Ch.244Last Struggle

* * *

In the original history, the Commune couldn’t rise and at least maintained some of the mainland as Vichy France, but here even that seems difficult.

“This isn’t a decision to be made lightly.”

“Indeed. We’ll need to engage in battle to pressure them. But we can’t wait too long either.”

You won’t even have time to claim credit for killing the Commune.

Applying pressure like this should finish it.

“Yes.”

It’s pitiful, but international society is cold by nature.

I wonder if they might collapse easily if pressured from north and south through Italy. Though considering the Italian military’s combat effectiveness, it won’t be easy.

So we should just encourage their surrender appropriately.

Come to think of it, Churchill has been too quiet. I wonder if he’s alright?

Speak of the devil.

Interesting news has arrived from our Britain.

“Your Majesty. The British Channel colonies have been occupied by Japanese forces.”

“Our Mr. Churchill must be getting hot-headed.”

Things are about to get more interesting in Britain, aren’t they?

* * *

Underground Bunker, War Office, London, England

CRASH!

The bottle of cheongju Churchill was holding shattered on the floor.

This cheongju, brewed by Koreans living in Russia in the Far East, had entered the British Isles through Russian food aid and became the target of Churchill’s rage.

Japanese forces were entering British colonies in Asia.

Their justification was simple and clear.

The absurd reason that they would protect British colonies from Chinese communists who had fled.

Resource plundering was just a bonus.

“These damned Japs! After we nurtured and cherished them, they stab us in the back? I should have seen this coming when they devoured French Indochina. How dare they!”

Naturally, Churchill immediately flew into a rage.

“Prime Minister. You need to calm down.”

“Do I look like I can calm down? These damn fools are daring to ignore me? No matter how far we’ve fallen, the British Empire is not to be disrespected by those Far Eastern monkeys! What are those Yankee bastards doing? How incompetent must they be in warfare for these people to expand their front?”

“I hear they’re struggling to secure naval supremacy in fleet battles.”

Right. That’s just like those Yankees.

They’re just nouveau riche with nothing but money.

Even if their Pacific Fleet was wiped out in one blow, shouldn’t they have made progress by now?

“Ha. If it were our British Empire’s fleet, we would have repelled them easily!”

“Well, they’ll secure naval supremacy soon enough, won’t they? Japan can’t possibly defeat America no matter how many resources they consume.”

“That’s true, but we don’t know when that will be.”

Honestly, Churchill wanted America to quickly crush those Japanese bastards and join the European front.

No, since there was no justification, he at least wanted them to sell plenty of weapons.

Because right now, Russian weapons and food were pouring into Britain by sea.

“These choco pies are delicious.”

“This ramen thing isn’t bad either.”

“Russians are quite something, aren’t they?”

Churchill was somehow maintaining his grip by directing cabinet complaints and anger toward the betraying French, while accepting Russian food aid. But it was clear that those Slavs would have a major influence on post-war Britain.

He needed to secure his share before that happened.

“What’s the scale of the landing?”

“Combining our Royal Army, Canadian Dominion, Australia, New Zealand, pro-British Indian colonial forces, and even Irish troops, we have 92,000 men.”

The army that once numbered hundreds of thousands at the start of the war was now reduced to this.

Even this strategy might not succeed.

“Prime Minister. The Red Front Army and Anti-Comintern forces have begun to clash. Russian-rearmed Italian Federation forces are also advancing into the southern Commune.”

Yes. The time is approaching.

We will deliver a decisive blow and achieve Britain’s revenge.

I wonder if they might collapse easily if pressured from north and south through Italy. Though considering Italian military strength, it won’t be easy.

So we should just encourage their surrender appropriately.

Come to think of it, Churchill has been too quiet. I wonder if he’s alright?

Not long after, Operation Jubilee was executed in Brittany, with the goal of reclaiming Normandy territory and occupying Brittany.

BOOM! BOOM!

“Support our soldiers’ landing. Let’s avenge Dunkirk!”

Charles Forbes, commander of the Home Fleet who had witnessed the death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers at Dunkirk due to French betrayal, commanded the fleet from HMS Nelson, supporting the troops’ landing.

Brittany wasn’t completely without Commune defenders, but the defensive facilities weren’t particularly good, and with their main forces withdrawn to the east, they couldn’t stop the offensive of the vengeful British forces.

The Home Fleet’s bombardment destroyed what few French Commune fortresses there were, and the French Commune Army collapsed helplessly.

The Commune’s Red Air Force had already been gloriously annihilated in battles with the Russian White Air Force on the eastern front, so the French Commune forces couldn’t offer much resistance.

“Avenge our comrades!”

“We didn’t accept surrender from the Reds! Let’s do the same to them!”

British forces, along with Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian colonial troops, and Irish mercenaries promised independence, landed in Brittany. The Commune forces were subdued before they could even alert Paris, and Brittany was occupied by Britain more completely than during the Hundred Years’ War.

“As expected, they’ve lost their strength. Advance to Normandy and reclaim England’s territory!”

The Commonwealth forces didn’t miss this opportunity.

After occupying Brittany, without even taking a breath, they immediately occupied Normandy as well, dealing a severe blow to the French Commune.

“Damn it. The British reactionaries dare! This fact must be hidden to prevent the people’s morale from dropping!”

The Commune had to manipulate public opinion to hide the fact that Normandy had been occupied.

* * *

Several months earlier, Semipalatinsk, Russia

The Perun Project’s nuclear test was successfully completed.

Three bombs have already been made to end this war, and more are being produced.

With such weapons, could the war truly be ended?

Einstein suddenly felt doubtful seeing the nuclear weapon’s explosive power.

“It seems we’ve created a terrifying weapon.”

Oppenheimer, who had come to Russia during the American Second Civil War to help Einstein, couldn’t hide his admiration for the completion of the nuclear bomb.

The Perun Project included most of the individuals who had participated in the Manhattan Project in the original history.

The world’s first nuclear weapon had been created.

“I’m not sure if this is right. Such a weapon will kill so many people.”

“Instead, it can protect even more. Besides, even if not us, someone would have developed this weapon.”

Isn’t it fortunate that Russia, rather than imperialist nations, was the first to possess this weapon?

“That’s true.”

Still, I can’t be entirely happy about it.

It’s certainly better for Russia to have it than for another country to develop it first or acquire it.

“Think positively. The Tsar isn’t one to take lives recklessly. Even dropping three or four nuclear bombs would be less destructive than the Allied forces invading communist territories or the Reds purging everyone with different ideologies through people’s trials.”

They say it could be deployed to Paris and Belgrade.

How many people would die?

“At least the name should be fitting for something that ends war. I hope it doesn’t bear the name of a mass murderer.”

I wish this war could be resolved before using that weapon.

Those communists probably won’t surrender easily.

France, the city of culture and art, would be devastated by heat storms, and Belgrade, called the axis of evil despite being a small country that only causes wars, would also see numerous casualties.

Einstein closed his eyes tightly.

For now, he could only do his best for Israel, which would be established in the East in the future.

* * *

Anti-Comintern Pact Allied Headquarters, Belgium.

I swear, we are not a perverse nation that enjoys killing people.

Thanks to the existence of the United States, Russians fight only for justice. At least, they haven’t become part of the violent imperialist era.

This will influence Russia’s future as well.

And we have recovered Belgium and proposed surrender to the French Communist Party.

We proposed war crimes trials for the Commune and Communist German leadership, disarmament, and more, but they ignored us.

“They won’t accept the surrender proposal?”

We gave them multiple chances.

Well, if it were me, I wouldn’t surrender either when my life is at stake.

“It’s a matter of their own lives. They’re trying to protect themselves while spouting nonsense about world revolution.”

That’s right. Perhaps they might have accepted a reasonable ceasefire, but to us, as long as they’re communists, they must be completely eliminated.

At minimum, we need to capture their leadership, but if they resist, we really must see this through to the end.

Whether it’s a ceasefire agreement or surrender, they’ll all be handed over as war criminals and die anyway.

“The artillery bombardment continues, right?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. They’re also dealing with the Falange forces, so they can’t even properly respond to our bombardment. They’ll eventually be pushed back.”

Hmm, striking from the front might be an option.

Let’s hear the military’s assessment first.

“Even so, a frontal assault would be dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Looking at their defensive line, our casualties would increase if we charged in. It’s better to just maintain our position and trust our allies who are targeting their rear. Above all, the Communist German forces are fighting desperately.”

Honestly, we’ve already intimidated them.

We told them how many troops they had left, and that we could mobilize over ten million soldiers in our army alone.

We’ve already divided some reinforcements and sent them to the southern Italian front and the Spanish front.

We’re attacking from three directions.

How long can they hold out?

Recently, our Russian army occupied all the southern ports of the Commune, allowing Free French forces to land in Marseille.

Of course, we captured the Commune fleet in the process.

The Free French protested, but what could they do?

Anyway, we need to secure naval power at minimum and completely neutralize France’s war-making capability.

Honestly, the Free French fleet is tempting too.

But I won’t ask for too much.

“The problem is that civilian casualties are increasing from the bombing. Many will die even before we use that weapon. Please target only industrial facilities with precision bombing.”

“Your Majesty, are we ultimately going to end this with that weapon?”

“That seems likely.”

It will probably end eventually.

Before France is completely destroyed with nothing left to take, we just need to damage them enough that they can’t interfere with us, then deploy the nuclear weapon.

“But industrial capacity will remain. Although we’re using Free France, I’m concerned that they might try to start another war in the future.”

“We must crush them so they can’t! We need to tear the French apart so they can’t wage war and completely eliminate their military.”

Yes. Either way, it must be done.

We need to include France in our new order, but wasn’t Nazi Germany created because the Versailles Treaty strangled them too much?

But we can’t just leave them alone due to our allies’ complaints.

They will certainly be torn apart, but their war capacity must also be destroyed.

“Still, we are a civilized nation. Doing that would be barbaric and no different from communists. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’ll stand by and do nothing.”

Killing Frenchmen isn’t right.

We’re not barbarians, and killing them would only breed more resentment in the future.

Even without war capability, people who curse us are still a nuisance.

“Does the Tsar have some plan in mind?”

A plan? I do have something.

“We’ll round up all the existing Commune leadership and those who collaborated with the Communist Party. That’s obviously necessary. Afterwards, we’ll form a government with ‘kind Frenchmen who know nothing but want to cooperate with us’ and establish a minimal government structure until we can directly establish a government. We’ll have to do that with Burgundy.”

“I see, making them incompetent enough to barely maintain their country.”

From the devastated French land, we can extract reparations in raw materials from each torn French government.

“Then, let’s eliminate any factories that could produce weapons. We’ll dismantle them all and send them to the German Empire or Danubian Federation that suffered damage, and we’ll also take away all the technicians. Instead of killing people with force, we’ll steal all their industrial power. After several decades, the France of the Grand Army era will disappear, leaving an agricultural country with only art flourishing.”

Since we’ll be able to get everything we need from the European Union we’ll create later, why should France have factories?

France would just become a region known for agriculture and art in the country called Europe.

“If we do that…”

“The country will have no future at all.”

Why are you looking at me as if I’ve said something terrifying?

Did I say something wrong? As Drozdovsky said, they could harbor revenge against us, and as Ungern said, crushing them is a good method too. But this way isn’t barbaric and will create a France steeped in peace.

“That’s enough.”

Since the Danubian Federation won’t split up and Serbia will be divided between Danubia and Bulgaria, France is the only country that needs to be torn apart.

That way, French territory can be divided into British Brittany, Normandy, Spanish Corsica, and the mainland governments of Burgundian Order State and Vichy France.

“Indeed, that’s brilliant.”

“This will erase all of France’s past glory.”

In truth, France doesn’t matter much to me.

Even threatening Germany will enter the Russian order, so what does France matter?

Belgrade is just the axis of evil, and France is just receiving retribution for betraying the Anti-Comintern Pact.

Most typical protagonists would maintain countries intact out of kindness, saying “I’ll keep your country intact” or “I’ll show mercy.”

But I’m different from others.