HOI III (Their Finest Hour) AAR - Going it alone

[undercovergeek]

Your army needs a catchphrase for whenever you win a battle. 


I'd go with yelling out "It'sa spaghetti time!" in an offensively stereotypical Italian accent, but that's just me.

each operation will now be named after a pasta in honour of you sir

[undercovergeek]

..............and Mussoloni placed them here  ;)



The Yugoslavian border

[BanzaiCat]

Your army needs a catchphrase for whenever you win a battle. 


I'd go with yelling out "It'sa spaghetti time!" in an offensively stereotypical Italian accent, but that's just me.

Just say, "A bippity-boppitty" over and over. Seems legit.

[undercovergeek]

King Aleksandar I, the many states of Yugoslavia, the head of the Ustaše visits Mussolini in Rome

Almost immediately after the conclusion of the Great War, a new state was created by the Versailles treaty. It was to be called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and came about by a union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia. To an average Italian at home it was a needless, worryingly unstable state made up of a number of violent uncompromising factions. King Aleksandar I tried desperately to make a single nation out of this mix of different peoples. He renamed his country Yugoslavia, banned all political parties, and ruled as a dictator. He abolished all the historic territorial provinces and redrew all the political lines. The old flags were banned as were all Communist ideas. His heavy handed attempts however were contrary to the long term ambitions of his neighboring states and his methods only increased the alienation of the non-Serb portion of his population. Mussolini picked his opportunity carefully, through discreet communications with his Intelligence service he was able to offer a Croatian separatist movement, the Ustaše group, to train on Italian territory near the Yugoslav border.

[JasonPratt]

Your army needs a catchphrase for whenever you win a battle. 


I'd go with yelling out "It'sa spaghetti time!" in an offensively stereotypical Italian accent, but that's just me.

Victory catchphrase when conquering a territory or nations: "NOW THAT'S ITALIAN!"

[Keunert]

great stuff - looking forward to the next post!

[undercovergeek]

King Aleksander I and Minister Barthou enter Marseilles, moments later the King is dead and the minister fatally wounded, the signing of the Treaty of London from which Italy was excluded

In October, 1934 Aleksandar was on an official visit to France regarding the tense relations between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Mussolini's fascist Italy. Arriving in Marseilles Aleksander was being driven in a car through the streets accompanied by French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou when Vlado Chernozemski,  a Macedonian revolutionary working in cooperation with the Ustaše, and under the secret sponsorship of Mussolini stepped from the pavement and shot the King dead. He was succeeded by his 11 year old son, Peter II, and authority was assigned to his father's cousin, Prince Pavle Karađorđević, as regent. The prince was guided by Aleksander's advisors to make stronger ties with France, but he could see what lay ahead. France was internally divided, and increasingly unable to play an important role in Eastern Europe. He moved Yugoslavia away from its friendly relations with France and for over 2 years sought better relations with Italy, Germany and Romania.

But Mussolini had already made up his mind on the Yugoslavian matter. Italy had been treated poorly by the allies after the Great War. The Allies had wanted Italy's participation during WWI because of its border with Austria, in return Italy was promised Trieste, southern Tyrol, northern Dalmatia, and other territories in return for a pledge to enter the war. However, the promises of the Treaty of London were ignored by the post war Allied leaders, and Italian territories in Dalmatia were given to former enemies in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, now Yugoslavia. Mussolini had openly supported its separatists, and covertly assassinated its leader for advocating a strong central government. The time to undo the Treaty of London's injustice was at hand.

[JasonPratt]

It's kind of amazing that in an era of dignitaries riding around in open-topped cars on parade, there weren't as many rifle-sniping incidents as there were.

Sure, guys run up and pistol shoot people or throw grenades at the car (or both for Archduke Ferdinand kicking off WW1 -- I can't remember offhand which one failed first). But rifle sniping would seem to have been easier. I guess the problem was that sniping would be more of a 'rural' ability and these assassinations seem to have been carried out by 'urbans' who had trouble even figuring out how to shoot a pistol properly.

[Staggerwing]

The amazing thing about the assassination was that all the planned attempts failed and the Archduke made it to the destination government building . It wasn't until the motorcade left there and was re-routed back through the city to get the archduke and Sophie 'Out of Dodge' that they passed later directly by a very dejected Cavrilo Princip. He had actually been wandering the Sarajavo streets and contemplating suicide due to the utter failure of his cabal's attempt to strike their glorious blow for Serbian freedom. Then, suddenly right before his eyes, the Archdukes motorcade slows to take a sharp turn with the royal coach ending up directly in front of him.

He acts, walking swiftly to the touring car, pulling his pistol and firing twice.

[JasonPratt]

Right, I just couldn't remember if it was pistol first then grenade or vice versa.

(I'm remembering the grenade attempt, though, right...?)

[undercovergeek]

In May 1937 stories started running in Italian newspapers that atrocities were being committed against ethnic Italians living on the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia. In an appeal to his people Mussolini pointed out that the League of Nations could shed tears of blood for a poor tribesman from the East of Africa, but would not lift a finger to protect the rights and lives of Italians living in their own ancestral homeland. In early June operations began, even before any formal declaration of war - all the trains of Northern Italy were commandeered and began transporting the strike force from Ancona and Taranto to their launching positions.

General Calvi di Bergolo and his corps of mountaineers was taken to Gorizia in the North, General Zingales' and General Roatta's two corps of artillery backed mountaineers were sent to Trieste and Capodistria, General Pintor's infantry corps was sent to Rovignio, and finally, General Messe's Corpo d'Armata Celere of four mobile divisions was stationed in the far south at Pola. At midnight, June 11th 1937, Foreign Minister Ciano delivered an ultimatum to Yugoslavia that all involved knew would be rejected. One hour later with the rejection from Yugoslavia on Mussolini's table, Italy declared war on Yugoslavia.



The opening plan, one month later and phase two of the Illyrian operation

Surprise was total, the enemy had not even mobilized for defense. The opening phase of the invasion was to isolate Dalmatia and create a front that would pivot on its Southern axis taking most of Western Yugoslavia. Due to the smoother terrain the southern pivot was given to Messe's Corpo d'Armata Celere. Their brief was to advance through Pola to Otocac and halt there until the northern forces could make their longer, arched advance. The most difficult task was assigned to Calvi di Bergolo and his four divisions of Alpini. They have the longest march through the roughest terrain from Gorizia across the the mountains of the border between Austria and Yugoslavia and then down through the rough terrain of Maribor, and finally into the lowlands of Ptuj and Ormoz. Roatta's corps of mixed mountaineers and artillery would advance from Trieste through the rough terrain to Krsko and the urban center of Zagreb. To the south, Zingales would advance from Capodistra through Ljubljana and on to Karlovac, and Pintor's corps would move out from Rovingno to Delnice.

Within a month the line of advance was stabilized and the second phase of the advance was ready to commence. All infantry corps were ordered to attack relentlessly towards the southeast and continue that attack while the enemy was still disorganized leaving no opportunity to regroup. Meanwhile Messe's Corpo Celere was to divide, with two divisions sweeping through Karlobag and two divisions advancing towards Perusic. The corps would reunite at Udbina and advance on the airbase at Split and if possible continue their breakthrough down the Adriatic coast.

[BanzaiCat]

I like it. Trumping the Wehrmacht, and four years earlier no less. :)

[Martok]

Looks good, 'geek.  Glad to see initial operations went off with few problems. 

Question, though:  How concerned are you about arousing the wrath of the Russian bear? 

[undercovergeek]

Looks good, 'geek.  Glad to see initial operations went off with few problems. 

Question, though:  How concerned are you about arousing the wrath of the Russian bear?

very - its why i didnt join the Axis. Any game ive ever played has always centered around avoiding the M-R Pact and not tangling with Russia - take everything as Germany from Ireland to Helsinki to Istanbul but never, ever tangle with the big guy - ill see if i can send Jo some chocs and keep him sweet

[Keunert]

how are your diplomatic relations with the big powers?
another question: what if germany will do poorly from 1939? can you stay away from germany or will a poor executed german war take you down anyway?