yvesp
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In November, the weather turned to rain. That wasn't unexpected. The Japanese could barely move their army. There was just some reshuffling on the frontlines, and in particular two units now freed from duty in the South where most of the objectives had been reached were railed to Mandchuria. There was no reason to make things that easy for the Russians, was there ? In Europe, despite the poor weather, a confident Mussolini declared war on Greece, not listening Hitler who told him that was stupid and that he would soon face a host of allied units, just like it happened to the Austrians in WWI. Mussolini was sure he would kick Greece out of the war before this happened. And even if he didn't say so, he knew the German would help if the allies brought armies... In the West Mediterranean, the Germans still tried to keep the sea area free of allied units. Indeed, a group of old Beauforts was seen there briefly ; there was a inconclusive encounter between them and a host of FW190, which the British planes fled as fast as it could! Nobody was hurt, but the bullet had come close for the British. This meant that the sea area was still not really contested and that the allies would have to use the Moroccan road. A small delay, but all delays were worth a little effort. On the Pacific side, the Americans had begun to move. A small raiding force was send in the South China sea, but it failed to intercept a significant amount of merchant ships. The same thing happened with the submarines sent to patrol along the coasts of Japan. These small moves were annoying for the Japanese who had a choice either to ignore the threat, or to meet it and escalate the conflict there; but hopefully, the Americans would be too busy in Africa where they were bringing in a mass of reinforcements ? And indeed, their secret services were having good information: a whole army, led by Bradley, was ready to disembark; it included one armored corps, one mechanized corps, one infantry corps, Bradley himself of course, and in addition support units in the form of three artillery divisions and one flak division. Once in place, this force joined with what was already in place, one armored, one mechanized and one motorized corps, would have little trouble to deal with the few, ill-supplied German forces led by Manstein.
A large ballet of aircrafts engaged ofver Germany and Poland as second rate squadrons went to man the Russian line, while first rate fighters came back to Italy and France. Previous months had shown the air defense to be inadequate, and it was time to set things right. In that time, the Russian themselves were moving air and land units toward the Finish border, while they slowly advanced through the eastern mountains in Manchuria. The mud did not make things simple, as the Chinese and Japanese knew very well, who only did cosmetic moves on the own lines. Nevertheless, the cosmetics began to pay when the Japanese managed to reestablish contact with their trapped units. As often, it happened with no fights, the Chinese being too weak to try a frontal assault. As expected, the Americans were more interested in their African travels than in the Japanese maritime lanes. The Japanese prayed for this mood to last!
And indeed it lasted ; the Americans seemed very busy in getting their African units in place, and did not seemed to care about anything else. Not true ; they ended the complete occupation of the Marshall islands, which, under the present circumstances, the Japanese had neither the means, nor the will to defend. It was clear that the next target would be Truk. It remained to be seen whether this was defensible. The weather was rather mild, and even the arctic did not suffer any significant snow ; and even an unexpected thaw occurred for Christmas. This suddenly freed a lot of the Japanese army that was still trapped, letting them either move closer to safety, or outright redressing the situation by taking some Chinese units off balance. Was this the reason that cause the Commonwealth to declare war ? Or was simply the consequence that they had had enough time to well reorganized their defense in Singapore, and that they felt it secure ? The Americans were happy not to feel alone there, while they were waging the British's war in Europe! And Free France followed with its own declaration, for what it was worth... Anyway, war was declared, and the British fleet sortied in the South China sea,while a band of cruisers raided the North China sea. The latest were quite successful and destroyed about twenty percent of the Japanese merchant fleet in a short time, despite the presence of some supporting Japanese air cover. This was a severe blow to the Japanese production that suffered greatly for lack of resources. And indeed, between the Manchurian resources that were now under Russian control, the production lost to Russian bombardments and the loss due to the sunk merchant, the production fell to half of its latest output.
Obviously,this was to be a very special Christmas, and the Russian claimed rights on some of the Finish lands. Much like Rumania, there was little help that could be given to the Fins, and letting them go to war against the Russian war machine that had now demonstrated some of its ability did not seem wise. Hitler decided to convince the Finish government to cede, in exchange for an alliance that would put them momentarily out of reach. Furthermore,he was worried about his latest secret services that told that Stalin was seriously contemplating a declaration of war within the next few weeks: this meant that forces that had been sent west to prepare against the Allies assault would have to be sent fast on the East front. It also meant that if this happened, he would have miscalculated! He hadn't expected Stalin to attack before 1944! Anyway, there was one thing clear: Stalin would not declare war on him before he annexed the three Baltic states, because this would give him a huge advantage. He himself couldn't do that without breaking the terms of treaty.
In the Mediterranean, the allies tried to make the best use of the good weather to repel the Axis air cover but they failed in their attempt. This was unfortunate: Manstein had been badly biten by a squadron of A20B and cutting his supplies would have put him is a situation of great weakness. However, he still was too strong to attack : the American forces were not yet in good position. Nevertheless, his position was easily flanked when the two Vichy French units that kept the mountains and helped close the road to Algier defected. It was not impossible that Algier be captured within the next two months, weather permitting. All the while, the Italians had made progress in Greece, but it was just like Hitler had predicted! Mussolini's troops were stopped north of Athen by two corps of elite mountain units that barred the route. It cost Mussolini two army corps to dislodge the first one, and that gave him thoughts to ponder about whether that war was really worth it! Yet in the ancient times, the Greeks had bowed in front of the Roman power: He would show that nothing had changed!
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