Second Battle of the Marne

The Kaiserslacht offensive once again reaches the Marne river. The results are catastrophic... and change the world forever.

During 1915-1917, the Western Front was in stalemate. The German Empire succeeded in slowly bleeding the French Republic, making it suffer great casualties and slowly lose its will to fight. Even introduction of the first tanks during the Battle of the Somme failed to take the initiative from the Central Powers, that soon started began closing in on the Paris again.   The static trench warfare was broken by the reorganization of the German army. New tactics and introduction of the stormtruppen succeeded where masses of infantry couldn't. The Kaiserschlacht - an offensive that was supposed to finally end the war once and for all - began, and soon the Entente was in full retreat, their will to fight almost broken.   The Second Battle of the Marne was a long and desperate struggle to stop the Germans from capturing Paris - due to the centralized character of the French Republic, losing the capital would be a decisive defeat, that could spell the end of an organized war effort of the Entente.   Surprisingly, the Entente won. It was a narrow victory... that almost ended as a decisive one. The German force overdid their assaults, bleeding out during the desperate battle that waged from the Marne River to the Paris outskirts. The forces of the German Empire almost suffered a total defeat when, during the last days of the battle, the reorganized Entente forces - together with an immense amount of tanks - almost managed to outflank German forces near Paris.   That was when Kaiser Wilhelm II was approached by the representative of the Outsiders. The first delivery of techmaturgic weaponry managed to stop the Entente counteroffensive long enough for the Kaiser's forces to retreat from the near-encirclement. This event changed the war forever. The fighting temporarily ceased, as all countries participating in the war began improving their arsenal with the Outsiders' techmaturgy.