Chronicles of Toria: Setting the Stage (Vol. 0)

(Act 1) Chapter 2 - A Shining Trident

May 1940

The battle for France had come to an end. The German blitzkrieg had failed, and now the contact line between the Third Reich and the Allies was stabilizing as both forces began to entrench themselves. The line ran along most of the right bank of the Seine and Marne rivers, then went through Luxembourg, and ran south in parallel to the Maginot Line all the way to the Swiss border.

Although the situation looked grim for the Germans as they were forced to once again engage in trench warfare against the Allies, the situation was just as precarious for the Allies. Due to their hasty retreat from Belgium, much of the Allied heavy equipment and armor had to be abandoned, and as a consequence, it was captured by the Germans. The Allied situation was further exacerbated when the Germans began their strategic bombing campaign over France, known as the French Air Campaign or, as it became popularized after the war, the Battle for the French Skies.

The Blitz, as it became known, was the start of the Air Campaign over France. The Germans conducted mass air attacks against the remaining French industrial areas and logistic networks, especially the northern ports, in an attempt to break the British and Japanese supply lines. That phase of the campaign would see some of the largest bomber formations in history at the time, as German bombers flew almost uncontested over French cities in the skies.

Initially, the Luftwaffe was able to maintain its domination of the skies as the Allied air force was still plagued with disorganization and a lack of coordination between their multinational forces. The Luftwaffe, during that period between May and June, was able to bomb France with near impunity, and in some cases, even launched daring raids into Britain and Norway. However, by July, the Allies started to contest the Luftwaffe's domination in force after the command and coordination issues of the Allied air force were resolved.

But the Allies were only able to start their contest of the skies early on, thanks to the hasty arrival of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Imperial Japanese Air Service. These forces helped plug the various losses that Britain and France had suffered during the German blitzkrieg at the hands of the Luftwaffe. Another reason for the Allied aerial counteroffensive was the arrival of both American and Japanese airframes en masse into France.

The US and Japan had the perfect position of being completely safeguarded from German bombing due to their distance from the battlefield. However, the Japanese were currently much more necessary. Due to their status as belligerent, neither France, Britain, nor any other Allied nation had to pay for Japanese supplies. However, Japan alone wasn't capable of supplying all of the Allies. And that's where the US entered. As the industrial juggernaut, the US was more than capable of providing for the Allies, but to obtain American equipment, they had to pay for it, which drained resources from the British and French treasuries as they were also fighting a war, and in the case of France, a war of survival.

During the period from July to December, the skies became famous for having some of the largest aerial dogfights in history as a wide range of British, Japanese, and French fighters engaged the feared Bf-109s and Fw-190s. Yet, while the aerial war over France raged on, many things were still happening across the world.

In Asia, the Japanese and French governments struck a deal in which the French agreed to transfer French Indochina to Japan in exchange for a payment of 600 million yen to the French. This was mostly caused by France's necessity to plug their trenches to help prevent another breakthrough like the one that happened in the Ardennes, as well as their need to acquire more currency to provide payment for their troops and factory workers, as well as to buy the much-needed equipment and supplies for their war effort. Without Indochina, many of the forces being used to occupy and fight guerrillas in the region were hurriedly transferred back to Metropolitan France, while the Imperial Japanese Army arrived to take the place of the French Army in the region for the maintenance of stability.