Russo-British Spoil

The Russo-British Spoil was a war fought between the Russian and British Empires, devastating both over the remains of France and Hungary.

Early Victories

The British landed at Paimpol and quickly swept to the bay of Biscay and soon occupied it all the way to Bilbao. After landing nearly quadruple their original troops, the British swept thru France in simultaneous Northern, Central & Southern campaigns. The Northern Campaign quickly took Paris but was bogged down by civilian resistance. The southern Campaign soon reached Liguria & were welcomed as liberators by the the Ligurians. A week later they marched into Genoa, annihilating the Italians that had been occupying it, and were welcomed by the Lombards as liberators. The Pope was among the casualties. Meanwhile the Russians were greeted in a similar way when they marched into Poland.

The Four Failures

The Russian army spread itself thin with five campaigns. The troops left in Poland were completely unprepared when the Poles revolted upon the Russians attempting to make them renounce the Pope. The Poles soon even took back Polish territory that was already controlled by Russia & declared their independence. The two armies in Hungary met heavy civilian resistance and by the time they decided to link up it was too late & they were both soon annihilated. The Romanian campaign & the German & Czech campaigns met with little resistance from Moravians, Lutherans & Orthodox Christians. The Russians had similar success in Slovusia but due to a solar eclipse misjudged the location of the border and entered the Ottoman Empire The Ottomans responded with force. The Russian army was centimated by the Turks but 40% of the Turkish army was destroyed. A coalition of Greek, Macedonian, Thracian & Lydian rebels that had been forming for some time cut the Turks supply lines & launched guerilla attacks that destroyed 17% more of the Ottoman forces over the next three years, culminating in a plague in the camps that left the Turkish army at 9% of its original strength, securing each of the rebels' independence. Albania also declared independence because the Ottomans wouldn't send troops to protect them from the Greeks. Slovusia had also secured its independence by this time.

Final Stages

The Central British Campaign slowly made its way thru central France against heavy civilian resistance. After the heavy losses in the battle of Burgundy, the Russians did not expect the British invade Swabia, so they did. Meanwhile an ongoing border dispute in Anglia had gotten the Suorwegian empire involved. The Russian & Suorwegian forces met at Tønder. In the initial battle 23,000 Russian troops were killed and 19,000 Suowegians. The Russians withdrew & hunkered down in trenches just south of the city, which they extended to the North sea and the Flensburger Förde. By October the trenches were complete and reinforcements had begun arriving from Germany. But on October 11th, 1852 a major blizzard that ultimately dropped 31 inches of snow and the temperature got down to 29 below Centigrade began. Much of the army was composed of Azerbaijani mercenaries who had never experienced temperatures much below freezing and thus succumbed to hypothermia. Another contingent was Polish & rapidly deserted to join the independence movement. Meanwhile the Lapps of the Suorwegian army met a similar fate because of the precipitation. On Christmas Eve most foot soldiers in both armies wanted a truce. General Gorchakov, due to heavy desertion, decided to make an example by executing 1224 troops. Over 500 of them were Finnish, resulting the Finnish War of Independence. The snow largely stopped on January 8th, only having had intermittent breaks in early November & mid December. The cold did not rise above 7 below until March 2nd. By that time the Russian & Suorwegian armies were largely nonexistent & the remains were scattered by the Anglic revolution. The British met little resistance in Swabia as the most of the Russians had moved to the Suorwegian front but had already destroyed the Swabians ability to wage war. But then the British arrived in Bohemia and ran into the one remaining Russian Army. In the Battle of Bor the British lost 64,066 troops, compared to the Russian losses of 31,075. The British then brought reinforcements out of Italy. On April 4th, 1853, while the token force occupying Italy was being massacred, the British & Russian forces clashed for the last time in the Battle of Přimda. The battle dragged on for over a week, resulting in 37,000 British deaths & 51,000 Russians. The Russians retreated north, being ambushed all along by the Bohemian resistance, which had formed due to immense abuses of power by the Russians. The British suffered heavy losses pursuing them & split in order to cut off the Russians, but the resistance annihilated the eastern prong. Demoralized by this news & pinned down by the resistance, the western prong retreated westward out of Bohemia, fleeing to The Netherlands where a growing rebellion killed most of them just as the Russians were limping into Tachov, where the resistance executed the officers shipped the soldiers home in exchange for diplomatic recognition.

Aftermath

When the dust settled, most of Europe's key strategists were dead & most of continental Europe's military infrastructure had been destroyed. Most of the small empires formed crumbled within a few decades. The British occupied Navarre for the next half-century but gradually lost it all. On New Year's day, 1905, the last troops left Paimpol, cementing Brittany's independence.