Part 15: Chapter XV: The War to End All Wars...? (1921-1926)

Chapter XV: The War to End All Wars...? (1921-1926)

Herr Generalfeldmarschall Engelbert Hoffmann, you stand accused today of war crimes perpetrated in the late war against the countries then known as the Kingdom of France and the Russian Empire, alongside their minor allies the Kingdom of Italy, the Sultanate of Algeria, the Sultanate of Egypt, and the Kingdom of Argentina.






Herr Vorsitzender, I must tender a plea of not guilty. None of the actions my forces committed were out of proportion with French, North German, or Russian actions in the previous war a decade ago and we and our allies took pains to act within the limits of international law in the war, refraining even from drafting civilians.



Our troops were well-trained professionals, many of whom possess over a decade of experience, and are repeatedly drilled in the rules of war. They couldn't have committed the excesses you claim.



Indeed, our forces began the war with a rather standard siege war through Burgundy in the west and Poland in the Russian side, allowing our minor allies to face the Italians at first, as has been standard Reich policy for over a decade for this scenario, that is, war with Russia and France without North German involvement. We wargamed it extensively.




Our forces were simply better than theirs, there's no war crime in that.






But, Field Marshal, did you not order the first ever aerial bombing raids to ruin the enemy's supply lines? Did you not, and here I am quoting one of your memos, "turn the fields of France into desolate moonscape" with your artillery to prevent French agriculture from supplying the troops, directly causing one of history's great famines that goes on to this day? And did you not, once equipped with defenses against poison gas, order indiscriminate use of chemical weapons on both fronts, causing countless excess civilian deaths as the gas wafted over the villages and cities of France and Russia? Women and children experiencing the horrible agonies of suffocation, drowning, and burning alive simultaneously as the poison pumps through their system, cursing the South German Federation and its Reichswehr with their dying breaths of toxic fumes?







Well, first off, we were under tremendous pressure to win a major victory. The government in Munich refused to compromise and gave us a directive to "win a total victory at all costs to prevent France or Russia from ever again threatening the security and integrity of the Fatherland," and I quote. Besides, were these new tactics really that excessive?




First Brest-Litovsk and first Blois were before the mass deployment of gas masks. (For the record, I personally oppose the terminology of battle numbers resetting every war, but I understand why we do it, especially given how we inevitably fight major battles in Blois every war).




I was present at Proskorov! We weren't using gas masks yet and we defeated the Russians handily without them! I hear the same happened at First Brescia.



Does the Anglo-German effort at Chateauroux, the first major battle fought with gas masks, truly differ in a fundamental way from the prior battles?




But, Field Marshal Hoffmann, you must admit that, despite the utter and total collapse of the enemy force within a year of the start of the war and the constant begging by French diplomats for an honorable peace, you kept the war running. Your clique utterly refused to accept this because you wanted to utterly destroy the lives of everyone in these shattered countries, no?




In fact, by keeping the war going, you diverted critical resources needed for combating the tuberculosis epidemic and the smallpox outbreak!







I assert that you kept the war going to intentionally starve France and Russia into oblivion and to use the poor, half-starved boys unfortunate enough to be conscripted into their armies as practice and testing for your new toys and as a justification for funding for the autobahn!




My dear judge, is there a man in the South German Federation who has not benefited from the autobahn? I assure you that it would have been built, war effort or no. Have we not all benefited from the plastic designed for the war effort as well? Would the invention of plastic have happened were it not for the war?




Besides, our opponents started the war with the clear intention of partitioning us into pathetic little pieces more pathetic than the "Kingdom" of Santo Domingo.




Besides,they're the ones that keep launching assaults. I admit that gassing the Arabs who walked all the way from Algeria to Bessarabia just to be slaughtered to the last man was rather gauche, but it was stunningly effective and any other tactic would resolve in excess civilian and SGF deaths.




My dear judge, I personally led the bravest men you've ever seen to oppose overwhelming odds and and consistently won smashing victories the like the world hasn't seen since Alexander. Do you presume to judge my choice of tactics?





Might I remind you that those tactics of mine you are so quick to dismiss have revolutionized warfare forever?




Careful, Field Marshal Hoffmann: this is not some Latin American banana republic, the military does not rule in Munich.



The BBC reports that you explicitly attempted to delay the closure of the war to, and I quote, "obtain the best possible separate peace with each enemy belligerent."



If that were the case, why didn't we pursue harsher terms against Algeria? It is true that some of the enemy parties were shockingly unwilling to negotiate. Despite occupying the entirety of Italy as well as the island of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Italy refused to negotiate or accede to our Swiss ally's reasonable demands that they hand over Piedmont. Did this Italian intransigence prolong the war against them? Perhaps, but when the Italians refused a peace offer when their government existed in exile in the middle of the Sahara Desert, they forfeited any claims to legitimacy.



Field Marshal Hoffmann, do you deny accusations that you are working with subversive elements to undermine South German democracy and plotting against His Imperial Majesty himself?




Of course I deny such accusations! I am no fascist, my wife is the head of the International Women's Suffrage Society. You should see the damning report she recently put out about Belize, though why she focused on a country with fewer than fifteen thousand total inhabitants is beyond me. She even successfully campaigned for the recent passage of the Secret Ballot.



Also, as to your previous argument, we did campaign for separate peaces. Once reached the Urals, the Russians proved quite agreeable.



The Tsar's efforts to pacify his people proved in vain: when we occupied all the land in Russia, we let the serfs run free. This is where your "famine" comes from: the Russian Empire was only supported on the backs of unfree labor and couldn't bear to have its peasants off the soil. The Tsar's edict of "liberation" only came after there were no serfs left to free.




Of course, the Chinese invasion proved the last straw. Russia couldn't fight two enemies at once and agreed to a deal.




We reclaimed our land, we reclaimed our ally Ruthenia's land, and we established a buffer state to the east to limit the Russian threat, I think we did well.




So did the Chinese.



Field Marshal Hoffmann, do you deny that the Ukrainians have brutally oppressed the Tatars native to the Crimean peninsula and that South German forces have put down said Crimean rebels?

My dear judge, everyone knows that the armed gangs in Crimea were actually Russian agents wearing plainclothes trying to dismember Ukraine to make its reconquest easier.



What was it that finally forced the end of the war, Field Marshal?



The Sitzkrieg, of course. No one in the High Command had any desire to send the fleet to India, let alone Japan, but we couldn't maintain operations against Japan while the war continued in Europe. It proved easier to convince Japan that we were not about to fold if affairs in Europe ended.







Though it's called the Sitzkrieg, don't say that in front of Alex...I mean Fleet Admiral von Dietrich. It finally gave him an opportunity to use that navy we spent so much money building.



So by this time you felt you had sufficiently humiliated the French?





I suppose one might say that. We drove them from their most populous parts of Africa, gave our allies the Swiss Lombardy, and left France in a position where she was unable to attack us. I suppose you're going to claim that this was a fault on our part?



If you call destabilizing our neighbors and risking total anarchy all over Europe a positive, then you might be a skilled commander, but you are a horrible politician!



And are you not a Judge and not a politician? People all over the world say that this is why the political class of liberal democracies are out of touch with the masses they claim to represent!



Field Marshal, we are facing a climate where France and Russia are falling and Japan and China are rising. Thanks to you, the very supremacy of the West itself has fallen into question!



Japan, my dear Judge? The same Japan that has faced humiliation every time it attempted to intervene in continental affairs? Don't make me laugh.



Do you realize the consequences of your actions? What they have done?




You have unleashed anarchy upon the world. What do you have to say for yourself?

I did what had to be done.



France is done for. Even the Senegalese have renounced vassalization. The French communists have no true power and their starving masses will tire of the novelty of their new government soon enough.





And what about Russia, Field Marshal? The Chinese cleverly attacked their Mongol vassals, annexing them in one go and using the opportunity to reclaim Outer Manchuria, which had been Russian for three quarters of a century. What about the decline of Russia?




You have crushed civilization and the rule of order on both our western and eastern frontiers! I didn't like the Tsar or the King of France, but now we have crazed collectivists on our frontiers!




Your Honor, these Communists are the most pathetic cowards you have ever met. Did you see how quickly they caved when our northern cousins demanded that the Greeks regain the Peloponnese? It literally took one day. Have you ever seen bureaucracy work that quickly?



Ah yes, Field Marshal, about those northern cousins of ours. Are your troops capable of fighting off the tripartite alliance your actions have caused?

Absolutely.



Did you see how the Japanese agreed to a total cease fire after we sunk their fleet without a single German troop engaging in combat? The other countries of the world are toothless excepting the NGF. If France and the USSR drag NGF into a war with us, it will be different because NGF will be fighting the war alone with two dead-weight allies that only serve as liabilities to the war effort. They cannot win.



Careful, Field Marshal. The French seem to be regaining their former power. Do not write them off so quickly.



I wouldn't...invest in an NGF victory if I were you, Judge. Now I must be off and this farce of a trial must come to an end. Whatever the verdict, the Chancellor and Kaiser and the people all recognize that they need a general who wins wars more than a jealous judge obsessed with killing the war effort with red tape.

How dare you? I'll hold you in contempt of court!

"Don't quote laws to us, we carry swords." -Pompey the Great. Now if you'll excuse me, my dear judge, I have important things to do.

SGF Demographics



World Map, 1926