Second World War

The Second World War or World War II was a major armed conflict, triggered when the Soviet Union begun a campaign of aggression to realize Joseph Stalin's dream: a Communist Union stretching from the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to the coast of the Pacific. Opposing them were the Allied Forces, a military alliance established to resist Soviet aggression against any first world powers and uphold the ideals defined in the World Association of Nations charter. Thanks to the superior skill of the Allied commanders, the Soviet invasion was halted and the tide turned in favor of the Allies. Despite a desperate defense, the Soviet war machine was broken and Moscow was taken by the Allies.
==Background==
It was the year 1946 and mankind had endured one of the most horrifying and brutal wars it has faced. World War II had ended with tens of millions dead by genocides, starvation, massacres, and disease. While the world was reeling and rebuilding after its triumph over fascism, a scientific genius by the name of Albert Einstein decided to prevent the horrors of the war from ever happening in the first place. Using a time machine he developed in Trinity, New Mexico, the professor went back into the past to stop the rise of Nazism. Einstein arrived in 1924 near the Landsberg Prison in Germany, where Adolf Hitler had just been released after serving his sentence for his role in the Bavarian Beer Hall Putsch. After meeting Hitler outside the prison, Einstein erased him from the timeline with a handshake. The professor returned to his own timeline,As stated by Westwood game designer Adam Isgreen, Einstein does not go forward to 1946 in the altered timeline but returns to his original timeline where the real World War II already happened. answering to his assistant about the uncertainty of what was next to come.Westwood Pacific, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Cinematic: "Introduction", prolog.vqa.
While Einstein's good intentions prevented the war as it was known, it had upset the delicate balance of world powers. In this new timeline, without the Third Reich to challenge it, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin grew unchecked. Stalin envisioned a global Soviet Union, with himself as the supreme ruler of the mind and spirit of every Soviet citizen. This made a new war inevitable.Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Field Manual. Hart, Victoria. Las Vegas, Nevada: Westwood Studios, 1996.
At the outset of the Second World War, the Soviet Union had a considerable army, with 14,000,000 enlisted troops and over 7,000,000 men in the police, NKVD and other services. It was also a major economic power, with operating assets believed to be in excess of 486,200,000,000 Swiss Francs. Supporting it was a vast network of over 200,000,000 agents that infiltrated the governments of most Pan-African, Pan-Indian and Pan-Asian governments with suspected strongholds in Mexico City and Vancouver. Command posts known to the Allies included Moscow, Kiev, Stalingrad, Khartoum, Karachi and Da Nang. The Soviet Union also had ties to global organizations, such as the World Democratic Society, Asian Defense League and the Freedom Consortium.
By comparison, the Allied Forces were considerably weaker, initially numbering only 3,400,000 enlisted troops and about 1,700,000 irregular (guerilla and resistance) forces. As a military organisation, it operated out of three main command posts: Unified Operations Headquarters in London, Northern Theatre command center in Oslo and Southern Theatre command center in Madrid.
==Prelude to the War==
===Invasion of Asia===
The Soviet war effort began with the invasion of East Asia by Soviet troops. During this campaign, Marshall Gradenko distinguished himself in service.
===Sarin gas===
One of Gradenko's assignments before the invasion of Europe was field-testing the USSR's Sarin nerve gas. This gas would later be used against civilian and Allied Forces in Greece.
===Toruń massacre===
One of the more tragic events was the killing of a large detachment of Polish resistance movement that took up arms outside Toruń. They, along with all civilians living in the area, were snuffed out by Soviet forces under the command of a certain Soviet commander.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 1: "Lesson in Blood".
At this point, the USSR controlled Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland and, as a staging point for its invasion of Turkey, Iraq. The Allied Forces controlled a majority of Europe, including Norway, Sweden and the Czech Republic.
==Allied perspective==
===Soviet invasion of Western Europe===
In a raid deep behind enemy lines in Germany, Soviets captured Albert Einstein, who had offered plans to develop a new weapon for the Allies. The Allies reacted quickly and civilian mercenary Tanya Adams was dispatched with a small raiding party to the Slovakian-Hungarian border with orders to retrieve the scientist. The base fell surprisingly quickly to the small commando force, due to the fact that it relied heavily on Tesla Coils to defend it, yet did not have adequate protection for its power plants. This was most likely due to the base being hastily built by the invading Soviets on the border.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 1: "In the Thick of It".
===Delaying the Red Advance===
Due to heavy defeats against the Soviet offensives, the Allies were forced to retreat, and Field Commander A9 was ordered to take control of a passage through the Sudetes mountain pass on the Polish-Czechoslovakian border. With limited resources, he managed to destroy enemy forces in the region and allow the Allied convoy to pass through safely.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 2: "Five to One".
The Allied army managed to gain ground in central and eastern Poland, and to prevent it from being retaken by the enemy, Tanya Adams was dispatched to destroy key bridges on the Polish-Soviet border, a task she performed flawlessly.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 3: "Dead End". Meanwhile, Soviet forces invaded Bulgaria and Turkey and steadily gained ground in Scandinavia. In the Aegean theater, Turkey was taken by the Soviets.
Despite the success of Tanya's assignment, the plan ultimately failed, as the Red Army managed to encircle and destroy the overstretched Allied military in Poland, regaining lost ground quickly and threatening the same mountain pass Commander A9 cleared earlier in the Sudetes. In a pitched defense, the Soviets were pushed back, despite their technological advantage (Allied light tanks vs. Soviet heavy tanks and Yak aircraft).Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 4: "Ten to One".
===Fall of Greece===
Soon, the Greek front collapsed and the Soviet banners flew high in the capitals of Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Cyprus. At the same time Soviet offensive in Central Europe overran Germany and penetrated into eastern France, northern Italy and Benelux. However, a breakthrough happened as Allied diplomats convinced the United Nations to establish a unique military funding to back the Allied cause. In a 281 to 7 vote, the initiative was passed, and it was agreed that a global defence agency would be formed in an undisclosed European capital.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 5: "Tanya's Tale".
Despite the bleak outlook, with the Allied front in Greece collapsing, the UN funding initiative marked a turning point in the war, though at the time, it did not seem so. Agent Tanya Adams, who proved key to recovering Einstein, has been captured by Soviets while transporting vital information about one of the Soviet top secret research projects. In order to prevent her from being transported to Moscow for interrogation and execution, General Gunter von Esling dispatched Commander A9 with the mission of saving her from a Soviet prison facility near Grodno. Despite suffering torture, Tanya escaped captivity (though the spy who aided her was killed in the process) and delivered information on the Iron Curtain project to the Allies.
===Gaining the Initiative===
After consultation with Professor Einstein, it was decided that in order to prevent the deployment of the Iron Curtain, a strike force was sent from the newly liberated Greek coastal areas to attack the Soviet submarine bases in the Aegean Sea doubling as research bases. The objective was to infiltrate the research centers and gain information on the project and then destroy them. The attack was successful and the Allies hampered the research into this device. However, this merely delayed its deployment.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 6: "Iron Curtain Infiltration".
A report sent to Soviet command which confirmed that the Iron Curtain research was set back by Allied espionage was traced to Bornholm, Denmark. Shortly afterwards, a large strike force was deployed to the area that conquered the Soviet bases and commandeered their radar domes in order to assess their relation with the Iron Curtain project.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 7: "Sunken Treasure". On other fronts, Allied armies attacked from Asia Minor, liberating Syria and Iraq. Furthermore, after a swift campaign, Norway and the most of Sweden were liberated, free from the Soviet grasp, as was the same for Greece and Cyprus.
===The Chronosphere Project===
All this time, Allied researchers under the lead of Professor Albert Einstein worked hard to create a weapon that would turn the tide of the war. Basing on Einstein's research, the Philadelphia Experiment was conducted to test theories that would later pave way for the Chronosphere project, meant to provide reliable control over the Chrono effect. The primary research center was situated in Leich, concentrating on controlling the effect. The scientists there were nearing a breakthrough when the Soviet leadership learned of the location of this facility and began to attack it on the eve of a critical experiment. In a pitched defense, Commander A9 skillfully employed his forces and safeguarded the tech center housing the project, possibly saving the future of Europe.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 8: "Protect the Chronosphere".
The Soviet Union was forced to shift their offensive into a defensive.
===Foiling Soviet nuclear attack===
It was then discovered that a high ranking Soviet researcher, Vladimir Kosygin, wishing to defect to the Allied Forces, contacted General Von Esling, disclosing his location. A small strike force was dispatched to Riga, the capital of Latvia, where they infiltrated the enemy base and secured Kosygin, making a daring escape from the research base.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 9: "Extract Kosygin".
The defector revealed details on another of Stalin's secret weapons - the atomic bombs. Recognizing the threat, General Von Esling deployed A9 with his men to the Ural mountains, deep in Soviet territory, where they attacked the Dark Horseman military base housing the atomic weapons research and development center.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 10a: "Suspicion". However, during their attack it turned out that the base also housed missile silos - and at the very moment it was apparent that the Allies could conquer the base, the missiles were launched against the European capital cities. Keeping a cool head, A9 left command of his surface forces to one of his lieutenants and personally commanded the squad that infiltrated the missile facility. With help from Tanya Adams who was quickly sent to assist, he managed to deactivate the four silos and prevent the missiles from detonating in Europe.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 10b: "Evidence".
The sight of a warhead buried outside the British parliament remains an iconic image of just how close the Allies came to defeat when victory seemed to be so close. Following this victory, the Allied Forces finally removed the last pockets of Soviet resistance in Europe, leaving the USSR defending itself on its own soil.
===Allied invasion of the Soviet Union===
To provide heavy fire support and spearhead the assault, a large detachment of Allied forces landed near Stalingrad (referred to during that mission as 'Volgograd', possibly as a mistake) and cleared the bottleneck that prevented warships from moving up the Volga river. Supported by cruisers and destroyers, the Allies swiftly moved deep into enemy territory, the navy proving instrumental in the campaign.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 11: "Naval Supremacy".
Before they could proceed, however, the Allies had to investigate rumors of an even more powerful version of the Iron Curtain coming online. Supported by new Longbow helicopters, the European military quickly intercepted and destroyed the device before it could become a significant threat.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 12: "Takedown". Tech centers captured during the assignment revealed the existence of a major underground weapons plant supplying the Red Army, which was quickly put out of commission by an elite commando team.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 13: "Focused Blast". 
===End of the war===
Occupying most of the European USSR landmass, the Allied Forces barrelled down onto Moscow and utilized their entire arsenal in one final battle. Tanya Adams was sent as the harbinger of defeat and secured funds for the initial deployment of the Allied military, and as she succeeded, the bulk of the Allied expeditionary force arrived. Quickly, they established a base and, in a massive, bloody battle, eventually defeated the last Soviet defenders.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Allied mission 14: "No Remorse".
During the fighting, Stalin was heavily wounded and buried under rubble during the assault. The dictator was discovered by Allied infantry and later by Nikos Stavros. Stavros ordered the infantry to abandon rather than capture Stalin. With the intent of avenging his homeland of Greece, Stavros gagged Stalin and left the dictator to die alone.
The war was finally over.
==Soviet perspective==
===The Red Tide===
The preparations for an assault on Germany were already well underway, with forward command posts established at the border. The same Soviet commander who destroyed Toruń was assigned, together with Georgi Kukov, to guard the bridges leading over the river. The German military, in a desperate move, attacked well entrenched Soviet positions and sabotaged the bridges. However, the Soviets did not let that stop them, and deployed infantry divisions that traversed the river and engaged the enemy on his own soil, beginning the campaign.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 2: "Guard Duty".
While Soviet forces pushed through Finland to take control of Norway and Sweden, it turned out that in southern Sweden, where the Red Army executed a swift naval assault, an Allied spy had infiltrated one of the few remaining gas production facilities and destroyed it. Field Marshall Radik Gradenko attempted to hide the fact from Stalin, but the aide Nadia Zelenkov brought it to Stalin's attention and the commander was sent to deal with the spy. Eventually, despite help from the Swedish resistance and Allied remnants, the spy was captured and shot.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 3: "Covert Cleanup".
Executing a plan formulated by Zelenkov, Soviet forces engaged German communication centers near Berlin, forcing the Allied military to divide their forces to save the critical communication node. This left Berlin exposed, which allowed the Soviets to swiftly take the capital.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 4: "Behind the Lines".
===Securing Eastern Europe===
To support their assault on Greece, Soviet command dispatched a mining team to Khalkis island in order to establish operations there. They also were assigned to capture the Allied communications center in order to monitor the enemy movements in the sector.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 5: "Distant Thunder".
With the United Nations involved in the war, the conflict turned into a stalemate and the Allies were starting to recapture territory. Stalin ordered the Soviet commander to get trucks carrying atomic weapon components to Gorzow, past one of two heavily-guarded rivers in Yugoslavia.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 6: "Bridge over the River".
The Allies have started resorting to unorthodox methods to defeating the Soviets, one of which includes infiltrating a nuclear reactor deep in the USSR and starting a meltdown. Despite Kukov's request to handle the operation, Zelenkov insisted that the Soviet commander regain control of the reactor from the Allied saboteurs. The commander succeeded, preventing the reactor from having a complete meltdown.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 7: "Core of the Matter".
===Liability Elimination===
During his "private briefing" with Zelenkov, Stalin was interrupted by Gradenko regarding recon footage of Allied vehicles being teleported on Elba Island. Believing such a superweapon could act as a complement to their Iron Curtain project, Stalin then orders the commander to destroy the Allied resistance on the Italian island.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 8: "Elba Island".
The Soviets began assembling the Iron Curtain, but not without setbacks. While a drunken Stalin was issuing death warrants for another purge in the Soviet military leadership, a truck carrying important elements of the Iron Curtain project had been captured by the Allies in eastern France. Since it was now a liability, the Soviets attacked the Allied bases in the region, eliminating both the Allied presence and the truck to prevent information from leaking. Another Soviet convoy was escorted through a French mountain pass, with the new MiG attack aircraft taking out Allied positions along the way.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 10: "Overseer".
Gradenko was subsequently assassinated by Zelenkov for his incompetency in letting the truck fall into enemy hands. While Soviet command was further analyzing the Allied superweapon, Allied naval fleets were refueling in Normandy and the Gulf of Lion in preparation for a major attack. This was discovered by Zelenkov's spies, and so much of the Allied navy was sunk by the Soviet submarines in a matter of minutes.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 11: "Sunk Costs".
==="I want it..."===
Having proven himself useful, Stalin orders the Soviet commander to seize the Allied superweapon: the Chronosphere. After discovering the Chronosphere's signal near Seti, Switzerland, the Soviets launched an offensive into the once neutral country. Their initial attempt to secure the Chronosphere prototype failed,Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 12: "Capture the Tech Centers". but the lead Allied scientist Albert Einstein was captured and luckily there was another Chronosphere prototype. In order to trick the Allies into revealing the second prototype's location, the Soviets setup a mock execution, leaked the information to the Allies, and implanted a tracking device in Einstein's watch. As the execution was underway, the Allies then chronoshifted Einstein to safety, this revealing the location of the second Chronosphere in western Iberia.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 13: "Capture the Chronosphere".
The Red Army advanced westward to the Atlantic and struck the bases of the remaining Allied resistance on continental Europe. The Soviet forces were ordered to capture three transmitters within the region in order to safely take the Chronosphere for themselves. However, the operation to secure the last prototype failed; the Chronosphere self-destructed, as intel about the fourth transmitter was purposefully left out by General Kukov in an attempt to get the Soviet commander purged. Stalin was infuriated and personally strangled Kukov in front of Zelenkov and the Soviet commander.Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Soviet mission 14: "Soviet Supremacy".
===Soviet Supremacy===
Although the Chronosphere was lost, the whole of mainland Europe was now in the hands of the Soviet Union. The remaining Allied Forces retreated to Great Britain, concentrated around London for their final defense. To Joseph Stalin and the Soviets, all traces of the European alliance must be vanquished forever, for a continental Soviet Union was their destiny....
The Red Army made their landing on the coast of England, facing fierce resistance from the English defenders. But Britain, like Germany, France, and Greece, was eventually crushed under the jackboot of Soviet supremacy. Legions of infantry and Mammoth tanks supported by the Iron Curtain obliterated the island's defenders. After much brutal fighting and without their Chronosphere, the last of the Allies capitulated and soon the entirety of Europe was now under Soviet control. Stalin celebrated his victory in Buckingham Palace.
==Aftermath==
===Red Alert universe, Allied perspective===
With the defeat of the USSR, the Allied Forces managed to successfully defend the freedom of Europe and ended Stalin's tyranny. However, the cost of victory was high, with millions dead and many major European cities destroyed during the conflict.
What was worse, the Allies never found the Yuri-led Psychic Corps and their mind control project, which would allow Russia to recover and resume the conflict. Stalin's advisor was also nowhere to be seen.
After the war was over, America stepped in and aided in reconstruction efforts, which included appointing Premier Alexander Romanov, a distant relative of the ex-royal House of Romanov and a Communist figure who seemingly promoted peace, as the nation's new leader. However, two decades since the end of the Second World War, this would be proven a costly mistake.
===Tiberium universe, Allied perspective===
The Second World War is widely recognized as the most destructive armed conflict in human history, with the possible exception of the Third Tiberium War and the subsequent Scrin invasion of Earth. Casualties were numbered in the tens of millions, and the material losses and destruction of irreplaceable works of art, historical monuments and others could not be counted. In the post-war world, the Allied Forces forced the USSR to disarm most of its military, leaving it only with forces necessary to defend itself. They also ensured that the Soviet Union would pay for reparations, according to the Peace Treaty. Eventually, the Soviet Union itself disbanded; reorganizing into 15 independent states, with Russia being the largest and the most powerful of them.
Nobody sought to locate Stalin's mysterious advisor or Zelenkov, who was allegedly shot to death by the advisor.
One permanent effect of the war was the establishment of Black Ops 9, the predecessor to the Global Defense Initiative, which acted covertly under the United Nations rule to ensure that another great war would never take place.
Alas, the Tiberium meteor impact at the Tiber River in 1995 changed all that.
===Tiberium universe, Soviet perspective===
Inside the Buckingham Palace, Stalin congratulated his commander on a job well done, and that he will see it to personally that he be "rewarded". Stalin was overjoyed with this decisive victory and danced around the room in the presence of Nadia and his closest advisor. Nadia prepared her brew of tea to Stalin and he cheerily drunk it. Only moments later, Stalin began to choke and Nadia revealed that she poisoned the tea. As Stalin fell onto a table dying, now free from being Stalin's mistress, Zelenkov angrily shot him at point blank range, four times in the back and one inside the victim's eye.
Zelenkov revealed herself to be a member of a shadowy organization that controlled the Soviet Union (and thus manipulated the whole war) calling itself the Brotherhood of Nod, who would be "tired" of the Soviet Union sometime in the 1990s. She appointed the Soviet commander to succeed Stalin as leader but, the advisor shot Zelenkov in the back, no longer needing her. Going by the name of Kane, he said just one thing to the commander...
==Behind the scenes==
* Originally, Red Alert was planned to be C&C0, a prequel to Tiberian Dawn, explaining the background for some of the more outlandish technologies seen in the first Command & Conquer.. 6 February 1996. However, eventually Westwood dropped this approach and Red Alert became the nexus for an entire universe of its own. Uniquely among C&C titles, Red Alert is canon in both the Tiberium and Red Alert universes.
* Red Alert was originally to be set in the 1970s, which would explain the existence of Cold War era technologies such as digital computers, jet aircraft, and GPS satellites in the game. The video demo featurette in the Collector's Edition of Red Alert 2, whose last canonical mission is set in 1972, would later state that Red Alert 2 takes place around 20 years after the end of the original Red Alert. Along with the 1951 date given for the Iron Curtain on the Red Alert official site,Westwood Studios, Red Alert official site: . Retrieved 25 January 2001. the Command & Conquer Wiki considers the Second World War to have ended around the early 1950s.
==Gallery==
Red_alert_course_of_the_war.gif|Course of the war (Allied campaign)
Red_alert_course_of_the_war_soviet.gif|Course of the war (Soviet campaign)
==Footnotes==
==References==
Category:Tiberium universe events
Category:Red Alert universe events
Category:Wars
de:zweiter Weltkrieg