I was so absorbed with deflecting my death sentence that I failed to fully grasp the situation.
Kleist had put him on record. Yes, the Chancellor had teased the battle plan out of him before the General Staff.
Frowning, Mansfeld readjusted the computer map. He did it with three sharp taps and a quick widening of his thumb and index finger. He went over the last week of battle. What was he missing? What had Kleist seen four months ago?
Phase by phase, General Mansfeld mentally walked through his plan. He knew no plan fully survived contact with the enemy. There were always adjustments. But his plan…
Is Kleist counting upon the fog of war? Does he believe I’ll falter?
Mentally, Mansfeld added different variables to the mix and came up with his adjustments. No. He would annihilate the Americans. The Canadians were chaff now or at best a broken reed. He would hand the German Dominion New England, New York and northern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The jaws of his trap would be too strong for whatever the Americans could bring to bear. And his military teeth—his formations—they were like iron. He would chew the Americans and swallow over a million soldiers into captivity.
Am I being paranoid? Perhaps Kleist isn’t as cunning as I believe.
Mansfeld shook his head. He couldn’t accept that. Kleist was cunning. Perhaps Kleist didn’t fully realize how brilliant he—Mansfeld—was. Far too many people in his life had underestimated him. Usually, that only happened once. Then it didn’t matter because he had already moved ahead of his detractors.
Toronto was the key for this phase. He would grind the massed Americans trapped in the city, using his iron teeth to devour them. If he were the Chinese, he’d have fought a slow battle of attrition and starvation of food and materiel. If he were Chinese, it would take time to cause such a large number of first-rate American and Canadian divisions to die or surrender. He didn’t have time for that. His timetable called for fast attacks. Thus, he aggressively used the robotic forces to kill and kill again, and shrink the Toronto Pocket.
What have I failed to discover about the Chancellor?
Tapping the computer map, Mansfeld decided he would read over Kleist’s manifesto again. It would be well to remember the Chancellor’s ultimate plan for North America. Perhaps there would be the hint. Kleist must surely believe he held something over his general’s head.
I must find it.
Mansfeld tapped the computer map one more time. Kleist was subtle, but he dealt with his most brilliant foe. Only one of them would survive this war. It was time to get out the manifesto and study it.
From The Life and Times of Chancellor Kleist, by Count von Hohenzollern:
Chancellor Kleist believed he had discovered a “new” political theory of breathtaking scope and military utility. Briefly, it was internal autonomy for a homogenous ethnic or religious community, allowing a “people” their own laws and customs. Examples were legion: Bavaria for Bavarians, Normandy for Normans and Quebec for Quebecers.
Wedded to the larger Dominion, these semi-autonomous states supplied tax monies and soldiery hirelings for Kleist’s grander ambitions. He had already welded Europe and North Africa—minus Egypt—into a powerful military bloc. With the “peaceful” occupation of Quebec in 2039, he possessed the nucleus for a new subdivision of the North American continent.
Kleist recognized better than most the failed American ideal of the “Melting Pot.” Instead of a uniquely American identity, many considered their ethnic or religious heritage as trumping their U.S. citizenship. For instance, Aztlan separatists wished for union with Mexico or their own “Aztec” state carved out of California and Arizona. Many politically vocal African-Americans still desired reparations for past wrongs, while certain Muslim Americans insisted on Sharia law.
Disregarding the morality of the issue, Kleist’s political solution was simple, straightforward and revolutionary brilliant. As the ancient Assyrians and modern Soviets under Stalin had practiced, Kleist envisioned enforced resettlements: the creation of North American ethnic and religious enclaves or states. He would carve out a niche for the Sharia Law Muslim, for the fundamentalist Christian, for the Black, Aztlan and Alaskan separatists and for various conservative and liberal diehards of European extraction.
Thus, the German Dominion Invasion of 2040 created a crisis on two fronts for the American military. Firstly, the famous and physical Second Front that the Chinese and South American generals desperately desired. Secondly and possibly just as damaging, an inner, spiritual or loyalist fronts for many American citizens disgruntled with the present state of affairs.
In the PAA and SAF conquered regions of the Southwest, countless American guerilla and partisan forces rose up to contest the invaders. Kleist’s semi-autonomous enclaves—if given a chance to flourish like Quebec—potentially provided the GD with several advantages. One, the GD would need only a minimal military occupation force in the rear areas. Two, in their own self-interest, various North American groups might swell GD ranks with needed soldiers.
In this manner, Kleist hoped for a political-military conquest of North American instead of a purely combat-oriented solution.
Paul Kavanagh sat in an underground bunker lit by long fluorescent tubes. Enemy shells shook the ground above and caused the tubes to flicker as bits of dust and debris rained from the ceiling. Some of the debris rattled lightly on the main table.
The colonels and general looked up at the lights. One of the colonels swore and rubbed at an eye hit by dust.
The shelling paused, and the shaking soon quit. For quite some time now, the Germans had pounded their positions day and night. The Toronto Pocket had shriveled since Paul fled from the HK. Few friendly forces came through to help them, few airdrops made it and only a trickle of sea transport at night. Essentially, they were on their own, trying to buy America the time to build an impenetrable line somewhere behind Toronto.
It had all happened so fast, and the Germans never stopped to rest and refit. With their drones, HKs and robotic troops, the GD soldiery didn’t need to stop like ordinary soldiers. The Germans just changed the controllers or added gas and munitions to the AI-run HKs, and their offensive continued.
The Marine general doing the talking now stood to his feet near his position at the middle of the table. The bunker down here stank of sweat, stale bread and gunpowder. The general put a helmet on his head. The straps dangled past his chin, and he gazed at his colonels.
The blocky Marine general—he was five-seven—had a patch over his right eye and a bandage on his right cheek. He believed in leading from the front and he had paid for it with his injuries. The man still wore a combat vest and kept a holstered .45 on his hip. Although he was a Marine, not all the watching, listening colonels were. Nor were they all Americans: two of the colonels were Canadians.
The Marine general—his name was Len Zelazny—inhaled through his nose, making his nostrils flare. The man looked tired but undefeated. He had been at Colorado this winter and had helped crush the PAA Third Front. He knew what it was like to win.
“The Germans don’t fight fair,” Zelazny growled. “They send robots at us instead of facing us themselves. I say they’re smart to do that, because we would kick their Kraut asses otherwise. Okay. That’s the way it is. You don’t cry over spilt milk but you can at least point it out.”
He quit talking for a moment and breathed in and out. Anger shone in his brown eye. He balled his hands into fists and his right struck the table.