CIRCLES OF TIME: The Great War
-by: the Yarnspinner-
the_yarnspinner@yahoo.com
http://strands-of-moonlight.my3gb.com
-or- http://strands-of-moonlight.6te.net
Rated: PG-13> Chapter 8 - Blood Sodden Plains <
"The situation looks most favorable," Francesca announced, in the Order's Swiss command center. "The Central Powers are in the ascendant, which will force the Allies to dig still deeper into their reserves of manpower as both are preparing large offensives for the Western front. And, of course, the Russians continue to fight, contesting every bit of ground while giving up lives in tremendous numbers. Even with the still unidentified drain on our energy collections, things look very positive for us to recoup our recent losses."
"I'm sorry to disagree, but the situation is hardly as rosy as you make it out," Alphonse said. "Word from Berlin is that the German Navy is yet again pressing the Kaiser for an all-out assault on Britain's maritime supply lines, with the general staff chief, General Falkenhayn, in full agreement. You will remember the difficulties we had last year bringing sufficient pressure to bear to get Wilhelm to back down and forestall a premature intervention by the Americans."
"And it is still too soon for that," the High Priest pointed out. "The addition of America's tremendous industrial power to the Allied side might allow the peace factions in Berlin and Vienna to force their governments into negotiations. That would end the war far too soon."
"We do have one factor in our favor in that area, I'm happy to say," Alphonse continued. "It is an election year in America, and early indications are that Woodrow Wilson will seek reelection as a peace candidate."
"But that means Wilson might try to broker a settlement among the combatants," Francesca said. "We cannot permit that!"
"Our operatives in Washington will have to keep Wilson's attention on his reelection bid, and not on Europe," the High Priest said, opening his notebook. "In fact, the current civil and political strife in Mexico might prove an ideal distraction. The threat of rebel bandits setting up safe havens just inside the American border should keep Wilson quite busy. And anything that ties down still more American forces will limit Wilson's ability to threaten intervention in Europe."
"That does sound like a good plan," Francesca agreed. "But an armed incursion by Mexican rebels might serve even better. There is no secret that the rebel leader Pancho Villa is most angry at the international community's decision last October not to recognize him as Mexico's leader. It should take little effort to get the notoriously hotheaded Villa to raid an American border town as a gesture of his displeasure."
"Very good, indeed," the High Priest said, making notes.
"I'm afraid I have more bad news," Alphonse interrupted. "We're beginning to see a weakening in the Austrian resolve." He help up a sheet of paper. "This is part of a correspondence between Field Marshal Hotzendorf, the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff, and Grof Tisza, the Hungarian prime minister. This particular letter is from January 4. Hotzendorf writes to Tisza, 'There can be no question of destroying the Russian war machine... England cannot be defeated; peace must be made in not too short a space, or we shall be weakened, if not destroyed'."
"Dammit all! Such sentiments should be enough to have that fool sacked..., if not shot!" Francesca declared angrily.
"Actually, it is Hotzendorf's responsibility to advise the political leadership of the state of his army and the general military situation," the High Priest pointed out.
"But I trust action is being taken to stiffen the Austro-Hungarians," Francesca said.
"Our agents are already doing what they can," Alphonse confirmed. "But the major effort will have to come from Germany, and word has already been passed to Berlin. I think a favorable result from Germany's upcoming offensive will do a great deal to firm up the Austro-Hungarians."
"Good," the High Priest said.
"Unfortunately, there is one more item," Alphonse said.
"Now what?" Francesca asked, exasperated.
"If you would read the briefing material..." Alphonse replied with a groan. "We are running into differences even in Berlin."
"What do you mean?" the High Priest asked.
"No doubt, you have heard of the sporadic labor strikes and unrest in Russia," Alphonse said. "The Germans have decided to do what they can to fuel the fires of anti-war sentiment in Russia, in the hopes of changing the Russian political landscape and forcing Russia to make peace."
"That must be avoided! At all costs!" Francesca said.
"Even more alarming, though it is still only a vague suggestion, is a proposal to send the exiled leader of the Bolshevik faction, Vladimir Lenin, home to Russia," Alphonse said.
"Lenin is a damned socialist radical," Francesca said. "He would take Russia out of the war on whatever terms he could get!"
"Precisely," Alphonse agreed. "Our operatives have been pouring massive quantities of cold water on this idea, but the longer the war drags on, the more Germany is going to want to get the Russians out. Eventually, even our best efforts will prove not enough."
The High Priest nodded. "Then we must make certain we achieve our objectives before that point is reached."- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The sun shone low in the early morning sky as Setsuna and Eric walked along the bank of the Meuse River, outside the fortress town of Verdun, a cloak shielding them both from mortal detection. The town had been a fortress since Roman times, and was now supported by a network of outlying forts. It was now a vulnerable location, anchoring a salient that bulged into the German lines. In the face of French disregard, the Germans had been greatly strengthening their forces around Verdun, but a week of rains had brought all efforts to a halt. The rains, however, had finally ended on February 19th, and the 20th saw a warm sun dry the ground.
"There is a feel of menace in the air," Eric said.
Setsuna nodded. "Very soon now."
"It is amazing the French are so ill-prepared," he said. "The Germans have been massing in this area for several weeks."
"Joffre is preoccupied with his own offensive plans," Setsuna said. "And he has been having repeated arguments with the new BEF commander, General Sir Douglas Haig, over just where and how that offensive should be carried out. To put it mildly, Joffre and Haig do not get along well."
Eric nodded his head in understanding. "And we already know that General Falkenhayn is planning actually a fairly limited campaign that will nevertheless compel the French to throw in ever greater numbers of men until they are bled white."
From the distance came a screaming roar of a large artillery shell, which smashed into the Verdun cathedral. More reports followed, booming like thunder, which quickly swelled into a ongoing roar. Flashes and smoke rose into the sky.
"Well... the Germans have finally started," Eric said. "This place is going to become very dangerous quite quickly. I think we should return and report."
"Yes," Setsuna agreed. "And the Germans will soon use gas."- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
As shells rained down like hail, French infantrymen dove for what cover they could find. Their trenches and breastworks quickly began to crumble under the repeated impacts and explosions. In the deafening roar, officers who could no longer give orders verbally struggled to rally their men.
One officer scribbled a hurried report, handed it to a runner, and motioned frantically back toward Verdun. The young runner, not yet twenty, flinched as more shells crashed around them. He saluted the officer, then jumped to the top of the trench and raced away as fast as he could. The runner was already nearly deafened by the tremendous noise, which had a physical force of its own, beyond the concussion of the blast. A nearby impact threw him to the ground.
The officer watched as the runner regained his feet, and took another step. A flash and explosion threw the officer down into the crumbling trench. He pulled himself back up, but found no trace of the runner, only a cloud of smoke marking the point where the young man had been.
Men huddled deeper in the bottom of the trenches, only to find broken earth raining down on top of them, threatening to bury them alive where they lay. The brutal roar continued to split the air, while the earth itself seemed to scream at the punishment being inflicted on it in that place.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
After a nine-hour bombardment, including a use of gas by both sides, the French positions were in ruins, ready to be overwhelmed by a German infantry attack that did not come. One French unit signaled 'We shall hold against the Boche although their bombardment is infernal'."
Not until the next day did the Germans begin to advance in force, by which time the surviving French forces had recovered enough to mount a defense. The French fell back before superior German numbers, while supplies were hurriedly rushed up the single road from Bar-le-Duc. German planes ranged overhead, spotting for their artillery.
By February 23rd, the third day of the attack, Joffre was already assembling every available man to reinforce Verdun, determined to hold it at all cost. The French forward lines, by that point, however, had been completely overrun, and only two forts stood between the Germans and the approaches to Verdun itself. On the 25th, a sergeant of the 24th Brandenburg regiment was knocked into the moat surrounding Fort Douaumont by an artillery burst. Pulling himself out of the water, the sergeant entered the fort to find only a handful of French soldiers. In a blustering manner, he demanded their immediate surrender, warning of his comrades waiting just outside. The French troops gave up, marching out of the fort to discover, too late, that the sergeant had been bluffing.
Now, General Philippe Petain took command of the French forces around Verdun. Though it would have been better, both tactically and strategically, to yield Verdun to the Germans and fall back to more defensible positions behind it, Petain was a fighter who saw the defense of Verdun as virtually a sacred cause to demonstrate the ability of France to survive. Such a man, who was not afraid of high casualty rates, was just what the Germans had hoped for. General Falkenhayn and his fellows, however, had completely underestimated what a man like Petain might be able to accomplish. Within just days, the German advance ground to a halt, to resume with only the most strenuous and brutal exertions.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
As the fighting around Verdun dragged on, consuming ever greater numbers of French and German lives, plans for the Allied offensive still went forward. The situation at Verdun, however, now compelled the British to take on the bulk of the responsibility.
The BEF was no longer the small, all professional force that had played so critical a role in the crisis of 1914. The British Army was swelling with the ranks of civilian volunteers, hastily trained and put into service. Though completely patriotic, they lacked the years of experience and military tradition of their regular army colleagues.
The new commander, General Sir Douglas Haig, was a man of the upper classes. Well connected socially, and married to a lady-in-waiting at the royal court, Haig corresponded privately with King George V. It was Haig's comments to the king that had delivered the final blow to Sir John French, and brought Haig himself to the ascendency. Though a highly able soldier, both militarily and politically, Haig was aloof and distant, showing no visible regard for his men, but apparently expecting that simple devotion to God, king, and country, would carry them forward to bear their duty, as it did with him.
Behind the lines of the Somme River, a quiet area since the early battles of 1914, a huge force had been assembled. Haig expected to achieve a massive breakthrough after a week-long artillery bombardment.
The bombardment began as scheduled, but unknown to Haig, the German positions had been dug deep, providing shelters that were largely impervious to the rain of shells. At the same time, the explosive shells which were expected to break up the barbed wire, only exploded on impact with the ground, and merely tossed the rolled wire around without breaking it up.
On July 1, the British troops received the order to go forward. The "creeping barrage" of artillery, which was supposed to be timed to stay just in front of the advancing infantry, had already crept too far ahead, both with the infantry moving slower than expected, and the British artillery officers deliberately aiming beyond their assigned targets out of fear of shelling their own troops.
The British advanced, almost shoulder to shoulder, to find the German positions largely unscathed, and deadly barriers of barbed wire obstructing their path. Caught out in open ground, a force of more than 60,000 found itself facing withering German machine gun fire, resulting in a massive slaughter. Of all the British and Commonwealth soldiers who marched forward that morning, one in five did not survive the day. For some units, it was even worse. The 1st Newfoundland regiment by the end of July 1st had ceased to exist.
Haig met with his generals to discuss how the battle could be continued, still unaware of the true magnitude of the losses his men had taken. The British commander insisted the Germans could only have minimal reserves left and that one good push should do it. In fact, the Germans had taken only a tenth the casualties of the British, and were already bringing up reinforcements. The Germans were also switching to a new form of "defense in depth", in which the forward line would be only thinly held and quickly given up. Once the direction of the British movement had been identified, the Germans could strike back repeatedly, inflicting heavy casualties and gradually regaining the ground they had lost.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In Havana, two maps were posted, showing in detail the battlefields around Verdun and the Somme. Albert stepped away from the main table, and updated the two smaller maps with the latest information.
"From the maps, it doesn't look like much is happening," Jason commented.
"Perhaps not," Setsuna said quietly, standing there in civilian dress, a teacup in hand. "But young men are dying in the hundreds and thousands."
"This has been going on for months," Samuel said. "Just from the amount that we've been siphoning off, we know the Order has collected a tremendous amount of energy."
"But there is a greater risk for the Order," said Albert. "In Germany, Falkenhayn is virtually in disgrace, and will probably be sacked at any moment. Austria-Hungary is growing daily more feeble. Franz Josef's health is failing, and his empire seems to be dying with him. There will almost certainly be food and fuel shortages this winter. In France, the gap between the soldiers and the high command is growing ever wider. Petain was removed from Verdun when casualty rates grew too high, but even so, many of the men feel like they are nothing but cannon fodder. And still another big fight is looming as the French command is said to be planning a counter-attack in the Verdun area for later this fall. Even Britain is beginning to feel the pinch. If the combatants continue to bleed at this rate for much longer, they will not be able to go on, and will have no choice but to settle this."
"Which means the Order needs to see the pace of battle slowed down a bit," Jason said.
"That's right," Albert confirmed.
Just then, Eric entered the room. Seeing him, Setsuna put down her teacup and walked toward him.
"Eric. Just the person I need to see," she said.
"Your message didn't say very much," he said. "What do you need."
She led him off to a side room and opened a map book. "I've spotted an unusually strong point of magic energies, here in the Brazilian jungle."
"The Order?" he asked, glancing at the map.
"That's my guess," she said. "The area is too remote for anything else. I want to check it out, but I also want an experienced field operative along to look things over as well."
"Of course. I'm glad to help in any way I can. When do we leave?"
How about right now?" she asked in reply, her disguised time-key appearing beside her.
He blinked once in surprise, then nodded. Energy glowed around them both and they vanished.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cloaked from detection, Eric and Setsuna walked along a wide tunnel. A spacious cavern lay behind them, filled with numerous storage vessels in varying stages of construction. Reaching a side passage, they turned down it, soon finding another cavern, also with storage vessels being built.
"When these two chambers are complete, this place will have more than three times the storage capacity of their site in Austria," Eric observed. "And there are probably more storage chambers than just these."
Setsuna nodded. "Yes. I have to think this place will be for more than just storage."
They returned to the wide tunnel and continued along. Minutes later, they emerged into a simply immense chamber. The floor swept down toward the center of the room, where rose a large dias of polished black stone. Around the dias were five huge columns, rough hewn out of solid rock. At the center-point between the columns was another raised platform.
"My God!" Eric exclaimed. "I've only heard of this. It's a very special type of altar."
"This must be where they will try to awaken Metallia," Setsuna said. "That would also explain the need for such tremendous storage capacity."
"Yes. They would shift all their gathered energy here prior to performing the ceremony," Eric said.
"We still have time," she said. "They will need at least six months to finish all the storage vessels here and the preparations that must go with it."
"That sounds about right," he agreed.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Several days later, diagrams of the Order's new facility covered the walls of a side-chamber of the Paladin's Havana center.
"This place is huge!" Peter exclaimed, studying the charts closely. "Do you have an image of the altar?"
"Yes," Eric said.
He placed a polished black disk on the table and passed his hand over it. Energy shimmered, forming into a three-dimensional image of the altar. Peter stared at it intently, a grim expression on his face.
"I had hoped you were wrong, Eric," Peter said softly. "But there's no doubt about it. They couldn't use an altar like this for anything other than summoning Metallia."
"Why not?" Samuel asked. "Other than the stone pillars, I don't see anything unusual about it. It's just big."
"Those pillars are magically and dimensionally attuned," Setsuna said. "Any magic projected into that space will be captured by the pillars and converted to the specific form and frequency needed to open a portal for Metallia."
"Exactly," Peter confirmed.
"And am I correct in assuming the only way we can destroy that altar is to collapse the chamber?" Eric asked.
Peter nodded. "Yes. There's no way we could use magic. If it did anything at all, it would only aid the Order's cause."
"What about destroying the storage vessels once they have energy in them?" Eric asked. "Is that also going to risk awakening Metallia?"
"No. The energy would need to be channeled directly into the altar space in order to bring Metallia to Earth," Setsuna answered.
"OK," Eric said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "That gives us some possibilities... If we could blow all the storage chambers at once, that should disrupt the magic field they're using to prevent cave-ins, and bring the whole altar chamber down."
"What do we do in the meantime?" Samuel asked. "This place will be ready to receive energy in just about six months, and then they are only waiting on collecting just enough energy."
"Very true," Peter agreed. "We must destroy their Austrian storage center, as soon as possible. We have to wipe out as much of their energy stores as we can."
"We still don't have a really good means of getting in there," Eric cautioned. "Certainly not good enough to assure a reasonable likelihood of success."
"I understand. I want you to give that top priority," Peter said. "If we don't take a few chances now, it may become academic later on."- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Francesca entered the office of the commander of the Austrian storage center.
"All arrangements have been made," he said. "The new security procedure is in place, just as ordered."
"Excellent," Francesca said. "We have reason to expect the Paladins will strike before the year is out. When they do, I want them crushed. And then nothing will stand between us and the return of our great dark lord."
"The Darkness shall triumph!" the man declared, a broad smile on his face.
"Oh, yes. Indeed it shall," she agreed. "It is inevitable."< To be continued >
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Always remember, good gentles, that a yarnspinner works from and within existing legends and stories. The characters of "Sailor Moon" belong to others. In spinning my yarns, I do not seek to infringe on their rights of ownership, but merely to join with other fans to spread the legend still further. "The moonlight carries a message of love." Enjoy.-03.23.2001