European Campaign (2062-2072)

Isolationism
As the world drastically changed in the decades before World War III, the European Union's once great power waned in spite of its incredible growth in members as by 2055, the EU encompassed all of Europe with the exceptions of Turkey and Russia, which both had been reborn into two new nations, the Communist Federated Republics (CFR) and Holy Islamic Empire (HIE). More powerful than the EU, boasting stronger armies and more prosperous economies, the two extremist nations provided a massive threat to the EU and its sovereignty. In 2051, the CFR reconquered its lost Soviet territories that broke off in 1991. The Central Asian and Caucasian countries were invaded and buckled almost immediately, but the EU nations of eastern Europe were untouched; still though, a realistic fear of future Marxist conquest was established in Europe.

When World War III broke out in 2055, the one billion strong European Union decided to stay neutral and ride out the war. Despite pleas from the Allied nations for its intervention, the EU refused for those reasons; while some member states, mainly the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, wanted to wage war against the Hegemony, many others afraid of the neighbors decided against it, outvoting all the others.

The Little Jihad


Along with that, the nations of Europe feared their huge Islamic populations, which had begun to violently revolt. Under the secret funding and organization of the HIE, Muslim extremists led by HIE sleeper agents took the streets to protest Christian and Atheist dominance in Europe; these gatherings often ended in violent confrontations, moves that turned entire cities into cesspools of hate.

Invasion of Europe
In July, as Muslim revolts in the EU hit an all-time high, the HIE and CFR took advantage of the situation and invaded. Within days, much territory in Eastern Europe, Italy and the Balkans fell, overpowering the weak and unprepared nations in those regions.

The EU was unable to receive foreign assistance as even the most geographically isolated of the Allies were under direct attack by the Hegemony, including the United States, which was being invaded by the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The CFR swept through Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltics and half of Poland, before being halted at the Vistula by German and Polish forces. Meanwhile, from the south, the HIE conquered the majority of the southern Balkans.

Battle of Hakkas
Finland also fell to the CFR; however, their seemingly simple conquest of Scandinavia soon turned into an unforeseen failure, as in northern Norway and Sweden, the Oslo Line held back the CFR onslaught in Hakkas, Sweden, turning the most unlikely of places into a graveyard for the Hegemony.

Fall of Italy & Death of the Pope
The HIE, quickly marched up the Italian peninsula, taking city after city, until they reached Rome, the Italian capital. The city, despite being heavily fortified, was significantly weakened by frequent suicide bombing attacks by Italian Muslims employed by the HIE. Low morale for Italy and high confidence for the HIE led many to believe that the Hegemony would be landslide victorious and that would mean the collapse of Italy, a vital center for the EU.

22 July 2062: the battle finally came. The French, Italian and Spanish armies defending the city fought heroically, but were overrun by seemingly endless Islamic hordes in a few weeks, which picked at them until they surrendered by August.

The Vatican was seized in the process and the Pope was taken into custody, soon being executed along with thousands of faithful Christian followers for the simple crime of not being a worshiper of Islam. The remnants of the Catholic Church's leadership was moved to a new headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal.

Battles of Warsaw and Berlin
The Hegemony effectively strangled the European Allies, forcing them to make the difficult decision of abandoning all of Eastern Europe.

Red Army forces from the CFR managed to punch across the Vistula River at Warsaw and pushed Allied armies out of Poland entirely. An attempt to stall the Red Army again at Berlin also fell apart, though most Europeans were able to flee. While thrown aback by it, the EU had prepared several defensive lines to repel invasion, mainly: the Hamburg Line in Germany, a defense formed along the Elbe River. The Hegemony advance was heavily hindered by the Hamburg Line, allowing the EU to breathe a short sigh of relief.

Fall of the Hamburg Line
In September of 2062, the HIE and CFR organized a secret meeting with the French president. France, in a backstabbing move, made a deal with the Hegemony by granting the safe passage of 4 million Hegemony troops through its territory under the condition that the CFR recognizing French sovereignty. Then, France declared itself neutral in the war, betraying the Allies in a shocking act of cowardice. The Hamburg Line was completely out flanked, with Germany, for the third time in over a century, fighting a war on two fronts. A decisive victory at Brussels, Belgium led to the fall Germany, the Low Countries and most of Denmark. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, was safely evacuated in a manner similar to the Battle of Dunkirk of World War II. Meanwhile, all that remained of Allies in Central Europe was the Danish Islands, Norway and Sweden.

The Hegemony, now prepared to finish off the EU, demanded the northern and southern coastal regions of France for further attacks on Britain and Iberia; naturally, the spineless nation handed them over.

Battle of the Barcelona Line
The Hegemony quickly moved against Spain and Portugal, invading from friendly France, but were swiftly defeated at the Pyrenees mountains, barely taking any territory from Spain. And with heavy naval presence in the Gibraltar, a seemingly easily conquest was made into a logistical nightmare; Iberia was safe from Hegemony occupation.

Siege of Crete
After the HIE conquered mainland Greece, all that remained of it was the island of Crete, which now held the Greek government and millions of disjointed European refugees, and provided a rare Allied pocket in Europe. After a half hearted invasion attempt by Muslim forces, it was decided that the island would be blockaded, seeing it as, ultimately, strategically useless. Despite its isolation from the rest of the Allies, however, Crete refused to surrender, allowing for a five-year-long siege.

Battle of Britain
With the once great British navy weakened from decades of cut back, once thought impossible invasion of Great Britain was made real. A massive Red armada assembled for such as a task sailed across the English Channel, landing in Dover, Brighton, Plymouth and Hastings. The advance reached the River Thames, turning London itself into a war zone, as the CFR managed to march down on the southern portion of the city. As the battle for Britain soon turned into another attrition, a sudden attack on Wales was undergone by the Hegemony, causing the region to fall. To prevent complete collapse, the EU utilized its few tactical nukes to halt the invasion forces along their established defenses; it also authorized the use of chemical weapons. The Hegemony, unable to conquer the British Isles, decided to bomb the UK and Ireland into submission. This began what was dubbed "The Burning Eire", where twenty-five-thousand tons of firebombs were dropped mainly on Ireland, as it was the largest concentration of European civilians and factories in the entire EU due to its relative distance from the rest of the war. Millions of people died, but the campaign, similar to the Blitz of World War II, remained ineffective at securing a surrender.

The Nuclear Protocol
As 2063 hit its middle point, hope for the EU's survival looked bleak, so in a desperate act, the few tactical nukes in possession of the UK were used on various targets in Europe, mainly focused in the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Europe. In Poland, bridges along the Vistula River were decimated, crippling the CFR's ability to supply the European Front. In Germany, the River Rhine and Elbe were irradiated. And in the Mediterranean, key spots like the Gibraltar and Sicilian Straits, as well as the Bosporus were azivorated. Millions were killed, and entire cities were annihilated, but offensives on the front were halted entirely. Eastern and Southern Europe became wastelands riddled with fallout, but the HIE and CFR failed to retaliate, as it would only go to hurt their war efforts more.

Battle of the Oslo Line
In Scandinavia, the war remained stagnant, as from the north, the Oslo Line held back the CFR, and from the south, the Allies grasped the Danish islands, also holding off CFR attack from the south. Both fought in trenches defensively, because the CFR saw the British Campaign as much more important.

Safety Order 2063
As the Hegemony grew in power and subjected more territory into its vast sphere, the native peoples' of those lands became more weary, organizing violent rebellions that greatly hindered the Hegemony's war effort. Seeing it get out of hand, the Hegemony nations gathered to discuss a solution to their latest plight.

The solution reached agreed upon the depopulation of all occupied territories by decreasing them by ten percent every year, until theoretically, by 2073 they should be wiped out entirely and resettled. The CFR, having little population to begin with, and in desperate need of labor, was the only nation that abstained, opting to instead build forced labor camps.

Liberation of Britain
After a year of warfare in England and Wales, in September of 2064, British forces finally won the attrition, pushing out the CFR from southern Britain. Spread thin, fighting wars in Europe and North America, the CFR decided it was best to withdraw troops from the UK. Hope for victory in the war was renewed, as Britain found itself to be both the first European and Allied nation to be fully liberated from the Hegemony. The HIE looked at this sign of weakness and had increased confidence in its war to come.

The Betrayal
On December 1, 2064, the Hegemony broke apart; the Holy Islamic Empire declared holy war on the godless CFR and China. The first places attacked were the CFR held Poland, Slovakia and Romania. Eastern Europe then fell immediately, leaving the CFR in a crisis. Despite this turn of events, the EU was in no position to liberate its lost territory. In the meantime, it waited for reinforcements from the US and Mexico, realizing that their war with China and the CFR was soon gonna be over, thanks to the HIE.

Fall of France
France, unprepared for war, quickly began collapsing as the HIE, from its position in southern France, attacked the central regions of it; CFR forces abandoned the doomed nation, moving to its enclave on the northern coast. The weak French army provided a lackluster resistance, and the HIE marched on Paris by early 2065. But in the wake of France's collapse, millions of refugees poured north to the CFR held coast.

Upon moving north to take the CFR occupied French coast and Low Countries, the HIE was swiftly and shockingly halted by CFR forces.

Battle of Switzerland
The HIE, seeing how Switzerland had managed to stay neutral for the passed ten-years (the nation having not gone to war for well over 250 years), noticed how millions of EU refugees fled there. On its mission to purge all the people it considered "infidels", the HIE invaded Switzerland from all sides. The Swiss were overwhelmed, despite heavy HIE fatalities being absorbed by the army; Switzerland was helpless, and fell easily; the HIE then began exterminating the Swiss on mass.

The Russian Front
After blowing past Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, the HIE continue its march east by invading the CFR itself. They captured Smolensk, Voronezh and other vital cities west of Moscow, until they were less than fifty-miles from city limits. In spite of how close they were, the HIE ultimately decided against seizing Moscow, for it would have been a bloody and expensive ordeal to capture a city without any strategic usefulness, instead turning resources toward an invasion from the southern regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia. As the HIE pushed further into the CFR's motherland, taking advantage of the Muslim populations living there, quickly moving as far north as Kazakhstan, the HIE found itself uncomfortably close to Russia itself. Meanwhile, in the HIE swiftly took the Caucasus, achieving something Nazi Germany failed at doing; only the area around the Volga River remained free.

Desperate to protect itself, the CFR immediately pulled its forces from the northern US, leaving Alaska and western Canada liberated. Regardless of the needed reinforcements arriving, the endless hordes of Muslim soldiers and their human tactics overwhelmed the CFR at nearly every turn. However, New Stalingrad and the cities around the Volga River still held.

Operation Al-Mahi
As the majority of Europe fell to the might of the HIE, only a few substantial pockets from both the Allies and Hegemony remained free. In wanting to wipe out these last strongholds, the HIE turned its eyes to the weakest ones, mainly the CFR held parts of Denmark. Swiftly, the HIE threw millions of soldiers at the dug in force. Outnumbered and overwhelmed, the CFR's presence in the northern island of Vendsyssel ceased to exist. The island of Fyn fell next. The last CFR presence in Denmark was on the Danish island of Lolland. Surrounded on all sides by the HIE and Scandinavian Allies, CFR forces on the island surrendered to the Scandinavian Allies, seeing it as the best of two horrible options.

When the HIE inevitably invaded Lolland, they were easily driven back by the combined forces of Allied and Hegemony troops, both finding a common enemy to temporarily forgive their differences over.

Road to Jerusalem
During the events of the Great Purge, the HIE in 2066, through the gathering of millions of Non-Muslim Europeans, finished a thought to be fantasy, a "road of infidels that leads to Jerusalem". The line of dead and crucified went from Berlin to, of course, Jerusalem. Truly, one of the worst atrocities committed by the HIE, and one unknown to the Allies and Hegemony, but not for long.

The Bombardment of France
In April of 2066, the Allies prepared for an assault on Occupied Europe, first stage being aerial bombardment of the CFR and HIE presence in France from bombers based in Britain and Scandinavia, dropping thirty-five-thousand tons of explosive material daily.

Invasion of France
Operation Charlemagne truly began with the invasion of Hegemony held northern France. The first wave was a force primarily comprised of soldiers from the UK, US and Mexico; this suffered horrendous casualties thanks to a well equipped and prepared Hegemony. The CFR made up for its lack of numbers of isolation by utilizing its technology and more mobile force to full advantage, undergoing little fatalities compared to the Allies. Out of the 8 million sent, 2 million died, leaving the beachhead only barely secured, as the Hegemony opted to retreat and reinforce other areas.

The Allies made more landings in Dunkirk and Calais, throwing the CFR off guard, as they believed it to be too easy of a target, due to its close proximity to British Isles, being closer to the UK than any other point in France.

The CFR was forced to divert troops from Belgium and the Netherlands in favor of repelling the Allied onslaught. The HIE took this opportunity to invade the Low Countries. Luxembourg and the Netherlands fell easily, and the east of Belgium was taken. The Allies then carved out the rest, liberating everything east of Brittany under CFR occupation, creating a continuous and stable line of beachheads, stretching from Rennes to Antwerp and Brussels.

Battle of Beauvais
The Allies quickly moved against the HIE, liberating a major city, Beauvais, only to discover the true horrors of HIE and its purges. People were discovered murdered in gratuitous fashion: a person was either crucified, decapitated or burned at the stake.

The Barcelona Offensive
Allied forces stationed on the Barcelona Line in Spain, after seeing the success up north, move against the HIE, moving passed the Pyrenees Mountains and liberating much of southern France. Spain was the first country to be fully liberated from the HIE. At the Battle of Poitiers, Allied forces from Iberia and Britain linked up, creating a sizable enclave in western Europe against the HIE.

Liberation of the Oslo Line
While the Battle of New Stalingrad began in early 2067, the Scandinavian Allies pushed against the significantly weakened CFR, emerging from dug out positions at the Oslo Line and pushing out the mostly diminished Hegemony forces in the region. Northern Finland was liberated and they began entering into CFR Motherland itself, making Norway and Sweden the first Allied nations to do so.

The Beginning
While the Allies found themselves winning, for once, the Hegemony found itself continually retreating, the CFR especially. While most CFR cities fell to the HIE left and right, New Stalingrad was left as a beacon of hope, similar to how Old Stalingrad in World War II was during the German Campaigns. If the HIE could capture the city, it would a decisive blow to the Hegemony that could shift the war's tide. To guarantee its fall, the HIE deployed a massive force of four-hundred-million men to take the fortress of eight-million CFR troops.

It began with non-stop bombing raids over the city, reducing it to rubble. The HIE then invaded, expected a victory in only a few days, or even hours; however, within only one hour, the HIE suffered a surprising ten-million casualties. The place was encircled, and the CFR was still on the run, but the HIE's human wave tactics were showing their faults.

The Winter
The HIE picked a horrible time to invade the CFR's major city, doing so in January of 2067, the middle of winter. And winter was their ultimate death sentence, as the regions of far eastern Europe and Central Asia underwent a historical blizzard that the HIE, unaccustomed to the fierce cold, experienced death from exposure and hypothermia in the hundreds of millions over the next seven months, like the German and French invaders of centuries prior.

Victory
As the CFR and HIE respectively poured more and more troops into the significant city, casualties hit 200 million, making it the deadliest battle of the entire war. The CFR lost sixty-five percent of its military, while the HIE suffered worse, pouring most its energy into an unwinnable campaign, during a time when they were literally fighting the entire world.

The HIE then decided to abandon the city, causing the tide of the war against the Hegemony to completely shift, as the Holy Islamic Empire, for the first time, was put into a full scale retreat across all the fronts.

Battle of Paris
While the HIE continually moved against the weakened CFR, fighting a brutal struggle over the prize of New Stalingrad, the Allies in Europe and India made slow progress, with the Allies of Europe reaching the historic French capital. The HIE saw that Paris would be a losing battle, so to still bring on a decisive blow to the Allies, the HIE razed it. France's ancient relics were destroyed; Allied attempts to minimize collateral damage failed, as the Louvre was burned down, along with other famous staples of the city; the Eiffel Tower, despite still standing, was largely wrecked. The Allied Powers were victorious, but at a horrible cost.

Battle of Corsica & Sardinia
With mainland France and all of Belgium finally liberated, Allied Special Forces were sent to take back Corsica and Sardinia, doing so quite easily, and liberating the last piece of French soil under the HIE, as well as the first piece of Italian land.

The Ceasefire
The Allies and Hegemony signed an official ceasefire after the Battle of New Stalingrad, so they could both focus their resources purely on defeating the HIE.

Second Battle of Berlin
The EU then moved across the River Rhine, taking Switzerland, Austria and the western half of Germany with little hesitation, until they ran into an HIE defense based in Berlin that completely halted progress on the front. The Allies at the southern part of the front, though, still continued offensives, moving into Slovenia, cutting off Occupied Italy from the rest of the HIE territory in Europe. Allied forces in Austria and Slovenia continued their advance, marching all the way to Romania, slicing up the HIE's holds further.

Fall Offensives
Red forces drove west, retaking their occupied lands in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics, as well as half of Poland, leaving the HIE forces in Germany and the other half of Poland cornered by the Allies and Hegemony. The CFR, however, stopped all offensives west in favor of redirecting resources towards the Middle East, the core of the HIE. The Allies finally liberated Berlin on 13 November, retaking the rest of Europe not long after, pushing all the way to Warsaw.

Battle of Rome
The Allies invaded Italy from the Adriatic Sea, going around the barrier of the Alps, directly en route to Rome. Attempts to right the wrongs of Paris failed when the city was found empty, not a single HIE soldier or European civilian to be found. The operation turned out to be a trap by the HIE, however, as a nuclear weapon stationed in the city went off. The Allied forces were killed in the resulting explosion and the city was completely destroyed.

In early December, the last HIE holdouts in Europe finally fell: Sicily and Greece. A year and a half of brutal struggle known as Operation Charlemagne ended in millions of deaths, but also the freedom of Europe.

The HAVA Virus
As the HIE was pushed further into a corner, the Godking authorized the use of a last resort contingency plan, the release of bio-engineered virus, the HAVA (Human Arbor Virus Agent) Virus or Green Death, a genetically altered form of Ebola. Millions of Allied and Hegemony POWs were infected with the virus and released back to their respective countries, to which they spread the virus easily.

It's unique features of being contagious through person-to-person transmission, as well as the unique ability to incubate in plant life, being spouted into the air during the process of photosynthesis, allowed it carve through the human population like wildfire. It hit Europe especially bad, wiping out much of what had remained of Europe's population already decreased by the HIE's purges in the EU and CFR. When lockdown and termination of the infected failed to yield less damage, it was discovered that the virus spread through trees.

Scorched Earth Policy
In another desperate act, this time by all of humanity, the world's forests were collectively burned down; scorched Earth protocols were passed, allowing for the arson of the entire world. Two years of this killed the last vestiges of the natural world, and also decreased air quality, but it ultimately caused the spread to cease completely. The HIE's gambit to have its enemies at its knees had failed.

End of the Ceasefire
After the HIE was destroyed by early 2071, it became apparent that the agreed upon ceasefire was not to last forever, and that the war would need to end in a clear victory.

During the four years of non-violence between the Allies and Hegemony, both sides set up various fortifications in their countries for when would inevitably fight again. After waiting through the freezing winter and wet spring, the Allies made the first move with Operation Unthinkable, the invasion of the Communist Federated Republics.

The Allies successfully crossed the Vistula in Poland, liberating the remains of Occupied Europe from the CFR with little resistance, as most of its military was stationed in Russia itself to protect the Motherland.

Battle of St. Petersburg
Allied forces from Scandinavia easily took back Finland and after much bloodshed, the historic city of St. Petersburg (Old Leningrad) came down crumbling. The loss of the highly fortified area provided a massive blow to the CFR, a blow that could not be healed. Immediately after, winter arrived once again, and the Allies wisely dug in for a defensive stance.

Battle of Moscow
With spring coming to an end, the Allies targeted the CFR capital, Moscow, instead of New Stalingrad, the other option, as seeing how the HIE, despite tremendous advantage, historically lost a few years earlier. The CFR defended it bravely, but weakened by a decade and a half of war, it fell to attrition not long after it began.

Dissolution of the CFR
The CFR president met up with the Allied leaders in June of 2072, agreeing to an unconditional surrender. The Second Soviet Union was dissolved, this time in a violent display as it always must in World War III, but the war was finally over, and the cries of peace sprang throughout Europe.