The War Where Gentlemanly Codes Of Conduct Collapsed

World Era 1912, August 16.

The war that had begun in January had now dragged on for seven months and a half (15 days). In the Doicheun Empire, the situation was harsher than expected, with ever more intense fighting and mounting losses.

Under such circumstances, the emperor’s urgings grew more severe. The military was scolded for producing results inferior to those of the past. Pressed by the emperor, they finally took one weapon off the shelf: airships.

They massed more than a hundred airships and launched a surprise operation. They chose an unusually dark day with heavy cloud cover and rode those clouds across the front. The airships’ primary mission was bombing.

Their concentrated targets were the depots where the Allied forces had stacked supplies. Having secretly learned the locations through spies, they began dropping bombs indiscriminately the moment they arrived.

KWAANG—! BOOM BOOM—! BOOM BOOM BOOM—! KWAANG—! KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM—!

As fire blossomed, the shells piled high on the ground sympathetically detonated and exploded. The blasts lit the night sky bright as day, and the whole area shook as if struck by an earthquake.

WEE-EE-EEENG—!

Sirens blared the alarm as soldiers scrambled in a hurry. What they saw were munitions warehouses engulfed in flames. Stationed far in the rear, they had not imagined this place would be attacked; they could only stare, dazed.

“Water! Bring water, quick!”

“Hurry and put it out!”

“Move, move!”

Everyone rushed to fight the fires. However much they could extinguish, the key point was that enormous stores had burned. Satisfied with the result, the Doicheun Empire’s airship unit drifted back to base at leisure.

The Allied side, belatedly realizing that the objects dropped from the sky were bombs, scrambled fighters, but with the airships already using cloud cover to withdraw, there was no finding them. In the end, the Allies suffered a stinging loss and fumed at the Doicheun Empire’s “cowardly” act.

Until now, there had still been something like a gentlemanly code in warfare, but as casualties mounted, the conduct shifted from “gentleman’s war” to results-above-all-else. In response, the Allies greatly increased aerial reconnaissance to guard against surprise attacks.

They were especially thorough at night or in heavy cloud. Perhaps intoxicated by success, the Doicheun Air Force again launched a surprise raid with airships less than a week later when conditions aligned.

This time, however, Allied reconnaissance aircraft spotted them. Gauging their course, the scout plane returned and reported, and Allied command immediately scrambled fighters.

Roughly two hundred fighters took off. Filling the sky, they flew on the predicted route toward the likely supply base target and soon sighted the airships in motion.

The instant they discovered part of the airship group hiding in the clouds, the attack began at once.

TUDUDUDUDU—! TUDUDUDU—!

Streams of bullets riddled the airships’ envelopes. The airships had no real answer. One after another, an airship burst into flame, and in the sudden glare they picked out the rest of the fleet massed within the clouds.

They closed and pressed the attack. With no defensive armament to speak of, the airships were pounded unilaterally. One after another exploded and fell.

From the ground, it would have looked like giants dropping from the sky in succession. Panicking under the assault, the airships aborted the mission and began to retreat, but once detected there was no escaping the fighters’ attacks.

With their slow speed, the airships had no chance to flee. The fighters, spitting bullets, continued the attack as if determined not to let even one escape. The Doicheun Empire’s airship unit was annihilated.

News of this reached the Doicheun forces shortly thereafter.

Having lost on the order of a hundred airships, the empire’s hopes cooled. There was talk of bombing again with airships, but command judged it wasteful after such failure and suspended airship-bombing operations indefinitely.

Doicheun therefore had no choice but to fight head-on again. More and more troops were committed to the front, and newly produced fighters were continuously deployed, leading to constant battles in the sky as well.

With fighting like this, human resources were consumed without end. As the calendar edged toward September, the Doicheun Empire decided it could no longer trade costly blows and began a new operation.

In truth, this marked the end of any “gentleman’s war.”

September 12.

As always, the battlefield where bullets and shells flew was hell itself. If hell existed, it was here—that thought filled everyone’s head as they pulled their triggers at the enemy like machines.

Both sides fired from trenches. Machine-gun streams and rifle rounds from the infantry lashed the air like rain. Intermittent explosions cratered the trenches with serious damage.

It could not be attack-and-repulse forever. At times there was an eerie silence so complete that not a sound could be heard. In such moments, men rested or ate to refill their strength.

In the dugout canteen within the trench line, tiny stools and tables were crammed together. The soldiers eating there stared vacantly, shoveling food in as if eating simply not to die.

They ate lumps of unidentifiable meat and a thin soup, more like drinking than chewing. There were also sides like beans. One man, unsatisfied, licked his bowl—but with rations fixed, there was no more to be had.

Among them was a young soldier behaving abnormally. He rocked constantly, muttering; from the words it seemed he wanted to go home. I have to go back. I have to see my mother. Hearing this, annoyed voices rose around him.

“Hey—kid—can it for a second!”

“You think nobody else wants to go? I want to go home too!”

“For the love of—shut up!”

“There he goes again. Tsk, tsk.”

Though scolded, the young conscript only kept rocking and muttering. Such sights were common. Dragged from ordinary life, shipped to a training camp, given only the basics, then thrown into this front—how could anyone remain sound in mind?

With grumbling voices around them, they were about to resume eating when KU-KU-KOOM! heavy blasts sounded. Feeling the tremors, they thought, Was it starting again?—and hurriedly grabbed their weapons, donned helmets, and filed out of the canteen.

They emerged into the sodden trench. Boots squelched as they moved; in places the floor had been laid with cut logs, and elsewhere flattened, spent tin cans had been packed to form a walkway.

The Moria and Noma Empires, drawing on domestic production, were stamping out tinned rations without end. Cans of meat, beans, corn, and other foods were shipped to the front, and the empties were laid down to firm up the sodden trench floors.

At first it hadn’t been like this, but experience had taught them that standing in waterlogged mud rotted men’s feet to the point of amputation, so they had adopted this method—something the Moria and Noma Empires could do while they still had reserves.

Just then, as everyone moved to rejoin the fight, something strange came into view. Smoke—billowing in great volume. Worse, the wind blew straight toward the soldiers, and they were immediately engulfed.

“What is that?”

“What kind of smoke— cough !?”

“W-what—!? cough cough!”

Within moments, the soldiers were wracked by unbearable pain. Vomit and drool poured forth; then blood began to seep from eyes and noses. The smoke was poison gas—shells from the Doicheun Empire had burst and released it.

To break the stalemated front, the empire had chosen to deploy poison gas they had been developing. They had meant to avoid using it, but to breach trenches they had failed to crack, they decided to cross the line.

As the gas shells burst, the Allies suffered grievous losses. The Allies had also researched gas—and had gas masks—but nowhere near enough.

Even with urgent orders, proper production and deployment would take at least a month; in practice, longer. Under such conditions, the Allied line they had held so firmly buckled quickly under gas attack.

September 19.

In barely a week, the Allied line had been pushed back by dozens of kilometers. For armies that had spent thousands, tens of thousands of lives to seize a few scraps of ground, this was a major result. The Doicheun Empire was buoyed.

Yes, they had used poison gas—but they began to think only the result mattered. The Moria and Noma Empires loudly condemned them.

Watching the war, the Magnia Empire also issued a statement condemning the use of poison gas as anything but gentlemanly. Even so, the Doicheun Empire kept firing gas shells and drove the front forward.

Swollen to three million, the Doicheun host advanced with frightening speed, and the Allies kept falling back. As September turned to October, Doicheun finally seized the whole of the Leman Federation’s territory.

Convinced of victory, the Doicheun general staff judged the war’s objective—occupation of the Leman lands—achieved, and moved to end the war. It had lasted nine months; the casualties were staggering.

But just as they were savoring victory and approaching armistice talks, they faltered under a deluge of gas—this time from the Allies. The Allies also had the technology; they rushed research into production and began deploying gas.

Because they had facilities in place, they could do it. Under these attacks, Doicheun’s soldiers collapsed, poisoned. Gas masks were hastily donned, but there were far too few to go around.

Outfitting more than three million men was impossible in time. As a result, under Allied gas attacks, the Doicheun forces reeled and had to fall back.

Doicheun retaliated with gas shells of their own, and so they were not pushed too far; they still held nearly ninety percent of the Leman Federation. In this situation, one state spied an opportunity: the Polia Kingdom.

Quiet channels carried word that Polia had already produced and stockpiled vast numbers of gas masks. Learning this, imperial foreign ministries raced to the Polian embassies.

Polian ambassadors, already briefed, entered negotiations at once.

October 7.

Pullea, capital of the Polia Kingdom, within the royal palace.

Ian spoke with his chancellor, who had come to his office.

“How many gas masks have been sold?”

“To the Doicheun Empire, one point nine million; to the Moria Empire, nine hundred thousand; to the Noma Empire, eight hundred thousand.”

“So in total, three point six million.”

“Yes, and with the higher price this round, we expect substantial revenue.”

Hearing this, Ian felt positively replete. He had suspected someone might resort to gas and had ramped up production—and sure enough, its use began. When the Allies started using it as well, he seized the moment and pushed sales.

“We already have plenty of places to spend; the extra inflow is welcome.”

“Yes. If we keep producing, we’ll keep selling. Of course, once both sides ramp their own production, demand will taper.”

“Even so, we can earn a decent amount in the meantime.”

It might sound mercenary, but they had to profit while they could. Nationwide infrastructure projects were turning the country upside down—inevitably expensive undertakings.

Once completed, however, the nation’s strength would rise significantly. Works that would normally take twenty years were being carried out across the land; upon completion, much would change.

Nor were proceeds used only for infrastructure—they invested heavily in research, too. Talent mattered, and they had established numerous technical development labs to support it.

‘We must quickly build technical capacity to rival the empires.’

Thus Ian, though knowing many were dying in the war, intended to turn the situation into opportunity and earn as much as possible.