The Russy Invasion of the Empire (1926)

The Russy Invasion of the Empire was the major Russy Federation invasion of the Empire along their boundary (containing occupied Dacia territory) in 1926. Its goal was to annihilate the military forces of the Empire for Federation’s national security. Eventually, the invading Federation Army received a great defeat in Trouncenberg and lost its initiative to Imperial Army.

Background
Before the beginning of the Great War, the relationship between the Federation and the Empire was extremely delicate. The new communist government signed a nonaggression pact and some trade agreements with the Empire, leaving the Exterior Lines Strategy faction. Although the two countries seemed to be against each other for the ideology difference, they actually built a close relationship that they nearly formed an alliance in secret. Based on Treaty of Rappalo, they had a period of time secretly exchanging military knowledge. In fact, the Federation kept stubbornly neutral during the hard fighting on the Rhine Front and condemned the Great War via the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Hence, the Republican intelligence agency guessed at the time that the Federation was maintaining a friendly neutrality toward the Empire.

The Federation
Since the founding of Russy Federation, they suffered the hatred from capitalist states that would have instigated an alliance against them. To avoid the isolation from their enemies, they decided to get along with the Empire who were the main threat of the other major capitalist states. With the cooperation enhancing, the Empire-friendly faction steadily grew inside Federation Army. Though there was still the regularly scheduled large-scale exercise along their boundary, both sides only took it as routine business.

The Empire
Ever since the Federation was established, the Empire had been meticulously defending the eastern border as precaution against the communists. Within the Empire, the people urging vigilance were not in the minority. Various spies, including a large number of long-term sleeper agents, were stationed in the border region for alert. Most important of all, the Eastern Army Group had long been at their traditional station on the border, a critical position, focused entirely on the Federation as its potential opponent, and Northern Army Group was responsible for the northeastern front to support Eastern Army Group against the Federation. Nevertheless, the General Staff warned all the regional army groups to be prudent and not do anything to provoke the Federation while the latter was enforcing the Great Purge, and many Federation refugees fled to the Empire and settled down.

The Eastern Army Group hadn’t budged from where they’re stationed on the border. They didn’t move when the North Front opened up in the fight against the Entente Alliance, nor did they move when the Republica’s sneak attack created the Rhine Front, and finally only the reserve 17th Army for the front in south-facing Dacia. Although the Northern, Western, and Southern Army Groups, who had been dealing with raging battles in recent years, often criticized the Eastern Army Group for standing around and getting free lunch, Supreme High Command always paid no mind and kept those soldiers right where they were.

After the end of Rhine Front, Eastern Army Group was strengthened to 60 divisions with the Great Army which had about 100 divisions total returning from Rhine Front as their backing. The Imperial Intelligence expected the possible scale of invading Federation Army was around 120 divisions. Considering the situation had been quite down, few people in Imperial Army could expect the attack from the Federation.

Federation Preparation
The decision to join the war was made a mere month before their initial move. The generally accepted brief is that the plan was drafted by only a handful of key figures. They made slight changes to the regularly scheduled large-scale exercise, choosing a staging point near the Empire and setting expectations of a great deal of live fire. To keep the mobilization under the pretext of an exercise, the true intention of the masterminds were completely hidden from the Federation commanders until the last moment. Even the State Defense Committee was informed only 72 hours before the fighting started. Hence, though Imperial Intelligence discovered something brewing in the Federation, after surveying the great majority of Federation officers, the Imperial General Staff concluded that the Federation Army was not interested in starting a major war. The Federation had managed to hold back from mobilizing until right before it opened hostilities, keeping its shift to wartime organization hidden from the Empire.

Based on their invading plan, the Federation Army divided their invading army into 3 groups. Main Attack Group with around 100 divisions was preparing to break through the border and attack the Empire at home, another group with around 50 divisions was en route to Norden in the north, and the other group with around 25 divisions was heading south to occupied Dacia. Although the Federation Army hadn’t recovered from the purges and the collectivization policy yet, and their level of training wasn’t in good condition, the General Secretary Josef still decided to wage war on the Empire.

Invasion
Before the breakout of the Eastern Front, a series of purges against those who had had contact with Imperials were carried out. Most of the Imperial agents stationed in the border region had been targeted. The morning before dawn in 15th March, the Eastern Army Group’s 437th Tactical Special Reconnaissance Platoon delivered a distress signal to Strategic Reconnaissance Department in the Imperial General Staff’s Operations Division. They raised the alarm, reporting via encoded signal that a Federal unit of unclear scale was mobilizing. After the report, there had been no additional transmissions, and multiple other tactical special reconnaissance platoons had gone dark. In fact, the Federation Army containing armored units, mobilized infantry, and railway artillery had already prepared to sneak attack the Eastern Army Group.

Imperial General Staff decided to perform a reconnaissance to the supposed Federation staging point. In the night, Imperial 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion arrived Eastern Front for reassignment. 203rd took off for long-range reconnaissance mission and parachuted into the Federation staging point covered by 437th. Later, the Federation declared war on the Empire. Federation Army assaulted the Imperial Eastern Army Group and pushed the front lines from 3 directions. With the close cooperation and coordination between Eastern Army Group Headquarters and the Imperial General Staff, the Great Army were being mobilized to Eastern Front. 203rd asked the General Staff for a direct attack on the Federation capital and got approved.

Moskva Raid
March 16, Imperial 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion “broke through” the Federation air defense and occupied the sky over the Federation capital. Within few hours, the secret police and Revolution Square were blasted to smithereens. They sang the national anthem with sound-amplifying formula over Moskva, blowing up the tomb of the revolutionary leaders and the statue of Josef. The People’s Palace was demolished by a volley of explosion formula while the Kremlin nearly fell. Finally, they planted an Empire flag in the Revolution Square, burned the Federation flags, took a commemorative photo with equipment scrounged from the Federation film distribution, and left.

Federation Army Advance
Although Eastern Army Group withstood the first shock of Federation Army, their strength was on the low side because of the endless flow of Federation reserves and had to retreat from 3 directions. The Imperial Army kept fighting retreating battles with the focus on delaying the enemy in organized opposition and waited for the reinforcement of Great Army while Federation Army suffered from the raids of Imperial air forces and mages.

10 days later, Imperial General Staff found the Eastern Army Group had fallen back farther than the original defense plan. All of the strategic reserves of Eastern Army Group had been sent and it’s still not enough. They detected about 175 divisions of invading Federation Army which was far out of the Empire's expectation about 120 divisions. Their attack routes were rated meticulous and prepared with considerable zeal by Lt. General von Rudersdorf, the deputy director of Operations of Imperial General Staff. Not only was the Federation major invasion following the sneak attack an attention-grabber, but the way they were actually going about it was formidable.

Imperial General Staff discriminated 3 groups of attacking enemy forces. Group A around 50 divisions was en route to Norden in the north, Group B around 100 divisions was preparing to break through the eastern border and attack us at home, and Group C around 25 divisions was heading south to Dacia. Imperial Eastern Army Group only had 60 divisions, and even General Staff sent over 5 divisions from the former Entente Alliance front, plus 3 armored divisions and 3 infantry divisions from the homeland response reserves, it’s still not even half of what they needed. To make matters worse, the Great Army could only mobilize 60 divisions. With 2 more weeks, they could move another 30 divisions, but there’s no way for the last 10. They hadn’t had enough key officers since the battles on the Rhine Front and the western offensives. The 30 divisions were considered second-string for lacking proper artillery in service and machine guns.

Imperial General Staff decided to annihilate Group A up in Norden first by Great Army. From there, they should hit what they could, moving on to B. Finally, they would nail Group C in part to keep the Dacian region in check as well. The 14 occupying divisions in Dacia were supposed to defend in depth, minimizing losses to the homeland.

Siege of Tiegenhoff
26th March, the Imperial 3rd and 32nd Divisions, the rear guards for the Eastern Armies’ delaying combat, had been surrounded in Tiegenhoff and urged the relief. Tiegenhoff was a city in the rear that the troops retreating from the eastern border just happened to hole up in. Its position was a bit isolated, but it’s also an easy city to defend because it’s on a river and near the sea. On top of that, it had some distance from the border and was extremely close to a transportation hub. It would be easy for the city to receive maritime support and it would put pressure on that transportation hub everyone would be scrambling for in a mobile battle. From the aerial photos, recon results, and the full reports from the encircled divisions, there’s no signal of Federation heavy artillery. The Imperial 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion stationed in Eastern Army Group Temporary Camp 21 took off to rescue them.

On the other hand, Federation Army were advancing with decentralized attack for balancing out the attack routes with supplies. Their supply situation was in danger due to the raid of Imperial air forces and mages. They found that their gear and level of training were inferior to their enemy’s, and their heavy artillery units which operated as groups couldn’t arrive the front line in time because of their slow speed. The Federation Army was flooding into a pretty half-moon dent in the center, but the Imperial Army defensive line units, the left and right edges, were putting up an oddly strong resistance. Especially in Tiegenhoff, which at one time was completely surrounded but then received a fresh mage unit as reinforcements. All the Federation generals agreed that the Imperial Army’s retreat, like when they beat the Republic, should probably be viewed as a tactical retreat. In the generals meeting, the political officers suggested attack Tiegenhoff with 8 reserve divisions and got approved.

27th March, 203rd Mage Battalion arrived Tiegenhoff to help the surrounded 3rd and 32nd Divisions. Next day, 8 divisions of Federation's strategic reserves were sent by Federation Army to attack Tiegenhoff and were raided by the 203rd Mage Battalion.

Battle of Trouncenberg
29th March, the Imperial Army launched its new mobile operation with Tiegenhoff as its axis. After 29th March, in the series of engagements known collectively as the Battle of Trouncenberg, the Imperial Army succeeded in surrounding an invading force of 400,000 Federation soldiers with a mere 150,000 in Trouncenberg. Compared to the imperial losses of 15,000, the Federation lost 150,000 (90,000 of which were taken prisoner). The Imperial Army seized the initiative in the east.

Afterwards
Midway through the Great War, a serious conflict arose within the Imperial Army General Staff regarding overall war policy. The Eastern Faction comprising primarily the people involved in the Eastern Army advocated a decisive strategy to end the war quickly with encirclement and annihilation, while the Western Faction comprising General von Zettour, who had led their efforts on the Rhine Front overall, and his followers advocated a bloodletting strategy, draining the enemy over time until it died.

During this operation, the Eastern Faction proposed their strategy on the premise that the Federation would have numerical superiority. Under that assumption, the Western Faction’s proposed plan had to be deemed unrealistic. What they set their sights on next was an attract and annihilate strategy employing their mobility along interior lines. The Eastern Faction used that logic to rebel against the passivity of the mainstream General Staff Faction. It ended up that they would test their theory in an operation on the Eastern Front against the Federation Army that had broken through Imperial lines after the initial sneak attack. They finally received huge success in Battle of Trouncenberg.

Based on the Imperial statistic measured according to rigorous standards, the attrition ratio was being maintained at 7 to 1. Though tables hadn’t completely overturned their numerical inferiority, and they let some remnants of their enemy escape, the battle was considered solid precedent for the Eastern Faction’s theory. On the heels of that success, the Eastern Faction began planning how to increase their gains and bring the war to an early close. At that time, a movement that supported any prospect of an early end to the war appeared in opposition to the cabinet and the Imperial family’s fears of heavy casualties. Thus, the General Staff proposed and carried out a single plan. It was called “Operation Lakeside.” The idea was to push up the front lines via a major offensive. It was emphatically criticized from several quarters for being high-risk, high-return, but in the end, they bulldozed the opposition and pushed it through. It was ordered as Order No. 41. Thus, the Imperial Army’s great offensive in the east became known as Operation No. 41, or colloquially as Operation Lakeside.

Reference
Deus lo vult - Chapter III The Watch/Guard on the Rhine

Plus Ultra - Chapter I Dacian War

Dabit Deus his quoque finem