The Indian Front

Sri Lanka

 United States of America

 Australia

World War III, or the Third Human Civil War, was fought between the world's major powers for control of Earth and her colonies. A key player in the world's struggle was the Republic of India, which before the war helped in filling the power vacuum left by the US during the Second Great Depression. India became a world power, being more involved in world affairs and colonization, but watched on as Asia dramatically changed, with China becoming ultra-nationalist and imperialist, while the Middle East fell into complete anarchy, undergoing an radicalist movement that unified the region, forming the Holy Islamic Empire (HIE). The new nation absorbed Pakistan, inheriting the well known rivalry, leaving war on the realistic horizon. In mobilizing, it also formed close alliances with the US and its allies, helping it form an Anti-China coalition with several other nations.

When China's ambitions to expand shifted to the island of Taiwan, India sent its navy to assist in intimidating China. The Hegemony, however, making up China, the HIE, and the Communist Federated Republics (CFR), was prepared and asking for war. China deployed hundreds of attack drones and missiles that immediately decimated the Allied fleets. Taiwan fell to China in three days, and the entire Indian fleet was destroyed.

## The Invasion and Attrition (2055-2060)

Two-days after the Battle of Taiwan, China invaded India through Bhutan and Nepal, while the HIE attacked from the west. China, in conquering the weaker buffer states, successfully crossed the Himalayas, taking India by surprise and capturing much of northern India. Bangladesh saw its government overthrown in the process and joined the Hegemony, soon being annexed by China in 2056. The territory was turned into one of China's many autonomous regions.

### Battle of New Delhi

China and the HIE encircled New Delhi successfully, causing the city to fall before the end of 2055.

After the city fell, India dug in for a long defense, holding onto the last of its land through constant counter offensive that caused the front to shift everyday. The easy victory over India expected by the Hegemony, seen during the invasions of Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea was not the case for India. One-billion people strong, the Republic of India fought ferociously against the invaders, soon witnessing the front fall into an attrition, becoming the first of the "Long Attrition". India also became the first nation to pass a wartime draft.

American and Australian forces were sent to India to assist in the defense. It failed to shift the tide and only went on to spread Allied forces absolutely during the war's early years. Sri Lanka joined on India's side as well, seeing China and the HIE as a threat to its own existence; it provided some aid in the form of troops and supplies to India.

Throughout 2056, the war was a stalemate while the Allies retreated everywhere else. In 2057, the HIE and China both turned their ambitions elsewhere: the HIE targeted the African Union and Israel, while China took the Philippines and Japan, digging in for a more defensive stance on the Indian front. As the HIE swarmed down on Africa and Israel, and China sequenced control over Asia and the Pacific, India held out against the presumed horrible odds.

A joint Chinese-Indonesian strike on Oceania resulted in the conquest of New Zealand, and the fall of most of Australia's territory, leaving two small pockets in the far south. Despite the war in Asia and the Pacific not being over, China went ahead with their plans to target the US mainland, first invading Hawaii, then continental North America itself.

India, then seeing an opportunity to strike back at the Hegemony, prepared for a counter offensive.

## The Holi Offensive (2061)

Believing China and the HIE had spread themselves thin fighting wars across the world, and occupying half of it already, India decided a well timed surprise offensive could turn the tide in their war, and push both the HIE and China out of their territory.

In March of 2061, the Indian Army advanced across the front, catching the Hegemony entirely off guard. The HIE and China were forced to retreat, abandoning New Delhi after another short but bloody battle. After that, the campaign lost steam, and the Indian army dug in for another long defense. In a time of nothing but bad news for the Allies, India's morale managed to boost itself through the recapture of its capital city.

The Holi Offensive, named after the festivity that take place in northern India around that time (in March), was only a partial success for India, however.

The Hegemony soon began to realize the logistical nightmares of fighting multiple wars at once. But in the meantime, the Indian fell stagnant, and they could renew their advance on other front; China continued pushing deeper into America, while the HIE renewed its war with the African Union, seizing Zimbabwe and Mozambique immediately after, both making up for their recent failures in India.

## A Temporary Victory

### Third Battle of New Delhi

As the Allies hit their low-point, India's war effort began to falter. In early-2062, the HIE and China pulled together whatever reserves they could muster for another push against India, the last resistance in Asia. New Delhi, being the most vulnerable strategically, and being a symbolic target, was up for grab. The Hegemony managed to muster enough of a force to move passed the trenches, and force India into a retreat.

After another bloody struggle for the city, India once again lost its most historic city. But similar to the Holi Offensive of years prior, India managed to stop its front from collapsing, stopping them not long after.

As the HIE amassed its forces around Europe for its invasion of the neutral EU, and China's war with America stagnated along the Mississippi River, India found itself unable to make offensives of any kind. In the midst, the people of India suffered the most, with daily casualties reported in the hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions thanks to brutality of the battlefield, along with nuclear fallout and the worldwide starvation taking their toll.

### The Trenches

With the Allies cornered everywhere, and the Hegemony entirely spread thin from fighting wars all over the planet, the Long Attrition quickly began resembling World War I, in that both sides constructed trenches along their fronts. India was the first front to adopt this tactic, soon seeing as others followed suit, until by 2063, most of the fronts had long, complex and impassible defensive lines.

**India vs. China:** During the Summer months of 2064, the HIE began preparing to betray its Hegemony allies for religiously motivated reasons. And after taking back New Delhi, the front line shifted in a way that the HIE and India no longer bordered each other. Thus, China was forced to do most of the fighting in India, only going on to weaken it definitively.

## The Great Jihad (2064-2066)

### The Sudden Betrayal

In late-2064, the Hegemony broke apart; the Holy Islamic Empire suddenly went rogue, turning the Indian front completely chaotic as it comense into a three-way-war, but sparking hope for an Allied victory.

Instead of immediately going for a counter offensive, India sat back, stockpiling the force necessary for such a feat of decisively defeating the two most powerful and populated nations on the Allies' list of enemies. In the meantime, they let China and the HIE weaken each other more and more, until the time to strike was right. However, they did do a limited counter attack in Operation Sunahara, to assist the USA in their attack in America; the attack was merely diversionary.

### Bengali Civil War

Jihadist Muslims residing in Bangladesh, now a region of China, began rebelling after calls from the Godking asked them to revolt against the Hegemony. People unhappy with Chinese oppression raised their swords and Dhaka, the capital, fell into anarchy, with the Secretary General of Bangladesh was killed by a suicide bomber. Ten years of Chinese annexation was commemorated by bloodshed.

Meanwhile, Pro-Hegemony Bengali people also took up arms and fought the rebels, turning the once united and former nation into a violent battle ground.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) intervened immediately on the secular authority's behalf, crushing the rebellion by the end of 2066. Dhaka was razed by intense street combat and genocide and a new General Secretary was installed into power, this time a man of Han Chinese descent, losing the place of all autonomy. However, the events would be forgotten, as China, unable to differ friend and foe, began depopulating Bangladesh in its entirety.

## Operations Baji Rao and Chalo Delhi (2066-2067)

Seeing America liberated and the Allies successfully storming the beaches in France during Operation Charlemagne, India decided to make a move against China and the HIE, amassing its massive military of over three-hundred-million to invade across the entire front, leaving from their trenches millions at a time. China, in a worse position, was easily forced behind the Himalayas, having their gains reduced to the regions east of Bengal. With China mostly dealt with, India refocused its attention toward the HIE to the west, going after occupied New Delhi.

### Fourth Battle of New Delhi

Indian forces surrounded the former capital and attacked the heavily fortified HIE presence there. Regardless, they engaged in fierce house-to-house fighting, thousands dying for each building and meter of land. India is initially bogged down as both sides prepared for a long protracted struggle. And while the battle dragged on, the HIE during the winter of 2066, grew against the incredibly exhausted Hegemony, while their war with the Allies stagnated.

In Spring, though, as the HIE was preoccupied with the Battle of New Stalingrad, New Delhi fell for the last time, with the HIE presence collapsing after months of starvation and attrition killed their ability to fight.

## Operation Jai Hindi (2067)

Following the recapture of New Delhi, the objective of Operation Chalo Delhi was completed, and it was time for the next movement against the HIE; now mostly pushed out of their territory, India began invading the HIE along its borders, stepping into HIE territory itself for the first time in the entire war. During this period, India, with the other Allies, agreed to a temporary truce with the Hegemony, at least until the HIE was destroyed.

### Battle of Hyderabad

As the HIE began retreating on all fronts, India entered the city of Hyderabad in Pakistan, a major city along the strategically important Indus River. The city was taken after a short fight. And the HIE retreated behind the Indus River in an attempt to form a defensive line.

It did not last, however, as the CFR crashed down on them from the north, allowing India to pass the river and conquer the Pakistan region. The offensive continued all the way to Kuwait.

And as the European Allies prepared to invade North Africa, the HIE, in a desperate act, released the HAVA Virus, a weaponized form of Ebola.

### The HAVA Virus (2067-2070)

India was not immune to the effects of the HAVA Virus, suffering millions of deaths in only a few days. When lockdown failed to prevent the spread, it was discovered that the virus emitted in trees, so as a last resort humanity burned them down. India authorized Operation Khandawa Dahana, the destruction all its forests, an operation that directly caused the extinction of many species of plant and animal.

Two years of scorched earth policy resulted in the decimation of the virus, granting the Allies and Hegemony the opportunity to finally renew their war with the Holy Islamic Empire. Their last gambit to destroy their enemies had failed, only making the Allies more infuriated with the HIE, India especially, which took the brunt of many of the deaths from the virus.

## Fall of the HIE (2070-2071)

India and the rest of the Allies along with the Hegemony invaded the HIE at the same time; the EU invaded North Africa, while the CFR moved deeper into the Middle East, the center of the HIE. India mostly stopped after Kuwait, deciding to let the CFR do most of the fighting, as they diverted resources to assist Madagascar (AU) in the invasion of the southern Africa, which had been taken by the HIE years prior.

Upon first landing in Mozambique the operation was a stunning success, because it was discovered that all the land was depopulated, not under military occupation, as it was not needed, stumbling across cities and villages turned into graveyards. Untested, they pushed until they reached the Atlantic, only being bogged down when they traveled southward to Occupied South Africa, finding the first HIE forts in the region.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the CFR pulled off Operation Sunscorched II, where they nuked every remaining city on the Arabian peninsula, wiping out much of the population and causing the front to collapse entirely. India then invaded, from Iran, the tip of Arabia at the former UAE, Oman and Yemen regions, taking them easily, before the CFR finished off the rest. The final holdouts were Jerusalem in Occupied Israel and the Qatar region. Jerusalem fell, leaving the Godking dead, and the HIE leaderless.

### Battle of Qatar

India, then, in a day conquered Qatar, entirely removing the HIE from the Middle East, effectively severing it at its head.

### Battle of Hopetown

In Africa, AU and Indian forces pushed deeper into Occupied South Africa. The final major confrontation between the HIE and India was when the small village of Hopetown was liberated in only a few hours. An HIE in shambles capitulated not long after.

## The End of Ceasefire & Tibetan Offensive (2071-2077)

With the HIE and HAVA Virus gone, the war between the Allies and Hegemony for control of the world was ready to continue. For the four years of ceasefire, both sides diverted many resources toward fortifying their lands, preparing themselves for a bloody finish.

### Operation Unthinkable

Their truce ended with the Allied invasion of Russia in June of 2071. Waiting through a freezing winter and wet spring, the CFR, despite attempts to turn the country into a fortress, was forced to fall back as years of war against the HIE had dried up its economy, and more importantly military of their previously great power.

India assisted the US and EU by attacking the CFR occupied Middle East, taking Baghdad with little effort, and the rest of the Middle East with no resistance on part of the CFR, as they fled north to protect Moscow, which was in danger of attack from the Allies.

When the CFR surrendered, the EU took the European part of its territory, while China seized swathes of Siberia and Turkestan.

### Tibetan Offensive

In 2075, after twenty years of war with China, while Operation Waltzing Matilda went underway, not long after the liberation of the Philippines, the Indian Army broke through the Himalayas, making a massive offensive into Tibet. Millions of casualties were suffered in a months long campaign, but the region was successfully seized, being the first Chinese territory to fall to the Allies during the war.

China, after being invaded along the coast in 2077, capitulated, ending the twenty-years of war with the Hegemony in an Allied victory. A vital factor in the eventual defeat of the Hegemony was India's long defiance, the last bastion of Asia, a factor that spread their forces thin and provided enough of a thorn in the side of their enemies to eventually collapse their war effort.