The Siege of Frankfurt
I remember hearing the announcement that the military was preparing for open war with the French. I suppose I had not thought about what it would mean if the revolutionaries actually pushed through. When I was in school we were always taught The Holy Roman Empire had the most well trained military, the best equipment, and the most defendable cities. But after seeing the enemy pouring into the valley, swarming our forces, turning the Main red with blood, I don’t think those first two even matter anymore. Our “grand” army can’t stand up against numbers like that, I can’t stitch up enough of our young men to make up for that kind of overwhelming force. All I can hope is that someone comes to save us, or that the third point I learned as a young girl was true…
Walls Closing In
On the 13th of August, the Imperial Military was mobilized to combat the revolutionary government of France. For the first two weeks of the conflict their momentum was high, securing key locations behind French lines. However this push was abruptly snuffed out, as the inexperienced commanders of these first army groups had no answer for the sheer overwhelming numbers slowly making their way to the front. As the Imperial advance faltered, many of the retreating troops coalesced into pockets of resistance, especially in well fortified, shielded cities.
Scattered troops reformed at the city of Frankfurt, forming the 4th Army Group under the command of Colonel-General Ludvík Krejčí. Krejčí was a career military officer with plenty of drilling experience, but had seen next to no real combat. The second he received word from Imperial Command of his field promotion, he wasted no time establishing a headquarters within the walls of Frankfurt’s Innenstadt. He split his forces among three field armies(the 10th-12th), positioning them at Darmstadt, Hanau, and the outskirts of Mainz. This reformation was done just in time, as French forces from the 2nd and 3rd Army Groups completed their encirclement of the river valley on the morning of the 21st of September. The enemy advance pushed the Imperial supply lines over 80 kilometers away from the city. The siege had officially begun.
Just after noon on the 21st, a French infantry corps took up positions in the city of Mainz, mustering near bridges over the Rhine. The invaders spent much of the afternoon sending whole battalions across the bridges simultaneously, attempting to find a weak point in the defenses. This blunt force tactic cost many lives, with Schiersteiner Bridge in the north proving quite lethal to French forces attempting to cross. General Ales Bartos of the 10th figured that as long as the bridges held, there was no point to destroy them. While intact, he knew the unorganized assault teams would favor the bridges and their surrounding waters as insertion points, effectively funneling them into false choke-points. This strategy bought his forces about a day, as a couple thousand French infantrymen laid dead on the bridges, with the 10th’s casualties in the low hundreds. As the battle intensified over the next few days, the Imperials held strong, but their casualty counts skyrocketed.
Large scale firefights were also breaking out around Darmstadt in the opening days of the siege. The 11th’s commanding officer, Leopold Klein, was not as careful as Bartos. He chose to make more aggressive maneuvers, hoping to weaken the line before the bulk of the 2nd and 3rd Groups arrived. This choice further strained his army’s resources, a dangerous prospect in the midst of a siege. Even so, his troops were some of the most experienced in the encirclement, having fought off many of the French skirmishes that attempted to retake Mayence the month before. What Klein could not see was that the bulk of the 2nd Army Group, which was stationed out of Mannheim, were actually moving past his position further into captured territory. The 3 divisions or so that consistently harassed him were a smokescreen for the growing mass of troops stationed in Aschaffenburg.
The French 6th Field Army finished its transfer to Aschaffenburg on September 23rd. They were largely supported by the bulk of the 2nd Group’s light armor, with the intention of supporting a swift push that the Imperials could not respond to. On the morning of the 24th, the 6th’s General, the elderly René Altmayer, ordered a hard push into a supposed gap in the Imperial line near Rödermark. With Klein tied up in Darmstadt the local troops from the 12th Field Army’s rearguard were overwhelmed, and not able to hold back this hard punch into their flank. Altmayer pushed hard into the Frankfurt pocket, alarming Krejčí. He ordered a full retreat of the 10th and 11th back to the confines of the city, with the 12th holding the outskirts while his forces reformed rank.
The retreat from Mainz was largely successful, as the two nearby rivers provided natural defenses to slow any potential advances. Even still, many troops died along the two day retreat, with even more falling behind to be captured. By the time the 10th reached Frankfurt, about 20,000 soldiers were unaccounted for. They were killed in the city skirmishes, lost, killed in the retreat, or otherwise in captivity. A majority of troops who were too injured to travel unassisted were left behind, and some of their heavy weapons fell into enemy hands.
Bartos’ retreat was not without some headaches, but it appeared as a victory compared to the crisis the 11th soon found itself in. Klein obeyed the order for a general retreat, however he found himself enveloped by Altmayer’s 6th. In the early morning hours of the 25th, the 11th, came across the vanguard of the enemy. Given warning only by the sound of engines roaring, the army’s brief respite for the night was ruined by a mechanized assault on the camp. The ensuing battle left thousands dead among the Imperials, and turned the remainder of the march to Frankfurt into an exhausting slog. Klein sacrificed entire corps to hold a defensive line while the bulk of his forces could retreat, and even then his army had to still fight its way home. As the command convoy was retreating through Sprendlingen, French partisans launched an ambush, setting off explosive charges in the road. The firefight resulted in the death of General Klein, whose car was struck by artillery fire from the pursuing French. The command structure did its best to maintain control over the retreating army, but the damage was done. By the time they regrouped in the evening, the 11th Field Army had a total casualty count of 53,000, almost half of their original numbers.
Castle Over Crimson Fields
The city of Frankfurt was teeming with life. It was home to 7 million people before the war started, with another 3 in the surrounding region. When war was declared, many civilians did not take it seriously. They had no frame of reference for the level of destruction their homeland faced, and so very few chose to leave until the military was calling for evacuation. Given the rapid advance of the French, most evacuees from the countryside could only make it to Frankfurt proper. Citizens of the city still clung to the belief that the shield, and military, could hold up. The events of the next few weeks did much to color this perception.
Colonel-General Krejčí reformed the battered 11th Field Army under his command, in addition to some 70,000 troops he had kept to guard the city beforehand. The 10th Field Army was ordered to form a defensive line along the forests south of the city, defending the communities at Neu-Isenburg and Offenbach. The 12th was to remain headquartered in Hanau, where they would protect the northern flank and serve as the contact point once they found a way to receive supplies. Krejčí’s 11th would protect the city perimeter, where the brunt of enemy forces were expected to push.
Frankfurt was overcrowded, with refugees and soldiers sleeping in all available hostels, hotels, and townhouse sitting rooms. The anxiety inside the walls was growing, made worse when troops from the French 3rd Army Group arrived. Entire neighborhoods were converted into triage centers, with locals bearing witness to how badly the defeated armies were faring. As if it wasn’t bad enough, the well stocked food stores of the city were now strained, as the rationing programs proposed at the start of the war did not anticipate the sheer number of new mouths to feed. At original estimates, the city had enough dry goods for 60 days, but the added soldiers, refugees, and animals reduced this down to at most 30.
The reinforcements from the French 2nd Army Group arrived in force on September 28th, bolstering the troops from the 6th Field Army that were already pressuring Frankfurt. With Additional troops arriving from the 3rd Army Group, the invaders were poised to engage Imperial forces in the city. On the morning of the 29th, Almayer’s 6th launched a strike against Frankfurt Airport, which was in a semi-isolated pocket under the protection of the 11th Army’s Grenadier Corps. The Airport was a critical point in the Imperial defense, as the aethership SMS München was drydocked there undergoing repairs. The airport was also the primary staging point for all aerial supply shipments, and cutting it off could in theory starve out the city. The 11th Grenadiers held strong for the first day, but were quickly dwindling in numbers. Krejčí moved to send reinforcements to the airport, but faced resistance from French soldiers stationed in Kelsterbach. To punch open a path to fortify the airport, he deployed the 2nd Panzer Division to suppress French advances in the choke point. Under the vigil of the 2nd, the Imperial XIII Infantry was able to reinforce the Grenadier Corps, even if this position would not hold forever.
While the Frankfurt Airport was partially shielded, the open nature of the area allowed enemy forces to shell Imperial positions from close range, literally walking into the shield to hit the power supply. On October 4th, their efforts bore fruit, with the shield generator aboard the SMS München catching an unlucky shell. As their outer defenses crumbled, The Grenadiers and their reinforcements were faced by the full onslaught of a mechanized advance. Light armor harassed the crumbling Imperial line as they were overrun by a veritable sea of soldiers. The airport defense’s command as a last minute effort attempted to launch the half-repaired battleship, hoping to pull it into the city’s shielded airspace with what survivors it could evacuate. As the ship drifted over the city, ground-based anti-aircraft guns opened fire, damaging the ship’s power supply. As SMS München sank over the city, Colonel-General Krejčí made a grim call, ordering the city’s shield be strengthened to block the ship. The people of Frankfurt watched as the vessel slammed into the translucent bubble overhead, with a massive explosion showering the area with debris and smoldering cavorite. The destruction of the München was the nail in the coffin for Krejčí’s attempt to hold the airport, with the final pockets of resistance being captured or eliminated in the early hours of October 5th. In the face of this defeat, all he could do was prepare for the next strike.
The French continued to ride their existing momentum through the afternoon, pushing into the outer boroughs of Frankfurt. The Imperial 10th Field Army was pushed out of Neu-Isenburg, pulling back to Offenbach. This left southern Frankfurt exposed, forcing the 11th to hold back the enemy in Sachsenhausen. As night fell over the Main River, the 6th Field Army entered the city. Altmayer’s health had taken a decline over the past several days of intense advances, and he was unable to temper the bloodlust of his subordinates as they pushed deep into Krejčí’s territory. Imperial forces lied in wait, letting the infantry extend past their gun support, which was still outside the bubble’s perimeter. As the clock struck 8 p.m., the 11th Army’s VII Infantry engaged French forces clumsily advancing across the open railroad tracks at Frankfurt Südbahnhof. Field Guns positioned in front of the nearby University Hospital opened fire on their exposed forces, forcing many to turn back. The 6th Field Army regained composure, but lost many men to artillery fire as they fell back.
Ales Bartos watched on from Offenbach, concerned about the French attempts at establishing battlelines just inside the shield’s perimeter. He knew Krejčí’s fake out maneuver would prove successful, but was worried that the enemy might be able to fire artillery from within the shield, much like what happened the day before at the airport. Fearing the potential shelling of the city center, he quickly mustered a special regiment of his fastest cavalry, dubbing it “Nazdar od Bartos”. The strike force sallied out of Offenbach at 9:59 p.m., targeting the approaching support units. The exhausted French rearguard was unable to stall the cavalry charge, and the 6th Field Army was robbed of its artillery. Altmayer was unable to call back his vanguard for two more hours, as the overzealous front line officers were caught up in open fighting. Fighting would not cease in southern Frankfurt until 2 a.m., with the way home only lit by flare light. The exhausted defenders stood their ground and emerged victorious, only after a cataclysmic loss of life.
When dawn broke, the extent of the fighting in Frankfurt was finally revealed. The southern part of the city was littered with the dead. Some witnesses after that day claimed that there were so many dead along Holbeinstraße that the rain the following morning washed a river of blood down into the Main, returning the essence of the dead revolutionaries back to France. A temporary ceasefire was drawn up by Altmayer so that the dead could be collected from the city. In return for their retrieval, the remnants of the 6th Field Army retreated back to Neu-Isenberg, but upheld the siege. Head counts after the clash calculated that overnight the 10th and 11th Imperial Field Armies lost three thousand men, but French casualties were predicted to be as much as ten times that amount.
Long May He Reign
As battle lines formed along city limits, both sides began preparations for a long, protracted siege. In a war of attrition, the French knew they could take the city through sheer numbers. Frankfurt’s food stores were ever-dwindling, and they could not afford to simply shell their attackers 24/7. The 4th Army Group had proven itself an adequate army for defending against comparable enemies, but the numbers were not on their side. Help from the Empire could not come fast enough, with only one in every six aerial shipments actually reaching them. For Imperial Command, the necessity of ending this siege was sharply increasing for more reasons than just the obvious.
On October 17th, 1938, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Blessed Karl VIII von Hapsburg, passed away in his sleep. With his uncle murdered in the streets of Paris, many in the public sphere were uncertain on who had been chosen as his new heir. Fortunately, the Emperor had a 26 year old son, who was considered largely unprepared, but was at least a logical direct lineage successor that few could protest to. Otto’s succession did however have one huge problem; they could not formally carry out his coronation. The Coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor has always been held at the Imperial Dome of Saint Bartholomew, located at the heart of Frankfurt. Until they could break their way through the French lines, the Empire would be functionally leaderless. The liberation of the besieged city became the primary war goal.
The previous two weeks had seen a lull in open fighting amidst the siege. The French set up solid lines around the city, entrenching deep as they harassed Frankfurt with near-constant artillery fire and the occasional skirmish into the shield. Defender casualties in combat plummeted, with less than a thousand tallied between October 7th and 20th. The French invaders were losing significantly more troops, but also had plenty of volunteers to spare. The potential conquest of Frankfurt became a symbolic image for the revolution, a traditional city emblematic of the Empire’s control dismantled for the good of the people. The frequency of these skirmishes doubled following the death of the Holy Roman Emperor, as local officers recognized the necessity of the city for coronations.
The first sign of an end to siege arrived on October 22nd, when a blockade runner slipped through occupied airspace. In addition to fresh munitions and medical supplies, Krejčí was briefed on the plan to liberate the 4th Army Group. The 14th Field Army, under the command of General Friedrich Borojević, was deploying from Würzburg to attempt to open a corridor along the Upper Main River. The remainder of the 5th Army Group was ordered to attempt feinting assaults from Stuttgart and Fulda with the hope of diverting attention from their primary insertion point. Once a solid battleline formed along the river, local railways could be repaired to transport Otto to Frankfurt.
By Grit and Good Fortune
With the battle plan in hand, Colonel-General Ludvík Krejčí jumped to action, preparing his forces to help in breaking the siege. He reorganized the 12th Field Army, rotating his most well-rested troops to the Hanau. Over the next week, the 10th Field Army’s newly formalized Regiment 959 “Nazdar” was deployed south on 12 sorties towards Neu-Isenburg, harrying French positions to near ineffectiveness. On November 1st, mere hours before the 14th Field Army was set to commit to a full advance, the 10th Army launched a seemingly desperate push for Neu-Isenberg, pressuring positions weakened by the previous week’s raids. Regiment 959 was instead sent to assault the town of Heusenstamm to the west, hoping to destabilize the enemy flank. General Bartos knew his orders from Krejčí were not with the intent of victory, but his troops still outperformed expectations, forcing a strong reprisal from the French 6th Army.
Now that troops on the southern flank were distracted, Lieutenant General Borys Kripke deployed the bulk of the 12th Field Army. They surged southeast along the river, capitalizing on the weakened supply lines of the French encampments nearby. This advance coincided with the 14th Army’s push only 70 kilometers away. In spite of being surrounded, the 4th Army Group successfully initiated a pinch, with both sides gaining momentum. By November 5th, the two armies had closed in on each other by 30 kilometers, with local French defenses crumbling fast. Even with this series of incredible victories however, the revolutionary invaders were still poised to stop the formation of the corridor.
The French 2nd Army Group still had ample manpower to break the 12th and 14th’s line before it could form, especially as they were getting support with the siege from the 3rd Army Group in the north and the 1st Army Group in the south. Unfortunately for the French war effort, the scope of the conflict had outgrown its industrial capacity already. Due to recent developments in the south, the 1st Army Group would be forced to divert all incoming reinforcements and heavy equipment to the newly established 6th Group. With its mobility removed, it was forced to entrench along the line from Konstanz to Stuttgart, unable to assist fiercer conflicts in the north.
This sudden loss in support was the luck needed for the Imperial counteroffensive to succeed in solidifying a line along the Main River, culminating in a monumental victory at Aschaffenburg. The 14th Field Army was able to relieve the battered city on November 12th, ending the 53 day siege. As the defensive corridor solidified, citizens were evacuated at last, with the once beautiful settlement turning into a barren military stronghold. The development was an obvious victory, but the sight of Frankfurt after their flight was far more bleak, as even in the siege the city streets had a semblance of normalcy. Regardless, millions of lives were spared the potential starvation that awaited them had the encirclement lasted any longer.
The Siege of Frankfurt is considered one of the most pivotal battles of the first year of the Great War. It established a trend among Imperial holdout cities maintaining protracted sieges with the help of shields and desperate supply runs. Moreover, its death count was a harrowing omen of battles to come. In less than two months the Imperial 4th Army group lost roughly one hundred fifty thousand men, more than a third of their initial numbers. The French had lost somewhere between two and three hundred thousand, a crippling loss of life had they not the manpower to spare. This in addition to the civilian casualties left roughly half a million bodies strewn across the countryside all in the pursuit of control over a singular city. The grim reality of this disaster was that the war had only just begun, and many more lives were to be lost.
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