History, Politics And Current Affairs

I've been writing a fanfiction-type story, one based upon Armageddon.
It's set in 1941 and different in style & substance from the masterpiece that the original story is.

1


The Message came in the middle of April 1941. A good portion of the world was celebrating Easter Friday. There was global conflict underway at the time and international tensions aplenty too.

From the heavens above came The Message. A voice claimed to be God, the one true God, and he announced that he abandoned all people. There was no hope for them, no happy afterlife with the gates to Heaven shut. They should simply lay down and die.

It was heard and understood by all. The Message was spoken in one language yet many at the same time. Everyone comprehended it. Someone who only understood English heard just what someone else whose language was Swahili did. Those who couldn’t hear, having lost their hearing during their life or never had that sense, heard it: so too did those near to loud machinery or under the seas. Those who believed in one God, many Gods or even no Gods at all, heard it. Newborns, the old, those sick & dying, and everyone else too, they all heard what came from above.

The Message was for everyone.

Tens of millions of people around the world would, in despair, lay down and die. They did as instructed. They had been abandoned and with that their faith destroyed. Across vast swaths of the world, in the poorer and more destitute parts especially, human beings gave up on life. Elsewhere though, many more refused to do as they were told to. The Message continued at regular intervals for several days afterwards, repeating itself. Give up and die, humanity was told: there is no hope.

When it finally ceased, a new voice called out. Once again, all heard this, all understood this. Satan was whom the speaker claimed to be, the self-described ruler of Hell. He asserted that Earth was his. All those who lived on it were now his subjects to do with as he pleased. They would submit to him and suffer when doing so too.


On the Monday came the Heralds. Satan sent them to arrange terms of surrender with the rulers of the peoples of Earth. To centres of government they went though their information wasn’t always exactly up-to-date on that. The Heralds had instructions from Satan to impose his will on leaders and to make promises of fair treatment to them as well: lies those would be, ones to torture the foolish with afterwards with. They came with the presumed promise immunity from attack and also expected all those who encountered them to either run and flee or cower before them.

There were flying Heralds, the ones which humanity would later call Dragons. Below them came the walking Behemoths, and swimming in the sea were the Krakens. All were monstrously huge, terrifying to look upon. Each appeared through portals which opened up in the skies, on the ground and under the sea. They came through and behind them those passageways closed. Towards the seats of government went the Heralds whom Satan had sent.

There were sixty-six centres of power according to the information given to the Heralds.

The capitals cities of Earth’s greatest empires had unwelcome visitors heading towards them. These locations included Paris, Peking and Vienna with each of them being under foreign occupation and no longer where power operated from; Jeddah was understood to be the capital of a kingdom too, as it had been not many years beforehand. Towards the administrative centres of colonial governments other Heralds went with the understanding being that that was where leaders would be found. The political differences mattered for nought according to those who had supplied Satan with this information. Across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americans and Australasia went the Heralds.

Some met resistance while others didn’t. Humanity was taken by surprise and often reacted just as had been expected. The Heralds brought fear by their appearance and their messages with submission coming at once. Elsewhere though came the fiercest, unexpected response where the Heralds were attacked.

To London and Tokyo went Krakens where each was assailed by the navies of Britain and Japan. Dragons flying towards Berlin and Washington were shot at from aircraft & also guns on the ground. Behemoths marching on Moscow and Rome would face armoured vehicles taking shots at them.

The Heralds lashed out where they could. In certain places, a jet of high-pressure seawater, a breath of flame or a furious physical assault from a giant was enough to silence all opposition. Leaders were then met and told that they would be spared the worst of what was in store for their people. Yet where that firm resistance came, the Heralds never got the chance. Their reactions to being attacked were ones of cruelty. They ripped apart those that stood in their way yet also smashed to pieces the central portions of great cities too. Moscow’s Kremlin and Saint Peter’s Basilica would be destroyed. Half of Delhi would go up in flames when a Dragon got mad, so too most of Manila and a portion of Santiago as well. A Kraken turned crab-like and thundered its way through Lisbon while others did the same in Athens and Lagos. Outside of Cairo, a Behemoth kicked holes in pyramids; another smashed his arm into the Eiffel Tower to topple that icon in Paris with buildings on Parliament Hill in Ottawa crushed underfoot by another angry Herald.

Less than a quarter of the Heralds met successes. The rest faced defiance. It was extraordinary. Previous visits of Earth, throughout history and admittedly not on such the same scale, had met only acquiescence. This time, everything was different. Many Heralds lay dead, killed by humans who used all sorts of weapons against them.

Back in Hell, Satan would throw a hissy fit. He wouldn’t stand for what had happened and turned to his favourite general to provide him with a response to what those pesky humans had done.


The whole world had been attacked.

In various places, a few countries had cooperated against the Heralds who had sought to force them into submission. That was the exception rather than the rule though. Generally, most nations had thought that they were on their own and it would take some time for what had gone on elsewhere to be appreciated for what it was. Satan had tried to take Earth and failed. Yes, in a few places his Heralds appeared to have met success, but those were in far-flung places. Where it mattered, the Heralds had been fought either to the death or until they had fled back to where they had come.

Telegrams were exchanged between various leaders and emissaries were dispatched as well. The talk was of Earth standing together to deal with whatever Hell intended to throw at them next. There was an ongoing major war though, one involving several of the great powers. Britain and her allies were fighting Germany’s alliance. Combat between them had taken place across Europe and Africa as well as across the oceans. London and colonial administrative centres of power had been attacked by Heralds as well as Berlin and the multitude of capitals within Europe that Germany occupied, including Belgrade that had only days beforehand been captured. Churchill and Hitler were enemies: the idea of them trusting each other to cooperate against Hell was asking a lot. Yet, principal allies of theirs, King (from Canada) and Mussolini, talked to Churchill & Hitler about slowing things down for the time being… maybe even declaring a temporary ceasefire if Hell struck again.

Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States each suffered gravely when attacked by the Heralds. Neither of them looked to outsiders. Leaders in those nations were suspicious of others taking advantage, of what had happened being used against them. They listened when talk came of working with others, Roosevelt more than Prince Konoe & Stalin, but neither made a move towards any alliance.

Colonial governments were in a terrible state following the wroth that the Heralds had brought. The great powers, even smaller ones who were currently under foreign occupation, had empires. Those spanned much of Africa and Asia. Satan’s messengers had struck at them right after grievous religious upheaval had come following The Message. One of those locations was in the very heart of the Middle East. British-administered Iraq was in the midst of a revolt when God had declared he had abandoned humanity. Iraqis laid down and died in huge numbers. Then a Dragon had arrived in Baghdad. The noted Arab nationalist Rashid Ali defied the Herald, doing so to his face. He was set alight before other Iraqi figures, those who had risen up for freedom from the British, submitted to the rule of Hell.

South of the city, down in the deserts when ancient nations had once had their heart, between two great rivers, right there in the middle of the Fertile Crescent, a portal much larger than the ones that the Heralds had come through opened up. Five days after the Heralds had come from elsewhere, marching forward out of that opening was an army led by General Abigor.

It came to take Earth under the dominion of Hell.

2


General Abigor’s army consisted of sixty legions, less than one hundredth of the available strength of Hell’s available combat forces. A small force it might have been percentage-wise, but not when formed up on Earth. With haste, in under half a day, the four hundred thousand Demons were out of the portal that was the Hellmouth and on the move.

North, east, south and west: Abigor sent detachments of his armies in all directions. The main body of his army first started moving northwards away from the Hellmouth, which lay near where Babylon had once been, and across Mesopotamia up towards Baghdad. However, two detachments had already broken off straight away, each with a pair of infantry legions. The first had orders to head for Basrah and then move down the Persian Gulf coastline along its southern side, pushing for Muskrat as a final goal. Those thirteen thousand plus Demons were to kill all before them, moving from settlement to settlement where they would burn everything that stood in their part. The other detachment, of an identical size, was to cross the River Euphrates and strike westwards across the desert to enter the Nejd region. Riyadh had been empty of any form of government when a Behemoth had advanced upon it to demand a surrender. What people had survived its rage were to be killed before those two legions were then to go across to the ancient Hejaz. Their orders were to take Medina, then Mecca and finally to Aden at the very bottom of Arabia. Everything that lay in their way was to be destroyed.

Fifty-two more legions of infantry marched with Abigor towards the Iraqi capital. Out ahead he sent his three legions of cavalry and his air support too: a legion of Harpies. They were smaller than the Dragons sent by Satan as Heralds, but still fearsome flying warriors and six thousand, six hundred plus strong in number. He watched them until they were beyond his sight and returned his focus to his mounted and marching Demons. The finest army that Earth had ever seen, he told himself, and one that will bring its inhabitants to heel.

In the middle of the night, Abigor arrived in Baghdad. It was burning. Tens of thousands were already dead and the rest of the population would be as well by morning. Christians, Jews and Muslims called the city home. There were men, women and children there and to them, the greatest of all slaughters took place, including those who had surrendered Iraq over to Satan. Their howls of betrayal from them would please Abigor’s master when they reached Hell. The boy king was missing, so too many notables. Demons answerable to Abigor searched for them to no avail. Regardless, Baghdad was a success. He supervised the morning gathering of six humans to be sent out from the ruins of the city. They were given horses, even a few of the very strange ‘chariots’ of theirs too, and told to spread the word of what had happened here. To Kuwait, to Persia, to Saudi Arabia, to Syria, to Transjordan and to Turkey they were instructed to flee, warning all ahead of them of what was next once the mass of Demons reached them next.

Satan had issued those orders and Abigor obeyed them.

He split his army afterwards. A large portion, seven legions of infantry and one of cavalry, the latter riding fast & powerful rhinolobsters, were sent into Persia. They were to march off towards Tehran, by way of Kermanshah and Khorramabad, then Qom, before turning for Tabriz and the Caucasus Mountains afterwards. One of Abigor’s favourite subordinates led that force off in the opposite direction to where Abigor was going.

That was westwards. He broke off yet another detachment, one of three legions of infantry, to strike northwards first up into the upper reaches of Iraq, to follow the River Tigris up to Mosul, yet their mission was to at once swing back around and link up with the right flank of his main forces as they headed westwards. Through Syria and Transjordan was where Abigor would take the bulk of his army. It would advance on a broad front, going all the way to the Lebanon and Palestine before halting once the Mediterranean was reached. Great historic cities lay in the way: Amman, Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem. Their peoples were to be massacred with no one left alive… maybe a few to become slaves, though that depended upon their attitude. Religious buildings were to be destroyed and so too everything else. Opposition was expected and that would delight Abigor.


He got that when his army started marching out of Baghdad.

There were Iraqi soldiers, men who hadn’t defended their capital city when it was under attack yet fought to the north and east of it afterwards. Small groups of them with guns or swords attempted to engage the mass of Demons. Those were suicidal attacks. Thousands more Iraqis had seen Abigor’s army and fled in terror. Not these brave fools. Cavalry units rode them down with Harpies gaining a few kills as well. It was all terrific fun for the Demons: more humans to kill here on Earth and then to see suffer in Hell too.

Not long afterwards, Abigor’s Harpies came under attack. There were humans in machines soaring through the air – ‘flying chariots’ they were soon being called – and those machines fired guns at them, even swooping down to attack his rhinolobsters. The shock of the sudden attack soon wore off. The flying chariots could be fought by the Harpies where they used their arms & legs to tear apart the remains that jets of flames coming from their mouths hadn’t destroyed. From the distant kingdom known as Britain those men in the flying chariots came and they served in an air army known as the Royal Air Force. Abigor was told this information and nodded like he understood. He didn’t.

More of this Royal Air Force was soon met too, this time on the ground. His cavalry were shot at from long distance by iron chariots, these ones with mounted rapid-firing guns. Losses were taken but numbers were key. Harpies joined Demons mounted on rhinolobsters in mobbing the iron chariots. Several fighting men were interrogated for information: where had they come from? Habbaniya was the answer. Where was that? A soldier was forced to direct them there.

Iraqi soldiers besieging RAF Habbaniya, men who had no ideas of recent events in Baghdad, were taken from behind. A wave of Demons hit their rear. Most of the Iraqis ran if they could though the few who chose to stand and fight, be their brave or foolish or just unawares, died horribly. Other Iraqis were inside the military airbase where they formed local Levies for Britain. The Royal Air Force had their own people there too in addition to a battalion of British Army soldiers.

Habbaniya was the location of another slaughter. Abigor kept a few captives for as long as it took to gain information from them on what else lay ahead in terms of opposition but had them killed just like everyone else after victory was won when taking that airbase. Taken in an encirclement attack, Britons and Iraqis inside died bravely under Demon attack. He had wanted to blood his army and he now he had done that. What else could these humans really send his way to stop him? Nothing. He’d beat their forces in the field and then storm those cities ahead before halting his army once the sea beyond was reached.

This will be interesting. Looking forward to what happens once they're not fighting small numbers of soldiers on a tertiary front.

I've always liked the Armageddon series. Always been disappointed the Ukrainian bugger did the BitTorrent thing and ruined Stuart's ability to publish it.

Belushi TD

I read the story at least once a year. It's just a brilliant adventure.

The Demon army is going to move fast though. There will be big battles but human armies will struggle to get into place.

I've changed a few things. Dragons as Heralds, not larger Harpies. The Hellmouth is further south. A few other things too. Oh and with no aluminium foil there will be many humans caught up as lackeys of Hell.

I had an idea months ago for the story following reading Churchill's post Barbarossa quote about making a favourable reference to Hell if Hitler invaded there, and turning that on its head. It hasn't turned out as I initially thought it would. The writing went where it did.

April 1941 seemed a good time considering world . For evil in the world at that time there was already Hitler and Stalin so now I am throwing in Satan.

3


At first light on April 22nd 1941, a ceasefire came into effect to bring a stop in fighting with the Second Great War. Across Europe and Africa, the opposing Allied and Axis forces took a pause trying to kill each other. It had taken a week of talks, ones held in Geneva, but the eventual outcome was that ceasefire.

However, the war wasn’t at an end. Germany and its allies still occupied countries that had been in an alliance with Britain. There were to be no major territorial withdrawals, no sudden outbreak of freedom for those under occupation. Huge diplomatic rows erupted ahead of the ceasefire coming into effect and after it did too. In particular, the leader of the Free French, de Gaulle, declared that he and his forces wouldn’t be beholden to an agreement signed without his consent. Hitler looked to many to be the immediate victor with Churchill denounced as a coward for letting Germany keep what it had gained. And why was Britain doing this? Because an unknown army, one which tall tales were being told about, was on the march in the Middle East. That sounded rather fanciful and certainly couldn’t be true... could it?

There was a lot going on that most people, even informed diplomats, didn’t know about. Events in several European capitals weren’t being reported on nor discussed. Troubling news had come from places such as Bucharest, Budapest, Lisbon and Stockholm though. In each of them, the ruling government seemed to be spellbound in the presence of previously-unknown figures who were now central to the rulers of Romania, Hungary, Portugal & Sweden. All who came into contact with these people, including those who went there to face them down, even kill them, quickly took an about-turn in opinion and declared that those people were their newest, best friend. The worst was suspected in the halls of power elsewhere. Churchill and Hitler, plus others such as Franco and Mussolini, understood what was happening. Agents of Hell had control in those capitals and they were working to spread their dominance. Continuing to fight one other would be a death kneel for all Europeans when they had those in their midst, plus others that might be as yet undetected, as well as whatever army Satan had somehow sent to Earth. They were still reeling from the mass suicide of millions as commanded by God and then the destruction caused by the Heralds as well. It was all too much.

The idea was to stop fighting, deal with their real enemy, then, if need be, go back to war again. The last bit seemed unrealistic to those who heard it.


In Greece, gunfire died down hours before the ceasefire became active. German forces had been massing ready to attack the British & Commonwealth forces near Thermopylae, to then advance on Athens afterwards, but they were ordered to stay in-place. Evacuation efforts out of the Greek capital, one which had been ravaged by the rage of a Kraken previously, weren’t halted though. The British Army troops in Greece, plus those from Australia & New Zealand too, continued to prepare to depart from the embattled country, just not being chased out under fire.

In the Western Desert, the port town of Tobruk, inside Italian-administered Libya, was held by British & Commonwealth forces while the Germans had men at Sallum, just inside of Egypt. The two sides had recently fought each other to a standstill. No more advances were to be made for the war was ‘at a pause’ within North Africa. German aircraft left unmolested ships heading for Tobruk while they retreated away from the Egyptian border too. The British and their allies were leaving Libya. Some were staying in Egypt, to guard against German or Italian treachery, though most had a Middle Eastern destination in mind.

Fighting halted as well in East Africa. Abbas Abba had been liberated not long before The Message had come and then ravaged by a Dragon which hadn’t liked being told where he could stick his demand from Satan. Nonetheless, there had been fighting in Abyssinia since then where the Italians were trying to hold onto their conquest. That all stopped come the ceasefire. Over in the divided Somaliland, where European colonial powers owned pieces of that, there was an end to the exchange of gunfire too.

On the high seas and in the skies, active combat ceased. There would be the odd flare-up in the following days, where a clash might occur due to a misunderstanding or even occasionally a bit of malice, as was the case on land too, yet the main body of fighting was done with. It was all over with and no one in their right mind could see it all restarting again, even without a political settlement.


While the Allies and the Axis stopped their war, another one started the day beforehand. Franco sent troops into Portugal. Churchill, Hitler and Mussolini were all told ahead of time. It wasn’t about conquest, the Spanish dictator told his fellow leaders, but instead he was invading that country to depose whatever regime had illegally set itself up in Lisbon and was subservient to Hell. Salazar had been killed when a Herald had destroyed the Portuguese capital and whoever was claiming to be in charge now, really wasn’t. The Royal Navy headed for Lisbon as well with orders for the admiral in-charge of the force coming up from Gibraltar to find out what was going on and punish those who appeared to be aligned to Satan.

At that point in April, more than a week after the Heralds had come, Europe was being beset by deadly attacks. Berserkers and Gorgons were on the loose: creatures of Hell. There were also humans whose minds were being corrupted from another dimension who were also responsible for violent unrest. Shocking massacres took place of the innocent, ones designed to cause widespread despair: the slaughtering of groups of children did that. There were fires where religious buildings and cultural wonders went up in flames as well. Then there were the assassinations. Hitler lost several key aides, including Himmler. Admiral Darlan was slain in Vichy. Other political figures died horrible targeted deaths including a couple in Britain too where Eden and then Attlee were murdered.

Hitler sent troops to the capitals of Hungary and Romania. He refused the word of initial emissaries sent who reported back via messages that all was well and that there was nothing to worry about following the unexplained deaths of Admiral Horthy and Antonescu. That wasn’t the case at all. Budapest and Bucharest became scenes of violence as German troops battled erstwhile allies who had sided with Hell. Churchill was hearing of possible similar things happening beyond Europe too. His initial concerns had been about Lisbon and Stockholm yet it appeared at Satan had new worshippers in the halls of government in far-flung places across Africa as well as in the islands of the Pacific too. These were in places of British responsibility yet nothing could be done at that time.

In Washington DC, a retired politician gunned down a Gorgon in public. ‘Wild Bill’ the press called him, celebrating the Wild West style killing. That agent of Hell had been out to seduce him and try to gain influence in the American government. His president, Roosevelt, headed a nation still reeling from religious upheaval following The Message. When that failed effort came by a minion of Satan to gain a foothold in his country, he was told about suspected events in neighbouring nations. Down across wide and scattered portions of Latin American, Heralds had gained surrenders when they had made their appearances. They had long departed yet left behind those who would obey the word of Satan. America’s backyard was full of the enemy, one which Roosevelt had no idea just how he was going to deal with.

Stalin had been furious at the ceasefire between Britain and Germany. His enemies had been fighting each other and now one, or maybe both, might turn on him. Such had been his thinking when he had been alerted by his spies long ahead of time about what was happening in Geneva. However, he soon had bigger worries. The Kremlin lay in ruins, there were reports from the outlying Central Asian portions of the Soviet empire about mass killing by Satan worshippers and then Mongolia appeared to have fallen into the hands of Hell. He refused to accept that. General Zuhkov was sent back from Moscow to Siberia again with orders to invade and overthrow those who had assumed power in Mongolia. In addition, though it was far away, Stalin was paying attention to events in the Middle East as well with eyes & ears on the ground down in Persia reporting back to him. As the Soviets prepared to strike in Asia against the common enemy of humanity, the Japanese were already on the move. Word had reached Tokyo that Manchukho was under the influence of Hell. Prince Konoe was browbeaten into action by military figures into striking first. Manchukho was Japanese and if Hell wanted a fight for it, then they would get one. Japan focused on that visible threat though in Tokyo they were not understanding others… such as what was going on in the depths of China where Satan’s agents had the minds of the masses turning to them.


Britain was intending to make a fight for the Middle East with as many forces as could be mustered moved into position there. They could bring them from Greece and North Africa, linking up with what small forces were already present, before eventually moving across larger numbers out of India too. Palestine and Transjordan looked to be the battlefields to fight Satan’s armies on. Churchill saw a report which suggested that a hundred thousand Demons were in an army that had taken Iraq. That figure seemed alarmist: he thought it might be half that. As to the Demons, he heard reports on their size and prowess that were more believable – though horrifying – yet did regard them as beatable. The entire British Empire would take them on if need be.

The politics of the wider battlefield area were a stumbling block though. Petain and his deputy Laval were anti-British, and they controlled the Lebanon and Syria. Representatives from Germany and Italy were talking about they moving forces through that region with the French allowing passage… an emissary from Berlin had even spoken of General Rommel’s Afrika Korps crossing Egypt to join the fight. Churchill wouldn’t accept the latter though began to consider not standing in the way of German & Italian forces making use of Syrian staging points. Mussolini wanted a fight after what had happened to Rome though his forces had had a poor showing during the war. What Germany could bring to bear was vastly better. Still, everything in him rebelled internally at seeing Britain fight alongside damn Nazis.

There didn’t look likely to be any other alternative though, not when what was going on in Turkey was taken into account. Sometimes conflicting reports, yet altogether troubling ones, stated that there was an ‘Enchantress in Ankara’. This woman, who might have been a Gorgon, just like the one whom Britain’s prime minister had been told had the Thais eating out of the palm of her hand, had seized the mind of President Inonu. There were Turkish generals who set up a government in Istanbul. Turkey was on the verge of civil war: it might have even started with news not yet reaching London of events taking place beyond the watch of observers. With that country a battleground, Britain couldn’t hope to fight alone in the Middle East.


Events were moving fast, faster than anyone in London, Berlin nor Rome could see. As their governments prepared to send forces to the Middle East, it was already being conquered by an army already there: one which they had no idea of the size of nor its capabilities.

The day that the fighting stopped between the Allies and the Axis, when British troops in Palestine were still getting ready to make their journey across the River Jordan, General Abigor was already in Transjordan and on the approach to Amman. That very night, when he saw the city had no walls nor real defenders, he sent his Demons into there.

Catch-up was what his future opponents could have to play.

Spelling issue -

Continuing to fight one other would be a death kneel for all Europeans

Should be knell, shouldn't it?

Ha! Wild Bill! That wouldn't happen to have been Donovan, would it?

One question - This mostly seems to be big picture stuff. Is this how you plan to continue, like it was an excerpt from a history book, or is this in the nature of exposition, and you're planning to get into individuals and character development?

Thanks!
Belushi TD