Chevalier Plays AGEOD Let's Play/AAR

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Late February, 1916

This should be the last turn of relative quiet in the long, long autumn and winter of 1915. Next month all hell will probably break loose, all across the front, as I am launching multiple simultaneous offensives.



The Western Front remains static, in the same positions that we've held since the rout of the Germans out of Belgium and Luxembourg last summer. Neither side has been willing to attack into the stoutly defended trench systems - the Western Allies content to wait after diverting the entire British army to the Mediterranean, the Germans with their hands full with the Tsar. However, I have managed to assemble 4 brigades of tanks, backed by a few batteries of heavy artillery (in contrast to the field & medium artillery I've been making do with in 1914 and 1915), and the air battles have died down over the front which I believe means I've won air superiority, as all my squadrons show full strength. In addition I'm preparing to use chemical weapons, which I have hitherto held in reserve, to destroy the German cohesion on the morning of the assault. 

This turn I quietly rail all my offensive armies into their jumping off points. As soon as the weather clears, they will lead the way with their fancy new equipment in a bid to rupture the front and fight our way to the Rhine along the Moselle river. Thence we can outflank the German defenders north and south and unhinge their entire western defensive position. I expect losses to be heavy no matter what, and honestly, I'm not sure if I'll succeed or not. But the Centrals are reeling after 18 straight months of small but steady losses, and it's time to try for the knockout.



The second front is in Anatolia. The army at Iznik pretty firmly digs in, and while I COULD probably push them back with a frontal assault, it would be very costly to do so and wouldn't accomplish much. My flanking efforts are slow, as the armies move through hilly, wooded terrain with bad roads and foul weather. Cohesion is frequently lost entirely and I have to pause the march to let my stragglers close up. So progress is slow but steady. Along Anatolia my armies are spreading out and seizing most important rail junctions, ready to concentrate rapidly if any Turkish counterattack materializes.

Across the Dardanelles, Fourth British Army (a primarily Indian formation) is ashore at Gallipolli. We will seize the forts on the peninsula and open the way for a push on Constantinople. What could go wrong? Victory is certain here!



The most significant development is that Italy has joined the war. The Centrals successfully kept the Italians out in 1915 by offering up Trent and Trieste, and Victor Emmanuel even briefly flirted with honoring his treaty obligations to the Triple Alliance and joining against the Entente - but the bribe of Tunis from the French, albeit at heavy cost in national morale, swung him firmly in our direction, and a long winter of diplomacy has convinced him to declare openly.

We field about 5 weak armies in the Alpine region, but Austria ahs totally denuded this front of defenders apart from fortress troops - and due to his territorial concessions the best defensive terrain is already in our hands. I will launch an offensive here as soon as the troops unlock (a balance mechanic to give the Centrals player a turn or two to react), if nothing else wanting to tie up his troops which are already stretched thin.

With the advent of Italy we at last reach numerical parity with the Centrals:


American intervention stands at 80%, ticking at an average of 1.8% per turn. Bulgaria and Persia are also nearing joining, while the Centrals will bring in Mexico soon. Might be worth dispatching the BEF to knock them out if I can finish the Ottomans quickly enough. 

It's the deep breath before the plunge. Brace yourselves!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Early March, 1916

Our troops reach their jumpoff points, and in Palestine, Anatolia, Italy, and the German frontier every single army lurches into motion. By April 1 we should have the first results of our grand offensive coming in.

The Irish get frisky:


Unfortunately for Eire, we have one division finishing training in Dublin, which can immediately secure the capital. Two more Scottish divisions are finishing training up near Edinburgh and can be brought over within a month to help suppress the uprising, adn I have 4 Canadian divisions also forming up if necessary. These were all slated to form two new corps for the BEF, but I can divert them to put the British boot into the Celtic face one more time. 

At the Dardanelles, an effort by two corps to storm the forts guarding the Asia side of the straits comes to grief, but the siege can continue:



Finally, a massive air battle with a Zeppelin raid over the Ardennes sees the Belgian air force worsted, as we lose over 90 planes to less than 20 Germans. 

So, here's the plans for the attack.


 
The Ottomans attempt to use their fleet to interfere with the landings, but we've come and gone already. Once the forts on the shore fall, they'll be exposed to my Mediterranean fleets and need to abandon Marmara or be sunk.



All along the front we're moving up. Our goal for this campaign is firstly to clear the way for the navy to reach Constantinople, which will then secondly enable us to cross over to the European side and capture the city, hopefully eliminating the Ottomans. Their field armies in the Caucasus are cut off from reinforcements and I don't think they can recruit enough to stop me, but the forts might be stubborn. 

In Palestine, a supporting effort:


A shortage of command (with Kitchener in western Turkey) hampers me here, forcing me to operate smaller forces, but I'm following my old plan of outflanking defensive positions and forcing him either to retreat or be cut off. Goal here is to occupy Ottoman forces, secondarily to inflict losses on that army, and finally thirdly to occupy as much land as possible - ideally cutting the railroad to Arabia to facilitate a looming Arab revolt there. :D 

In Italy:


Italy's armies are a catastrophic mess, but I'm trying to untangle them and get proper command arrangements in place as rapidly as possible. We own the vital Austrian fortresses, for the most part - no 12 Battles of the Isonzo in this timeline - but need to move rapidly to get over the mountains and into Carniolia and Styria proper before the Habsburgs can get defensive armies in place. On the left, we strike for Innsbruck with our mountain troops. On the right, an army will take the few remaining Austrian ports before turning inland. And in the center, our main effort to punch through and reach Vienna. 

The Tsar sends these unusually detailed intelligence reports:


Serbia pushed back to Nish but holding there against Austrian and Rumanian armies.



The Tsarist main effort battling furiously on the plains near Budapest. 



In Prussia, Konigsberg under siege and Hindenburg defending near the Vistula. 

So, finally, our main effort:


The flower of the French army - tanks, planes, super heavy artillery, millions of men, and poison gas - hurled into the German trenches north of the Mosel. Our goal is to smash the two frontline armies along the river and in the Eifel and rip a hole in Germany's defenses. In order to staunch it we want him to have to pull his reserves away from Russia and Italy - and if he can't do that, then we want to drive to the Rhine and then turn north and south to liberate the entire west bank of the river. By December I want French armies all along the great river, ready for the war-winning thrust in 1917 with American support.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Late March, 1916

After six months of quiet watchfulness, on 15 March 1916 the relative calmness of the Western Front is abruptly shattered as over 3,500 French guns open up in a thundering bombardment. General Max von Hausen's Third Armee, which had been holding a defensive line just outside Luxembourg, stretching from the banks of the Mosel to the southern reaches of the Eifel forest, in front of the city of Trier, is specially singled out for punishment. Months of effort spent digging trenches, dugouts, redoubts, stringing barbed wire - shattered to bits as the shelling continues for days on end. After four days of pounding fire, abruptly the barrage lifts - only for an even more insidious weapon to reveal itself. Choking clouds of noxious green gas spew from the final Entente shells, settling into the wreckage of von Hausen's forward defenses. The Germans have used gas themselves, on both East and Western fronts - but they have never before been the targets. Their doctrine is faulty, as the men of Third Armee find out to their cost, much too late. 

As the bombardment lifts, the few men still able to function amidst the clouds of chlorine rush to their defensive posts, squinting through the choking gas, smoke, and dust to see the oncoming waves of French infantry. 

Except the infantry doesn't come - not yet. Instead, swooping low over the front, hundreds of Entente fighters loose harassing streams of machine gun fire. Intimidating, irritating, but not especially dangerous - but it does reinforce the absolute material superiority the French have established over the last six months. And beneath the biplanes comes something the Germans haven't prepared for - hundreds of clanking, crashing, lumbering hunks of iron. Mobile pillboxes, their massive treads smashing aside barbed wire, shell craters, and trenches alike. From their sides spews more machine gun fire, and the few German strongpoints still resisting are either swept away or hopelessly disorganized. Only in the wake of the armored assault does the French infantry come at last, the poilus surging forward behind their machines of war in the first prepared offensive the French have undertaken since hte start of the war.

Four days later, by March 24, the wreckage of Third Armee is in headlong retreat for the Rhine.



The Battle of Trier, as our Mosel offensive is dubbed, is indeed a smashing success. Three French Armies - 2nd, 3rd, and 6th - converge on the single German force defending Trier. I have scraped together massive fighter superiority (138 planes opposed by only 34), a huge amount of guns ranging from light field pieces to superheavy monsters directed from army headquarters itself, 150 tanks in 3 brigades, and of course a healthy amount of infantry (2 and a half poilus for every landser). I salt the broth with my first use of poison gas in the game. Poison gas demolishes the cohesion of any enemy armies in the province it's used in, BUT it costs you 1 point of national morale to use and each usage of the gas decreases the effectiveness as future uses, as your enemy adjusts to it. I carefully shepherded my supplies for a decisive moment, and now it paves the way. Third Armee is swept away, losing 1/6 of its force as casualties, and the defenses do nothing to slow me down.

The result is a gaping hole in the German line along the Mosel River:


Third Armee has been shoved back to the Rhine and is scarcely able to defend itself, let alone counterattack. My right flank securely rests on the Mosel and the forts around Luxembourg City, holding back the German army in Thionville. My left has two German armees - I & II Armees, the survivors of the Belgian campaign from 1914-1915 - near Aachen, and another force (Nord Armee, I believe) in the Eifel. Nord Armee is targeted by two more French armies moving up from my reserves and will be thrown back in the first two weeks of April. Otherwise, Cologne, Pfalz, and the Saar are all wide open - no reserves in sight. 



I place every single army in motion. As far as I can tell, Germany failed to notice me redeploying all my offensive units to the left wing of my line - south of the Mosel I'm holding the entire front with corps-level formations, all my armies are here. I have ten armies against only four German armies in the entire sector, I think. So, everyone is ordered forward. Two armies, supported by Joffre's reserve, will move on the Eifel and smash up that army. A third will besiege Trier. Two more push for the Rhine and the Saar. Behind, four more push up towards Trier, Luxembourg, and the front, forming the third wave of the offensive. Finally, two cavalry corps will move quickly for Saarbruecken and Pfalz. I don't anticipate they'll accomplish those objectives, if Germany quickly rails in reserves to plug the hole, but he's made mistakes before! I keep the horsemen on 'conservative' attack settings, so they won't get too bloodied if they find their advance opposed. 

On the Italian front, an Austrian Army - 5. Armee, under FZM Liborios Ritter von Franck - appears in the passes out of the Isonzo valley. That checks my headlong charge but I can outmaneuver this force unless it's rapidly supported:


Italy's armies are still getting themselves sorted out, and many reservists are still joining their formations, so I don't court open battle yet. Instead our unopposed advances will continue to snatch as much land as we can before the serious fighting starts.

In Anatolia, we overrun Iznik and have cut Constantinople off from the rest of the Ottoman Empire:


Kitchener orders an assault. Then two armies will hold the interior railroad junctions against Ottoman counteroffensives, one will occupy the Bosporus straits, and the remainder will transfer to the European side to finish the campaign. 

No action in Palestine. We halt our outflanking march to regain cohesion. The Ottos must either attack me (giving me hte defensive advantage), fall back to Gaza (letting me secure the desert railway at last), or remain in place (and be cut off).



Overview of the Western Front:

 

Objectives:


Centrals morale is very low - 62 to our 71 and the Tsar's 76. Casualties stand at 2.5 million Entente to 2.4 million Centrals, roughly. Most importantly, we've reached parity with the Central armies - 104% of our total land strength! With the Russians, that means we overall outnumber them 1.5 to 1, and I think ours are better deployed. 

ALmost forgot to mention, a German auxiliary cruiser blunders into the blockade near Scapa Flow and is annihilated. ? Wonder what went wrong there?

[thestick]

 

Thanks for the reports! I've never played these games before, but this is absolutely fascinating to watch.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Early April 1916

The Allied spring offensives are in full swing now on all six major fronts - the West, Italy, Anatolia, Palestine, Austria, and Prussia - with victories and setbacks all around the world. Intelligence reports from headquarters are brimming with optimism, however, as many generals believe the vaunted “breakthrough” has been achieved, and there are reports in some quarters that the French have reached the Rhine.

A lot to break down from the first two weeks of April, so we’ll move systematically front by front.

First, the West:


The initial penetration at Trier has expanded in all directions. To the north, Joffre leads 4 armies, over a million men, in a bloody attack on Germany’s III Armee. Chlorine gas is used. Nearly 100,000 men combined on both sides are lost, and the Germans are flung out of the province:



General von Wurttemberg pulls his battered army back to Bonn, on the banks of the Rhine, by 2 April. At Trier itself, 7th Armee loses 7500 men storming the outer belt of forts, but when the fortresses fall, the city surrenders alongside the survivors of the 12,000-man garrison:


Trier is the first German city in the West to fall. This secures the rail link to the Rhine for us and removes a threat to the flank of the advance.

III Armee’s retreat to Bonn leads the northern road to Cologne, out of the Eifel, clear, so I order 1st Armee to push up the road and attempt to establish themselves on the river bank, north of 3rd Armee which has pursued von Wurttemberg to Bonn.

On the southern shoulder of the bulge, I have one army and one cavalry corps over the Moselle in Pfalz and the forest just to the south, in the rear of the German corps defending Thionville on the southern bank. Before me lie the German general headquarters i nthe west, numerous fighter airfields, and a small garrison at Pfalz, so I continue to pour reinforcements into this area.




The general effect will see France’s armies spreading out north, east, and south - a dissipation of our effort and an error in strategy, generally, but my hope is to keep my sword on the Germans’ backs and discomfit their attempts to set up a new defensive line. I’ll keep pushing wherever weaknesses are found, then, once he stops me, I’ll regroup for a new breakthrough offensive. My next plan is to attempt to encircle I. and II. Armees near Aachen, the survivors of Belgium, presently defending the German right wing. If I accomplish that and the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine by summer’s end I’ll be more than satisfied.

In Italy, the results are more mixed. In the Alpine valleys around Innsbruck, two Italian mountain divisions overwhelm the German 28th Truppen Division, a seemingly garrison or militia formation - as 12,000 Italian mountaineers rout three times their number of Germans, inflicting over 2,000 losses for only 400 men killed or wounded on their part:


The Battle of Innsbruck will enable further offensives in this area, taking a vital railway junction, and may allow a thrust into Bavaria, even cooperation with France on the Western Front, in a most optimistic scenario.

However, over in Carniola, Luigi Cadorna launches 150,000 men against the fortress of Flisch, the gateway to Austria - and defended by over 225,000 Habsburg troopers. The Italian generalissimo manages to lose ten times the amount of casualties the defenders suffer:




This stalls any attempt to attack deeper into Austria, but I do have more troops coming up every week, and getting organized into further armies.

Finally, on the Italian right flank, at Samabor Fortress on the Sava River, General Garioni with 4,000 fast moving horsemen surprises 12,000 men of an Austrian fortress division, losing a thousand men but inflicting over 5,000 losses in a brilliant albeit petty success:






The resulting situation is slow developing. Austria’s left is very threatened by the cavalry corps and by an army at Fiume, attempting to capture the Habsburg fleet, and on the right we have a solid foothold on the Alps. However, the center is stalled and needs reinforcements before we can successfully break through here. My strategic goal is to tie up as many Austrians as possible to help the Tsar, until the British can arrive to win the war on this front.

Speaking of -

In Anatolia, the western half of the peninsula is secured. There is petty fighting on the outskirts of Izmit but by 1 April the city surrenders to Kitchener’s host, with 12,000 prisoners.



The last obstacle on Turkey’s Aegean coast is removed, after a 6-month campaign since our landings in September. One army will go to the Bosporus to menace Constantinople from the rear, one will remain to defend the eastern flank from Ottoman counter-attacks, while the remainder I recall to Smyrna for redeployment to Gallipolli. The army there has been stalled by the vacillations of the army commander (inactive for 6 straight weeks now) so I’m sending Kitchener to light a fire under his ass and storm the fortress.

Overall situation:


Most armies are withdrawing, but my cavalry divisions continue to push steadily east, scouting cautiously for Turkish defenders.

THe final front that’s my responsibility is Palestine. Here, the Ottomans launch a desperate attack on my flanking maneuver through the Negev. General Douglas, fielding two infantry corps against an Ottoman infantry corps and heavy cavalry support, expertly fends off the assault. Machine gun and artillery fire scythes down brave but poorly equipped Ottoman horsemen and conscripts:


15,000 men fall, ⅓ of the Turkish army defending Palestine, while Douglas loses only 2,000. The way is open to seize Gaza, which will in turn enable me to build a railway from Egypt across Sinai into Palestine and setup further advances.




One army will attempt to drive the Turks, while flanking forces will move to cut the Arabian railway at Ma’an in Transjordan, facilitating our efforts to launch an Arab uprising against the Sublime Porte.

Other items worth mentioning:
The air battles over Luxembourg and the RHineland are the most massive yet in the war, with over a hundred planes on each side being lost in dozens of separate engagements. In general honors are even, but the German fighter bases are now threatened by the Entente advance and they’ll have to displace.

The High Seas Fleet made a pass at the blockade but withdrew without fighting.




Mexico joined the war against the Entente, while the Americans are nearly at 90% to intervene soon. Persia and Afghanistan, also, are starting to seriously tilt towards the Allies and might be the straw that breaks the Ottoman’s back.

In East Prussia, Konigsberg is Russian and the front in Austria remains stalemated:



Morale and casualties:


We remain evenly matched with the Centrals, but with our RUssian allies that’s an edge of 16 Allied soldiers for only 10 Centrals. Centrals morale is down to 59, ours is at 70, and the East is at 75! Casualties are roughly even at 2.5 million apiece.

[shallow_thought]

However, over in Carniola, Luigi Cadorna launches 150,000 men against the fortress of Flisch, the gateway to Austria - and defended by over 225,000 Habsburg troopers. The Italian generalissimo manages to lose ten times the amount of casualties the defenders suffer:

Surely any sane Italian strategy in WWI starts with firing - or even murdering - Cadorna?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

However, over in Carniola, Luigi Cadorna launches 150,000 men against the fortress of Flisch, the gateway to Austria - and defended by over 225,000 Habsburg troopers. The Italian generalissimo manages to lose ten times the amount of casualties the defenders suffer:

Surely any sane Italian strategy in WWI starts with firing - or even murdering - Cadorna?

Man, I'd love to quietly bump him off, but unfortunately he's my most senior Italian commander and so sidelining him comes with a hefty penalty in National Morale and Victory Points (same reason why you can't just immediately replace McClellan with Grant in their Civil War games - although many players do it anyway!). I also don't have any other three-star capable of commanding an army group in that theater, so it's Cadorna or nothing. At least he's only gotten 16,000 brave Italians killed in the first month of the war! Could be worse!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Late April 1916

Over the closing two weeks of April, the Spring Offensive continued as the Centrals finally began to respond to Allied moves. In the Mosel valley, entire German armies are driven over the Rhine, and the French force the evacuation of some key German border fortresses. In Italy, there are more setbacks, while the Ottoman Empire is beginning to show signs of cracking. Here’s the latest news from the front:



North of the Moselle, there’s heavy fighting outside Cologne as Joffre drives towards the city on the Rhine. The bloody fighting costs over 60,000 casualties on both sides, but the Germans narrowly hold their lines outside the settlement.


Note that we were outnumbered at this point, but still managed fairly even honors. That’s a product of the low German morale, they can’t stick with fights as long. I order the troops here over to the defensive while we regroup.

A few miles south along the river, the isolated III. Armee at Bonn faces a vastly superior French army. FIve armies - nearly 750,000 men - converge on the single German army defending the city.


General von Hausen narrowly extricates his army, losing about 25,000 men and inflicting 18,000 casualties as he pulls back to the right bank of the Rhine.

In Alsace, Kronprinz Wilhelm pulls the massive Metz garrison out and withdraws along the railroads to Mainz. 7 German armeekorps are concentrated in that city now. Thionville, also enveloped, has been evacuated as well. Two major fortresses will fall without a fight largely due to our outflanking movement along the Moselle! Germany correctly prioritizes force preservation instead of locking up massive garrisons in large fortresses - I’d’ve have rather bagged them in place but nothing to be done.

The first impetus of my offensive has largely run out, now. Cohesion is low in all the frontline forces after nearly 6 weeks of continuous offensives. North of the Moselle I am forced to pause and consolidate, needing to rebuild cohesion and bring up my rear line forces to hold our gains, before I push deeper. There are open German provinces but they’re across the Rhine. Until I am ready to assault either Frankfurt or Dortmund I can’t supply armies on that bank, not yet.




Instead I switch the emphasis to the southern bank of the Moselle for the month of May. We’ll occupy the cities of Trier and Metz (still defended by fortress units but cleared of mobile fighters) and move to contact with the new German defensive line being thrown up along the Rhine. I only have two offensive formations here - Fourth and Fifth Armees - but numerous corps that can occupy weakly-held territory.
It looks like the German IV. Armee has remained in place in Alsace, but the right flank is open and I might be able to attack through the relatively open terrain in Bitch towards the river. That’s my current operational plan, at any rate.

Final shuffling looks like this - no dramatic movements, just a general forward impulse all along the front:



On the Italian front, one of my flanking forces runs into serious Austrian defenses at Klagenfurt and is thrown back with a few losses:


9,000 Italians to 8,000 Austrians, not a bad outcome - and I actually inflicted more hits than I took! Most of the Austrian numbers are actually part of the big V. Armee down at Flitsch, in supporting distance but not actively engaged, so I got off lightly.

You can see why the Italians are poorly suited to give a lot offensive punch, however. Notice how under-gunned my divisions are compared with the beefier French formations pictured above. I mostly field light infantry and field artillery here, none of the tanks, planes, or heavy guns that the Frogs have.

So, instead I tried to maneuver around the Austrian army, leading to this situation on the front:


On the far left, my mountain troops besiege Innsbruck and can’t advance further until I take that city. On the left, Gen. Emmanuele Filiberto’s army ran into the defenses of Klagenfurt, while on the right my cavalry hold position at Sambor on the Sava. So, I’ve nearly but not quite cut both rail lines supporting the main Austrian position at Flitsch, where Cardona has two armies facing the single Austrian force. My First Italian Army is tied up at Fiume, but once that fortress falls I’ll be free to punch around the Austrian left and into their rear.

In Anatolia, the Canadians of LXX corps, supported by the horsemen of LXXII corps, overrun 90% of the Kum Kale fortress complex:


Only a few coastal guns remain, still enough to dispute the passage of the Dardanelles, but the destruction of hte other garrison units actually is good for +1 NM across the Entente. Not bad! We have a few supporting formations left to finish the job on this side of the Strait.



We’re now in sight of Constantinople from the Asia side of the Bosporus. The capital is effectively severed from the rest of the Ottoman Empire. However, two obstacles still remain to knocking the Sublime Porte out of the Great War:

1)First, my army at Gallipolli has been inactive for a solid two months straight. I can’t order an assault until the leader activates, remember - otherwise he’s making excuses about the ammunition supply, too many men on the sick lists, writing home for reinforcements, intriguing against his superiors, his subordinates, and everyone else, indulging in paranoid delusions about vast hordes of enemies overwhelming him, etc.



Now, Sir Harry Duff, Fourth Army’s commander, has a strategic rating of 3, meaning he has a 50/50 chance (it’s a D6 roll) of being active on any particular turn. So a bit of bad luck means the Fourth Army has been sitting idle around ANZAC cove and other beaches through all of March and April now. Until I clear the fort, my army can’t march north on the capital and my fleet can’t enter the Dardanelles. Which brings me to…

2)The Ottoman fleet, about 18 ships strong, is holding the Dardanelles. I daren’t move my transports out of Smyrna to land more armies in Europe until that fleet is bottled up. I’m transferring the French Mediterranean fleet to this theater, while the Italians assume blockading duties (alongside the Japanese) near Sicily. THe French will drive in the Ottos (once the forts are taken on either bank) and then the armies will land and move on Constantinople for the knockout blow.

Finally, the last front, Palestine. The Battle of the Negev continues, and both Ottoman cavalry divisions are full wiped out. All that’s left is a few frontier troops to hold back the British army in this region:


Word of the victory ALSO improves national morale by 1 point, much like Kum Kale. Wiping out elements matters more than anything for national morale calculations! The hundreds of thousands of casualties in France, even though we’ve fought our way all the way to the Rhine, don’t signify to the civilian populations of the Entente.

The Battle of Negev clears the way, and I order advances as far as Gaza, Beersheba, and Ma’an in the Transjordan:


Though the battlefield losses are slight, this has a number of disastrous consequences for the Ottoman Empire.

First, by thrusting as far as El Arish, we have at last managed to secure enough ground to build a coastal railway from Egypt to Palestine - you can see it now intact above (in old screenshots it was marked by red X’s).



Secondly, the defeats have convinced the wavering Sherif Hussein bin Ali to throw the Arabs’ support to the Entente, seizing this chance to throw off the Ottoman yoke. Arabia will rise against the Porte and I already have forces moving to seize the railroad, which will cut off teh Ottoman garrisons in deep Arabia from Palestine and Syria. Between this, the march on Constantinople, the fall of Anatolia to the BEF, the looming Persian invasion of Mesopotamia, and the ongoing fighting with the Russians in the Caucasus, I don’t see how the Ottomans survive the summer.

Housekeeping. Here’s the USA and Mexico as represented by To End All Wars - two off-map boxes, single regions for both countries. I don’t know what forces the Americans actually field, since I”ve never had a game go so long before. Mexico has a weak army under Huerta, as I recall. It’ll take months to march from one province to the other, so I’ll need to naval invade if anything.




Ireland has risen in rebellion, and 4 British divisions are absorbed trying to put it down. The rest of my shipping is either in Anatolia for the lift to Thrace or headed to Africa to pick up Italy’s colonial garrisons and cheerfully drag them up to the meatgrinder on the Sava. American intervention stands at 93%. Rebels are at nearly 42% strength in Austria-Hungary, and the blockade has reached level 5 in the Atlantic and 4 in the Mediterranean - that’s 1% rebel influence every turn from here to the end of the game in Germany.

Objectives and losses:


National Morale is nearly 20 points higher than the Centrals. The writing is going to be on the wall soon.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Early May, 1916

After the titanic battles of April, the first two weeks of May sees a breathing space along the Western Front, with no major engagements:




North of the Moselle, the Germans dig in and consolidate their lines at Cologne, moving II. Armee back from Aachen and constructing defenses around the city. The French 1st and 9th Armees outside the city are heavily outnumbered by the defenders, and I actually order a conservative withdrawal. South of that point, the victorious French armies consolidate their gains as far as Bonn, where the Moselle joins the Rhine.

South of the river, the German high command orders the evacuation of most of Alsace-Lorraine, leaving the northern half of the provinces to the Entente, while they dig in a new defensive line a few miles from the Rhine itself. The French armies are too weary and disorganized from the advance to rapidly pursue, and instead focus on consolidating and moving up into the newly vacated territory, surrounding the diehard garrisons in the citadels of Thionville and Metz.

In Italy, the major change is the surrender of Fiume, one of the last harbors left to Austria-Hungary:


This frees Italy’s First Army to move north and outflank the Austrian defenders along the Sava. Otherwise the front mostly sees consolidation after the first Italian offensive has spent itself - there’s defenders in place now and easy advances are no longer possible, so we must bring up our mobilizing reserves, definitely build out our artillery (Italian infantry divisions are badly undergunned), and begin to plot a proper offensive strategy here.

The Habsburg battlefleet isn’t captured at Fiume, and Pola’s harbor is empty of shipping. So, where did the battleships go?

To the Bosporus:


Kitchener’s boys on the banks of the great strait are greeted by an awesome sight, as steaming past they count fully five divisions of battleships, two of cruisers, five destroyer squadrons, and four torpedo boat squadrons - the entire Habsburg fleet steaming to defend the Turkish capital against a potential amphibious assault by the BEF.

I STILL am inactive at Gallipolli, as Harry Duff uncharacteristically whines for more supplies, more ammunition, more men, and cites endless difficulties to actually storming the Turkish forts along the heights above his bivouac at the newly dubbed “Anzac Cove.” Asshole. The Canadian corps at Kum Kale, with no general of note at all, still manages to force the final surrender of the southern Turkish fortresses.

The French and Italian fleets make haste for Smyrna, leaving light vessels to continue the blockade of the Mediterranean. They’ll escort three more armies to Gallipolli, and then we’ll see if the bastards hold out. Once the fortress is taken I can enter the Straits and knock Turkey out of the war.

In Palestine is the only fighting, as our brave boys storm Gaza despite a storm of protest from college students around the world:


Two British corps rough up the Turkish corps in defense, mauling the infantry while the cavalry ride off into the desert. The whole line in Palestine now runs from Gaza to Beersheba, and we’re close to cutting the railroad as the Arabs declare war on the Central Powers:




That’s the good news.

The bad news is, with Russia’s offensive stalled outside Budapest and along the Vistula, Tsar Nicholas has decided to personally supervise the war effort:


He takes over from his uncle, the respected old Grand Duke Nicholai. Historically, this happened after the great defeats in Poland in the spring of 1915. Nicky proved no more militarily adept than his cousin, and his prestige suffered badly as the Russians continued to get their asses kicked. Worse, his wife Alexandra was left in charge of politicking back at the court in St. Petersburg, and she was a terrible politician (“Stupidity or treason?” one politician rhetorically mused about her stewardship). The result would be Russia’s rapid spiral into revolution and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty. Mechanically, this triggers when Russia’s National Morale falls to 75 points - well done by the RUssian player to stave it off for so long!. It gives a one-time boost to NM, BUT once NM drops back below 75 (as it will in a mere 5 turns, absent events in the field), Russia’s alignment will begin to drop by 1% each turn, roughly the equivalent of the blockade, as the Eastern Entente begins its slide towards revolution. SO the East is on a ticking clock from here on out.

Forgot to collect objectives/casualties data this turn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Hm, after 17 days of no word from the Central Powers, now the dropbox folder with hte turn files is empty. I'm worried the game might be dead, or I need to finish against an AI.