( OOC: This will be a semi-open historical expansion rp for East Cerdani set in the mid 1960s, will edit in more details at a later date. If you wish to participate please let me know )
The Situation circa April 1967
The escalating conflict had now reached breaking point, both nations have acquired massive armies and armaments and each side stare across the border waiting for the first sign of an invasion or any potential action. While constitutionally East Cerdani cannot undertake a “war of aggression” politically the government is continuing to call for an end to the Dettellohn Junta by all means, including armed struggle. The Dettellohn army however has been planning to make “one big push” into East Cerdani to reach East Berlien and overthrow the socialist government but the upper echelons of the military have refused to authorise any action until the majority of the generals in the Junta agree to such a plan. With the death of General Karlmann in 1966 the Junta had appointed a civilian as the head, and he was unwilling to risk the territorial integrity of Dettellohn, especially when his generals didn’t believe that an invasion woudl work at the time. On the International arena both governments present themselves as being the “peaceful” one and that the other “is the real problem.” Both sides were looking for a war and in April of 1967 the inevitable occurred.
Background Information
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After the fall of the Cerdan Empire in the Revolution of 1919-1921 the state fractured into three pieces, reflective of the divisions within the revolutionary movement that overthrew the monarchy. The territory seized by the communists and socialists became the Cerdan Democratic Republic (East Cerdani), those seized by the more nationalist and liberal forces then formed the Federal Republic of Cerdani (West Cerdani) to the West whilst a splinter group of socialists proclaimed the Independent Republic of Dettellohn.
Both West Cerdani and Dettellohn inaugurated parliamentary republics with reduced presidential powers and two chambers of parliament whilst East Cerdani set up an explicitly communist single party republic. The Dettellohn government was the most unstable and fragile of the three, and it barely survived into the 1930s after over a dozen coup attempts and assassinations. Throughout the 30s, 40s and into the mid 1950s the government continued to remain unstable, with the parliament continually split and neither side able to form a majority government.
The chronic political instability and the government’s continual neglect of the army created opportunities for more developed military plots. In 1955 there were two failed coup attempts on February 18 and July 19. The plotters of these were acquitted by a military court. During summer of 1955 and into 1956 a group of junior officers plotted a new coup and begun looking for a senior officer to be the figurehead of their movement. They eventually made contact with General Matthias Sieger Karlmann, who agreed to join the plotters on July 13. On July 15th the coup started with the march of an armoured column in the capital, commanded by General Karlmann, followed immediately by similar marches across the country and the seizing of the national radio. The coup triumphed when General Karlmann stormed the parliament along with 15,000 men, being acclaimed by the people of the city.
The unstable parliament resigned and power was transferred to the new “National Development Junta” which seized control over the country. The Junta, initially believed to be apolitical quickly cracked down on opposition socialists, communists, anarchists and trade unions which it saw as a major threat to “national stability” and begun extraditing citizens of East Cerdani. Relations between East Cerdani and Dettellohn quickly disintegrated and both nations openly threatened each other with invasion and war. Consequently both nations built up a massive arsenal of arms, weapons and other equipment, mining their borders and jamming communications. West Cerdani declares neutrality in the growing conflict but recognises the Junta as the official government of Dettellohn.
Owing to it’s unique position Dettellohn was able to use geography to it’s advantage, cutting off vital rail and road links to it’s ports which allowed East Cerdani to import and export goods internationally at a time when air travel was in it’s infancy. The closing of the links caused widespread misery and discontent in East Cerdani which led to further anger towards Dettellohn and the junta. In Dettellohn the closing of the border also had impacts that were not entirely unexpected. The tax on import and export of goods made the government millions.
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Out of Character Information
[spoiler]If you wish to participate in this conflict you are most welcome to! Just please let me know on Discord, I do not want people barging in on this. The same applies if you would like to roleplay as a citizen, soldier, general, etc.
As a side note since this is an Expansion RP for East Cerdani, please be aware of what the inevitable result is.
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The Flames of War
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Dettellohn has seized the initiative using a surprise war declaration. They have taken* over large parts of northern East Cerdani, Kostock is surrounded but not yet fallen. East Cerdan Volksarmee is entrenched in position and both armies are stuck in an uneasy stalemate. East Cerdan backed guerrillas operate daring and risky attacks and raids inside Dettellohn against key infrastructure and military targets.*
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On Tuesday the 4th of April 1967. The President of the Dettellohn Junta visited the town of Hettersal in southern Dettellohn. Hettersal was a largely East Cerdan populated town that had been annexed by Dettellohn in 1958 after a rigged vote was placed upon the local population. President Marcellus Wolfgang, a notorious old fascist who was hated just as much in his own country he was in Hettersal, looked happy and confident in his presidential suit. His tour of Hettersal was a propaganda effort designed to convince the world that Hettersal was really part of Dettellohn. It’s possible that old Wolfgang actually believed this himself, as he drove through the town and saw little children waving placards that said “Dettellohn is here!” If he had looked a bit more carefully he might have observed that the children were not smiling, they had no reason to, because they had been forced to line the streets and give President Wolfgang something resembling a warm welcome. But Wolfgang was happy, especially when he was introduced to some local policemen, big strong fellows who helped the Dettellohnese oppress the local people. Smiling broadly, President Wolfgang pinned shining new medals on their uniforms and congratulated them for doing a good job. Next day he left Hettersal to continue his tour of Dettellohn, convinced that everything was fine, down there in the province of Hettersal. How wrong he was.
For more than a year and a half, militants and spies had been in several Dettellohn provinces including Hettersal, where they were mobilising the people for the armed war and struggle. By December 1966, three months before the visit of President Wolfgang, the militants were carrying weapons into Dettellohn over the border from East Cerdani. On the day Wolfgang was in Hettersal, little did he realise that in the countryside round about, preparations for war were at an advanced stage. Eleven days later on April 15, a group of guerrillas led by Emanuel Hans-Jürgen crossed the border and found weapons waiting for them in the Hettersal province. There were Six East-Cerdan Machineguns, Five Tommy Guns, Seven Scanden Rifles, Six Bolt-Action Rifles, Twelve Pistols and Sixty hand grenades. Hans-Jürgen and his guerrillas took the weapons and headed north, through the forest but with orders not to begin until we had the word from our leaders. They were not to attack Dettellohnese civilians, not to maltreat prisoners, not to steal and to pay for what they ate. The guerillas then split into groups, each with a different target area. The commanders of each group met up again on Sunday the 20th of April, and at that meeting they recieved a message from their leaders in East Cerdani, saying that the armed struggle was to begin on Friday the 25th of April. One of the targets they selected was a Dettellohnese military post at a place called Eckwald, and it was there that the first shots of the war were destined to be fired.
Twelve men set off for the attack on Eckwald and they arrived on the morning of the 25th. They went without their boots, for fear that if they wore them they would be discovered and followed. The guerrilla unit set up a hidden encampment near the buildings of the township and the commander then sent one of the men in civilian clothes to reconnoitre the place. This guerrilla put a bandage on his foot so that he could pretend to need medical attention at the clinic. When he got to Eckwald the guerrilla got into conversation with a local who gave him information about the township, and this was useful because the guerilla found out where the Dettellohnese troops lived and where the sentries were posted. The Dettellohnese officers slept in the house of the local administrator and the other troops slept behind this house. The scout also saw three lorries going out and learned that they were going on a hunting expedition. They went out hunting everyday and at night would go out on patrol. The scout went back to the camp and passed on the information to the commander who gave each guerrilla his position for the attack. They stayed under the trees camouflaged, but at 4’o clock that Friday afternoon they came out in the open and by 7’o clock they were approaching the local administrator’s house. While they were advancing the lorries that had been on the hunt returned and the animals which had been killed were unloaded. The guerrillas were not seen and the lorries set off again. At 9’o clock that night, the attack began. The first shot was fired by the guerilla commander against the guard stationed at the door of the administrator’s house. The shots were the signal for the other guerrillas to attack. Hearing the shots the administrator came out of his house, and was shot and killed. Several Dettellohnese soldiers were killed in the fighting that followed. The guerrillas then withdrew and disappeared into the bush. Next day the Dettellohnese army gave chase but by that time the guerrillas were far away and safe, ready for the next attack.
The Dettellohnese Junta was quick to catch on to the news of the attack and was even quicker to place the blame squarely on East Cerdani. Within 24 hours of the attack at Eckwald the military was raised into war status and a formal declaration of war was signed by President Wolfgang, finally terminating the years of buildup that had been leading to this moment. The Dettellohnese were quickly on the offensive, using the surprise declaration to storm across the border and seize a dozen military bases and outposts in East Cerdan territory. They quickly surrounded the border city of Kostock and picked away the city’s defenders with artillery and snipers. A little over a day later, East Cerdani issued it’s first War Communique. It revealed that in that short space of time a whole series of border attacks had pushed back the East Cerdan Volksarmee but that they were firmly entrenched in their current position and that “any future offensive by the Dettellohn enemy is unlikely to succeed.” All the while the guerrilla groups inside Dettellohn were launching daring attacks against Dettellohnese soldiers, military vehicles and even a warship on Lake Mölsen. Outwardly the Dettellohnese pretended that nothing had happened and that they were “weeks away from crushing the communist invaders.” They were not yet ready to face the fact that while they were on the offensive into East Cerdani, internally they were quickly finding themselves on the defensive. All the while the East Cerdan war machine begun shifting into gear as they held back the Dettellohnese in an uneasy military stalemate.
The Battle Rages On
[spoiler]https://i.imgur.com/RXVLmoX.png
Dettellohn have launched a major offensive aimed at thrusting further south. East Cerdan forces have mostly retreated back and are regrouping near East Berlien, Kostock has not fallen and pockets of resistance hold out across the occupied regions. East Cerdan backed guerrillas continue their ambushes and sabotage inside Dettellohn, recruiting the local population.
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The uneasy stalemate continued for almost two weeks, small advances and retreats from both sides marked the most activity as neither side seemed willing nor ready for an offensive. Internally the East Cerdans were quickly gearing up and moving equipment while in Dettellohn, guerilla attacks continued at an increased pace as more civilians were recruited. A standard guerilla message to their commanders at time read as follows “The freedom fighters ambushed a group of Dettellohnese Officers, 5 kilometres away from the administrative post of Cobwe near Thannmolsen. A Dettellohnese officer and 3 privates were killed and the machine pistol belonging to the officer was captured.” But these guerilla movements were not strong enough to mount major attacks on Dettellohnese positions but they were slowly gaining strength and gradually eroding Dettellohnese strength through many small actions. Dettellohn’s friends were quick to see the danger and foreign soldiers were soon fighting alongside Dettellohnese troops against East Cerdani by May 10th. Numerous reports quickly came out about these foreign troops, revealing their ferocious nature and that they took “a sadistic pleasure in shooting and torturing unarmed East Cerdan civilians.” But atrocities only encouraged the people to take up arms and the Dettellohnese government was quickly losing face across the world for allowing such atrocities to occur.
On the morning of the of May 16, 1967 a package arrived at a house in the quiet residential suburb of Halensee in East Berlien. The parcel, which contained a book, was addressed to Laurenz Dieter, Minister of National Defense of East Cerdani. At about 20 minutes past 11am Laurenz Dieter, seated at his desk, opened the package. An explosion shattered the silence and instantly killed Dieter. The book had contained a plastic bomb placed by the Dettellohnese secret police, the notorious DISA. With this terrible crime the East Cerdani military lost it’s leader and an important commander. But even this attempt could not stop the awakening of the East Cerdan war machine. Futher attempts on the lives of important military officers however caused some disruption but all the parcels addressed to them were searched and the bombs discovered. But the stage was set for a dramatic advance in the war against Dettellohn. The Dettellohnese Regime was sure that by murdering Laurenz Dieter they’d dealt a crippling blow to the National People’s Army and had put them back to square one. And that all that was needed now was one big push to get rid of East Cerdani once and for all. The man who was to give that final big push was General Rudolf Horst Petrus who arrived at the battle front in early May and was appointed as Commander in Chief of all Dettellohnese forces in the country. Rudolf was depicted by the Dettellohnese government and it’s allies as some kind of invincible military superman. As one Dettellohnese newspaper put it, he was supposed to show the world who was boss in East Cerdani. The newspaper, The Penzrath Star, talked of Rudolf’s astonishing versatility, he was an engineer, professor, author and businessman as well as an expert in military strategy. He wrote Dettellohn’s first book on atomic energy, represented Dettellohn internationally on nuclear affairs and held Junta rank. A formidable enemy for East Cerdani was how The Penzrath Star saw Rudolf Horst Petrus. Formidable indeed but it was Rudolf who was to help pave the way for the defeat of Dettellohn by launching the biggest and most expensive military operation in the world at the time. It was called Operation-Aufkündigung.
Operation-Aufkündigung was launched on May 19, 1967 and was directed mainly at the rural farmlands and towns in the north of the country. That was where General Rudolf thought his men could break the back of the Volksarmee and he threw everything he had into the battle. There were 70,000 Dettellohnese troops involved in the operation, in an area that had a population of around 700,000 East Cerdan peasants. This means 1 Dettellohnese soldier out of every 10 East Cerdan peasants. General Rudolf really meant business, his military engineers built hundreds of kilometres of roads and paths to take the troops further into East Cerdan territory. The drone of Dettellohnese warplanes could be heard everyday as travelled back and forwards across the sky, discharging vast quantities of bombs onto the population and engaging East Cerdan aircraft. Marines, paratroopers and helicopters joined in the massive assault. Aircraft dropped millions of pamphlets calling on the Volksarmee soldiers to lay down their arms, there were constant radio broadcasts with the same objective. By early June the Dettellohnese were claiming victory, a military spokesperson in Penzrath announced that General Rudolf Horst Petrus had dealt a crippling blow to East Cerdani and a death blow to any plans for a big northwards push aimed the former border between the countries. A Dettellohnese journalist who specialised in covering the war wrote “The East Cerdan army still has a couple thousand troops in the northern areas of the country, but they’ve lost the initiative. A series of hammer blows has forced them into disarray.” It was all however, wishful thinking by the Dettellohnese and their allies as the future was to show.
The Struggle Continues
[spoiler]https://i.imgur.com/dH8E7uQ.png
Operation-Aufkündigung has stumbled to a halt and Dettellohnese Armed Forces are rapidly losing morale in fighting a guerilla war inside the conquered territories. The bulk of the East Cerdan forces have regrouped near East Berlien and are moving northwards. Large contigents have opened new fronts along the war line, pushing back the Dettellohnese advance. Kostock has not fallen but is almost entirely rubble. Mass organisation of the population of the occupied regions into militias and guerrilla units is overstretching the Dettellohnese and they have liberated large tracts of land. East Cerdan backed guerrilla operations inside Dettellohn have slowed down due to logistics issues.
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At the beginning of Operation-Aufkündigung, the Volksarmee leadership had analysed the enemy’s intentions and concluded that they were trying to conquer vast areas of sparsely inhabited farmland and towns by a quick invasion. Since the army could not effectively operate in these overrun territories, the people living in those areas quickly became East Cerdani’s main strength. Since the people were East Cerdani’s main strength, underground agents and agitators organised a vast campaign of mobilisation and organisation so that the people could take on the battle as it developed and could defend their country. As one of the agents, Kurt Lars, later described “We gave jobs to everyone, we liberated the initiative of the people from the enemy. Drawing on the experiences of our revolution we combined the use of traditional weapons and tactics with modern ones. We protected the infrastructure that the enemy wanted to destroy. Bombs prevented us from working and organising by day, so we did it at night. We increased the number of small squads and cadres, thus increasing the number of targets and dispersing them. Everywhere, day and night, the enemy was consumed by the immense strength of the organised population. The enemy suffered constant losses and it’s morale disintegrated. Thus Operation-Aufkündigung, the greatest action of Dettellohn’s offensive war, was completely defeated.” That was how Kurt Lars described Operation-Aufkündigung in retrospect when he was addressing the National Congress of Former Combatants in 1982, following the total defeat of Dettellohn. Of course at the time of Operation-Aufkündigung in 1967, victory over Dettellohn seemed very far away, but still the East Cerdans knew their own strength. They’d stood up to a massive onslaught by the Dettellohnese Armed Forces and prevented these forces from effectively controlling their captured areas. Many Dettellohnese soldiers died and to the horror of the Dettellohnese High Command, as Aufkündigung stumbled to a halt in early July 1967, East Cerdani opened a new battlefront, nearly a thousand kilometres away from the main theatre. The new front was in the far east of the country, near the site of the huge Rapode Hydroelectric Dam. It was a disaster for the Dettellohnese.
The Rapode Hydroelectric Dam, one of the biggest hydroelectric projects in the world, was critical for the development of East Cerdani and it’s domestic power needs. But with the invasion and overrunning of the Dam the electricity it produced was rerouted to Dettellohn and any benefits of the project inside East Cerdani were quickly utilised by the Dettellohnese Armed Forces occupying the valley. In addition the dam had created a huge lake along the river, making it very difficult for the East Cerdans to get across. By July 1967 the Dettellohnese had deployed a heavy concentration of troops along the river and they saw this as a vital defence line and an impenetrable barrier. But with the opening of the new front in the region ambushes and attacks on Dettellohnese military camps quickly mounted. There were over 20,000 Dettellohnese soldiers based around the site of the Dam and many of these soldiers came from the vast farmland regions, which were now considered virtually lost by the Dettellohnese, who were quickly becoming overstretched in these areas. A week later on July 13 1967, the offensive by the East Cerdans reached the stage of devastating attacks on Dettellohnese occupied air bases and armoured columns. An outpost near the dam was blasted by rockets and bombs, destroying over 50 warplanes on the ground. And in the west of the country, a similar rocket attack on another airfield destroyed 27 aircraft on the tarmac. While this was going on, with the Dettellohnese not knowing where to look for the next attack or ambush, the Volksarmee had been steadily preparing the ground for a big thrust further north. In the occupied areas laid the rich farmlands of East Cerdani and there was more than that, for there lay the vital road and railway lines which linked Dettellohn into East Cerdani. Through these routes the Dettellohnese were helping their army to move equipment and gear deeper into East Cerdani. And in August 1967, the Volksarmee begun it’s primary war front in precisely this region. The threat to Dettellohn was obvious, the alarm bells were ringing, and in early August General Rudolf was in Penzrath to talk to the Dettellohnese dictator Marcellus Wolfgang. Rudolf was worried, when he returned to the occupied territories there was a meeting between the Commanders of the operations inside East Cerdani and Chiefs of Staff. The purpose of the meeting was clear, could the Dettellohnese find any way to make up for their inability to halt the advances of the East Cerdan guerillas and army? Although they did not know it at the time, it was already too late. For the suffering of the Dettellohnese soldiers during Operation-Aufkündigung and the withering guerilla attacks in it’s aftermath had destroyed their morale. The seeds had already been planted for recapturing of the conquering territories. Operation-Aufkündigung and any further offensive action was effectively doomed, and for Marcellus Wolfgang too, the writing was on the wall.
The Dettellohn Connection
[spoiler]https://i.imgur.com/8CSMJ42.png
Dettellohnese Armed Forces inside East Cerdani are effectively isolated after their linkages are bombed, with airdrops unable to sustain the large number of troops. The East Cerdan Volksarmee War Machine has shifted into gear and have launched a series of blitzkrieg offensives and liberated large swathes of land. Kostock has been liberated and is being held with considerable force. The local East Cerdan population continues resistance in the conquered areas. Guerrilla operations inside *Dettellohn have resumed with vigour in preparation for a Volksarmee push into the region. *
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On the 7th of August 1967 the Dettellohn regime reported for the first time, in an official communique, that it’s troops had clashed with a Volksarmee Guerilla Unit inside Dettellohn. According to the Dettellohnese the fighting had taken place a few days earlier and seven guerrilla leaders had been killed. Some years later however, the grim truth came out in a report titled “Terror in Kopfende” written by two priests, Fr Alfonso Valverde and Fr Martin Lächen. These Priests spoke of bloodshed inside East Cerdani, not Dettellohn and their report makes chilling reading. It says in part “In the village of Devete the Dettellohnese soldiers killed David the son of George, it was the evening and he was going out to bring in the cows. As he went along the path he was shot dead. The soldiers took him to a nearby hillock and left him there after cutting off his hands and feet. David was one of our best christians and was married with four children.” That was on the 3rd of August, on the 5th said the Priests “A squad of Dettellohnese soldiers arrived at Siegh village, they arrested the Mayor of Siegh and his eldest son and sent him to find the rest of the family who were in hiding. They were shot by another Dettellohnese squad as they returned after dark. The following died instantly: the Mayor of Siegh, his 10 year old son Adamo, his daughter Veronica recently married and pregnant, his three daughters-in-law and two babies who were being carried on their mothers’ backs.” Another Priest in the area, Fr Laurenz Ferdinand corroborated their report and added the names of nine more people who were killed, three of them boys of twelve who were killed by the Dettellohnese troops. These reports of atrocities against civilians refer to the days immediately preceding the Dettellohnese communique. A communique that talked only of the killing of what the Dettellohnese described as “East Cerdan terrorists.” A communique that talked only of action inside Dettellohn. In fact as the Priest’s report shows, the action was in the East Cerdan district of Kopfende and the victims were unarmed civilians. President Wolfgang denied that his men were fighting against civilians inside East Cerdani and continued to deny this until his defeat. And now, that President Wolfgang and the Dettellohnese army had tasted blood, the commission and ignorance of massacres and human rights abuses became almost second nature to them in their attempts to stop the advances of the guerrillas and the East Cerdan Volksarmee. In this they would fail as they would ultimately fail to stop the struggle inside their own country.
The Dettellohnese massacres in the district of Kopfende was a response to the advances of the Volksarmee warfront in that district at the start of August. General Rudolf, President Wolfgang and their military advisers could see the strategic importance of this new front. Until then, the war in East Cerdani had been taking place far from the borders of Dettellohn. But when the Volksarmee begun launching military operations in Kopfende in early August it was closing in on key Dettellohnese positions inside East Cerdani, but also on areas bordering on Dettellohn. Rudolf could see that if the Volksarmee managed to continue it’s northwards thrust it wouldn’t be long before the links to his army across the border in East Cerdani would be threatened. The Dettellohnese had a poor opinion of the abilities of the Volksarmee and a very high opinion of their own abilities so they moved in to try and stop the advance. The main concern for the Dettellohnese was to prevent the Volksarmee from crossing the river Benzebi, the river runs through the middle of Kopfende district and as long as the Volksarmee could be contained south of the Benzebi they would be well away from the Dettellohnese border their lifelines to their troops inside East Cerdani. But by mid August 1967, despite all the efforts of the Dettellohnese, the Volksarmee did cross the river and begun it’s military operations in this new zone, later that month. The Dettellohnese knew that one of the main reasons for the Volksarmee advance was that the population of the area were helping the army with food and logistical support. So in this period and especially in the Dettellohn-East Cerdani border areas there was a big increase in atrocities against civilians carried out by the Dettellohnese Armed Forces. Atrocities of the type mentioned earlier in Kopfende. The most infamous massacre of that period was carried out by the Dettellohnese Armed Forces at a place called Küsfelden. Again the first reports of the massacre were sent out by Priests in the area and they estimated that more than 400 civilians had been slaughtered. The massacre at Küsfelden took place on August 26. The Dettellohnese Armed Forces and the Junta may have felt pleased with themselves but their satisfaction was short lived. Five days later, guerrillas inside Dettellohn crossed the border and established the first cross border linkage with the Volksarmee.
The guerrilla movements inside Dettellohn had been virtually paralysed for several weeks, there were a number of reasons for this, but that’s another story. In early August some of the problems that had held up the movements were beginning to be solved, namely logistical and supply issues. And General Rudolf by sending his soldiers on a rampage inside East Cerdani provided the catalyst that was needed to get their movement underway again. General Rudolf was looking for another war and he got one. The Volksarmee co-operated with these broadly communist guerrillas by transporting them weapons and other supplies from the south through Volksarmee controlled zones and into Dettellohn. On the 3rd of September, these guerrillas united and launched their first attack in a decisive new phase of the war against Dettellohn. It was the beginning of the end for General Wolfgang and Marcellus Wolfgang. But in early September the Dettellohnese were not thinking ahead to their inevitable defeat. Incredible though it seems today, they actually thought that they could go on forever. Ruling the East Cerdan and Dettellohnese people against their will. For the Dettellohnese it should have been obvious what was happening, they had virtually given up large tracts of conquered land and their lifelines to their operations deeper in the country were in danger. Kopfende district and the border region was in turmoil. Then in mid September, the Volksarmee launched a new offensive. After liberating the Rapode Dam they springboarded north and recaptured the city of Kostock. And this was the crunch. This was where the road and the railway that linked Dettellohn to it’s troops inside East Cerdani stretched across an ever narrowing region of conquered territory. If the Volksarmee could begin disrupting traffic on these links the Dettellohnese Armed Forces would be in dire straits. When Marecellus Wolfgang found out that the Volksarmee was approaching his links to his armed forces inside East Cerdani he was furious. Only two weeks after the Volksarmee launched the Kostock offensive, Marcellus Wolfgang personally travelled to the border region to speak to General Rudolf on what he thought about the war effort. The conversation was not recorded but one can imagine how angry Marcellus Wolfgang must have been. He’d even slashed the funding for education and social services to shore up the war effort in East Cerdani but still the Volksarmee was steadily marching on to the north, seemingly unstoppable. And it was not only Marcellus Wolfgang who was getting worried, when Wolfgang got back to Penzrath after his talks at the border region it was only a few days before his military chiefs were meeting with General Rudolf. The situation was desperate.
In mid September, Marcellus Wolfgang publicly criticised General Rudolf. Saying that the growing threat would not be solved until the Armed Forces under his control drove the Volksarmee back from the border and kept on the offensive. In reply to this, General Rudolf defended his performance as best he could. The problem was, he went on, was that the Volksarmee were constantly on the move, changing their bases every 24 hours or so. A problem indeed, and one to which General Rudolf had no answer. On September 22nd the moment Wolfgang and Rudolf had dreaded actually arrived. Volksarmee operatives blew up the Dettellohn to East Cerdani railway at a spot just a few kilometres from the Dettellohn border. That was the end of safe passage for equipment and supplies to Dettellohnese troops inside East Cerdani. Important sections of the Dettellohnese Armed Forces now knew that East Cerdani was unstoppable and it would be a matter of time until they were pushed to defeat by their fascist government. On September 29th a group of young officers launched an abortive coup attempt, those who were caught were executed. But a number of them escaped and defected to East Cerdani, providing them with confidential information pertaining to the Dettellohnese Armed Forces and government. And as East Cerdani reclaimed more and more of it’s territory. Dettellohn now had one very big, hostile state on it’s doorstep.
The Road to Peace
On October 15th 1967, the Volksarmee stormed the compound containing General Rudolf Horst Petrus and the final holdouts of Dettellohnese troops within East Cerdani. It was a humiliating blow to the Dettellohnese Armed Forces and to the Dettellohn government, who had sought to extract General Rudolf from East Cerdani. For the covert movement of young leftist officers within the Dettellohnese Armed Forces, this moment proved to be the catalyst for their next coup attempt and they quickly organised another attempt. On the early hours of the morning of October 25th 1967, the Armed Forces overthrew the fascist government of Marcellus Wolfgang in Penzrath. The officers proclaimed their intention of restoring democracy in Dettellohn and ending the war with East Cerdani. A little over four months later East Cerdani and the new Dettellohnese Authorities met in Bhonn and signed a peace and surrender agreement, formally surrendering Dettellohn to East Cerdani. Die-hard fascists argued at the time and still argue today, that these facts prove that East Cerdani did not actually win the war against Dettellohn. That Dettellohn was surrendered to East Cerdani by a group of Dettellohnese traitors. The argument goes further, with the insistence that Dettellohn could have won the war against East Cerdani, that surrender to East Cerdani’s demands was not necessary. The truth in fact, is very different. The surrender of Dettellohn was not a result of the coup d’état in Penzrath. It was the result of guerilla struggle inside Dettellohn and the losses in the war against East Cerdani that caused the coup d’etat in Dettellohn. And after this coup d’etat the Volksarmee had to keep fighting and had to step up the war against Dettellohn to bring Dettellohn’s new government to the negotiating table for acceptance of their terms.
The road to the Penzrath Surrender Talks began not with the coup d’etat in Dettellohn, but with the launching of the war against East Cerdani a few months earlier. From the very beginning of the war, East Cerdani’s victories had created contradictions within Dettellohn itself and by September 1967 the scale and frequency of these victories had reached a previously unprecedented level. The Dettellohnese Commander in Chief in East Cerdani, General Rudolf Horst Petrus, was no longer talking about winning the war but of “bringing the situation under control within about two months.” He admitted that military operations in East Cerdani were costing Dettellohn more than 40% of it’s national budget within the span of a few months and he added that Dettellohn would be throwing 10,000 more soldiers into battle against the Volksarmee by the end of October. There were already about 50,000 soldiers of the Dettellohnese Armed Forces inside East Cerdani in September, well armed and well trained, a powerful fighting force. Many thousands of these men were posted along the border provinces and towns. With the job of guarding the giant border wall and the vital supply links to their troops inside East Cerdani. The main Dettellohnese base for the protection of the central routes was at a place called Seconu and on September 28th the battalion there came under withering rocket fire from Volksarmee artillerymen posted on a hillside several kilometers away. The officers mess, the radio installations, gun emplacements and the electric power station were wrecked. The Seconu airfield was badly damaged and many Dettellohnese soldiers were killed. This was a terrible blow to Dettellohnese morale and a matter of serious concern to the fifteen big military units stationed inside East Cerdani.
But it was not only the area around the border that the Dettellohnese had to worry about. By this time Dettellohnese occupied territory within East Cerdani had shrunk to less than a third of what it had been. And the Volksarmee was carrying out more and more operations in the north of the country. Areas of great strategic importance to the Dettellohnese government. The Dettellohnese Armed Forces were beginning to show the first signs of mass demoralisation. Many young Dettellohnese conscripted to fight against the Volksarmee did everything they could to avoid engaging in combat. When sent on combat missions they would camp just a few kilometres from their base, waste all their ammunition by shooting it in the air and return a few days later to the post claiming many battles with the Volksarmee and many soldiers killed. Meanwhile the drain on men and resources caused by the war had chronically enfeebled Dettellohn itself. Now at a time when the economies of the region were coming under intense strain from a global monetary crisis, Dettellohn, the poorest country in the area was being forced to spend more money than ever on the war in East Cerdani. The scene was set for a revolt within the Dettellohnese Armed Forces and it came on September 29, 1967.
The September 29 rebellion in Penzrath was a failure. The Wolfgang regime apparently learned of it in advance and it got no further than a march of about 200 men with an armoured column. But the officers who assisted in the attempted coup were feeling their way and 26 days later on October 25th they tried again. This time they succeeded. Marcellus Wolfgang was overthrown as an armed regiment marched into Penzrath and loyalist soldiers sent to fight them simply crossed over and joined the rebels. But power was not transferred to the anti-fascist, anti-war leaders of the rebellion. Instead it was transferred to General Detlev Wenzeslaus, a 64 year old fascist officer who had presented proposals suggesting that perhaps the fascist government could be retained by implementing economic and social reforms. These reforms he felt, would remove the justification for the rebel movement inside his own country and the war with East Cerdani. There was some confusion in the world about Detlev at that time. With many people and international media thinking he was a progressive liberal and the leader of the young rebel officer’s movement. There was really no need for this confusion, for on the very day of the coup d’etat in Penzrath, Detlev declared “I am not the leader of this movement, I did not act against the government.” The coup did in fact put an end to fascism in Dettellohn, Detlev was powerless to stop that process and East Cerdani was quick to congratulate the Dettellohnese people on this achievement while calling attention that the war continued to exist. The President of East Cerdani declared “It is only with the surrender of Dettellohn that we can terminate the war and rebuild our nations.” and cautioned that nobody would suddenly tolerate Dettellohnese rule just because there had been a change of government.
But General Detlev was not ready to talk about ending the war. In September when he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Dettellohnese Armed Forces, thousands of soldiers had been moved into frontline positions from across the country. With this huge force at his disposal in the south of the country Detlev was determined to try and carry on the war. His objective was to avoid handing over power to East Cerdani or the rebels within his country. The cross border bombings into East Cerdani continued and the Dettellohnese carried on with their attacks against Volksarmee installations wherever they could find them. Two weeks after the coup d’etat a foreign war correspondent in the border regions reported that every day he heard the sounds of Dettellohnese bombings and saw wounded civilians being brought into Volksarmee hospitals. But he added that the East Cerdans were prepared for a protracted war and the sooner General Detlev accepted the realities of his situation, the better it would be for himself and his own soldiers. Detlev was not listening, he tried all sorts of maneuvers. Dressing up his own men as Volksarmee soldiers or local guerillas and sending them off to massacre innocent civilians so that East Cerdani would be blamed. He offered a peace agreement that would return the situation to before the war, retaining his junta government and the occupied East Cerdan territories. To this the East Cerdan Politburo gave a prompt and brief reply, “You don’t ask slaves if they want to be free.” Futile peace talks were held in November and then the war intensified. To the horror of General Detlev, his military apparatus began to fall to bits.
On December 1st, the Volksarmee opened it’s first major warfront inside Dettellohn and very quickly advanced and surrounded the town of Thannmolsen. Thousands of soldiers in the district deserted and joined the Volksarmee or guerilla forces. Two thousands soldiers at the barracks outside Penzrath declared their support for East Cerdani and refused to be sent to the operational zone. A large number of officers at local and national headquarters declared themselves in favour of stopping operations against the Volksarmee and guerrillas. In different parts of the country Dettellohnese units began approaching the Volksarmee or guerrilla forces, disassociating themselves from their government’s pro-war policy and arranging local ceasefires. By this time the progressive officers who had organised the rebellion in Penzrath were growing more and more concerned with Detlev’s consolidation of power and his handling of the situation. Many of the officers had overthrown Marcellus Wolfgang to bring peace and honour to their country, not to preside over the total military defeat of the Dettellohnese Armed Forces. And such a defeat was by now in sight. On December 28th a large Volksarmee infantry and artillery force surrounded a large Dettellohnese military post near the city of Neunfeld. The soldiers told the men inside to come out or the whole garrison would be destroyed. 600 Dettellohnese soldiers came out and surrendered and a battle was won without a shot being fired. A few weeks later, a Dettellohnese delegation led by one of the rebel officers arrived in East Berlien for talks with East Cerdani. At this meeting Dettellohn agreed to East Cerdani’s terms for peace. West Cerdani agreed to host the final, formal meeting for the terms of peace and surrender. It was held in Bhonn between Feburary 5-7th 1968. Dettellohn agreed to surrender and enter under the authority of the East Cerdani government under a system of “One nation, two systems” and agreed to transfer power to the rebel officers and socialist guerrillas. A ceasefire was then established across the country. The agreement signed on Feburary 7th declared that a transitional government would be set up dominated by the rebel officers and socialist guerrillas but with 3 East Cerdan ministers and that a new constitution and full promulgation of the new government would be declared on August 11th, 1968. The war was over, but the transitional government was to face a series of challenges before it’s new government could be established formally.
The Flag of Freedom
The signing of the Dettellohn-East Cerdani Peace & Surrender Agreement on the 7th of February 1968, removed the cause for the campaign against Dettellohnese Fascism. After a few months of war and decades of covert action Dettellohn had finally ceded to the demands of it’s population. A ceasefire was declared throughout the country. But not everyone was happy about the agreement. It had been a severe setback for imperialism and a total defeat for Dettellohnese Fascist die-hards. Moments after the agreement was signed these die-hards made a desperate attempt to prevent the new government from taking power. They took over the radio station in the capital, then called Penzrath, and begun making anti-East Cerdani and anti-socialist broadcasts. They called on supporters among the elite Dettellohnese Commando Units to assemble at certain points where they would be addressed by commanders. The fascist rebels called themselves the “Dragons of Death” and quickly showed what kind of Dettellohn they wanted. They went to the capital’s main prison and released about 200 secret police agents of the ousted Wolfgang regime. Who were being held pending inquiries into the torture of East Cerdan political prisoners. Other supporters of the Dragons of Death were touring the suburbs of the capital in jeeps, shooting East Cerdan aid workers at random. Instead of relaxation after the Bhonn Agreement, there was tension.
The transitional Prime Minister was in East Berlien at the time and from there he made a radio broadcast to the people of Dettellohn and the Dettellohnese Army. He said the band of thugs who had taken over the radio station were in the pay of international imperialism and wanted to prevent Dettellohn’s transition to a democratic socialist government. They were, he said, trying to create a climate of conflict, chaos and anarchy which would serve as a pretext for new, foreign intervention in Dettellohn. The Prime Minister’s message was broadcast the day after the signing of the Bhonn Agreement which had committed the Volksarmee and Guerrillas to work together with the Dettellohnese Army and co-operate in safe guarding public order and guaranteeing the process towards democracy. The Prime Minister therefore called upon the Dettellohnese Troops to neutralise reactionary and subversive agents in the northern urban areas, which were still not occupied by the Volksarmee forces. He also declared that the new government would not tolerate any forms of internal conflict and he called on the Dettellohnese masses to make a clear distinction between the peaceful population as a whole and the handful of criminals who were trying to create chaos in Penzrath. He said the Dettellohnese population was made up essentially of honest workers and part of his message was addressed specifically to them. We tell you without ambiguity, he said, that the criminal forces of fascist reaction are trying to use you to safeguard the privileges of a handful of men who exploit you as well as the rest of the population. We repeat what we have always said, our struggle is your struggle. It is a struggle against exploitation, a struggle to build a new country, to establish people’s democratic power.
The occupation of the radio station by the Dragons of Death lasted just one weekend. It ended after the Dettellohnese Armed Forces gave the rebels an ultimatum to get out or face the consequences. Although it was the Dettellohnese Armed Forces who got the reactionaries out of the radio station and other positions they were occupying in the capital, the event was indication of the political and military strength of East Cerdani. The collapse of the revolt was the result of two factors, one of which was the fact that the Dragons of Death were not supported by any significant section of the Dettellohnese Army. Many Dettellohnese soldiers were by this time sympathetic to East Cerdani but even those who were not knew that if they tried to renew the war they would be smashed. They knew that East Cerdani had thousands of soldiers in positions across the country and especially in the north, an area not previously affected by the war. Militarily, East Cerdani could not be stopped. The other factor was the evident political support that the new government and East Cerdani enjoyed in this same area even though the war and guerrilla struggle had not reached it. After the October 25 coup d’etat a whole series of new political parties sprang up in the north, especially in the capital. They were presented to the world by Dettellohnese reactionary forces as evidence that the new socialist government was not the only candidate for political power in Dettellohn. These others had to be given a chance, so the argument went. However between the period of the coup in Penzrath and the signing of the Bhonn Agreement there had been many demonstrations of mass support for East Cerdani and the rebel officers. The new political groups which had sprung up overnight were so obviously puppets being manipulated by outside forces that they were not even taken seriously by the broad masses. However the Portuguese reactionaries in the radio station found themselves in a position in which they had to look for East Cerdan allies. And on the second day of the radio takeover it was reported that two of the puppet leaders had been summoned for consultations with the Dragons of Death.
But by now there was nothing that the puppet leaders could do for the Dragons of Death. The reactionaries had stimulated greater support than ever for the new government by riding around in jeeps and murdering innocent aid workers and civilians. More than 100 people had died and the people in the towns had build barricades and gradually advanced on the centre of town. The Dettellohnese Armed Forces moved and cleared the Dragons of Death out of the radio station. The fascist revolt was over. There was only one other serious outbreak of violence provoked by reactionaries during the period of transitional government. This took place in the capital on the 21st of April and it began when a group of Dettellohnese Commandos attacked a Dettellohnese boy who was wearing a shirt decorated with the East Cerdan flag. A number of passers by expressed their anger at the commandos action and that was the pretext for the violence which followed. The commandos began firing and this led to intervention by the Dettellohn People’s Liberation Forces, the new government’s army which was by now positioned in the city. During the day there were more attacks by commandos on DPLF soldiers and when the people of the suburbs heard about the trouble they once again began putting up barricades. But the situation was brought under control the same day and the renegade commandos were later put on a ship and deported.
The events of the Dragons of Death revolt and the 21st of April were the deathbed attempts of Dettellohnese fascism to prevent the Dettellohnese people from taking power. The next months of peace were used by the government and the people to lay the foundations for a new Dettellohnese state. The Autonomous Socialist Republic of Dettellohn. That state was born on midnight on August 11th, 1968. When the colours of the flag of the new state were hoisted for the first time. A flag that symbolised years of struggle and sacrifice. A flag that symbolised the victory of East Cerdani and of the Dettellohnese people. The flag of freedom.
OOC: This thread is now open if you wish to respond to the situation and relay any messages from governments, etc etc.