“Disturbing reports from the State of Lieplatz indicate direct violent repression of the women-led Royalist movement and suspected civilian dissidents. The Federal Republic’s Assembly is now questioning the ‘involvement’ of the Federal Army and the President over these developments, calling for a ‘direct intervention’ to prevent this potential stain in the revolution’s honor. Once again, the people must be reminded of our cause and the moral integrity of this global revolution.”

- The Front Newspaper

+++

November Palace

Situation Room

January 19, 2025

“This…is surprising…” General Victor Albrech remarked. On the screens, the first footage of what was happening in the northern border between the Federal Republic and the Lieplatzan State was shown. “They’re diverting their forces north. This…this is beyond a surprise. We thought they would have General Richstoff as a puppet, but it seems like things aren’t as simple as we expected.”

“Quite frankly, I’m not surprised,” Marie said, sitting beside Amelie, Jacqueline, Adelaide and Nia. “That General always struck me wrong when I was in Lieplatz. Many under him even oppose him. They had a lot of defectors, and it’s telling why. This guy is a lunatic.”

“Quite frankly, I can’t believe someone could be more insane than ‘President’ Rimpler,” Jacqueline said, her angry tone against the pretender ‘President’ evident in her voice. “Perhaps there’s really just levels of lunacy.”

“One suppressed women with an iron fist, the other with bullets. I think they’re still both lunatics.” Nia said. “Sure, one is worse, but the same still stands. We’re practically fighting two lunatics.”

“At the very least they’re going to tear each other apart if this escalates,” Amelie said. “If ‘President’ Rimpler actually crosses the border to topple Richstoff’s Junta himself, they would be diverting troops from the frontlines. That should help us.”

“If they do that, we’re also going to cross the border,” General Albrecht said. “We cannot allow them to have full control of the country. And, if you think about it, if the Federal Republic invades Lieplatz, we would have a good justification to cross the border and restore Queen Wesley on the territories that would fall to us. I would bet good money that they would capture Eastern Lieplatz, but the West would be ours. Her government-in-exile can return there.”

“Lieplatz’s a frozen wasteland though, especially West Lieplatz,” Admiral Halberd said. “Wouldn’t we just extend our frontlines then? Plus, the only value her government would receive is that sole city on the coast of West Lieplatz. Almost no one lives in that place.”

“Exactly, so why would the Federal Republic move a lot of assets there? The cold and frozen terrain, the lack of proper infrastructure, everything would be to our advantage. We just need to send a few divisions there to grind them down in those tundras and mountains. The frontlines will be extended, but we don’t need to man it with millions.” The General countered.

Amelie looked at the map. She had already long planned to “intervene” against the State of Lieplatz and restore Queen Wesley’s throne (since House Ludendorf had significant ties with House von Reitz), and because Lieplatz, much like Lorathia, was very much a sisterly nation to her Kingdom. But, most importantly, ever since General Richstoff took over, she wanted nothing more than to liberate the now-suffering female population of Lieplatz.

Unfortunately, she lacked the military, political, and diplomatic support to do so. But, she had already beaten the Federal Republic in the Grand Duchy Campaign, and the frontlines were, so far, calm and stabilized. Politically, everyone in the Orlish Government disliked the State of Lieplatz as much as they disliked the Federal Republic. In fact, everyone was practically gearing up to receive an actual declaration of war from them if they potentially joined the Federal Republic.

And lastly, now, she technically would have diplomatic support. Everyone hated the regime in Lieplatz, and she could see that even the revolutionary republics of the world were starting to look away in disgust at the atrocities this bloody regime was doing. Everyone was practically painting the State of Lieplatz as a brutal junta that walks through its population with bloodied boots. Even those aligned with the male rights revolution were now looking away and criticizing them for “straying from the cause”.

Still, an invasion. Through frozen lands. Lieplatz was also massive. While it only had a quarter of Orland’s population, it was still quite large, with mostly empty land near the north pole and the tundras of the interior. The only populated areas were near the eastern and western coastlines of Lieplatz, with the biggest city in the west being Nordia, a relatively calm port city populated by around a million people. But if I can establish Queen Wesley back there, I’d have a reason to eventually liberate East Lieplatz even if the Federal Republic gets there first and establishes their puppet government.

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“What’s the composition of the Lieplatzan Armed Forces?” Amelie asked, now interested in a potential conflict to liberate Lieplatz. “I think I’m starting to see that this is a good opportunity to further our cause. General Richstoff already blundered with his disgusting conduct, and everyone hates him, so I think we can really move in and liberate these people.”

General Victor Albrecht motioned for an aide to hand over his tablet, and he scrolled through it, searching for a report file. The briefing screens in front of them were changed to a bluish projection of the strength of the Lieplatzan Armed Forces, detailing the number of troops, armored vehicles, ships, and aircraft they possessed.

“The Lieplatzan Armed Forces is actually closely dependent on the Orlish Armed Forces, so much so that our brothers up north are practically just a smaller version of the OAF. Modernized, utilizing top-of-the-line technology, and extremely professional. The only difference is in doctrine, they specialize more in frozen and sub-arctic terrain. But they are considerably smaller.”

“Smaller in a sense, yes, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be able to defend their territory,” Admiral Halberd said, just as the Chief Air Marshall, Lewis Zimmerman, interjected as well. He was now finally at the meetings, and Amelie could tell, his months of failures actually took a toll with the guy. It seemed that her negative view of him was unfounded, considering that he (according to General Albrecht) almost killed himself of overwork while trying to reorganize the Air Force and relieve the Grand Duchy.

His voice was still tired, however, as right now, it was the Air Force taking the big brunt of the fighting, and he reportedly barely slept through the night to keep micromanaging the battles in the Orlish airspace. “Their air force could probably fight back too. We’d be struggling to establish a full air superiority. We sold a squadron of LF-20 Phantoms to them back then, and I’m sure they already trained their pilots well enough for deployment and combat.”

Amelie turned a bit pale at that piece of information. She knew that those planes were basically one of Orland’s most prized weapons. The perfection of the most advanced generation of combat fighters in the world. Only Orland could produce stealth aircraft, and the LF-20 was the best of it all.

“Wait, we were selling these planes?”

“Well, the LF-20 was a joint project between Orland, Lorathia, Gallia, Asturia, Lombardia, and Lieplatz. The main members of the Ivory Alliance. Especially during the tail end of the Great War when everyone was investing and sending researchers to help design and perfect it. Though Orland owned its design, their contributions meant that they had the right to buy and produce it. Well…they can’t actually produce it, but they can buy it. And they bought a lot of the first production batch.” The Chief Air Marshall answered.

“How much does Lieplatz have then?”

“Around twenty-eight.” He answered. “Their government invested massive amounts of money on it, as they wanted a specialized air force that could help the Orlish Air Force well in distant campaigns of Vaeyox after the Great War. Unfortunately, we delivered the planes to them just a week before Queen Wesley was toppled by the coup d’etat.”

“And how many LF-20 Phantoms do we have?”

“Four hundred, Your Majesty. Half of them are engaged in the skies of Orland, however. The other half are mostly in our overseas bases or in our newly created stealth aircraft carrier squadrons. At most, we’d be able to muster forty LF-20 Phantoms if we go to war with Lieplatz.”

“Well, we still outnumber them then,” Jacqueline said. “Surely, the Air Force will do a quick work of them. Plus, they should be distracted by an invasion from the Federal Republic.”

“That assumes President Rimpler would invade,” Marie countered. “My intel showed that the tentacles of the OIA are strong in Lieplatz. Some of my agents even suspect that the OIA is already plotting an assassination attempt and a coup against Richstoff’s junta. They wouldn’t need to invade Lieplatz if that happened.”

Adelaide shook her head. “If we’re planning to invade Lieplatz with the justification that General Richstoff is committing human rights abuses, that would look weird if the junta is already toppled. We’d have to search for another casus belli in that case.”

“Well, I’m sure that any reason could be an easy sell for the international audience anyway,” Amelie said. “Whoever leads Lieplatz is going to be sour regardless, unless if it’s Queen Wesley and her original government. Even the first revolutionary government of Lieplatz was already unsavory.”

“Well, at least for your fellow monarchies,” General Albrecht said. “Not for the republics. They wouldn’t buy it.”

“Does it even matter if we justify this thing to those countries?” Nia asked. “We are already planning to turn the MN into a martial alliance against them, and they’re all in a conference to soon form a global coalition themselves. Quite frankly, we’re already on a trajectory to clash with them. Do we really need to still prove ourselves that we’re not coming for them?”

Everyone in the room fell silent. Amelie herself looked at the scales of her options. Declare war now, and liberate West Lieplatz before the Federal Republic acts, or wait, and potentially lose her chance. Or she could ignore the idea of this being a chance or even the act of keeping their appearance of “appeasement” to foreign revolutionary republics.

“As much as possible, I don’t want to send the message that my Orland would be aggressive that we would randomly declare war on them by virtue of them being revolutionaries,” Amelie said. “That’s just going to inspire the ‘no surrender till death’ mentality already spreading amongst them. Even if the MN and a potential ‘Coalition of Free Nations clash, I’d want it to be a defensive conflict, with both sides ready for diplomatic peace. All I really want is to contain their spread and restore global peace. Nothing more.”

General Albrecht turned in his seat, facing the Queen directly. “Then we best declare war while we still have a good justification, no?”

Amelie couldn’t find a good counter to that.

I guess I’m declaring war soon then.