A Fool's Errand in the Baltic
"Hmm... A prisoner detained by the Black Army, you say."
"..."
For the time being, Shtal had brought General Yudenich in as a prisoner. In truth, he had no intention of granting him any status higher or lower than that. Of course, if the Black Army requested a prisoner exchange, he planned to protect Yudenich out of humanitarian concerns, but that was the extent of his generosity.
"Did you know what the Black Army was doing in Poland, General Yudenich?"
"...I knew. But I never personally participated in any of it."
"I know that. It would have been physically impossible anyway."
Yudenich had only joined the Black Army a mere two months ago. He had barely had enough time to torment his own men, let alone harm civilians. He had been thrown into battle against Shtal almost immediately upon joining.
"We will be putting you on trial, General Yudenich. For war crimes."
"But...!"
"Do not worry. You will be acquitted. Without a doubt. However, there is one thing I must ask."
"What is it?"
"Knowing that the Black Army was committing such horrific atrocities, why did you join them?"
Shtal planned to reform the Imperial Army after returning from this campaign. Why hadn't he touched the nobility and the military leadership until now? The reason was simple. No matter how much of a useless general Conrad von Hötzendorf was, there was no one to replace him. Every single officer was of noble birth. If he recklessly purged a useless general, an even more incompetent one might take his place. The aristocratic military was conservative and outdated. But while they were outdated, they didn't cause catastrophic disasters. If he went wild trying to reform the military, it might end up like the Soviet Army after Stalin's Great Purge—stuffed to the brim with even more incompetent fools.
So what was Shtal's problem? He had no manpower. In such a situation, recruiting a capable general like Yudenich would be a huge help. But...
"I am a soldier. My duty is to remain loyal to the government, regardless of what they do."
"Is that so?"
"Even if that government holds decapitation contests in Warsaw, or kills civilians at random under the guise of urban warfare training... as a soldier, it is not my concern, nor should it be."
"Hmm..."
"A soldier's role is merely to obey orders and win the war. Only those two things."
It was a textbook answer, in a way. But Shtal had no intention of employing Yudenich from the start. Even if his reasons were just "I wanted to advance my career" or "I thought the White Army was doomed," those were merely mitigating circumstances, weren't they?
In his original history, officers of the German Wehrmacht like Walter Model, Manstein, Rommel, and Guderian—no matter how unrelated they claimed to be to Nazi orders, or even if they resisted passively—had still ultimately enabled the Nazi regime's actions.
"If an order had come down from St. Petersburg to burn all the prisoners alive, you would have followed it then, General Yudenich."
"..."
"Well, at least you didn't actually do anything of the sort. Don't worry. You will be acquitted."
Yudenich let out a long sigh after his interview with Shtal.
It seems my days as a soldier are over.
Yudenich possessed decent military talent. Working under the Stahlists was unappealing, but surely it was better than working under the National Revolutionary Party. He had harbored some hope. But from Shtal's tone, there was no way Yudenich would ever be employed as a soldier after the war.
Yudenich was fifty-two. For someone of his talent, it was a very early retirement, though not exceptionally early compared to the average retirement age of officers.
"All my wealth is in Russia, so I'm practically a beggar... but even if I can't be a soldier, I won't starve to death working as an advisor or a professor."
"Indeed, General Yudenich. I don't think you need to worry about starving to death."
At that moment, a voice echoed from outside Yudenich's cell.
"Well, I have to walk on eggshells around Chairman Shtal myself, so I'll have to slap a title like professor or advisor on you."
"You are..."
"Chairman Shtal groans about having no people, but could he possibly be worse off than us?"
"..."
"It might feel a bit disappointing to leave a massive enterprise like the Russian Black Army for a mom-and-pop shop, but if you want to keep playing general, this is your only option. What do you say?"
The man who had come to see Yudenich was Leon Trotsky.
"Do you want me to work for the Polish Resistance?"
"That, and once Shtal destroys the Russian Black Army, the White Army will need a new order, won't they?"
"Then..."
"I'll have some copies of Das Kapital sent to your cell. The war crimes trial won't be short, so you might as well read up."
A wild wind of revolution was blowing across Europe. Unfortunately, it was not the wind of Marxism.
Shtal could find talented people anywhere, despite his complaints. Somehow, he had gathered geniuses like Rommel, Guderian, Manstein, and Model, who were far too brilliant to be mere junior officers. Thus, he had no desire to use someone with such clear disqualifications as Yudenich.
But Leon Trotsky was different. Even if Shtal possessed future knowledge, if he were in Trotsky's shoes, finding people wouldn't be easy. In fact, if Trotsky decided to use Yudenich, he was actually quite a decent figure. No matter what orders Trotsky gave, Yudenich would obey. He was a man who would have obeyed even the Black Army's massacre orders, after all. And once Yudenich's usefulness ran out? It would be easy to dismiss him using his past with the Black Army as an excuse.
"Well?"
"...I have a question. Why have you been addressing me so familiarly this entire time?"
"If you don't like it, go look for a professorship. If you ask Shtal, he might open a path for your exile to Britain."
Yudenich, who had lived his entire life as an officer, could not give up the title of "General." He had no choice but to accept Trotsky's offer. Trotsky, too, felt it was a bet worth making.
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"Ugh, ugh... I'm so hungry..."
"We push on to St. Petersburg! St. Petersburg is a place overflowing with wine and meat!"
"Yes! If we raid the imperial palace and take the spoils, we'll be rich! Just endure a little longer, alright?"
"Aaaagh! Black Army trenches!"
It had been about two months since the landing at Tallinn.
Their supply lines had been cut long ago. At first, Britain tried to maintain supplies somehow. However, cargo ships were blown to smithereens by submarines lurking along the supply routes. They hastily dispatched battleships to secure the routes, but in the process, they lost two more battleships.
"We cannot go on like this. We must ask Germany for help!"
"Are you mad?! Even if we lose every single battleship of the British Empire, we will never ask the German Empire for help!"
The Baltic Sea was Russia's front yard, but it was also Germany's front yard. If the German Navy had intervened, the landing would have succeeded long ago. If only Winston Churchill hadn't stubbornly insisted that Germany was absolutely out of the question...
Originally, the Marines had brought some cavalry, but there were no horses left now. Had they lost them in battle against Roman von Ungern-Sternberg's Cossack cavalry? No. They had eaten them out of hunger.
The British Marines resembled a band of beggars more than soldiers.
"Maybe... if we get captured, we can at least eat our fill?"
"Don't even think about it. You're better off dying on the battlefield than getting captured by those monsters."
St. Petersburg was also one of the cities heavily influenced by Stahlism. It was a city fortified against urban warfare and rebellion. Of course, despite that, a rebellion had broken out easily enough. But the National Revolutionary Party had succeeded in their coup because they focused on kidnapping the imperial family rather than capturing the city itself.
In other words, St. Petersburg was still not a city that could be easily captured by a band of beggars. Even if the British Marines arrived intact, their chances of winning were slim.
And that wasn't the only obstacle the British Marines faced.
"Burn all of Estonia! Leave nothing behind!"
The only way for the British Marines to get supplies was local requisitioning. But even this method was blocked by Roman von Ungern-Sternberg's sheer brutality.
If you're worried about local requisitioning, why not just burn the entire region to the ground?
Of course, Ungern-Sternberg was a political leader in his own right. Doing such a thing in the Baltic States, unlike Poland, carried a massive risk. So, what method did Ungern-Sternberg use instead?
"A-Are you going to kill us like the Poles?"
"Of course not. Unlike those Polish beasts, we are kind to humans."
"T-Then?"
"Alright, move out! To Siberia!"
They loaded factory equipment, vast amounts of resources, and even the people onto trains and shipped them off to Siberia!
The Baltic States were already hotbeds of rebellion, much like Poland. They weren't even Slavs to begin with. By using the war as an excuse to deport them all to Siberia, they solved both the rebellion problem and the local requisitioning problem in one fell swoop.
Thus, by the time the British Marines reached the gates of St. Petersburg after their grueling march, their numbers had dwindled by fifty thousand. Many had deserted, and many more had starved to death, unable to bear the hunger.
"There it is, the St. Petersburg we have yearned for! Charge!"
"Ugh, ugh..."
Trudge, trudge.
Exhausted by hunger and thirst, the soldiers trudged forward like defeated remnants even at the command to charge.
"Look! Look! There is bread, meat, and wine in St. Petersburg!"
"W-What?!"
"There is cold water! Go and drink!"
"Aaaaah! Let's go!"
Mustering their last ounces of strength, the British Marines charged. They charged into St. Petersburg without any ammunition. They had almost no bullets left, as Ungern-Sternberg's cavalry had constantly harassed them, baiting them into wasting their ammunition.
And so, the British Marines met a glorious end.
Which is to say, they were gloriously annihilated.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
While two hundred thousand British Marines were sacrificing their lives, Shtal successfully advanced endlessly eastward, reaching a point where he could threaten Minsk and Lithuania.
"Can we attack Minsk from here?"
"We have received word that the British Marines have been completely wiped out or captured in St. Petersburg, Vice Chairman!"
"Is that so? Hmm... then we should halt our advance here and solidify our front line."
News of the British defeat arrived. It was not surprising. Everyone except Winston Churchill had predicted the failure of this landing operation.
Actually, it's quite impressive. Winston Churchill did his part. Who would have thought he'd deliver troops right to the gates of St. Petersburg at the cost of eleven battleships?
It wasn't entirely meaningless. Thanks to him, hadn't a path opened up on the Eastern Front? Of course, the cost-benefit ratio was completely absurd... but they were Churchill's battleships, not Shtal's, weren't they?
And in the end, Winston Churchill lost far more than he did in the original history. He had wiped out twenty percent of the Royal Navy. No matter how wealthy Britain was, eleven battleships was a bit much...
"So, what happened to Winston Churchill?"
"He has been dragged before a parliamentary hearing."
"Haha, is that so?"
Meanwhile, in Britain.
"This was the First Sea Lord's blunder, not mine."
"How can you say that after sending two hundred thousand innocent British men to their deaths?!"
For Britain, which had not yet fully entered the war and was only deploying its elite forces, two hundred thousand was a massive number. Two hundred thousand elite marines, and eleven battleships. No matter how much he blamed others, Churchill could never escape responsibility.
"Still, thanks to your absurd landing operation, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was able to make great strides against the Black Army. Your punishment won't be too severe."
"..."
Because Shtal had won a massive victory, Churchill wouldn't be dragged to a military tribunal or left to rot in some idle, minor post like in the original history.
"Lord Churchill, how does the governorship of the Weihaiwei leasehold sound?"
"...I would prefer the governorship of Hong Kong..."
"Ha. You lost eleven battleships and you expect Hong Kong?"
Weihaiwei, located on the Shandong Peninsula, was a reasonably important position, but its significance was far less than that of Hong Kong. It was, in essence, an exile.
Furthermore, the Chinese mainland was in utter chaos due to the Xinhai Revolution. It was a post where one would work themselves to the bone with absolutely nothing to show for it.
"Or perhaps the Governor-General of Canada? It might be a bit boring, but..."
"I will go to Weihaiwei."
Winston Churchill, a man who could never let go of authority and power under any circumstances. No matter how painful it was, he had no desire to waste away his time in some meaningless honorary post.
And so, Winston Churchill departed for East Asia.