The Grey Wolf (HOI 4 Romania)

[Pef]

"Dashing, willful and reckless, a lover of women, champagne and speed, Carol drove racing cars and piloted planes, and on state occasions appeared in operetta uniforms with enough ribbons, chains, and orders to sink a small destroyer." this is how a certain British historian described me, the former me at least. It is all true.

Awakening inside the body of a long dead King was a bit of a surprise, especially as this King was inside the pussy of a pretty woman with insatiable appetite for sex and luxury called Elena Lupescu.
Just thinking about it made me hard, not that this new (old?) body of mine could ever be anything else than hard. Medical condition.

The woman I conveniently forgot in Paris as soon as the fateful recall telegram arrived. Instead I brought back to Romania a useful man called Henri_Coandă ​the inventor of the jet engine and the less-known Coanda-Effect. (or why water tens to follow the shape of a spoon under a sink jet). Most of the fluids physics and all modern transportation relies on this effect though.

Of course, I promised the man unlimited funds to develop a Romanian jet plane, and even sketched for him a rather absurd (for 1930) Concorde jet. Planes today were barely able to reach 300 kms/hr, thus a passenger plane traveling at Mach 2 sounded a bit far-fetched.
But not impossible. I had the impossible in my head already.

This surprise was the HOI 4 game menu in my mind. Sure, any educated person could imagine a map and plot countries and capitals
on this map, while well-versed geographers and maritime Captains could draw the Earth's map from memory.
But could they zoom in, and gain detailed knowledge about any country, province, city, resource production or military unit? Could they envision technology levels in well-written, concise terms about how many mind-power hours were needed to research this or that technology?

Was anyone able to calculate the logistics of an amphibious in a few seconds? Yeah, I think so too. By myself, I could outplan any General Staff with ease, or control a planned-economy. Not that I wanted to, but I may need to do so anyways. I desired neither death nor dishonor.

As I jumped out of the train in Sinaia to head for my nice Peles Palace, the Royal residence, I glanced at the awaiting people to find a curious (or infamous) historical character among them. Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Legion of Archangel Michael, or otherwise the death-worshiping Iron Legion.

The man would be useful to my larger purpose, once properly trained to listen and obey. I just nodded knowingly towards him, and went to meet Iuliu Maniu and the other National Peasant Party leaders, those who actually recalled me from Paris to become King. Politics were a fun game to play, at least if you had a HOI 4 menu in your head, to show what each path would lead to.

In this case, for the next 4 years or Peasant government my country will gain +30% agriculture and peasant support. Romania's population was made up of 80% for now, so both their crops and political support were rather important. Plus this was 1930, and a Great Depression was going around, making everyone depressed. I could help a bit.

Later, my (former) wife Princess Helen of Greece and my son, the former King Michael enter my living room, just as the politicians left. Of course, in order to become King I had to depose my son from his King office, not that anyone cared.
"Carol, perhaps you remember your son?" my wife, and the daughter of the King of Greece pointed towards the boy.

"Are you upset Michael? You're not a King anymore, now that I've returned." I asked my son with a wry voice.

"I wasn't really a King." Michael muttered a bit muffled. Or maybe I imagined it. Three year old kids were not very articulate.
I measured my son from head to toes, and he did look exactly like a Hohenzollern. You could (almost) see the inbred features. His mother was my cousin, which wasn't quite healthy.

Oh well. My body was probably even worse. A millennia of royal inbreeding was bound to create genetic problems, of which I had my share. Priapismis not as fun as it sounds, although it certainly had its uses for a pleasant kingly life.

"Anyways, now that we've met, it's time for bed" I demanded in kingly voice. (easy for me)
A nurse came to pick up the boy, leaving me with my (once and future) Queen. Troy was razed for a Helen of Greece too. I shall endevour to match my ancestors.

"At least you left that woman behind." Helen spoke in a royal voice, then came a bit closer. She seemed to be quite in love with me, going by her grabbing my genetic disorder with a competent hand.

"Miss Lupescu is probably climbing the stairway to Heaven already. I did introduce her to a number of French philosophers filled with angst and anxieties. " I whispered in in joking tone, while pawing at Helen's breasts.

"...Still the same horny idiot." Helen answered in a low voice, while blushing heavily.

"Must have inherited something from my mother." I chuckled lightly, and drew Helen into bed. We did need to re-knidle our marital (for the sake of our son and country). Also, my dick was always hard (medical condition).

As for my mother, Queen Maria of Edinburgh was perhaps even worse than me, climbing into any bed she wanted, and many places without a bed. Probably the same genetic disease I had, only the female kind.

Much later, I left Helen to rest, and went to meet the waiting Captain, as Codreanu was called by his Legion.

"My King!" the man offered with a decent bow, then went to sit in front of me in the other armchair.

"Corneliu, my man! I've heard many things about you, even from Paris. Something about being unafraid of death?" I asked pouring myself a drink.

The man hesitated for a second, perhaps expecting a trap. "You're not wrong, your Majesty. Our Dacian ancestors would send their messengers to the Gods, by throwing them into spears. Yet, those who cried in fear never reached Heaven. Just the same, a true Romanian can't join the Legion of Archangel Michael and reach Heaven if he's afraid of death." Codreanu answered in a mystical voice.

I could see from his fanatical eyes, how so many young men would be eager to throw themselves into spears.
I nodded knowingly. "Heaven is great. Still, I'd say it's better to send our enemies to die first. The final sacrifice must be a worthy target. I suspect you're not a big fan of the godless communists in the Soviet Union?"

His eyes glared with hidden anger and hate. "I believe the danger of Zion..." he began, then stopped when I raised my palm. I knew all about his anti-Semite sentiments. They were rather prevalent in this world too.

"The Jews have to go home and Palestine is under British Mandate, while my mother is a British noble. We will deal with that problem. But you, and your Angel Legion, I need you to deal with everyone else who is disloyal. Are you loyal to the King and Country, Captain Codreanu?" I asked in a harsh voice.

"Your Majesty, I dare to claim there is nobody more loyal than I am!" Codreanu declared in a fanatical voice, while kneeling in front of me. A loyal man had to be rewarded.

"First thing first, then. We may need to burn Budapest to the ground again. And I would prefer to do it while there is no Hungarian resistance in my country. You understand?" I hummed in a soft, conspiratorial voice. The Romanian Army did intervene to pacify the Soviet Hungary a decade ago, but they didn't finish the job. No matter, I had the right man for the job just here.

"I understand perfectly, your Majesty. Romanian land is for Romanians only. And I do wish you luck with your Palestine plans." Codreanu announced in a fanatical voice, then rose and left in a hurry. His Legion now had orders from the King and plenty of people to kill.

With the Iron Legion diverted from course, and helping me avoiding the Vienna Diktat that ripped Transilvania from my country under Adolf's pressure, I sipped my champagne while a pretty house-maid arrived with my dinner. Her eyes got a bit too wide when she noticed my permanent boner. I could eat.

 

[Pef]

Being a King is something else, I can tell.

One phone call, one whispered order, or a promulgating a law, anything you do has consequences.

Of course, given the ruling party, and the ongoing Depression my actions were mostly aimed at improving peasant condition and agriculture.

Tractor building companies, truck building companies, insecticide via planes and expanding the fishing fleet, and a few ports.
And since any economy functions in a chain, trucks and tractors need oil, which had to be drilled and refined from the Ploiesti oil-fields.

Crops needed rail transport, which meant trains. Trains needed coal, which was mostly mined at Targu Jiu, but mining coal needed tools and so on.

It would take a full 4 years-plan to get everything working right on the civilian economy side, not that my country had anything going military wise. We were the so-called winners of the Great War, albeit by Woodrow Wilson's intervention, not by any heroic feat. In fact, Romania got pretty much squeezed into a small pocket by German, Austrian and Bulgarian armies once the Russians walked away from the war and into communism.

On the other hand, the newest Iron Legion actions in Transilvania meant that more and more empty farms and jobs were being opened for destitute Romanians from other regions, mostly from Moldova.
Sure, it would have been more civilized to export the Hungarians to Hungary and import whatever Romanians they had, but that option was not available, not historically nor in my game menu.

As for the Jewish problem, my official probing were rebuffed curtly, ironically and sardonically by the British, who seemed quite pleased to let millions of Jews get gassed in concentration camps. Already millions of Jews were starving to death in Ukraine and other parts of USSR, which lead me to create a Famine Society to try and help, mostly by extracting pretty Ukrainian women and some specialists in steel forging, engineering and such.

And if that meant that excess crops from the Romanian farms was sent to hungry Ukrainians, instead of being dumped in a ditch to raise prices, what can I do? Must have been luck.

Of course, the Soviet regime denied any famine was taking place, but they did grab the grain transports and allowed starving immigrants to embark from Odessa and Sevastopol, so nobody was fooled.

Then it hit me. I wasn't speaking with the right people. The big Jewish bankers and industrialists in Britain cared nothing about their poor co-nationals starving and risking Holocaust in Europe. They were the exact opposite of the people I needed to speak with. They were the kind of people to sell Adolf the Zyclon gas at a discount, just to grab more profits.

By the next month, a dozen big name Rabbis joined me in a secret conference to plan the establishment of Israel in Palestine, conveniently called the Zion Elders Protocol.
I generously asked for only a 30% fee of any asset transiting via Romanian ships, which raised eyebrows and blessings from the Elders, who probably expected full forfeiture of such.

"Make sure you fortify the Golan Heights and the Jordan River bank. Just a guess, but your new Arab neighbors might want to genocide you a few times. Don't come complaining when you're crucified, right?" I asked in a pleasant voice.

"King Carol, your generosity is already abundant, but perhaps some weapons to ensure the safety of our jewish nationals in this new Israel?" an old and shred rabbi asked while tugging his long beard.

"You realize Romania has basically no weapon industry? We still use Great War guns, or shovels. Mostly shovels." I said with a sad voice. Don't dismiss the shovel though, Romania won 3 great victories in WW1 using mostly shovels, Krieg style. Also Krieg style loses, so it wasn't great.

The man nodded and glanced at his Elders. "...But, if some blueprints and funds were made available, factories could be built and weapons produced, right? Perhaps you have heard of the American Thompson Gun? Or the M2 Browning machine gun?"

I sighed a bit disappointed. "Those are patented, and by Western companies. On the other hand, Soviet patents are not recognized, so..." I allowed with a grin.

"Mazel Tov!" The Rabbi saluted me with the same grin.

As expected, the Zion Elders did have access to a large network of informers, as well as hidden funds. The Carol Arms Company was funded and supplied with detailed schematics of Soviet pistols, rifles and machine-guns, even a 23mm twin-autocannon possibly intended for aircraft. It would work great (for tanks Pz 2-like, armored transports, static defense and even ship AAA, once I had ships, or even airplanes, if I ever had any)

With a generous export client already obtained, plus compulsory buy orders for the Romanian military, my arms company expanded in one year like others in decades, much to the chagrin of Soviet leaders. By 1931, CAC had 12000 workers in 4 factories.
Already knowing the future, I also set up a weapons manufacturing plant in Helsinki, Finland. If the Soviet spies stole the plans for the weapons, they would find them useless, since they already had these weapons in the Soviet inventory.

The Ukrainian Holdomor continued, at a slightly slower pace, but the famine was systemic not accidental. Kill or deport enough peasants and there would be nobody left to cultivate the land. I wasn't sure if the Soviets even knew what they were doing, since they seem mostly busy killing each other by the millions. They did have like 200 millions to kill, so it would take time.

As a bonus, the Soviet Jews were sometimes willing to sacrifice one of their own and inculpate dozens of Communist officials (mostly corrupt ones, but sometimes effective Commissars, officers and such), leading to more deaths and carnage among paranoiac communists.

And lastly, after a fake promise to consider an alliance, France did agree to sell me a few ships, including a submarine and a light cruiser.
Nothing that would stop a Soviet Navy bent on shore bombardment, but now we had ships to analyze and begin our own production. I wanted 50 subs by 1940, so it would take a lot of work, but it could be done. I even had a game menu telling me it would work.

If only my dick would stop hitting my chin every time I tried to write a letter.

 

[Pef]

The first Romanian tank to come off the fabrication line was named Ferdinand, after my father. Since the guy was rather shy and under the thumb of my royal mother, the name fit quite well.

It was a modified T-26 Soviet tank, with a larger turret and a twin 23mm autocannon, as well as two machine-guns. No radio, hydraulic suspensions, speed limiter, and other fancy stuff, but it did have a smoke launcher, a locomotive horn and headlight and a sniper scope for the cannon. Only 8x magnification, but I hoped technology would advance enough for my preferred 60x mag I used for my World of Tanks settings. Much easier to hit weak-spots that way.

And why a locomotive horn? Well, a tank commander couldn't climb out and shout orders, right?
As for headlight, well, one would need to shine a light to see what he shot at. Maybe blind the enemy too.

Luckily, the tank design we stole from the Soviets was quite rugged, allowing for easy winter use, and any likely terrain.

The first Armored Cavalry Division would need 400 such light tanks, which would take about a year to complete. Changing factory orders from tractors to tanks was easy, training workers to make them was a different thing. For support, I computed about 1000 trucks with infantry and 400 with fuel, ammo and other parts.
Just enough fuel to reach Budapest, in fact. How amusing.

I tried using my family connections in Britain to obtain some free weapon stuff, but they weren't very glad about me for some reason. Must have been a random luck thing, but the British did find out about the thousands of Jews being transported to Palestine, armed to teeth with CAC weaponry.

Oh well. To the French then!
They kept trying to create a Little Entente alliance with Cehia and Yugoslavia and such, as if that could work. The French were fucked, and they knew it.

But why not milk their advanced tech while I could?
And propose some immigration plans, for the French Levant, like exporting Turks into Turkey and importing Jews. At least the Jews were not Muslim, right?

With some unused Rabbi funds, and a bit of blackmail diplomacy, I was able to set up a French Palestine in the south of Levant, where more Jews could be happily 'deported'.
France was also rather anti-Semite at this time, so the opportunity to get rid of Jews and send them 'home' was seen as a win. Many poor Jews felt the same.

This adventure did net me 400 Renault F-17 tanks that the French kept since the Great War, just enough to train my first armored division, plus several planes and a small destroyer, one scheduled for a scrapyard in Indochina.
It really wasn't my fault the damn ship sank inside the locks of the Suez Canal, I swear! I wasn't even driving it that fast...not compared to a plane.

Luckily, being a King meant I wasn't arrested, detained or shot by the British. Just never allowed to pilot a warship again. Or so they think. I do have a submarine.

Anyways, I went to visit my unwilling friend, Mr Henri at the IAR airplane factory in Brasov, where his 27th jet plane project blew up for no reason.
I ignored the burning plane on the runway, and instead compared the jet schematics to my own modern (yet not detailed) knowledge.

"You tried using peroxide fuel again?" I asked with a smile. That thing was only good enough for torpedoes, which were meant to explode.

"Gasoline is not powerful enough!" Henri yelled with flair and drama.

"Of course it is. Might need some additives in the gasoline, and a better engine though. Don't worry, we have time. Only by 1939 do we need operational jet fighters." I continued in a calm voice.

Jet fighters would be nice, but radio finding and then radar were more important. We could never outproduce the USSR or Germany in fighter production, but radar guided guns would mince any enemy planes crossing our border.

Henri Coanda looked at me with a strange face, as if I said something out of this world. "You said passenger planes before."

"It is a dual-role industry, my friend. What do you think happens when a plane hits my palace at Mach 2?" I asked a bit rhetorical, and began drawing an ME 262 from memory. it wasn't a good plane, but it did work fine for its times.

Once finished with the German plane, I continued with a Mig-21 drawing, something I knew even better, since I seen and touched one before. No clue what the inside of the plane was, but then I wasn't an aircraft engineer.

Henri took my drawings and hid them in his safe, then shook his head. "Stop blowing my mind, your Majesty. Those planes look like something that would actually fly."

"I wonder if the shockwave of trans-sonic flight is similar to the same thing for trans-luminal speed. A light-cone I imagine, but how could I generate enough energy?" I mused to myself, and walked away, leaving the famous engineer confused, yet pondering deeply just like I intended. Give a man a fishrod, and he could fish for himself, right?

I did think sometimes of my predicament, being transported back in time, but in another body. Surely, a mind would have no mass at all, thus reducing the energy needed to accelerate it past the lightspeed barrier, and thus backwards in time. Still, a mind-state, even a limited human one like myself, would contain a shit-load of data, data that would be needed to function properly after transfer. Adding the HOI 4 interface to my new self was simply the cherry on top, barely a few gigabytes to whatever many exabytes a human mind required. Or perhaps the other way around, considering I could see the entire planet in my mind, in real time.

I drove the racing car to the railway station at modest speed, not even breaking the current world record for 1931.

Waiting in my railway car, Captain Codreanu had a thick file of enemies, needing my approval for elimination. Communists, spies, agitators, whatever foreign nationals or local minorities...you couldn't make a country-sized omelette without breaking a few eggs, or heads.

I took out a pencil, and began marking people for death, sometimes using my game menu to make sure I had the right guy.
V for vendetta, X for quiet death and 0 for Null. I didn't want all my enemies dead, after all. Some had their use, other were double agents and so on.

However, in general the choice was simple. Was the target loyal to King and Country? Was he useful in some way? Would his death cause me problems? Was he a potential problem later? Was he a current enemy?

The menu only flagged the first and last choices, thus for the rest I had to use my own cognizance or OOC knowledge.
Not that I cared much about those about to die, to be fair. At least 200 million people will die soon enough, most of them in Asia and USSR. Removing a few of them early, and smoothing my own path was necessary.

As for spies I knew about in other countries, Kim Philby for example, and some inside the Manhattan Project, I would reserve that for the right time. For example, the year 1939, late September. I did not want an alliance between UK and USSR. They would carve my country, and possibly my corpse between them.

Codreanu picked up the finished death list with reverence. "My King, what do we do about the Germans still living here?" he asked a bit hesitant.

I knew a good solution for that, used in my past. Nicolae Ceausescu sold the Germans living in Romania to West Germany, for about 4000 marks each. I was sure Adolf would buy proper Germans too. Maybe trade his Jews in turn? Anyway, a deal would be easy. I was a German King after a fashion.

"The Germans must return to Germany, of course. Who will fight the Soviets otherwise?" I asked the man in a knowing voice.

"Ah, you're waiting for the right moment. Very wise, my King." Codreanu said looking a bit awed, then took the file and walked away, already spreading signed death notes to his lieutenants waiting in the station.

I recognized Horia Sima among them, the man who would take over the Legion after Codreanu died. If he died in this timeline. I wasn't sure what do make of the man. On one hand, he was a fanatic, and those were dangerous. On the other hand, someone will be needed to hold Moldova for me, when the Soviets came. And they will. They always do.

 

[Pef]

By the turn of 1932, the Great Depression began to mellow down, and Coanda's first plane flew, after a fashion.

It flew straight up, ran out of oxygen, the pilot fainted or something, and then the plane flew down again, breaking the sound barrier before it crashed. Filming the event and then going over the last few frames did prove a cone shockwave forming at trans-sonic speed, which probably blew the mind of any aircraft engineer, and certainly the pilot himself.

We did find his ring finger, and sent it to his wife, with the melted ring still on it. The man died for science, after all.

"You're thinking again about planes crashing into your palace, right?" Henri asked me as we drank something in honor of our tragic success.

"Not really. Still, maybe some 50 brave pilots, and I could be rid of the Soviet Navy in the Black Sea. I'll have to ask around." I mused to myself, mostly.

The Archangels of the Legion would be useful for a kamikaze run. They would even be grateful.
Maybe pilot guided torpedoes too? The Japanese did have some good ideas about using death-wishing soldiers.

Henri measured me with a wary look, then chuckled. "I don't think you'll find any volunteer for such a task. Anyways, with extra fuel tanks, even a propeller plane could reach Sevastopol and launch a torpedo."

I nodded wisely. That would work too, just like Taranto. Maybe the second wave should be kamikaze clean up. In case there were any ships not exploded.
"One day, we could send an unmanned plane from here to Russia and have it just crash into Kremlin. Will need better radio direction, and something to recognize the target from a photograph. Winds and pressure changes at this distance will make programmed flights quite random."

Henri coughed and sipped some more champagne. "One day, huh? What, a thousand years from now?" he asked in disbelief.

"It's been 20 years since the first plane flew over here. In 20 more years, we will reach orbit. Then the Moon, 20 years after. Maybe even sooner. It's barely 300 thousands kilometers away." I answered with a wry grin.

"They won't let you drive that plane. You'd be too old." Henri countered with a smile.

"I think a rocket of sorts. There is no air out there. Nothing to combine with the fuel..." I mused with a longing voice towards the sky.

Henri nodded sad. "Of course. For a silly King doing silly things, you do have a bit of knowledge about flight."

"Perhaps some 50 rapid autocannons instead of a rocket engine. The recoil would propel the ship out the gravity well either way, if it could carry enough ammo. Even to the Moon and back." I added for no reason. It would work, as a science project. Probably kill the pilot from the recoil too.

Henri took his notebook and began computing the required forces. Took him like two hours and another bottle, but he marked the last number with a V.
"Newton would turn in his grave and fling 3 million apples at your head for this idea, my silly King. But it would work."

I smiled wolfishly. "Now imagine a plane gun firing just enough ammo that its recoil is exactly the reverse of its engine thrust. They would cancel out, right?" I said with a nod towards his notebook.

The man just threw his notebook away. "Go home, your Majesty. And buy a few more mechanical calculators. I want to build a twin-engine plane next time." he demanded in a tired voice.

"Incremental progress is good, but 8 engines would work better. Twin-nacelle engines, two under each wing?" I yelled as I left his workshop. A bottle flew towards my head, luckily empty.

I left Brasov and headed towards Mangalia, the Royal Navy's military port to the Black Sea. Here, we were building two updated Turbinia class corvettes, to be later equipped with peroxide fuel torpedoes. A single triple torpedo launcher, at the ship's bow.

I wanted the ships to be the fastest in the world, like any proper Accelerationist.
My whole life was about speed, drinks and women, might as well make the best of it. My first jet plane did already break the sound barrier, and the Craiova car factory was trying to mate a race car with an (almost) reliable jet engine. I was certain it would break any land speed record on the first try, and possibly explode soon after.

I was so lucky Codreanu kept finding men willing to die for King, Country and Science.

The IAR factory had 100 such men lined up to be test pilots, and possibly kamikaze heroes once we had a decent plane.

I called their unit Sentinels, for they were the first line of defense for the Great Romania I ruled over.

The Royal Dictatorship came about rather smoothly in this timeline, since I wasn't the same man, wasting the public budget on lavish parties or expensive villas in France and Switzerland. My factories actually made a good profit, even with the royal workers being paid twice the normal salary, plus bonuses for extra hours, extra quality or more products like guns, tractors and tanks.

Truly, I was blessed by the friendship of the Zion's Mossad, as those guys managed to steal secrets, schematics and even codebooks from nearly all over the globe.
Sure, some of these secrets were actually simply proximity opportunities, like grabbing a rare book from a library or weapon's manual and things like that.

Other things were far more secret, like investments in companies abroad to gain access to restricted patents, trade secrets, bank accounts and rare resources.

The Mossad network kept 70% of the gains and dutifully delivered 30% into my hands, or rather my delegated household people, and also kept an eye on them for me, should they steal what was rightfully mine.

Reading Adolf's erratic speeches about a Zionist conspiracy taking over the world, I could only smile under my dashing mustache. He was wrong, but quite close too, to the new truth.
There was a conspiracy involving jews out to get him now, only I was in charge of it.

The big Jewish bankers in America and Britain had their chance when I offered them my hand, and they refused. Now they would be left out of the pizza shares, when it will be time for the final cut.

Steadily buying land in Venezuela for example, where my game map showed large oil reserves. Aluminum deposits in Suriname, lithium, cobalt and molybdenum in Central Africa. Cheap as grass, although sometimes needing target removal from the New World Order. It would take a decade to match the Rockefeller family, but I had time.
Plus, the King position was not really elective. I could quit, just like my body did before, but only if and when I wanted to.

As for Michael, and my first son Mircea Lambrino, I had other countries they could be kings over. Bulgaria and Hungary, for example.
The Balkan Dominance still remained the best option in my game menu, even if it did require a large standing army and at least one armored division.
However, peasants loved me to death these days, and they would gladly answer the call when it was time for recruitment. I would need half a million shovels just to keep them in trenches though, and just as many to bury them, if they didn't have the rest of needed equipment, like guns, ammo, rations, uniforms, winter coats, tents and such.

My game menu could easily calculate the needed equipment, and how long it would take to produce: 3.6 years, if I started right now. Possibly early 1936 then, after division training.
Just right to match the classic HOI 4 campaign, which was a likely loss on Elite difficulty. It seemed the game was going to play without me if I didn't make a push.

No. In two years I would have two armored divisions, and be able to strike Hungary from north and south at the same time. Perhaps some planes?

I called a General Staff meeting, and simply explained my position to the gathered Generals. "Hungary, your Majesty?"

"Exactly. They have a large minority in our country, which is already causing strife. And they prefer not to call their people home, as to gain a claim on our sacred soil, should any Great Power support such a claim in the future. Most likely Germany." I explained in a calm voice. The dozens of medals, ribbons and chains on my chest made me quite hot, and my arm-sized steel-hard dick was depleting my brain of blood. Not an ideal circumstance, but I forged on.

"And after we 'puppet' them, what next?" General Antonescu asked in a logical voice.

"After that, my son Michael will become their lawful King, under Price Nicolae's Regency. And we get to export the Hungarians from Romania back home. It would be more merciful than allowing the Holy Legion to massacre them all." I added with a tiny shrug. Most of the intellectual Hungarians had already died anyways, as to prevent an organized resistance, but Codreanu was a fanatic and would kill everyone else just to make a point.

"Perhaps you shouldn't tolerate the Archangel's Legion anymore, your Majesty. The army can take care of them for you..." Antonescu proposed in a blood-thirsty voice. Exactly like he did in the first timeline, when he ordered the army to kill every Legion member.

"Why would I allow loyal Romanians to kill each other, especially over disloyal Hungarians? Can you find a thousand men willing to climb into a torpedo and drive towards a Soviet battleship, General?" I countered with a harsher voice.

The man halted in surprise, then smiled. "You are right, your Majesty. I was too hasty. Loyal men willing to die for their King and Country should not be wasted."

The other Generals got the hint and nodded as well. We could use the death-worshipers far better, against a true enemy.

 

[Pef]

Normally, shipborne artillery was unsuited for land use, being heavy and such.

But the French had an amazing 65mm gun used to shot at torpedo boats and other fast targets, and the Network also provided me with its design schematics.
Sadly, the gun itself was patented, even if I did have samples of the 65mm gun on board the flagship of the navy, the French light cruiser I had bought a year ago and which did lots of training exercises up and down the Danube.

Thus, when several French Generals were asked to visit and advise on our the Dacian Wall, along the Soviet border, they possibly imagined a Maginot Line, not a big ditch with a few pillboxes on top.

"This will barely slow the Soviet Army for a day, maybe not even that." a grumpy General Petain muttered in disgust.

I nodded and waved the rest of his staff into my command tent, and opened a folder to show off the Romanian Hetzer , called Wolf. Sure, using the T-26 drive train and chassis meant that barely 40 mm of frontal armor could be installed before the entire thing collapsed under its own gravity, but giving the front plate an angle of 65 degrees meant that the armor would withstand even the new 47 mm anti-tank weapons getting fielded by France, not to mention the usual 37 mm guns.

"My royal engineers have analyzed the 65 mm guns on the flagship, and want to install the same gun on the Wolf assault tank. They even say it would butcher enemy Soviets with ease, especially if backed up by machine-gun pillboxes." I explained with a careless voice.

The French officers glanced at each other, then looked at their leader. "You want us to approve a license transfer, your Majesty? It is not in our power."

I shrugged. My game menu said their opinion mattered, and I trusted my menu more. "And the same thing for the 155 mm turrets from the cruiser. Sink the turrets into the top of the wall, build a concrete bunker over it to prevent aerial bombing or counter-fire from Soviet artillery."

The big artillery bunkers were not feasible in large numbers, given the expense of an entire ship turret being built, moved and then buried in concrete, but it would work in key places like Cetatea Alba at the Black Sea, the Dniester crossings along the Moldavia's border and Hotin in Bukovina.

General Petain took my idea and ran with it. I knew he was a big fan of static defence, since the horrors of the Great War had imprinted into his mind.

"Expensive, but it would work. How many 155 mm guns would you need to guard the Soviet border, your Majesty?" he asked in a curious voice.

"At least 60, but better make it 100. Cetatea Alba would be exposed to the Soviet Black Sea Navy using their big battleships to shell the fortifications from beyond the horizon. And to counter that, I would need the big 15 inch guns, at least 6 of them in similar bunkers." I offered with a sad smile.

Petain sighed. "I don't see a way to obtain 15 inch guns, your Majesty. They are considered strategic weapons by every Great Power. Perhaps a few 12 inch guns from a scrapped dreadnought? Or perhaps tow the entire thing to Constanta and take off the entire turrets." he proposed in a logical tone.

I smiled inward, as the man basically played himself. "Well, you are correct, mon General. If France ever wants to scrap a dreadnought, I will be happy to buy it at twice the normal price. Even more of them. Constanta itself needs a few coastal forts, and perhaps a few in Southern Dobruja at the border with Bulgaria?" I wondered a bit rhetorical.

Petain measured me, and then the map laid out on the table. "I don't envy your position, your Majesty. We also have a border with Germany, but your Soviet, Bulgarian and Hungarian borders are far too long. If it comes to the same thing like 1917, your country is doomed, again. "

"Then I must make sure I only fight on a single front. Your advice is priceless, mon General. I do hope you will support Romania when the time comes. We are both the scions of Rome, are we not?" I asked with a sad voice, then raised a finger for my butlers to serve more champagne.

I already had the old 12 inch gun plans, including the range finders, munitions and loading lifts. Once the French sold me even one old dreadnought, the Galati steel plant could start churning new guns, enough to equip 100 mega-bunkers on the Soviet border. Spread them out evenly at 10 kilometers range, and 100 such guns could cover the entire front with high-explosive 1 ton shells. Why bother to build bombers, if the enemy had to step inside the gun range to assault our Dacian Wall?

I handed the good General the extra schematics for the Wolf tank destroyer. "It a deal then?" I asked as he rose to his feet.

"I will do my best, King Carol. Your Wolf tank would be quite amazing, if it works. But even if it doesn't please the French Government, I will make sure to build 1000 Wolves for you. Maybe even find some better scopes for long range fire." General Petain allowed as he stashed the priceless plans inside his briefcase.

I shook his hand, then watched the man go, along with his staff. He was quite a tragic person, General Petain. Well-meaning, but misguided and lacking a HOI 4 interface.
Not that you needed an interface to anticipate the Belgian attack, but hey. History is written by the victors.

I raised my hand in salute, and 400 F-17 tanks fired their guns in the air, signalling the training of my first armor division was almost over. Next, the tank crews and the mechanics would travel to Arad in the West, and take charge of their Ferdinand tanks, and begin training beside the motorized infantry and their trucks.

We couldn't fail the thrust to Budapest, so everything had to go almost perfectly.

Now, where could I find some planes?

 

[Pef]

By the time 1933 came about, the second armored division finished training as well, and then departed for Oradea on the North-west to take charge of their new Ferdinand tanks, and trucks and so on.

Being a wise gamer myself, I did also create a mobile anti-air company for the armored divisions, 100 trucks with 23 mm autocannons on a flatbed, then also combat engineers, to lay pontoon bridges and fill up ditches, a maintance company to keep the division going and even a signal company dealing with radios, couriers, recon and other boring stuff.

The signal company was barely +20 initiative bonus in my game menu, radios in 1932 being rather crap and so on. But considering the French were still using messenger pigeons and signal flags for their tanks, I was still better.

By this time, Codreanu and his Legion of murderous Angels had almost cleaned up two entire counties, Brasov and Cluj, leaving behind a mess of assassinations, arsons and such.
Nothing special for Europe at this time, and wouldn't compare to the Crystal Night in Germany.

Cluj Napoca itself was quite important for its high level of education, meaning that advanced tech could be researched and produced here, everything from radios, encrypted telegraphs, early radio finding, even some prototype television tubes. Calling the place an Electronics Research Center was a bit much, but the game wanted one. So now we had one.

Constanta hosted a sonar and various other naval tech research centers, from dual-purpose guns able to shoot at aircraft and ships, to torpedoes and better engines.
Radar was not on the menu yet, but several tall towers along the coast could provide a few hints of things moving beyond the horizon.

Bucharest hosted a bunch more research centers, mostly for guns, machine-guns, artillery and tanks, while Brasov hosted the IAR plant for aircraft testing and tentative manufacturing. The Dutch company Fokker had been in a bind on the global market after one of its passenger planes crashed in America, and now a Fokker plant was being built at Brasov in order to provide 500 planes for the Romanian Air Force. They weren't Fokker_D.XXI yet, but any plane was better than no plane at all.

However, barely a month later, the Romanian Army mobilized partially, drawing 500 thousand soldiers into its ranks, and about 200 thousand women for supports roles like cooks, washing, medical services and so on. Using women was frowned upon in these times, even for non-combat roles, but it made more sense to pay women to do the easy jobs, than waste combat able soldiers for potato peeling and other such tasks.

Two months later, after the peasants received their guns and learned how to look menacing with them, Romania went to war again.
No allies, no fancy treaties, no bombastic declarations...well maybe a bit of the latter.

We did have a purpose in this war after all, and not just mindless slaughter. The Romanians living inside Hungary were being oppressed, and denied their basic rights like being named like a Romanian, speaking Romanian, going to Romanian schools and churches and so on.

With two armored divisions cutting through the feeble border defences, and the bulk of the army spreading out after them a bit more sedately, being on foot and using horse carts for logistics, the war barely lasted a month. Sure, 50% of the tanks broke down on the way to Budapest, as did 20% of trucks and planes, but it was never a question about being able to beat up Hungary, being 4 times smaller and less populated, plus much less armed.

We even managed to trap several Hungarian divisions in a northern pocket, their backs agaisnt the hostile Slovakian border, allowing the Romanian Army to capture 50000 soldiers and their equipment mostly intact.

The only question was doing it quickly enough, that the Great Powers couldn't meet and decide what to do. Luckily we had an isolationist America, a hated-by-everyone Soviet Union and a friendly France, while Germany and Britain couldn't see eye to eye anyways.

Japan and Italy were non-factors for now, being too weak or otherwise ignored on the big players map.

Observers from France, Britain and Germany were invited post-fact to see what we were doing in occupied Hungary, meaning mostly rebuilding Romanian villages and towns, while exporting Hungarians back to their (now smaller) homeland.

Seeing as Hungary was mostly open plains and lakes, we established the new Romanian border on the Tisa River, while evicting non-Romanian people from our new lands.
And if a million gypsies and other undesirables also got evicted into the Hungarian Regency, it was better than having them burned alive by the Archangel's Legion, right?
A few bits in the North and South of former Hungary were also split off and bound to Romania proper, for historical, demographic or strategic reasons.

From the army, 20 infantry divisions remained in occupied Hungary while 10 of the damaged units were demobilized and sent home, while the best performing 20 divisions still left were re-deployed on the Bulgarian border.

Another 'puppeting' would require some rest and more tanks for the armored divisions, plus gathering more support internally and externally.
However, only 200 Wolf tank destroyers arrived from France before their government changed stance and out right denied us more armament imports, same as Britain and Germany.
Luckily, and perhaps wisely for us, I did wait until the derelict french dreadnought crash-landed in Constanta's port.

Not only the battleship's steel, but a lot of the technology present on the ship was still valuable, from range finders, optical telescopes, search-lights, under-water torpedo tubes and so on. The French did remove the more valuable radio finding and firing control calculators, but they forgot about the spares locked in a storage room, just like the Mossad network assured me they would.

The loot was divided among research centers, boosting our tech research by a decade at least. And of course, guns began to be poured down at Galati using the free steel, while the dreadnought's turrets were split up into three coastal forts along the Black Sea.
We also had designs and samples stolen from the Soviets, but those were rather trash compared to the first class naval tech of the French.

In Hungary, their vast aluminum deposits were already confiscated and put to use for various purposes, from making light canteens, spoons and splinter-proof vests for the army, to aircraft production and light boats. The total cost of the Hungarian war did reach 100 million dollars, a giant sum for this time, but I was also selling oil from Venezuela to the British and the French, so it kinda balanced out.

The world was not prepared for a rapid armored attack, even if only equipped with light tanks and trucks. I knew the Great Powers would become very interested in how we achieved our great victory so fast, even agaisnt a modest army like Hungary's.

 

[Pef]

While the same trick would work for Bulgaria, the rest of the world would consider it aggressive expansion, especially if we also annexed the Black Sea littoral as planned, and the fertile Danube plain as well.

South of Romania there were fewer Romanians still alive, but plenty of Aromanians, desperately trying to hang on their language, traditions and sometimes religion.

However, I did have a Greek wife, who was also the daughter of the Greek King. And this marriage was proposed and accepted on the basis of an alliance versus Bulgaria, and perhaps Serbia.

Meeting with both of my wives was a bit awkward at first, since Zizi Lambrino wasn't well-liked in my Royal Household for some reason. But needs must and all.

"Mircea, you are my son. And you also deserve to be King." I spoke in a friendly tone, and patted my firstborn boy on his shoulder. He did look more normal the the other one, since he wasn't procreated with a cousin like Helen of Greece.

Zizi perked up at the news, while Helen frowned. "What country?" she asked in a glacial voice.

"Bulgaria, of course. However, I will need Greece to mobilize and step a kilometer North with their army, or there will be no pie sharing with Greece otherwise." I demanded with a cold voice as well.

"Black Sea access?" Helen asked in a cunning voice.

"For that, the Greek Army would need to take Sofia by themselves. If they do that, no problem. But otherwise..." I answered with a shrug. The Greek Army was far worse than my own army, having no tanks or airplanes, but they did have a decent fleet.

Three months later, Greece mobilized and manned their Northern border with Bulgaria, forcing half of the Bulgarian army to forcefully redeploy to match the Greeks.
Not so fun being squashed between two enemies now, Bulgaria?

The third armor division was still in training and using the old French F-17 tanks, but they were enough to slowly push along the shore towards Varna and Burgas, while backed by several infantry divisions. The F-17 might be old and slow, but they only had to keep pace with foot infantry so it kinda worked.

Meanwhile, the main armor push came across the Danube under our fleet's protective guns, with floating pontoon bridges and two armored divisions covered by airplanes.

Barely a third of the Bulgarian Army was available to fight our armored divisions, and they were promptly encircled and left in the care of the follow-up infantry divisions.

Two extra motorized divisions followed after the tanks, in their rush towards Sofia, and while lacking tanks they still had truck-towed artillery and anti-air.

The Bulgarian lightning war lasted 7 days only, although we cheated by using the Greeks as a decoy. But still, we will write the history afterwards, so it was fine.

The first flying ace was born in this war while covering the Danube crossing, while several Legion flyers sacrificed themselves to cripple the Bulgarian Navy, small as it was. It turns out, a 12 inch shell with wings and a pilot can do a lot of damage. Who knew, right?

The dead kamikaze were promptly Sanctified as Angels of the Legion, and their families were given a post-mortem medal called Legion of Merit with Angel Wings.
People loved it too, making a big show in newspapers and speeches about our holy clay and the blood of martyrs.

And I think Zizi might be pregnant again, she was quite happy to see me again, especially after our son became King.

The Greeks were not too pleased since the price of one mile was 50000 dead and the ire of the British, but what can I do? I only asked for one kilometer, nobody forced them to walk more. At this time, their government was still a republic, since they blamed the monarchy for their loss in the Turk-Greek war of 1922.

I had an opportunity now, being a King myself and not a loser like their former King.
Making war upon Greece was possible, I even had a game tab for it, but it would be difficult to argue for it, since the players of the Great Game were not AI sub-routines, but real people.

However, I could become their King, since my wife was Greek and the daughter of their former King. And I was a victorious King too. That mattered a lot.

Setting the Network on the task, to obtain support for a Romanian King of Greece that is, and promising them Albania and Constantinople.

I turned my attention to the research again.
While a bit earlier than in the former timeline, the IAR plant began making (crappy) propeller fighters, while the Fokker plant nearby produced the first real plane, even sooner than the BF 109.

Better cameras and even color movies could be obtained, and an early radar model was installed on the flagship of the navy for field studies.
The first submarine we build sank a week later, so it wasn't all good.

The further work on the Dacian Wall along the Dniester continued as planned, basically one level of fort per year. Once we reached level 10, and Tier 5 Anti-Air defense, I could spit at the Soviets and dare them to come.

Czechoslovakia was getting a bit scared of Germany by now, and building their own version of a fortress wall towards the West. And ignoring the border towards Hungary for some reason. Oh well, I was allowed an easy win sometimes, right?

As for Yugoslavia, they were being eyed by all the powers in the region, mostly by Italy though.
Their armed force were kinda crap, and they had a lot of internal problems with numerous enemy ethnicities, including some Hungarians in Voivodina and Romanians along the Danube and Timoc Valley. Yeah, Yugoslavia was a fake and failed state, and was doomed to shatter sooner or later. Might as well give it a push myself.

By the time Bulgaria was fully occupied and pacified, Greece wisely decided to throw in with the Ever-Victorious King, and nominated me as their ruler.
It helped I was an Orthodox King too, something rather rare after the Romanovs got whacked by the communists.

Taking Albania didn't take a large war, basically pushing the nearest divisions to the Adriatic Sea at a walk, and being cheered as the second coming of Alexander the Great by the locals. Italy was furious, of course, but I couldn't care less. Albania made silk, and that was quite a bonus.

Before Britain could get too angry and send a fleet to the Adriatic, I decided to pacify the Italians by offering to share Yugoslavia with them. That seemed to work.

Three months later, Italian, Greek, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Romanian troops invaded from all sides, each with the promise of more clay for blood.

Turns out, taking Belgrade and Nis and a few big cities was not enough to make Yugoslavia quit. I should have known better, Elite difficulty wasn't that easy.
Luckily, there were plenty of Bulgarian and Hungarian soldiers to take the brunt of the guerilla fighting, while the Greeks bogged down in Muntenegro and the Italians almost got thrown into the sea before their fleet arrived to bombard the enemy.

While the war ragged on, the Iron Legion marched into the occupied lands to pacify the rebels, being seen as Angels by Romanians and as Devils by everyone else.
Nothing that wouldn't happen anyways, sooner or later.

About a year later, and a million dead, Yugoslavia was basically a ruin and my army was out of tanks and trucks.
But hey, at least Romania was bigger now, and we had 5 more puppets in the Balkans: Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia(with Dubrovnik), Albania (with Kosovo) and Voivodina.

The Italians would regret not forming Slovenia and Croatia as puppets though. While the guns fell silent in our lands, the Italians are still fighting for their Mare Nostrum dream.

 

[Pef]

The nicest thing about the year 1934? Of course, it was the Soviet T-34 tank which just got invented and promptly stolen by the Network.

Sure, this was not the nice T-34-85 that won the war in the other timeline, but anything was better than no tanks at all. We did lose all tanks in Yugoslavia, and the old F-17s were scraped while the turrets were used for pillboxes.

A single Ferdinand tank line still worked full time to provide cheap training tanks and a few more for armored recon and such boring roles. The new Ferdinands were slightly improved by now, with 25 mm of armor and speed limiters to increase their lifetime.

We called the new T-34 tank the Grey Wolf, being painted grey and a few white teeth on the lower plate to act as wire cutters.
Some crews went further to paint red eyes and such, on their vehicles, but it was not required. We did have the nice French 65 mm gun to mount in the turret, and the front armor was also increased to 65mm at 65 degrees angle, making it immune to anything the Soviets had now, or in the near future.

The Dacian Wall continued to grow, gaining a second line of defense and more anti-air guns, plus a network of trenches and supply bunkers.
A small fort line also began to appear on the Austrian, Polish and Slovak border, merely a trenchline and a few pillboxes for now.

It wouldn't do if we appear to not defend agaisnt someone, right? It would be quite rude, and perhaps provoke an attack with our openness.

Several Soviet planes tried to flyby over the Dacian Wall and were shot down, causing a minor scuffle with the Soviets, but whatever. They wouldn't survey our defences if they weren't planning to attack, right?

In Germany, Adolf was fuming and sputtering like usual, since the world around him was changing without anyone asking him.
In USSR, Papa Stalin was working hard to take over the Communist Party and the country, mostly by murdering anyone who opposed him.

America was sleeping quietly on the sounds of jazz music, while the British began to have lots of problems in the Middle East, caused by excessive numbers of Jews coming to settle without permission.

I did propose via my British mother an independent Israel state, but I was talking to walls or something.
Oh well, my merchant fleet had grown to include Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian and Montenegrin ships, and happily exporting more well-armed Jews into Palestine from all over Europe.

And while the Ferdinand 2 tanks were kinda crap, the Jews still loved them since they were better than nothing. Not that you actually needed tanks to mow down peasant Arabs, but whatever. They will need plenty of tanks eventually, might as well get trained on tanks and pay me a premium for it.

In Ukraine, people were still starving, which meant I could still export the excess grain and gain various immigrants in return, including skinny women, technical specialists, former farmers and the odd spy. Most of the spies I simply detected by reading the immigrant lists and noting who was a certain enemy, then pointing them to the good Captain for intensive interrogation.

The fleeing Soviet Jews didn't even leave the transport ships, getting sent via the Bosporus towards Palestine, unless they had a secret file or such to leave at the Constanta office of the Siguranta Statului Service. In which case they departed by train to Salonic and then boarded another ship, a bit richer too, depending on the file contents.

My official uniform had began to wear me down, since it now boasted even more medals and chains, from various campaigns, conquered countries or envious rulers from all over the world. Thus, I had to wear a steel plate on my back to keep me up-right, which weighed me down even more.

I might actually sink a small ship by boarding it by surprise.

But that steel plate also saved my life, when a shooter unloaded 6 revolver rounds into my back at the National Opera.

I just turned and grinned at the stupid man staring at his useless pistol. "See, if you were not a coward and tried to fight me like a man, you would not get crucified. Enjoy!"

Next second, a pair of former rugby players tackled the attacker to the ground and bound his limbs in cuffs. "Crucifixion, your Majesty?"
one of them asked a bit confused.

"Of course. He ruined my clothes." I explained in a patient voice.

While the fat lady sang, the game menu opened to show a new random event has popped up. 'A random assassin takes a shot at Carol II of Romania and Greece. He: dies, is wounded, escapes unhurt. Pick one answer.'

Sadly, the first two options were greyed out, so I could only poke the last one and sigh inward. What the Hell game? Show me the menu before I get shot!

My wife Helen pointed at the unopened champagne bottle, sitting on a small table in the Opera loggia. "Need a drink, my love?"

The game menu popped open again. 'A Soviet assassin poisons Carol II of Romania and Greece. He: dies, is crippled, escapes unhurt. Pick one answer.'

I faced palmed loud enough for a bodyguard to check inside the loggia. "Something happened, my King?"

"The bottle is poisoned. Soviets." I muttered as I walked out, before a bomb blew up or something. The first two options greyed out as Helen ran after me.

"Your uniform is full of holes..." she yelled at my back.

I grit my teeth and walked faster, until I reached my car and drew a deep breath. Then the Opera House exploded, prompting another game message.
Helen crawled on all fours until she reached the car and I dragged her inside. Her splinter-vest had protected her from splinters and such, but her fox furcoat was ruined.

"Your fur is full of holes." I observed cogently.

"We should go. There will be multiple attackers, just like Sarajevo." Helen whispered in a tired voice.

I nodded gently and tapped the inner window. "Army headquarters. Run over anyone."

"Of course!" the driver yelled a bit too loud. His eardrums must be busted.

Being a King wasn't so fun sometimes.

My words were printed in bold letters all over the world, beside the photographs of the assailant's last moment on his cross. We fed his corpse to the wolves afterwards, so he could reach Hell in shit shape.

Turns out, the man was a fervent communist and also an opera fan, and simply took an opportunity shot at my back. But I think my response was ever cooler.
Perhaps my uniform wasn't so heavy after all. But also, I could invest in some Albanian silk and make some real body armor, for me and the more valuable people around. Like my sons and wives and a few generals.

 

[Pef]

Getting my new Grey Wolf tank to work was a big problem. Everything about early T-34 sucked, excluding the rather modern angled shape.
Luckily, the Romanian tank engineers already had the T-26 as a model for what not to do, and we were also not under the pressure of war. One by one, the crappy transmission, engine, sights, and so on were being worked on and upgraded.

I wanted 5 armored divisions fully equipped by 1938, plus enough light tanks to provide training, plus armored garrisons in occupied lands and even armored guards in important places like research centers, army headquarters and so on. Reaching 2500 medium tanks and about 5000 light tanks was doable, with some effort and extra factories.

The sunk vessels of the Bulgarian Navy were floated and chopped up for more steel, since Dubrovnik and Albania would need their own coastal forts to prevent a too eager Italy from using its fleet too close to our shores. Also, the Snake Island in Black Sea was also being fortified, getting a few 12 inch gun forts, plus some early radio detection and a torpedo boat base, plus a few seaplanes. The Romanian Navy didn't have an aircraft carrier, but I could build my own version of the Philippine's Corregidor Island.

And in the game menu, a new menu tree had appeared, the Romanian Empire, which would me an Emperor. I have never been an Emperor, but it sure sounded like a fun idea.
At the end of the tree, there was also the option of holding an Imperial Conference that would integrate all territories and puppets into a single super-state.

The first two steps were quite easy, barely a declaration of intent about forming an Empire and then integrating all captured ships and Navies into a single Romanian Imperial Navy, or RAI. The next tree steps would take a lot more time, including sending diplomatic missions to America, Germany and Britain to ensure them of our goodwill, forming an Imperial Air Force and lastly a Romanian Imperial Army that included all armed forces, and paramilitary organizations.

Luckily for me, Italy was rather busy in Croatia with a country-wide insurgency supported with French and British guns, money and spies, since they didn't want a new Roman Empire rising in Europe and threatening the status quo. Of course, the big boys missed the point and focused on the wrong target, and I was quite happy to let them.

My new Romanian Imperial Navy didn't have anything to oppose the large Italian Navy, except suicidal planes or torpedo boats. Reclaiming Rhodes Island for my Greek subjects would have to wait, but in the meantime they got Macedonia as part of Greece which created a frenzy of patriotism and a volunteer surge.

Next on the wish list was Constantinople, and finally chasing Turkey out of Europe after 600 long years. There had been another Balkan War aimed at Turkey in 1912 that tried to do exactly that, but the Balkan nations were not unified, coordinated or equipped with tanks.

Sadly, the Turks knew what was coming too, and were desperately trying to get foreign support, mostly from Germany and the British.

Which is why, the moment the first Grey Wolf division was ready and equipped with Grey Wolf tanks, plus other support companies, they immediately crossed the Southern border and headed towards Constantinople, followed by 3 motorized divisions in their trucks, while Greek and Bulgarian armies also pressured Turkey on the other European fronts.

The Turkish fleet was quite strong, but also locked inside the Marmara Sea, and half of it sank under torpedo bombers and several key kamikaze on the former German dreadnoughts.

It helped that following the Great War the Bosporus area was declared a demilitarized zone, and thus was not prepared for a large attack from land, air and sea.
The demilitarized zone would have been annulled in 1936, and thus I had to hurry.

Even faster than the lightning Bulgarian War, the capture of Constantinople took only 3 days, although clearing out the farther Dardanelles Strait and the fortified Galipolli area would take three months and thousands of lives. Three islands: Imbros, Tenedos and Marmara changed hands, and became part of the Romanian Empire, and will provide extended range for land-based planes.

With France's unwilling support, we managed to obtain a status quo peace guaranteeing our gains, and free transit through the Straits for the Romanian Imperial Navy, while also specifically denying any Soviet or German ships from transiting through Bosporus. To enforce this, the French would build for us a pair of giant forts armed with twin 15 inch guns at each side of the Strait, while they would gain free access to the Black Sea in exchange.

Both Britain and Germany rushed to guarantee the (now smaller) Turkey agaisnt further aggression, but it was a bit too late. Well, I guess the guarantees would help agaisnt the Soviet Union, so not completely useless.

My glory and legend grew again, for doing the impossible and restoring Constantinople to Europe after 500 years, which meant a dozen new chains and medals found their way on my parade uniform. What can you do, win some, lose some, right?

General Gheorghe_Avramescu who led the armored thrust to Constantinople was promoted to Land Marshall following this great but inevitable victory, and I made sure the man would have to carry at least half the decorations I had to. Welcome to the club, war hero!

The infantry would get a new weapon in their arsenal called Renault_UE_Chenillette , to be produced by the Malaxa Company in large numbers. Both as a prime artillery mover, but also as direct fire support for infantry with a machine-gun cupola. I wanted some 100 such tankettes in every army division, basically a light armored battalion to bulk up the fragile infantry and help them lose less people.

At least 10000 of these machines would be needed, not including training and combat loses. The Japanese (would) had used tankettes extremely effectively in China, since being immune to bullets and mowing down people with a machine-gun wasn't hard at all. The things were also extremely light weight, barely 3 tons at their maximum loadout, which basically made them equivalent to a Terminator power armor from another universe.

By 1935, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople was restored to its original Orthodox denomination, while a million Turks were ferried over the Bosporus in a population exchange with Turkey.

They still had plenty of Greeks and various non-Muslims to get rid-off, and my threat of crucifying 100 Turks for every killed Christian worked much better after a few demonstrations.
It also made me a monster in the eyes of many people, but hey. The other option was to kill all the Turks in the occupied lands, which would have been slightly worse, for them. Three million nails were not that expensive.

Work began to recover the sunk Turkish ships and re-use the steel for more tanks and guns, as well as establishing more airports in the region and fortified the Marmara island in the Marmara Sea, just in case.

The big 15 inch forts guarding the Straits would take at least 2 years and probably 3 years to be complete, but time was on my side right now.

The Imperial Navy was increased greatly by the addition of the Greek Fleet, including 2 old battleships, 2 cruisers, 10 destroyers and 6 submarines.
Sadly the old relic battleships, Kilkis and Lemnos were on their last legs, but chopping them up for steel was not a popular option. So, they were tugged and towed into the Black Sea at the entrance into the Straits, then mounted into concrete islands and painted bright white. The battleships could never sink this way, and still be useful when the time came.

 

[Pef]

Perhaps it was not a great idea to allow the Archangel's Legion the rights to pilgrimage to Constantinople and the Holy Lands, as their means and methods were soon adopted by various Israeli groups like Irgun and Herut, eager to cleanse the Holy Lands and especially the West Bank of Jordan of any non-jews.

The British were not amused, as they were also ruling over a huge part of the Middle East filled with Arabs. Crackdowns on the immigrants and extra weapon control points made life harder for the Jews returning home, but it could have been much worse. The British 'harsh' measures were nothing compared to concentration camps and similar stuff in USSR or Germany.

Although the Great Depression was over and food was not being thrown away just to keep prices high, due to my policies (not just me, but the entire National Peasant government)
it meant that agriculture output had doubled in the past 5 years, while industry output had tripled. Technology and science had grown immensely as well, partly from intensive investments into research centers, military testing and numerous schematics being sent from all over the world.

The Greek diaspora had also been co-opted into the Network, as well as Romanian emigrants, and to a much lesser extent various other nations from the Empire.

The Royal Corporation in America was already in top 500, and sneakily hiring inventors from all over the world. Half of the secret work was dedicated to radar and sonar technologies, while the public effort was made for dual-use technologies like tracks, trains, engines of all kinds, plus better steel and oil production. The Americans were not that interested yet in who owned my corporation or what they were doing in their labs, instead being happy to buy our products.

Several inventions never made it to the market, instead being packed and sent to Romania with all haste. An engine with 20% better performance and reliability would have made a pretty buck, but I preferred to gained in edge in my war machines. The IAR_80 was a direct descendant of the IAR_14 that fought bravely over Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, but it was for this time the best propeller fighter in the world. Its speed had doubled though, reaching 500 km/hr compared to the former IAR 14 speed of 250 km/hr.

This was indeed an era of wonder and discovery, as technology made huge progress all over the world.
The Royal Airforce immediately put an order for 1000 new IAR 80 planes, but even 1000 planes would not be enough.

To keep the skies of Romania safe from incursion, we will need jet fighters, but that work was still slow. My friend Henri Coanda had a large team around him to help him make his dream into reality, but without computers and graphic programs it took a long time to create a decent flying machine. Even worse, there was nobody to steal the tech from, as we were the leading edge in jet planes at the moment.

As for naval technologies, diesel submarines with air snorkels were being tested in both Greece and Romania, in great secrecy. We had bought and stolen torpedoes from a dozen nations, and the stolen British Unrotated_Projectile was being tested as a depth charge delivery system against submarines and mines. They had no chance hitting a flying airplane with those things, but I wouldn't bother to tell them unless they became my allies.

And for the moment, the British were doing British things, thinking themselves the rulers of the world. Made them pretty obnoxious and unlikable, but then I was also doing Empire things in the Balkans.

A similar unrotated projectile system was being considered for the Army, as a tankette like the Malaxa UE could carry a rocket launcher with 8 such rockets and deliver a punishing barrage up to 3 kms away. Using a proper tank chassis would allow for a 30 rocket launcher to be installed on a Ferdinand tank, and 60 rocket launcher on the Grey Wolf.

In the end, all three options were approved, as long as the tank could also fire its main gun or machine-guns too. That lead to the creation of a tank destroyer with a fixed casemate in the front for the main gun, just like the Wolf or the Hetzer, but that would be continued with a flat portion to carry the rocket launcher. It looked a bit like the yet-not-made SU-85 , but with a swivel missile launcher on the back. I decided to use the light tanks for this rocket role, and keep the medium tanks in their turreted role.

Seeing +30 damage to both hard and soft attack in my game menu made me very happy when I examined the first prototype. A battalion of 40 these babies would boost any division to impressive stats, even if they complicated logistics and maintenance. The 23 mm twin-autocannons used by the Anti-air company also added +30 piercing, air and soft attack, while the UE tankettes added +2 armor and +20 soft attack to every infantry division.

I also had ideas for a flame tank, but the tankettes would be bombs on tracks due to their low armor, same with the Ferdinand light tanks. The Grey Wolf chassis was the only option remaining, and quite viable too, but the time wasn't right. Before building support units for an armor division, I needed to equip that division with normal tanks first.

While the Romanian Empire was re-building the damaged territories and growing at an absurd rate, in Spain things were going crazy. USSR was supporting the local communists as to expand the Revolution on a global stage, while reactionary countries Germany and Italy were supporting General Franco and his nationalist clique.

Volunteers were pouring into Spain from all over the world, eager to die for their beliefs. I decided to help them die faster. Unmarked submarines departed for Spain loaded with torpedoes, and ordered to sink any ship heading into a Spanish port.

 

[Pef]

Outrage filled the radiowaves and newspapers all over the world, as thousands of volunteers, plus their ammunition, guns, tanks and planes got sunk, without a clear enemy or even a clear reason.

People blamed everyone and everything, from Germans and Italians to the Soviets or even the French. Given that no radio transmissions were being sent after a ship got sunk, and thus no radio detection or code breaking could be made, it was perhaps understandable.

I didn't need my captains to report their position or torpedo status or what ships got sunk. I had my HOI 4 menu, and could see all that in real time.
A number of coded messages were being sent by Network agents from all over Europe and even from the Americas, most of them fake 'number stations' repeating Pi sequences between 500th and 1000th decimal, while a single station from Venezuela also added a map coordinate in-between 100 random numbers.

A clever Submarine Captain with a suicidal Legion Archangel as an XO would decipher the next ship being sent loaded with expensive planes or tanks, or thousands of tons of munitions, and sink their target before they could unload the cargo.
Of course, there were hundreds of such ships delivering cargo into Spain, plus more armament deliveries carried over land through Gibraltar, Andorra, France and most of all: Portugal.

A squadron of the Romanian Navy composed of 5 destroyers was sent officially to inspect ships traveling to Spain, with orders to confiscate illegal cargo and the ship that carried it, if possible. That was mostly aimed at Soviet transports though, since their equipment was quite useful for my Army, given that we used Soviet-origin weaponry in great numbers.

The patrol squadron was based in Bordeaux on the Atlantic Ocean shore, since the Black Sea was locked with a solid chain for Soviet ships attempting to supply the 'Republican' faction in Spain.

Passenger ships filled with volunteers were left alone by the Romanian destroyers, who simply reported their position and course in the clear to their base in Bordeaux.
Any submarine with a snorkel out would hear the target being painted with a bright red kill sign.
As it happens, the destroyer squadron also had a number of tankers and supply ships loaded with torpedoes to keep them in good sea shape on the long patrol, and if any of that fuel or torpedoes got misplaced and were loaded by a submarine instead?

Oh well. This was why hundreds of Legion members were posted on board these supply ships, to make sure deliveries were made on time, or in case they got boarded or captured...blow up the ship.

As for land units, I wasn't ready to step into the bear trap of the Spanish Civil War, but we could send a dozen mountain infantry battalions to patrol the Pyrenees Mountains and the passes, catching and executing smugglers and spies. The French were a bit suspicious of our interest in mountain training and such, but I think they also didn't want the war to escalate towards themselves either, so the exercise in mountain cooperation was allowed.

The first French armored brigade, modeled after the Romanian one which captured Budapest, was sent to protect the Mediterranean littoral and the expensive villas of the rich, as it wouldn't do for either 'Republican' or 'Nationalist' agents to blow up a million francs villa in Port Vendres or Banyuls-sur-Mer.

Cap Cerbere nearest to the Spanish border received a brand-new 15-inch coastal battery to secure the French morale against a possible outbreak of Spanish trouble. I doubted they would get to finish the coastal fort before the Spanish war was over, but it was a good start anyway. Build a dozen such forts along the Belgian border and they might last longer when the time came.

Nothing I could do about Portugal and their stance to allow weapons going through, so the war in Spain would continue anyways, but hopefully with less weapons and ammo.

Meanwhile in Leningrad, a pair of Soviet physicists have discovered a radar prototype involving microwaves and magnets, which sounded to me like a good way to make popcorn. They also tried to publish their work, sending it to various journals, but the Soviet censors were not very amused. Either way, a copy of their work made their way into my hands, and then was copied a dozen times more and sent to all the research institutes with a prize of 5000 dollars for any team that made it work first.

I also sent them a 'fake' Soviet study involving printed transistors on a silicon wafer, but since I was not an engineer, it was all mostly theoretical. Surely, a hundred geniuses working in electronic research might figure it out one day. By the next month, my guess was vindicated as the Cluj team produced a radio weighting only 2 kilograms, and promised to reduce that weight in half by the next year. Progress was unexpected, but welcome.

We could mount radios into tanks and planes now, without making them lose 20% speed.

The first application of the light radio was for the artillery spotter plane, a Polish PZL_P.11 which had a great field of view, and for which we already had a license to build more. A naval variant was soon tested in Greece for seaplanes and a converted hull used as an early carrier.

The Navy wanted 5 escort carriers with dedicated torpedo bombers in the Mediterranean Sea, mostly to counter the Italian Navy and their new battleships.
I also agreed, since a single wing of 10 torpedo bombers were 1000 times cheaper than building a new battleship. Not that we had the tech or the resources to do that anyways.

However, the escort carriers also needed cruisers in the fleet, and some destroyers. I would have to spend like 40% of all the money I gained from selling oil...you know what? Fine!
We could get 30 destroyers, 10 cruisers and 5 small carriers from my own money. The rest would need to be covered by the Imperial budget, which was not so big.

The Dacian Wall had reached level 5 in my menu, and more officers were asking me to stop the nonsense. They logically argued that static defenses could be bypassed, either via lateral envelopment, maritime invasion or even vertical envelopment, meaning gliders and paratroopers. I forcefully declined their requests, and simply opened two more artillery factories for anti-air guns, including medium 65mm guns on swivels and the larger 105 mm guns normally used for long range bombardment by the Army, and by some naval ships too.

The Soviets were not known for their admirable paratroopers yet, but might as well be safer.
Plus, there were precious cities and oilfields that would also need anti-air defenses, not just the big wall.

Population wise, more and more Romanians living in Moldova and Bukovina were being relocating from their sad poverty to nice empty farms left behind by the Hungarians and Bulgarians, who went home to their now smaller countries. That also meant that extensive housing and construction was taking place in both puppet countries, mostly 2-story apartment blocks on the outskirts of major cities.

The new blocks were built mostly with brick and had wooden roofs, so they couldn't be very tall, nor was elevator tech available for the moment. However, each family was given a garden nearby where they could grow vegetables or poultry, which made the new Imperial suburbs quite popular.

Hundreds of enterprising companies began to build similar blocks near Romanian cities as well, making the cities grow in population and causing a bit of deflation in salaries, but also growing the Imperial GDP by several percents, due to sale taxes and buying of construction materials.

In America, they produced their first real fighter as well, the Curtiss_P-36_Hawk , which kinda matched our IAR 80 in speed and performance.
It didn't have a radio or an armored backseat though, nor a proper cannon to shot down airplanes, but they will get there soon enough.

 

[Pef]

I have to say, the Spanish war was a great way to train your troops with live exercises, especially the Navy. The Army had already fought in 4 wars, or perhaps 5 if we consider Albania. Although, in my view only the Yugoslav War was a real one, as proved by the equipped loss and the lost lives too. Italy was still fighting this war in occupied Croatia, and another similar war in Ethiopia and had little troops to spare for Spain, as they were not willing to mobilize and lose 20% of their workforce.

Germany was still chaffing at the Versailles Treaty limits, but they were getting ready to invade Rhineland.
'The German Reich invades the Rhineland, ignoring the demilitarized zone status. You can decide to: protest, whine, declare war.'

Thanks game! Even if I wanted to declare war, my Empire doesn't have a border with Germany for now, being separated by Austria and Czechoslovakia.
I sent an angry telegram to Paris, urging them to bomb the troops entering Rhineland, and the same to the British, urging them to use their fleet and blockade Germany.
I got only whining in return.

Oh well. At least I tried. Actually, I haven't tried enough.

A royal household plenipotentiary diplomat was sent to Holland, offering them 200 Wolf tank destroyers armed with 65mm guns, and 200 brand new 65mm anti-air guns, in exchange for 1 heavy cruiser almost finished in their construction cycle.
To both our surprise, the deal went through and my Imperial Navy gained a brand new flagship, while Holland had tripled they armored capability in land warfare.

A similar offer was made to Belgium, gaining me 2 destroyers and a light cruiser.

Luxembourg didn't have a Navy, but they were rich, so I sold them the same for enough gold to buy a new heavy cruiser from Britain, albeit one specifically devoid of radar or unrotated projectiles. No matter, a few upgrades could be carried out in Salonic, including installing a radar set of our own design.

The rest of the ships were ordered in America, a country far less likely to confiscate my unfinished ships when the war started. 30 submarines and destroyers, plus 8 cruisers and 5 small carriers was a pretty penny for any shipyard, especially in America were people were fighting for job, any job.
And if they commented at the small carriers with external elevators being ordered, I didn't care. I know they were interested why were only demanded diesel engines and spare engines too, for all ships. Simply put, we didn't have the technology to build big engines in my Empire, and after the war started the Mediterranean Sea would be quite dangerous for shipping.

Anyways, people in America were quite confused where Romania was, especially which continent. Most of them guessed South America, which was pretty close.

In Spain, the war was not very civil, despite its name. Priests and nuns were butchered by the communists, while the Nationalists also butchered intellectuals, doctors and suspected communists. German planes dominated the sky, since most Soviet planes were either sunk or captured en route. The special sound of the Stuka became the motif for the Spanish War, used in movies and cinema reels all the time.

France had built over 800 Wolf tank destroyers already, but refused to deliver them to me, even though it was my order that got them built. So I eventually backed down a little, and asked them to deliver the tank destroyers the Low Countries instead, using only 600 Wolfs and the rest of the order being covered by 600 65mm Anti-air guns, to counter plunging Stukas if necessary.
Again, this offer went through and much better, since France's own security was guarded by the Low Countries in the North. So I basically got my ships and gold for free.

Truly, the French were great friends, when doing things in their own interest.

I didn't have a big hope with the extra tank destroyers though. Be it 800 or even 8000 it wouldn't matter. Soviet Union lost 80000 tanks against Germany, and 30000 of them in the first 3 months of the war. The Blitzkrieg as a doctrine was extremely powerful, allowing for amazing coordination via radio and independent decision for ground commanders. Compared to the French messenger pigeons used instead of radios, and the archaic command chain, they weren't even in the same century with Germany.

Sadly, the Romanian Army was almost as bad for now, although the tanks' locomotive horns were slowly being phased out in favor of radios.

For now, I focused on logistics, after consulting my logistic map mode, and consulting professional officers. Ammo depots, secondary ammo depots, fuel depots, new roads and railway tracks, more trains, artillery movers, trucks, and so on. The Soviet Army menacing our Eastern border numbered about 8 to 10 million, and we could only mobilize 1 million soldiers to withstand that. Which is why I was building the Dacian Wall, since prepared defenses gave the defender a 10 to 1 advantage, given equivalent weapons.

We would also need at least 500000 women to help with secondary tasks, everything from cooking, washing, mending uniforms, mending wounds and so on.
The aluminum splinter vests were also providing +1 armor to the infantry, but their effect was far larger in a long war. Most injuries in a war happen through artillery, not bullets.

The front line units would also receive sown silk skirts with aluminum plates, since femoral artery bleeding was even faster than a body injury.
Officers were being trained now to try to act like a proper soldier in the field, even if more silk was being produced in Albania for body armor. They would need to use metal helmets instead of cool French style caps, but that would save their brains from artillery shells and the occasional sniper.

And speaking of snipers, 5000 soldiers with good marks in marksmanship were being trained as Army snipers, using the best rifles and scopes that money could buy from America. My own money, not the Imperial budget. In general, snipers were the only soldiers in the Army who didn't waste all the bullets they fired for nothing. In a year of war, a soldier might fire 1000 bullets and don't even hit any enemy. It was a bit sad, but true.

If I could obtain 1 million snipers instead of regular soldiers, the Soviet army would last less than a week. But alas, it took a special type of mentality and training to accurately hit targets at a long distance, beside a good weapon and a quality bullet. I had the officers comb their troops for any decent marksman to send for sniper training, but no luck so far, beside those already found.

In Brasov, Henri had just produced the first jet plane in the world, but he didn't allow me to fly it. Not fair!

 

[Pef]

By the time 1937 came around, General Franco supported by Germany had taken Madrid and was taking charge of Spain more seriously.

And a merchant ship carrying tons of gold, stolen from the Spain treasury, departed from Spain towards Soviet Union, and was intercepted by the Romanian destroyer squadron, then carried to Bordeaux. There was a bit of debate in France and Romania what to do with all the gold, but eventually we extracted 30% for our finder fee and deposited the rest in America, for the time when Spain was restored to a legal government.

The extra gold allowed me to praise the American shipyards and their workers, and order 100 more destroyers for the Navy, while France ordered 3000 tanks and airplanes for their army. It still wouldn't be enough, not if spread to every division in company strength instead of concentrating the tanks into a powerful armored force.

I mean, the French idea wasn't bad, since they did boost the infantry rating by a lot, but only as a secondary effect. You could do that, but only after establishing enough of an armored force to counter an enemy attack.

Taking the French idea and expanding on it, I doubled the tank industry once more to create 4000 Wolf destroyers (with a rocket launcher on the back), to boost every infantry division stats. Luckily, the new diesel engines created in America were stronger and more reliable than the Soviet junk we used til now, so they should last until 1940 at least.

Our T-34-65, or the Grey Wolfs were coming up nicely as well, reaching 800 in number and equipping a second armored division, while tank radios began to appear in slightly better numbers, enough to equip all command tanks for now. For their infantry support, a half-efficient measure was introduced, armoring the trucks with light duraluminum plates, created by adding copper to aluminum to give it more resistance.

Given our larger territory and population, plus native oil resources meant that we were becoming self-sufficient at a rapid pace, although more work had to be made for electricity needs and coal mines, plus several hydroelectric plants including a giant one on the Danube, somewhat below Belgrade.

The Eastern border was getting a network of tall radio towers made of steel beams with a concrete base, used both for radio detection and artillery spotting. After reaching 100 forts with 12 inch guns on the Dacian Wall, further work was dedicated to command bunkers, protected trenches and tunnels and all the good stuff used at the Maginot Line, while the big gun production was dedicated to more Greek islands forts, plus several on the Hungarian border that overlooked Italy and Austria.

Although Adolf invited us to the anti-Comintern pact, alongside Benito, Franco and Hirohito, it didn't mean we were allies. The enemy of my enemy was still my enemy, but probably a bit later.

A dozen jet planes were breaking world speed records everyday as more testing and fixes were made, but we will begin mass-production soon enough, just after the IAR plant completed the 1000 IAR 80 planes order. Sadly, the aircraft industry in Romania was still a bit small and lacking specialists, but every year more and more engineers finished their University studies and joined the workforce. Being a Royal Company, and thus getting twice the normal salary, for example those at the Fokker plane-plant nearby, meant that becoming a royal engineer was a great career choice.

In the submarine department, we had begun producing roughly one submarine per month, which was a great deal, matching Germany for example.
War being hell and such, all the Romanian Navy submarines had already sunk while embargoing the Spanish coast, some by accident, some by 'Neutral patrols', and some by intentional and sacrificial self-destruction. Either way, their efforts killed perhaps 100000 'freedom fighters' and sank some 400 transport ships, which was a good ratio for only 7 submarines in one year.

Our lost subs were reported as sunk in the Black Sea while training, but I think people had started to figure it out by now. There were a limited number of submarines in the world after all, and while some of them did sink in the same time period, there was the odd wreckage or survivor to confirm the location. We also surfaced mementos and photos to bury in empty graves, but there was still a great deal of doubt. No matter, the Spanish War concluded 2 years earlier like this, and we saved millions of civilian lives. Plus I got 30% of the Spanish gold, let's no forget that.

In Africa we had begun extracting tungsten as well, very useful for lightbulbs but also anti-tank penetrators. Molybdenum was used to reinforce steel and give it more resistance,
while several uranium depots were mined in secret, both for X-ray machines, glowing clock limbs and other non-so-peaceful applications like electricity generation and submarine reactors.

Eventually I planned to discard the polluting uranium for thorium reactors, but the technology was not ready yet.

The Czechoslovaks and the Polish were desperately trying to obtain a military alliance with the Romanian Empire, perhaps feeling the Damocles sword hanging over their heads.
Sadly, without both Britain and France supporting and enforcing such an Europe-covering alliance, it was all futile. The Scandinavian, Low Countries and Baltic states were all proudly and desperately claiming neutrality, as if that ever worked. Sweden might get away with it, the rest wouldn't.

Even so, Finland received their own Fokker plant to produce decent fighters, plus our own CAC weapons-plant that made guns, machine-guns, auto-cannons and the new 65mm anti-tank and anti-air guns.

The Germans had begun to produce their own BF 109 fighter, matching the IAR 80 and the American Curtis Hawk, as well as the Pz III tanks that were even better than our Ferdinands. But also, we were only using the Ferdinands as training tanks and infantry support, not main battle tanks.

The radio industry had exploded in Romania as well, matching America and Britain in this aspect. I did want a few radios in every village, which meant rural electrification, as to pave the way for television and internet later.
Such a massive effort would take 2 or 3 years, since Romania was a bit larger now, but this is why a capitalist economy is better. Place an open market bid, and just wait for 30 Western corporations to rush in to take my money, each tasked with electrifying a single county.

For true capitalism to work, you need more than competition, you also need granulation. Having 2 or 3 corporations in a field was never enough, since they would naturally form a cartel to exploit the budget for more money ever year. Instead, the first corporation to finish the task with good results would be given the next county and so on.

Much the same was done for military supplies and rations, forcing companies to work harder to make quality products.

Sadly, we couldn't to the same for Navy and Airforce, since the technology and investment level meant that only a couple companies could do it anyways.

What I could do, and I did, was to open a bid for small arms and machine-guns, then watched a hundred inventors propose all sorts of crazy and unreliable guns for the Army to test.
Anticipating this, we had 100 bench-workshops and lathes, plus steel plates and necessary materials for the inventors to prove themselves. They all failed to produce a single working gun, ever after months of desperate tests and modifications. Welcome to the real world.

 

[Pef]

By the middle of 1937, as the third armored division moved in position at the Slovak border, I called a large peace conference in Vienna, inviting Benito and Adolf, as well as the Austrian and Czech leaders.

Soon to be called the Vienna Diktat by the entire world, I simply offered a map giving Germany a lot more land containing Germans, Italy some bits of Austrian land and Romania getting a Slovak puppet. Before the ink got dry, tanks were rolling into their new lands, while Cehia got a bit smaller. Austria was already gone.

I know Benito envied the 43 kilograms of medals hanging on my chest, so I made sure to bestow upon him a dozen high value decorations for his bravery.
Thus, I returned home a hero, waving a peace of paper in the air and screaming "Peace in our time!"

I mean, the world war had already begun, with Japan attacking China and so on, but hey. I had a piece of paper proving my words, am I right?

The secret clause in the Vienna treaty was the partion of Poland, should it ever happen. Romania was not greedy, as we only wanted the missing corner of Western Bukovina that still contained Romanians.
I didn't even ask for Stanislawow, or Lviv, like Adolf urged me to. I liked to be modest and so on.

Sadly, Adolf was not satisfied with the great paper he had signed, and decided to integrate Cehia into the German Reich soon after. What can I do?

I protested loudly over the radio, and denounced the man as lacking character to my wavering French allies. They kinda seemed to doubt me now, even though I assured them with fervor that Romania will not join the Pact of Steel. The French were even asked to come in and inspect how nicely the Slovaks were treated, which was indeed much nicer than any puppet state in the Romanian Empire.

Sure enough, De Gaulle arrived for inspection, although he seemed more interested in our Grey Wolves tanks and the rocket Wolves, and making surprised sounds at the small radios inside the tanks, now almost the same size with the French messenger pigeons.

As we drank some champagne in my castle, I assured the man that any willing Czechs that managed to reach the Empire would be put on trains and sent to France, and perhaps the same for the Polish if the Soviet Union attacked. His eyes became quite cold at my words.

"Your Majesty, do you have serious information about such an impending attack?" he asked a bit too glacial, although the champagne wasn't that cold.

"Well, I have some idea about what the communists are planning, for example Finland, the Baltics and Poland being on the Soviet menu in the near future. How soon though? At least a year I believe. You'd have to ask Stalin the exact dates." I offered with a careless shrug.

"And this is why you're building your own fort line in the East." De Gaulle concluded with a sad voice.

"The two maniacs in the middle of Europe are also planning to get more things, most likely the Low Countries and Africa, but they wouldn't say it out loud. Adolf did say something about exterminating all Jews, but I don't have any spy reports about gulags or gas chambers being built, for now. Hopefully the Jews will only be sent to the mines." I added for no reason at all.

De Gaulle didn't seem to like his champagne anymore, remembering I was actually transporting many Jews to the Holy Lands for some reason.

"Britain has actually approached us with an alliance offer. Will the Romanian Empire join us?" he asked instead, making it sound really official.

"You know, I didn't like the Great War for a good reason. The Russians could not be trusted and the Americans arrived much later. This time, we will wait for America and not get squashed between two fronts." I answered with a calm voice.

"If you have the chance to wait, you mean." he answered a bit rhetorical.

"Well, I do have a million Germans living in Romania, available to be crucified if the worst happens. Adolf assured me he wants to keep them alive." I said with a toast of champagne.

The man just grunted and bowed politely, before turning around and leaving at the brisk pace.
He will make a fine President one day.

As for my dear cousin, King George the VI , he was mostly a figure head in Britain. He also had trouble speaking, so he was kinda devoid of options in restoring Crown authority and such.

By the time our first jet fighter flew over my castle, Britain and France announced their alliance, and began pressuring the Low Countries to join as well.

I cared little about that drama, instead sending several alpine battalions to Finland to get trained in Arctic conditions, as well as propose and equip a Murmansk offensive when the Soviets attacked in Karelia. And if the training battalions were equipped with sufficient weaponry to arm several divisions, it was mostly because we expected severe attrition in the Arctic, right? 200 Ferdinands and 200 Wolves were sent to equip a Finish armor division able to take Murmansk in case of an invasion, as well as 200 anti-air trucks and 1000 normal trucks for infantry and supplies.

The Finish didn't have the manpower or the funds to construct a proper fort line in Karelia, but 200 of our 65mm guns would help them hold the Soviets in place.
A single 12 inch fort was established 10 kilometers inward, where a second line of defense was prepared for the inevitable fall of the Mannerheim Line. This line also received 100 Grey Wolves that slowed my fourth armor division getting ready, but that also meant the fourth division would train even more, on lighter tanks.
For two months of production, I could cause the Soviets a great deal of problems, especially if the Murmansk port at the Arctic Ocean actually fell.

The second line of defense would also get a radar bunker and a dozen steel towers for radio detection, with a pair of Archangels of the Legion making sure the radar would be blown up and never captured.

And so, by the time 1939 came around, my Romanian Empire had become a medium power in the world, if still below Italy in statistics.
The Italians did have 4 battleships, some 22 cruisers and over 70 subs, while my Navy wasn't even half, and far less trained. But then I wasn't Japan, eager to engage in a decisive naval battle.

Or rather, I did have carriers and suicide planes to act as cruise missiles with human pilots instead of guidance computers.
So perhaps a bit like Japan? The good parts, at least.

The small carriers could only hold 20 planes each, of which 2 were reconnaissance and 6 were fighters, leaving only 12 torpedo bombers to actually engage enemy ships.
For the carrier fighters we used another Soviet model, Polikarpov_I-16 which had a very short landing and didn't tilt forward when stopped by arresting wires. We called it the Seagull, since a pigeon would have been too on the nose.

Of course, the base machine was the normal Soviet crap that needed a lot of work to become any good, as it lacked a closed cockpit, an armored seat and any radio. Anyways, only 100 of these fighters needed to be produced, thus a Greek factory in Athens got the project. Land based fighters were mostly our nicer IAR 80, which had become the IAR 82 after several upgrades. Captured fighters from our puppets were mostly used for reconnaissance and training, while all the bombers were gathered in Constanta to be fitted for maritime operations. All 33 of them.

We would bypass most of the bomber development to go straight to jet bombers when the time was right, and the technology advanced enough.

More research, more production and more troop training continued til late August 1939, when a bunch of demented Polish border guards attacked Germany and started World War 2, in Europe. In Asia, the Chinese had lost like 3 or 5 million soldiers already, and probably even more civilians. It was hard to know, without the internet. Not that the Chinese wouldn't censor their internet anyways.

Anyways, it was war time, baby!

 

[Pef]

Despite Henri Coanda's outrage, a special jet plane that carried a 12 inch shell in the nose was being prepared for the most loyal Archangels of Michael's Legion.

Even if more expensive than a normal plane and sacrificing the pilot too, 100 such planes should secure our Navy dominance over the Black Sea, and thus allow for the Crimean War to succeed. Naturally, simply waiting behind the Dacian Wall was safer, but it wouldn't force the communists to desist.

The Crimean peninsula was a perfect target for invasion, since it could be easily defended at a choke point with a small number of troops.
My guess was that Stalin would be so outraged, that he would throw his troops at Crimea and the Dacian Wall with suicidal fury, thus massacring his best troops for nothing.

General Antonescu was chosen for the Crimean War, because he was both very competent and a Soviet hater. He also hated Jews, Gypsies, Hungarians, Bulgarians, the Archangel Legion and the Monarchy, but what can you do? Some people like to hate. Antonescu also personally asked me to lead the next great capture, since he was being overshadowed by Land Marshall Avramescu and his Constantinople capture.

The Greeks got the honor the receive their first Sea Admiral commanding the carrier force, since they did have a fleet for a long time, while the Germans in Romania got one of their own as the first Air Marshall overseeing the Dacian Wall airspace.

I was almost tempted to name Codreanu as the Security Marshall, but that wouldn't be wise nor safe. His Legion was great at keeping the population pacified, but they were also hated by mostly everyone. Luckily for them, once they died heroically the Archangels became national heroes, so it kinda worked out.

Once the Soviet Union invaded Poland too, a number of plans became active at once.
The Polish Landbridge was open for fleeing Polish citizens, carried by numerous waiting trucks and trains, while rapid motorized units moved to secure the Western Bukovina and our holy clay.

In Britain, the Cambridge ring was exposed and captured, with leaked info to the press, leading to immense outrage against the Soviets. While not quite at war, the relations froze between the two powers, leading to ambassadors being recalled and even Soviet ships and accounts getting impounded.
My Romanian Empire didn't even allow Soviet ambassadors anyways, considering them simply active spies. Which they were.

Several Polish reserve divisions decided to make a last stand in Lviv, causing over 40000 Soviet troops dead, once reports of Polish officers being gunned down after surrender got out. Also, the Soviet Union was not a signatory of the Geneva Convention, so any prisoners had the right to fear for their health and life.

After the Lviv pocket was brutally quashed by a million Soviet troops, they tried to enter Romanian soil and got promptly butchered by four armored divisions and twenty infantry divisions with aircover and plenty of artillery. Pleads for a cease-fire were called in the open, and eventually they found someone speaking Romanian to ask, as we ignored any Russian language messages on principle.

Hours later, our guns ran out of ready munitions and fell silent, while more Polish troops and civilians kept fleeing around or through the Soviet Red Army.
A group of 300 Soviet bombers was however already in flight to bomb the offending artillery, and thus was shot down by our anti-air, fighters and jet fighters.

A dozen new Aces were born that day, including one flying a jet plane.
More jet fighters were being built everyday, but the technology was quite advanced so we only gained some 30 per month.

Eventually, the Soviet troops drew back some 10 kilometers to step outside the range of the artillery, and then moved on as they had more of Poland to conquer.

I tapped the map on my desk, and the game menu opened to reveal what I obtained from this adventure. Two more counties, some 400000 civilians, a few factories and 4400 dead Soviets. Not bad, for one day of work.

All new Aces were ordered to transfer as trainers for new pilots, while 100 volunteer pilots were found, to depart for Finland and kill even more Soviet planes while protecting Helsinki and the innocent civilians. The Navy sent 5 submarines as well, manned by Romanian volunteers but marked with Finish flags, and to nobody's surprise the alpine battalions already training in Finland also requested to become volunteers. All of them. 5000 of the best snipers I could find.

In Octomber 1939, Stalin demanded Karelia by sending 500000 soldiers, 3000 tanks and 3000 airplanes as a gift card.
And thus, the Winter War began on the Arctic Circle, and the Finnish SeaLion division conquered Murmansk in 3 days. By the next week, the entire Kola Peninsula was cut off from the Soviets, as the White Sea was frozen and no Soviet ships could get close.

Through the Murmansk port, the Network began to send supplies and volunteers too, recruited from America and Europe from among the anti-communists factions and parties.
Adolf and Benito send their own volunteers and help via the Baltic Sea, and by December the Soviet offensive had stalled and bogged down in numerous pockets surrounded by Finish guerilla on skies.

Our snipers reached and then passed 30 kills each, although they could never hope to match the Finnish 'White Death' sniper with his 700 kills. Some people were just that good.

Then one by one, the 'motti' Soviet pockets were blown to bits by the SeaLion division, making to Soviets lose 2000 tanks in a single month, and over 200000 soldiers.
My investment paid off greatly, and to my surprise the Karelia line still held, although was battered into scrap.

Stalin shot a few hundred officers and sent even more troops into the grinder, while the world laughed. Well, the Poles didn't laugh very hard, but I guess they still smirked a little.

All was quiet on the Western Front, as if the Allies had forgotten they had declared war on Germany. Some fighters battling over France, but nothing else. It was a bit strange, but it had happened before in the other timeline. The French were getting ready to surrender, the British were making plans to evacuate the Monarchy into Canada, while the Low Countries quaked in their boots.

Actually no. That wasn't everything. I still had 53 destroyers being built in American shipyards, and the British wanted them all, since the U-boats were having lots of fun with the merchant shipping.

Taking a long look at the global map, I began to pick and choose nice islands all over the globe.

Nothing big or important, but nice places anyways. The Caribbean had the Trinidad and Tobago Islands for example, or Socotra in the Arabian Sea, and Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean, Saint Helena in the South Atlantic and lastly Ghizo_Island and Nendö_Island in the Pacific.

The British ambassador looked at my claims, eyes frowning. "Quite the dispersal you have here, your Majesty."

"Yes, I did mean to spread all over on purpose. Mostly to give my fleet sufficient range, you understand." I allowed in a noble manner.

"I am not sure Trinidad and Tobago are available for trade..." he mused a bit uncertain.

"Well, do go and ask America for some destroyers. I am sure they will ask far less than I did." I said with a careless shrug.

"We did already ask them. Your offer is far cheaper. We accept!" the man answered a bit in a hurry.

"And also, I want Suez Canal traverse for free, for 10 years. Once America joins the war, my ships will need to leave the Mediterranean too." I demanded in a shameless voice.

The ambassador grimaced in pain, and then nodded. "We all hope America joins the war soon."

"Right. Let me get a few secretaries and diplomats to write the document for us, and we can have some champagne and caviar in the meantime." I said and poked a few buttons on my desk.

A royal guard poked his head in. "The diplomats are here, my King. Should I let them in?"

I raised a glass for a toast. "Indeed. We have a treaty to sign."

 

[Pef]

Turns out, a million Czech and Polish immigrants made for an excellent emigration program to our new colonies. Adding various Ukrainians, Bulgarians and even Serbs made the whole thing look like a paid vacation, including lots of corrupt functionaries and state employees that now I could send away as a promotion.

Having exotic islands meant that amazing fruits and animals were being sent back by our merchant marine, although the Navy officers were less pleased. They were hoping for the 100 destroyer program to be delivered, but we would have to suffer with 80 destroyers, 35 subs and 11 cruisers instead, plus the 5 carriers. Some people could never be happy, even if buying a single of those islands at market price would have been far more expensive.

As for Trinidad, they also had amazing oil deposits, basically making the deal a 1000 to 1 investment. Even better, the islands were just near Venezuela, meaning that I could indeed corner 1/4 of the total oil on the planet with this move. Well, it would take more time and effort, but after the war was over.

Using my other side of the coin, I began making tentative pushes with Franco, not for an alliance like everyone else, but to give him some money for a Spanish strip of land in Africa.
The Spanish_Guinea wasn't very big or rich, but it was located quite well and included a few islands.

As expected, Franco refused to give up the larger African bit of land, and only sold me the useless islands, which was exactly what I wanted. More tropical islands! While Annobón wasn't a rich place, it would make for good tourist destination, as well as submarine base and an airport.
Sure 5 million dollars in 1939 were a pretty penny, but I also made that in one week simply selling oil.

Denmark refused to sell me Greenland though, but I did get Jan_Mayen near Iceland and Bouvet_Island south of South Africa from Norway, both for my support of Finland and for 200 Wolves which had proven extremely effective in the Winter War.

The French were not desperate yet, and they could produce both the 65mm guns and the Wolves, although they stopped doing that. I mean, build enough of those and they could eventually drain the Germans of vehicles, but whatever. History does try to correct itself, despite my efforts.

Benito was getting a bit aggressive too, now that Croatia was a proper mass grave. It seems he really wanted Albania for some reason, but I didn't want to share.
I did point him at Egypt though, since the British colony separated his lands in Libya and Ethiopia.

Then as 1940 came about, Adolf decided Denmark was proper German clay and took it, taking only a few hours. I mean, it was a bit early, but he also didn't have Slovakia, Hungary or Romania in the Axis. I guess Sweden was fucked now, because of me. Maybe they should have given Adolf the Nobel Prize for Peace like I asked them to, from Vienna.

Just as the Soviets began to push again into Finland, Germany struck at Norway and lost some 200 Panzer IIIs to my Wolves, like 10 times more than in the other timeline. Only a 1 to 1 ratio, but then Norway wasn't really a HOI 4 player, like say: Finland.
Soon after, the Skoda factories in Cehia began producing the Hetzer tank destroyer, but using an even larger 105 mm gun. And because the Skoda tanks were not crap, they could actually use 60 mm of armor on the front plate, making them about equal to the English Matilda and Valentine tanks.

In Finland, my 100 Grey Wolves were unleashed for the first time, crushing the Soviet advance In Karelia by destroying 600 and capturing some 300 tanks, before they ran out of ammo and had to return behind the fort line. I was quite pleased with my bad boys. A 9 to 1 ratio was nothing to laugh about, although the Germans could to do it too, sometimes.

A secondary Soviet thrust towards Murmansk was cut off by the SeaLions armored divisions and then destroyed in detail, as the Soviets ran out of fuel and then ammo and food. They could eat snow though, so it wasn't completely bad. Would have been much worse in a desert. Sand gets everywhere and it's coarse...

Anyways, my snipers reached around 50 kills and a few became Aces with 100 kills. The Aces were promptly recalled home, as their experience would be greatly needed to train more like them. And it also hurt me in my gamer heart if I lost an Ace.

Stalin shot a thousand more officers and then called for a white peace. Finland had done the impossible and beat the red giant, albeit with some Romanian cheating involved.

Meanwhile, our research institute in Craiova had managed to create a proper anti-air shell, meaning the proximity fuse worked.
Now, we only had to link the anti-air system to the radar, to establish altitude and speed for the incoming planes, and we could shoot accurately into the sky.

I hesitated for a minute, then decided to share the thing with America. They would discover it on their own, but they also gave me an intact Romania to work with, after World War 1.
The Romanian Empire always paid its debts.

Other stuff like nuclear energy and reactors was not on the table though. The American research system was still full with communists and sympathizers, and several of them inside the atomic program itself. I didn't want Papa Stalin to get nukes, not even after I had them first.

In April 1940, the Low Countries were attacked by the German Blitzkrieg, while the Baltic states were over-run by Soviet armies.

Benito managed to obtain the Balearic_Islands from Spain, something I rarely saw in my HOI 4 games, but possible even so.
France was even more fucked now, as its fleet was split in two by the Italian Navy, even though no war was declared yet.

As I expected, the British Expeditionary Force rushed towards Belgium to secure the border, followed by a rapid French armored brigade. They were both cut off by the German Panzers slicing through the Ardennes forest, who still managed to push through the Polish troops I sent to guard the route. What can I do?

The French or the British would not listen to me, America was sleeping, the Soviets were trying to kill me and China was dying by a million cuts.

The same day that Paris fell, the Soviet Ultimatum arrived, asking for Bukovina, Bassarabia and war reparations.

I considered my reply for a minute, then shrugged and sipped more champagne. Fuck you, Stalin! I will give you a bloody reply.
Raising the phone, I contacted General Antonescu and gave him the good news. He will probably die, along with 10000 soldiers from every member nation of the Empire, plus some Polish volunteers who actually begged to help stick it to the Soviets for their backstab.

The carrier fleet launched the torpedo bombers, the land-based bombers departed from their airfield as well, while 25 Archangels said their prayers as they prepared to sacrifice for God, King and Country.

An hour later, Sevastopol was struck by the largest airstrike in their history, sinking 3 cruisers and damaging their battleship Parizhskaya Kommuna , then losing 12 destroyers and 4 submarines. As the torpedo bombers ran away, the next wave arrived as each Archangel chose a target to take down or up into Heaven. The religious subtlety escaped me, but the Soviet battleship exploded in a ball of fire, followed by 3 more cruisers, 6 destroyers and 10 submarines.

Jet fighters flew over the Black Sea and destroyed the Crimean fighters that tried to chase our bombers, while the fleet arrived in range to start shelling the port from maximum range, guided by radar and observation planes. Destroyers moved in at speed to strike some 24 more Soviet submarines before they could escape towards Georgia, and massacred dozens of torpedo boats still in port.

The naval and aerial bombardment continued for 3 days, until the marine invasion force arrived and began to land. After securing the Perikop isthmus, and leaving the Polish to guard it, the Crimean front advanced inward and conquered the entire Crimea in a single week.

Hundreds of transport ships carried more ammo and artillery to reinforce the thin isthmus, while locally captured POWs were politely asked to start digging and cutting stone. A new Crimean Wall needed to be raised, while the population was being evacuated on the return trip. I mean Soviet Commissars, Party Secretaries and that sort never reached Constanta, since swimming 200 kilometers would have been a world record.

The fleet then passed in front of Odessa to give them a fiery salute from 21 guns, repeated 100 times, and then returned to Constantinople laden with glory.

I think Stalin received my own message loud and clear.

 

[Pef]

The Soviets struck back like a mad and howling hurricane, throwing everything into a wide front assault.

Although the Dacian Wall had only reached level 9 in my game menu, it was more than enough considering the poor state of the Soviet Army in 1940. They had lost about 30% of their officer corps during Stalin's purges, and the Army Commissars walked behind the charging soldiers with a pistol in hand, ready to shoot anyone lagging behind.

Things weren't so good in Bukovina and Crimea, since they barely had the first level of forts, meaning a ditch and pillboxes, but this is why they had all the mobile artillery and air support possible. Bukovina also held half of the Romanian Army, with new units being recruited from all over the Empire to replace the loses.

Even so, the Soviets had 30000 tanks and some 10000 aircraft at their disposal, plus a constant wave of foot soldiers to throw at our positions. The anti-tank ditches filled with enough corpses that tanks could step over them, and our airforce did 5 sorties a day to stop the Soviet Airforce from taking our sky away.

Anti-air guns fired continuously, while the jet fighters kept our cities safe from high-altitude Soviet bombers. They couldn't have stopped a massive 3000 bomber raid, but then the Soviet air doctrine wasn't so advanced, nor did they have prepared airfields in sufficient numbers or size.

As for the tanks, the vast majority of the Soviet tanks in this time were T-26 and BT-5 or BT-7 light tanks, which should never assault fortified positions. The Dnister river crossing became bogged down with thousands of wrecks, while the troops concentrations were being shelled by our 305mm fort guns ranging 30 kms with heavy high-explosive shells.

The shell numbers were limited, thus each shell was ordered only by direct observation via spotting planes, but that also caused extreme devastation in the Soviet logistics, as a column of trucks or a supply train would simply evaporate from one battleship sized shell.

It took the Soviets about two weeks to calm down and start concentrating their troops at 35 kilometers away. The front grew quiet for a few days, allowing us to drag away useful stuff and recover guns and equipment from the fallen Soviets, while also burning bodies in huge piles.

Then, as the orders arrived for a renewed offensive, double-charge guns fired once more from our 12 inch forts, striking the command posts and the large vehicle parks even at 35 kms away. The Soviet offensive continued, but it had lost most of its momentum (plus officers and supplies) before it started.

A single Romanian cruiser with a small 4 destroyer escorts parked itself beside the Crimean isthmus and shelled the advancing troops with its 8 inch guns, and its 105mm dual-purpose secondaries, killing over 100000 Soviets before the ships ran out of munitions. It wasn't like they could miss troops concentrations walking in big piles, from a few kilometers away. Firing once every 3 seconds, with a single gun, it allowed a cruiser to maintain a constant rate of fire, as before the last gun fired, the first gun was already loaded and targeting a new pile of troops or tanks.
Even the T-34 or KV-1 tanks blew up in spectacular fireballs when hit with a 203 mm high-explosive shell.

As the cruiser turned away, another one departed from Constanta to take its place. The Soviet offensive stalled and splattered on the Crimean Wall, as more bunkers and pillboxes were being built by unwilling POWs.

I sat comfortably in my armchair, while my big blood-filled dick was getting itself sucked and slobbered over. Pretty much the best way to be an armchair general, raking up kills without raising a finger. I did a lot of hard work to achieve this, now I could simply enjoy it.

In France things got worse, as the Italians invaded from the South, taking Nice with a clever maritime invasion to bypass the fort line. The French fleet arrived from Toulon to bombard the invaders, then fought the Italian fleet, causing each of them to lose half their fleet in a single major battle. The Italians lost 2 battleships, the French lost 3.
This wasn't supposed to happen though. I remember the French sank their own fleet In Toulon without a fight. Oh well. Clearing the Italian Navy would be easier this way.

In the Alps, the Italian Army was butchered in the narrow passes, not even reaching Grenoble.

Over in the Channel, the BEF and several French division still held out, as the Germans lost 2000 Panzers to the Low Countries and the Aras counter-offensive. Right!
I did provide 600 Wolves and 600 65mm anti-air guns to the Low Countries. And since the older PZ 1 or 2 didn't have the firepower to take out a Wolf, while half of the Panzer 3 got lost in Norway, yeah. I kinda fucked Adolf over, with my help.

France still held, if barely. The next wave of German reinforcements coming from Norway, Poland and Cehia would be enough to force the French to surrender, especially the new Hetzers and the brand-new Panzer 4.
Even so, Brest was still a free city, and was busy evacuating soldiers and civilian administration to Britain, while the BEF began to withdraw in good order, including most of their supplies and tanks.

The Americans approved the Land-Lease even sooner, and weapons and planes poured into Britain in large numbers, as the British were still the richest country on Earth at this time.
Indian and South-African troops attacked the Italian-held Ethiopia in turn, with some French support from Djibouti. I gave the Italians a month at most before they lost the place.
India was a populous place, and they could send millions of soldiers to die for their overlord.

Although Romania was at war with the Soviet Union, oil and grain still arrived from the Soviets to help Adolf conquer Europe. Sadly, the trains had to pass through Poland, and Polish partisans always had explosives and guns to blow some trains up, and you couldn't prove it was me! Those were Soviet artillery shells and guns, right?

Months passed while the kill counter spun in my menu, reaching 2 million kills, while at the same time Crimea was getting emptier with each transport ship. If and when Stalin got Crimea back, there won't be anyone living there at all, nor a single building still standing. As the Romans said "Make it a desert and call it peace." as they salted the ground of Carthage.

Most of the Soviet immigrants moved on towards America or the new Romanian islands, some Soviet Jews chose Israel instead and some stayed in Romania to fight the Soviets. I guess being starved to death by your own government wasn't well received?

In Murmansk, 5 Romanian submarines were prowling the Arctic Sea and sinking Soviet transports, and the same in the Baltic, even sinking a Soviet cruiser, the Kirov as it got close to Helsinki.

My Archangels were training hard, since the Sevastopol strike showed than only 70% of them actually hit their target, making us miss 6 Soviet subs than now hounded the Romanian ships in the Black Sea. Thus, 60 Romanian destroyers patrolled the sea and escorted our convoys, with spotter planes flying around trying to locate the missing subs.

Then our Sea Admiral had a great idea, sending a small task force to strike Batumi in Georgia and catching 5 Soviet subs at anchor. There was still a lone sub left, being praised by the Pravda and the Soviet radio, but anyways. The Black Sea was ours now. Mostly.

 

[Pef]

Of all the islands my country has obtain in the past year, one was absurdly important for its location. Jan Mayen controlled the access into the Denmark Strait, especially after receiving a pair of radar stations and two airports, as well as 5 submarine pens. The construction itself had cost 100 million dollars and might have delayed the Dacian Wall itself being completed, due to a dozen 155mm and a pair of 12 inch guns being transported and emplaced into fortified concrete forts.

Even Adolf was interested in this formerly uninhabited island, as seaplanes and jet fighters now flew over the former uncontrolled region, and detecting any ship moving about.
Using this island, the Romanian Navy and Airforce was able to lock the Soviet Union away from the Atlantic Ocean, leaving only the distant ports in Asia, like Vladivostok to be use for foreign trade. This might sound great for the Soviet Union, unless one counted over 9000 kilometers of railway from Vladivostok to Moscow.
As any proper gamer knew, any number over 9000 was too big.

Same for the Soviet Airforce. Once a mighty power, once it dropped under 9000 planes it became easier and easier to manage, although the number of planes killed dropped from over 100 per day to less than half. Unless you made biplanes of paper and fabric, building planes was a timely affair, while training pilots took even longer.

It was pretty sure we had actually destroyed over 9000 Soviet tanks as well, since my game menu was rather accurate, even to the last decimal.

The furious assaults on the Dacian Wall had stopped, once the Soviets realized a bit too late than we were quite well prepared.

I was waiting for the Continuation War on Finland to restart, but it seemed not. Than again, using the captured, repaired and dismantled Soviet tanks from the Winter War, Finland had a bit over 1500 functional tanks now, even more than Germany at the moment. The Soviets had many more, but they weren't eager to lose them against an unimportant target like Finland. Not when the hated imperialists from Romania still held Crimea.

A large media campaign had begun in the West, arguing for the Western powers to declare Romania an enemy of peace, and then attack us. To counter this, 400 Angels of the Legion with no flying skills departed for their next missions. Finding and eliminating communists sympathizers, spies and even Soviet diplomats. They were asked to evade capture and kill as many communists as possible, even at the cost of their life. Bomb vests and explosive cars, sabotaged gas pipes and arson were the preferred methods, but sniper rifles could also be used against targets less easy to reach.

Details of the Romanov's massacre and even the Trotsky assassination in Mexico appeared in friendly newspapers, including eye witness accounts about how the Romanovs were tortured, burned alive, raped, and then eaten with garlic and washed with vodka. I think the garlic part was a bit much, but who knows, it might be true.

While the French surrender still happened, two months later than in the other timeline, the situation was far different. Free France was far stronger and organized now, and was based in the French Levant, with easy access to the Suez Canal and their holdings in Indochina and Madagascar.

Italy obtained the French South as their victory gain, including Nice, Toulon and Marseille, plus Corsica.

And next, since Yugoslavia and Greece were not in the Allies now, Adolf turned on Sweden and attacked them, likely to obtain the Swedish iron and control over the Baltic Sea.

Much of the Swedish Airforce and Navy fled to Finland and got interned for the duration of the war, while Swedish submarines and the merchant fleet joined the Allies, same as Poland.

I know Adolf saw the same thing I did. Taking Britain was not in the cards, not without 10 times the fleet and the transport capacity. U-boats might starve Britain into submission eventually. But in the meantime, the army needed a worthy target.

So, he looked at the Soviet Army, and found them wanting. Both the Finns and the Romanians had beaten the Red Army until they cried. Surely, the Germans could do even better.

Von Ribbentrop arrived at my castle with threats and carrots, promising us the sea and the glaciers.
I asked to see Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad in German hands first.

The German diplomat looked me straight in the eye, and promised them by Christmas.

"Pack your winter uniforms then, Herr Ribbentrop. I hear prognostics of something like -50 Celsius for this winter. Your Panzers will freeze solid on Christmas Day" I answered while sipping my champagne.

"We are also researching the jet fighter, King Carol. You won't be the only one with advanced planes for too long." the man warned me in a glacial voice.

I had already traded my Eagle fighter plans to America for 1 battleship and 3 fleet carriers, plus 10 cruisers and 50 destroyers, along with other rare tech like radar guided anti-air and centimeter-range radar, plus other miscellaneous research on magnetic torpedoes needing different settings for each latitude degree, since we had islands spread all over the globe to test that.

The technology trade with America was already producing results. For example, the new Sherman tank will have 65 mm of frontal armor now, instead of 55mm, which might be a single centimeter, but a life saving one. I kept the spall liners and the spaced armor still secret though, since the Soviets were spying on America with impunity.

As the year 1941 came around, and Germany was preparing for Barbarossa, things were heating up in the desert. Benito had tried to take Egypt by himself, and found a half a million Indians with British tanks in reserve.

The Mediterranean Sea was a ship grave, with dozens of Italian and British ships getting sunk by submarines and airplanes, submarines sunk by destroyers and troops swimming for the nearest shore. Adolf was obliged to help his ally keep face, and sent the Africa Korps and more subs and planes to contribute, which worked somewhat.

Malta became a hot spot and a pride issue, and got split in half, one island getting taken by German paratroopers while the other still resisted furiously, due to the old Knight fortress being fortified to hell and back.

On the first of April 1941, three things happened at once. Japan attacked the East Indies to get some oil for themselves, causing Britain and France to declare on them too.

The Soviet Union had mostly recovered and attacked both Crimea and Finland at the same time, using about 3000 tanks and planes for each target.

And Adolf launched Operation Barbarossa much earlier than normal, even using several HE 280 jet fighters, as well as thousands of Panzer 3s and 4s, and even more Hetzers and STUG tank destroyers.

The Crimean Wall had reached level 4 by now, and with furious defense from cruisers and artillery, and with my 'last stand' orders it held agaisnt the Soviets for 3 weeks, causing 500000 Soviets killed.

The Karelia Wall in Finland was only level 3, but lasted 4 weeks, because the Finns were badass. Also 500000 Soviets killed, half of them to my own 'volunteer' snipers.

The German Army used their favorite Blitzkrieg tactics and captured 4 million Soviet soldiers in 4 weeks, halving the Red Army while destroying 10000 tanks and 5000 planes with ease.

As the German Panzers rolled in front of the ruined Crimean Wall towards Rostov and Stalingrad, the battered defenders could only blink in disbelief. The got saved by the bell, especially the Polish volunteer regiments. Either the Germans or the Soviets would shoot them on sight, so they lay low and waited for the German tank columns to move away.

Marshall Averescu was left without a job in Bukovina, as the German armies, plus Italian, Dutch and Danish brigades occupied the former Soviet Poland.

I felt pity for the Land Marshall, but what can you do?

Instead, General Antonescu was given a new mission and song. Marching through Georgia.

 

[Pef]

On the 1st of June 1941, while the Germans were fighting hard at the gates of Stalingrad, keeping most of the Soviet armor locked, 800 Ferdinand light tanks and 400 Grey Wolves debarked in Batumi and began advancing rapidly towards Baku, followed by 800 Wolves with rocket launchers and 10 motorized divisions.

While Romania still had 3200 Grey Wolves in reserve, plus 400 Ferdinands for the training, they were meant for something else.

Adolf was ecstatic at first, thinking we were coming to help strike Stalingrad from the South, but General Antonescu had a completely different agenda. Grab Baku and the oilfields, then the entire Caucasus. It took until late August for the first light tanks to see Baku, and by that time Leningrad was already surrounded, Stalingrad was still disputed and Moscow was still 200 kms away from the nearest German units.

On September first, Japan took Indochina from the French, causing America to begin partial mobilization, while sending to the Pacific half of the Atlantic Fleet.

On October 13th, the Japanese Kido Butai battlegroup, comprised of 6 carriers and their escorts attacked Hawaii, prompting America to enter the war on the Allied side.
The battleship Texas still sank, being on old training ship, but the carriers and most of the heavy ships got away intact, mostly due to radar warnings and radar-guided anti-air.

A dozen American jet fighters defending Hawaii became Aces in their first day of combat.

That same day, General Antonescu took Baku for ourselves, and turned the tank destroyers and the medium tanks North, while the light tanks and the motorized infantry continued their march through Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Still the same day, snow began falling on Moscow, as the German troops began to surround the city.

Advanced recon units and Romanian jet bombers moved first, striking at the Siberian Railway in a dozen key places, like rail junctions and bridges, cutting off Soviet supplies towards Moscow.

On the 1st of November, most of the Romanian Expeditionary Force halted for winter, while the last troops from Crimea evacuated from the empty peninsula, leaving a single guard battalion to man the Crimean Wall.

In the North, Finnish troops began their skies maneuver, capturing half a million Soviets during the winter and reaching Arkhangelsk on the White Sea.
About 4000 Romanian snipers descended on Leningrad, and began sniping at the Soviets from the other side, while cutting off the meager supplies that still arrived on sledge over Lake Ladoga. Most of the snipers reached 100 kills over the winter, while the Soviets trapped in the city ate their leather shoes, and a few of their less liked comrades.

Moscow was somewhat better supplied, and the German perimeter wasn't that tight, but feeding millions of people with a few sledges or transport planes wasn't possible.

The American ambassador visited me in the Peles castle, and reminded me of the promise to join the Allies once America joined the war.
I smiled at him with a childish grin. "Words and words. America has not declared war on Germany. Plus, how many American divisions are present in Europe?" I asked while filling a pair of champagne glasses.

The ambassador took the glass and sipped it with a frown. "Our policy is Japan first at the moment. They dared to strike at American soil. Conquered Guam too."

"Of course. I would feel the same about Crimea. Not actually a state in the Empire, but useful as a base and such, just like Hawaii. But you're not here for that." I concluded with a sigh.

"Your ships will not be delivered, except that 1 cruiser and 5 destroyers that have already left. But to not be fair-weather friends, the Romanian Empire is also invited to our Manhattan Project beside the United Kingdom. I think you will find the work..." the man proposed with a sneaky smile.

I took out a file and handed it over. "The reports of the Soviet spies inside the Manhattan Project are quite interesting, I admit. At least 5, possibly 7 or 8 separate sources in different departments. If Stalin wasn't surrounded in Moscow right now, he might already been building an atomic weapon. And imagine what the Germans will do, once they read the Soviet archives..." I said with a kind voice.

The man paled as he read the file, including schematics for an atomic weapon made in crayon by myself. I might have gotten a dozen details wrong, but then I wasn't Einstein, was I?

"This is bad...so, so bad." the ambassador muttered as he sat down uninvited.

"Indeed. Germany first might be a more urgent matter. One of our new steam submarines will arrive next month in Miami with a kilogram of enriched uranium. And we don't use coal to make steam." I added with a grin, and sipped more champagne.

"I think I will need to be on that submarine myself. I cannot transmit anything about this file via radio." the ambassador whispered in a scared voice.

"Very wise. Unlike the Germans and their Enigma. Any code can be broken with proper science, after all. Even the Navajo language." I added for no reason.

The man slumped, and left with his shoulders hanging low, although his briefcase wasn't that heavy.

Over the winter, the German front advanced 31.4 meters in Stalingrad, while the new T-34s made right there in Stalingrad had to be fueled with priceless vodka instead of gas.
Baku was in my hands now, after all.

The first American jet fighters arrived in Britain via Land-lease for save London from constant air bombing, and were soon countered by German jet fighters.

Adolf was feeling a bit cheerful on Christmas Day, so he declared war on America by himself, making me and the entire world facepalm. Including his own Generals and Field Marshalls. Way to steal defeat from the jaws of victory, Adolf! With such a large German and Italian community in America, any war declaration would have been blocked in Congress for years.

But now, the Arsenal of Democracy was free to impose freedom in the proper American Way. With planes, guns and bombs I mean.

As 1942 came about, Japan reached the shores of Singapore, and found its carrier planes countered by hundreds of American, French and British planes, including a dozen jet fighters. Despite fierce naval bombardments and several naval landings, Singapore held, if barely.

I'm not sure how that happened, except the lack of merchant ships sending lots of stuff to the Soviet Union, and instead to Britain. Probably that. So my fault, in a way.

Then the Africa fall began, as the Vichy holdings in Northen Africa folded under American, British and Free French assault, while the push from Egypt crushed the Africa Korps and the Italian peasants.

I kept gathering troops and tanks for the next phase, reaching 4000 Grey Wolves and 1000 Wolves, plus 2000 planes held in reserve. 400 of these planes were Eagle 1 and 2s jet fighters, compared to 45 HE 280s for Germany and 87 Eagles 1s for America. My lead in jet fighters wouldn't last very long, as both industrial giants could outproduce my Empire by next year, but there wouldn't be a war next year.

Using my enriched uranium, the Americans completed the Trinity test already, proving to their government the power of an atomic bomb.
We already had 3 working bombs and a trio of Primordial Archangels training to die in atomic fire along with their targets. I just waited for the right time.

As the American landings in Sicily began, I was obliged to keep my word. Sorry Adolf, but you fail to deliver victory by Christmas.

Three atomic bombers flew towards their targets, their pilots convinced they will meet Archangel Michael on flaming wings. Maybe they did, who knows?

Anyways, Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad got the honor to become the only cities to receive the Word of God in person. As did the German armies entering the cities at the same time. Something about one stone and three rabbits.

I know. It took me 12 years to get the bomb, but because I started much sooner than the rest, and some idea about what to do or not to do, the costs were smaller, only 1 billion dollars instead of 2 billions for the Manhattan Project. And no, I didn't have hundreds more nukes ready to launch, but I could lie really well.

 

[Pef]

The threat of hundreds of cities getting nuked made the Soviet Union to accept our conditional surrender proposal, placing the remaining Soviet Armies in the West under Marshall Antonescu's leadership, as they turned their sight on Nazi Germany.

With a temporary border based on the Ural Mountains, the Soviet Union was still the largest country on Earth, if somewhat less populated and armed. The bulk of Western Russia was to be made an Empire puppet, along Georgia and Ukraine, while the Baltic states were released from Soviet occupation and restored to independence.

Sadly, 80% of the Soviet fleet in Leningrad got sunk or otherwise flipped over by the 100 kiloton atomic bomb, and the radioactive crews that still lived wouldn't live for too long.

In Moscow, the Kremlin was now a 300 meters-deep crater as the 200 kiloton bomb wasn't a joke. Stalingrad was already a ruin, thus the 100 kiloton bomb was detonated at 800 meters altitude to make sure the radiation would hit every single troop in range. And it did. Those that still lived, had their eyes and skin melting off, and were given the final mercy as to not demoralize the rest of the army.

A smaller Romanian Army Corps struck towards Venice, liberating Croatia and Slovenia, while the bulk of the Romanian Army struck upwards, into the soft belly of the Nazi Germany.
Vienna, Prague and Warsaw were the main targets of the Army, while Romanian jet bombers struck at tank and planes factories in Germany.

In Western Europe, the Allies struck in two places, Normandy in the North and Marseille in the South, and began liberating France, while also conquering Italy at a fast pace. It helped that Romanian Archangels and torpedo bombers hits had reduced Italian Navy with a deadly blow, leaving the island garrisons of the Italians without supplies.

The Greek Sea Admiral liberated Rhodes as a first objective, and 50 Archangels were born and died along with the Italian Navy, then he turned around and landed our marine troops at Taranto and Bari to lock down the heel of the Italian fascist boot.

Follow-up British and American landings at Naples and Anzio signaled the surrender of Italy, as Benito fled to Spain in search for help. Franco was not amused for losing the Balearic island to Italian threats earlier, and promptly delivered Benito to London for trial.

Converging from all sides on lonely Germany, the Allies advanced rapidly. The British liberated the Low Countries at the cost of 500000 Indians and other colonial troops, the Americans and the Free French liberated Paris and the rest of France, while around 3 million Soviet POWs and 3 million Jews were rescued from concentration camps by the Romanian and the new Russian armies.

The Romanian front stopped 50 kilometers from Berlin, both for logistic and political reasons. Taking East Prussia wasn't easy, and in Austria and Southern Germany the Wehrmacht was putting a fierce resistance. Atomic weapons could have broken the dead-lock, but then again it would have turned public opinion agaisnt us for little gain. Atomic weapons were not a civilized weapon from better times.

Unlike the real Red Army in the other timeline, I didn't have 100000 tanks to throw at Germany, nor millions of troops. Well, I did have the newly liberated POWs, but they weren't fed or equipped for war. Barely a dozen new infantry divisions could be formed from the strongest Russians, using whatever captured equipment we could scavenge.
They helped hold the line and reduce loses for the more important Romanian troops, but they couldn't push.

And so we waited for a few months, until more American troops and weapons arrived. In the meantime, the rescued Jews were being healed and sent to Israel, while newspapers and cinema reels all over the world filled with accounts of Nazi atrocities.

Repaired Soviet tanks and new American tanks allowed us to create 10 new armor divisions, while the Americans breached the Siegfried Line in the West and began advancing into Germany. Leaving Berlin for last, Germany was occupied and more concentration camps and POWs liberated, and then reducing Berlin to rubble commenced.

The Allied navies had mostly moved away by now, reaching Okinawa and Taiwan in the South and taking the Kurile Islands in the North of Japan.
Landing in Hong-Kong, British, Dutch and American forces began pushing along to Chinese coast towards Beijing and Korea, while the smaller Soviet Army helped in Manchuria and Mongolia.

The fourth and fifth one-way-trip Romanian nuclear bombers landed in Iwo Jima to prepare for the American landings in Japan. However, only Nagasaki, the main military port of Japan, had to be fireballed by a nuke.
Losing the pride of the IJN, the battleship Yamato to an atomic weapon convinced the Japanese Emperor that his mighty Empire had encountered serious trouble and it was time to surrender.

A Chinese communist army under Mao decided that sticking around the mainland wasn't healthy, so they retreated to Hainan Island to continue the communist revolution. Lacking landing boats and transport ships, the sad retreat cost them most of their Soviet-made weapons and equipment. Hainan also lacked factories or strategic resources, so the dictatorship of the proletariat was only propaganda. They still had fish and garlic.

The final peace treaty was signed in Athens, under the guns of a dozen Allied battleships. It looked impressive, I admit, but battleships were kinda going out of style by now. Carriers, jet planes and atomic weapons made the battleship mostly obsolete.

The Finns won big from the peace, gaining the Kola peninsula including Murmansk and East Karelia for their efforts. Mannerheim, the Finnish Commander-in-Chief seemed happy.
The Baltic states got a minor border extension for their trouble, barely 20 kilometers of Russian land.

Poland got 80% of East Prussia, leaving the rest to Lithuania, and some bits of land in Russia that had Poles living on them. Or Polish mass graves for that matter.

Austria lost a bit of land to Hungary and Slovenia, but Cehia only got 40% of Sudetenland back. It made no sense to give 3 million Germans back to Cehia again.
Instead, Germany lost more land in the West, to France and Holland mostly, but also tiny bits to Belgium and Luxembourg.

Croatia gained the Italian Dalmatia, but lost 30 kms more littoral to Bosnia in the South.
Serbia got half of Voivodina back from Hungary, while Greece gained Cyprus and Rhodes.

Georgia tripled in size, gaining a lot of land in the Caucasus, while the Baku oilfields remained a Romanian territory for strategic reasons, much like Crimea.
Ukraine was a bit smaller in this timeline, as I took care to exclude Polish, Romanian and Russian people from their new state, for no reason at all.

My Russian puppet was still a giant, especially as their final territory line included the Ural mountains for strategic reasons. Not only mineral deposits, but also easy-to-defend mountain passes.

In Asia, Nationalist China took over Manchuria and Vladivostok from the Soviet Union, reaching the Amur River and its original Chinese border, while India gained the Tibet region as a protectorate. Korea was intact now, not split in two, under American occupation.

While Romania gained Iwo Jima as a naval base, America took over most of the Pacific in one swell move, gaining thousands of islands and atols. Poor things. They will get nuked to hell in the near future as America was eager to test its atomic weapons on ships and such.

Although Germany was occupied and demilitarized for now, I urged Roosevelt not to split it apart, despite French and British pressure. It was better to move populations around instead of bits of land and borders, right?

Roosevelt stared at me over the table, and tapped Romania with his finger, covering my country with ease.
"You still have negotiation power for now, King Carol. I would have expected you to grab Ukraine for yourself at least." he argued while pointing out how small my country was on the world map.

I simply smiled, then took a fistful of yellow pins and marked the Romanian islands on the map. "As the range of planes grows, each of these islands will generate thousands of kilometers of extended range for atomic weapons. Especially planes that are never intended to return."

"Ah, your Archangels are scary indeed. Men willing to die for their King and Country, while diving on their target with an atom bomb strapped to their backs." he admitted with a shudder.

"I think USS Iowa will make for a fine flagship in the Romanian Navy. No need to take off its radar either. I paid for a functional battleship, didn't I?" I asked a bit rhetorical.

"Yes, and three fleet carriers too, I remember. Now, what about this Israel idea?" the American President asked while poking the map again.

"Ah, the Jews. The British Mandate of Palestine (which included Jordan) will make for a nice Jewish country, with Lebanon and the Sinai as well. And we will need to support them with military aid, for a decade or two. The Arabs won't like a Jewish state in their midst." I argued with a sad voice.

"Very Biblical indeed." the man mused with a deep frown.

"And then there's the Soviet Union..." I added with a grin.

"I hate Molotov! Why was he the one to survive?" Roosevelt grumbled like an old man.

"Better than Beria at least. He ate my cousins and nieces." I answered with a grimace. I was cousins with all the royalty in the world though, so that wasn't saying much.

"...The Romanovs, I remember the articles. Was the garlic bit actually true?" he asked a bit more interested.

"The garlic remains a mystery, even now. But the vodka bit was certainly true." I said with a convinced voice. I do lie pretty well.

"That I can believe too. Fucking Russians." the American leader muttered with a sad tone.

 

[Pef]

"Comrade Molotov, the Chinese are invading Mongolia and Tanu Tuva!" the secretary announced in an outraged voice.

"I know that." the man muttered in a defeated voice.

"And the Asian Socialist Republics are asking for independence..." the secretary continued with a milder voice.

"Nothing we can do about it." Molotov answered with a shrug, and a long gulp of vodka.

"We have 10000 tanks!" the secretary yelled instead.

"And we can only produce 10 tanks per month now. No point wasting them." Molotov observed in a calm voice.

"Institute 511 says we will need 10 to 20 years to produce an atomic bomb. Depending on available resources." the secretary added with an awed voice.

"Let's make it 10 years then. We will spend everything for the bomb." Molotov decided in a sad voice.

"Comrade Mao is asking for more weapons and tanks." the secretary said in a glib tone.

"Send him a million fish hooks. People like that should learn how to fish." Molotov decided after a frown.

"Che Guevara is asking for support too, maybe he can take Cuba for the Revolution."

"Ignore him."

"That Korean guy, Kim Ir Sen..."

"Also ignore."

"We are still the largest country in the world, comrade!" the secretary said with a hopeful voice.

"Unless China decides to invade us." Molotov answered with a tired voice.

"Yeah, except that. Are you really going to New York for the UN opening?" the secretary asked with a curious voice.

"Someone has to." Molotov said with a shrug.

Nichita Khrushchev nodded cautiously. "Don't provoke the 'Mad King' though."

"I'll try to keep Chita as is, and not glowing in the dark." Molotov answered with a shudder. The Chita_Republic had been short lived, but the name still held power. Thus, the new capital of the Soviet Union was now Chita. It didn't sound very Russian, but whatever.

King Carol the Second, Emperor of the Romanian Empire and the 'Mad King' as he was known by those that ever met the guy, stood in the Security Council, flanked by the two Romanian Land Marshalls: Averescu and Antonescu. The trio had conquered half of Europe in a single decade, even agaisnt far stronger powers like Germany and the Soviet Union.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek had withstood the Japanese invasion, the Communist insurgency and then conquered the Transamur, Manchiuria and lately Mongolia, thus was seen a hero among the Chinese. At least for the Republic of China.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill had lead the British Empire against Germany, Italy and Japan and managed to weather the storm, even if he had to sell some islands to Romania and America for more ships.

Charles De Gaulle led the new French Republic, battered and bruised by Germany, Italy and Japan yet still here, and alive.

And lastly, President FD Roosevelt led America to victory in the Second Wold War, and was hailed the 'leader of the Free World'.

Other participating powers like Poland, Finland, Netherlands and Canada were to be made non-veto members of the council, while Brazil and India gained observer status, meaning they could attend council meetings but couldn't vote. Not that India or Canada were even fully independent, not yet.

As for the Soviet Union, they were still seen as the bad guy, even though they fought against Germany and Japan too. They weren't even invited to attend Security Council meetings.

"Okay folks, plus ladies and so on. UN Resolution number one. The creation of a State of Israel, to include the territories of the Palestine Mandate, Lebanon and Sinai, and to be guided and aided by the Security Council for the next decade. Positive votes are assumed, negative raise a hand, veto bangs the big gong." King Carol spoke in a carefree voice.

To veto a resolution, the delegate had to raise and go to the side to pick up a large mallet, and smash a bronze plate. Very dramatic and extremely public.

The Canadian delegate raised a hand, although Britain's did not.

"I see. Let's wait on the first resolution then. UN Resolution number two. All British territories in North America to be relinquished to Canada, as they become fully independent. Positive votes are assumed, negative raise a hand, veto bangs the big gong" King Carol said with a mild, yet highly ironic voice.

The Canadian delegate had to sit on his hands, in fear of wiping his nose and wasting the chance.

Winston Churchill glared at the Mad King, then raised his hand to oppose. King Carol just ignored the British Prime Minister. If he was really agaisnt it, he could just go and smash the gong.

"Canada, you are now an independent country, and a bit larger too. Do you maintain your position on the first resolution?" King Carol asked with a curious tone.

A thousand eyes locked on the poor Canadian delegate. "We...withdraw the negative vote. Israel has Canada's vote."

"Excellent! I do love to see diplomacy in action. Israel is welcomed among the UN states. UN Resolution number three. Restoration of the Hainan Island to the Republic of China, at need via military action or aid from UN member states. Positive votes are assumed, negative raise a hand, veto bangs the big gong." President Roosevelt continued in a soft voice, and dared the Security Council to vote agaisnt him.

Molotov raised his hand, but it only made the journalists present laugh and take pictures.

"The Soviet Union delegate should wait. Your resolution is number 11 on the Council's list." Roosevelt spoke with a mild voice, making Molotov freeze for a second, then lower his hand sheepishly.

King Carol raised his hand a bit, but only to straighten his mustache. Roosevelt glared at the Mad King, then sighed audibly. "I think the Security Council has sufficient means at our disposal to liberate Hainan Island. Resolution three passed unanimously."

"On that note, the Romanian Navy and Airforce has just began the liberation of Hainan. I do have an awesome battleship I wanted to see in action. Those 16 inch high-explosive shells of the RIN Iowa produce a staggering amount of freedom, 9 times per salvo." King Carol added for no reason, making the delegates cringe.

The Chinese leader saluted the Mad King with respect.

 

[Pef]

"UN Resolution number eleven. Soviet Union is found to be an enemy of peace, as proven by the six countries it has attacked since 1939, plus numerous spy rings in democratic nations. The Security Council demands that the Soviet Union pays reparations to the attacked countries, commensurate to loses incurred by the innocents, such as human lives and injuries, dead animals, lost crops and forests, plus bombed buildings and economic loss due to seizures, lost work-hours by conscripted soldiers and so on. " King Carol recited while reading from a folder on his table.

Molotov blanched as the eyes of the world turned on him. The proper response would be to dare them all to come and take it from his cold dead hands. Siberia was large enough to bury even the whole Chinese army. But then again, the Mad King was barely waiting for another reason to unleash freedom via high-explosives, especially the kiloton range freedom clouds.

Comrade Mao was probably already dead, as that Romanian battleship would have targeted army concentrations first, and Mao always said the power flows from the barrel of a gun, making sure he always had enough soldiers to provide power.

"We will comply to the UN's Security Council requests, as long as my country is able to afford such reparations. I would remind the United Nations present here that my country has also suffered from war and devastation, and is much reduced in industry and population as a result." Molotov answered diplomatically. Nobody raised a hand to counter the resolution, so it was unanimous.

"Poland requests an additional clause. Since our officers were massacred by the Soviets after they surrendered, we demand an equivalent exchange. 20000 Soviet officers." the Polish delegate spoke in a cold voice.

The Mad King rose an eyebrow, but declined to comment, instead nodding towards Roosevelt.

"Poland has signed the Geneva Convention. I can understand the urge for retribution, but murdering random Soviet officers wouldn't help. I'm certain Comrade Molotov will do everything to produce the persons culpable for the Katyn massacre and they will stand trials for their war crimes, much like those in Germany, Italy and Japan will." the American President spoke with a sad voice.

Molotov could only grit his teeth. "We will comply with this request."

"Another request, from Romania. In 1917, as the Central Powers invaded my country, the Romanian treasury was transported to Russia for safety. I want it returned, or otherwise replaced with more valuable treasures, separate from the payments to repair Romanian economy and the costs of the Dacian Wall. For example, Romania could receive 100-years lease over the Soviet goldmines, while said lease could be enforced by a random organization, let's say the Archangel Michael's Legion." King Carol demanded in a shameless voice.

Molotov hesitated at the obvious trap. The tangible treasures were already spent to fuel the Soviet economy, or to purchase technology and weapons from the West. The rest of the Romanian treasury was likely radioactive ash along with the rest of Kremlin and Stalin himself. Hence why the Mad King was asking for a lease on the gold mines.

"I think 100 years is a bit much..." Molotov muttered with a low voice. The Mad King wanted his wall payed by the Soviet Union, after it was used to massacre 2 million Soviet soldiers and thousands of tanks?

"Fine! I can be a generous man. 99 years it is." King Carol decided with a magnanimous voice.

"..." Molotov looked for signs of support among the Security Council, but since Poland and Finland were present, there wasn't much of a chance for a veto, even without the scary atomic bombs of the Romanian King. Whoever thought it was a bright idea to recall him from his perpetual vacation in Paris?

At the side of the King, Land Marshall Antonescu murmured something, and the King nodded.

"My Archangels are rather busy training for jet flights and such. Land Marshall Antonescu will organize a Gold Commission to oversee my new gold mines. Gold Commissars lording over Soviet miners in the Soviet Union, who would have thought of this, even two years ago, am I right?" King Carol asked a bit rhetorical.

The Finish delegate saluted the Mad King as if to support his madness.

Finland had already doubled its surface and gained a million Karelians, but it seemed they were not satisfied yet. "Finland has another request. Soviet Union would provide a dozen civilian factories for important necessities like clothes and cement, plus 2000 tanks in working order. Our new territory is much larger now, and the Finish army will need more tanks to defend it."

Winston Churchill grabbed his chin in deep thought, exchanging a glance with Roosevelt, then King Carol.
While Russia was certainly neutered and partly occupied now, they would recover in a decade or less, even without 3 bombed cities.

"The United Kingdom supports Finland, but only if the Imperial Russia also receives 2000 tanks from the Soviet Union. Balance must be maintained, after all." Winston spoke in a final voice.

Molotov felt himself about to faint. 4000 tanks given for free?

King Carol smiled a bit too wide. "Balance? What about Poland and China then? They should also receive 2000 tanks each, and achieve parity with Soviet Union. Just in case they decide to invade someone, right?" he proposed with a Machiavellian tone.

Molotov wanted to argue that Romania had also invaded a bunch of countries recently, but that wouldn't be wise nor safe.
The winners wrote history now, and the Soviet Union was not among the winners.

Roosevelt felt the time was right and spoke first. "Indeed. The remaining 2000 tanks will suffice for the Soviet Union to secure its borders. The Security Council will withdraw now to debate the exact amount of reparations and the time scale needed, considering the current state of the Soviet Union and its prognosticated growth over the next 20 years."

Molotov felt his blood drain away, since all those 8000 tanks would need to be in working order, meaning the remaining 2000 would be the rusted junks used for training or spare parts.

As his plane landed back home in Chita, Molotov did not receive the state parade, nor even a Party delegation.

Only a trio of NKVD brutes, that dragged him in cuffs into a marshy bog. Comrade Khrushchev was already there, loading his Makarov pistol with slow gestures.

"Comrade Molotov, you sold the country to the Imperialists. Not only our tanks, but also the gold mines! Your death might appease the party for a bit, but the gold mines were supposed to pay for our atomic program! Now, it will take us 50 years of tight belts to build the bomb too. I hope Stalin and Beria receive you with worse words in Hell..."

Bang!

'It's not fair...' Molotov thought as his stomach flared in pain.

Bang, bang!

'At least shoot me in the head...' Molotov pleaded with his mouth tied and glaring eyes.

"Bury him! Then throw a dead pig into the grave." Comrade Khrushchev ordered as he climbed in his car.

'I'm not dead yet...' Molotov muttered silently, as his body was thrown into a muddy hole, then covered with more mud.

Bang! At least they shot the pig first...

 

[Pef]

While Europe is getting repaired by the huge American investments of the Marshall Plan, minor communist revolts and uprisings take place all over the world, supported by the USSR and various socialist movements from the West.

To combat this, the UN Security Council convened for a secret meeting, then constructed and implemented their Angel Protocol, basically a covert operation copied after the Archangels Legion. Deniable assets, used to hunt down communist assets all over the world.

In public, the meeting resulted in the creation of Security Treaty Organization, which would include most of Europe and North America, as well as Japan and Korea.

Boldly and charismatically, King Carol also invited Venezuela and Brazil to the treaty, then unveiled his own project for a safe sky. First, communication and surveillance satellites in Earth's orbit, followed by manned space-stations and later fortified asteroids and spaceships.

"This seems a bit far-fetched...King Carol." President Roosevelt muttered in a tired voice. He didn't have long to live, but still forged on.

"Which part?" the Mad King asked, while tugging on his mustache, in a curious voice.

A wild-haired man whispered something into the President's ear, making him frown. Einstein wasn't only a nuclear scientist.

"It seems that rockets could indeed carry satellites into our planet's orbit. As for the rest..." the American President mused in a lost voice.

"So it is true! You already launched a rocket into space, King Carol?" Churchill growled with a hoarse voice.

"Yesterday, yes. Next week we are planning to launch a few hamsters as well. Low gravity may impede natural organ functions, so mammal tests are required." the Mad King explained with a careless shrug.

The Security Council exploded in praise and outrage, sometimes both at once.

"Wernher Von Braun and Hermann_Oberth didn't die on that train then. You hid them!" De Gaulle exploded in outrage.

"The reports only said they were believed to be dead and evaporated. I was quite glad to find both of them alive and well. Of course I hid them, else some communists kill them or something." King Carol answered with a cool voice, oozing of victory.
The Oberth-effect, or the gravitational slingshot, was already used for calculating future planetary fly-byes by probes and later satellites.

"So this is why the Tobago Island was transformed into a military airbase. You are launching rockets into orbit..." President Roosevelt spoke in a soft voice.

"Something about planetary rotation being better... Surely, Mister Einstein can explain it better." the Mad King offered with a wink.

A hundred eyes locked on the poor scientist, who nodded shyly. "That is correct. Escape velocity is smaller at the Ecuator, plus the planet's rotation aids a ship to...nevermind. It seems the details are classified." the man muttered with dismay as the President glared at him.

"Anyways, since we are allied and all, every country in the treaty will be invited to send astronauts into space, as soon as human spaceflight is feasible. Of course, it all depends on participation fees and such, but America and Britain are quite rich, right?" the Romanian King proposed with a gentle smile, making every diplomat present grind their teeth with envy or hate.

This was extortion, pure and simple! Not only that, but declining to join would deprive said country of the prestige of having astronauts in space. On the global scale, prestige was a powerful commodity.

"France will be honored to participate! We have hundreds of fighter pilots with excellent physical condition, and advance science of our own!" De Gaulle spoke in a hurry.

Roosevelt exchanged a glance with Churchill, then sighed. "Fine. Every Treaty member will send at least one astronaut, in the order of their participation fee. How would they land back?"

King Carol smiled. "There are three options for re-entry: by parachute, by gliding and on retro-thrusters. Parachutes are feasible even now, the other options are more expensive and dangerous. However, for the Moon landings, only the last option is feasible, as the lander needs to fly back to the mothership and return to Earth."

Einstein stood up, eyes wild on his face. "Moon landings?" he asked with extreme interest.

"Not for a decade, Mister Einstein. I was told regular stainless-steel ships are not sufficient for crossing the radiation belts. Science is still young or something." King Carol mused with a longing voice.

The Security Council exploded once more in vociferous outrage.

Much later, after the blue banner of the Treaty was voted and approved, Einstein approached King Carol in private.

"King Carol...I am not dreaming, right?" he asked a bit hesitant.

"That is a very serious question, Mister Einstein. Are you real, or is this all just a dream? A sufficiently advanced simulation could project an entire holographic universe for a brain in a jar, and we'd never know." The Mad King answered in a dreamy voice.

Einstein shuddered for a second. "You wouldn't even need a jar."

"Exactly. I am told there is an asteroid out there made entirely of platinum. Something about light being a different color when reflected back." the King said with a completely unscientific tone.

"Spectroscopy. The analysis of reflected spectrum..." the genial scientist answered with a sad voice.

"Indeed. I read your early works, you know? Lightspeed...is it truly a barrier, or something we imagine? If we compressed the universe into a ball, it would be the size of Earth, with its mass hidden under an event horizon. But we could still walk on this surface, still at 1 G. We wouldn't even notice, although time would pass trillions of times slower." the Mad King mused then drank from a long champagne glass.

Something lit up in Einstein's eyes, and he looked at the Mad King with new eyes. "There is no science to prove your theory, King Carol."

"And your own science doesn't even measure lightspeed, only its reflection. Light might travel as fast one way and instantly back to your recorder, and you'd never even know. Not that it does, mind you. Light might have a speed limit, but not everything is light." the Mad King mused deep in his glass.

"If something could move faster than light, then time travel...paradoxes." Einstein warned the King with an easy voice.

King Carol sighed. "Our universe is expanding. Much slower now, but still faster than light. But in the beginning, it was a billion times faster than light. Space itself inflated from a particle size to a galaxy size in a millisecond. And this can be proven with science. Just measure the sky at the right frequency."

Much later, Einstein and his team proved the Big Bang Theory on the same day as the Mad King became the first man in space.

Sadly, the man never returned to Earth, due to a malfunction to the guidance system.

Today, the entire Romanian Empire call him the Grey Wolf. The rest of the world calls him the Mad King, but only in a whisper. He might come back one day.

*Final objective achieved: Become the first man in space.
-Achievement list:
-Obtain an Army at least 500000 soldiers in size.
-Obtain an Airforce at least 1000 planes in size.
-Build or obtain a Navy containing at least 1 battleship, 10 cruisers, 6 carriers and 100 destroyers.
-Sunk! : Sink at least one battleship.
-Civilization: Obtain at least 100 civilian factories.
-Militarism: Obtain at least 100 military factories.
-Road builder. Build at least 10000 kms of roads and railroads.
-Scientist. Build or obtain at least 10 research centers.
-High walls. Build at least 10 forts at level 9.
-Millionaire. Kill at least 1 million enemies.
-Billionaire. Obtain at least 1 billion dollars.
-Obtain the first operational jet fighter.
-Obtain the first operational jet bomber.
-Obtain the first operational nuclear submarine.
-Ace of Aces. Obtain at least 100 Aces.
-Shiva: Be the first to develop atomic weapons.
-MAD: Destroy at least 2 cities with atomic weapons.
-Trinity: Conquer or destroy Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow.
-Kami: Save Hiroshima from nuclear fire.
-Conquer at least one province from all your neighbor countries.
-No step back. Do not lose a single province.
-Colonialism. Obtain a colony in Africa or Asia.
-Neocolonialism. Obtain a colony in America.
-Royal Flush. Obtain at least 5 islands in 5 different oceans.
-Seven Seas: your country or your puppets touch 7 different seas.
-Hexagon. Obtain at least 6 puppet countries.
-Lightning. Conquer a country in 10 days or less.
-Bloodless. Conquer a country without killing a single human.
-Finnish Him! Finland doesn't lose any province.
-Marching through Georgia: Conquer Georgia.
-Yalta or bust. Conquer Crimea.
-Byzantium. Conquer Constantinople.
-Triple Kill: Kill Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
-Holy Savior. Save at least 1 million Jews and send them to Palestine.
-Holy Land: establish a State of Israel in Palestine.
-Big Five. Become a UN Security Council member.
-Not a Sputnik: Send the first satellite into space.
-Laika lives: Send the first mammal into space. Return optional.

Bonus objectives:
-Fastest man alive. You are currently traveling at 27000 kms/hour. (towards the Triangulum Galaxy)
-Balls of steel. You are currently traveling inside a ball made of steel. (remaining oxygen for 0.14 secs)
-Schrodinger's Cat. Your space capsule has lost orbital guidance and transceiver connection with Earth. Nobody knows if you're dead or alive.
-Earth Medalist. Obtain most medals ever. (79.3 kgs. Not the usual measurement unit)
-Vanish. Your body vanishes in space, never to be found. (medals not included)

*You have obtained an Entertainment Medal! (Historical Society-alternate, Trantor University)
*You have obtained an Entertainment Medal! (Temporal Studies-applied, Icarus timelock 13)
*You have obtained an Entertainment Medal! (WW2 re-enactment art club, synthetic kindegarden for gifted Ones, Triangulum galaxy)
*You have obtained an Entertainment Medal! (Kardashev simulation group 5.1)

*Note: Entertainment Medals can be used in future campaigns or builds as personal or specific polity bonuses, including but not limited to:
-Polity scale upgrades to genetics, technology or internal energy.
-paracausal knowledge including Akashic Archives up to level 17b.
-limited or localized ominiscience.
-limited or localized ominipotence.
-limited or localized ominicompetence.
-Bodyform timelock (personal invulnerability for Tier 4 or lower Kardashev simulations)
-Tier 5 cultivation core (single-verse range)
-System adjutant (non-localized, AA version 18c)

*New game plus ( Kardashev simulation group 5.1) opens in T-59 hours (Terran)
-Do you desire to: die, return to your space capsule, enter a new game?