The Undead World in 1943

Part 1: The Beginning
11th December, 1942. Stalingrad.

It was the dead of winter. The Battle Of Stalingrad was in full swing. Several corpses were in the medical tent at a Soviet camp about 2 miles outside the city. 3 hours later, they were not there. soon, German scouting parties were seen roaming the streets, covered in blood and scratch marks. then, entire German camps were found with half-eaten corpses littering the snow covered ground. subsequent scouting parties to the same areas found no corpses at all. soon Soviet camps were overrun, and by the 20th of December, Stalingrad was a dead zone, although no-one knew it. then German bases in the Soviet Union began disappearing. whole companies, whole battalions. when 1943 came, the dead numbered well over 250,000. still, the war continued. It only ended, at least unofficially, when frantic radio broadcasts came in from somewhere near Kursk from a Soviet radio operator. the transmission consisted of panicked shouting in both Russian and German, moaning and screaming, and shooting. after 14 minutes, the tranmission was transformed from this cacophony of mayhem into hundreds of thousands of moans. from then on, unofficial truces continued across the Russian front, although official hostillities continued. as the undead spread across the Russian front, the battle became more and more desperate. however, the Germans and Soviets had one, massive advantage: the abillity to deliver supplies via airdrops. as the undead had no anti-aircraft capabillities, the militaries were able to carry out fire missions on the undead with absolutely no danger whatsoever. however, on the ground, the undead had the advantage. the army had the ranged capabillity, but it was no use when over three-quarters of the soldiers were not properly briefed on how to stop the undead human. the month of January in 1943 was marked by major defeat after major defeat: Smolensk, Moscow, and the worst of them all, Leningrad. the city was ready, but not for the great hordes that were further swelled by the humans killed in the previous defeats. it was 2,500,000 Soviet and German defenders versus over 5 million undead. the result was a horrific massacre, with all but 120,000 people escaping, the rest transformed into ravenous, flesh-eating monsters. after this, the truce became official, with the remainder of the now unified Soviet and German armies retreating west. as February began, the undead then started to follow the army west. then, the army made one last stand against the undead along the Polish border. the undead were expected to arrive around March. this gave the army time to prepare for what would surely decide the war against the undead. By now, the British and Americans had heard of this truce, and were considering sending troops to the Polish border to help the Soviets and Germans to fend off the enormous horde that was surely headed their way. by the time they had actually agreed to send troops, the horde was less than 3 days away, and it would take at least a week for the troops to arrive. even so, they were sent to the front. when the horde hit, the casualty rate was high. tens of thousands died within the first hours of the battle. however, now the army was more prepared for undead warfare. the soldiers, for the most part, had been briefed on how to dispatch the undead. but disaster was about to strike, and, sure enough, the army group at the north part of the border collapsed, with over 70% of the men in the group dead or undead, the remainder ran west, to the Fatherland. however, many of the retreating men were already bitten, unleashing the infection onto Poland...

Part 2: The Spread
19th April, 1943. Cracow.

The undead plague had now spread all across Poland. the army that had consolidated itself along the Polish border was destroyed. out of 11 million that the battle had started with, now it was just about half a million, and they were thinly spread across Poland. the good thing was that now Western Europe was fully aware of the outbreak, and was now sending troops to the German border to defend the rest of Europe from the shambling hordes. but the days of inefficient, rigid warfare that was still more geared towards fighting human opponents were long gone. now the troops were in a steady retreat all the time when the undead were engaged, and they were now fully briefed and trained on how to effectively fight against the undead. even with the complete overhaul of the tactics and fighting style of the militaries that would soon see the undead in all their terrifiying might, the situation was still dire. no-one was heard from in Russia for weeks. Poland was all but overrun. Germany was suffering major riots and disturbances. many people in the US and Canada greatly sympathised with the plight of Europe's citizens, and there were several organizations set up for donations to be sent to displaced refugees from Poland and even Russia, most of which had spent their entire journey running from their homes to become homeless in a land where they did not speak the language. within a week, almost 20,000 US dollars had been raised for the people in Germany. this would be a large help to the refugees and people who had their homes destroyed in riots. early scouting reports by airships had reported great swarms of undead that were often millions strong. this was a significant morale drop to the army, but it was mostly made up for with the progaganda shown by the governments to the public and the soldiers, but the facts were often exaggerated or even totally fabricated by the governments. the battle began on the 30th of April, 1943...

Part 3: Battle For Europe.
30th April, 1943.

the swarm was on the horizion, less than an hour away. there were tens of millions, and the troops were forced to wear earplugs just to stifle the deafening collective moan of almost 100 million shambling undead. the moan could be heard almost 25 miles away. at 7:48 AM, the troops started firing. thousands of undead were felled within seconds. the horrible sounds could now be heard well over 35 miles away with the gunfire and shouting now. at 9:32 AM the first undead broke the line and the troops began retreating as one line. by 10:05 AM, almost a million undead had been dispatched. the favour had been tipped in the military's favour from the start, and was only set to tip further into it as the undead came through the great minefields set by the military. although a large majority of undead were only crippled by the mines, it slowed down the swarm significantly as the undead that were not crippled stumbled over the ones that were. now that the undead were slowed down, the Stukas came in at 10:37 AM. even though the pychological aspect was totally ineffective on the undead, the machine guns and bombs tore the undead to shreds, but only around 12,000 undead were killed. then the heavy artillery came in; it did the same job as the Stukas, but it did it for longer. whereas the Stukas were limited to a few runs at a time, the artillery could keep going indefinitely, as long as the supply of ammunition held out, and that was only the heavy artillery. at 11:00 AM, the mortars opened up. it did not do the same as the heavy artillery, but it did it for just as long. then at 11:22 AM the rocket launchers, based on the Katyusha rocket launcher design that had been scavenged by the Germans when they had pulled out of Russia, opened fire. the whooshes of the rockets could easily be heard even through the earplugs of the troops. at 11:42 AM, the undead swarm exited the minefield. now the undead were reaching the soldiers in the southern reaches of the border, though only in limited numbers. now the soldiers in the south were deserting. it was just a few at first, as the psychological strain of hearing the moans of the largest undead horde seen since the beginning of the war began to take its toll. then more began to desert, three dozen at a time. then, as the undead began to truly overrun the southern reaches, then it began to seem less and less hopeful. even though over 10 million undead were killed, the troops then began to desert all over the front. they then ran through the second minefield, and though there were clear zones the troops were supposed to go through, many did not bother to go through them, and as a result thousands had limbs blown off by the mines.