Recaps

Germany sent an expeditionary fleet to reclaim its Southeast Asian colonies, and the Island Nation’s attempts to resist led to devastating attacks on its cities and a naval battle. The Island Nation fleet suffered heavy losses, while Germany began targeting its armored cruisers.

• The Island Nation Army captured Hanoi and Saigon and advanced across Southeast Asia, prompting Oscar to reject an invasion of the Island Nation mainland and dispatch Admiral Spee’s fleet to reclaim the colonies.
• The Island Nation Navy chose to avoid a direct battle and seek German supply ships, but Spee’s fleet sank merchant vessels and bombarded Shizuoka, Hamamatsu, and Nagoya.
• After the bombardments forced the Island Nation Combined Fleet to put to sea, Ijūin led it into battle against Spee’s fleet near Ise Bay.
• German destroyers sank Isolami and damaged Ayanami, then German battlecruisers sank Tango, Fuji, Sagami, Suo, and Haruna as the Island Nation fleet struggled to answer their superior guns and armor.
• Ijūin sent the Island Nation’s armored cruisers and cruisers against German light ships to clear a path for torpedo attacks, and the armored cruisers sank Karlsruhe.
• Spee ordered his battlecruisers to attack the Island Nation armored cruisers, and Friedrich Karl crippled Izumo, which flooded and sank.

Germany destroyed the Island Nation’s Combined Fleet and bombarded its cities after its leaders refused to withdraw from Southeast Asia. The Island Nation accepted an American loan to rebuild its military, but the Cabinet remained divided as German attacks threatened the homeland with famine and ruin.

• Vice Admiral Spee’s battlecruisers sank the Island Nation’s cruisers and capital ships, then devastated its destroyer attacks and drove the fleet into retreat.
• Admiral Ijūin Gorō ordered the remaining ships to fight to the death, then committed seppuku aboard the Katori after the German fleet sank the Combined Fleet’s capital ships.
• Vice Admiral Spee ordered the German fleet to protect its supply convoy and prepare for further attacks, while Admiral Yashiro Rokuro and Admiral Shimamura Hayao received Ijūin’s report and pledged to protect Rear Admiral Yamashita Gentarō.
• Prime Minister Okuma Shigenobu’s Cabinet learned the scale of the defeat and debated Germany’s demand that the Island Nation return its Pacific colonies and withdraw from Southeast Asia.
• Yamagata Aritomo and Oka Ichinosuke insisted on holding Southeast Asia, while the United States offered the Island Nation a $200 million loan in exchange for opening its domestic market.
• Okuma Shigenobu accepted the American loan, and Yamamoto Gonnohyōe and the Navy’s leaders planned an expanded battleship fleet while Oka Ichinosuke pressed for a larger army.
• Vice Admiral Spee’s fleet entered Osaka Bay and bombarded Osaka, Kobe, Kumamoto, Fukuoka, and Kitakyushu, killing thousands and displacing millions.
• Okuma Shigenobu and Kato Takaaki urged the Cabinet to end the war, but Oka Ichinosuke and Yashiro Rokuro defended holding Southeast Asia and the ministers feared the military would bring disaster.

After Germany forced the Island Nation to accept its terms, Oscar turned his attention to Britain and prepared to divide it after defeat. German forces invaded the British coast, secured beachheads, and repelled a major British night counterattack.

• Oscar ordered the Island Nation to withdraw from Germany’s colonies and Southeast Asia, then began planning a campaign against Britain and its colonies.
• Oscar promised Irish leaders Griffith and Patrick Pearse German support for independence in return for an uprising during the invasion and an alliance with Germany.
• Churchill inspected Britain’s coastal defenses and vowed to resist the German attack, while Falkenhayn assembled forces for the invasion across the Channel.
• German battleships and bombers devastated British coastal defenses, and Falkenhayn ordered the Marine Corps to land at Margate, Dover, and Folkestone.
• German Marines fought through British artillery fire and established beachheads, which German army divisions began reinforcing.
• Hamilton, Haig, and other British commanders agreed to launch a night counterattack against the German positions.
• Hamilton sent elite British divisions forward, but a mine exposed their attack and German troops and artillery opened fire on the advancing soldiers.

German forces broke through British coastal defenses, destroyed the Royal Air Force’s main strength, and routed the British counterattack at Boulogne. With the route to London blocked and more than three hundred thousand casualties, Churchill ordered a breakout from the Southeast War Zone, leaving Hamilton and Haig convinced their forces had been abandoned.

• German forces repelled the British coastal assault, then used naval fire and aircraft to devastate the retreat and drive the British inland.
• Hamilton withdrew his forces toward Canterbury as German reinforcements landed, and Ludendorff persuaded Falkenhayn to encircle the British with battleships, aircraft, and armored divisions.
• German bombers and fighters struck Canterbury, while the Royal Air Force struggled to respond with too few aircraft and Trenchard reluctantly committed its remaining strength.
• Seeckt sent more than a thousand German aircraft against four RAF airfields, destroying most of Britain’s combat aircraft and leaving the British unable to contest the skies.
• Falkenhayn launched the German advance on Canterbury and Maidstone, and German tanks broke through British defenses, routed divisions, and captured Boulogne and Catmar.
• Hamilton approved Haig’s tank counterattack at Boulogne, but German anti-tank guns, armor, and bombers destroyed the British force, with fewer than a hundred tanks returning.
• Haig urged Hamilton to retreat toward London as German attacks encircled British units, but Benson warned that German forces had blocked the route and the army could not be reinforced.
• Haldane and Churchill rejected sending major reinforcements into the threatened zone and ordered the remaining British troops to break out, prompting Hamilton and Haig to conclude London had abandoned them.