Barbarossa

In response, Entente commanders rushed their reserves forwards and succeeded in driving back many of the German tentacles. It was then that the General Staff sprang their surprise. One corps suddenly invaded Luxembourg whilst three more drove through southern Belgium before smashing through the thin line of the Entente troops stationed along the border. More troops poured through the gap. Some turns southward to pin down the Entente forces deployed on the old frontline. The rest began to fan out across northern France.

In the days that followed victorious German divisions continued to advance on all fronts. Brussels fell in weeks so the Belgian government fled to Ostente only to surrender shortly after. Elsewhere grey hordes pushed towards the Seine in the north and Rhone in the south. Finally, they were halted thanks to a combination of river valleys and heavily built defences hastily built by new arrived British and Dominion troops. Both sides then spent the winter in their trenches with the occasional shelling or raid on the other.

With the arrival of the Royal Navy in the war the fighting at sea swung against the Alliance. The commerce raiders in the Indian Ocean were quickly hunted down and their bases bombarded by squadrons of capital ships. With the sea now controlled by Britain, troops from Australia, India and South Africa were dispatched to capture the German colonies in Africa and the Pacific. In response the Germans intensified their use of submarines against Entente shipping in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

At the same time a new theatre in the war was opened up: the Middle East. The Egyptian garrisons was reinforced whilst the British commander in India sent an expeditionary force to invade Iraq. At it made good progress as it advanced to Basra. However, the General Staff deployed troops now spare from the war with Russia to reinforce their ally. One column with a Turkish contingent moved down the Tigris to smash the invaders in a series of lightening actions. Another force advanced across the Sinai Peninsula to the bank of the Suez Canal where it dug in to cut this important artery. For the rest of the Great War British and French convoys carrying raw materials and troops from the east were forced to go via the Cape of Good Hope.

In the spring of 1917, full scale fighting recommenced in the west. By now Entente units were as well equipped as the Germans, but many troops still lacked their adversities’ greater experience. So many veterans had been killed or captured during the fighting in the autumn that many French battalions were as green as those of their British allies. On the German side, engineers spent the winter taking Russian factories in hand. Whilst not up to Teutonic standards, they were now easily comparable to those elsewhere in the world. Thus with the Anglo-American blockade effectively neutralised, it was with heavily stocked magazines that their armies launched attacks on the line near Paris and Dijon

Both sides had been planning spring offensives and it was by pure chance that the Germans launched theirs first. It is doubtful though, that even if the Entente has pre-empted their enemy it would have made much difference to the final result

Remembering how St Petersburg had fallen so easily, the French generals threw every man that they had to defend their capital. Consequently, that particular offensive ground to a halt. However, events were very difference at Dijon. With the line largely unreinforced except by contingents of Australian troops, it collapsed and German troops swiftly exploited the breach. Soon Lyons and Nevers and dozen smaller towns had fallen to theirs advance. In the coming days, divisions were quickly pushed into central France. Some swung north west towards Orleans, others south west towards Limoges.