Diaries of a Madman Generalissimo - Hearts of Iron III

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Ferrard Carson
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Diaries of a Madman Generalissimo - Hearts of Iron III

Post by Ferrard Carson »

Administrivia: In lieu of polluting the Paradox multiplayer thread with someone's random stuff, I'll post random stories from my single-player campaigns here. Currently running HOI 3, Semper Fi, 2.04 with Semper Fi Historical Plausibility Project mod.

Metaxas or Notaxas - Defending Democracy's Birthplace as a Democratic Greece

August 1940

The world has erupted into madness. Greece herself is in constant turmoil as some five separate political parties all vie for attention from the masses. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in the mountain passes of my youth, handing out brand new rifles and doctrinal manuals to my crack mountain troops.  By the Adriatic, there are two corps of Greek troops with weapons trained on what used to be Albania. Along Bulgaria, another two corps are staring down Bulgarian nationals across the border.  The spirit of democracy courses through our troops' veins as they wait for Axis Italy or Bulgaria to so much as twitch.

In Athens, Salonica, and Crete, home guard nervously tip their ill-fitting helmets as they practice air raid drills twice a day. My navy, neglected and in castoff British destroyers, vintage World War I, frets over the day I commit them to battle. My airforce consists of maybe 10 biplanes cobbled together by this weird flying pig who takes young girls to some remote island in the Aegean.

Across the world, Germany is slowly grinding French and British forces into dust along the river Seine, with a major breakthrough in the south of the line. This began when Germany rammed a schwerpunkt right through the center of the Magiot Line. Fat lot of good that did the French.

The Japanese flag flies over Beijing, but due to a strange misinterpretation of diplomacy between Russian and Japanese traditions, the Japanese have suddenly found themselves at war with not just the last remaining warlord of China, but the entire, undistracted Soviet Union.  Methinks they've made a mistake.  Maybe Germany will manage to Barbarossa before Japan gets completely kicked off the mainland, but I have my doubts...

For now, we wait, and watch the border over our ironsights... Soon...

September 1940

A month. A month passed since we received the alert order to collect our weapons and stand on the border with Italian-occupied Albania. France has since fallen. The Soviet effort to push the Japanese into the sea has likewise failed miserably. We, however, are victorious. It is now September, and I stand in awe of the column of Italian prisoners marching down the road. It stretches from horizon to horizon. This must be more than 10,000 men captured in the backwoods of Albania. They were no match for my mountaineers, my elite light infantry, bred for battle in the thin air and armed with lightweight specialized weapons that let them run circles around the Italians in the craggy passes of Albania. My lone motorized brigade, slowed by the bizarre attachment of two artillery regiments, even got in on the action.

The slavs have welcomed us over their border with open arms. There is fear in their voices though. Whispers of a coming grey menace.

Later that month

Half my division is dead. They've been replaced by fresh-faced teenagers from Athens's high schools. We sit around our campfires, nervously watching the mountain passes between us and those steel beasts, those Panzers. The British advisers had told us of them, of course, but nothing could have prepared us for the sheer terror of two fully-formed Panzergruppen grinding their way through the winding roads and mountain passes. Even worse was watching them race out of the city we had just abandoned and begin running down my friends and comrades. Only the timely and highly disciplined rear-guard action by an entire corps of Mountaineers in a series of layered defenses saved my division from total annihilation. Now, we await more reinforcements, and it will be our turn to fight a delaying action so those heroic mountaineers can pass through us and fortify our last line of defense.

If any of them make it back.

September 1941

A year has passed. Central Greece forms a crucial bottleneck, one through which the combined might of the Germans, Italians, Slavs, Hungarians, and who knows who else, simply cannot pass. We few, we four corps of mountaineers with one floating division of motorized infantry, have held these passes against the Fascist Hordes for a year now. The fighting is low key, mere skirmishes as each side tests the other's strength, probes for weaknesses. Ours is quite simple: We haven't the men. An operational reserve is a pie in the sky. If the Germans break through anywhere, then we will be finished. And I can't help but think that if the Germans simply pushed equally on all fronts, then we would bleed ourselves dry against the Panzers long before they ran out of high-explosive.

A chill runs down my spine when I think of it. But these American bazookas are worth their weight in gold. And the American rifles. And the American jeeps. And the American food. America. Fuck yeah.

...right, that's the last of the beans for this week's ration. Back to the lookout tower with me. We the defenders of our Republic must be ever vigilant, for the enemy numbers greatly, and our allies are nowhere to be seen except in our lend-lease cargo compartment.

:clint: ~ Ferrard
"Take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turnin' of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' before she keels... makes her home."

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