Post by slave2gaming on Jan 30, 2019 4:25:37 GMT
Note; at this time we haven't included the French or the Austro-Hungarian Empire as we want to get the 4 main armies out.
The Western Front - Dark World War setting
After years of build-up and tensions between the major political empires of Europe, the First World War started in 1914, on 28 July when the Austro-Hungarians declared war and invaded Serbia. Russia mobilized in support of Serbia, and Germany (who were allied with the Austrians) invaded neutral Belgium, Luxembourg, before moving towards France, leading the United Kingdom (who were only recently allied with France) to declare war on Germany.
After the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that would change little until 1917.
The Messines offensive was planned for June 1917, with the plan to force the Germans to move reserves to Flanders, relieving the hard-pressed French. The Offensive was to begin with the detonation of 19 (of 21) Mines, these comprised a series of mines dug by tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers under the German lines near the village of Messene in Belgian West Flanders.
The mines were detonated at dawn, with the explosions being heard as far away as London. The British and commonwealth troops prepared for the creeping barrage and the whistles to tell them to go over the top of the trenches, but the whistle never came.
With the detonation of the mines, the falling remains of the German trenches were overshadowed by the sound of a howling, screaming sound. Word from the spotters began to filter down to the men in the Trenches and they slowly and carefully put their heads up to see what was going on. The dawn sky was hidden by clouds of dust and smoke now rising from the earth, the land around these holes was on fire with a blue flame and those looking could see forms coming out of the holes towards the front lines.
With 12 divisions prepared to attack the German lines, supported by 1,500 field guns and 700 heavy guns, the British troops began to fire on these forms, with both rifle and Artillery, but it was at this point that the realization of the mistake that the Allies had made became apparent, Hell was literally broken loose, these were not mere Humans that they fought. Creatures crawled out from the pits that had once been the German lines. Spawn of hell walked, flew, crawled and stumbled out from the devastation that was left.
These creatures of Hell were not loosed on Earth to simply create Kingdoms or to take land from other formerly strong empires, they were here to simply pull human-kind back down into hell with them.
But this was not the only problem, the Western front now looked straight into the heated depths of hell, the dark clouds blotting the sun from the field, and the skies were lit by thunder and lightning, but no rain came from the clouds to quench the thirst of the troops.
Both sides also now faced a new horror, as the dead clawed themselves out of the morass of destruction that had become the battlefields of the western front in 1917. Both sides found their forces in quick retreat from these new enemy, and while Generals miles away from the danger tried to comprehend how the battle had changed, Heroic soldiers on both sides slowed down the damned creatures.
New British trench lines were quickly created further back from these pits, while a vanguard of valiant troops held back the deadly hordes of creatures. Artillery pounded away at the lines of undead that moved across the battlefield, biplanes continually fought sorties overhead with winged creatures and the new faster Armoured Tanks of the British Commonwealth raced around the battle field trying to hold back the giant horrors that had crawled out.
The Germans were in a far worse position, having lost much of their fighting potential in these areas, and while troops and supplies were rapidly being moved into these areas, the Germans that were in these areas would suffer terrible losses and most would soon become the undead that they fought against.
The Germans would be pushed back just under 600 km’s from their original defensive lines in Flanders. Hamburg would survive, but the Netherlands, parts of Luxemburg and everything to the city of cologne would be engulfed by this new terror. With the new western front linking back up to the trench works below Verdun, the Germans High command, leading the central powers would also call a truce with the Triple Entente as the threat of total human destruction was greater than any war to end all wars.
At the western front returned to trench warfare with this new evil, after weeks of fighting an almost unstoppable enemy the German empire was in ruins. Much of the empire had been swallowed up by the expansion of the creatures that came out of the Hell-gate, and with the Kaiser now missing and assumed dead within the destroyed zone of the enemy, the German people reunited under a new banner of the United Prussian States.
The United States would arrive on the field in 1918 but due to the problems that the Hell gate would open upon the world, their force would only be a small Expeditionary force of around 500,000 men for the Americans had their own problems to sort out.
Eight years after the opening of the first Hell Gate, many more gates have opened up including one in Russia and the Middle East, at least two in America and in other parts of the world. Human resources are stretched to the limit and with these events, other races have made their push to become mighty empires. The whole of the Asia Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand) have become shrouded in a fog that has meant any ship or plane that has entered it has disappeared.
The world has changed, and mankind has progressed into a new era of destruction, creating new and powerful ways of killing its enemies and each other. The world will never be the same again.
