Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe

British Situation Room

British Prime Minister Stannis Blair had been monitoring the Chinese advances in Alaska with a bit of concern. The casualties that the Chinese and Americans had been taking were horrendous and frightening. The Americans were fighting with all their grit for their homeland while the Chinese continued to pour more and more soldiers into the meat grinder that was the Alaskan front. Blair knew the mounting casualties in Alaska meant there would be fewer and fewer American resources allocated to Europe, which would make stopping the Russians that much harder.

Stannis was walking down to the Situation Room (located deep under the residence) to meet with his senior military advisors and get an update on the war and the next steps. He signaled for everyone to remain seated as he walked into the room, and made his way to the center of the table to take his seat. He saw General Sir Michael Richards, the British Army Chief of the Defense Staff; he was in charge of the overall British Defense Forces. Admiral Sir Mark West was there as well; he was the First Sea Lord and the man in charge of all naval forces. Seated next to him was General Sir Nick Wall, Chief of the General Staff for the Army, and last but not least was Air Chief Marshal, Sir Andrew Trenchard from the Royal Air Force.

These were the men responsible for the Defense of the British Isles, and for better or worse, most of Europe. Also in attendance were several individuals from the EU defense staff: General Volker Naumann, Chief of Staff of the EU Army, General Dieter Kessler, the senior Field Commander for all EU Military Forces, and their boss, Minister of Defense, André Gouin. The Americans would term this gathering of senior military leaders as a “coming to Jesus” meeting that was long overdue. The level of coordination and cooperation between the EU, British Forces and the Americans was not what it should be, and the war effort was suffering as a consequence.

Blair sat down at the table and looked briefly at his tablet. He nodded towards an aide to bring up the holographic map of the front lines across Europe and the North Sea. “Gentlemen, thank you all for being here and for agreeing to meet with my military commanders. As you all are aware, the Chinese and Russians have launched a massive invasion of the American homeland in Alaska. This means that the Americans will not be prioritizing their war effort in Europe for some time. I spoke with President Stein a few hours ago, and he informed me that they will be playing defense in Europe while they focus on finishing off the IR in the Middle East and attempting to stop the Chinese and Russians from breaking out of Alaska. That means it will be upon us to take the lead in Europe.”

“I have spoken with General Wade, the SACEUR Commander, and he has told me that he has approximately 860,000 US Forces in Europe and does not expect to receive many more forces for the foreseeable future. He has been ordered to defend Germany at all cost, but to limit his offensive operations until things stabilize in Alaska or the IR surrenders. I have spoken with General Sir Richards about our military force, and right now, we have 80,000 new recruits finishing training over the next two weeks and another 80,000 more the following month.” The PM nodded towards General Sir Richards as he continued.

“Tomorrow we will be announcing another military draft; we are going to conscript two million men and women into uniform and will begin training them as quickly as possible. Minister Gouin, what is the EU currently doing as far as troop additions? How soon will the EU be ready to assume a larger military role?”

Gouin was a pragmatic man, and had been arguing for an increase in defense forces for several years now with Chancellor Lowden. Unfortunately, those pleas had fallen on deaf ears until it was too late. Clearing his throat before he responded, Minister Gouin replied, “As of yesterday, Chancellor Lowden issued an emergency draft across the EU member states to raise the size of the EU military, and he has asked all member states to increase the size of their own state-run militaries. Spain has announced that they are drafting 400,000 people immediately, France is drafting 800,000, Germany is drafting 2.2 million, and the Italians are adding 500,000. The EU army will be increased by 600,000 once the draft has been completed. However, it will still be months before these new soldiers will be trained and ready for battle. Under the current military training programs, it will take close to three months for the first batch of soldiers to complete their training. So we are looking at graduating about 210,000 soldiers every four weeks starting in two months.”

General Dieter Kessler added, “The EU army has officially been released to my full command as of three weeks ago from Chancellor Lowden. I have begun coordination with General Wade, and my force of 600,000 soldiers is currently moving to reinforce the German army in Austria and the Italian army in Slovenia. This is where General Wade wants our army to hold the line. I am confident that my soldiers can do that, and I do apologize that our Chancellor had not released our forces sooner, but we are here now and will start to take the Russians on.”

General Sir Nick Wall joined the conversation. “The past is the past; we must focus on the present if we are to have a future. General Wade has said that his force, along with the bulk of the German army, will be able to hold the Russians at bay in the Berlin area. They have ceded the city to them rather than destroy the metropolis in the process of trying to defend it. General Wade and Field Marshal Schoen are looking to engage the bulk of the Russian armored forces near Berlin in the near future. We will be assisting them in that effort by providing two additional armored divisions and a massive increase in air support once the operation gets underway.” General Wall highlighted the battle plans on the holographic map, along with the disposition of the enemy force.

Minister Gouin felt the need to reassure his British colleagues. “PM Blair, I know there has been a lot of tension between our governments since the start of the war. I cannot change or fix the past, but I can assure you that I am now fully in control of the EU’s military effort and things are going to change. We are fully committed to stopping the Russians, and will not leave this to the individual states’ armies to do on their own. Any help or assistance we can provide, we will.”

PM Blair sat back in his chair for a second taking in everything his EU colleagues had just said and was satisfied with their response. “Thank you Minister Gouin and Generals for meeting with us and for assuring us of your intentions. The UK is ultimately a small island nation, and there is only so much we can do. If the Germans had not retooled their economy for war and been such tenacious fighters, I think we would be having a much different conversation. As it stands, I believe there is still time to prevent the Russians from conquering Europe… We know what needs to happen, so let’s end the meeting on a high note and move forward with a renewed resolve to work together and defeat the Russians,” the PM said as the meeting concluded.

The war in Europe had been picking up steam again as the weather turned from spring to summer. The MiG40s continued to cause havoc in the air for the Allies, though the new radar systems the Americans were employing were starting to turn the tide. The Russians continued to pour hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Poland, the Balkans and Hungary, readying themselves for the summer offensive. It was just a matter of when, not if, they would attack. In the meantime, the Allies continued to prepare themselves to meet a numerically superior force.