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The Anglo-Dutch Civil War, also known as the War of Anglo-Dutch succession, the Third World War or the Civil War was a ten year conflict between supporters between the two rivals for the Anglo-Dutch throne, Prince Juhan and Princess Beatrix. It was the second bloodiest war in Human history, involving several protracted city conflicts and sieges and resulting in a complete geo-political and domestic change both globally and within the Union.
Origins
Class Differences
Since the end of the Second World War in 1940 there had been an increasing difference between the new generation born after the war and those who were either born before or during the war. The lower and middle classes came to exemplify the new revolutionary changes and ideas of equality that had been introduced during the war. These groups no longer believed in the divine supremacy of the Empire nor in the long held conviction that the upper classes held their power through divine right.
The tensions between the two groups were exaggerated by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of formerly middle and upper class groups from the empire. Groups that had previously enjoyed considerable prestige in their own countries now found themselves shoved massively down the social order. The Increase in Immigration and change in class views resulted in three victories for the Socialist Coalition in the late 50's, early 60's and mid 70's. After 1978, however, the Religious Democrats won a massive victory and established the social order as they saw it to be appropriate with the Church and Whites at the top.
Naturally few within the racial minorities or left leaning middle classes agreed with the Religious Democrat viewpoint but they succeeded in winning the next several elections, albeit with a much reduced majority a fact that might well have been possible because a large part of the opposition to the religious democrats came from people under 21 who were unable to vote. By the late 80's the tensions between the UK's racial minorities and the liberals (Mostly concentrated in America) had grown to the point where only the unity behind the Queen was keeping the Union together and riots seemed like an almost daily occurrence on the streets of London and Philadelphia
Riots
The first major riot in recent Anglo-Dutch history was the Philadelphia Race Riots of summer 1989 where a group of Spanish and Native American youths attacked a group of police officers as a result of an abuse of the stop and search powers by the police. Two police officers were killed and then the night after there was a mass deployment of police on the streets. However, the police soon found themselves protecting the Spanish area of Philadelphia from a mob of white construction workers. Despite some suggestions from the press on the scene and the mobs around them to abandon the line the police held their positions and prevented the mob entering the Spanish zone.
Despite this, there were violent clashes throughout the city as the police clashed with both the Spanish and Native Americans and the white mobs and the two mobs clashed with each other. The rioting continued throughout the next few nights and by two weeks later the city authorities had 20,000 police on the streets. Although this helped to calm tensions the riots continued to escalate over the next months eventually causing the government in Ottawa to send in the American Militia. This did force the end of the riots but also the deployment of Militiamen caused riots in several university cities, including London.
The London Riots occurred in mid to late 1990, the earliest incidences had come with the end of the Philadelphia race riots in December 1989 when students from the London School of Economics had staged a peaceful protest against the deployment of American militiamen during the Philadelphia riots and the supposed harsh tactics used by the authorities. Initially there was little trouble and the cold winter nights prevented any major issues from arising overnight and all that occurred over the next few months were a few peaceful marches on weekends as the main body of the protests were students.
However, in October 1990 an Indonesian student was stopped by a policeman on the return to his dorm. After refusing a search by the officer a standoff emerged between a local Indonesian gang and the police. After two hours spent staring down, a shot was fired and an Indonesian was killed. This sparked a protest outside a police station which degenerated into a riot in the space of a few hours.
In the following weeks and months whole districts of London were set alight, even the city center was not immune, the palace of Westminster was in danger of catching alight at one point and the fires could be seen as far away as the south coast. The riots were not even resolved by the deployment of thirty thousand British Militiamen, that only came about when the PM released the extra twenty thousand soldiers of the Royal Guard divisions. The riots had an unfortunate effect on the health of Queen Juliana who was still recovering from treatment for lung cancer at Windsor Castle.
Resignation of the Queen
The sight of her country's capitol burning badly upset the Queen and probably aggravated her condition. Upset by what she considered to be her failure in holding together the country and weakened by her chemotherapy treatment the Queen found herself unable to meet her public appointments and found herself delegating her duties to her son Prince Juhan and the public's favorite, her granddaughter Princess Beatrix.
Then in January 1991 there was a federal election and for the first time in nearly fifty years there was hung parliament. Although the Socialists were the largest party they could not govern alone and failed to secure an agreement with the Conservatives allowing the religious democrats to remain in power. However, a concession for the conservatives support for the democrats was that the Queen resigned. Regardless of the Conservatives demands the democrats were reluctant to push the issue on the queen, but she then offered her resignation in May that year.
This opened a terrible problem for the Religious Democrats, they announced their intention to offer the crown to Prince Juhan as the oldest in line to the throne. When they did, however, the House of Commons erupted into anger, even their supposed allies in the Conservative Union refused the idea. They withdrew from the coalition and formed a new Government with the Socialist Coalition who agreed to offer the crown to Princess Beatrix.
The Princess was initially reluctant to accept the crown ahead off her father until her longtime friend and Deputy Leader of the Dutch Labour Party Albert Beukelman convinced her otherwise finally accepting the offer in September. The Princess knew all too well that her father wouldn't accept her own ascendance to the Throne and sought to build up her own power base to rival her fathers. Unlike Prince Juhan who had served as a Colonel in the Union Army and had even fought in the Italian war (Earning him the respect of much of the Union Army's high command) the Princess had never served in any aspect of the Anglo-Dutch military, her only aspect of public service coming from her short time as a party researcher for the Labour Party in the British Parliament.
While she could obviously count on the support of the Socialist Coalition and its members Princess Beatrix could also count on the support of the Union Navies charismatic and brilliant commander Admiral Matthias van Till. Having risen to the top based entirely on the merits of his skill the Admiral commanded the loyalty and admiration of almost the entire naval establishment from the Admiralty on down.
The Prince quietly built up his support amongst the Union Army as well as finding allies in other countries which would deny aid to his daughter. By early November Juhan had all the military support he needed to overthrow his daughter and the socialists and replace them with himself and the Religious democrats. However, respect for his elderly and increasingly sickly mother.
The Queens Death
 Dutch Superpower
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Then on the night of the 25th November Queen Juliana passed away due to complications relating to her Lung Cancer. While Princess Beatrix mourned for her lost grandmother, Admiral van Till met with his allies in the Socialist Coalition for the preparations to protect the Princess should her father act to overthrow her. While his Daughter mourned and her advisors plotted, Prince Juhan met with the Army high command, Then at 4:00 on the 26th when the Princess returned to her country home in the south coast General Ian Abbott gave the orders to his troops, Arrest the Princess, Kill the Admiral and burn the Dockyards
The Coup
Army troops loyal to the Prince captured Princess Beatrix without much trouble, the other aspects of the Generals orders were much harder to complete. The attempt by the soldiers to kill Admiral van Till failed magnificently as they were intercepted by the men of the Admirals own personal staff who died to protect their superior until the 1st marine division arrived to rescue him.
The attempt to stop the Union Navy from leaving the dockyards also ended in failure. The soldiers sent to capture the ships were stopped by the simple fact that the gangplanks had been pulled up the night before based on the fact of a simple code word from the Admiral. When they tried to bring up heavy ordnance the Union Navy blew up their own dockyard, weighed anchor and set off to East Anglia.
Admiral van Till was picked up at 10:00 by a Sea King helicopter that carried him out to the fleet off the coast of East Anglia where he met with the Admiralty Staff and the now former PM Neil Kinnock. Together they came up with an audacious plan to rescue the princess from right under her father's nose.
Flight to Canada
The Admiral and the PM agreed to send the bulk of the Union Navy up the Thames and rescue the princess from where her father was holding her. They planned to destroy much of the Prince's loyal palace guard from afar to enable a team of SBS troops to land and make their way up to Windsor Castle. FAA aircraft would then blow a hole in the castle walls distracting the guards and allowing the SBS to rescue her Royal Highness and go on to call for a Sea King to extract them. However, the loyalties of the Union Air Force had yet to be decided, If they supported the king their plan would fail before it even started.
The Union Navies battleships easily dispatched the limited opposition they faced upon entering the Thames before their long range guns and the accompanying bombardment ships began shelling the palace barracks. Much of the Palace Guard were destroyed in the opening bombardment and three squads of SBS soldiers landed. These squads then moved through the roads to get to Windsor Castle where an FAA Buccaneer blew up the walls allowing the SBS men to enter the castle. They then broke into the cells were the Princess was being held, busting her out and then calling in a Sea King to extract her.
Once the Princess was aboard the HMS Ark Royal the Union navy made its way across the Atlantic and docked in Nova Scotia where the American PM Bill Clinton had already pledged the support of his country to the Princess. She then traveled to New Archangel where she met with Governor Aleksandr Demichev who promised the support of North Russia and Alaska to her forces.
Open Warfare
Alliance with the USA
While the Union Navy and its Commanders as well as the Princess made their alliance with Clinton Prince Juhan made his own deal with President George W Bush of the USA to deal with his errant daughter. The USA would invade Canada and New England and capture the Princess thus preventing her from challenging his rule and establishing the USA as the only remaining American power.
Operation Tchin'dih
The USA's operation to invade Canada and the other Union territories, Operation Tchin'dih (Ghost) began a scarce month after Prince Juhan had seized the throne, The USA assembled a large military force to launch their invasion. Four hundred thousand infantry and thirty thousand tanks and IFV's were assembled but in an unusual plan from General Dennis Rimer the vast majority of the USA's forces would not be employed in a frontal assault.
Instead, US special forces would cross the border and capture major road's allowing the USA's tank forces to advance with lighter opposition. In addition to this Marine units would seize Alaska and would then be joined by infantry for a march across Canada, meeting up with the Armored forces for a final push on Ottawa. Initially the USA's forces advanced with little opposition, easily dispatching the American militiamen dispatched to stop them. The Alaskan front went less well however, as the USA's marine forces were met by massive resistance from Russian forces under the command of Major General Alexi Zhukov. With better winter equipment and larger numbers Zhukov's men were easily able to hold up the Americans for the winter season.
As the USA's tank divisions crept closer to Ottawa and smashed their way through the outdated Union forces facing them the Princesses rebellion looked like it might end without achieving anything meaningful. Then Zuhkov received massive reinforcements from North Russian President Petyr Andropov, He left his infantry behind under the command of the Colonel Katrina Sherikov and took a force of twelve thousand tanks and IFV's East towards the advancing US forces.
Despite Zuhkov's new reinforcements the Union forces were still badly outnumbered and lacked air superiority. Then on the 29th of February a deputation from India and Australia headed by Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne and Prime Minister Julia Gillard provided the ultimate key to the defense of Ottawa and the Princess. A combined air fleet from India and Australia under the Air Marshals command provided Zuhkov with air superiority, allowing him to meet the USA's forces in battle and defeat them barely ten miles from Ottawa.
German Rebellion
| “ | Gentlemen it is with my deepest regrets that I must inform you that Prussia has announced it is leaving the German Empire, Our Time as a nation state is over | ” |
–Chancellor Helmut Kohl addresses the Reichstag | ||
While the the USA had been defeated outside Ottawa there were still major challenges to the Princess's rule in America and to her allies in Europe. The Anglo-Dutch army, alongside those Naval Forces loyal to the prince and those of his allies were marshaling in the Atlantic and the Princesses old friend King Friedrich IV now faced a major challenge from the Catholics in Bavaria and other parts of Germany that were now getting funding and equipment from Austria and Prince Juhan.
Far more serious than the continual Bavarian independence movement, however, was the decision of the Emperor's uncle Prince Sigismund to declare himself, with the full backing of the Prussian Assembly King in Prussia. This was due to an increasing displeasure amongst the conservative establishment in Prussia with the decision by the Emperor to first extend his personal support to the SDP, rather than the more conservative parties and then to support someone who they viewed as unfit to inherit the throne of the most powerful country on earth and risk the rage of her father. Likewise the Catholic Bavarian King had decided to declare himself the rightful King of Germany and had a large amount of support due to their catholic allies.
In any country other than Germany this would not have been a major issue, the Emperor would have marshaled the German Army and used it to restore public order and force Prussia and Bavaria back into the empire. However, in the aftermath of Germany's catastrophic defeat in the Second World War and the growing divisions in German society Chancellor Erwin Rommel and Chief of Staff Erich Raeder had reformed the German military by dividing the federal armed forces into Armies, Navies and Air Forces for each state. This was an attempt to both break the Junkers hold on the German military and to ensure that soldiers would have a vested interest when they were deployed. This had been proven by the sheer tenacity and belief in their cause that the troops from Alsace-Lorraine, Bavaria and Baden had displayed during the Italian War.
What it also meant that was now a large military immediately made available to any state that could gain enough support for an independence campaign or a rebellion. When Prussia finally declared independence on April the 28th 1993 it had a massive army ready to support it and when Bavaria and its allies lent their support to the Prussian cause they already had an Army that nearly outnumbered that of all the other Federal States combined. Fearful of what might happen if Germany was dragged into a civil war Emperor Fredreich IV ordered the signing of an immediate peace treaty with the Prussians, allowing them to peacefully leave the empire and immediately switch his attention to the Bavarians. A short blitzkrieg campaign followed and by the end of June that year the Bavarian kingdom had been defeated.
Landings on Nova Scotia
"Your Majesty, I have failed you, Your fathers forces have landed on Nova Scotia, Its over. I must hereby tender my resignation as First Sea Lord and urge you to negotiate while you still can."
"Stand up Matthias, As long as breath still resides in my body I will never negotiate with my father. If need be we will fight on from Russia and the Commonwealth and if I order you to fight I expect you to do so" - First Sea Lord Matthias van Till and Princess Beatrix discuss the landings on Nova Scotia.
Following the defeat of his allies in Germany Prince Juhan felt, for the first time, nervous about his campaign. Already, North Russia, America and Germany were allied in a coalition together against him, At this point they didn't have the ability to defeat him especially while the Russians and Americans were tied up in a war with the USA. If, however, their conflict were to end, it would place his campaign in great danger.
Thus for Prince Juhan to be sure of a total victory he would have to ensure that the America's remained in the conflict and to be sure of that he had to invade his daughters stronghold in Canada. Juhan maintained a massive army and controlled the vast majority of the Anglo-Dutch Air Force neither would allow him to easily intervene in the American conflict. Even through he could take his forces to the USA with his transport planes the mighty defenses that Zhukov and General Walter Natynczyk had built up to defend Canada from attack would probably hold off anything he could muster and the arrival of the Indian and Australian air forces prevented any hopes of a large scale paratroop operation. Therefore, the only possibility for him prolonging the war would be to land his forces on the Canadian shore.
However, the vast majority of the Anglo-Dutch Navy had defected to the Princess and it would take decades for him to build up a force to rival it. Neither were his allies naval powers by nature, he was able to gain enough troops ships by confiscating all the merchant ships in Dutch harbors but this would not deal with the mighty Anglo-Dutch Navy, Combined all of his naval forces could not even equal those of his daughter, let alone the number of her fleet combined with that of her allies. He needed therefore to either sneak past the fleet or disable it in harbor.
He was able to this through a stroke of great luck, Ottoman scientists provided him with two cold war developments they had not continued with due to lack of funds. During the height of the cold war the Ottomans had developed Radar Absorbing Technology and Electromagnetic Countermeasures to slip bombers behind the advance Anglo-Dutch radar systems and they had also developed a weapon to deal with the advanced Anglo-Dutch technology. By using an EPFCG and specialized Marx generator they had created a weapon capable of disabling all electrical equipment within a short radius. However, this would only be a temporary affect and the invasion fleet would still need the protection of the American fleet. In addition to this, if they waited much past November the Canadian winter would stop any advance.
Juhan assembled a mighty fleet of the coast of Nova Scotia, out of range of the Anglo-Dutch radar and surveillance and then when the Ottomans were ready used stealth ships to slip into Halifax harbor where Beatrix's navy was docked. Then on the 12th of November, just before the deadline that General Abbott had set for the invasion the assault on Nova Scotia began with the detonation of several EMP devices and the crippling off the Anglo-Dutch Navy. Fifty thousand Anglo-Dutch infantrymen were landed on the first day alone and around two hundred thousand more were stationed offshore in Juhan's fleet alongside enough tanks and APC's to make up six armored divisions. Combined with the previous forces from the USA this would enable Juhan's forces to break out of Nova Scotia and capture Ottawa and hopefully capture the Princess with it.
With the vast majority of the Russian and American forces stationed along the border with the USA the Anglo-Dutch forces quickly advanced through Nova Scotia with only minimal resistance, The exception to this was Halifax where with the Anglo-Dutch navy still needing repairs the 12th, 16th and 20th Marine divisions exhausted thirteen thousand lives preventing any further attempt to capture the port. They help up Prince Juhan's forces until November the 20th when the repairs were relatively complete. Admiral van Till knew that to remain in Halifax would be pointless and that without a port his forces would be crippled. Not only that but the fleet could not be transferred to the only other friendly port in North America because to do so would have involved crossing the Panama Canal which remained firmly under US control. Regardless the fleet would have to leave Halifax and hope that a friendly South American nation might take them in.
Once Halifax had been taken the rest of eastern Canada quickly fell to the Princes forces. However, the time that the Marines had held Halifax for allowed the Princess and her government to escape to Thunder Bay. Regardless if the advance continued at its current rate Juhan's forces would reach Thunder Bay before the winter held them up or defenses could be built up. General Natynczyk therefore suggested a plan to hold them up, one that was counter intuitive to everything he had ever believed, He launched wave after wave of human wave attacks simply to buy his engineers time to build up defenses around Thunder Bay. Eventually and at a great cost Natynczyk had his defenses built up and Juhan was forced to stop without achieving his goal of total victory.
Invasion of Germany
With America and Russia still locked in a war with the USA and some of Juhan's troops the Prince was able to turn his attention to his enemies in Europe, chiefly Germany and its mighty army. Even fractured into the various state armies the German Army was the only army in Europe that could even dream of fighting the Anglo-Dutch army in an even fight. Especially with the deployment of two hundred thousand men to the North American continent Juhan now feared that unless he struck first the Germans might invade the Netherlands and hand it to his daughter.
Therefore Juhan organized an alliance with the current German states two greatest enemies, He signed an alliance with the breakaway German state of Prussia promising them their own claimant on the throne and with the Polish republic in exchange for German territory that had previously been Polish. With the addition of these allies to his coalition he now had the forces he needed to tackle the Germans and on the 5th of February 1994, Polish, Prussian, Austrian and Anglo-Dutch troops crossed the border into Germany.
Berlin quickly fell to the Prussian army and Munich quickly followed into Austrian hands, The war in the west went better but even there the Germans were forced to withdraw from Alsace-Lorraine and the new capital of Kiel looked like it might soon fall to the Dutch. However, external factors saved them from this humiliation, The North Russians took their revenge on the Poles and the Prussians by invading Poland with the largest Army the war had so far seen.
In addition to this, Inspired by the Ottoman Rebellions the long oppressed minorities under Austrian rule rose up and united with the Hungarians to launch a campaign that soon distracted the Austrians from their campaign against the Germans.
African Civil Wars
While the Civil War continued to wage in Europe and the Americas a great number of grievances that were held by various African peoples and ideologies were now made clear. In the vast majority of the former Anglo-Dutch colonies their were early victories for the conservative factions but in Ethiopia and South Africa there was a much larger leftist wing.
In Ethiopia the oppressive actions of the governing Kingdom and their long protracted war with the Somali's had encouraged a large leftist republican movement that was in opposition to them. Initially this movement was centered around the far left communists but they were quickly replaced by moderate republicans that did not seek to replace the dictatorship of the monarchy with one of the proletariat. They established an alliance with the Somali people in the Ogden and established a republican army that made quick gains against the Kingdom.
The key moment in the Ethiopian conflict came when the Kingdom marshaled its armies and marched them on the rebel stronghold of Dire Dawa. It hoped for an easy victory but a combined Rebel and Somali army defeated them outside the city, With this the Ethiopian civil war came to a close and the rebels established a republic.
The other major African war had been going on for around a decade before the civil war. Although the racist apartheid government of South Africa had been replaced with a moderate white government supported by the Anglo-Dutch, the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela had continued their campaign against the government.
Juhan saw this as a chance to distract his daughter and therefore helped supply the ANC against the South African Government. However, the South Africans had been fighting each other for decades and even with the extra support from Prince Juhan the ANC was not going to be wining the South African civil war any time soon.
Panama Conflict
The USA had built the Panama Canal in the late 19th century but since the middle of the 20th had been involved in a long and protracted struggle with the inhabitants of the area over control of the land. The USA's invasion of Canada had drawn American forces away from the Canal and the locals had used this as a chance to establish their own state. The Deployment of Anglo-Dutch troops in North America had, however, alleviated the drain on the USA's resources and the USA returned with a vengeance in December 1993.
The Panama rebels were saved, however, by the arrival of the Anglo-Dutch navy in late December, The might of the Anglo-Dutch navy quickly destroyed the docked American ships and the FAA established aerial supremacy. With the aid of the Anglo-Dutch forces the Panamanian rebels quickly took control of the canal and destroyed the American naval base, With this victory the long Panama conflict had effectively come to an end. The Anglo-Dutch demanded access to the canal but other than that were willing to leave the land to the Panamanians, something they were more than willing to agree to.
The South American Front
Much as it did for other theaters of the war the Anglo-Dutch civil war allowed many South American nations that had grievances with each other to use the ongoing conflict as a chance to achieve goals that had long been out of their reach. In addition to the previously mentioned conflict between the Americans and the Natives in Panama the old enemies of Argentina and Brazil had been at each others throats for decades. Brazil had covertly supported Beatrix during the opening stage of civil war and after the initial conflict on the USA's border had supplied her forces with much needed supplies of rubber and oil.
Likewise Argentina supplied the vast supplies of food needed to supply the Anglo-Dutch army that supported Prince Juhan. For either side to lose the backing of their south American compatriots would therefore be a major blow to their opponents. However, despite the major prospect for a victory for either side the leaderships of Argentina and Brazil were in fact greatly opposed to a conflict between the two of them and realized all to well that a conflict would probably end in a massive loss in life that neither side wanted. Both General Abbot of the Juhanite's and Admiral van Till of the Beatrixians sought to ignite the conflict and for once the Beatrixians struck first from their base in the Falklands at the Argentines. This encouraged the Brazilians to act and on the 3rd of March 1994 the long simmering tensions in South America exploded into total war.
Ottoman Rebellion
Despite the reforms of Turgut Özal and the granting of independence to the most vocal opponents to Ottoman rule there was still a large opposition to the Empire's oppressive policies, especially within the Arab and Jewish areas of the Empire. In addition to this Ottoman Russia had a massive population of Orthodox Christians who were opposed to the dominance of the Muslim Chechens and Secular Georgians. Despite pleas from Juhan to join his alliance Ozal had not brought the Ottomans into the growing global conflict, This was because despite claiming to support the old regimes around the world Juhan was more than willing to exploit rebellions if it benefited him.
However, events forced Ozal's hand, the advance of the North Russian army into the traditionally Russian dominated Ukraine and Poland had led to an upsurge in Slavic nationalism with the increasingly nationalistic National Assembly demanding a reunion with North Russia. The Georgian and Chechen elites found this unacceptable and sent in the Ottoman army to shut down the assembly and crush the rebellion. However, the increasingly liberal Ottoman Parliament was infuriated by this and demanded that the empire withdraw all support for the Russian state and the Ozal should resign.
Faced with the specter of resignation and of the destruction of much of what he had worked towards Ozal reluctantly shut down parliament with the aid of the army. This was the spark for a series of rebellions throughout the Arab world and the Middle East. Uniting behind the Israeli rebel leader Benjamin Netanyahu the combined Israeli and Arab forces drove out the local Ottoman garrisons and Ozal was forced to look for foreign aid. After seeking aid from both his old allies in Spain and the Germans under King Fredrick Ozal was at last forced to turn to Prince Juhan. After doing so it is rumored that he attempted to take his own life claiming that he knew it to be the end of his country. In exchange for Ottoman troops a large Anglo-Dutch force was deployed in the middle east to restore order.
Invasion of Manchuria
In the far east the war had mostly consisted of minor skirmishes between the Japanese and the Chinese. However, with the war elsewhere beginning to stagnate the Japanese came under pressure to launch an attack on the Chinese and deny the Juhanite's a base in Asia. Therefore in October 1994 the Japanese army crossed the border in Korea and began its advance towards Beijing. Initially they made great success destroying much of the Chinese army and destroying much of china's heavy industry.
However, as they approached Beijing the sheer strength of Chinese numbers began to show. While it took on average three Chinese soldiers to kill one Japanese soldier there were around six Chinese soldiers for every Japanese one. Therefore despite inflicting extremely heavy loses on the Chinese the Japanese advance began to slow eventually grinding to a halt just outside Beijing.
There the Chinese unleashed their massive tank divisions and hordes of mechanized infantry. While the Japanese put up a good fight and inflicted far heavier loses than they revived it was not enough to hold the Chinese off and by the end of November that year the Chinese counterattack had rolled the Japanese all the way back to Korea.
Closing Moves
Battle of Toronto
For a year there had been little progress on the North American front as it stagnated into a stalemate. With neither side willing to expend many more men to make gains. As 1995 began, however, General Natynczyk was becoming impatient, while his opposite number enjoyed limitless resources provided by the USA and was getting stronger all the time his own forces had grown so weak that he believed that he would not be able to resist more than one more attack from the USA's forces. Even the twenty thousand marines promised to him as reinforcements by Admiral van till had done little to convince the General otherwise.
Natynczyk decided to break the deadlock himself, With the assistance of North Russian forces supplied by General Zuhkov and Admiral van Till's twenty thousand marines, Natynczyk marshaled his forces behind a spearhead of tanks and marines and in March 1995 Natynczyk ordered a bombing campaign against the American and Anglo-Dutch forces besieging Thunder bay despite the protests of the local government. Once he was convinced that the necessary damage had been done he ordered his Russian Tanks and marines to force there way through the weakened American forces.
Spearheaded by Russian tanks Natynczyk's forces destroyed most of the American opposition and made their way to Toronto. There a meager defense force was commanded by the United States Armies greatest general Major General William Konstantine. Made up of Konstantine's personally selected Sioux and Cherokee divisions as well as Iroquois insurrectionists dedicated to reforming the long dead Iroquois Confederacy these ninety thousand men were all that stood between Natynczyk's armies of 200,000 and the road to Washington and from their the USA's capitol in Richmond.
Natynczyk's Russian tanks attempted to breach through Konstantine's meager defenses but IED's as well as anti-tank mines and RPG teams inflicted such heavy losses on the tankers that Zuhkov withdrew his forces from the assault, redirecting them to his planned assault on California and the west coast claiming that any further attempts to take Toronto back with tanks would be a wasted effort. Natynczyk was therefore forced to send in the far less well trained American militia to defeat Konstantine's far better trained and skilled Infantry. Despite outnumbering Konstantine's men nearly two to one the militiamen were slaughtered by Konstantine's men. Facing defeat and with a brewing political crisis back in Thunder Bay Natynczyk swallowed his pride and asked for reinforcements from Admiral van Till. Van Till sent sixty thousand marines withdrawn from supporting Zuhkov's californian adventure up lake Ontario, landing them just outside the city. In contrast to Natynczyk's ill trained Militiamen the Marines were some of the best trained infantry the Beatrixian side could offer with the exception of the princesses royal bodyguard and van Till's own 1st Marine Division. Facing an American force now whittled down by successive if ineffective attacks van Till's elite marines now had an easy task in taking on the Americans and on October the 6th 1995 Konstantine's battered 1st Nativist Army finally withdrew from the city at the cost of sixty three thousand of his own troops and five hundred thousand citizens making it the second most costly battle of the war in terms of civilian casualties. Natynczyk's forces had also suffered catastrophic losses losing nearly a hundred and fifty thousand troops and almost all of their heavy vehicles.
This contributed to a shift of plans in the government with political favor shifting away from Natynczyk's plan to invade the USA by recapturing New England and continuing from there and towards Admiral van Till and General Zuhkov's plan to capture the highly populated west coast and drive though the plains towards Richmond.
Invasion of California
With the failure of General Natynczyk's plan to recapture New England General Zuhkov could finally get the authorization he needed for his audacious plan to invade California, In cooperation with Admiral van Till's marines Zuhkov's tanks would break through the heavily fortified American border and meet up with one hundred and forty thousand Marines that the Royal Navy would land along the Oregon coastline.
On January the 9th 1996, a cold winters morning silence in Portland, Oregon was broken by the sounds of Admiral van Till's crack 13th Naval Infantry Division landing on the banks of the Willamette river. The meager local National Guard Brigade surrendered without a fight and handed control of the city over to the marines. Along the rest of the Willamette and Columbia River's as well as along the pacific coast, the same process was being repeated as ten of the Royal Navies finest divisions seized control of most of Oregon and Washington.
The exception was in Seattle where the local national guard and the locally based elite 9th Native Division defeated the 9th Naval Infantry and inflicted huge losses on their attacks. The sixty-five thousand tankers in 15,000 tanks represented the largest massing of tanks the world had so-far seen, outnumbering even the massive Russian Tank Divisions massed in the second world war, Facing this huge number of Tanks were the forces of the Washington National Guard and the remnants of General Konstantine's 1st Native Army reposted to Oregon to recover from the heavy casualties they suffered in New England, In addition to this were the Californian National Guard and the forces of the West Coast Army under the command of Governor and General Gray Davis, A veteran of several minor American deployments in Europe including a three year tour in Italy the General lacked Konstantine's skill and devoted troops but was well regarded by his men and renowned for his courage and charisma. Davis was no fool and knowing full well that Konstantine was the better General placed his troops under Konstantine's command, becoming the other Generals second in command.
Together Davis and Konstantine commanded two hundred and thirty thousand infantry and two thousand tanks. Of these one hundred and fifty thousand of the Infantry and one thousand two hundred and fifty of the tanks belonged to the Oregon, Washington and Californian national guards and paled in comparison against van Till's 14 elite Marine divisions and the 15,000 tanks of the elite Far East Army. However, the fifty thousand men and seven hundred and fifty tanks of the West Coast Army were well trained and fresh from combat in Operation Ghost and the thirty thousand of the 1st Native army were regarded as some of the best in any Army and were the equal even of the elite 1st Naval Division and the Queens Bodyguard.
Konstantine concentrated Davis's men in the Cities where his men were strongest and placed the Native Divisions out in the countryside, splitting them up into company sized forces in order to harass Zuhkov's tanks. Van till and Zuhkov were not fools and remembering the heavy damage that the 1st Native Army had done in Canada they decided not to use Zuhkov's tanks in the cities, instead surrounding them with the Tanks, allowing the Marines to enter the city and use there experience and large numbers to crush the Americans. This was initially successful and within five months of the assault beginning the Russians had seized control of the states of Oregon and Washington as well as large parts of California although not without huge casualties.
With most of his forces in ruins and with few reserves other than the National Guard Konstantine was recalled to Richmond to account for the disaster. Left without the Native Army and Konstantine's genius, Governor Davis withdrew California from the Union and signed a peace agreement with the Russians, accepting humiliating terms in exchange for the Russians not occupying the state.
The Watch on the Rhine
The defeat of the initial Anglo-Dutch and Austrian assault on the German Empire gave the Germans a chance to recover there strength and to rebuild their badly damaged armies. With the shifting of the Anglo-Dutch army back to the US and the rolling Russian onslaught in the east the German Army had built up massive defenses along the banks on the Rhine to refocus its attention towards the poles and Austrians in the East.
To hold up the Anglo-Dutch in the west the German army had deployed a series of manned and automated forts in the hope that they might be used to deter the Anglo-Dutch. In July 1996 the German's finally seized Warsaw and forced the polish capitulation, allowing them to focus their forces on the Anglo-Dutch in the west. Despite this the German's were reluctant to take the offensive against the Dutch, Despite King Fredrich's personal relationship with Queen Beatrix the majority of the German establishment including the powerful militarist faction were wary of breaking the unofficial peace between the Anglo-Dutch and the Germans. Decades of cooperation between the two nations made it difficult to gain public support Instead the ancient enemies in the east made far more promising opponents and campaigns against them enjoyed huge public support.
However, in August 1996 an Anglo-Dutch warship belonging to Juhan's forces accidentally shelled a Kiel-Copenhagen ferry. The German public erupted in outrage at the incident and demanded that the German army responded, Despite initial military opposition to a war, the King himself ordered the Army to engage the Anglo-Dutch along the border. The Rhineland Army marshaled and using their advanced armored forces launched a huge military attack along the Rhine. The Anglo-Dutch forces were caught off guard completely and destroyed the Anglo-Dutch forces on the opposite bank of the Rhine quickly before advancing quickly and seizing Amsterdam by the end of November. Desperate to deal with the danger posed by a hostile German army just across the channel the British and Dutch militia's were mobilized and the army was deployed back from America, leaving the USA desperately undermanned.
Capture of the Falklands
In the midst of a string of successes for Beatrix's supporters the war between Brazil and Argentina in South America had been going decisively badly for the Beatrixians. Neither of the two countries had actually wanted the war to take place and only an oddly placed sense of pride had stopped peace negotiations from succeeding in gaining anything meaningful, However, in March 1997, Argentine troops finally set foot in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian government not wanting to deal with the huge casualties that would inevitably follow a protracted city conflict signed a peace treaty with the Argentines, promising to cut of its supplies to the Beatrixians in exchange for a peace that left Brazil economically and territorially the same as when the war started.
This was a major problem for the Union Navy base in the Falklands, The base was home to the Union Navies South Atlantic Sector Command and was a major air and naval base that included dry docks large enough to fit all but the navies super-carriers and an Air complement that included a squadron of nuclear armed strategic bombers, And in August 1997 it was almost completely undefended. The bases usual Carrier flotilla had been called away to support Admiral van Till's Californian operations and were currently docked in Vancouver. On the night of the 1st of September a massive Argentine Navy task force approached the Falklands, Fleet Air Arm fighters conducted several air strikes against the approaching fleet but these had little effect and the Argentine Marines landed on the Islands. Despite a spirited defense by the 5,500 men of the garrison and the islanders themselves within a week the Falklands had fallen and with them enough intelligence data and codes as well as military equipment to force the Union Navy to change its entire communications system and make Argentina the only Nuclear capable nation in South America. There was an understandable uproar in Thunder Bay but the news of the capture made little dent on the Anglo-Dutch public who were far more exited by the news of the Queens impending marriage to Admiral van Till.
Johannesburg Conflict
In the winter of 1997 something incredibly unusual happened in South Africa, The ANC which had long waged a guerrilla war against the South African government launched a major military offensive aided by disaffected black units of the South African Army, It seized control of the countries capital, Pretoria and its second city Johannesburg as well as much of the countryside. FW De Klerk and his government fled to Canada on a private jet and much of the country fell under the control of the ANC and their allies and only a few isolated Afrikaner resistance movements commanded, in the most part by white supremacists who waged a terror campaign against ANC civilians.
This faced De Klerk's allies in the Union Government with a serious dilemma, Officially at least De Klerk had been kept in power by a UN Mission headed by the Union and so they were responsible for their actions and of those of the Afrikaner resistance De Klerk's government now supported. The initial response of many in the government, especially the Canadian Liberal Party and significant parts of the British and Dutch Labour Parties was to denounce the Afrikaners and leave South Africa to the ANC. Others in parliament recommended they support De Klerk but give him little actual support and and deal with what was a comparatively minor issue after they had defeated Prince Juhan. The Supreme Command, headed by Admiral van Till recommended a different solution, The Union would disband De Klerk's government, declare the Afrikaner resistance a terrorist organization and assume direct control of South Africa as a military government.
With Zuhkov's forces still engaged in a major military campaign in the Mid-West and battling it out with General Reimer's new 1st Tank Army the burden for the South African operation would fall upon the still recovering American Militia and van Till's marines. To give General Natynczyk the time required to marshal his forces for the assault, van Till decided to delay the operation till February 1998, at this point he hoped that Zuhkov would no longer be engaged in his campaign in the Mid-West and he would not have to rely on the far inferior Militiamen.
This was not to be, and when February came around van Till could find no excuses not to carry out the assault. Reluctantly he launched the operation as promised and 120,000 American Militiamen, South African loyalists and Marines embarked on the transport ships of van Till's Atlantic Fleet, the fleet arrived off the coast of South Africa on March the 3rd and engaged a small squadron of South African Frigates and a Destroyer that were easily dispatched. Then after waiting for the perfect tide and conferring with his Marine commanders van Till decided that a landing to the east of Durban would position them closest to the ANC stronghold of Johannesburg. From their they would secure the city and use the port to offload the forces tanks and IFV's that they would then use to launch an armored offensive to capture Johannesburg.
Van Till was well aware of the fact that the South Africans outnumbered him by a significant number and intended to use a combination of technological superiority and overwhelming air power to overwhelm his opponents. He was initially successful, Anglo-Dutch forces quickly seized Durban and began their march on Johannesburg. However, while van Till had expected to face the outdated South African forces that De Klerk had reported the rebels to be using they were, in fact, equipped with the latest Anglo-Dutch equipment passed on to them by Juhan, the disciplined and now significantly better or equally as well equipped ANC forces inflicted very severe casualties on van Till's forces.
Desperate to save face and with another growing movement in Thunder Bay to replace van Till with his rival FAA Admiral George Picton. Van Till swallowed his pride and appealed to General Zuhkov to help him. Zuhkov was a pragmatist and had built up good links with van Till's team and knew that his plans in the Mid-West would be adversely affected if van Till lost his job. Therefore, he sent three divisions of his best tankers over to South Africa to aid van Till.
With the aid of Zuhkov's best tankers, van Till's units surrounded Johannesburg and marched onwards towards Pretoria. With the additional backing of Zuhkov's tanks and with the holding down of much of the ANC's national forces in Johannesburg van Till's forces seized Pretoria and captured Nelson Mandela and much of the ANC leadership.
However, while van Till's forces had the ANC's leadership in their hands and Mandela was being held in secure accommodation on board the HMS Ark Royal at the Admiral's convenience. However, the forty thousand ANC soldiers still trapped in Johannesburg could still threaten van Till and de Klerk's control of the country. To be completely sure that the ANC could not regain control of the country van Till had to retake Johannesburg. With Zuhkov's tanks surrounding the city van Till had the time he needed to slowly take control of the city piece by piece, However, the political pressure that was building back in Thunder Bay meant that van Till was sure that he had little time to take the city before he might be replaced by Admiral Picton.
With his perceived time limit burning out in front of his eyes van Till decided to give the order to advance. The thirty thousand infantry of van Till's marines advanced into the city on July the 21st with the backing of Zuhkov's three tank divisions and the air power of the Illustrious, Ark Royal's and Indefensible's air wings. Van Till hoped that his overwhelming firepower would grant him a quick and easy victory. In a sense he was right. Van Till, frustrated with the dangers of a political storm in Canada threw out his traditional rules of war and unleashed the power of the FAA's mighty fighter bombers to level parts of the city to create firebreaks around blocks of the city before his infantry would move in. However, while van Till had hoped that a quick victory would bring his political stock up in Thunder Bay he had miscalculated and the excess civilian deaths reflected badly on Zuhkov and van Till. The parliament in Thunder Bay issued a statement warning van Till and made it explicitly clear that he was to return to Canada with his forces for an indefinite period.
Battle of Scarpa Flow
Van Till was furious at the recall to Halifax, the moment that he returned to Canada he demanded the chance to speak to parliament. They refused to see him and ordered some of his ships impounded and the captains and commanders most loyal to him were placed under house arrest. Van Till was stripped of his Grand Admiral's title and the Prime Minister Gordon Brown told him in his words "Take a break" from the war and spend time with the Queen and King Fredrick who was meeting with the queen for political discussions.
Queen Beatrix, the King and van Till spent a month in the royal palace, with van Till officially using the time to contemplate on his supposed failure but in actuality spending much of it on the Honeymoon with the Queen that he had never had the chance to have. The royal pair spent time in King Fredrick's estate in Germany, taking time off from the war and enjoying themselves. Using the time to contemplate the war and its effect on Anglo-Dutch society, when he returned to Canada he tended his resignation to Parliament and retreated to one of the Queen's houses in the countryside.
In September, however, the Anglo-Dutch navy, now under Picton's leadership was soundly defeated in a battle with American ships off the coast of Florida losing the Invincible class Super carrier Imperator and the Malta class carriers Audacious and Pride of the Empire as well as twenty smaller ships. There was an uproar in the commons and Picton was dismissed from his post. While there had often been questions of van Till's strategic view and of his tactics no one doubted his tactical skill's and it was an unquestioned fact that the RN had never lost a capital ship without at least inflicting similar losses on their opponents while van Till had headed it. There was discussion in the Commons about what to do and parliament decided to settle on Fleet Admiral Markus Beekman, Beekman had long been van Till's strongest opponent in the Admiralty arguing for old fashioned gun power over Picton's belief in Air power and van Till's belief in speed and anti-missile defenses.
Beekman's appointment was also the result of growing war weariness, van Till and Picton had both argued for the complete destruction of the prince's forces and that the prince had to be captured and executed for treason. Beekman though was more willing to allow a lenient peace deal, He believed that if he could inflict heavy enough damage on the Americans and the Anglo-Dutch Army he could negotiate a peace treaty that would reunify the Union.
His consolatory signals to the prince and his allies angered Zuhkov as well as several high-up members of the Admiralty who believed that the blood shed by the RN and its marines as well as the American Militia meant that vengeance must be had. A delegation of RN officers and Zuhkov approached the Grand Admiral in his retreat. By now it was October and the war had been going on for over seven years, Zuhkov's mid west strategy had been less successful than he had hoped and he realized that if there was any chance of a quick victory a show of force would be required. Zuhkov believed he had the perfect target.
The Juhanite faction of the Royal Navy alongside the American, Ottoman and Argentine navies would be assembled in Scarpa flow for two weeks from the 10th of October onward. It would be the only time outside of an invasion fleet where he Juhanite navies would be gathered in one place at one time. Zuhkov foresaw that if that fleet could be defeated it would open the US coast to naval bombardments as well as landings on the British coast. Van Till admitted that he saw the tactical sense but made it clear that he had retired and that Zuhkov should take it up with Beekman. Zuhkov and the others left but soon returned without Zuhkov of the 2nd of October with van Till's second in command, recently liberated from house arrest Commodore Mark Stanhope. Stanhope and the Grand Admiral argued over the issue for three hours before van Till stormed out. Van Till then took a train back to Thunder Bay where he stormed in Zuhkov's office and told him "Do it".
Zuhkov's tankers broke van Till's men and ships out of impoundment and van Till took up his Admirals position in his brainchild and flagship HMS India. Van Till's fleet moved on Scarpa flow on the 4th of October setting off at full speed. On the 11th of October at 11am scout planes from the Eagle, A Malta class reported a flotilla of Juhanite destroyers and an American Carrier group conducting exercises in the North Sea. Van Till ordered an immediate air strike from his three super-carriers and eight carriers as well as ordering his own cruiser squadrons to move into gun range at full speed. The strike group encounter a CAP patrol at 12 and swiftly dispatched them before performing a bombing run on the American carrier group. The Buccaneer bombers knocked out the Carrier as well as two destroyers, Then at three pm the India and its squadron made gun range, The Juhanite ships still reeling from the undetected strike were caught of guard, The two cruisers were knocked out in the first volley and the destroyer flotilla were quickly knocked out in the following engagement, the Battle of Scarpa Flow had begun.
Van Till ordered a strike force to launch from the Ark Royal and the seven super carriers to find and destroy the Juhanite carrier group in Scarpa Flow. The Buccaneer bombers and their Kestrel escorts were met by a CAP patrol from the Invincible and an interceptor squadron of Fairy Delta 5's from RAF Lossiemouth. Unfortunately for the Juhanite fighter pilots they were outnumbered and facing Beatrixian pilots who were fresh from years of combat in various zones around the world. The Juhanite squadrons were shot down with only two losses, both Kestrels from the Beatrixian pilots. However, instead of going on to Attack the Invincible as had been the original plan the wing commander in charge of the mission Marius Oberstall ordered the squadron to break off and attack the RAF station at Lossiemouth. Catching the RAF base off guard the Buccaneer flights destroyed ranks of RAF fighters and pilots on the ground as well as tearing up the runway to prevent further air strikes against the Beatrixian fleet.
While the Buccaneer's were refueling van Till ordered his flagship and the Cruiser squadrons to close with the Juhanite fleet. Three hours later, just as his Carrier squadrons reported that they were ready to launch again, having already seen off a strike by Juhanite Buccaneers that had put the flight decks of the Ark Royal and Implacable out of action and damaged the decks on the Nelson, Helfrich, Gibraltar, St Helena, Malta, Illustrious and Intrepid as well as causing almost irreparable damage to the Harvey. Van Till's sensor officer reported that a scout plane from the HMS Delhi had located the Juhanite ships.
His opposite number Admiral Leopold was at this point, almost exuberant with joy, Despite the loss of the base at RAF Lossiemouth his Buccaneer's had damaged three Carriers to the point off inoperability and severely damaged seven more as well as having shot down two Kestrel Squadrons and now van Till's Cruiser's were entering a zone of engagement in which they were, unknowingly totally outnumbered. Facing van Till's meager two Battlecruisers and twelve Light and Heavy Cruisers plus destroyer escorts was Leopold's main battle line consisting of the Union Battleship HMS Vulcan, The Ottoman battleships TCG Yavuz and TCG Turgut Reis and the American battleships USS Florida, USS Dakota and USS Montana as well as twelve Heavy Cruisers and ten light cruisers. Van Till's ships got off the first volley, damaging the Yavuz and putting two light cruisers out of action. While the two battle lines exchanged fire however Leopold's own Cruiser squadrons were sweeping behind van Till's ships.
As the two lines exchanged fire van Till's ships took a severe beating from the Juhanite battleships that disabled two of the Heavy Cruiser's and sank the light cruiser HMS Java. Leopold's ships had not emerged unscaved however, The Montana was aflame after the India and the Delhi had concentrated their firepower on her and a light cruiser was sinking after a torpedo from the De Reuyter had struck it on the waterline. However then Leopold's ships swept round from the back of the Juhanite ships and engaged, The India took sixteen hits and the Delhi ten blowing the turrets of the India and destroying her boiler room as well as causing serious fires on the Delhi and sinking six cruisers. Aboard the India van Till was now seriously concerned, He, himself, was trapped under a beam shook lose by a shell that had hit just below the bridge and most of the bridge crew were either dead or unconscious. Aboard the Delhi Commodore Stanhope ordered the fleet to remain and protect the Admiral, His Flag Captain Mark White refused to comply and relieved Stanhope from command ordering the ships to try to break the cruiser line and retreat to the carriers. White's ships broke through the Juhanite battle line at the loss of another Cruiser but they were successful in forcing their way through the lines and in outrunning their perusers leaving behind the India and the Heavy Cruiser HMS Suriname.
Stanhope commandeered a two man Kestrel and returned to the India to rescue van Till. Van Till, though, had already accepted his fate, Most of the India’s crewmen were already onboard the Suriname which was slowly steaming in the wake of White’s ships. Leopold’s fleet, despite their temporary advantage in numbers at this juncture was however in desperate need of ships and could not pass up the chance to gain a state of the art battlecruiser like the India. It was for this reason that Leopold’s battle-line had closed around the India, intending to capture the ship. Van Till, however, had other ideas. As supreme commander and acting prime minister of the Anglo-Dutch union he had the access codes for the fleets substantial nuclear arsenal and now intended to use it to great effect, The Suriname had cleared the blast area of the India’s remaining nuclear arsenal (Most of the missiles had been loaded on to the Suriname) , Along with the India’s Gunnery officer van Till ordered a strike on the India with its Nuclear weapons. Stanhope arrived on the Bridge just as van Till punched in the codes.
"Sir , Get up there’s a Kestrel out on the aft deck, we can leave now.... Sir?"
"Laughter.... Stanhope, Has serving under me taught you nothing?... I’v failed my men and my crew, I was their Captain and a Captain always goes down with his ship, Now go, take Commander Thorpe with you, And tell Beatrix i’m sorry , look after your Goddaughter Stanhope....."
"Silence...... Goodbye sir" - Last conversation of First Sea Lord Mathias van Till
The Nuclear strike on the India destroyed almost all of the Juhanite battle-line and killed Admiral Leopold. With both sides now having suffered severe losses it would not have been unreasonable for Commodore Stanhope or Rear Admiral Ward to order their respective fleets to retreat. However Stanhope knew that there was no better chance to take the british isles and Ward knew that there was no further places to retreat beyond the Isles. With both major combat fleets inactive the battle became a duel between carriers, similar to the battles of the second world war.
Stanhope’s carriers launched a strike force of Buccaneers and Kestrels that escaped interception and struck at Ward’s fleet, sinking three carriers and several destroyers. Ward launched a counter-strike but his fleet had lacked carriers to begin with and with only two super-carriers and five carriers left he now lacked the ability to put up a strike force that could overwhelm Stanhope’s CAP. Subsequently only one carrier was significantly damaged and Ward lost several flights of Buccaneers that he could hardly afford to lose, In a counter strike Stanhope’s kestrels sent two more carriers to the bottom of the ocean and severely damaged the Invincible, Ward decided that enough was enough and he signaled his forces to retreat to the Mediterranean and the Ottoman naval base at Istanbul.
At the end of the battle of Scarpa Flow the Juhanite navy was almost completely destroyed, It’s supreme commander had been killed in the Nuclear strike on the India as had its main battle-line and major carrier force. Its component fleets now fled to various bases and were easy pickings for the far larger Beatrixian fleet. However the Beatrixian fleet was now significantly smaller than it had been. Admiral van Till’s cruiser squadrons were almost completely destroyed along with the Admiral himself and while they retained a large carrier fleet they now lacked the faster ships to track down the beatrixian remnants. However, far more important than those setbacks was the knowledge that there was now no naval obstacle for a land invasion of the British Isles. With the north sea cleared Zhukov gave the order and the Royal Marines and North Russian army landed in Scotland, Unfortunately for Zuhkov his invasion fleet had been diverted back to the russian front and only the Marines had landed, enough to establish a beachhead but without the numbers to advance further.
Collapse of the Balkans Federation
The Balkan’s federation in south eastern europe had sided with Juhan at the beginning of the Civil War as a defense to the Ottoman empire to the east, However since Ozal and the Turks had sided with Juhan the primary reason for the federations involvement in the civil war had faded and internal opposition to the conflict which had always been strong blossomed into a violent rebel movement.
The leader of the rebel movement, Slovan Milosovich flew out to the Beatrixian base in South Africa. There he met with Governor Demichev who had moved his office to South Africa in order to co-ordinate Beatrixian forces in europe and africa. Demichev was profoundly moved by Milosovich and promised the serbian as much support as was available. However the Juhanite control of the Mediterranean limited the ability of the Beatrixian navy to support the rebels. Instead Beatrixian marines and special forces operatives would be smuggled into the country to attack Federation forces and train the rebels.
For the two years from Milosovich’s flight to South Africa and the defeat of the Juhanite fleet at Scarpa flow the marines and special forces operatives deployed in the Balkans had trained up a fearsome Guerrilla army and had destroyed significant parts of the Federation’s infrastructure, both military and civilian. Striking from camps high in the slovenian mountains and in the islands in the Dardanelles the rebels had destroyed the majority of the Federations military but its government and internal structure remained intact.
The rebel’s decided that the defeat of the Juhanite's at Scarpa flow was the perfect opportunity to press the attack against the government. The colder December weather would delay their opponents and favor the better equipped and prepared rebels who had spent months training for the assault. Throughout november and early december rebel fighters and their Beatrixian advisors made their way to the Federations capital in Sarajevo. On December the 15th the Rebels launched their assault, destroying the government buildings and the nearby army base. With the government destroyed the country soon fell apart with the constituent countries of Romania, Bulgaria and Greater Serbia going their separate ways.
Capture of Stalingrad
The North Russian army had been campaigning against its Ottoman rival in the south for years before the start of the civil war, inciting insurrection where possible and using covert strikes to disrupt ottoman infrastructure. Both sides however had stayed away from engaging in military conflict, fearful of the cost in lives. Initially not even the civil war had changed that. The north Russian army had ignored the ottoman’s as it had advanced into poland and eastern europe and had indirectly in that one act affected the change that countless insurgent missions and covert operations had failed to achieve. The national assembly had called for reunion with North Russia and when the Ottoman army shut down the National Assembly it provided the perfect legal excuse for the North Russian parliament to declare war on the Ottomans.
For four years the North Russian army had been campaigning in North American and America with the limited national defense divisions tasked with carrying the war to the Ottoman’s. The North Russian parliament when it met in early 1998 decided that enough was enough. Although it consented to allow Zuhkov’s forces to remain on campaign with the Anglo-Dutch navy it recalled the remainder of the North Russian Army from america to go on campaign against the Ottomans. Under the command of the Anglo-Dutch Walter Natynczyk the North Russian army launched a campaign that conquered huge sectors of Ottoman Russian territory bringing them to the gates of Stalingrad on the Volga river. Natynczyk had brought the North Russian army to Ottoman Russia’s political heartland, Named after the Ottoman Grand Vizor who had established the modern political structure of the Ottoman empire Stalingrad was previously home to the National Assembly before it had been dissolved and a puppet Assembly established in Tbilisi.
However while Natynczyk had brought the North Russian army to the gates of Stalingrad the Russian parliament realized that to have a Pole from the Anglo-Dutch army take Stalingrad would appear bad to the russian populace. When the parliament met in November 1998 they decided that they needed a Russian hero to take the credit for what would be tantamount to the almost complete reunification of the Russian populace. The obvious, and perhaps only choice was General Zuhkov. A household name amongst most Russian’s Zuhkov was also a proven commander with a long history of successes in North America and at home. However Zuhkov himself resisted the recall, he himself had seen the conflict in Russia as a pointless side theater compared to the main conflict, which in his view would always be decided in North America and the British Isles.
However Zuhkov did recognize the propaganda importance of the recapture of Stalingrad and the reunion of the Russian empire. He agreed, albeit reluctantly to withdraw his forces from his campaign in scotland and to join the bulk of the north russian army at Stalingrad. When he arrived in Russia in the spring of 1999 parliament sent a coded message to all russian units stating that “Zuhkov is in command” and their were celebrations throughout the army that went late on to the night. Zuhkov had fought in four major city conflicts since the beginning of the civil war and he knew that taking Stalingrad would be a long and bloody fight and he also knew that despite parliament’s insistence on him bringing his tank divisions with him they would be of little real use in a protracted city conflict. In a bold move Zuhkov decided that half of his tankers would dismount and add their strength to the bulk of the North Russian army. In addition to that Zuhkov ordered his mechanized and motorized divisions to fight on foot. He kept his light tankers and their machines as they were better equipped to fight in urban combat and he retained the advantage of aerial superiority that he had inherited from Natynczyk.
Using his light tankers and infantry to clear out the city block by block , street by street Zuhkov cleared Stalingrad of Ottoman opposition. It was not without cost however, Ottoman snipers took out squads of infantrymen and killed off North Russian officers while their mortar teams inflicted harsh casualties on both infantry and tanks. When Zuhkov finally adopted the tactics he had initially favored, similar to van Till’s tactics in Johannesburg he suffered significantly fewer loses and finally took the city in May 1999.
Korean Front
As the North Russian army marched further on in a seemingly unstoppable Beatrixian advance the Chinese army in the far east had reversed the initial successes of the Japanese, had driven them back to manchuria and was now poised to strike at the Japanese controlled Korean peninsular. Korea had long been a point of major contention between the two major powers in Asia and in the summer of 1999 the Chinese army was beginning to advance into the Korean peninsular.
Since the nineteen thirties Korea had belonged exclusively to the Japanese who had integrated the infrastructure of Korea into the Japanese system of government granting its provinces representation in the Diet and establishing Japanese police stations and infrastructure across the provinces. However The Chinese refused to accept the effective integration of Korea into Japan and continued to fund the few remaining Korean resistance movements, supporting Korean rebels and launching special task-forces across the border. When the war in the far east began the Japanese had faced the problem that they were outnumbered and outgunned, especially when considering the fact that the Japanese military still refused to conscript from anywhere other than the Japanese home isles.
In part this was born out of the entirely reasonable supposition that if the military began recruiting from Korea there would be an uproar amongst the native population. Now though with the Chinese army beginning to advance towards the Korean Peninsular the Diet decided that the Japanese army needed the extra men that Korea could provide. The Japanese army therefore began the full scale conscription of Korean men into the Army. However this angered significant sections of the Korean populace and gave the Chinese a much needed moral and political excuse for their war with Japan. They began excepting huge numbers of Korean volunteers to bulk up the Chinese army to the extent that on several frontline chinese armies Korean dominated divisions now made up the majority of the army.
The Chinese could muster seventy divisions to cross the manchurian border, against them was mustered twenty frontline Japanese army divisions, all that was left of the regular forces. In addition to that were mustered twenty five Korean auxiliary divisions that while lacking in the moral strength of the Japanese frontline divisions were at least as well equipped and provided a much needed boost in numbers. In addition to that Korea was well within the range of the Japanese Navy and Air forces providing the infantry on the ground with the support of the vastly superior Japanese air force.
Korea became a bloody battlefield, Huge numbers of Japanese and Chinese forces clashed across farmland and in the cities. The Korean peninsular became one of the largest battlefields of the war and was certainly the most bloody. Over half a million soldiers on the Japanese side were killed, most of them Korean conscripts and the Chinese lost around a million men in a conflict that resulted in very little ground gained by either side around Pyongyang. With so many men being lost the Japanese Emperor went above the Diet and opened negotiations with the chinese government.
Initial negotiations were difficult but eventually an agreement was reached, Japan gave up its manchurian territory and withdrew its troops from Korea. In exchange the Chinese withdrew and agreed to reparations and a permanent disarmament of the Korean peninsular and manchuria. WIth the withdrawal of the last Japanese troops from Korea in November 1999 the war in Asia came to an end and the Japanese were free to aid the beatrixian forces in other theaters.
Endgame
The Sack of Washington
In November the Japanese, now freed from their conflict in Asia decided to deploy a volunteer force of two hundred thousand men from the Korean peninsular to the Anglo-Dutch base at Thunder Bay. There they joined up with forces serving under Marshal Zuhkov and General Natynczyk to retake New England and the long serving American capital of Washington.
Once again the forces of General Konstantine stood in their way, backed up by the armies of General Reimer and the National Guard of Maryland and Florida. This time though there would be no reprieve for either General should they fail. With Zuhkov’s Tank armies having swept through the midwest the only possible avenue of retreat lay towards the USA’s Capital Richmond, That was not a possibility that either Reimer or Konstantine wanted to explore. Both knew also that the forces arrayed against them were no longer the green troops of the American Militia but battle hardened veterans from South Africa, Korea , Russia and New England.
There own forces were not exactly green either however, by the time the Anglo-Dutch and their allies reached Washington the vast majority of the USA’s standing army was either dead or captured. The remaining forces gathered under Konstantine and Reimer represented the absolute elite of the pre-war American Army. In terms of the number of people involved on both sides the Anglo-Dutch campaign in New England and the Russian campaign in the midwest were both mere skirmishes compared to the campaigns in Europe and China but the importance of washington to the Beatrixian campaign lay beyond its physical value. Named after a hero of the 1st and 2nd Wars of Independence and the French and Indian war the city was home to the largest population in the Union and had been the Financial and Judicial capital of the America’s housing the Washington Stock Exchange and the Law Lords. It was home to numerous important historical monuments and buildings and this prevented the Anglo-Dutch from engaging in the usual protracted city conflict that would usually be involved in taking the city.
Zuhkov and his subordinates argued over the logistic’s of taking the city without inflicting damage to the city’s historical monuments and artifacts but the choice was taken out of there hands by the American occupying forces. Against the wishes of Konstantine who believed (correctly) that the Anglo-Dutch would never willingly risk the destruction of one of their most important cities the American high command ordered him to set the city on fire, destroying the historic artifacts and denying the Anglo-Dutch a moral victory, perhaps even forcing them to the negotiating table. Konstantine who had become increasingly angry at the American government and its callus attitude towards civilians in the wake of the suspension of the Presidential elections in 96 refused to carry out the order. Relieved of his command by Reimer Konstantine’s 1st Native army initially refused to carry out the order before several of its well known NCO’s and Officers were executed, including two Native American chiefs. Cowed by the High Command’s show of violence the 1st Native Army agreed to comply with the order.
Before the orders were carried out however two NCO’s from the 1st Sioux Division passed the information to known resistance operatives in the city who in turn passed it on to the Anglo-Dutch army still camped outside the city. On november the 28th, just as the troops of the 1st native army set about reluctantly burning the city to the ground the Anglo-Dutch army launched its attack. The huge size of washington meant that it would be impossible for the Anglo-Dutch to regain the city’s historic central district and save the lives of the thousands living in the outskirts. Even if they chose to save the civilians the Anglo-Dutch army was encamped to the cities north and the southern districts would likely burn for days, if not weeks before the army could reach them. Fortunately for the civilians the North Russian and Japanese armies were not encamped to the north, The North Russians having positioned themselves to the west of the city and the Japanese having swept round to the south. Unbeknownst to the Americans they were in fact surrounded and outnumbered.
The three armies swept into washington from three sides, sweeping through the cities suburbs, engaging and dispatching the militia forces that Reimer had deployed in the outskirts of the city. However as they reached the city center the remnants of the 1st Native and 3rd Tank Armies fought a strong holding pattern allowing themselves to retreat further into the city and to what they thought was a safe escape route to the cities south and the American ships docked in the Potomac. The american escape route, designed as a last resort had never accounted for the possibility that the Anglo-Dutch would have broken the naval defenses at the mouth of the river and have sunk their transport ships. Konstantine however had foreseen the possibility and as the Americans retreated towards the potomac Konstantine, secretly ordered the 1st Native army to disband and blend in with the displaced civilians. Reimer however carried on however, reaching the potomac with much of his army intact. Unfortunately for him his army made it there at the same time as a fleet of Anglo-Dutch transport ships and destroyers. Reimer was a brave man, loyal to the high command’s orders and had survived the Mid-West campaign when many of his companions had been court marshaled or executed but outnumbered and facing complete destruction the USA’s last great serving general surrounded, spending the remainder of the war as Zuhkov’s prisoner. Konstantine, betrayed by the high command and Reimer and dismissed from his post lived to fight another day going on to challenge Zuhkov one last time on the outskirts of Richmond.
Capture of Richmond
Richmond was the last bastion of Juhanite resistance in North America and the last opportunity for the Americans to live out the war with their dignity intact. If Konstantine could defeat the Russian’s and the Anglo-Dutch outside richmond President Bush believed that they could counter attack and regain the USA’s pride, restoring it to its former borders and forcing California to rejoin the Union. Konstantine though this was foolish and a pointless idea, hence the reason he was still living under house arrest in Richmond. Bush was not an idiot however and he realized that Konstantine was the only General available to him who could even dare to take on the Anglo-Dutch army under Zuhkov. Reluctantly Konstantine accepted Bush’s orders to take command of the defense of richmond, with the exception of a few thousand men of Konstantine's first Native Army all Konstantine had to defend a city of several million inhabitants was two hundred thousand men from the National guard. Konstantine was facing an army massed by Zuhkov that outnumbered all the other armies put in the field during the Mid-West and New England conflict, one and half million men of four different nationalities under Zuhkov’s command marched on the city in March 2000 preparing for what many knew would be the last battle of the war.
When the Anglo-Dutch army arrived to the cities north on March the 13th they brought with them sixteen batteries of rocket artillery and 24 batteries of howitzers. Zuhkov had, in consultation with the Anglo-Dutch PM Gordon Brown decided that he would not waste the lives of the men under his command trying to take the city enact. Richmond would be wiped from the face of the Earth and the Anglo-Dutch would negotiate with the remnants of the USA’s government who, Zuhkov and Brown believed would surrender quickly when faced with the annihilation of another city. Konstantine though the same the second his scouts reported the Artillery and he ordered the cities evacuation to begin in ernest. He knew that challenging the Anglo-Dutch army outside the city would be foolish, he lacked air support and had only fifteen artillery pieces across his entire army. However he needed to buy time for the civilians, all two and half million to be evacuated.
Konstantine decided to bring the battle to the Beatrixian army while it was still outside the city, hopefully destroying the beatrixian artillery before it could be used against the city. To do this he used the skills of his native troops and the 30,000 remaining soldiers of the 1st Native army infiltrated behind the lines of the Anglo-Dutch army to the north. Konstantine knew that he would only have a short time once the artillery was destroyed before Zuhkov continued his assault with the support of the Fleet Air Arm or the Navy. He knew therefore that he had to engage and distract the Anglo-Dutch as soon as his troops had destroyed the artillery. Unfortunately for Konstantine, Zuhkov had foreseen the possibility and placed guards from the 1st Marine Division and Royal Guards division around the artillery to protect them from infiltrators, shear strength of numbers allowed Konstantine’s men to achieve most of their goals, However enough of the Anglo-Dutch artillery survived that Konstantine knew that he could not rest and assume that the anglo-dutch would not continue with their plan.
Instead Konstantine ordered his men to assault the Anglo-Dutch positions, hoping to buy enough time for the evacuation to be completed, He knew that he was vastly outgunned and outnumbered and had little chance of victory but he hoped to inflict enough casualties on the Anglo-Dutch army that he could arrange a dignified surrender for the city and his men. The Assault began in the early morning of March the 20th with the last remnants of the USAF conducting air strikes against the entrenched anglo-dutch forces, suffering and inflicting severe losses. Softened up by the air strikes the anglo-dutch forces were then assaulted by Konstantine’s tanks and infantry who stormed out of the city in the tens of thousands, engaging the Anglo-Dutch in a pitched battle in the cities fields that resembled a battle from the first world war, with both sides digging in and exhausting artillery and manpower for the smallest of gains. The colossal loss of life (More Anglo-Dutch soldiers died at richmond than in the entire Pacific campaign) did however bring Zuhkov to the negotiating table. The American Government ordered Konstantine to keep fighting to the very end but the General, never particularly enthusiastic about the government decided to meet with Zuhkov to discuss the terms of his surrender. Konstantine surrendered on the 3rd of April 2000 marking the final end to his campaigns against the Anglo-Dutch and North Russian’s. Bush refused to surrender but was overthrown by a Navy and Air Force coup under Admiral McCain who signed the Treaty of Richmond on June the 5th ending the USA’s involvement in the war and submitting them to five years of a humiliating occupation by Anglo-Dutch soldiers.
The London Peace Conference and Betrayal
Across the Atlantic Prince Juhan was terrified, all his major allies had been defeated excepting the chinese who while wiling to aid him slightly were certainly not willing to send there men to almost certain death by engaging either the Russian or Indian armies while the Ottomans, his last ally still fighting the Beatrixians were being comprehensively defeated in the middle east by a Pan-Arab and Israeli army under Netanyahu that had almost reached Ankara. Not only that but he still faced a hostile German army across the Channel and to the north a Beatrixian army under Rear Admiral Stanhope that had just captured Edinburgh, crushing what was left of his forces in Scotland.
He knew that he could hold the Beatrixian army in England, In fact the Juhanite army still had the numbers and skill that it could still reasonably be expected to engage its rival force and emerge victorious. The cost though would be enormous, The Juhanite army would have probably lost several million men and the only gain would be evicting a Beatrixian army that would almost certainly land again, larger and better equipped before now that there was no longer a Juhanite navy to protect the british isles. His Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher therefore urged him to push for settlement with his daughter, opening up negotiations behind his back with her counterpart, Gordon Brown. The war had been ongoing for nearly ten years by the time Thatcher decided to open negotiations, citizens on both sides had become war weary, altogether four million Anglo-Dutch citizens had become homeless and two million killed and she believed that it was time to end the bloodshed. Brown agreed to meet with her onboard the Ark Royal off the coast of Scotland and the two were able to work out terms that they both though would be agreeable to their respective governments, agreeing to meet for a full on peace conference in London in November.
Juhan had other plans however, while Thatcher and Brown both were genuinely hopeful about the prospect of peace for the first time in ten years Juhan was certain that the only possible outcome of the conference would end in him losing the throne he had worked so hard to gain and he therefore plotted to use the London conference to guarantee his ascension to the Throne, hopefully killing his Daughter and definitely crippling the Beatrixian alliance by killing many of its major leaders. The conference began on November the 3rd 2000 and there was significant progress in the first few days, It began to look as if genuine peace could be achieved. Then Marshal Zuhkov’s men, brought by the Russian President as security discovered a bomb that was timed to go off just as the Beatrixian delegation returned to their rooms, killing them. Juhan, suspecting that the Beatrixian’s knew of his plot even though they had not spoken of it ordered his men to attack the building it was being held in. Unfortunately for Juhan Zuhkov had again foreseen the possibility and the moment that the Juhanite troops moved 200,000 men, crammed into the Beatrixian fleet in the Thames disembarked, catching the Juhanite's off guard and almost capturing the Prince. Juhan was forced to flee London and by the end of the week , Zuhkov’s forces had regained England. The last obstacle to Beatrixian victory now lay in the Middle - East where Juhan fled with his men, preparing to face his daughter one last time.
Fall of Istanbul
Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire was the largest fortress city in the known world, It had been at the borders of the empire for much of its history and benefited by having a series of defenses that had been built up since the 1800’s to the extent to that it was calculated that to bring down the cities immense defensive walls would require months of regular artillery use or the use of nuclear artillery. There was no better place to stage a last stand and in March 2001 it was the home of the remnants of the Anglo-Dutch army under Juhan and the Ottoman Army under Ozal.
To the east lay the Beatrixian allied Balklan states and the west an advancing rebel army under Benjamin Netanyahu that was marching on Istanbul. Between Netanyahu’s army and the city was the remnants of the once mighty Ottoman Army, 300,000 men against three million. The Ottomans fought a holding action in co-ordination with the Anglo-Dutch behind Juhan buying time to evacuate civilians but suffering huge losses in the process retreating to istanbul in April 2001.
Netanyahu’s army began a siege of the city with hand held mortars and WWII era artillery pieces but the city was protected with layers of concrete and reactive armor as well as a point-defense system that shot down most of the artillery shells before they could impact. Powered by a nuclear reactor and with enough supplies to supply five million civilians for two years Istanbul was unquestionably the perfect place for Ozal to hold up and hope for victory. Netanyahu however had acquired a reputation for bloody determination and would not settle for a negotiated settlement now that he was so close to his final goal. However he lacked the equipment to effectively take the city and refused to negotiate. Zuhkov on the other had did have the equipment needed, While the peace movement in London was now greater than it had ever been before , Zuhkov, Brown and Stanhope were convinced that victory could now only be achieved with the Capture of Juhan. Zuhkov therefore shipped two of the Anglo-Dutch armies SRBM launchers to Netanyahu’s army, armed with two ‘‘Red Arrow’’ nuclear missiles the launchers were coded to Zuhkov and he used them to punch a three km hole in the city's defenses and told Netanyahu to “Unleash the mob”, referring to the two and a half million undisciplined and ilequiped soldiers the Israeli had brought with him. Against three million men the five hundred thousand men of the Ottoman and Anglo-Dutch armies stood no chance. Ozal was murdered as he slept by ultra fanatical Arab units under Osama Bin Ladin as were the thirteen members of the Ottoman high council with the Sultan hung in front of a million strong crowd outside his palace. Juhan though could be nowhere to be found, having fled to Tbilisi and the remnants of the Ottoman Russian army.
Capture of Tbilisi
Netanyahu, having become Zuhkov’s proxy in the middle east was now ordered to take his army east again and capture Tbilisi alongside the 6th Russian Tank Army under General Andropov. To call Netanyahu’s forces an Army would be generous however, The Irgun under Netanyahu was a highly disciplined regular force and Al-Quaeda under Osama Bin Laden, despite its reputation for excess was a highly effective fighting unit. The remainder of his forces however were undisciplined and under equipped. Most in fact deserted Netanyahu and he took only seven hundred and fifty thousand men east to Tbilisi, most of whom were the Irgun or Al-Quaeda alongside a significant number from the Kurdish Peoples Army.
The main bulk of the Beatrixian force moving on Tbilisi was Andropov’s 6th army and the General took operational command of the operation. In fact the army was unnecessary, the remnants of the Ottoman Russian army, desperate to retain some sought of independence from the reborn North Russian empire overthrow the Ottoman Government and captured Juhan, handing him over to Netanyahu in exchange for Netanyahu promising that his new Arab League would leave the Georgians independent. Juhan was transferred to the Beatrixians in September 2001 with Zuhkov and his men accepting the Prince and transferring him to London. On route with Stanhope however the Admiral and Marshal entered the Prince’s cell and Zuhkov looked the Prince, asking him if he felt any remorse for his actions. Juhan shook his head and Stanhope picked up a pistol, passing it to the Marshal who then shot Juhan three times in the head before giving him a burial at sea. Brutal as it might seem the Marshal’s decision made political sense, If Juhan refused to drop his claim to the throne there would almost people objecting to Beatrix’s rule. His ‘‘Tragic’’ death brought almost complete closure to the war and although both Zuhkov and Stanhope were subjected to high profile trials both were acquitted of any crime, Juhan’s death officially being ruled a ‘‘Accident’’
Coronation of Queen Beatrix
One last obstacle remained to complete Beatrixian victory. Beatrix was not yet Queen, In October 2001 though that would end. On the 19th of October 2001 the worlds major officials gathered at Westminster Abby for the Princesses coronation. In a gesture of reconciliation Margaret Thatcher was allowed to attend the celebrations, standing alongside Gordon Brown and Stanhope as the representatives of the Anglo-Dutch people. In the aftermath of such a devastating conflict it was decided that the coronation had to represent the reunification of the Anglo-Dutch people and as such several traditions were broken.
Beatrix wore black for the ceremony, representing both her personal loss and the losses of millions of others, In addition to the members of the royal family and the peerage swearing loyalty to to Queen personally the Members of all four Parliaments in the Union swore loyalty to the Queen, including those who would be banned from political life for the next four years. After the MP’s had sworn their loyalty, Thatcher and Brown both did so , followed by all officers above the rank of Major-General including those to have served on the side of Prince Juhan, Instead of her husband swearing his loyalty, Stanhope took the place of van Till, representing the strong influence that the deceased Admiral still held on the Queen and the Navy. The Oath of Coronation was also amended with two separate oaths added, those being the line “‘’Do you swear to carry out the duties and responsibilities decided upon by the convention parliament and to enforce its decisions throughout your realms’’” and the line “‘’Do you swear before God to uphold this divine union with all your power and to take up arms to defend it and its people’’”. Both these oaths were directly related to the civil war, the Convention Parliament being the assembly of MP’s and Peers from all three parliaments that met from September 2001 to September 2002 when it was dissolved and elections held and the oath to uphold the divine union directly referring to the way in which America and the other two constituent parts of the Union had become separated during the civil war.
In addition to these changes the Coronation was noticeably less christian than previous Coronations. The Queen swore to uphold all religions rather than Protestantism, including Catholicism and the crown was placed on her head by the Bishop of London, Cardinal Audrey , Rabbi Tomas de Witt and Imam Afshin Ellian. She was also anointed with Holy Water supplied by the Arab League. There was also significant foreign involvement in the ceremony and after the officers had sworn their loyalty foreign leaders came forward to swear on their respective holy books that they recognized Beatrix as the rightful ruler of the Union. This was a deliberate gesture of a reforged Pax Unitae and noticeably two foreign leaders, Premier Zhou of China and President Fernando de la Rúa, of Argentina were escorted to the Queen by Anglo-Dutch soldiers and forced to bow while others who had sided with Beatrix were treated as warm friends the Queen accepting their oaths by shaking their hands and kissing their cheeks, even embracing King Friedrich IV and bowing to Emperor Akihito. When the Queen was finally crowned the crowd broke out into chorus's of the national anthem and shouting God Save the Queen, ending the Anglo-Dutch civil war for good.
Aftermath
Domestically the Civil War changed the Union forever, despite being fought over the role that the King or Queen should have in government the Beatrixian victory actually resulted in increased Monarchial power. The Convention Parliament restored the Monarchs power to appoint the Prime Minister and the Cabinet as well as to dismiss the Parliament and allowed her to enter the Lords on occasions other than the Opening of Parliament to present bills to the house both in person and through her proxies. It also gave the Queen veto powers over bills passed by parliament, requiring a two-thirds majority to override her veto. However the convention parliament also certified that the Union Parliament was the Union’s supreme governing body allowing it to dismiss the monarch with a 70% majority and appoint their successor from the Royal Family outside the line of succession, theoretically allowing Parliament to appoint a monarch who was not related to their predecessor. The Convention Parliament also passed the Punishment and Reconciliation acts, banning the Religious Democrats and presiding over the war trials of several Juhanite figures and posthumously sentencing the Prince to death.
The Anglo-Dutch Civil War fundamentally changed the structure of the world, the USA and the Ottoman Empire, the Union’s two remaining challengers were broken completely and both subjected to occupation. In their place Russia and Germany emerged as the only Superpowers capable of challenging the Union with Japan, India and China just behind. The only power that now wanted to challenge the Union was China and it was still reeling from the Korean War. However Russia had risen from a broken second rate power to the largest land empire the world had ever seen, extending to the borders of pre WWI Russia and beyond and while President Andropov was content to accept Union global domination others in his administration were not and began to plot its downfall. In particular seeking to use the fanaticism of the Arab League to their advantage.