September-December: main Draka offensive begins across
north Poland. Vistula and Oder lines forced, Silesia overrun.
Heavy casualties on both sides; offensive into Bavaria bogs
down in difficult mountain country. Fortress Berlin encircled
November 25; Warsaw falls November 29th. German and
other European forces manage to contain Draka offensive along
upper Danube, Elbe. Outskirts of Hamburg under Draka
artillery fire by year's end; slow, grinding offensive continues.
"Pan-European" emergency government under Edouard
Dalaaier meets in Brussels, de Gaulle returns to continent,
further purge of National Socialist elements from new
pan-European military (now less than 1/2 German). Soviet
Spain joins pan-Europe. Nazi concentration camps in East are
liberated by Draka, who make adroit use of their propaganda
value to keep U.S. hostile to Europeans.
Alliance (basically Anglo-U.S.) aircraft carriers meet, defeat
Japanese navy's main strike force west of Hawaii. Reconquest
of Hawaii begins; well-armed Japanese garrison resists
fanatically. Alliance forces also advancing in eastern Indonesia,
again with heavy losses. Japanese begin to strip forces on
Asian mainland to meet Alliance threat. U.S. submarines sink
more than 40% of Japanese cargo tonnage, begin economic
strangulation of Japanese heartland as food, raw materials
and petroleum cut off.
1944 — Taos Project detonates first fission bomb (plutonium,
shaped-charge implosion type, 40 kilotonnes) on February 1st,
in New Mexico. First Draka test (uranium bomb, two
subcritical masses) March 4, in central Sahara. Both countries
begin work on series production, fusion
weapons.
April: Drakajet bombers deliver five-weapon nuclear strike
against Ruhr valley, Brussels. Conventional offensive smashes
through to Rhine; amphibious landings in southern Spain are
contained in narrow beachheads. Last resistance in Berlin
eliminated. Emergency pan-European fission project
unsuccessful, due to uranium and heavy-water shortages. Mass
flight of refugees from western Germany to France, Belgium.
Famine in Central Europe. Covert Anglo-American aid to
Europeans.
Two nuclear-armed cruise missiles fired from Alliance
submarines against main Japanese fleet in lagoon of Truk
island, central Pacific. One malfunctions; the other destroys
three of the seven remaining Japanese fleet carriers and much
else besides. Alliance offensives continue across Pacific and
north from Indonesia.
May-July: Draka cross Rhine in three places; 2nd Airborne
legion destroyed in attempted siezure of Strasbourg.
Widespread casualties from fallout, little understood by either
side. Demoralization among remaining European forces.
August-October: Paris falls. Mass exodus of European
refugees across Channel to England, also from Denmark (now
cut off), Norway—totalling 5,000,000 before Draka forces
reach Atlantic. France occupied; European forces fall back to
Pyrenees.
December: Tokyo destroyed by cruise missile from Alliance
submarine; Imperial family and most high government officials
killed, casualties exceed 150,000. New government of fanatical
younger officers takes power, vows revenge. Widespread
starvation in Japan as imports cut off; 80% of merchant
tonnage sunk. Most remaining naval units destroyed in Battle
of Philippines. Japanese control now limited to Siberia, eastern
China, Korea and the home islands.
1946 - January-March: Sweden surrenders, Norway,
Netherlands occupied by Draka; Finland and Switzerland
isolated for future attention. Pyrenees forced after blitz with
remaining stockpile (12) of fission weapons wipes out major
concentrations of Euro-Spanish forces, communication centers
etc. Spain overrun. Massive shift of Draka forces to Far East
begins by rail and airship. Europe from the Urals to the
Atlantic, from North Cape to Gibraltar, is under Draka
occupation
—
also devastated and starving. The Draka forces
are thinly stretched, concentrating on the main cities and lines
of communication. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, armed
fragments of European armies and followers of dozens of
political and nationalistic movements are drifting, regrouping
and beginning active resistance, only momentarily cowed by
the psychological impact of nuclear weapons
.
Alliance forces occupy Taiwan and Hainan. Widespread
revolt in areas of China occupied by Japanese; Peking largely
destroyed in reprisals. Kyushu invaded, occupied at cost of
250,000 Alliance dead. Osaka destroyed by Alliance fission
bomb.
June: Draka launch Far Eastern offensive with 4,000,000
troops, from the Amur river in the north to Wuhan in the south.
The Japanese forces are cut into pockets and isolated as the
Domination's heavy armour, mechanized infantry and
airmobile forces (including several helicopter-born chiliarchies)
sweep through to the Pacific, overrunning all of China and
Korea. The "pockets" of Japanese later prove expensive to mop
up, in one case requiring a nuclear weapon. Archon Palme
declares annexation of all territories occupied during the
course of the war. Southern border of Domination now rests on
Pacific, from there across northern Vietnam, Burma, India and
south to Indian Ocean. All the rest of continental Eurasia is
"under the yoke."
July: Japanese surrender unconditionally to Alliance when
faced with the prospect of a Draka invasion and further
nuclear bombardment.
EURASIAN WAR ENDS.
'COVERT STRUGGLE" BETWEEN ALLIANCE AND
DOMINATION BEGINS.
2nd Treaty of Rio continues Alliance For Democracy on
permanent basis. Grand Council of U.S., U.K., Brazil to set
policy. Assembly of member states includes all S. America,
Southeast Asian Federation (Indochina, Thailand, Malaysia,
Indonesia), India (includes our Pakistan and Burma),
Australasian Federation. Free trade, joint military forces, joint
currency, local autonomy.
1945 - Strategos Eric von Shrakenberg married to Sofie
Nixon, Nova Cartago (Bizerte, Tunisia). Civil ceremony,
Johanna and Karl von Shrakenberg witnesses.
1946 - Senior Decurion McWhirter killed by terrorist
time-bomb while on antipartisan duty near Bratislava,
Carpathian Province. Italy declared open for settlement;
Johanna von Shrakenberg married to Centurion Thomas
Ingolfsson at Claestum Plantation, their Tuscan estate. Eric and
Sofie von Shrakenberg witnesses; Karl von Shrakenberg,
Dominarch John Teesdale also present.
1946-50's-Guerilla and terrorist warfare in newly occupied
portions of Domination. Deportations, executions, etc. All
schools in Europe closed, printed material confiscated. Death
penalty for unauthorized education, possession of radio
receiver. Partial demobilization of Draka armed forces;
conversion to airmobile light-infantry units widespread,
Janissaries kept at strength and new units recruited from
Europe, Asia. Plantations set up in more secure zones of new
territories, compound-factory system extended. Massive
economic reconstruction, "megaprojects": damming of
Mediterranean Sea at Gibraltar, redirection of Arctic rivers to
Central Asia, etc.
Reconstruction in Japan, self-government and membership
of Alliance by 1952. Broadcast television, first widespread use
of computers in process industry, large-scale data
management. Rapid economic growth througout Alliance;
"consumer society," Keynsian economics. Naval, air forces
emphasised. Anti-Draka sentiment increases steadily.
First fusion bomb exploded Bikini atol, February 1947 by
Alliance project headed by Oppenheimer. Refugee German
scientists working under direction of Alliance project headed by
Dr. Clarke begin development of ramjet (later scramjet)
suborbital missile to deliver "sun-bomb."
First integrated circuits, State of Ontario, 1949. Laser
invented, V. of Buenos Aires, 1953. DNA identified, Tashkent
Institute, 1951. Extensive Draka research into mid-altering
chemicals, molecular biology, etc. First transplant of fertilized
human ova, Alexandria institute, 1956. Recombinant DNA
techniques developed, late 1950s.
Draka fusion bomb, 1949. Missile projects follow. Nuclear
submarine, 1948.
Supersonic flight, 1947 (Draka). Earth-to-orbit
turbojet-scramjet-rocket, Alliance Aerospace force, 1958
(unmanned). First Draka flight to orbit, 1960. First manned
flight to orbit, 1959—Alliance, 1961
—
Draka. Auiance permanent
space station, 1962. Draka, 1962. Alliance nuclear-pulse
deepspace propulsion test, 1963
.
1947 - S.LA. Marshall elected president of U.S. O.S.S. begins
clandestine operations in support of European Resistance.
Switzerland surrenders to Draka after mass famine. Finland
crushed, but becomes "hardship posting" due to extensive
resistance. Mass deportations of Finns to east Asia.
France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ukraine declared
open for Draka settlement.
1950 —
Strategos Eric von Shrakenberg retires from active
list, appointed Senator, junior member of Long-Range
Strategic Planning project. Publishes
The Price of Victory,
novel
of war experiences. Security Directorate fails to have it banned,
due to Senatorial immunity, and it becomes a best seller, esp.
among young war veterans. Sweden, North China, Korea
declared open for settlement. Price of unskilled European serf
drops to 53 aurics
.
1951 - Draka Harmost of Loire Province (northern France)
killed with most of her staff by mass poisoning at official
banquet at Versailles marking third anniversary of Provincial
status. O.S.S. "infiltrators" blamed; clashes between Draka and
Alliance aircraft over English channel. Ten thousand Parisians
impaled along Champs Elysees in reprisal.
1952 - Uprising in Barcelona overruns Security Directorate
H.Q. Draka personnel evacuated by helicopter and city
destroyed by nuclear bomb. Films, survivors shown over
occupied Europe.
NOTES ON THE WORLD OF THE DOMINATION
Military
War and repression are the
raison d'etre
of the Domination's
state machinery; the Draka exist in a state of either war or
serious preparation for same. The War Directorate itself owns
a considerable share of the economy, and certainly not less
than 20 percent of the total GNP is dedicated to
military-related purposes
.
There are essentially two Draka armies: the Citizen Force
and the Janissaries. The Citizen Force is ultimately descended
from the Loyalist volunteer regiments of the American
Revolutionary period, and the militia units that conquered and
held southern Africa in the late eighteenth century. Other
influences included Classical history (notable in the military
terminology), various European armies (particularly the
Prussian) and native developments. The following description
applies to the period of the Eurasian War, 1941-1946.
Training: Citizen children are enrolled in boarding schools
eight months of the year from the age of 5. Military training
begins almost at once, both physical and psychological. The
aims are toughness, hardiness (ruthlessness and indifference to
pain are emphasized), independence, leadership and
cooperative teamwork.
Robotic obedience is
not
encouraged; the Draka have always
been outnumbered, and cannot afford to bludgeon their
enemies to death. After 12, training becomes more specific:
marksmanship, fieldcraft, technical subjects, small-unit tactics,
wilderness survival, live-firing exercises, etc
.
Military service begins at 18 and lasts for four years in
peacetime. Since the conscript is already in fine physical
condition, and more than familiar with the basics, "basic"
training is actually more like an advanced specialist's course.
Leadership candidates are identified during the first year, and
qualification testing screens applicants for NCO rank. All
officers are promoted "from the ranks," and then receive
advanced training in a number of specialized schools. After the
basic four years (longer for officers and NCOs) most Draka
undergo two months' reserve service a year; after age 40 most
are transferred into second-line formations. At full
mobilization, 192 percent of the
total
Citizen population is
under arms
.
Most units (the Air Corps and Navy aside) are territorially
based, with recruits drawn from a single area. Great efforts
are made to keep down personnel turbulence, and the average
Draka soldier spends his/her military life with roughly the
same group of faces. The basic field formation is the Legion
(roughly, a division); Armies and Army Corps are plugged
together from these basic building blocks as need and
opportunity dictate.