The Canadian Front

The Canadian territories have stood as one of the crown jewels of the French Colonial Empire since their full incorporation into the state in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Although Socialism swept over the French mainland, Canada’s industry was dominated by monopoly and business interests that prevented it from receiving the same workers' rights afforded to industries in the homeland. This lack of regulation resulted in an industrial boom for the Canadian Colony in the years leading up to the war, but a tragic loss of rights for the workers who manned the factories. When the Grand Revolution came in 1938, Canadian industry, with the guidance of the Commissariat, was reorganized under Syndicalist worker cooperatives in an attempt to bring Canada more in line with the ideals of the revolution. In the short term, this decision crippled Canadian industry, leaving it vulnerable to an invasion by the Russian American Company through Alaska. Although taking heavy losses in the first several months of the war, the Canadians managed to rally their industrial core and began to push back the Russian advance.

The Canadian Colony had long been one of the most productive economic centers of the French Empire. Even after the New Revolution of 1928, when the socialists took control of parliament, colonial operations in the Canadian Colony continued as normal. A large part of Canada’s success came from the close economic relationships the colonial government formed with the United States and the forthright trade agreements that followed. Although the colony was directly controlled by the French Empire, the economic direction of the colony was centralized under the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France and its subsidiaries, which had their hand in nearly every industry in the North Atlantic Colony. De la Nouvelle France was one of the oldest corporations in Canada, and after the French success in the War of 1812, they were well positioned to monopolize much of Canadian industry. By 1928, the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France controlled nearly 80% of Canadian factories. As a result, pressure was high from business leaders in both the colony and France to pass the Great Lakes Trade Agreement in 1930, preventing the labor laws passed by the socialist government from affecting colonial holdings. The passage of this act resulted in both the flight of industry out of mainland France and into its colonial holdings, as well as the overall worsening of worker conditions as the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France and companies like it boomed.

The United States benefited greatly from the large industrial presence of its Canadian neighbors. Raw materials from the States were shipped across the border, while finished goods were brought down from Canada and distributed throughout the States. The back-and-forth free trade arguably created a bond with the Canadian colony nearly as strong as that the US shared with France back in Europe. Such an affair was great for business even during the tumultuous 1920s and 30s. When President Charbonnier came to power in France in 1938, this forthright relationship between Canada and the US quickly began to spoil. The new Communist government that took control after the Grand Revolution of 1938 was far less sympathetic to capitalistic monopoly over Canadian industry than its socialist counterparts. Dismantling Canadian capital was a top priority of the early Commissariat, particularly after the start of the Great War. As their other colonial subjects struggled with independence from what was left of their colonial governments, France sent what few troops and commissars they could spare to begin the dismantling of La Compagnie, seizing their factories for state use. This process lasted for the first two months of the war, and went relatively quickly as, to keep their heads, many of those employed in the upper management of the corporation quickly sided with the growing Syndicalist movement across Canada. The monopoly quickly crumbled into worker union-controlled factories across Canada, all working for the good of the state. As time and resources allowed, more and more Commissars arrived from France to aid in the management of these new industries. The US watched from across the border in horror as many of their former business partners had their assets seized, were sentenced to the guillotines, or, in the worst cases, killed by angry laborers. The free trade between the US and Canada continued, but was significantly slowed as the supply networks from before crumbled as each factory became its own entity.

These reorganization efforts by the Commissariat in Canada deeply harmed the colony's ability to produce goods necessary to the war effort on the continent. Most of the Commissariat’s goals were to shift the production of many of the Canadian factories away from consumer goods and towards that of arms and armor; however, these more practical goals were often sidelined in favor of the more liberatory goals in the hearts in minds of many commissars and previously oppressed workers. Before the war, Canada was producing most of France’s armor, which was shipped overseas, but this was greatly delayed due to the upheaval. France was already facing large military shortages before the war, and this was only exacerbated by their struggles with the colony. Luckily for France, as part of the North Atlantic Alliance, it negotiated a deal with the United States to purchase and send large quantities of arms, armor, and M56 Supply Trucks overseas to fuel the French war effort. Unfortunately for the Canadians, this agreement precluded the United States from selling any finished goods to any of France’s colonial holdings, as they were most urgently needed in the European front. The consequences of this were not felt in the first few months of the war, but would become extremely detrimental for the Canadians by December.

The Russian Empire was in a precarious place at the start of the Great War. What little military organization existed in Russia was split on how the nation ought to react to the outbreak of war. It was clear to all that the alliance with the Holy Roman Empire must be maintained at all costs, but due to the fragmented nature of the government, each faction that vied for power in post-imperial Russia responded to this crisis in its own way. Most responded by reinforcing the forces of the HRE on their Eastern fronts. Others invaded the Nordic Union, in hopes of settling old grudges and territorial disputes that had plagued the two countries for centuries. Other corporate entities sought to make a profit off the alliance and began fueling the war machine. For the Russian American Company, the Great War presented a unique opportunity to expand deeply into the North American Continent. Although an invasion of Canada was risky, the Russian American Company decided that gaining greater control of the Arctic Ocean was worth the risk,. as recent surveys of melting icecaps in Canada's Northern fringes revealed underwater oil reserves. Executives at the Russian American Company were further encouraged by their business partners at the Ostend Trading Company, who in addition to providing the survey of future oil procurement in Northern Canada, reminded them that they must fulfill their obligation to the Tsar either militarily or economically. Ultimately a full-scale invasion proved itself to be the more profitable of the two options.

The Russian American Company was always a bit of a black sheep compared to many of the other factions in the severely divided Russian Empire. Unlike many of the others, the Russian American Company never bothered to try and assert itself as the rightful heirs to the Tsar's throne, nor did they care much for the politics of the Orthodox Church or the disputes among the other corporations. Instead, the Russian American Company remained mostly neutral to the goings on back in Russia, preferring to make incremental profits selling oil and other natural resources back to the mainland. The company was controlled by former boyars who could date their claims back to the initial colonization efforts. As a result of the Russian American Company's relative humbleness compared to their counterparts, it came as a surprise to many when they began building a large army in the Alaskan frontier. Their neutrality was advantageous to them in the amassing of the arms, armor, and manpower necessary for the massive operation they were about to undertake, as nearly every faction across Russia had a positive relationship with them and were more than willing to strike a deal in exchange for Alaskan oil to fuel their war efforts. By December 1938, the Russian American Company had amassed a massive force along their border with French Canada, launching an all-out assault into Canada on December 5th.

The French forces in Canada were not entirely taken by surprise. They had been tracking the rapid militarization of their Alaskan neighbors for some time, but there was little the forces could do to prevent the invasion besides shore up defensive positions along the border as well as they could. Although they were as prepared as they could have been, French colonial forces took heavy casualties and lost a huge amount of territory in the first week of the assault. The colony simply was not prepared for the overwhelming forces the Russian American Company had amassed. News of the Alaskan invasion into Canada quickly made its way back to France, but they could do little to meaningfully respond. The homeland was stretched thin in Europe and could not afford to send more men to support the Canadians. The colony would have to defend itself against the invasion.

The Russian invasion of Canada was seen as a great insult to the average Canadian. A nationalistic zeal kicked up in the colony, with troves of French Canadians lining up to help repel the Russian menace from their great country. The heavy Commissariat presence did well to capitalize on this nationalistic fervor, as well as the heavy casualties and territorial losses the Canadians had experienced in the first few weeks of the war. The demonopolization efforts were greatly accelerated as it quickly became apparent that Canada would be forced to produce their own war machine if it were to meet the demands of the volunteers that came pouring into recruitment offices. Young men and women across the Canadian colony wished to defend their country, but little could be done with all of the tanks, ammunition, and equipment being shipped out of the United States and across the Atlantic. As a result, although many took up what few guns they had to repel the Russian invaders, most took up hammers and began reigniting Canadian industry.

Although the will of the people was united in repelling the Russian invaders, the practicality of such a thing would not be feasible for the Canadians for some time. The RAC had a remarkably organized military force, mostly consisting of walkers and armored vehicles. The Russians made ridiculous gains in the first months of the invasion, though this was mostly due to most of the seized territory being relatively uninhabitable. While the terrain was rough to live on, the mountainous and forested landscape was ideal for battlesuits and walkers whose agile nature made navigation much easier, and could turn a dense forest into a road far faster than a crew of loggers. Perhaps more concerning to the Canadians was the extensive construction of railways coming out of Alaska and down through the harsh tundras and coniferous forest of North Eastern Canada. The construction of these rail networks was brutal work and resulted in the deaths of many of the Russian soldiers, whose numbers were reinforced with prisoners whose sentences were leased to the company, as well as serfs purchased from the remnants of the Boyars. The few professional soldiers among them were placed in leadership roles to keep them in line. These men and women pushed ever further south, but the Russian American Company thought the establishment of such extreme infrastructure lines was critical in maintaining their supplies and gaining a permanent foothold in North America. This stalled Russian advances, but by the end of March of 1939, the Russian forces and their rail lines were quickly approaching Edmonton with the hope of taking the city with little resistance in the coming months.

Canadian forces did what they could to disrupt Russian progress. Organized military resistance was out of the question as they were still struggling to produce enough domestically to supply their soldiers. Instead, the Canadian forces in the early months waged a guerrilla war against the Russian invaders, doing everything in their power to delay the line's advance for as long as possible. Canadian commandos began targeting the rail networks that the Russians had been working so hard to establish in the Canadian frontier. Most of the attacks were logistical, with the colonial forces rarely engaging Russian forces head-on. In the few times it did happen, Canadian forces lost badly as they simply were unable to bring enough explosives to deal with Russian armor.

Although the guerrilla war was slow, it did its job to buy the Canadians enough time to prepare for their first real engagement with the Russians. As the Russian forces prepared for their assault on Edmonton, Canadian forces assembled all across Chipewyan Province to shore up the defenses of the city. By April 15th, the Canadians had managed to produce a handful of armored regiments, many among which had numbers shored up by tanks produced in Edmonton just days before the Russian advance. Before the Russians could attack, the 1st Canadian Armored Division launched a counteroffensive out of Edmonton towards the Russian lines.

The Russians were woefully unprepared for a counterattack. Up to this point, they had faced very little resistance, and their walkers had been nigh impenetrable to Canadian small arms. As a result, the Canadians quickly gained the upper hand and forced a Russian retreat, securing their first true victory over the Alaskan invaders since the start of the Great War. With this victory, the Canadians began to mount a large-scale counteroffensive to try and retake as many of their former territories as possible.

Although the Canadian counteroffensive initially found great success and repelled Russian forces away from the critical city of Edmonton, the Canadians were still far off from fully removing the Russians from the greater Chipewyan area. Over the next several weeks, the Canadians and Russians gained and lost inches of territory in the surrounding frontier, with both sides evenly matched. The initial advantage Canadian armor had over the Russian walkers was quickly lost as armored reinforcements began arriving from the recently constructed rail lines. More concerningly, the Canadians began finding themselves under heavy fire from long-range Russian artillery. This ground the Canadian advance to a halt, with colonial forces being forced to dig in and seek cover from the Russian bombardment.

As the lines slowed the Canadians were hit with a major surprise from their colonial overlords: their conditional independence. On May 1st, 1939, the French government announced the release of their colonial holdings and their subsequent incorporation into the Communist International. Unfortunately for the Canadian colony, due to the nature of the Great Lakes Trade Agreement and its lingering effects, the French government deemed that Canada was not yet sufficiently revolutionary enough to grant its full independence. Instead, while all other French Colonies were fully liberated and given comparable representation in accordance with their populations within the Communist Internationale, Canada was granted its independence, but half of its representatives in the CI were controlled by members of the Commissariat, until such a time that Canada could prove its loyalty to the Communist cause.

Reactions to this announcement were generally mixed across Canada. The nationalistic wave that swept across Canada since the Russian invasion had not subsided, and as such, many celebrated this chance at Canadian self-determination, while many others thought it absurd that Canada had not yet proven their worthiness of full representation despite their battling the Russians since December. An uneasy resentment for their former colonial overlords was present in the hearts of many Canadians, but fully independent or not, the Russian invaders were here to stay and had to be pushed out if Canada were to enjoy the independence awarded to them. One major benefit of this freedom was that Canada was no longer subject to the same trade restrictions with the United States that it once was as a colonial entity. As such, before Canada’s first election was even held, many of the newly created Syndicalist Corporations reopened trade negotiations with the United States, securing critical supplies for the Canadian war effort.

As the new Canadian government held its first election, Canadian forces on the Chipewyan front faced a new threat. Russian forces had been shelling them heavily for the last month, but on June 3rd, the Russians began testing a new weapon on them, four TM-1-180mm railway guns stationed in the ruins of Grande Prairie, a city which the Russians had taken months before and were using as a stationing ground for their forces and a rail hub for their supplies. These massive guns posed a significant threat to Canadian forces and were capable of causing heavy damage to their entrenched positions. The Canadians could no longer afford to hold the line against the Russians. If they were to push them out of the Chipewyan territories, they would have to deal with the might of the Russian artillery, and soon.

A cunning plan was devised to deal with the menace of Russian long artillery. Russian forces were spread thin along the trench lines, barbed wire, and mine fields laid by the Canadian engineer corps across the tundra. It was decided that the need to disrupt Russian artillery outweighed the need to hold the lines against the stretched Russian forces. Instead, the Canadian forces would form a wedge in an attempt to spear through the Russian position along one of their rail lines. The plan put Canadian forces at great risk of envelopment, but they hoped they would be fast enough to push into Grande Prairie before the Russian forces could fully entrap them.

The plan was set, and a contingent of Canadian forces, mostly consisting of light tanks, halftracks, and monowheels, massed together for the forward assault. Slower units would hang back and try to advance if Russian forces tried to collapse on the French Spearhead. It was unlikely that they would be able to catch the fast-moving walkers and Cossacks, but they might be able to reinforce Canadian forces if they could make it into Grande Prairie. The geography of the surrounding area would work to their advantage. Although there were still many dense forests across both the Canadian and Russian lines, the surrounding area of Grande Prairie, and of the railway itself, was mostly flat open plains, making it perfect for a quick armored attack.

The initial assault went as planned, with Russian forces stretched thin across the front, unable to meaningfully put up any resistance to such a large cadre of Canadian armor. Canadian forces advanced swiftly along the tracks of the Russian rail network, hurdling ever closer to Grande Prairie. It did not take long for Russian forces to catch wind of the Canadians' plan, and the lines quickly began to shift in response. As the Armored and Recon battalions advanced along the tracks, they began being shelled by Russian artillery out of Grande Prairie. However, the Canadians were too fast for the Russian Railguns to get any meaningful shots off, as they rapidly approached Grande Prairie, far faster than the guns could be repositioned to fire upon them. This forced the Russians to rely on more conventional short-range artillery to deter the Canadian advance. This ultimately did little to slow them down, as it proved extremely difficult to accurately hit such a fast-moving advance.

The successful advance could only last so long as the Russians quickly reoriented their lines as expected in an attempt to swallow the Canadian Spearhead. Russian Recon Divisions quickly took chase, though it was some time before they were able to catch the swift Canadian forces. In a desperate attempt to slow down the advance, Russian forces deployed a heavily armored train down the track, hurdling towards the Canadian armor to slow down their forces. Their trick worked, with Russian forces finally engaging the Canadians 10 miles outside Grande Prairie. This gave time for the Russian Recon Divisions to catch up to the Canadian spearhead, attacking them from their rear flank. The armored train could only slow the advance down, however, and was quickly disabled by the sheer volume of armor present in the Canadian spearhead. Under fire from Russian walkers and Cossacks nipping at their heels, the Canadians finally reached Grande Prairie, beginning their assault in the ruins of the cities on the Russians' rail hub there.

The Canadians arrived just in time as the Russians had not yet fully moved their rail guns. What troops stationed there desperately tried to defend the weapons from the Canadian armor, but could do little to stop the fast-moving vehicles from spreading out across the city and begin destroying strategic targets. Unfortunately for the Canadian strike force, they quickly found themselves surrounded by Russian forces who encircled the city. They began taking heavy casualties fighting Russians on all fronts as they crawled over the rubble and engaged the Canadians. The assault forces began running out of ammunition, forcing them to abandon their vehicles and scrounge the bodies of Russian soldiers for equipment as they desperately tried to outlast the Russian counterattack. When the Canadian lines finally reached them 3 days later, only an eighth of the Canadian forces survived in the city. Canadian forces quickly took the city from the exhausted Russian forces and began rescuing the survivors.

The Battle of Grande Prairie was an astounding success despite the heavy losses, having finally struck a major blow against Russia’s superior artillery. Amidst the turmoil, A young man named Sydney Radley-Walters was among the survivors and was heralded as a hero. He, along with his ragtag crew of tankers, managed to destroy 14 Russian vehicles using the last ammunition from their mostly disabled Liberté battle tank. These heroics would fast-track the young man to a promotion where he would go on to lead several Canadian armor groups against the Russian invaders. The victory Walters and his men achieved was of immediate importance to the defense of Canada, but more importantly, it served as an inspiration to the newly formed nation that they could stand against one of the Great Powers.