The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX Read Online Free PDF

attacks drove through the enemy defenses, only to bog down and falter for lack of supplies and reinforcements.  The enemy had thrown themselves at his line as well, and each time his carefully positioned batteries and autocannons shredded the advancing formations, sending them back in disarray.
    The casualties along the stalemated line had been almost too many to count.   Werner had lost two million men in just the last six months, and he was certain the Europans had suffered even greater casualties.  The CEL forces had seemed unstoppable on their initial drive toward Paris, but then the RIC allied with Europa Federalis and invaded the CEL’s eastern provinces, draining away the resources that sustained Werner’s offensive.
    The Europan diplomatic victory was as effective as any battlefield success, and Werner lost almost a million men without a battle, legions of his veterans sent to the eastern front to meet the new threat.  His supplies and reinforcements trickled to almost nothing as well, and he’d been compelled to halt his advance and reorganize.  The CEL’s chance at a quick victory was lost, the victim of enemy diplomacy and the need to fight a 2-front war.
    Werner had gained his fourth star during the early fighting along the Reims-Troyes Line, and he now commanded the four armies of 1st Army Group.  He was the greatest hero of the war, at least in Europe, and the only CEL commander who had distinguished himself in the disastrous early battles.  His steadfast defense along the southern edge of the front had likely saved the League from an ignominious defeat in the early months of the fighting, when the Europan forces surged forward shouting their battle cry, “Venger le sang de Marseille.”
    The still-unnamed world war had begun in Europe, between Europa Federalis and the Central European League, ignited by the nuclear destruction of Marseilles, an act of terrorism in which the CEL still denied any involvement.  Repeated statements to that effect from Neu-Brandenberg had fallen on deaf ears, and the Paris government repudiated the century-long prohibition against terrestrial warfare and launched a massive invasion of their hated neighbors.  That war had been raging for more than a year now, and both Powers, already prostrate from the worldwide economic depression, were on the verge of total collapse.
    The conflict may have started along the banks of the Rhine, but once open war broke out between Superpowers, the conflagration spread, and now there was fighting in every corner of the globe.  The Tokyo-based Pacific Rim Coalition joined their longtime Western Alliance allies in the conflict with the Chinese-dominated Central Asian Combine.  The Caliphate honored its treaty obligations to their CAC partners, and the Alliance and PRC were soon fighting their two greatest rivals.  That struggle had raged across the seas, where the Alliance and PRC had been largely victorious, and in southern Asia and Africa, where the CAC-Caliphate armies had crushed most of their enemies.
    The CAC and the Caliphate had won the diplomatic war as well, winning over both the RIC and the South American Empire as well as Europa Federalis.  Hong Kong and New Medina had assembled their great power bloc with a combination of threats and promises, edging out the diplomats from Washbalt with the help of an extraordinary effort by Li An and her C1 operatives.
    The Russian-Indian offensive against the CEL had been the price of bringing Europa Federalis into their league, and now five of Earth’s Superpowers were aligned against the other three.  Werner’s attentions had been focused primarily on the theater where he commanded, but he knew the effects of the wider war would trickle down and affect his own armies.  Already, his forces had been stripped of manpower and resources to support the tenuous defensive lines on the eastern front.  He knew that would only get worse, as the Russians continued to mobilize and pour more