NationStates

Posted: **Fri Sep 27, 2019 4:04 am**

February 10, 1953
Kavos, Corfu, Italian Social Republic

Mario Ricci casually slid his sunglasses off and tossed them upon the small wrought iron table of a cafe along the strip in Kavos. The rich Mediterranean sun danced off of the sea and for a moment Ricci was able to simply enjoy his morning espresso, forgetting the circumstances surrounding his visit to this small seaside hamlet. His reprieve was broken by the scrap of an iron chair against the tile as a large swarthy man sat down to join him. Mario sighed wearily and returned to reality, in one gulp finishing his espresso and lighting the first cigarette of the day.

The large man chuckled and said in stilted Italian, “Brother I know that feeling.” He offered his hand and continued, “Ahmed Gujic, Royal Security Bureau.” Mario shook his hand and replied, “Mario Ricci, Servizio di Sicurezza Statale”. With introductions concluded the two men were able to smoke in silence for a moment before Mario said, “So I trust everything is prepared.” Ahmed nodded and replied, “I have been briefed, in an hour we’re due to board the Antelope, they’re already on board.”

As the two men talked the cafe began to fill with tourists from across the Mediterranean Social Confederation; the various national languages spoken within the Confederation were so numerous that it was exceedingly difficult to eavesdrop in the popular tourist locations due to the cacophony of nearly a dozen official languages. The two rose and departed, their seats quickly occupied by a young couple eager for a day on the beach.

Ricci patted his Beretta M1934 as the Antelope came into sight. It was a slightly dilapidated vessel, though Mario knew that it was surely quick and seaworthy. The crew were Bosniaks drawn from the Royal Security Bureau of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and each man looked to be strong and experienced. Mario was greeted with a chorus of curt hellos in heavily accented Italian which was considered the lingua franca of the Confederation. He offered a brief introduction and the crew quickly returned to work. Gujic lead him down into the cabin and gestured to a neat pile of munition crates and a stack of Thompson submachine guns. There was a surplus of arms and equipment in Greece due to the ongoing civil conflict and infiltrators from the MSC commonly carried weapons of slain Greek Communist partisans.

Mario nodded and after a thorough inspection of the concept of operations provided by Ahmed, they set off. The crew received a final FRAGO brief from Ricci and Gucijc once the Antelope had entered the Aegean. It was a simple mission on paper, the Antelope would skirt the Aegean islands and deposit the Bosniak commandos off the coast of Smyrna, they would be met by a team of Anatolian-Greek Insurgents who would disperse them across the Turkish People’s Republic. The infiltrators would assume identities prepared in advance by the insurgents and the SSS before conducting sabotage, assassinations, and bombings.

While this operation was primarily being led by the Royal Security Bureau, the Servizio di Sicurezza Statale and the Internal Commission of the Kingdom of Greece were each handling a component of the operation. This allowed for a certain degree of inter-agency friction but the various intelligence services of the Mediterranean Social Confederation commonly operated together so as to offer a united front to the Turkish adversary. The Antelope sliced through the docile Aegean Sea and after a day of travel neared the disembarkation point for the Bosniak commandos. Mario Ricci stood upon the deck and gazed in the direction of Anatolia. Smyrna was obscured by a thick haze but a thin dark strip of land was visible. The Commandos departed in a small wooden craft after receiving a coded radio confirmation from the insurgents. As their smaller vessel sped away from the Antelope Ricci and Gucijc both lit cigarettes and cursed, this was only one of hundreds of infiltration operations but both knew that they rarely went as well as planned.

*

Irakli Samurzakano stood rigidly at attention before his superior Doruk Bakkal who was seated. Bakkal slowly flipped through a stack of papers, signing and annotating in a methodical manner with an occasional grimace. A thick scar running across his face made each grimace particularly striking as it briefly connected his mouth with his right ear. Irakli was unfamiliar with the exact circumstances surrounding the scar but it was reasonable to assume that it was from the war. Photos of the Patriotic War were hung behind Bakkal’s desk with a framed painting of Ataturk and Galip Celik placed slightly above them, staring down at Samurzankano.

After several minutes Doruk set down his papers and said, “Comrade Samurzakano, please sit.” Irakli eased into a cracked leather chair and following the lead of Bakkal lit a wide and poorly rolled cigarette. He exhaled the thick smoke and said in accented Turkish, “Comrade Doruk Bey I trust that you have reviewed the operation order that I submitted regarding the fascist Smyrna Revolutionary Organization. I have come personally to report that we have observed and are currently following a team of Bosnian terrorists who have made contact with Turkish and Greek counterrevolutionaries.”

Bakkal nodded and replied, “Yes.” Irakli quizzically furrowed his brow at the unclear answer to which Doruk replied, “Captain, I am familiar with your reports and in response to this latest information I authorize you to take any action you see appropriate as the Smyrna Regional Commander of Revolutionary Intelligence Service Internal Troops Battalion No. 34 and associated regional offices.” Samurzakano rose, straightened his uniform and replied, “For the People!” before departing.

Bakkal rose and crossed his office to watch the young captain depart, he had been a senior officer in the Revolutionary Intelligence Service (DIS) since the revolution and had known many young and ambitious men. Irakli’s Georgian heritage made him a unique case as the recently instituted Nationality Policy which favored minority nationalities would serve to augment his already solid career. Doruk lit another cigarette and gazed after the departing young man, he would have to keep his eyes on the Captain, it always paid to know a successful man.

Posted: **Thu Oct 10, 2019 3:52 am**

February 12

Clustered in a small valley among the rugged Anatolian hills, the Bosniak Guerrillas and their domestic collaborators rested in a small farmstead. A squat wood and clay farmhouse with two outbuildings and an outhouse were surrounded by a long neglected wood fence. Olive trees and two ragged fields of soybean were framed by the small cluster of buildings and a handful of guerrillas could be seen patrolling the perimeter in a lackadaisical manner. Irakli cursed softly as he adjusted the focus of his binoculars and saw that the “men” guarding the farmhouse appeared to be no older than fifteen.

The counterrevolutionary movement in Anatolia was large and comprised of a combination of religious and ethnic minorities, however, twenty years of civil war and underground struggle ensured that the rebels were progressively forced to lower recruiting standards further and further. It was not uncommon for insurgents to be too young or too old for general service; most of the populations supporting the counter revolutionaries were chronically short on men and the nationality policy of Ankara which prompted multiple large scale population exchanges with neighboring Hellas ensured that militarily the prospect of the counterrevolutionary struggle was increasingly bleak.

Smyrna alone remained a Greek city but because of the implicit ethnic dimensions of the Turkish Socialist Revolution it was increasingly taking on the appearance of a national ghetto. The Trans-Caucasian Federative Socialist Republic was majority christian but even there the Muslim Azerbaijani and Caucasian peoples were de-facto favored in comparison with their Georgian and Armenian neighbors. This tension underlying the Turkish Socialist Revolution was what made Irakli’s relatively high position slightly irregular as he was an obvious Georgian and thus Christian.

Scanning the youths opposing his composite unit of Georgian and Turkish internal troops, thoughts regarding the grim reality of his actions harming his religious compatriots raced through his mind, as they always did before an internal engagement. With practice honed ease he directed his NCOs to position the internal troops under his command around the farmstead.

He slowly worked the bolt on his Thompson submachine gun and ran a hand along his webbing, confirming that he had his magazines, hand grenades, and knife. Tied loosely around his right arm was a tourniquet, with another tied to his cartridge belt. His subordinates performed similar last minute checks, the command elements was positioned on a ridge above the farmstead with the maneuver components already in position along two of the three possible axis of advance. Irakli stretched and gestured to his radioman who gave the order into the radio set.

Immediately the chatter of a motley combination of light automatic rifles echoed throughout the small hollow. The Ground Forces of the Turkish Socialist Republican Army were equipped with a combination of weapons inherited from the Revolutionary Red Army, seized from the Mediterranean Social Confederation, or purchased on the international market. It was possible to discern several different calibers as the cacophony of automatic fire continued, joined by the comparatively small pop of rifles.

Irakli counted off several minutes in his head before rising and taking off towards the farm at a light jog. Smoke from an unknown fire swirled around his head as he delved into the chaos of an active skirmish, the pace of the firefight had slowed to only an occasional shot and by the time Samurzakano actually entered the compound it was effectively finished.

Already the internal troops had stripped and laid out the guerilla fighters. The Bosnians were separated from the handful of Greek or Turkish counterrevolutionaries, of course they had no identification cards or identifying tattoos. It was only possible to tell the difference between a Bosnian infiltrator and a Turkish or Greek Counterrevolutionary through a deep cultural understanding that was never perfectly bridged by foreigners. Irakli bowed his head and crossed himself covertly, religion was out of favor in the Turkish People’s Republic, however allowances were made in order to preserve the integrity of the Army.

He jotted down the details of the operation and sighed as he closed his notebook, there were dozens of script covered pages detailing similar incidents. Infiltration operations occurred almost daily in both directions and while the conflict between the Italian led Mediterranean Social Confederation and the Turkish led Socialist-Republican Union was at present undeclared, open warfare appeared imminent. Reflecting on the absurdity of daily skirmishes in peacetime, Irakli smiled grimly and lit a cigarette. He puffed out acrid smoke and savored the taste that reminded him of the rough hands of his father and the tumbling down field-stone walls of a Caucasian farm of his own. He would have to compile a full report and debrief his men but for a moment he allowed himself to reflect on a boyhood spent among similar conditions. In the Mediterranean basin, memories were the only peaceful place left.

Posted: **Mon Oct 14, 2019 2:42 pm**

February 15, 1953

With a shudder his small passenger car trundled up the rural two-track path. Pine forest stretched on either side of the two track and the Balkan hills rose above. Mario was operating close to the border with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, serving as a liason for a Hellenic Airborne Brigade which was engaged in a running battle with Communist Partisans and Turkish irregulars and the SSS. His comrades were several kilometers ahead, having engaged and eliminated an insurgent camp.

As Ricci drove he nervously glanced to either side of the two track. The guerrillas in the area had supposedly been eliminated this morning, but he had no illusions as to the likelihood that some remained. A lone officer of the SSS would fare particularly poorly in the hands of the Communists and for that reason he sat with his M1934 Beretta under his right thigh. In the passenger seat was an FNAB-43 with the stock folded and Mario resisted the temptation to check if the gun was loaded again.

Finally after a tense half hour he emerged onto a hilltop that had been recently deforested by a combination of mortar fire and automatic weaponry. The Italian air force had strafed the hilltop to support by fire the Hellenic Airborne Infantry who had advanced through the woods by section. The soldiers had long since retreated but several representatives from the Greek and Yugoslav intelligence services remained behind with a car similar to Mario’s.

Ricci chuckled as two masked men dragged a bound man from the trunk of a passenger car. The Yugoslavs and Greek Loyalists were brutal but their methods made the SSS Agent smile. He lit a cigarette as they forced the captive into a sitting position, and tore a strip of duct tape from his mouth. The captive gazed up at Mario with determined eyes and in response Mario knelt and placed his cigarette in the man’s mouth.

The captive greedily sucked at the cigarette and Mario waited several moments before taking it back. He searched the man’s face as he began to ask him accented questions in rudimentary Greek. Either Ricci’s accent was too heavy or the captive was determined to resist because no information was forthcoming. Mario glanced up at the masked Greek soldiers and gestured, they bodily grabbed the silent man and stuffed him back into the trunk. The intelligence officers exchanged pleasantries before the Greeks and Yugoslavs departed, leaving Mario alone.

He surveyed the aftermath of the ambush. Hellenic soldiers had monitored a Turkish infiltration cell for several days before surrounding and liquidating the terrorists. The remnants of several tents and makeshift shelters lay smoldering as a result of the ambush, the Greek Military had been quite liberal in the application of fires, inundating the Turkish camp with mortar rounds before converging upon the position. Spent casings and the other detritus that seemed to follow in the wake of combat was scattered across the deforested hilltop. Mario was struck by the capacity of man to conjure trash into existence in places that were once pristine.

He lit himself another cigarette and reflected upon the fact that since the war he had hardly known a day of peace. Greek Communists acting with the support of the Turkish state were conducting nearly daily raids and partisan operations, forcing the entire Social Confederation to wage military operations other than war across Hellas. He had served for only several weeks when peace was declared between the embryonic Turkish Communist Party and the Mediterranean Social Confederation but his time of military and later intelligence service was far from peaceful. Ricci bitterly cast his half finished cigarette into the brush and departed. The conflict was at an obvious stalemate and the common seemingly futile loss of life was disgusting, both to Ricci and any other sane observer.

*

Corriere della Imperio
Dux Mea Lux!

Police Operation Eliminates Dozens of Militants

On February 15th, the Royal Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with assistance from the Imperial Army conducted a series of operations in the vicinity of Salonika, Skopje, and western Thrace which eliminated several dozen Communist bandits. A large quantity of arms and munitions were seized and reports have been issued stating that several other criminal gangs were arrested in Constantinople as a result of the information gained by Greek authorities.

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2019 11:25 am**

• • • † • • •

The history of Layarteb and Italy had gone back for centuries with periods of ups and periods of downs. Catholic missionaries from Italy had brought Christianity to the lands of Layarteb, often suffering for their faith against members of the pagan faiths of Layarteb. Though ever since the foundation of the Republic, Layarteb and Italy had good relations. The past bygones had been the past bygones and the two nations chose not to dwell on the actions of their ancestors. This held at least until the 1920s when the rise of fascism transformed the Italian state into what could only be a bitter enemy of the Republic. It happened with the rise of one man and his faithful legions of fascists and his name - Benito Mussolini - was a forbidden word to the Layartebians for he embodied all that the Republic stood against. His rise turned a centuries-old relationship on its head and now the two nations existed no longer as friends but rather as bitter enemies.

With his rise came an exile of pro-democratic leaders from Italy who'd fled to a series of islands in the Aegean Sea forming not only a government-in-exile but an independent nation known as the Confederation of the Aegean, which consisted of the islands of: Agios Efstratios, Bozcaada Chios, Crete, Fournoi, Ikaria, Imbros, Korseon, Lemnos, Lesbos, Oinousses, Psara, Samos, Samothrace, Skyros, Tenedos, and Thasos. Each island existed as a regional unit within this confederation, each one with governmental jurisdiction over its geographic territory, sharing sovereignty with the federalized unit based in the Lemnosian capital of Myrina. Lacking any such military, the Confederation of the Aegean appealed to the only ally they could think of in such a time of need, the Republic of Layarteb and for their request, the Layartebians answered immediately and with genuine determination.

This was the 1920s and the 1930s and air power was hardly what it was today and for their commitment to the government-in-exile, the Layartebian Navy formed the Mediterranean Fleet. It consisted of warships seconded from the Atlantic Fleet but which would normally have been responsible for the Mediterranean Sea anyway thanks to the rise of fascism. It consisted of four battleships, four cruisers, six destroyers, six submarines, and a sizeable support force of coalers, oilers, and transport ships. The arrival of the Mediterranean Fleet was a major show of force for the Layartebians and they made sure to announce their presence to the Italian government, which was in the midst of its own civil war, which raged into the 1940s. The distraction allowed the Layartebians to gain such a significant foothold in the region.

The Layartebian Navy had, in this arrival, established three major bases in the Aegean on Crete, Lemnos, and Lesbos with Crete being the main headquarters. Patrols conducted throughout the Aegean Sea existed mainly to deter the Italians from attempting any action against the Aegean islands and they were successful. Beginning in the late 1930s and into the early 1940s, air power steadily grew and in the mid-1940s, the Layartebian Navy supplemented its deployment into the Aegean with not one but two aircraft carriers, each one capable of supporting an air wing of one hundred and two aircraft: eighteen fighters, seventy-two fighter-bombers, and twelve torpedo bombers. On land bases, Layartebian bombers and pursuit fighters deployed in squadrons of eighteen to twenty-four aircraft. By the end of the 1940s, the Layartebian Air Force had almost four hundred aircraft deployed and airfields had been built on almost every island, many of them large enough to support the mighty B-17 Flying Fortress bombers that would be expected to carry out bombing missions against mainland Greece in the event of a fascist invasion.

Going into the 1950s the power dynamic was changing. Mussolini had grown stronger than ever and the Aegean remained a thorn in his side, a land which he sought to conquer for two reasons, one of which was the expulsion of the Layartebians and the other of which was pride. The government-in-exile still claimed the rightful ruling and the Layartebians had yet to recognize Mussolini though embassies between the two nations continued to operate through backchannel communications. It was a dark period that Mussolini could easily exploit, especially with the rise of the Italian mafias back in the Republic. These criminal syndicates rose in the 1920s and the 1930s in the wake of the West Immigration Laws, a series of laws championed by President David West in the late 1920s that effectively barred immigrants from Italy from entering the Republic of Layarteb. While the laws didn't outright ban immigrants from Italy it put on some many additional checks and balances that it was virtually impossible to immigrant to Layarteb.

West had been fearful of fascism penetrating the Republic due to its sizeable, Italian emigre community, much of which was centered in and around Layarteb City. His successor, President Robert Winters, upheld the laws as did the Layartebian Congress. As such, the mafias arose as smuggling organizations, helping refugees escape into the Republic, subverting the laws. Their power grew and by the 1940s, they were hardly smuggling rackets anymore, having gotten into prostitution, gambling, protection rackets, and so on and so forth. Acutely aware of them, Layartebian justice authorities were either in league with the mafias or turned a blind eye because they provided an element of safety. Neighborhoods controlled by the mafias were safe - so long as you didn't cross them - and the mafias had strict codes of honor that meant innocent people weren't killed for no reason. Those the mafia punished - in the eyes of the police - deserved it. Thus, the police ignored the crimes unless - of course - the mafia went after them. It was gang versus gang at that point and the police were ruthless and so the mafia left the police alone and by and large, the police left the mafia alone. Incidents and mistakes happened but they were dealt with, often quietly with agreements.

Nowadays, the mafias provided another service to the Layartebians. Using their channels back into Italy, the mafias became an ally against the fascists, helping to smuggle spies into Italy where the mafias own criminal contacts supported them once inside of Italy and its surrounding areas of influence.

Times were changing though. Mussolini's final defeat of the remaining royalists and opponents, many of whom fled to the Aegean, meant he could concentrate on the communists abroad and the Aegean. It was the Aegean however that the Republic was most concerned with as the communists were hardly an ally. In fact, the Layartebians saw the communists as worse than the fascists though it would hardly cooperate with one over the other, seeing neither as a suitable partner, even against the other, realpolitik be damned. Mussolini's purges had seen to it however that those who could fight him from within were hardly a viable ally and so the Republic sought more clandestine ways of subverting him from the inside, while maintaining a strong defense in the Aegean.

The arrival of jet power of course had meant that the Layartebian presence in the Aegean could increase. Airpower subverted naval power in warfare but that didn't mean the navy wasn't present in the Aegean. On the contrary, the naval presence was increased and the Mediterranean Fleet wound up with four aircraft carriers, more cruisers, more destroyers, frigates, submarines, and corvettes capable of fighting a sizeable naval battle and support marine landings on the Greek coastline. Permanent ground troops were introduced for the first time in the form of a brigade of marines stationed in Crete. Nowadays, the Layartebians were focused on just what the fascists were up to in the region.

• • • • ‡ • • • •

Thursday, February 19^th, 1953 | 11:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Moudros, Lemnos | Moudros Naval Base
39° 52' 23" N, 25° 15' 48" E

The Layartebian Navy's Mediterranean Fleet had grown considerably in the past three years. Nowadays, it consisted of ten attack submarines, four destroyer escorts, ten destroyers, three light cruisers, three heavy cruisers, one battlecruiser, one battleship, and two aircraft carriers. It had also been split up amongst the three major bases throughout the Aegean Confederacy on Crete, Lemnos, and Lesbos. The biggest warships were all deployed to Crete but both Lemnos and Lesbos had sizeable deployments of warships with equal deployments to both locations. Both thus had two destroyers and two destroyer escorts (one destroyer squadron), one each of the light and heavy cruisers (one cruiser squadron), and three attack submarines. Within the larger, Mediterranean Fleet, these were considered task groups as they operated almost independently of the main battle group based in Crete, which consisted of six destroyers, a light and a heavy cruiser, the battlecruiser and battleship, four attack submarines, and the two aircraft carriers.

In charge of Task Group Lima-6, based on Lesbos, was Senior Admiral (SADM) Charlie McMorrow, who at the age of forty-six, had been in the navy now for twenty-two years. When he joined it in 1931, the aircraft carrier was still a new concept and thus being rejected by the admirals in power who'd watched the age of steam dissipate with the dreadnaughts that sailed when McMorrow was just a child. Now he was an admiral and he was watching the big gun cruisers and battleships play second fiddle to the aircraft carrier and he, unlike his predecessors, knew that the aircraft carrier would reign supreme for decades to come. He couldn't envision what would replace it but he knew its only enemy was the submarine and with enough escort protection, the submarine would be more a nuisance than a threat, or so that was what he believed.

He was joined in his office by Rear Admiral (RADM) Eric Souza, the commanding officer of DESRON-8 or Destroyer Squadron 8. Souza was in charge of the two Allen M. Sumner-class destroyers and the two John C. Butler destroyer escorts. Both of them were watching the RLS Cooper (DD-695), one of the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyers returned to her berth. The 3,500-ton warship moved slowly in the dock area, having just completed an 18-day patrol throughout the Aegean. It was more of a training and familiarization patrol than it was a deterrent patrol as the warship had just received a new captain and a new crew barely four months earlier. Unbeknownst to her crew and these two men, the warship had been but one thousand yards from the Antelope as she transited from Greece to Turkey with her group of fascist guerillas intent on causing havoc in Turkey.

"Smooth, very smooth," McMorrow said, "I think Stephenson was a good choice. He has an exemplary record."

"I wonder if he's aggressive enough for this region," Souza said, continuing to voice his concern about Captain James Stephenson. Stephenson's record was indeed exemplary and he'd not had so much as a minor infraction against him. A lot of his fellow captains saw him though as a "choir boy" and a do-gooder, someone unwilling to join in the fun in the O-club and that didn't make many of them too comfortable with the man, Souza included.

"Let's let the man prove his mettle. He's not needed to be aggressive before but this is a different region, a different command, and a different posting. Let's see how he does before we write him off," McMorrow answered before returning to his desk. Souza joined him on the opposite side. "So some new developments from the chiefs. I just received them this morning."

"Concerning the area?"

"No us," McMorrow said, pulling out a coded cable that had been given to him earlier in the morning. "It appears that command is worried about the threat of enemy aircraft enough to begin basing the newest surface-to-air missiles on Lemnos, well on every island really but we're getting the first ones. Why us and not Crete is disconcerting, that means they probably don't work and they want us to make them work before they give them to Crete. It's not our purview since we aren't the army but that's what they say."

"Surface-to-air missile? What do they mean?"

"Well it's called the Nike Ajax and it's a big sucker. It's been in development now about eight years. It's supposed to be able to shoot down bombers and fighters at altitudes up to seventy thousand feet and as far away as thirty miles. It goes supersonic speeds."

"Will they replace our guns?"

"Maybe one day but not anytime soon. They estimate that it takes approximately twenty-eight hundred shells to destroy one aircraft. They believe they can do it with just one missile, two really since the concept of redundancy will hardly be forsaken in this day and age."

"A cost savings?"

"They believe."

"I'm not sure I do."

"Well we'll be given a test viewing once they deploy the first unit in the summer. The world is changing and so are our weapons. The first supersonic fighter was tested only last year and it's due to enter service this year. The air force always gets the shiny toys first but we'll have our day soon. They're working on several fighters for the carriers down in Crete. Well these F-100s that the air force will get should be here by next spring. Supposedly they're working on some other supersonic interceptors, something called the Starfighter. It's supposed to be a rocket with a man in it."

"We'll get this?"

"Air force only I'm afraid."

"Well those planes can only fly so far before they need gas. Our warships can patrol for days."

"Which is why we'll never be out of the fight!" McMorrow said, "And we have carriers so we will get our toys too! The only thing I worry about though are those atomic bombs." Silence hung in the air.

"So I am not alone then?"

"I fear that the destructive power makes them too lucrative to use. Certainly they're most cost efficient, when one bomb can do what a requires a thousand bombers. So far there do not seem to be plans to deploy them here but you know the air force. They will want them here and then we will want them and then the army will want them and before long our islands will be covered in radiation symbols and we'll have a thousand warheads pointed at us. Ships we can sink; aircraft we can shoot down; men we can shoot. What can you do against atomic bombs?"

"Nothing," Souza said, his voice trailing as he watched in his mind the test footage, he'd been shown dozens of times of newer and more powerful weapons. "Is there any scale to their power? These atomic weapons?"

"They appear to be getting bigger and bigger by the year. Now they have 'hydrogen bombs' in development. When they become deployable then I do not know what is in store for us."

"Let's just hope that the smarter heads prevail."

"Yes let's," McMorrow said before they started to discuss the latest developments in the region with the ongoing battle between fascists and communists throughout Italy, Greece, the Balkans, and Turkey.

• • • † • • •

Posted: **Sun Nov 24, 2019 8:35 am**

Captain William K. Pike
UFS Enterprise
Approaching Malta, Mediterranean Sea
Thursday 19th February 1953, 1200hrs Local Time

Captain William K. Pike stood on the bridge of his ship, the Constitution-Class (New Orleans-Class) Heavy Cruiser UFS Enterprise, as they began their approach to the world-famous Grand Harbour of Malta. It was a beautiful day, the area around the island bustling as always with civilian craft that took care to steer well clear of the Federation Warship that was approaching. The State of Malta, as it was officially known, was a Federation Protectorate; having taken the unusual step of requesting official Federation Protection whilst the Federation Special Envoy to Malta continued to determine whether there was an appetite within Malta for the deeper relationship that was membership in the Federation. It was perhaps hardly surprising; given the tense atmosphere in the region at the moment, and the Federation Council was more than happy to accept that request given that Malta was the first potential member-state to have a reasonable chance of joining the Federation in decades. However, the Federation was eager to avoid member-states joining solely for the protection aspect and, as such, the work of the Federation Special Envoys were vital, and it was partially this desire that had prevented several prospective member-states from joining over the years.

Protecting Malta, whilst it considered its long-term relationship with the Federation, was not an easy task however. The Articles of the Federation, the founding guiding documents and Constitution of the United Federation of Nations, specifically forbid from the Federation from stationing troops of the United Defence Force in a prospective member-state, lest the military presence negatively influence the decision making process. As such, the task of defending Malta felt to the Federal Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron. Given that the Malta paradigm would set the template for any future prospective member-states the UDF had been ordered to ensure that the Navy had all the resources it needed. As such, the Mediterranean Squadron was the single largest overseas formation of the Federal Navy, consisting of a Carrier Battle Group, centred around the UFS Independence, a Surface Action Group, centred around the UFS Los Angeles, and half a dozen cruisers. Indeed, of the twelve ships of the Constitution-Class, the most venerable and storied class of cruisers ever operated by the United Defence Force, six of them were assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron, specifically to fly the flag and underline the Federation’s commitment to Malta.

“Cable party closed up, Sir,” Commander John T. Forbes, the Enterprise’s executive officer, reported as he stepped up beside Pike.

“Very good,” Pike nodded with a smile.

The two men stood in companionable silence for a few minutes as they eased closer to land, until another ship, larger and more imposing that the Enterprise. It was an example of the larger Cruisers that had been built in an effort to replace the Constitution-Class, but had proven to be expensive and had been retired after relatively short careers. This ship, however, represented a potential comeback for the larger cruiser and the shape of things to come.

“Would you look at that,” Commander Forbes commented with a look of amazement.

“My friend, the great experiment,” Pike agreed. “The Excelsior, ready for trial runs.”

The United Federation Ship Excelsior had been brought out of the mothballs to serve as the testbed for a new generation of weapon that would, although no one knew it quite yet, the face of naval (and indeed aerial warfare in general) forever; the surface-to-air missile, or SAM. Although no nation had yet successfully deployed an operational surface-to-air missile into general service, the Defence Force Corps of Engineers was at the forefront of research and development. For the Federal Navy, the surface to air missile would provide a mid-level of defence against air attack, between the carrier’s fighters and anti-aircraft guns, and was exemplified by the current prototype; the RIM-2 Terrier, which was itself only one example of several prototype designs being developed by the Corps of Engineers. It was no coincidence that the Excelsior had been ordered to the Mediterranean Squadron to conduct her tests and trial runs, it was intended to be a very clear sign that the United Defence Force fully intended to be at the forefront of weapons design and development. This was especially pointed after their neighbourly rivals in the Republic of Layarteb had succeeded in developing a near-operational land-based surface-to-air missile in the form of the Nike Ajax. In short, the United Defence Force was determined to get the plaudits of deploying the first operational naval surface-to-air missile, and the Excelsior’s trials were a vital step forwards in achieving just that.

Never the less, the Enterprise and her class, despite being the elder statesmen of the Federal Navy, remained a prominent fixture.

“Do you think there’ll be any spill over from the mess on the continent?” Forbes after they had passed the Excelsior.

“It is difficult to say; ideological struggles have a tendency to spread and pull people in on an ideological bent, however the Federation has never found itself drawn to ideological extremes, perhaps due to our ideals of inclusion and diversity,” Pike replied with a thoughtful expression. “So, do I see the Federation getting involved in this mess of our own will? No, I don’t. However, these kinds of ideological struggles tend to give rise to poorly trained, badly disciplined mobs, so is there a possibility that we’ll be dragged into it? Perhaps.”

“An attack on civilian shipping, Sir?”

“Perhaps, or Federation citizens who have ignored the advisory from the Department of the Exterior, it would be our job to respond,” Pike nodded. “Moreover, either of the two sides might see Malta as a viable target, which is why we, and indeed the Excelsior, is here.”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Forbes commented.

“Indeed, we will, and I want us to be ready for it,” Pike said simply. “Issue shore passes for this evening but make clear to the divisional officers and the CPOs that I will be wanting to get underway again tomorrow afternoon.”

“Aye-Aye, Sir,” Forbes nodded.

Posted: **Sun Dec 01, 2019 4:24 pm**

The Italian Empire was the product of Ottoman decline. North Africa had been seized in the early twentieth century with only nominal state support, bands of Italian adventures had cooperated with the Berbers to oust Turkish rule. As a result, Rome had been forced to quickly move to support the expulsion of the Turks and fill the vacuum created by the decline in Ottoman power. The Kingdom of Italy under the rule of the Liberal Party was slow to rouse itself to Imperial endeavors but the pressure valve provided by vast tracts of land in North Africa served to delay and defuse the land question sufficiently.

Internal politics as opposed to external ambitions led to the Italians capitalizing on the opportunity afforded by the seizure of North Africa to begin to explore increasingly imperial designs in the Middle East. The orient had for generations served as an alluring siren; the Kingdom, could no more resist being drawn to the east than a moth could resist the allure of a nighttime flame. As Italy began to explore contacts among the Arab elites, many of whom were educated in Tripoli and Algiers, the Serbs and Bulgarians began to express ambitions that threatened to drive the Balkans into open conflict.

The death of Sultan Murrad and the rise of his second son, Osman radically shifted the balance of power in the region as the spirit of Osman I seemed to return to the world in the flesh of his descendant. Turkish martial ability, long regarded as declining was rapidly restored to world prominence with the liquidation of a handful of revolts in the Caucasus and across Arabia before the restoration of Ottoman order in Greece. Fledgling as it was, the Greek Kingdom was reduced to a handful of Aegean islands that were taken under Italian protection.

This set the resurgent Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy on a collision course as the Aegean was an integral part of any Anatolian state. Immediately Rome enlisted the aid of Belgrade, calling upon the Yugoslavians and their allies the Bulgarians to march to liberate Greece. The Turks had allies of their own however and the Bosnians and Albanians were offered suzerainty over the Balkan peninsula as Turkish vassals should they be victorious.
Serb generals quickly drew up plans for the lightning pacification of Bosnia with Italian support. Belgrade sold Rome a vision of a campaign that would take a short six weeks to totally destroy the Bosnian Army and seize Sarajevo, dealing a body-blow to the Turkish coalition by completely destroying one of the belligerents. In March of 1912 the Serbs initiated hostilities but by January of 1913 had only barely advanced beyond the frontier into Bosnia. Albania and Turkey had pressed the Serbs along the southern front and despite the best attempts of the Italian navy, there was no way to effectively stem the Turkish advance.

Along the Eastern Front the Bulgarians with assistance from their Cossack cousins along the northern shore of the Black Sea had successfully retaken Constantinople and Thrace but were unable to meaningfully project power across the Bosporus into the Anatolian heartland. The Dardanelles remained firmly in Turkish hands and this allowed the Ottoman Army to continue the fight in the western Balkans by avoiding the Bulgarian occupied region.

In March of 1913, one full year after hostilities were initiated the front crystallized. The Bulgarians were positioned in Thrace so as to render it impregnable for the Turks. The Greek partisans were harassing the Ottoman Army in Greece but the Turkish response was such that the armed resistance was limited to areas in the immediate vicinity of the front. The Serbs were bogged down in Bosnia and stretched thinly in Macedonia and Kosovo, doggedly resisting the Ottoman advance.

The Italian Navy was dueling the Ottoman fleet in the Aegean, winning every major naval engagement but losing ships and men to Turkish raiding. Periodically the Italians tried to force landings in Albania or the Dardanelles, and every time the casualties suffered rendered any exploitation action impossible. Across the Middle East Italian aligned Berbers, Italian provocateurs, and Arab dissidents tried to organize resistance to Turkish rule with no serious success.

In August of 1913 the Turkish Army forced entry to Kosovo but the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, and an Italian expeditionary force mustered a heroic defense at Malo Kosovo, destroying the I, III, and V Corps of the Ottoman Army. The Italian I, II, III, and IV Field Armies arrived in September, creating a situation which allowed the Balkan Coalition to breach the hastily reconstructed Ottoman lines and advance towards Salonika.

The rough Macedonian terrain is where the front finally settled. Coalition armies were threatening to cut off the Turks in Attica by seizing Salonika. The Italians were positioned in Rhodes, raiding the Anatolian coast and periodically attempting to seize the Dardanelles and the fortress of Gallipoli. Coalition authorities were already celebrating an eventual victory; Greece was soon to be liberated and Bosnia had been mostly pacified. Albania was falling as the Ottoman Army retreated, and Greek partisans were starting to destabilize Smyrna as the Italian raiders were making deeper inroads into Anatolia.

Faced with an increasingly grave situation, Sultan Osman reorganized the Army yet again and personally took control of the Thrace-Hellas front. Unlike the European royals, the Sultan donned the simple olive uniform of a Colonel and acted both as the highest strategic authority and the head of the X Division of the Ottoman Army, “Janissaries”. Energized by the presence of their sovereign the Spring Offensive of 1914 drove the Bulgarians back from Thrace, encircling Constantinople and jeopardizing Coalition positions as far afield as Salonika.

This was the final major fluctuation of the front until 1919. Constantinople endured encirclement, supplied by the sea from both Bulgaria and the Italians in Aegean. The Turkish navy continued to menace Italian shipping but the Don Atmanate and the Bulgarian Kingdom were able to prevent widespread suffering in the besieged city of the world’s desire. Salonika was ultimately seized by Coalition forces in early 1915 but the Ottoman-Albanian forces were able to sustain their occupation of Attica despite coalition pressure. Arab and Caucasian insurgents periodically staged uprisings in the Ottoman hinterland but unlike their Greek compatriots in Smyrna did not enjoy the proximity of an allied power to supply arms, ammunition, and other critical supplies.

While there was an obvious imperial heritage to the conflict, the foundation of the conflagration was economic. The Italian-European Bourgeoisie had long led the world in industrialization and the production of finished goods. This had transformed Europe from a relatively backwards peninsula to the global metropole, allowing the aggressive colonization of much of the globe. This shift in power had impoverished the Islamic world which remained locked in a state of exploitation as the parasitic Ottoman Bourgeoisie, often comprised of members of minority miliets, enriched themselves at the expense of the multi-national peasantry.

Similarly the industrialization of northern Italy necessitated the movement of peasants from the Tuscan countryside into the booming and soot stained cities. While there had long existed a hinterland-city dialectic in northern Italy, the entrance of hundreds of southern peasants and their transformation in proletarians exacerbated class antagonisms in the north by injecting shades of the national question. The seizure of North Africa allowed the Kingdom to ship southern peasants wholesale to Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia but the Italian proletariat-peasantry had allowed their grievances to synthesize, given form by the newly declared Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

In the comparatively backwards Ottoman divan, political questions were handled through delegation. The Sultan was engaged in martial pursuits and the ruling personalities were similarly occupied with ensuring that the Army and Navy had adequate provisions and personnel. Internal politics were legally frozen which allowed illegal formations like the Turkish Workers Party and the Revolutionary National Councils of a dozen nationalities to organize in secret. One of these illegal formations the Fighting Organization of Turkish Veterans began to wage a campaign of assassinations, venting the frustration of the populace as the war continued to consume husbands, brothers, and sons, without a tangible goal or any material benefit for the populace.

In December of 1919 the FOTV struck, three disguised militants infiltrated the X Division Staff Personnel and during the morning briefing of the Sultan produced revolvers and shot him, the Marshal of the Ottoman Army, and the Vizier of Anatolia-Hellas, the Sultan's heir apparent, his younger brother Suleiman. This shocked the Ottoman state and within hours the news raced along the front. Suddenly the Ottoman Army was engaged in fighting not only the coalition but also itself as groups of organized political militants revealed themselves and at times carried whole brigades into open insurrection.

Councils composed of workers, soldiers, and peasants sprang into existence across Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire was de facto abolished in January of 1920. The Yugoslavs attempted to force entry into Greece but found themselves delayed by simultaneous revolts across Serbia and Bulgaria as the Agrarian Socialists voiced the grievances of the peasants and the exhaustion of the soldiers. In northern Italy councils guided by the PSI seized the means of production and declared the birth of the Italian Workers’ Republic with the capital of Milan.

Confused clashes broke out across the front and throughout 1920 the Kingdom of Italy hung on in Rome and Napoli. 1921 was dominated by the life and death struggle that raged across Southern Europe and the Middle East. Arab Socialists seized Damascus and Baghdad, declaring the birth of the Arab Socialist Federation which waged a brutal campaign against the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in the Hijaz. The Turkish Workers Party consolidated itself into the Turkish People’s Republic and shedding the guise of Empire declared itself a Socialist National Republic dedicated to the unity of the Turkish people and the fraternity of the toiling masses of the globe.

Posted: **Wed Dec 25, 2019 9:09 am**

Taking heart from their Turkish comrades, the Italian Socialist Party declared the birth of the Workers Federation and seized what factories the workers did not already occupy. Because of their position in the relatively urban north, the Party made a critical blunder by excluding the peasantry from the initial fighting organizations which proved to be limited to street battles and riots. The peasantry, particularly in the Mezzogiorno, formed autonomous armed bands that more closely resembled Briganti rather than revolutionaries. Bourgeois parties and cliques formed fighting organizations that worked in loose concert with the rapidly disintegrating Royal Army and the situation by the middle of 1921 was incredibly grim for the House of Savoy.

Only the veterans, united behind D’Annunzio and headquartered in Fiume were waging a systematic campaign against the PSI and the Workers’ Federation. In desperation the King, Re Vittorio Emanuele called for all patriotic veterans to unite behind D’Annunzio and the conservative Nationalist Party of Italy. This maneuver was performed without consulting D’Annunzio who was denounced the conservatism of the Nationalists in favor of a revolutionary program of National Syndicalism. This rift drew the more revolutionary veterans and almost the entire corps of Arditi to D’Annunzio and Fiume while the slothful and thoroughly reactionary Nationalist Party was able to muster only those veterans enticed by the higher wages offered to defend Rome.

Frustrated by this political squabbling and recognizing that D’Annunzio was occupied with holding the remnants of the Ottoman Army and the Yugoslav Communists at bay, the first Fasci di Combattimento were formed in Milano, led by a young former Socialist Benito Mussolini. These fighting formations combined the revolutionary impulses of National Syndicalism with a fraught alliance with the Nationalists and the Monarchy. Founded as they were deep within the Workers’ Federation, they were from their first day waging a desperate struggle against enemy forces that were oftentimes overwhelming. Desperate adventurers and romantic revolutionaries were drawn to Mussolini and his Fascists, tempered in revolutionary violence, and often dispatched to the other cities of Italy to found their own fighting groups.

This process continued throughout 1922, the PSI was gradually gaining power despite the boldness of the Fascists and National Syndicalists. On April 14th of 1922 the PSI and CGL made the fateful decision to resist incorporating non-party factory councils into the ruling framework of the Workers’ Federation. This rift provided the Fascists and National Syndicalists the opportunity to advance their own program which contained enough socialistic phraseology to win a following among workers in the center, peasants from the Mezzogiorno and Apennine Mountains, and the nationally minded urban petit bourgeoisie.

With these social forces Mussolini began to lay the foundation for a coup. Preparations lasted until late September and in October of 1922 the Fascists in alliance with the National Syndicalists and elements of the Nationalist and Conservative Parties staged the March on Rome liquidating the Workers’ Federation and simultaneously presenting the king with an ultimatum- Mussolini would serve as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy or the Supreme Leader of the Italian Social Republic. This ultimatum was entirely a bluff, despite the relative ineffectiveness of the Monarchy it had the broadest support among the population. Luckily the Re granted Mussolini the role of Prime Minister and the authority to form a government comprised of Fascists, Nationalists, and the Conservatives.

An offer was made to allow the PSI to return to the fold of legal political activity which was accepted, leading to a split with the more radical elements of the Socialist Party who founded the Italian Communist Party in 1923 in Bologna. These marginalized Communists dedicated themselves to continuing revolutionary struggle and departed, seeking the assistance of their comrades in the Balkans and Turkey. Newly reunited, Italy again turned her attention to the Balkans which were mired in revolutionary violence. Italian, Slovenian, Serbian, and Turkish Communists were waging a confused people’s war against the failing Yugoslavian Monarchy, the Greek Confederation, and the Bulgarian Tsar.

Of these retrograde regimes, only the Tsar remained in a position of stability, having capitalized on the favorable positions of the Bulgarian military in the Great War to liquidate early attempts to consolidate the revolution. In Yugoslavia the King was failing and in 1925 the Legionnaires of Fiume intervened, breaking open Slovenia and marching south to bolster the defense of Belgrade. D’Annunzio declared the birth of a crusade against Communism which would elevate man to heroic heights and command the total dedication of his adherents.

By 1930 Yugoslavia was stabilized and Dalmatia, Istria, and Albania annexed directly to the Kingdom of Italy. The Legionnaires were settled in military communities in the newly redeemed Italian frontier provinces, forming an organic wall of steel to Italy’s east.

Posted: **Wed Jan 15, 2020 7:31 pm**

Throughout the 1930s the Italians and Turks periodically launched offensives into Greece. While the Italian navy was able to contain the Communist offensives to Thrace and Salonika, Turkish manpower and martial talent kept the Italians in Europe. Despite a state of war, actual fighting occurred only in sharp and very rare bursts. For all intents and purposes peace had descended upon southern Europe and the Middle East by 1931.

Internally the Italian economy exploded, motivated by the need to rebuild the Balkans and further industrialize the country along Corporationist lines. The National Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini successfully consolidated power and oversaw a dramatic transformation of Italian society that revolved around the achievement of the conquest of a Spazio Vitale. This feat allowed the Italian regime to vent periodic pressures to engage in meaningful land-reform by opening tracts of North Africa to settlement.

This predictably led to a gradually worsening social-political situation and in 1939 the First Berber Revolt, referred to sardonically as the X Punic War saw the Italian Governor-General driven from Algiers. The Italians in response negotiated an end to hostilities and a treaty framework was established that granted Berbers equal legal rights as Italians. Avoiding colonial crisis in this manner, the Italian Empire was able to finally expel the Turks from Greece by the early 1940s. However, the defeat of Communist revolutionary ambitions in the Balkans was only temporary and by 1945 a protracted guerrilla war had begun.

Within the Turkish People’s Republic and Arab Socialist Federation, the task of constructing Socialism was enthusiastically adopted as early as 1930. Intense internal contradictions had led to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and despite their absence from the Italian historiography of the Crusade against Communism, White Ottoman forces were decisive in providing Italian Fascism the breathing space it required to defeat the PSI. Arab-Turkish Jihadists proved to be the most stalwart allies to Italian Fascism and at the event of the defeat of the Communist Red Army in the vicinity of Salonika in 1941 earned Mussolini the title of, “Defender of Islam”.

These internal opponents to the Turkish Workers Party and the Arab Socialist Party were heavily focused in the Hijaz and despite the best wishes of the regime, never fully eliminated. Despite these distractions throughout the 1930s and 1940s the Turkish People’s Republic and the Arab Socialist Federation began a campaign of industrialization that saw Baghdad, Ankara, and most successfully Syria blossom into modern albeit standardized metropolises. Islam was repressed heavily in the 1930s but in the interest of retaining popular support gradually assimilated by the regime until in 1949 the Mosques were reopened across both nations.

The ruling party of the Turkish People’s Republic, the Turkish Workers Party and the Arab Socialist Party were ostensibly separate entities but in reality were a unified apparatus that formalized their unity in 1950. This allowed a greater degree of centralization which was critical in order to modernize the agricultural sector to allow the fertile crescent to blossom into the breadbasket of the Communist world.

Posted: **Thu Jan 23, 2020 6:06 pm**

1970.

The passing of Mussolini in the early 1960s had qualitatively changed the conflict with the Turkish People’s Republic. Revolutionary vigor was hard to maintain, and without the personal figure of Mussolini or D’Annunzio, the Italians were hardly a warlike people. Conflict continued in sporadic bursts in Greece, with occasional bombings or shootings; the same could be said for Italy with a near daily protest or assassination carried out by militants of the radical Right or Left. The Mediterranean Social Confederation was enjoying relative peace, a fantastic industrialization of the north and a colossal movement of people from the south had ensured that for some these years of lead were a profitable time.

North Africa had some trouble from time to time from the Berbers but the alternative to real-existing Fascism was seemingly atheistic Communism, a choice that was not preferable to the reactionary leadership of the Berber Social Republic. Yugoslavia was comparably pacified with occasional acts of terrorism motivated by Turkish infiltrators or the odd Bosniak insurgent. Religious and ethnic conflict was rare as a result of the unifying effect of opposition to Communism but it was not entirely absent. For this reason Rome had undertaken an aggressive policy of resettlement, carving out coherent national homelands within the MSC. This policy was proving to be fruitful in preventing the cacachopny of national languages from turning into the chatter of automatic weapons.

Similarly the Turkish People’s Republic and the Arab Socialist Federation had moderated their revolutionary vigor. Instead of struggling to carry the red banner forth, the Communist world now sought to prevent a collapse into counter-revolution; dueling with dozens of subversive nationalist movements as well as the perennial threat posed by Jihadism. Confronted by the political instability of ruling a vast but materially stretched country, the ruling parties of both ostensibly independent states established a joint-committee known as the Fraternal-Presidium. This office would concentrate power in the hands of a cohort of party officials and serve to align Baghdad and Ankara.

Material shortages were rare but present, revealing a contradiction in the ruling line of the Parties-the struggle to Socialism while difficult was to be rewarded by gradual improvement but the generation coming of age in the 1970s lived comparably to their parents of the 1950s. This reality was known to the Fraternal Presidium and left with few internal mechanisms to alleviate the mounting crisis, a preemptive external crisis was to be conjured into existence. Because of the ongoing conflict, a faction of the security services that was associated with the brutal contingency operations of the Anatolian coast, staffed heavily with officers from the Caucasus , was ordered into action.

***

April 15, 1970.

The door was wrenched open, it whined in protest as the awkwardly fit door was flung by uncaring hands. Two coughs, bright blood, and the sensation of falling. Concrete warmed by the sun and the sickening realization that he had been shot came rushing into the void left by the rapid departure of the footsteps of his assailant. Traffic screamed around him in the traffic circle on the outskirts of Rome; lazily turning under the perennial Mediterranean sun until the attack. Left on his own, hanging partially out of his 500, Mario Ricci deputy head of the Eastern Affairs Commission within the Servizio di Sicurezza Statale, veteran of 40 years of service, was left to die.

***

There was no decision, the course of action provoked by the assassination of Ricci would be a retaliatory strike, demanded by honor and the law of the correlation of forces. Peace had weakened the Fascist dictatorship and by 1970 it was apparent that the old way of doing things would be surpassed by a renewed liberal order sooner or later. The only thing keeping the Fascists in control was the perception held by the underground parties and the peoples of the MSC that the coercive organs were well intact. To suffer such a blow would severely damage the prestige of not only the SSS but Fascism as a whole.

An operation was thrown together in a matter of hours. The SSS was known for relying upon partner agencies in the constituent republics and employing a degree of subtlety that led analysts the world over to confuse luck with competence. None of this characteristic subtlety was present at any of the dozen planning meetings that occurred within hours of Ricci’s death. Instead a faction within the SSS that was traditionally close with the Brigati Arditi and the Folgore was awarded the right to plan the retaliatory strike.

Posted: **Fri Jan 24, 2020 4:19 pm**

April 19, 1970.

Yassin tapped a soft tune upon the fore-grip of his M-12 as he watched pedestrians pass. Three other commandos along with Yassin were concealed
in the rear of a delivery truck that was parked in the town square of Giresun on the Black Sea. Tourists passed frequently and from the quality of their clothes and demeanor, they were primarily party officials. The characteristically younger wives betrayed the power behind the paunchy geriatrics who made the Turkish People’s Republic regime function and Yassin couldn’t help but be envious.

Lost in fantasy, he nearly missed the entrance of their target-saved the embarrassment by one of his subordinates shifting his kit in anticipation of Yassin’s order to engage. The target was an older man, unlike most of the party officials his wife was of similar looking age. They were chatting happily, enjoying a stroll with only a single bodyguard who was far too complacent. As the couple and their minder neared the delivery truck Yassin gave the order and the rear was raised from the inside. Three men opened fire while Yassin turned out of the vehicle and fired wildly up the street at nothing in particular.

His men were all highly trained and at the distance they were engaging the target, there was really no chance of missing. The bodyguard folded sideways unnaturally and the wife simply collapsed, the target got out a ragged shout of alarm but also fell sideways across his wife. Throatily the delivery truck roared into life and the commandos rushed to depart, Yassin jogged up to the target to ensure that the job was complete.

Blood was everywhere, pouring out of the perforated bags of flesh that had recently been human beings. As he approached Yassin saw that the target was mouthing something to him, struggling to catch his breath enough to speak. It would be entirely too melodramatic for the target to offer some final defense of the Socialist Fatherland but Yassin was pleasantly surprised to hear him struggle to pronounce his wife’s name, Suna. He had killed many men and to get ahead in his position it was necessary to adopt a viewpoint that many would classify as misanthropic, still it was a touching display of affection. Yassin fired a short burst into her crumpled body, demonstrating that she was solidly dead before firing a comparable burst into the target’s chest.

Sirens wailed and to delay pursuit he lobbed two hand grenades that had been weighing down the right pocket of his trousers. As he threw the second he turned and sprinted the vehicle which was already slowly moving forward. He climbed into the rear and the truck sped off-as quickly as possible in the narrow coastal-town streets. Unknowingly a series of events had been put in motion but all Yassin could think about was the likely promotion that he would receive.

Posted: **Thu Jan 30, 2020 5:27 pm**

The aftermath of the Italian assassination was far different than any outcome predicted by the SSS. In retaliation for the killing of Mario Ricci, the Mediterranean Social Confederation had liquidated the longtime leader and ideological moderate President Aktug Ozcan. Turkish politics were hardly the materialist facade presented by the ostensible Marxism of the Fraternal Presidium. In reality Ankara had to manage a myriad of competing cultural, linguistic, and ethnic aspirations that threatened to tear the fragile union of the majority of the Middle East to shreds. In a move designed to bolster the support of the Christians of the Middle East, an ethnic Georgian had been appointed to act as the Prime Minister of the Turkish People’s Republic, a move that as a result of the assassination had ensured that a member of the long-oppressed Caucasian peoples was now ruling a house of cards caught in the wind.

Moments after the somber burial of President Ozcan and his wife it seemed that every minority and people within the Turkish People’s Republic and the Arab Socialist Federation were declaring autonomy or in some cases independence. As quickly as the unfortunate interim-President Irakli Samurzakano maneuvered to salvage the Union, he found that such stalwart mechanisms as the Red Army or even his own comrades in the security services were quickly declaring allegiance to the several national Republics that had sprung up in the place of the TPR and ASF.

It was apparent as soon as late April that there would be no saving the regime in Ankara. Sensing this, Irakli began to assemble a cohort of Caucasians in an effort to save the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as an independent state that would be removed from whatever chaos engulfed the wider Middle East. Sovereign Transcaucasia would be ruled by Samurzakano with the assistance of as much of the old apparatus as could be salvaged and as soon as the center shifted focus to preserving a fraction of itself the once omnipotent state in the hinterland withered remarkably quickly.

By May 1st the Communist Bloc had been reduced to several enclaves tied to particularly resolute party officials or military officers that refused to recognize the collapse of the old order. The people were not necessarily inclined to support the rising national states against the fraternal union of workers and peasants, however, they were also not inclined to ideologically resist the rise of new states and parties. The Communists had ultimately made the administration of the system a purely materialist affair and once they were superseded by a new elite-born of the middle management and some lucky few within the Socialist system, the Communists were consigned to the dustbin of history.

Historic memories that had been entombed by the powerful words of Marx, Engels, et al. had re-emerged, zombified but still potent. The illustrious splendor of Abbasid Baghdad called nationalists, conservative Communists, and Islamists alike to crystalize into a provisional government which declared the dethrone Arab Socialist Federation the historic enemy of the Iraqi people. Damascus called to the myriad political formations that rose to the ancient call of Mesopotamia. Byzantine fetishists, Neo-Ottomans, Socialist Nationalists, Islamists, and Orthodox Christians formed a volatile Republic that was defined by the historic weight of the region.

In Turkey the National Question came to define what remained of public life and as many nationalities as could claim legitimacy forced into existence state-lets that quickly amalgamated into regional blocs loosely defined by ethnic alliances. Islam returned as the dominant ideological-religious tendency in much of the Middle East with the Hijaz giving birth to successive waves of conquering armies comprised of the remnants of the military of the Arab Socialist Federation.

To fill the void left by their imploding rivals, the Italians attempted to enter into the region through proxies. However, decades of warfare and competition had left even the supposedly warlike people of the Mediterranean Social Confederation exhausted. Fascism, already a failing system, was similarly consigned to the dust-bin of history with the centrist Republican Party (Partito Repubblicano) elected in an overwhelming majority. Longtime Fascist stalwarts spontaneously became mild mannered parliamentarians, revealing that the revolution inaugurated by the worship of speed was over all too quickly.

By July the situation in the Mediterranean had transformed from one of brittle tension, waiting to explode into total warfare to unrestricted chaos as the Middle East descended into a cycle of confused combat and Europe experimented with half a century of culture in three months. Casual observers would see anarchy, but analysts studied in the base of regional affairs would see that the superstructures had imploded along fault lines that were apparent within the respective ideological systems. Turkish and Arab Communism had been reduced to oligarchy and then anarchy, Italian Fascism had transformed into empty ritual and opportunism.

The works of man were perennially shattered by human processes and his treasures were routinely made worthless by the shifting of the tides of history. Beneath the Mediterranean sun that had shone upon Caesar and Saladin alike, the Mediterranean Social Confederation and the Turkish People’s Republic were cast into shadow. Unbeknownst to any, beyond the horizon black flags were being raised.

NationStates

Operation Ferrante (E2 MT)

Operation Ferrante (E2 MT)