







One could argue that it had all gone wrong when Antonescu refused to bow to Soviet demands for Bessarabia, sending the Axis into a war it was not yet prepared for. They had been lucky that the Soviets had been even less prepared. Even with their primarily infantry armies, the Germans and Romanians pushed deep into Soviet territory, taking Leningrad (With the help of Japanese marines) and nearing Stalingrad. But the advances had slowed; forces spread too thin, and now the Allies had made their move.​ One could argue that it had all gone wrong when Antonescu refused to bow to Soviet demands for Bessarabia, sending the Axis into a war it was not yet prepared for. They had been lucky that the Soviets had been even less prepared. Even with their primarily infantry armies, the Germans and Romanians pushed deep into Soviet territory, taking Leningrad (With the help of Japanese marines) and nearing Stalingrad. But the advances had slowed; forces spread too thin, and now the Allies had made their move.​





Ion Antonescu drank. "Such promise we had", he thought, looking into his wine glass for the answers his generals didn't have. "Where did it all go wrong?"One could argue that it had all gone wrong that fateful day in 1937 when Antonescu had launched a coup against the isolationist government, promising to bring Romania into the forefront of global affairs. He had succeeded. Over the next two years, Romania's industry and army grew rapidly, but not nearly as rapidly as those of its newfound ally: Germany.One could argue that the real mistake had been admitting Japan to the Axis. Japan had been close to forcing Chiang Kai-Sheck to surrender, but its overconfident military made the mistake of joining the Axis attack on the Soviets. Now the soviets had overrun most of China and Manchuria, with the Japanese holding on only in Korea and the coast.But the most serious mistake, the one that would almost certainly seal defeat for the Axis, was that of a solitary radio technician on board the Akagi, who made a mistake while decoding a message from Navy Command. Japan and the United States had been at each other's throats, and the Americans were looking for any excuse to declare war. They got one at Pearl Harbor. (need SOME excuse for the Japanese attacking the Americans while getting rolled by the Soviets...)Italy had always been the weakest link, despite having the second largest army of the Axis powers. Despite success in Africa, the Italian navy had been destroyed, opening the way for an allied invasion of the peninsula that had cut it in half and pushed Italy to the brink of surrender.WIth British and American forces crossing the Po, it was thought by both the Allies and Axis that if either Milan or Genoa fell, Italy would fall as well, opening up the heart of Europe to the Allied advance.Germany had been fighting a bloody trench war against the Republican Spanish forces for two years, one that seemed like it would never end. Until four months ago, when the Germans bashed their way through the mountain passes and reached the outskirts of Barcelona. But now the true folly of Japanese was exposed. As the Spanish reached the breaking point, the Americans arrived, bolstering their defenses and halting the German offensive.The Allies had also landed in Brittany; though they lacked the forces to seriously threaten France, they forced the Axis to divert precious manpower away from other fronts.The entry of the Bulgarians and Turks into the war was a coup, metaphorical and literal, for Romania and Germany. However, the new Bulgarian state was weak and hardly able to contribute to the war effort. The Turks had put up a bigger fight, holding the mountains against the Soviets for many months, but the Syrian offensive had taken too many men away from the front. When the Commonwealth forces landed in Adana, the Turks peeled away a few too many men. The Soviets broke through, and now the Turkish state is in mortal danger.And there are no troops to be spared for Turkey, for a knife has been shoved into the back of the Axis. The Yugoslavians have declared for the allies (Read: Germany attacked them, the idiots...) and now the Axis scrambles to contain them. If they cannot, the war effort is truly doomed.It is the 12th of March, 1942. The bells toll...And they toll for us.​