necessary; he just needed to stall while the front retreated. As soon as the volunteer troops were safe, his men likewise fell back.

By nightfall, the volunteer brigade was able to regroup to the second line in the town, which had been prepared by the 3rd Infantry Division and their 6th regiment engineers. The Hellfighters were largely in good spirits, but the 370th had taken heavy losses in their first day of fighting. To smooth out the defensive line, Brigadier General Davis swapped the men’s positions, hoping the enemy would strike the harder target the next day. He and Lieutenant General Lucas also kept half of the 3rd ID alongside the brigade while the rest shored defenses beyond the third line. Depending on how the Imperials reacted to this unexpected resistance, they might have to fall back again tomorrow. 

From Drum’s perspective, the understaffed Army at his disposal was already showing its thin skin. After witnessing the clash at Meaux, Von Moltke swung his forces northward, hoping to out-maneuver the American wall. This meant that five of his seven divisions were already fully deployed across a 30 kilometer line around the city. Drum’s best men, the 32nd Division, were in the worst possible position, as their front east of Monthyon was facing resistance from Kampfgruppe Blau and De Szolnok’s Meaux forces. What’s worse was that he couldn’t really remedy the weak link in the chain, as the forces north of them were already stretching to deny the mobility of the enemy, and the 3rd needed to remain concentrated in the south, lest he lose the forward artillery. He had to trust that his protege, Major General “Guillaume” Guyton, could get the job done.

Fighting at the second line continued for two days without serious developments, with both the French and American theatres holding strong. Blunting the enemy charge had proven effective, as the Imperials were showing wear and tear from a long campaign of restless nights. Nonetheless, the Americans were outnumbered two to one on this side, not counting the enemies in the sky. Air Marshal Richthofen was showing an unusually passive side in the invasion, holding back his zeppelins except for probing strikes and reconnaissance. The enemy aether fleet was also tied up in their own battle, and likewise avoided engagement over the American position. On the 7th of November, The Americans had a close call north of Meaux, as Baron de Szolnok’s forces almost broke the second line when four tanks managed to reach the line. Fortunately all of the armor was dispatched before sundown, but the crack in their line was now clear to the Hussars.

Drum was concentrating on the map strewn before him while his aides updated him on the status of the 32nd. A loud crackling noise penetrated the atmosphere around Paris, as the city’s shield began to flicker and fade. A volley of Imperial fire soared through the sky, impacting the shield around the Germinal Gate. They had been firing for days now, but this particular barrage was somehow different, more deafening as it impacted. Instead of the gate shield itself failing however, the second dome encapsulating the capital city faded entirely, almost as if it was taking the shots itself. Realizing the implications of what he had seen while lacking its origin, General Drum could only utter one phrase: “Bourreau, what have you done?”

VIII: Battle Over Paris

Operation Mordhau was always envisioned as a true combined arms operation, and the Imperial Kriegsäther had a starring role providing mobile artillery support for the fast-moving invasion force. Upon their arrival in the Île-de-France they had commenced a vicious bombardment of the city, but had faced a curious lack of reprisal. Though the fixed-wing air forces of both the Empire and the Republic were locked into a bloody struggle for the skies, the terrestrial French aethernavy had not directly engaged the Imperial fleet.

On November 4th, as the first Imperial ships drew near to Paris, Admiral Henri Bléhaut made a curious decision. He ordered the French fleet to withdraw within the Germinal Gate’s protective shield. Since the Battle of Shaafheim in the Autumn of 1938, there had been no full-scale engagements between the two navies, with subsequent battles being strongly limited in scope and goals. Each side had come to rely more and more on their more nimble aircraft for direct confrontation, especially as industrial concerns over the astronomical cost of the conflict came more sharply into focus. After Schaafheim, the French navy had seen sizable amounts of its crafts spend months in drydock, with the most significant among them, such as the carrier Faucon, receiving repairs and retrofits more expensive than their original construction.

For this reason, Bléhaut made the decision to lean further on his airforce. The power of dive bombers and other small craft to cripple capital ships had been proven, and so, he reasoned, perhaps they could invalidate the deployment of ships of the line into battle entirely. So, for the first two days of the air battle over Paris, the fleet stayed firmly moored within the gate’s shield. 

On the Imperial line of battle, Admiral Tirpitz, deeply confused about this tactic, ordered the fleet to begin a probing bombardment of the shield, but to remain on alert for their enemy’s deployment. That night, as the sun set over western Europe, the first of the French Air Force’s sorties began.

All available aircraft were directed at the Imperial fleet, diving headfirst into a furious flak. Several zeppelin classes, first developed as guards for the convoys supplying the Luxembourg pocket, had been retrofitted for specific anti-aircraft roles. Festooned with clusters of autocannons and long-range flak, the night sky glowed with the volume of fire. 

“My heart aches for my country. The sky itself burned last night. In my youth I saw a festival where they lit Rue Saint-Dominique with hanging ropes of lights. This was as if someone took those, and flung them into the air a million times over, disappearing into the clouds.”

- Paul Leclair, Driver, 84

Despite their best efforts, however, the Imperial fleet took losses. Four destroyers and two cruisers were crippled in the attack, with one, the SMS Plzeň, crashing spectacularly into a field outside of Brégy. That kill was claimed by Lt. Jacques Andrieux who, following the failure of his plane’s engine, managed to drift undetected through the ship’s shield and drop his payload. Adrieux was one of many who made a name for themselves. Throughout the fighting no less than eight pilots among both French and Imperial forces notched enough to become Aces.

On the second day of battle, with the French fleet showing no sign of movement, and the knowledge that another night of fire was coming, Admiral Tirpitz gave the order to begin full bombardment of the Germinal Gate’s shield. The Imperial fleet spun up their magnetic springald cannons, releasing salvo after salvo into the barrier.

“You would have thought there were storms on the horizon, the way the whole world rumbled. I lived my whole life out in Tornado Alley and I never heard anything like that. Made it hard to look up, like God would notice if you were taking too close of a gander.” 

- Pvt. Horace Greenbow, 3rd Infantry Division

On November 7th, the battle came to a decisive moment. At the Vitry-sur-Seine power plant, a massive wave of explosions rolled through the facility. As lines burst and sparks showered those inside the plant, all around them the city went dark. The constant bombardment had overloaded the Germinal Gate’s shield, which was directly connected to the Parisian power grid for redundancy. It had, in a moment of severe stress, sent a massive burst of power backwards, which tore its way through the city’s infrastructure, exploding out from its weakest links. After days of shelling the gate’s shield, the city shield instead went down.

IX: The Aether War

The overall plan for the Kriegsäther’s deployment called for the fleet’s bombardment to bring down the Germinal Gate’s shield, and then for Richthofen's forces to deploy en-masse over the gate complex, dropping in multiple divisions of Zeppelinjagers. After their drop, the jagers would capture the ground complex, and then dig in. Imperial ground forces would push through the defenses and reconnect with the jagers, providing them with the supplies and additional equipment needed to fully capture the gate. Though the wrong shield had fallen, Imperial Command determined that the plan still had enough merit to continue, and so the machinery was set into motion.

Within Paris, chaos ensued. Though plans were in place for an evacuation of the city’s civilian populace, the order was never given. On a radio program shortly after the shield fell, President Delattre made this statement.

“The will of the working class is cast in iron, forged in the crucible of systemic oppression. No matter the fury hurled down upon us by the devils who would see us enslaved, the Republic will rise from the blows, and her people will rise to the challenge. The people are the blood of the Republic, and to desert the city is to bleed her dry. I bid you remain at your posts! Every meal cooked, every fire extinguished, every bullet delivered, is a further step on the road to liberation, and a slight against tyranny. They may howl at the gates, but they shall not pass!”

Though the trains and buses leaving Paris were full, they were primarily children and the elderly, those who had not already been sent. In the streets, as shells fell from the bombardment, the majority of citizens remained, working through the crisis.

On November 8th at 2:13 AM, a van arrived at the residence of Admiral Bléhaut. A single figure exited the vehicle, quickly making their way up the steps, where they were ushered inside by a confused servant. Twenty-two minutes later, they exited, and four minutes after that, a telegram was sent to the office of Naval Command, informing them that Admiral Bléhaut was resigning his commission immediately. Later that day it was announced that his position as Admiral of the Fleet would be filled by the venerable Admiral Jean de Laborde. 

Laborde, a man who had lived the majority of his life in the skies of three different planets, was one of the most veteran commanders in the entirety of the New Republic’s military. His work in the early 1900s promoting the modernization of the fleet and later, in the 1920s, experimenting with early fixed-wing aircraft had left strong impacts on the organization of the navy. However, his political opinions left him at odds with both the Bonapartists and the Liberationists, leading to his career taking a nosedive in the 30s. He only narrowly escaped the Officer Purge by virtue of his records of decorated service, but was denied opportunities for more senior command in the following years. 

In a short phone call from President Delattre the overall mission was made clear: Get the Imperial fleet away from Paris. And so Admiral Laborde departed for his flagship and issued orders for the entire fleet to make ready. That following afternoon, as the French fleet’s preparations became clear, Laborde hailed the Imperial flagship. Admiral Wolfgang von Tirpitz departed from his flagship on a singular sturmzeppelin, and the two men met high above the battlefields of the Marne.

The two of them had known each other for many years, attending various conferences and other affairs of state. While not great friends, there was, at the least, a great deal of shared respect. At this meeting, Admiral Laborde proposed that the two fleets cease firing and resume their combat high above the Earth, in the void of the aether. The horrors wrought by the Battle of Schaafheim had made a deep impact, and, though they were opposed to one another, both men wished to avoid a similar fate befalling Paris. The agreement was made, and the time was struck. At precisely midnight, the firing would resume.

“And just like that, it was over! All the clattering from above just stopped. Then, in a real eerie kinda way, all them big ships just floated up and outta sight. Course our guns down on the ground didn’t stop, and good thing too, cause it took a whole lotta shells to whoop Harry!”

 - Pvt. Horace Greenbow, 3rd Infantry Division

X: Midnight Firefight

The Battle of Paris was the single largest pitched aether-battle fought up to this point in the war, and resulted in a staggering loss of ships and men. The full deployment of the two fleets was a spectacle, but nothing compared to the first volley. Positioned roughly forty miles from one another, the guns of each fleet made their opening reports, streaking through the void to where they had predicted their targets would be.

On every ship, gunnery officers furiously worked to calculate firing trajectories and game out the maneuvers of the enemy fleet. Time charges in the shells were dialed to explode at the approximate location expected, filling the aether with dangerous flak that made maneuvers even more difficult. On the flight decks of the carriers that took place in the battle, pilots of nimble aether-ready fightercraft climbed into their vessels, waiting for their moment in the launch catapults. When they were finally launched, they entered into an inky sky, filled with shrapnel, tracers, and the unlit orb of the Earth far below. 

“Of course, I had trained for it, and I certainly was happy to chat about it with the other pilots, but a part of me didn’t think it would ever actually happen. At that point I’d flown dozens of missions, so I was far from a rookie, but none of them were out there in the emptiness. When I launched the only thing I could think was that God himself had abandoned this place. If I die here, will he even be able to find my soul? Or will I just be left to drift up here, watching as we continued to kill ourselves and the planet he made for us.” 

- Cpt. Werner Falkenrath, Äthergruppe 4, SMS Papst Urban II

While the opening of the battle was bloody, with 12 vessels being destroyed in the first 20 minutes of fighting, the primary action came later. The overall strategies on display were as such: For the Imperials, the action was primarily offensive in nature. They had worked for days to draw the fleet out, and now they intended to crush them, clearing the path to the city. Most importantly, they were tasked with distracting the French while the second aspect of the plan was enacted, that being the aerial drop of the zeppelinjagers.

For the French fleet, the action was primarily defensive. Their doctrine called for the wider use of fighter and bomber craft, which caused them to lean away from close range engagements. As part of this, they had a previously unused advantage. With the official entry of the United States into the war, the fleet had been able to receive some newly developed upgrades. The most significant of these were mechanical targeting computers, and newly developed radar systems.

At 1:14am on the 9th, the battleship SMS Kaiser Ferdinand I was destroyed by a wing of french dive bombers. Not three minutes later the SMS Kaiser Joseph II exploded in a colossal gout of flame, causing the righthand side of the Imperial fleet to break formation in order to avoid the hazard. Twelve minutes after that, the cruiser SMS Sankt Raphael went down in history. Diverting from the formation, a stray shot seriously damaged the ships’ engines, resulting in uncontrollable acceleration. Burning, and in serious threat of needing to abandon ship, Captain Lutz Beyersdorf directed the vessel to ram the Guépard, a French destroyer. The resulting collision nearly split the Guépard in half. Afterwards, with both vessels hopelessly entangled with one another, the crew of the SMS Sankt Raphael boarded the enemy ship, fighting their way to the bridge and capturing it.

Reeling from the losses, Admiral Tirpitz ordered the fleet to abandon formation and instead take shelter within his flagship’s shield generator, signaling a complete reversal of their original aggressive posture. In response, Admiral Laborde ordered the French fleet to close the distance in order to maximize the firepower of their weaponry. As the Imperial fleet wheeled about to reorganize, a number of vessels were able to be picked off by the far more accurate French gunners. 

At 2:02am the Imperial carrier SMS Papst Leo I was hit by a salvo that tore the bridge and command tower completely off of its frame, resulting in the ship floating aimlessly as fires spread throughout. After nearly 45 minutes of fighting the fires, the ship's primary fuel reserves went up, shattering it and causing it to be lost with all hands. The burning hulk hurtled towards the battered shield presented by the beleaguered Imperial flagship, causing it to fail, exposing the fleet towards the withering fire presented by the remaining French fleet. 

At 3:29am, a lone fighter, damaged by flak, careened into the deck of the SMS Karl der Große leaving a smoking hole near the command tower. Ten minutes later, as the firefighters rushed to put out the fires, Admiral Tirpitz ordered the withdrawal of the fleet. He had, minutes before, received word that the aerial drop had been completed. 

There are many theories as to why the Imperial fleet, which had performed admirably in the fall of 1938, received such an astounding loss in 1940. One such theory points to the days of prolonged bombardment prior to the fighting. Depleted ammunition reserves, very little sleep for the crew, and an average ambient temperature of 39 celsius onboard the ships - primarily due to the heat produced by their constantly-firing energy weaponry - are all certainly contributing factors. Technological and doctrinal conservatism meant that the advanced targeting and coordinating ability of the French fleet took the Imperials by surprise. Perhaps most importantly however was the severe underestimation of their willingness to fight, after all, Paris was at stake.

XI: The Devil at the Doorstep

While the bargain Tirpitz made with Laborde was done in part as a reduction of Parisian bloodshed, in reality the acceptance of the offer was done at the behest of General Von Moltke and Air Marshal Richthofen. With the Germinal Gate’s shield remaining, a zeppelinjager strike on the ladder was the only way they were going to be able to secure their primary objective in the operation. However, the presence of the French fleet around the gate would have made such a rush nearly impossible, as the much larger aetherships could easily dispatch a squadron of zeppelins, or at least greatly reduce their numbers. Escorting them with the fleet would have also proven insufficient, as between France’s anti-ship Carnots and the shielded vessels they would be cut to pieces.

As the fleets ascended to their new battleground, Richthofen prepared his forces. His pilots were nimble, not enough to avoid everything, but certainly enough to potentially slip through the fire of the sluggish Carnot. With no fleet save for a few moored to the gate, analysts predicted more than 70% of the force could reach the Tsiolkovsky Ladder and deploy the troops before being shot down or forced to turn back. The time to finish this was now. He prepared three thousand of his best jagers, veterans he had personally selected after Mannheim, dubbing them the ‘Red Brigade.’ These were the men he hoped could end the war; the men that wouldn’t be coming back if the plan failed.

As the fighting resumed in the aether, the Red Brigade took flight. Von Moltke had organized special night raids against the ground front to make the outskirts of the city extra noisy, hoping to delay any identification from the NAA’s forces. They were uncertain of the accuracy of Paris’ detection system, especially given the city’s grid was still largely fried. They had drilled for this type of fast approach though, and knew that they were going in as swiftly and stealthily as was possible on this scale. Even so, it was only a matter of time before someone raised the alarm.

“The battle in the aether was like a summer storm. Bright flashes like lightning with no thunder to follow. The bastards were making a ruckus not 300 feet from me, but I couldn’t help but hear some kinda hum. Like I kicked a yellowjacket nest or something. I happened to look up a bit after 1, caught an eyeful of a ship exploding awfully bright. As I rubbed the flash from my sight I saw the shadows, like night had fallen all over again and the ghouls were out haunting.”

-Private George Clyburn, 32nd Division

The element of surprise was waning fast, as eyewitness reports and general alarm systems detected the incoming strike. Unfortunately for the American forces, they were already tied up in combat some thirty kilometers away at Meaux, and the reserves in the AEF 1st would need at least an hour or two to mobilize. The HRE’s Red Brigade were on the clock, but their initial obstacles would be easier to tackle than what comes after. AA defenses sputtered to life, flaying the hull of the zeppelins with flak. The Carnots as predicted were unable to keep up with most of the vessels, only scoring a few kills. At 1:40 on the 9th, they made their landing 100 meters from the ladder, the sudden shock of their arrival scattering many of the dock workers on the night shift. More brazen laborers jumped into action alongside the two dozen Commissariat enforcers running security at the base of the mast. In one instance, two engineers driving power lifts rammed their vehicles into the side of a sturmzeppelin as its doors attempted to open amid an emergency landing, trapping the attackers inside as the craft burned.

In spite of their zealous efforts to defend against this deep strike, the barely armed workers were no match for fully armored jagers, and the small numbers of the enforcers could only hold them off for mere minutes. The loading yard was secured by 1:51, after which Brigadegeneral Mors led a thousand of his zeppelinjagers up the ladder, cramming 200 of his men onto the platform at a time. The remainder of the Red Brigade, a little over 1000 themselves after accounting for those who crashed along the way, were moving vehicles and wreckage to block off the district, bunkering down to buy the assault unit time. With luck, their vertical advantage from their jump packs would allow them to see any reprisals coming, allowing them to traverse the now cluttered and impassable terrain of the area.

The climb up the ladder took Mors 40 minutes, with each wave of his forces some five minutes behind, a limitation of the design. His men awkwardly anticipated whatever awaited them on the other side of the fifty kilometer odyssey, but his mind was calm. The French, while radical in their ideals, were just as aware as he was how important to their survival access to Germinal was. They could certainly try to destroy the ladder, but that would do untold damage to Paris below, as well as the general economy of the nation. The enemy had everything to lose, and wouldn’t dare stop his advance with such drastic measures. 

Down below the fighting had already resumed, with the initial response teams from the French arriving to engage the holdout. Field Marshal Marius Bourreau, wearing breeches and a night shirt, commanded the forces directly from an outpost not a kilometer away from the action. This operation was not something he could leave to others. His initial numbers were comparable to the Imperials, not nearly enough to engage them head on. Instead he opted to evacuate nearby families from the area, using their households as bunkers to limit the advantages the jagers had in the sky. As more men streamed in from the city he would increase the pressure, but for now the best course of action was to tire the enemy out.

The first elevator groaned into place at the summit. As the doors opened, volleys of machinegun fire burst into the chamber, the Commissariat’s forces were ready. The initial wave was a massacre, with half of the jagers not making it out of the ladder unscathed. Mors, who himself was protected by a knecht suit, used some already loaded cargo to his advantage, pushing a shipping container as a rudimentary shield. His appearance at the front was an unorthodox one, but so was the situation his forces found themselves in. His forces were heavily reduced by the time the second elevator arrived, but he had secured a foothold.

As they prepared for a second push, warning lights went off across the station. Merritt Tremblay, the new Chairman of the Commissariat had been in contact with the command center in the gate, even though he had not properly relocated to his new offices. Having seen the gate in Chicago personally before, and understanding the surface of the Germinal Gate was not settled as with the American counterpart, he ordered his subordinates to vent the atmosphere controls on the gate, limiting the liveable conditions on board to the narrow, labyrinthine service corridors on the inner levels. He wasn’t a military man, but he knew the best way to smoke out a rat is to leave him only one hole to hide in. The five hundred enforcers left to defend the gate could now do so by holding concentrated choke points, evaporating the Red Brigade’s numbers advantage.

By 3:00, the tide had reversed on the Imperial assault. While they were effective in engaging the enemy in open combat, the French had flipped the festung doctrine against the HRE, and now they had the morale to effectively back it up. For every bulkhead Mors cleared, at least a dozen of his men would be felled by weapons trained on the doorway. Munitions were running low, and even the complement of knecht suits they brought along were starting to wear down from the storm of bullets they had to hold off. With his numbers dwindling under a hundred, Brigadegeneral Mors surrendered at 4:14, hoping to spare his remaining men from death.

 For his men down below, the arrival of the Bourreau’s dragoons rallied a counterstrike on the mast, one that the local population participated in. A memory of past trauma fell over the Parisians, memories of the last zeppelin strike this city faced. They didn’t let the last attack go unavenged, and they weren’t about to this time either. The faces of the mob may have changed, but the same fire was carried by each and every one of them. It is uncertain how many civilians took part in the attack, but one thing is certain; none of the jagers made it out. Had Mors not surrendered in his futile effort to seize the gate, he would have found a wave of enemies at his heels, ready to rip him to shreds.

XII: Lamentations and Half-Hearted Celebrations

After all the early successes and forward momentum, Von Moltke’s dream of ending the war was over. Bourreau and the Commissariat had undone his zeppelin assault in three hours, the young Brigadegeneral Mors was now in the custody of the Internationale and awaiting a ‘trial.’ The fleet in orbit was in tatters, every detonating ship adding thousands of lives to his black ledger. This was all ignoring the countless who died assaulting Meaux, fighting Americans he had not realized would be there in such numbers. No, it wasn’t the numbers. They had simply outperformed all expectations. The US 3rd ID had blunted every advance, the 29th Cavalry had ensured his men couldn’t rest. Mordhau had failed, so terribly close to the finish line…

The 14th Field Army, under General Friedrich Borojević, took charge in the fallback plan. They would set up proper fortifications 100 meters behind current lines, preparing to entrench themselves on Paris’ outskirts. The 13th and Von Moltke’s Pandurs would fall back to a secondary line at Les Deux Jumeaux, the man himself awaiting a debriefing with command. Richtofen, equally fatigued by the loss as Von Moltke, fell back to Reims with the majority of his remaining zeppelins, as he now had to prepare operations at Verdun. Hrekov was still held up there as November rolled on, and the Air Marshal would be needed to get the battle moving again. Their jobs were far from done.

  Baron Lajos Dolmán de Szolnok had not lost a step following the events of the 9th, and kept pushing the assault for another five days after his comrades had lost the wind in their sails. On the 10th he had even scored a nominal victory, with a raid by his hussars managing to strike the 32nd Division’s command center at Monthyon. While the line managed to recover from the temporary break, Lajos’ men had managed to catch up with Major General Guyton before he could evacuate, killing him. The victory had filled the Baron with pride for his men’s efficiency, though his positive mood was quickly ruined after word came down from Vienna on November 16th. As the push had failed, command had finally decided to address his insubordination. For his refusal to follow orders, he was demoted back to Colonel, and his forces were recalled to Mannheim where they would be inspected and reinforced. The most eager man on the war front had finally gotten the attention he earned.

 The Americans on the Meaux front were treated as heroes, held in equal regard by the Parisians as Zola’s 10th Armée. While the men celebrated the defense, General Drum was not so happy. The loss of one of his favorite subordinates hit him hard, and the fight for Paris was far from over. The enemy was still mere kilometers from the capital, and would only slow their push for a moment to catch their breath. Fortunately he would not have to keep fighting in such conditions for much longer. On November 19th, the II Corps arrived with both men and munitions, restoring the AEF 1st Army to near-full strength. 

Bourreau had earned his new title in his defense of Paris. While not the cleanest victory in French history, his ability to quickly respond to the ever-shifting lines of the Imperials was exactly what was needed in the scenario. His personal appearance at the gate also restored the confidence of any doubtful members of the public, especially in Parliament. If he is willing to personally oversee such tasks, then his devotion to the cause cannot be doubted. As they recovered, the next job before him was to reconnect with the forces around Liege, Switzerland, and Verdun, especially as the Americans could now handle the central defense plan. With time, perhaps everything they lost could be recovered, save for the many lives sacrificed to keep the Revolution burning. 

The number of lives lost in the opening days of the Battle of the Marne are unthinkable to calculate in earnest, especially considering the civilian repercussions. Do the greater casualties of Operation Mordhau get included in the calculation, what about Liege, or the Luxembourg Pocket. What of the deserters? Accepting a conservative set of parameters, the casualties of the fighting between all ground forces at Paris totals over two hundred and sixty thousand, with several thousand more dying aboard each vessel that was destroyed in the aether battle. In addition to human costs, the countryside east of the capital was left a desolate bombed-out wasteland, leaving much of France unrecognizable. Many more were fated to die in the future, as the war was far from over, and the Holy Roman Empire was not about to abandon the assault now. The suffering had to mean something, didn’t it?