The Holland Encirclement
As the Franco-Imperial War entered 1939, the loss of life was already mounting. Imperial bastion-cities had proven effective at staving off the constant advance of French forces, but this method of combat did not satisfy the traditional view of warfare. As pressures mounted, more reckless voices prevailed, leading to a series of unfortunate events that would threaten the safety of the Empire’s key regions.
The Franco-Imperial Front
Since the coronation of Emperor Otto V, the Franco-Imperial theatre of the Great War had hardly lulled, even amidst the cries of Pope Innocent XIV. Small pockets of troops were observed to have formed ceasefire zones in recognition of Christmas, but organizers on both sides faced varying degrees of consequence. French forces were either transferred to different theaters, or outright court-martialed. The Imperials who participated did not face as many direct punishments, but public sentiment on the situation was mixed back home. Many commentators from Austria and the east were unaware of the ever-expanding nightmare along the Western Front, and were confused by the show of good faith to their invading army. They could not see the necessity of those on the front to experience temporary humanity from the enemy, who were nothing more than barbarous rebels.
The court of public opinion weighed heavily on the mind of the young Emperor, who felt the need to carefully maneuver his decisions to tender his legitimacy. Having only just returned from Frankfurt however, he was aware of how bad things were northwest of the capital. He could not in good faith punish the men who faced that situation, so his answer was to publicly denounce the incident and chastise the military leadership for the unruly behavior of their troops, holding back from any formal discipline. In an address to the public on January 5th, he made it clear to the people of Vienna that he would keep an extra keen eye on the war, making a reversal of French momentum a top priority. This speech came at a bad time unfortunately, as only days later the Frankfurt Corridor collapsed at Aschaffenburg, with the city he was coronated in falling under siege once more. Many high profile publications in Vienna criticized the situation which the young monarch had very little control over, with his previous speech being parroted in mocking, albeit muttered tones across the city. If Otto wished to take a more active role in carrying out the war, he was going to have to resolve at least some of the many crises on the front line.
The biggest issues that caught the general public’s eye were the sieges of many culturally significant cities, including the aforementioned Frankfurt. Prinz Heinrich’s 1st Army Group was still lost deep in enemy territory, holding out in Luxembourg since late summer. Bonn and Cologne, under the protection of the 5th Field Army, was also practically cut off, with the supply route near Leverkusen in a constant state of back and forth with the French. Cologne was a particularly vital point in political circles in the heartland, as they felt that if they were ever completely cut off they would become “the next Frankfurt”. Fear of the destruction of the city had become a rallying cry for some, especially after the coronation gave the public a small, albeit powerful look at the reality of the war.
The Cologne holdout, as well as their supply depot at Düsseldorf, were both part of the 2nd Army Group, which was responsible for the entire northern front from Siegen to Rotterdam. The command of the 2nd was held by Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, who was married to Juliana, the heir to the magnanimous Wilhelmina of Orange-Nassau, Princess of Holland and Stadhouder of the March-Republic of Holland-Friesland. Wilhelmina was very involved in the military affairs of the empire, in spite of the fact that as a woman she was not allowed to hold command. She used her son-in-law as an access point on private military meetings, offering whatever political resources she could to aid in the war effort. He had also grown a fast affection for his adoptive homeland, as he spent the entirety of the past two years leading up to the war in the great cities of Holland, ingratiating himself in Dutch political groups. His loyalty to Wilhelmina and her domain made people often joke that he was perhaps spending more time with her than her daughter whom he had married.
Change in Command
In his command of the 2nd Army Group, Prince Bernhard was very careful, trying his best not to make any mistake that would land him in a situation like Prince Heinrich’s 1st Group. He spread the 4th and 6th Field Armies evenly across the Northern Front, hoping to weather the initial swarming tactics of the French. While he much preferred an aerial assault like his idol Marshal Manfred von Richthofen, he knew this kind of swift assault would only end in getting trapped behind enemy lines. He instead used his limited zeppelin fleet to cover reconnaissance. His deployment of the entire 5th Field Army to Bonn and Cologne was a decision he personally disliked, but he understood that abandoning the city was only going to garner the ire of his superiors. Wilhelmina also cautioned him that dedicating any more men in the south would leave Holland exposed, and the loss of the Empire’s most important ports would cripple the economy in the long run.
On January 13th, 1939, The French 3rd Army Group deployed a major offensive northward towards the Cologne-Bonn Salient. Fighting lasted for about a week, as the French assault groups attempted to seize Bonn amid heavy artillery fire from within the shield generator. While they were unable to take the city in the initial push, enemy forces were able to secure the southern suburbs, with battle lines only just falling short of city limits before momentum stalled. The heaviest infantry units the 5th had to offer were expended in the fighting in order to prevent incursions into the shield, which while a sound strategy for the particular conflict, resulted in Imperial casualties in the tens of thousands.
When the Emperor heard of the pyrrhic victory at Bonn, he was immediately advised to investigate the situation. In early February, his personal aides held a debriefing with General of the 5th, Franz von Galen, in order to get a grasp on the situation. The general was polite, but rather direct on his assessment of the situation, stating that since the war’s outbreak his manpower had been depleted by a third, and that requests for support had largely been ignored by Prince Bernhard’s command. He felt confined by his commanding officer, stating that if he was allowed the chance to resupply and make an advance, he could take the French 3rd Groups’ command center at Koblenz by the end of spring. This brazen assault plan was appealing to Emperor Otto, as it was the kind of victory that could boost morale back in Vienna, and possibly lead to the security of Frankfurt. The only concern was that if he committed to such a push, he would need troops from the 4th and 6th to shore up the new front formed from the Cologne-Bonn Salient.
Otto V requested Field Marshal Ludwig Beck von Biebrich to give the order for Von Galen’s plan. Beck saw the obvious risks of the plan, but understood there was little point in attempting to argue with the monarch. If the plan was a success, it could potentially shift the nature of the war entirely, even if it cost a great deal of resources and manpower. What he did not expect was the questioning of his orders as he passed them down to the 2nd Army Group’s command. Prince Bernhard simply replied to the message with a request to talk privately, as the two entered a call on a secure line. An official transcript was never taken, but later statements by Beck’s secretary who had chosen to listen in were quite illustrative of the encounter.
Marshal Beck von Biebrich could barely get a word in before Prince Bernhard’s phone was ripped away from him by the Princess Wilhelmina. I swear she was ready to strangle the young man with the cord if he didn't hand it over. Both her and Bernhard insisted that moving troops away from the north would leave much of the line far too exposed. Their argument had some truth to it, as based on projections of training rates and some other factors, the Prince said that every reserve soldier in the 2nd would have to be deployed in order to even partially man the 400 or so kilometer front…
Regardless of the logic behind it, this did not change the fact that Bernhard had not only refused his orders, but he allowed his mother-in-law, no matter how important an aristocrat, to violate military security and barge into a meeting she had no place to do so. When word reached the Emperor he immediately called a meeting of his small council to devise a response, as he saw this as a move by an underqualified puppet to an unruly aristocrat overstepping the chain of command. Public confidence in the military was already low, and when you add in the blatant nature of Wilhelmina’s abuse of power, the lack of a proper response could be disastrous for not only the war, but his control over the Empire.
On February 20th, Prince Bernhard was relieved of command over the 2nd Army Group, with his reassignment to the 4th Field Army. He could not be trusted to support Von Galen as his regional commander, so he would instead be put in charge of protecting the only thing he seemed to care about in the first place: Holland itself. He was ordered to cover the defense of the front from the sea to Nijmegen, a 150 kilometer stretch of waterlogged soil and riverfronts. As he and Wilhelmina were so unwilling to support an advance by the forces of the 2nd Army Group, the 4th Field Army would receive minimal support from military command, with the March-Republic being forced to bear the burden of supplying the two hundred thousand standing troops that occupied their southern border themselves. While done as punishment, the fact that these troops were a majority from Holland and the neighboring states of the Empire made it easy for the public to willingly chip in, as many of the young men that protected them they knew personally. Even so, the practical isolation of the region from the supply lines of central command meant that what would soon follow was the greatest challenge the Dutch people would ever face.
Omringd en Alleen
In the early hours of February 20th, a crumpled letter is passed to a minor intelligence officer in Paris. The letter, a hurried recounting of the political situation around the Netherlands, came directly from a French spy in Vienna with an in at military command. In essence the French knew of Prince Bernhard’s demotion before he even knew. They also warned of the potential hard push southward against France’s 3rd Army Group. While the 3rd was largely diminished in strength from the first 6 months of war, command was confident that they could blunt the advance by diverting troops to the Rhine to hopefully block any westward movement. Indeed, Von Galen’s plan was already potentially foiled simply by passing notes.
The news of Prince Bernhard’s isolation did however provide a unique opportunity for the French to gain ground on the Imperials with little repercussion. With Von Galen distracted by his fight with 3rd Group, the French 5th Group could inflict serious damage on the Northern Front largely uncontested. Since their initial push, the 5th had lost little manpower or resources, with their only substantial losses occurring in clashes near Düsseldorf. Additionally, their base of operations in Brussels gave them a convenient launch point into Holland via Antwerp. A potential surge through Holland would prove disastrous for the HRE’s war machine, as its cities were the largest ports not affected by the Nordic Union’s embargos, eighty percent of Fokker’s aircraft production was locally operated. With the added bonus that the Imperial military was ignoring potential dangers as a punitive measure against Wilhelmina, they could potentially conquer the whole region before they had a chance to respond.
On February 27th, the first wave of troops was deployed northward to bulk up the trench line near Dordrecht. The million strong 5th Army Group dedicated half of its forces to the invasion, with two-hundred thousand to secure the rest of the line, and the remainder waiting in Antwerp as a reserve. Their air support was not as impressive as other operations, however they also possessed soldiers of the Belgian Inter-Department Militia, one of the few military entities not wholly gutted by the revolution, and as a result still had a well trained standing army. As part of the 5th Army Group, they were reformed into the 15th Army Irregulars, of course under special supervision by an upper echelon of pro-party Revolutionaries. The 15th Irregulars were held back from initial combat, as the first push was to be a grand display of liberationist vigor. When the main force arrived in Dordrecht, they outnumbered the front line defenders four to one, with standing room in French fortifications becoming a commodity. They did not have to remain cramped for long, as the city’s defense gave way within a couple of days, with the remaining holdouts surrendering on the morning of March 3rd. In reality, the bulk of Hollander troops had been ordered to perform a covered retreat, as they planned to utilize one of their oldest strategies to halt the advance.
Prince Bernhard had already considered the worst case scenario, and deployed undercover sappers behind enemy lines. Using small civilian boats, they infiltrated French waterways via the sea, waiting in seized houses near strategically chosen dikes and dams that fed into Hollands Diep, the largest waterway between Breda and Dordrecht. He also requested Princess Wilhelmina to have flood controls on the Waal and De Lek also opened in coordination with his saboteurs. All relevant forces were ordered to commence their operation on March 5th, giving the retreating Dordrecht forces a chance to fall back to Rotterdam.
At 9 AM, a light drizzle was pinging off the helmets of the French troops. They had started the advance into Dutch territory, hoping to establish firing lines outside of Rotterdam by nightfall. A loud explosion could be heard off in the east, as surge walls near the outskirts of the city were detonated. Almost simultaneously, 18 other water control facilities in a 25 kilometer radius were in the process of demolition, releasing a massive swell of water into the lowlands where the French army was currently marching. The advance was utterly washed out, with the already muddy marshes being rendered a shallow lake of brackish water and sludge. In many areas, tanks were nearly drowned, their turrets sticking out of the water like periscopes. Supplies were left to either sink in the mud, or drift out to sea, as the men who were transporting them were now forced to swim themselves to safety. In some areas, the flooding was as deep as three meters, with even buildings being lost to the tide. In the initial flood attack, tens of millions of francs in equipment were lost in an instant, and the cost of life via drowning in the several hundreds.
Even as the initial surge drained out, the ground was still left very much submerged, with soldiers who attempted to continue their march being forced to wade northward. As they approached the city of Rotterdam, they were met with intense artillery fire, and were unable to seek cover in the muck. The southern suburbs of Rotterdam were also caught in the flood attack, and were rendered unsuitable for the invaders to shelter in. By the end of the day, the first wave’s momentum was nonexistent, with the new lake formed in their path looking more and more like a mass grave. French estimates of the casualty counts were never publicized, but Dutch observers calculated upward from 45,000 dead French in the first day of the Siege of Rotterdam. Yet even with a great victory claimed with minimal loss of life, the Hollander 4th Army had a long way to go before the remaining 450,000 invaders attempting to conquer their land could be routed for good.
When Dordrecht had fallen, Prince Bernhard had placed a request with Field Marshal Beck for additional reinforcements, as the attack he had just warned about was now occurring with even more vigor than anticipated. Beck, unwilling to go behind Emperor Otto V, insisted that Bernhard could handle it, at least until Von Galen’s advance was able to reconnect Frankfurt to the main front. With the success of the flood attacks at Rotterdam, he knew Bernhard could at least hold the city for a few months before needing assistance, and he would provide support when the situation called for it. Bernhard was left feeling dejected by this, as he knew even if his plan failed he would not have received aid from command. The cracks in the Holy Roman Empire’s unity were showing, and Otto’s political maneuvering was only making them wider.
The French Wedge
By March 19th, French central command was certain a frontal assault on Rotterdam could not take the city. Their casualties in the Dutch theater were already nearing six figures, with the combination of the manmade lake and the city’s shield generator preventing any meaningful victory. For their lack of foresight on the 5th, over a dozen officers were subjected to a court martial and replaced on the front, with the operation now falling under the command of General Henri Honoré Giraud. Knowing that command’s attention was on him, the general approached his position with extra care, spending the first day on the job completely reworking battle plans across the front. His new strategy he was planning required far greater troop counts concentrated in the back line, so all new advances into Rotterdam were called off.
On March 23rd, Giraud ordered the 15th Army Irregulars, supported by reservists and engineers, to move northeast from Dordrecht, launching a heavy push for the critical city of Utrecht. As one of the largest unshielded cities in the region, a potential victory there could deal a heavy blow to Dutch morale, and grant the wily general a foothold for the second stage of his plan. They crossed De Lek at Vianen, quickly marching northward the next day. On April 7th, the city fell after staunch resistance, with the conflict costing both sides near equal casualties. The loss was felt by Wilhelmina and Bernhard, who diverted as many troops eastward as possible, and removed the local air fleet from Rotterdam to bombard the advancing French/Belgian army.
Giraud’s next move was to deploy engineers along the Amsterdam Canal, fortifying the waterway along the western bank in order to establish a strong defensive line in the event that the 15th was flanked by Imperial forces. The bulk of the army continued to clash with Dutch counter offensives over the next two weeks, all the while the Irregular Belgian forces pushed northward towards Amsterdam. Wilhelmina ordered the floodplains south of the city to be drowned, an order that was fortunately carried out without a hitch. However the second use of flood tactics was foreseen by Giraud, who specifically picked the Belgians for the operation due to them being better equipped for the scenario than the inexperienced conscripts he was dealing with in the south. Casualties in the drowning march were still grim, but ultimately a triumph when compared to the mass grave along the banks of Rotterdam. Holland may have slowed the French down, but they were not stopping.
By April 25th, Giraud’s maneuver was nearing completion. The 15th Army was encroaching on the southern suburbs of Amsterdam, taking care to march alongside the canal until passing Weesp. From there, French forces secured the town of Muiden on May 1st, with their battle lines reaching all the way to the Markermeer. This small victory was the final step in Giraud’s plan, driving a firm offensive wedge between the bulk of Holland and allied territory in the northern empire. The already isolated principality was now physically cut off from land based supply routes, meaning that the HRE could not easily transport aid even if they wished to do so. Their only remaining land access was via the very vulnerable Afsluitdijk, a 32km dike connecting Holland to Friesland in the north, which in time could become a target for enemy bombardment if they used it too hastily. The engineers’ canal wall acted as a barrier against potential incursions, while the main army continued to widen the wedge as they clashed with the increasingly desperate forces of Holland. Bernhard, who had warned of this exact risk, was now subjected to a complete French encirclement, with no allies willing or able to support them from the land or sea. The future of the March-Republic hangs in the balance as the war rages into the summer…
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