In late October I start to put my plans for the final offensive into action. At first, I meet respectable resistance. The left flank of VII Gun fails in an attack against Oxford on the 14th, costing me 1,651 dead and inflicting 1,128 casualties. The right flank is more successful, taking Reading on the 17th, with a roughly reversed casualty ratio. With IX Gun occupying Leicester, though, the British begin a realignment of the front in an attempt to block the full encirclement. Consequently, we are able to take several provinces, including Oxford, with fairly little effort within the next few weeks.
The biggest gains are in the south, where the British surrender the entire Channel Coast. The lead elements of VIII Gun are able to take Portsmouth before two divisions can be evacuated from Newport. We pause on October 28th to force their surrender. They put up a stiff but ultimately futile defense, inflicting 1,326 KIA on us, while losing only 841 themselves; the remaining 15,000 surrender, and we continue along the coastline, occupying Brighton and Dover, before closing in on London.
The Battle of London
In mid November, with IX Gun rapidly closing in on Lincoln, I start to map out the specifics of the operation. VI Gun will hold the anchor position in Gloucester, keeping the supply route from Bristol and Plymouth secure. LI Gun will hold Evesham and Coventry in the center of the north flank, while IX Gun holds the door closed in Leicester and Lincoln. VIII Gun, in the far south, will occupy the three provinces south of London, while VII Gun attempts to encircle the city itself by occupying those to the north. VII Gun’s route is farther, though, and might easily be complicated by British forces. Therefore, while the encirclement of London is preferable, I won’t delay the attack for it.
On November 15th, on the day IX Gun takes Lincoln, VIII Guns launches the attack against London. This battle, more so than any other I’ve ever seen, indicates why it is a really bad idea to stack a mountain of divisions in a single province. The British have a total of 43 (!!!) divisions here. By contrast, I have 29 on the entire island. By sheer numbers alone, I should have little chance of success, yet numbers fail to tell the whole story. Of the 43 divisions, 40 are militias (technically partisans), which were likely created in Europe and evacuated back to Britain. Militia units are generally only useful as fodder to slow an enemy down. Had the British used them this way, by deploying them anywhere and everywhere, they might have helped. Maybe, maybe not. It is also noteworthy that several were bled down to zero organization, and, in some cases, 50% strength. This is likely a result of an exhausted manpower pool. As such, they would have been more useful if they were disbanded.
The most important factor in the Battle of London, then, was the crippling stacking penalty imposed on the British. With 43 (!!!) divisions piled into one small province, they suffered a 97% stacking penalty, which meant they had virtually no chance of inflicting any damage on my attacking forces. At this point, the smart thing to do would be to retreat the bulk of the divisions, to reduce the penalty. In particular, those with little or no organization were doing far more harm than good. They didn’t, however, and as a result the only divisions that might have been useful were rendered useless.
Of course, that is not to say the battle was easy for me. As the battle dragged on day after day, many of the divisions were eventually driven off, perversely improving the effectiveness of British. I was also facing an urban battlefield, a river crossing (from each province), and land forts. Due to the wide front, those divisions that did have organization remaining came up to the front quickly, and I eventually had to drive off each in turn.
Northward, VII Gun ran into obstacles in their part of the battle, as expected. They occupied Luton with only minor difficulty, but they encountered problems consistently throughout the remainder of the month. The weather slowed movement down, and troops retreating from London frequently obstructed them. They did not occupy Cambridge until the 22nd. After that, two divisions from the corps joined in the attack on London, but the remaining four divisions only served to prevent retreats from the city. It was not until the 29th that they finally occupied Southend, sealing off the city. At that point, however, it became a mostly moot point.
It was on that day, only two hours later, that the final defenders of London gave up the fight. The battle ran a full two weeks, and despite the large penalties applied to each side, the battle took a huge toll. We lost 3,542 men, more than any other battle of the campaign. The British, needless to say, suffered far worse. A total of 10,734 Brits died in the effort, out of an initial 137,227. Because of the limited feedback, I don’t know exactly how many POWs were rounded up as a result of the VII Gun’s encirclement, but I suspect the number is around 70,000. For those that did escape, however, there is little comfort, as repeated attempts to break open a route to reunite with the forces outside the southern pocket have, by now, failed just as utterly as the defense of London.
The Battles of Lincoln and Leicester
While the Battle of London was the focal point of the campaign, the occupation of Lincoln eventually became more significant. By severing the British army in two, with supplies on one side and the best forces on the other side, I guaranteed the collapse of the British war effort. The British themselves recognized this, and placed an even greater emphasis at breaking this encirclement than the one at London.
The counterattacks began as soon as IX Gun occupied Lincoln. Both Lincoln and Leicester were attacked, and each from multiple sides. The British quickly rushed forces from Wales and Scotland to strike from the north, while virtually all of the battle-ready troops in the south were used as well (as evidenced by the fact that only three non-militia divisions participated in the Battle of London).
The details of these battles were strikingly different from those of the Battle of London, yet the final result was eerily similar. I maintained a defense throughout the duration of the battles, holding the two provinces with only three divisions each. We made good use of rivers separating us from the Brits on either side, but this was the only significant modifier to either side. Also unlike the Battle of London, these battles were divided up into four parts; each province was attacked separately, and the British called off the attacks to take breather around the 20th, only to restart the battles again the next day.
Yet despite these differences, the outcome was nearly identical. The final attack at Lincoln petered out on the 28th, a day before the Battle of London ended. The total casualties, too, paralleled the Battle of London; I suffered a total of 3,860 dead, while the Brits lost 10,278. Coincidences aside, the successful conclusions of these battles is a tremendous blow to the British. At London, their entire supply base was captured, as well as their largest source of desperately needed manpower. In the north, the cream of the British army had battered themselves bloody up against a single corps of my army. VI, VII, and LI Gun are still fresh and ready for anything the Brits could throw at them, while the Brits themselves are exhausted and without hope of resupply or reinforcement. I am now perfectly situated to deliver the final, fatal blow to the British Empire.
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