[Earth II] Октя́брьская револю́ция (1915)

[Pyschotika]

Contained within is an alt-history, facts are intentionally misused from the real world.

Romanov Family Imperial Crest
October 19th, 1915
Moskva, Russian Empire

Prologue – Cessation of Hostilities between the Kingdom of Cotland and the Empire of Russia

It was assumed to have never been the intention of the Cots to leave the Russian Imperial Family high and dry, but it was understood that – in like all lost conflicts – unsettling change would have to occur. What never crossed the minds of House Romanov, and the Patriarchate, was that a powder keg was now alit. With Cottish forces entering the confines of Moskva, and the seizure of the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Moskva Kremlin, the working class took to the streets in open rebellion against both the retreating Romanov’s and their loyalists and the Cots that were to occupy this now grand vestige. With a dying heart at the center of Rossiya, and an enflamed stomach just below it, an unforeseen firestorm was now underway.

General Sergey Kamenev, Chief of Staff of the XV Army Corps, 3rd Army
October 1st, 1915
Outskirts of Tver, Village of Cherkassy – beside the Volga River, Cottish Russia

Chapter I – A Flight of Thieves

“General –“ the voice carried along the trench, a junior officer emerged from the mess of gunfire from beyond the threshold of the 15m dugout. “General, what word has Moskva sent us?” the Praporshchik (2nd Lieutenant) wore the face of a grizzled old man – when he was far from it in actual age. His uniform, not the crisp olive as it once was when he was issued it and his boots no longer spotless nor reflective; a stain ran across the cuffs around his wrists, that of bloodied bronze. “Surely our efforts here have not gone uncelebrated, we have held the Cot to his line – repelled wave after wave of sorry sorts.” the voice no longer rang boldly, it now betrayed the junior officer his age. Explosions rocked the dim lighting of the dugout itself, and the old General had finally found his voice.

“General Kamenev, Chief of Staff of the XV Army Corps, 3rd Army – the West has fallen. The Cottish now move for Naro-Fominsk, behind the tail of the crushed Eighth Army. All resources have been diverted to the Moskva Metro. You are to bring yourself and your reserve lines to Zelonograd and reorganize with Second and Fifth Armies to defend the Northwestern Metro.” As if to add additional drama, the sounds of war itself seemed for a moment to mute itself awash of the deafening momentum brought on by the General’s reading. The General, Sergey, folded the paper from which he received his orders and began to reach for his long coat folded across one of the small chairs in the room. A Feldvevel (Sergeant) moved to assist Sergey into the great coat but was brushed aside by Sergey himself.

“Praporshchik Sliminov, we must not allude to the fighting men what has arrived here – but we must not lead them astray, either. Pass along to the other officers to maintain momentum on the line, that Mother Russia will not forget their gallant dedication to the cause. I will make leave at nightfall with our reserve Corps; for this, I am sorry.” Sergey’s frown was hidden beneath his massive mustache, but the disappointment of Russia’s failing today was all too obvious, nevertheless.

 

Comrade Lenin, giving his world-famous speech on the eve of the October Revolution
October 20th, 1915
Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire

The crowd had erupted in praise and were chanting in support of the People’s Struggle against the failing Empire. The Romanovs had, in the eyes of the Revolution, weakened the people’s resolve by poisoning it with foreign sympathies. Namely, a sympathy for the plight between the Cottish and Russian Royal families; the basis for which Lenin proposed that the Romanov plague had forced Russia into such a horrendous war, and an embarrassing surrender of the people’s lands, was that of a love tryst between the Cottish Prince Henrik and the Tsar’s niece Princess Irina Alexandrovna. The explosive wave that was the people’s outrage over the years long conflict, and its resolution, transformed an otherwise unorganized mass of peasants and workers into an untamed flame which now worked its way toward the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

Inspired by news of a similar revolt of the lower class in Moskva, which was well underway against an amalgamation of Loyalist White Russians and the occupying Cottish forces, the revolutionary wave hit hard in much of the Empire’s Metropolitans. Throughout all of Russia and her Imperial holdings, Army forces loyal to the Revolution and those Peasants and Workers who had risen against the Romanovs were making headway in solidifying a Union of Soviets. However, to the far east beyond the Ural Mountains, much of the Russian hinterland found itself in anarchist turmoil – far removed from the conflict in the heartland of the Empire. In all, several factions would rise and fall yet ultimately the People would persevere under the Revolutionary Council.

Though, the revolution would not have thrived absent of the efforts on the 20th of October, and the immediate days thereafter. The Kremlin at Nizhny Novgorod did not stand for long in the hands of Loyalist forces – the Reds, as the foreigners and Loyalist Whites would call the Revolution’s armed wing, brought to bare artillery elements of the rebellious 11th Army. With the great bastion gone, the Metropolitan fell to the people – much the same as in other major Metros in Russia. By year’s end, the people of this Empire would find themselves pinned between the revolution, the retreating loyalists, and the battered foreigners who had once found themselves hopeful facing a cessation of hostilities.

Further updates to come, this is something that happened in the past - so much of it will interchange between past tense of overall events and present tense for characters who lived through these events. This style of writing will happen in jest of one another, so I apologize if that's a mess to sift through for others.

[Cotland]

October 20th, 1915
Cottish-Occupied Istra, Imperial Russia

As the troops of the Cottish 16 Korps carefully ventured into Istra, a town northwest of the Imperial Russian capital city, their Krag-Jørgensen rifles at the ready with their 40 centimeter bayonets fixed. Their once pristine mountain grey field uniforms had been turned partially brown from the caking mud of the auntum rains and the forced march the soldiers from Mälardalen Infantry Regiment no 86 had undertaken since the start of the Fall Offensive in early September.

After an almost foolhardy number of attacks, the Russian lines had finally broken and the enemy army that had occupied Cottish territory for the better part of a year, since last year's auntumn, had finally been routed. Not ones to let an opportunity escape, the Cottish had pressed home the attack and now, three weeks later, the Cottish soldiers, hell-bent on revenge, were at the outskirts of the enemy capital city.

Even so, the soldiers from the pictoresque Mälardalen in Svea, mobilized over a year ago and sent to fight in the Cottish Eastern Territories were veterans and didn't let their guard down even though they were tired and hungry. Ever vigilant, they kept some distance between each other, didn't walk in the middle of the road, and kept bounding forward, just like they had learned to do over the past year of fighting. When ever they came to a junction, they waited until the machinegunners got into position to cover them with their Madsen LMGs before crossing the streets. They had learned to do this the hard way. Practical Darwinism. They had adapted and overcome through watching others fail to adapt and die.

All along the southern frontage, the million plus troops of the Cottish 5th and 17th Armies continued their advance deep into Imperial Russia, furthering the penetration and threatening to encircle Moskva. On their eastern flanks, the 2nd and 6th Armies were continuing their own push, while on the west, the 3rd, 8th and 14th Armies were threatening to attack into Smolensk and Belorussia. Along the Baltic Frontier, the Baltic Home Army was holding the line in Lithuania, manning the border forts and fortifications like they had since the start of the war, while the Baltic Fleet dominated the Baltic Sea.

If only it hadn't been for those pesky Russian civilians caught behind the Cottish lines and forced to live through a Cottish occupation. Already there were reports that logistics columns carrying food and ammunition were being disrupted by banditry, and the 8 and 27 Korps had been detached from the offensive to guard the rear areas until Royal Gendarmerie formations could be brought up from the Cottish interior to police the occupied territories.

Those bandits caught in the act were mostly killed on the spot by the Cottish sentries or, if unlucky, captured alive to be interrogated by unsympathizing military interrogators before being given a summary court martial under Cottish articles of war and a public execution by hanging in the town square where the local populace was forced to watch the rotting corpses of the captured bandits remain for a fortnight bearing plaques explaining their crimes and the consequence of said crime. The intended message was clear: Oppose the Cottish occupation, and you die. Don't resist, and you'll be fine.

Within the Cottish Army, rumors were rampant, heard partially from the captured Russian officers and civilians in Russian hamlets and towns that the Cottish had taken during the offensive and partially from their own NCOs and officers, that a revolutionary powderkeg was brewing in Russia and ready to explode at any moment. What that meant was uncertain, and there were as many people saying that the people would rise up and fight alongside the Cottish to end the war as there were people agitating for the international socialistic revolution. Of course, never so their NCOs and officers could hear, as agitating politics within the ranks, regardless of side, was a punishable offense. Still, as the hundreds of Cottish infantrymen took over the city, instead of people rising up to either fight alongside them or against them, they found the streets deserted, the local population either evacuated further south or hiding in their homes, and not a single Russian soldier in sight.

The war had not been started by Cotland, at least that was the official party line and the one that was being enforced by the Cottish government and the officers, but the Cottish would damned well see it through to its victorious conclusion. By now, it appear that they were achieving that.

[Pyschotika]

Teremnoy Dvorets in Moskva
October 19th, 1915
Moskva, Russian Empire

The rioting seemed to occur in parity with the arrival of Cottish forces, some hours after the instrument of surrender had been hurriedly ratified. The Romanov family was now held to the immediate confines of the Teremnoy Dvorets (Terem Palace), while Cottish forces were elsewhere relieving Russian-held posts. Where and when exactly the rioting started is not truly known, but there is a commonly held belief that it began with a scuffle amidst the growing crowd of angry spectators in and around Red Square. With a succession of fire, and the indiscernible shouting of civilian and soldier alike, Red Square soon began to sport the color of its namesake.

In the days leading up to this surrender and the subsequent occupation, however, Moskva’s streets were already rife with protesters. The Imperial Guard had done its best to keep the barrier in place between the rabble and those on the luckier side of the walls at the Moskva Kremlin. The winter had been harsh, with crop seizures having forcibly been increased upon the peasantry. This left very little food for those who lived off the land, forever always indebted to their landlords, and negatively impacted the citizenry of the Russian metros as well. Workers of all professions were inevitably impacted by other tax burdens, too, taken under the guise of some patriotic cause. In truth, only a negligible portion of the Russian populace felt this war to be a necessity – many viewed it as an unfortunate rough and tumble between cousins.

To the common Imperial subject, their neighbors in the Cottish realm were no different than they themselves. The passion behind the war, like many others, flared but only during the opening months, until it dragged onwards into years. The Imperial Family’s popularity was already beginning to sour the years prior to the war, and whatever benefit they and their loyal General staff thought to reap was nothing but ash. Then so they were, the ashes of the war washed over Moskva and the rest of the Imperial realms – ready to be followed by one more.

Cossacks of the Terek Host
October 19th, 1915
Moskva, Russian Empire

“They’ve begun firing, Petrikov – they’ve lost their stomach over rabble!” the voice was shaking, mixed with rage and fear. The young man in black kaftan and grey trousers, his shoulder bearing the insignia of a Uryadnik (Cossack Sergeant), found himself clutching the guard-free hilt of his Shashka (traditional Cossack sword).

“Radchenko, steel your nerves – there is nothing we can do for them, this is a mess surely but a mess we must stay out of.” this voice came from a more rational tone, emanated from an older man whose beard showed more gray than black. He bore the rank of Sotnik (Cossack Senior Lieutenant) and wore a heavily embroidered blue dress in traditional style.

The two Cossacks were stationed some 100 meters from the unfolding chaos, participating in the uneasy handover of security to the occupying forces. Cottish and Russian military officials had already been very much aware of the potential protesting and thus decided to handle security jointly in the efforts to hopefully better quell public hysteria. In truth, the security of the Romanov family was a high priority for both parties involved in the surrender; In order to move toward a stable peace, the Imperial family needed protection from potential harm – harm that, otherwise, could very well fuel this rumored revolution.

“Petrikov… fuck this. The crowd is going to overtake them, and everyone here – Russian, Cottish – are going to be set in the sights of this mob.” Radchenko was looking around him, eyeing a safer place than here at street level. The sounds from the Red Square were now only part of a cacophony of chaos, the streets were filling quickly with an out of control mob despite every best effort to close off Moskva by rail and by street. The two Cossacks began their desperate escape, to get away from this terrible spectacle.

Upcoming: Venturing into more Revolutionary Council stuff, establishing the background to Tsaritsyn and Nizhny Novgorod becoming big centers for the Reds - and then establishing the various fronts for the Civil War. Will touch off on a few things relating to the Russo-Cottish War intermixed.

[Layarteb]

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Thursday, October 21^st, 1915 | 08:00 hrs [UTC+3]

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Murashi, Kirov Oblast, Russian Empire | I Corps HQ
59° 22' 59" N, 48° 59' 28" E

General David West sat in his tent sipping a cup of tea, reflecting on the past two years of his life. As a four-star general, he was the commanding officer of the Layartebian Expeditionary Force, a 165,000-man commitment from the Republic of Layarteb to its ally, the Kingdom of Cotland. The Fourth Russo-Cottish War had begun like no other war and it had been fought like no other war. Devastation along the front would likely render some places uninhabitable for human life for at least a century, maybe more. It was also a war of carnage unseen before by human eyes. Rifles could cut a man down from a thousand yards, machine guns could saw him in half, artillery could turn him into slop, and when all else failed, the clouds of poison gas could render him dead from mere breathing. It was surely some war and the LEF had sustained quite a number of casualties already with over 5,000 killed in both battle and by accident and over 8,500 wounded. It was already being said that no one who fought on the front would escape this war without some injury, whether it was a physical or a mental injury.

The LEF consisted of two corps, each measuring eighty thousand men and they combined with a 5,000-man headquarters unit. They'd come across the North Atlantic via cargo ship or ocean liner, all the way to Saint Petersburg where they disembarked into a Cottish city that seemed so different from their own cities, towns, and villages back home. From there, they boarded trains to the front, traveling over seven hundred and fifty miles eastward to be pressed against the Russian city of Kirov. When the Layartebians had arrived, that seemed like an easy task and the Layartebians relieved the war-weary Cottish who could be repositioned to take on other sectors. In two years, the LEF had advanced precisely forty miles to the city of Yurya. Kirov lay another thirty miles in the distance and between Yuya and Kirov lay an entire corps of Russian soldiers though as tired as the Layartebians were, they were worse, having been fighting here since the start of the war so many years earlier. For the Russian though, defense wasn't an objective, it was survival.

The two armies had never drawn closer than five hundred yards to one another and between their trenches was the ruined landscape of no man's land. Machine gun fire had stripped the trees of their leaves and artillery had turned them to twigs and the landscape into a moonscape full of craters. Not even wildlife dared cross this open field of misery where so many had given their lives. If the Layartebians already had over 13,500 casualties of all kinds, the Russians had so many more.

For General West, the most respected general in the entirety of the Layartebian Army, the stalemate that had forced his men into trenches and prevented every one of his flanking maneuvers was becoming more intolerable by the day and on this particular morning, he was waiting for fresh news from Cottish intelligence. So far to the east, it was easy to feel as if they'd been abandoned or ignored by the greater war effort - and perhaps they were - so news from the west was always well received. That news tended to come via runner, sometimes telegraph though the telegraph lines were difficult to keep intact across such a huge front.

When Sergeant Michael Solomon appeared outside of his tent, General West knew that such news had arrived and by Solomon's demeanor, he expected it to be good news. "Come Sergeant, what has you in such a fine mood this morning?" West said, inviting him in and pouring him some tea. As much as General West was a general in the army, he was also a host extraordinaire. He'd already had several pieces of artwork and furniture shipped back home, pieces that he'd bought in Cottish territory during his journey from Saint Petersburg to the front.

"Thank you sir," Solomon said as he sipped at the tea, a brew from Layartebian-held Ceylon. "Sir the news is remarkable."

"Firstly, the Cottish have secured Istra, directly west of Moscow. They threaten the capital with tens upon tens of thousands of men sir. Secondly, and perhaps this is most significant, rumors of a revolution seem true. Throughout Russian cities there are communists rising up and calling for the overthrow of the monarchy. They are gaining support by the day and it appears that the Russian government has as much of an internal threat as they do an external threat. Morale is said to be very low. Moscow is besieged by protestors who choke the city."

"Imagine Sergeant if the government should turn their rifles?"

"It would be true mayhem sir."

"And yet the communists would win."

"Who sir is the greater enemy?"

"The communists for sure," General West answered without hesitation. "They will aim to export their ideology to the world, stir up agitators in Cotland and even in our own home towns and cities. We already have seen a surge in communist sympathizers at home. I have seen newspapers arriving here that tell of police action against dens of agitators, chiefly anarchists who wish to detonate bombs to further their 'revolutionary' ideals."

"That is a future I don't want to come home to sir."

"Nor do I Sergeant, imagine if we should have to turn our rifles?" General West shuddered at the thought. "What other news did you hear?"

"Only that we should expect a resupply in one to two weeks."

"The usual banter?"

"Yes sir."

"Then pass the word along as necessary Sergeant."

"Yes sir," Solomon said, standing and saluting, finishing his tea in one last gulp before exiting. It left General West to ponder just what would come of the Russian Empire what with paralysis from within and artillery from without, besieged on so many fronts by many enemies.

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Thursday, October 21^st, 1915 | 15:00 hrs [UTC+3]

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Yurya, Kirov Oblast, Russian Empire | I Corps, Charlie Sector
59° 1' 20" N, 49° 19' 5" E

Corporal Matthew Edmonds had only just sat down for a cup of coffee when his nemesis, a captain by the name of Rudolph Coffin approached him with a task. Edmonds, in no place to disobey a direct order was forced to guzzle down his coffee, lest it be drunk by someone else or worse, cold when he got back. Coughing from the heat, he lifted his Springfield rifle, grabbed his ammo bandolier and quietly set off through the trench and into a tunnel that had been dug to allow him and others to reach various positions in no man's land without ever exposing themselves to enemy machine gunners. The best sniper in the battalion, Edmonds had personally killed no fewer than thirty-nine men with his M1906 Springfield rifle. The powerful .30-06 round had become standard across the Layartebian Army and so the .30-03 Springfields had been rebuilt for .30-06. The kick of the round certainly gave confidence to the shooter that anyone struck by the round wouldn't be getting up again.

With news of trouble on the streets of Moscow, the Layartebians wanted to further hurt morale as best as they could and this war had come to show that no one ruins morale like a sniper. Snipers were amongst the most loathed and hated men in this war and no one who was caught alive could hope for POW status or "humanitarian protections." Seen as inhuman, snipers were often tortured and killed slowly by the enemy and to say that the Layartebians were above such treatment was to be too untruthful for common good. Edmonds knew what fate awaited him if he were captured, which was all the more reason not to venture into no man's land for if the Layartebians could dig trenches perhaps the Russians could too.

Coffin had wanted Edmonds to take out anyone he could, regardless of rank or position. He simply wanted a Russian body to peek over the top and fall backwards, dead from a sniper's shot. It was just a matter of harassing the enemy, something that the Layartebians had made into an art form in the many, many months on the front. For Edmonds though, this could mean hours of waiting in an otherwise uncomfortable position. The tunnels had let to various firing positions, each one with a fake, hollowed out tree stump. They had been placed there during the darkness of night, made to look like splintered fragments of the moonscape between the trenches but they were really there for the protection of the snipers who would stand in the positions with their rifles resting on an earthen ledge, all within the confines of the fake stump.

The Russians knew that these were there and they tended to blanket the area with artillery every now and then just to shake these loose but each night, others were put in place so that at least eight were in operation at any point in time. This wasn't to say that all eight would be used at once but that all eight were available for use, to keep the enemy on his toes about where a potentially deadly shot would come from, to keep him in perpetual fear.

Periscopes had been designed and used specifically for the purpose of watched across no man's land from the safety of the trenches and sometimes - when snipers got truly bored - they would strike these down just to keep the enemy's head down. The boom of the rifle shot and the zoom of the bullet through the periscope would echo into the trenches, gaining a sound of their own. On occasion though, someone would peer over the top, whether out of morbid curiosity or because of boredom. Some perhaps wanted to commit suicide, too ashamed to do it themselves, such was the way this war went but Death did not mind, taking those he could when he could with little regard for whether it was a man's time or not. For Death it was always your time because it was he who dictated when that time would come. Edmonds was well acquainted with Death seeing him close up through the scope of his rifle.

It was now mid-afternoon and Edmonds had been in his position for four hours. He hadn't spent the entire time watching the enemy trenches but rather intervals of fifteen minutes on and thirty minutes off, fearful that if he stared for too long, he would begin to see things that weren't there or become complacent on what he saw. As much as he was the hunter, he was also the hunted with counter-snipers positioned in no man's land and behind the trench lines in camouflage to strike back at him when he fired his shot. Mathematically speaking, the odds weren't in his favor what with the possibility of booby traps, counter-snipers, artillery, and machine guns, all vying for his head.

He looked at his wristwatch to see that it was 15:00 precisely and he figured that he would give it one more go before returning through the tunnels and back to the trench. He could easily face Coffin and say there was nothing to shoot at for Coffin was too much of a chicken to look through even a periscope. Coffin just happened to be his company commander and the man who preferred to deliver the missions himself. He had a smug way about it, detesting snipers just as much as any gentleman officer did but unlike the others, he was all too happy to put them in harm's way just to make himself look good to his superiors at battalion.

Standing up from the seat that had been positioned there for breaks, Edmonds put his rifle onto the ledge and looked through the scope out into the expanse before him. Clouds were massing to the east, thick gray clouds that perhaps threatened to bring rain. Rain would put a damper on activities and limited his sight distance, thus giving him some breaks though it turned everything to mud, which was hardly a trade-off considering. Looking through his scope, he saw one periscope up but little else. He could take the shot and move on with life or he could wait it out for another fourteen minutes and see what, if anything, popped up in his crosshairs.

He didn't have to wait long. A few degrees to the south he saw the top of a helmet just above the edge of the trench. This was either an intrepid Russian or a decoy. Many snipers had been fooled by the latter but not Edmonds yet. He focused his crosshairs on it, judged the distance, and set the rifle into a little groove he'd dug in the ledge for it. Steadying his breathing, he watched and he waited. The helmet moved around a little but it never came up much. It was there for the taking but it wasn't moving the way Edmonds expected it to move so he presumed it was a decoy and he was right. Meant to keep his eyes away from the real target, the decoy was enticing. It was just enough helmet for a kill but not enough to identify that there was no head in it. Edmonds had seen it before and so he focused instead on the other parts of the trench. His patience and his attentive eye paid off for about fifty yards to the left of the decoy came another helmet, this one much more in line with how a person would move. He set his crosshairs, waited, and waited. The helmet came up but went back down, then came up again, then went back down. On the third time, Edmonds saw eyes and it was then that he fired. He didn't bother cycling another round since he knew he wouldn't get off a second shot. This allowed him to keep the scope right on the target and in it, he saw the head snap backwards, and fall downwards.

It was a dash after that and Edmonds bolted out of the sniper spot and back into the tunnels just as a burst of machine gun fire raked the area. Artillery would be coming soon but he knew he could make it back to the trench before it started, knew that he could find some place to hide, knew that Coffin wouldn't bother him further.

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[Cotland]

Outskirts of Moskva, Russian Empire
October 27, 1915

The uprising in Moskva had been joined by a general rebellion in several other Russian cities, forcing the already hard-pressed Russians to divert their attention away from the raging war with the Cottish to restore order behind their own lines. In true fashion, the Cottish had exploited this as best they could, bypassing the cities and taking over strategic positions that cut off the cities from the rest of the Empire, pouncing deep into Russia. The Cottish cavalry regiments were having a hout, roaming behind the enemy's lines and causing general mayhem, while the infantry sealed off the cities and villages and lay siege. Eventually, it was enough to force the Empire to call it quits.

A Russian delegation empowered by the Tsar himself had approached the Cottish lines under a flag of truce, and been taken to the Cottish Army's forward headquarters at Dubna, just over the Russian side of the pre-war border where the Crown Prince himself had come forward to observe the negotiations.

After a cordial meeting, where the Cottish generals and Russian noblemen were able to demonstrate a graciousness as gentlemen that had been sadly lacking for the past four years, it was decided that a general cease-fire would be in effect from noon on October 27, allowing for word to be passed to all fronts and units, and that all forces should stop their advance and remain in place while more formal negotiations for an end to the conflict would take place.

The Cottish forces near Moskva and other cities that were gripped by rebellion were instructed by their officers not to antagonize the crowds, but not to allow them to have their way either. This came to grips on October 27, when a large crowd of revolutionary Russians converged upon a Cottish roadblock at Krasnogorsk, on the western outskirts of Moskva. The Cottish troops, led by Premierløytnant Iver Jarheim, had observed the crowds assault the Russian Cossacks that were trying to maintain order and quell the rebellion without success, and harbored no illusions that the crowds were equally displeased with the Cottish presence as they were with the Imperial rule and the past four years of warfare.

Sounding the alarm, the Cottish roadblock was quickly fully manned by the fifty-odd troops of PLT Jarheim's platoon. Sighing, Jarheim drew his Colt pistol from its leather holster and drew his sabre as he started issuing orders.

"Hør etter! Troppen skal sette bajonett på!" ["Attention! Platoon will fix bayonets!"]

Immediately, his sergeants and corporals repeated the order and ensured that it was complied with by the soldiers, who drew their sword bayonets and fixed them to their Karg-Jørgensen bolt-action rifles and the Madsen light machine guns.

"Lad våpen!" ["Load!"]

The soldiers, positioned in two lines behind the roadblock, operated their bolt-action mechanisms and loaded 6.5MM x 55 rounds into the chambers of their weapons.

"Legg an!" ["Take aim!"]

The riflemen carefully took aim at the front row, while the four light machine gunners evenly dispersed along the roadblock prepared to sweep from side to side, all knowing full-well that the crowd was out after blood while silently praying to Odin that they would come to their senses and disperse.

Standing up in front of the roadblock, PLT Jarheim decided to adress the crowd, shouting as loudly as he could in broken Russian.

"Стой! Вы приближаетесь к Кот-д'Ишской Армии! Разгонитесь из этой области, иначе вас обстреляют!" ["Halt! You are approaching the Cottish Army! Disperse from this area, or you will be fired upon!"]

In response to this challenge, a hidden shooter in the crowd took a shot at Jarheim, hitting him in the chest and knocking him down from the bench he had been standing on. His sabre and pistol rattled as it fell on the cobblestone street. After a few seconds of stunned silence, two things happened simultaneously. The crowd started panicing, while the Cottish soldiers opened fire. Some shooters in the crowd returned fire, but the Cottish had an overwhelming fire superiority, raking gunfire through the crowd as the riflemen racked rounds into their chambers as quickly as they possibly could and the machine gunners scything through the fleeing crowd and assistant gunners quickly changing magazines when they were expended.

For five minutes, the Cottish maintained the mad minute tempo of firing until Oversersjant Berger Helgesen, the Platoon Sergeant and 2IC of the platoon was able to regain control of the soldiers and get them to cease fire. As the cacaphony of rifle and machine gun fire subsided, an eerie silence befell Khabarovsk. Dozens of bodies littered the street. Contrasting against this, the Cottish had suffered two dead and three wounded, one of them a replacement that had been a bit too eager and managed to stray in front of the muzzle of a Krag-Jørgensen and been shot through the shoulder.

Frustrated, OSJT Helgesen to whom command of the platoon had devolved as PLT Jarheim was shot, ordered 2 Section to advance and see if there were any weapons among the crowd and to bayonet any survivors. Reluctantly, the rifle section did as ordered, finishing off another score of wounded revolutionaries and recovering seven Mosin-Nagant rifles and eleven Nagant revolvers from the crowd, as well as three red banners emblazoned with revolutionary print.

The recovery of this was what prevented OSJT Helgesen from being court-martialled for slaughtering civilians, and rather ensured that he was awarded a medal for "stout defence" and "brilliant initiative" against "revolutionary enemies of the Realm."

While the war was coming to an end, it was clear that the danger had not yet subsided.