Excerpt From Nothing New in the West (1934), by Erich Paul Remarque
They have transferred us further than we could have thought. Our company is made of more than three damaged ones that could not be reinforced.
When we are not marching, we sit around Rotterdam. After a couple of days Kantorek talks with us. He no longer has the same enthusiasm before he has been on the Oder Line. I am not sympathetic, because I remember that he was the reason I enlisted.
His lectures of military glory and Fatherland are a distant memory from our childhood. "Yours is a legacy of warriors from Armenius to Bismarck," he would tell us as we enlisted.
He was the reason we enlisted, and he was the reason so many of us were dead.
I try to avoid him whenever possible. We all do, once we are dismissed from our morning assembly while we wait for the news about our ship.
The press only tells us good stories, but we learn to tell the difference. The stories would talk about the defense of Memel, then of Konigsberg, Danzig, Posen, and then Stettin.
"Funny how that works," Katz muttered one day. "We are winning, but we keep moving backwards."
That was why we were all here in Rotterdam. The Oder Line held, but we would be transferred across the English Channel to Britain once the evacuation was finished.
Women and children who had once been evacuated to Berlin were now being evacuated to Hamburg, while women and children who had once been evacuated to Hamburg were now being evacuated to Rotterdam.
The monotony and anxiety bored us all, but it was better than holding the Oder line and waiting for the inevitable attack that would come after an inevitable retreat.
Athens, Occupied Greece, 1 March 1924
The sight of Russian men was something that the locals had not expected.
If anything, the civilians had expected the Ottomans to be the ones occupying, yet the Russians and here and they were not, besides a few officers of course.
"Who else would they send?" Georgios told his sons over dinner. "The Turks are in Egypt, the French have Italy in the way, and the Asians are either at the front or on the other side of the planet."
"It might be deliberate," Nikos, his eldest son, proposed. After swallowing another bite of his ricebread, of course. "At least the Russians believe in God and have an alphabet we can understand."
"The Asians are the oddest," said Christos. "They seem to leave us alone and rely on the Russians as translators. And offer us free food and medicine."
That, of all things, was what Georgios found the strangest about the Asiatics.
While yes, there was propaganda and he had no doubts that they killed many soldiers, it seemed like the Asians were oddly-generous with their occupation. While yes, the Greeks were under occupation, the Russians and the Chinese were more than happy to hand out food and medicine to any who wanted it.
"It is all for a reason," his eldest explained. "We wouldn't like the Ottomans. We wouldn't understand the Chinese. But the Russians? The Russians understand us, just as we understand them."
"Yet they seem to take orders from the Chinese," Christos countered. "The Russians may be the ones patrolling the streets and handling the locals, but the Chinese seem to be giving the orders. I guess that is what happens when your ally is full of time travelers."
"It does make sense, little brother. Which is why the Chinese are having the Russians occupy us, while the Ottomans handle the Bosnians and Albanians."
How to Cook Ricebread
Ingredients
- 3 Cups of Water
- 1 Pound of Rice Flour
- 1 Packet of Yeast
- 1 Packet of Butter
Instructions
- Boil 2 cups of water over an open fire.
- As the water is heated, add ¼ cup of flour and stir.
- Repeat Step 2 until all flour is added and the mixture reaches your desired thickness.
- Let the mixture cool until it is about body-temperature.
- Mix 1 cup of water with the packet of yeast.
- Pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture and stir.
- Add the rest of the flour to your mixture and stir until it is a consistent dough.
- Place butter on the inner side of the provided tin.
- Place the dough in the tin and let it sit for 45 minutes.
- Cool at 400 degrees (Fahrenheit) for 30 minutes.
Once this is done, you should have a nice loaf of ricebread that can be produced in any home with a stove that will go great with vegetables, fruits, or cooked meats.
This booklet was produced by the Nanjing Accord Occupation Forces and translated by the Military Intelligence Bureau.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Make sure that the meat provided is religiously-acceptable to the recipients. We don't want to feed pork to Jews or Muslims and cause an international incident.
The last thing we want to do is piss them off
while trying to win them over.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Add pictures to instructions in case the reader is illiterate.
23 Wall Street, New York City, New York, United States of America, 15 April 1924
There has been a belief in some form of higher power manipulating things from behind the scenes since time immemorial. At least that was what Ambassador Sir Auckland Campbell Geddes could recall.
Whether it was God or some shadowy cabal (which were, unsurprisingly enough, disproportionately Jewish), many believed that there was
somebody in control. The only difference was that the latter involved secret meetings and bizarre rituals.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
While yes, there were people who had more influence than others, the fact remained that geopolitics was "ordered chaos," as one philosopher once put it. It was a sum of hundreds to thousands of different competing interests who all wanted something different and would backstab, deal in backrooms, or outright commit murder to achieve it.
That, and how most of these meetings were done in offices. Offices filled to the brim with cigar smoke, yes, but these were far and away from the ritualistic gatherings that had captured many a conspiracy theorist's interests.
"Another loan would be in order," John Piermont Morgan Jr. surmised. "Or as we call it these days, 'Business as usual.'"
"That it is," the ambassador agreed. "And I assure you that this too will be used to finance the war effort. Munitions, raw materials, and the like."
"You don't have to tell me again, Auckland. With the war as it is, I hardly expect you all to piss it away on cigars and liquor."
Of course you know that, Morgan. You're making cents off of every bloody dollar we borrow from you!
It was hardly a surprise, of course. The House of Morgan would be stupid to only have their assets in one basket, and the elder and younger Morgans were hardly stupid men. If there was profit to be made (and there was), then the House would be one of the first to buy stock in the relevant businesses.
"Nor do I expect you to simply sit on this information. Would you humor me for a second?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Now as you and I both know, I have no fear of defeat," Geddes half-lied, "But you have hardly changed your enthusiasm at loaning
very large sums of money to finance our war effort."
"To which we are more than happy to do so as per our responsibilities."
"And His Majesty is very grateful for your continued partnership. But what truly perplexes me is that the current circumstances have been… less than favorable, yet you seem to continue on as if it were business as usual."
Morgan sat in silence and closed his eyes. The man was thinking, trying to find the best way to answer this.
"If I may," Morgan began, to which Geddes nodded. "Our motivations are twofold. You have myself, as J.P. Morgan, and J.P. Morgan the institution."
"There is of course my own preference for a British victory. After all, one of your predecessors was a dear friend of mine, and I am happy that we share a similar friendship. That, and how I would personally prefer to have Britain as an ally, rather than a global economy dominated by the Chinese."
"As for the institution itself, well, our continued business with the United Kingdom is simply good for business. We receive a one percent commission on all purchases by you and the Germans, and that does not include the profits from our various holdings that you then purchase from that I am not at liberty to disclose."
Not that he needed to, of course. It was an open secret that the banks had stakes in the various war-related industries. While yes, there were several ethical issues that came with this, this was information that was largely-open to the public.
There was a third reason, of course. Even if Morgan would not admit it.
If the European Alliance won, or at least managed to fight the Accord to a stalemate, then they would get their money back. It would take time, of course, but the House of Morgan would rake in a hefty profit in the postwar years.
But if they lost? Then J.P. Morgan might never see a single penny of the money they'd loaned out in the prior years.
It was a sunk cost and the two of them knew it.
That said, most sunk costs weren't as profitable as a global conflict.
The flight of the Monarchs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
Flight of the Monarchs refers to the evacuation of several of the royal families of Europe in the wake of the 1923-1924 European Offensive by the Nanjing Accord.
From 1923 to 1924, the royal families of Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Greece, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg fled to various neutral countries throughout Europe.
These nations included Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom, and Canada..
History
While the Great War had seen a significant offensive push at the start, followed by a slow pace of offensives by the Nanjing Accord in Europe, the Sino-Russian efforts to improve logistics by 1923 and 1924 had allowed for rapid advances through the Balkans, Poland, and Africa.
In response, the various royal families of the European Alliance were preemptively evacuated to allied or neutral nations to prevent capture by Nanjing Accord forces.
Evacuations of Various Monarchies.
While the various Balkan monarchs had remained in their capitals at the start of the war, the Royal Families of Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, and Bulgaria were evacuated to Austria-Hungary. The continued offensive into Austria-Hungary in turn led to the evacuation of the Balkan monarchs as well as the Austro-Hungarian Royal Family into Switzerland.
The Greek Royal Family was evacuated to Rome by the Italian Royal Family, but the Invasion of Sicily encouraged the two royals to evacuate to Switzerland.
The Belgian, Dutch, German, and Luxembourgish Royal Families first fled to the United Kingdom, but the threat of an imminent Nanjing Accord invasion in 1925 led to a second evacuation to British Canada.
Outskirts of Ghent, Kingdom of Belgium, 21 August 1924
"Gas barrage!" Leo shouted at his soldiers, but they knew that already. After all, they had been doing this for years at this point. "This should be enough to stop them!"
Sure enough, they could hear the roar of artillery from behind them, then felt the tremors of the explosions in front of them. This, of all things, should have been enough to hold them back.
Tabun was a potent chemical weapon, and Leo had seen just how potent it could have been back in 1922.
It was a different time, back then. Back when the French didn't have gas masks and protective equipment.
But now? Now, it was a matter of survival, where everything including the kitchen sink was launched at their enemies in an effort to slow them down. Every bit of chemical weapons that they had left was deployed into no man's land in a desperate effort to hold off the French and Chinese assault.
It was inhumane, yes, but every second mattered when Ghent was the last line of defense before Antwerp, and Antwerp would be the last foothold on continental Europe.
If the gas attacks held them back for another few minutes, then so be it. If it held them back for another hour or God-willing, another day, then even better.
Leo had made his peace a long time ago, and he would do what he had to in order to hold off the enemy for as long as he could.
But when the explosions stopped and the dust settled, he looked through the two glass lenses in horror to see that the gas had not bought them more than a few minutes.
He could hear the dreaded sound of tank treads, just as he could see the vehicles rolling forward, unphased by the deadly gas that had been sent to stop them.
An Analysis of Nanjing Accord Aircraft and Ships, Royal Military College, Sandhurst
Background
After three years of war, it is clear that the Nanjing Accord's aircraft and ships have a sharp technological advantage against our aircraft in terms of advancement, range, and efficiency.
However, analyses of previous engagements and publicly-available information have indicated the ships and airplanes are hardly impervious and can in fact be defeated by superior firepower in terms of quality, if not quantity.
Analysis of Aircraft
It is clear that Chinese airpower is a deciding factor in engagements. Particular attention was given to the near-destruction of the Japanese task force in 1911 as well combat data acquired from surviving friendly aircraft.
In short, Chinese aircraft favor a philosophy of "Quality over Quantity," with a preference for attacking enemy ships and aircraft from beyond the effective range of the latter with guided munitions.
This, coupled with built-in Radio Detection and Ranging equipment, allows for a single aircraft to detect, track, and attack our own aircraft with impunity while our own aircraft are out of gun range.
That said, publicly-available information has allowed us to develop countermeasures to combat the enemy's guided munitions. Colloquially known as "flares," these countermeasures consist of pellets of magnesium that effectively confuse and distract the enemy missiles into targeting them, rather than the aircraft itself.
While flares are not a panacea (given that there is only a finite amount in each aircraft, it has led to an increase in survivability by up over 100%. This in turn allows our forces to pass on this information to the newer generation of pilots, who in turn are more-capable of learning the information from the start.
Moreover, it is important to note that the primary Chinese multi-role aircraft known as the F-1 (formerly known as the F-CK-1), is only capable of carrying four homing rockets at a time.
A combination of flares and evasive maneuvers allows the RAF and Luftwaffe to "force" the Chinese aircraft to "waste" their missiles in an initial salvo that is inevitably dispersed through flares.
In doing so, the RAF and Luftwaffe are able to either close the distance and enter gun range or force the Chinese to return to base to rearm.
Finally, the capture of RADAR from shot-down aircraft has allowed us to reverse-engineer the technology to create an early-warning system that prevents our air forces from being completely caught off-guard.
Analysis of Ships
Chinese ships follow a similar pattern of "Quality over Quantity," given their reliance on long-range missiles to attack our own ships while the latter are outside gun range. This is most-evident during the 1911 battle between the Chinese and Japanese navies in which the former was capable of sinking the entire Japanese fleet with anti-ship missiles.
However, it seems that the main weakness of these ships is also their over-reliance on long-range missiles, given the finite number of missiles carried by any single ship at a given time.
In addition, these weapons can be shot down by conventional arms, as had been demonstrated at the Battle of Gibraltar during which an M2 anti-air platform was able to shoot down an incoming missile by firing at it.
Once the Chinese ships are out of missiles, they are largely sitting ducks whose greatest weapon is an autocannon whose firepower pales in comparison to that of any dreadnought.
Recommendations
In short, it is clear that the Nanjing Accord would win an even battle in ship-to-ship and air-to-air combat. Their weapons have greater range, accuracy, and have homing capabilities that we needed years to find an effective counter for.
They are a force that values Quality over Quantity, a fact that we have become all-too-aware of over the last few years in up-front engagements in Malaya, India, and the Mediterranean.
That said, their emphasis on Quality over Quantity is also their heaviest weakness, given the smaller size of their fleets of aircraft and ships compared to our own.
While it is not ideal, it is possible that a massed attack of aircraft would be able to overwhelm their more-advanced air defenses through sheer numbers. While their aircraft are more-than-capable of traveling at nearly twice the speed of our own, their ships and installations are not.
Should we attack their fleet in force, we would be capable of overwhelming their ships' defenses while also depleting the ammunition of their ships and aircraft. This in turn would allow the Royal Navy and Kaiserliche Marine to enter gun range and attack the Nanjing Accord ships with superior guns.
This comes with the important caveat that said attack would almost-certainly be costly for our side. While it is possible to overwhelm the defenses of the Nanjing Accord's aircraft and ships while depleting their ammunition, it is highly likely that many of our own aircraft and ships would be destroyed in the process.
In short, we are capable of destroying the Chinese fleet and their aircraft, but it would need to be done in a decisive battle that would almost-certainly lead to massive losses on our side.
That said, this would be our best chance to eliminate the Chinese fleet for good and prevent an invasion of the British Isles.
