The African Front (2056-2071)

The Short Neutrality (2055-2056)
The African Union (AU), which had wanted nothing but neutrality upon the outbreak of World War III, found itself at war with the Holy Islamic Empire (HIE) only a little over a year after its beginning. At the initial incident, the nations of the AU voted to stay out the war. Despite the objections of many nations in the AU, mainly from South Africa, its majority Muslim nations wanted to keep a decent relationship with the HIE, and were afraid of their own people, which had began to violently revolt. Couple that with being inflicted with crushing poverty and weak militaries, and most countries in Africa sought to stay out of the HIE's way.

Opening of the African Front
The Holy Islamic Empire, seeing the African Union's blatant unpreparedness, out to consolidate more territory into its Caliphate and purge the world of all supposed infidels (Non-Muslims), invaded the African Union along its borders in December of 2056.

New Year's Offensive
In January of 2057, the HIE moved against the states on its borders, swiftly taking Senegal, the Gambia, Kenya, and more troublingly (via taking Benin), Nigeria, a center for the AU, only rivaled by South Africa. From its position in Senegal, the HIE moved against the weak states of Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Upon seeing these stunning victories, Cote d'Ivoire and Central African Republic surrendered without a fight, both being directly annexed into the empire.

The HIE moved further south, securing more smaller nations, and moving into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), another major AU country, occupying much of the north. The HIE felt unstoppable.

Battle of Kigali
The African Union, desperate for a victory and determined to stop the HIE advance, set up a rushed defense in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. It was a recipe for disaster, a disorganized force of Africans from all over the continent, mostly made up of new, inexperienced draftees that were doomed to crack under pressure; plus, the city was filled with millions of disjointed refugees, making it into a chaotic mess even before the battle began. The HIE came and wiped the floor with them, massacring over forty-million African civilians and soldiers, a defeat that caused the front in Africa to completely collapse. Quickly, the rest of the DRC, Rwanda and everything north of Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique was conquered before the end of that year. All that saved the AU from complete annihilation by 2058 was the HIE deciding to turn its attention on Israel, a nation it found to be more of a priority in its mission. So instead, the HIE fought purely defensively during its war with Israel.

The First Stalemate
During its war with Israel and after, for the next three years, the HIE and AU would fight a war where the front lines barely moved, as the HIE, during the Battle of Israel, had its military crippled by a series of nuclear strikes, and the AU, too weak to make an offensive, failed in denting the HIE.

During this time, the AU, along with the other Allies, begged the European Union (EU) to intervene in the war; however, it fell on deaf ears, as the EU refused to help out of similar fears to the AU at the start of the war. Also during this time, the HIE began purging all its newly acquired territory of potential dissidence. In the process of doing so, they paved the road for the annexation of every occupied territory in Africa up to that point in 2060, the year the front was renewed.

The Renewal
After finally recovering from the nuclear strikes, the HIE renewed its war in Africa, first conquering Zimbabwe, then followed by Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana by early 2061, leaving only South Africa and Madagascar as the only two major nations of the African Union.

When the HIE attempted to strike at South Africa, the offensive was finally halted at the Orange and Limpopo Rivers, or simply the borders of South Africa. The HIE, again, in blatant ignorance of the AU, pulled resources to prepare for the eventual invasion of the European Union.

Fall of South Africa
A year into the invasion of Europe and the Hegemony was in control of the majority of the continent. South Africa helplessly resisted the HIE, watching them slowly pummel most of the EU into submission; it could then only wait for the day that the HIE would turn attention back to the front in Africa.

That day came in August of 2063, when the HIE continued its war in Africa for the second time, swarming past both river defenses and conquering both Eswatini and Lesotho easily and moving deep into South Africa. The remnants of the AU governments, seeing the protection of the mainland as impossible, fled to Madagascar.

Battle of Cape Town
The last of the South Africans fortified Cape Town, preparing for a final stand. When the HIE arrived, it was a massacre worse than the Battle of Kigali; the AU fought valiantly, but it was no match. With that victory, the HIE took control of all mainland Africa, technically uniting it for the first time in all its history, a feat that the HIE accomplished through horrible means. With the exception of South Africa, all the nations gained in the last three years were fully pacified into the HIE, with South Africa under strict occupation.

The Madagascar Campaign
Madagascar remained as the last major bastion of the AU. Filled to the brim with refugees and holding the South African government in exile, Madagascar became a fortress island, one that was easy to create thanks to its now massive population of over a hundred million people and lack of commitment from the HIE.

Attempts to cross Mozambique Channel failed as the HIE and the lackluster force sent by it put little effort into conquering a land of no threat to them; after all, the AU was no longer a significant fighting force; the HIE ignored it so many times that it almost never was a priority.

Besides, the Hegemony controlled 83% of the world's total land, and the HIE had turned itself into the largest empire of all-time, out performing the British and Mongol Empires of the past.

The HAVA Virus
In 2067, after being defeated in Europe and Asia, the HIE unleashed the fearsome HAVA Virus, a genetically altered form of Ebola created to destroy its enemies. For three-years, the Allies and Hegemony were racked by the resulting pandemic, one that nearly collapsed their governments and almost caused the extinction of humanity itself.

When it was discovered that the virus incubated in trees, humanity, in a desperate act, burned them down.

Madagascar, like many other nations, was horribly affected, suffering millions of fatalities from the virus, also being forced to burn down their vast forests, killing off the rare, exclusive to the island, species of plants and animals. It did, however, stop the spread of the pandemic in Madagascar. Meanwhile, on the mainland, African peoples that weren't purged died from the virus, as the HIE carried out no scorched Earth policies, believing that the people of those regions were infidels.

Invasion of North Africa
The Allies, having gotten rid of the HAVA Virus, decided to renew their war with the HIE. The Allies of Europe invaded northern Africa through the Gibraltar Strait, taking the city of Tangier in Morocco with surprisingly little rebellion, quickly advancing eastward, hogging the coast along the way as the majority of the HIE's military was focused on defending the Middle Eastern heartland.

The only people left to stave off the Allied attacks were Islamic radicalist freedom fighters, who, under equipped and badly trained, provided little threat in the face of the Allied advance.

The Egyptian Campaign
The Allied swept through fortified Egypt, seizing the northern portion of the Nile River. The HIE abandoned the ancient Egyptian cities of Alexandria, Giza and Cairo, not wanting the important historic relics of those places to be destroyed, like had done to Europe, India and Africa; it was a vain hope as the Allies committed the same atrocities as a revenge. While purging Egypt of its culture, the Allies readied themselves to link up with the Hegemony, which was struggling in the Middle East, but still making vital progress.

Battle of Port Said
The Allied forces upon reaching the vital Egyptian port ran into the bulk of the remaining HIE naval branch. The Allies ran into the first actually fierce resistance in the city of Port Said, overrunning it to massive casualties, but still succeeded in the capture of the Suez Canal, and eventual movement into Israel. The HIE's armada was completely destroyed in the battle, leaving the vast natural barriers of the ocean entirely useless.

Crossing the Mozambique Strait
While Europe invaded north Africa, AU Forces in Madagascar prepared for its own offensive into the continent. Due to years of building up its own military and the weakening of the HIE, which caused coastal defenses in Mozambique to slacken over the years, the liberation of Africa became a possibility. With the assistance of India, the AU crossed into northern Mozambique without resistance, only to discover the land completely depopulated from years of cruel genocide; entire cities and villages were turned into graveyards. The AU continued its advance into HIE-controlled Africa, finding only the dead, reaching the Atlantic Ocean without much effort. The amount of trees, though, did prove to be a problem, because many soldiers soon became infected with HAVA Virus. In response, the AU and India began an arson campaign in Africa to destroy the last of the virus.

It wasn't until they advanced southward to liberate Occupied South Africa that they ran into HIE fortifications in Pretoria and Johannesburg, and became bogged down.

Battle of Hopetown & the Final HIE Defeat
Not long after the death of the Godking and fall of the Middle East region, the HIE became leaderless; the last major battle of the African Front was in Hopetown, South Africa. The HIE was defeated in less than a day by Malagasy and Indian forces. The AU finished off any final HIE resistance in Africa by liberating the rest of South Africa, reaching Cape Town not long after the Battle of Hopetown. Immediately following this, the HIE collapsed and capitulated, ending the war in Africa, but leaving the continent in complete and utter shambles.

Europe took control of north Africa, while the AU held South Africa, Lesotho, Madagascar, and parts of southern Africa, up to the former Tanzania, Zambia and Angola. The continent would take decades to repopulate.