For the TsAAR! - A veteran Russia-only AAR

[FOARP]

13 July, 1918, German Front - This is the final situation on the main remaining front of the war at the German capitulation. In the west the Entente powers have penetrated as far as Frankfurt-am-Rhine, captured Metz, Aachen, and Essen, and surrounded Coblenz, Cologne and Dusseldorf. In the east Austria-Hungary has disintegrated after the fall of Budapest, the Russians have taken Breslau (soon to be renamed Wroclaw as it is absorbed into an enlarged Kingdom of Poland), encircled Glogau, have stormed the Seelow Heights and now have Berlin within range of their guns. The German capitulation in this case is no more than a recognition of reality - they are beaten. To compound the overwhelming woes of the Germans, the Americans declared war this turn as well, just in time to have a seat at the victor's table.

The will be no Dolchstosslegende this time. That Germany was beaten in the open field is obvious and undeniable to all and cannot be blamed on some nebulous betrayal.

[FOARP]

13 July, 1918, General situation - More generally the defeat in Spain is also very far advanced, and in Sweden a scant pair of infantry brigades remain the only units that could possibly manoeuvre to block the Russian advance.

At sea the Germans have been basically decimated, with what little remains of their fleet skulking in Swedish and German ports.

[FOARP]

Munich, 1919

The funny looking corporal with the Austrian accent held forth again from his soap-box, holding the rapt attention of his listening audience of demobbed soldiers and unemployed workers: "Germans! The high command and the Jewish traitors in Berlin sold you and Germany out! We were not beaten on the battlefield but instead betrayed!".

Hans Meyer, recently demobilised from the German army of the East had heard about all he could stand. "Listen, you idiot, I don't like it any more than anyone else but they beat us! Can't you see that? We gave it all we had!"

The corporal turned to him and shouted. "No! It was the Jews I tell you! And cowards like you!"

Meyer wasn't going to be called a coward by any man. He made a round-house swing that caught the funny-looking corporal right on the nose, knocking him clean off his soap-box into the mud of the gutter. The crowd that had a assembled to hear the corporal roared in laughter. His spell was broken. The corporal would never amount to anything.