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Extra History: The Silver Chancellor

Summary:

I love the Extra History Youtube channel, particularly their series on Otto von Bismarck and the Punic Wars. And so I've decided to retell the life of Tanya von Degurechaff from A Young Woman's Political Record by jacobk , as narrated by the folks at Extra History.

The plan is to (at least) catch up with Political Record, and then go beyond depending on my inspiration.

Link to Extra History:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5Aq7g4bil7bnGi0A8gTsawu

Link to A Young Woman's Political Record:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-young-womans-political-record-youjo-senki-saga-of-tanya-the-evil.660569/

Chapter 1: Tanya von Degurechaff - The Child Soldier - Extra History #1

Chapter Text

The year is 1921. On a cold November day on the outskirts of Berun, an eight year old girl walks into an Imperial Army recruiting office. She is a small girl, thin with malnutrition, with messy blond hair and ice cold blue eyes heavy with intellect and maturity far beyond her years. She slaps down a certificate testifying that she has been tested and proven to have an extremely powerful magical talent. And then she demands that she be allowed to join the army and defend the Fatherland. This is the start of one of the most powerful and controversial figures in history. This is Tanya von Degurechaff.

Extra History intro plays.

Hello everybody, and welcome to Extra History! I'm Dan, that's James, and this is Allison! A lot of our Patreon members voted for this, so here we have it - Tanya von Degurechaff, or the Silver Chancellor as she came to be known later in life.

Her story starts younger than most. She was abandoned as an infant to a church orphanage on the outskirts of Berun on September 24, 1913. In spite of enormous effort over the years, her parents have never been identified. Her mother never gave her name when she dropped her off, and the only thing she would say was about her father was that he was a soldier who had died in service. Even the last name provided by her mother, "Degurechaff", doesn't show up on any citizen rolls. There are many, many theories about this that we're not going to get into, or we'd be here all day.

Even during her earliest years, the nuns raising her would note her quiet and serious nature. She was also a gifted singer, her precocious intellect allowing her to rapidly memorize lines that would make her a mainstay of the choir.

She might have continued in that orphanage for years to come, but then something changed. The Imperial government had instituted mandatory testing for magic potential, and so a testing team stopped by the orphanage. Little Tanya Degurechaff tested, and she tested high.

Now, before we get into how an eight year old ended up joining the army, we need to spend a minute talking about mages. Prior to the 20th century, mages were a rarity on the battlefield. The power to rewrite reality with your mind might sound amazing, but the truth is there were very few mages that could go one on one with a trained soldier, and that was before the advent of firearms. All that changed with the invention of the first computation orb in 1896.

All of a sudden, magic went from the realm of superstition and miracle, to the realm of science. It could be studied and quantified. Most importantly, the training time for a mage went from decades to just a couple of years. Enter the aerial mage, the name given to those mages powerful enough to fly using a computation orb.

Now, let's be clear. The aircraft of the time could fly faster and higher than aerial mages. Tanks were better armored. Artillery could hit harder and at longer range. But the aerial mage could do everything. Even if they didn't do it as well as specialized weapons, their sheer versatility and mobility meant they could be used anywhere. And instead of needing expensive fuel and maintenance, they just needed food and water to keep going.

Every country capable of making computation orbs were frantically scrambling to get as many aerial mages as they could. And along the way, some bright spark realized - 'Hey, mages can just use magic to make themselves stronger. So, we don't need mages to be fully grown to be useful in a fight.' As a result, when in 1912 the Imperial government set the minimum age of enlistment to 18, they specifically excluded aerial mages from the list.

So, when that winter day in 1921 Tanya showed up at the recruitment office, the officer in charge didn't have a choice. He did his best to talk her out of it, but she was adamant, and the law was the law. On the 3rd of November 1921, Tanya Degurechaff became the youngest ever recruit of the Imperial Army.

All things considered, she did surprisingly well. During her training period, she showed herself a genuine child prodigy. She easily kept up with her adult companions, at least intellectually. She even sat for, and passed, the Officer Training Course. The Imperial Army at the time used an unusual two-step process for training officers. Junior officers - 2nd and 1st Lieutenants - only needed to pass a short three-month program. Only if they wanted higher rank would they need to attend the Imperial War College in Berun.

Tanya passed every test put to her, and so in June of 1923, she was deployed on a training mission to Norden. Once this deployment was over, she would be not just the youngest soldier, but the youngest officer in Imperial history.

Then, came that fateful day. The start of the First World War. The root causes for the war were many. Chief among them, the Empire was a new and expanding power in Europe, and the more traditional European powers like Albion and the Francois didn't want to see them expand any further. Conflict was inevitable. But the start of the conflict was almost comical. The Legadonian Alliance had laid claim to Norden - that bit at the south of the country, right across the water from modern Germania. The Empire also claimed the same bit of territory. As a result, the maps of both countries showed that territory as belonging to them. On June 18, 1923, a regiment of Legadonian infantry crossed into what their maps said was their territory, intending to carry out a routine patrol. Unfortunately for them, a week ago the Empire had moved an entire brigade of artillery to watch the very route they were using.

Tanya Degurechaff was the artillery spotter that day, and she did her job well. The barrage was devastating, the Legadonian infantry broken and scattered. However, the infantry was not entirely unsupported. The Legadonians had included a company of aerial mages in the patrol. Now, these mages went to work. The artillery was only three minutes away by air, and the nearest Imperial air defenses were still mobilizing. As the Legadonian mages advanced on the Imperial artillery, they spotted what they thought was a target of opportunity. A lone artillery observer, far from support. It would be the last mistake many of them would make.

Tanya was outnumbered 12 to 1. She could have retreated, but if she did the artillery would be wide open to a raid. Instead, she chose to attack, tossing aside her radio and flying straight into the teeth of the enemy. The aerial battle lasted only a few minutes. At the end of it, Tanya had been knocked out of the sky, alive but heavily injured. But of the twelve Legadonian mages, only eight would make it back home, and two of them would never fight again. The artillery was saved, and Tanya Degurechaff became not just the Empire's youngest officer, but the youngest recipient of the Silver Wings Assault Badge, the Empire's highest award for courage.

As Tanya recovered from her injuries, the war swung into high gear. The Empire had been itching for years to take a crack at their neighbors, and the Norden incursion gave them a cause. They launched an invasion and rapidly pushed back the Legadonian forces. Unfortunately for them, just as soon as they committed to the attack, the Francois Republic declared war as well. Imperial forces had to scramble to protect their industrial heartland from the Francois assault. The Legadonian invasion bogged down as supplies and troops were diverted to the newly developing Rhine Front. By September of 1923, the Empire was locked into a two-front war.

During this time, Tanya had left the hospital, and had been assigned as a test pilot for a team developing new computation orbs. It was here that she would unite with an intrinsic part of her legend - the Elenium Type 95 computation orb.

The Type 95 was the single most powerful computation orb of the 20th century. To this day there is no adequate explanation for how the Type 95 works. The device's own creator, Dr. Adelaide von Schugel, became convinced it was a divine miracle and stopped trying to replicate it. What is known is that Tanya was the only person who could use it without killing themselves. Like, seriously, three test pilots died testing that thing before Tanya came along. Yet in Tanya's hands it proved a devastating weapon.

There are many theories as to why that is, but the one that I feel makes the most sense is that controlling the Type 95 puts enormous stress on the user's brain, and only someone as young as Tanya had a brain flexible enough to handle it. Certainly, there is some evidence of the stress it caused - Tanya herself reported occasional memory lapses after using it, and the people around her would notice erratic behavior and violent mood swings accompanying the use of the device.

But, whatever the pitfalls of the Type 95, there was no doubt it was an enormously powerful weapon, and it was now in the hands of one of the most talented mages in the Empire, who also happened to be a genuine child prodigy.

Shortly after taming the Type 95, Tanya and her brand new orb were assigned to the Rhine front. At that time it was the single most bloody and brutal conflict zone of the entire war. It was there that the legend of Tanya Degurechaff was forged.

Yet, it was not the legend her superiors might have wished. When she was awarded the Silver Wings Assault Badge, Imperial propaganda named her the Argent Silver, a shining new hope leading the next generation of the Empire. And to be fair, Argent Silver is the name most of Germania still calls her to this day.

But on the Rhine front, in that boiling cauldron of mud and blood, Tanya gained a new name, one given to her by her enemies, and one that eventually spread to the whole world.

Join us next time, as we see how this one child would help shape the first great war of the 20th century, how she would go from a warrior to a leader of men, and how her actions would make her one of the most hated figures of the First World War. Join us to witness the birth of the Devil of the Rhine.

 

Chapter 2: Tanya von Degurechaff - The Devil of the Rhine - Extra History #2

Chapter Text

The ground is a torn and blasted hellscape, inhabited by the screams of dying men and the pounding of artillery. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers spend days huddling in wet stinking trenches, taking turns charging out into the barb-wire infested expanse of no man's land, only to be torn apart by machine-gun fire. Above it all flies the single deadliest thing on this battlefield - a nine year old girl.

Extra History intro plays.

Greetings, everyone! Welcome to Extra History! Last time we saw Second Lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff assigned to the Rhine Front as a platoon leader.

Now, personal correspondence and diary entries show that her superiors were actually reluctant to send a nine year old to the bloodiest battlefield in human history. Unfortunately, she was the only one who could safely use the Type 95 computational jewel, and it was just too powerful a weapon to be left on the shelf. In fact, perhaps the only one who didn't have any misgivings about the whole affair was Tanya herself. A patriot and a believer in the Empire's inevitable victory, she openly declared her willingness to fight for the fatherland.

Her faith in her own abilities was quickly justified. Within six months of being assigned to the front, she racked up 92 confirmed victories against enemy mages. No one knows how many regular soldiers died to her overpowered spells in those six months, but it may have been as high as a thousand.

Funny thing is, most of her victories took place almost entirely in her first three months on the front. This is because by the end of those three months, the Francois army had learned sending mages into her section of the line was pretty much the same as losing them, and so they just stopped trying. It was here that the nickname "The Devil of the Rhine" first emerged, among the Francois mages whispering about the unknown terror who would introduce herself by praying on open channels for the souls of her enemies before sending them to meet their maker.

However, Tanya's success wasn't just down to the power of the Type 95. She had a talent. Today she is considered one of the true pioneers of magic-assisted flight. Her innovation was simple, even obvious. See, mages in those days flew like characters in comic books like The Golden Man, head first, bodies straight, poses streamlined. But Tanya asked herself, 'Why'? Magic didn't care about aerodynamics. You could fly in literally any direction, at any position. This obvious observation led her to developing her own style of flying, one which left veteran mages scratching their heads asking 'How the heck did she do that?', and one which would earn her the permanent call sign Pixie as a reference to her insane agility in the air. She would also be the first to combine illusion and combat spells, making her a nightmare to pin down.

It was also on the Rhine front that she showed herself a capable leader. On that brutal battlefield, the average monthly casualty rate for a mage platoon stood at 50%. Yet, in over six months of fighting, Tanya's own platoon suffered a grand total of two losses. That's something no amount of brute power could have achieved. It was also during this time she would meet someone who would go on to become one of the most important people in her life.

Vikotriya Ivanovna Serebryakov. A second child of minor Russy nobility who had fled to Prussia to escape the Communist Revolution, she was drafted into the mage corps at the age of 13, and was assigned to Tanya's platoon at the age of 14 with the rank of Corporal. It was a match made in heaven... or hell depending on which side you were on. She quickly became Tanya's wingman, watching her back as they flew and fought over the front lines.

It was a partnership that would last a lifetime.

By the time Tanya's first stint on the Rhine front came to an end, Viktoriya was an ace with eight confirmed victories of her own. When Tanya was offered a place in War College in recognition of her abilities, she recommended Viktoriya for officer training.

It was in War College that Tanya Degurechaff would become Tanya von Degurechaff. Back then, the old Imperial War College had this tradition where the top twelve graduates would be awarded knighthoods - assuming they weren't already nobility - as a declaration of the great things the Empire expected of them. In spite of her young age, Tanya ranked 11th.

It was also in War College that Tanya would submit several papers that would go on to define both the war and many years of her life. One such paper was a proposal to create a reinforced rapid-response aerial mage battalion.

See, until that point mages had rarely been deployed in formations larger than a company. They were simply too useful and needed in too many places. But by creating a single formation of 48 mages, they could concentrate their firepower in a single devastating punch, and be fast enough to reach wherever they might be needed.

The proposal was accepted. The order was given. When Tanya von Degurechaff graduated War College, she was put in charge of forming and training the new battalion. Imperial High Command even approved this battalion to be the first - and for this war, the only - formation to use the Elenium Type 97, a watered down but more user friendly version of the Type 95. They say Tanya herself wrote the advertisement - "Mages wanted. Extremely difficult battle, little pay. Spend your days in combat and unfathomable danger. Honor and glory for survivors."

The selection process was brutal, with over 300 applicants rejected. But in the end, Tanya had her battalion. The best mages in the Empire, trained to combine acrobatics and illusions with combat spells like Tanya herself. She was also a major, having been promoted three times in as many months. And Viktoriya was back as well, having been her assistant during the recruitment process, and now her adjutant.

The 203rd Imperial Mage Battalion saw combat almost immediately. Assigned to the south-eastern border, they were dead center of the path taken by the Dacian army when they declared war, encouraged and supplied by the Francois. An army of 600,000 men poured across the border.

It was a slaughter. The Dacian army had no mages, and few fighter craft. Tanya herself referred to it as a live-fire exercise. After scattering the vanguard, they went on to slaughter the army's HQ and capture the commanding officer.

Most people would have called it a day at that point, but not Tanya, oh no. She decided to launch a retaliatory strike at the Dacian capital of Bucurest. Her battalion flew all day, and when evening fell, they bombarded the Republican arms factory that had set up shop in the city. The explosion was massive. A third of the capital would be consumed by the ensuing fire. Dacia would surrender within a week.

This brief conflict underlined the strategic power of mages in large numbers, and the importance of aerial superiority. Other nations would take note, and battalion and even regiment-sized mage formations would start becoming commonplace as the war progressed. This would also be the action that would bring Tanya von Degurechaff international attention.

In the meantime, Tanya's battalion went from strength to strength. After Dacia, they were sent north to reinforce the invasion of Legadonia. There Tanya introduced another innovation, the stealth raid. In Osfjord, needing to take the enemy by surprise, Tanya had her battalion transported by plane and then glide in by parachute to avoid magic scanners.

Surprise was total. The guns guarding the fjord were destroyed, and their defenders routed. The Imperial Navy was free to land, outflanking the Legadonian positions and turning the entire front. Over the course of six months, the 203rd had been key in the conquest of two countries. The rapid-response aerial battalion had proven worth their weight in gold.

It was also during this battle that Tanya would rack up several more aerial victories, including one Colonel Anson Sioux. Remember that name, it's gonna be important later.

After the fall of Legadonia, the 203rd was assigned to the last big battlefield, the Rhine front. It was this second tour of the Rhine that would cement Tanya's infamy.

It started with an uprising in the Imperial occupied town of Arene. Reinforced by Republican mages, partisans quickly overran the Imperial garrison, destroyed bridges, and started threatening Imperial supply lines. The 203rd was called in, along with an artillery division. Within 72 hours, Arene would be a burning ruin, a tomb for over 10,000 men, women and children. The commander of the 203rd had ordered the town's evacuation, and when the citizens failed to comply, had declared them all enemy combatants. It was a technical loophole in the rules of war, and Tanya exploited it ruthlessly to end the resistance.

Yet even though this incident would see the name 'The Devil of the Rhine' spread throughout the world, would see Tanya be named 'The Butcher of Arene' by a furious Francois, in hindsight her responsibility for the incident is... debatable. The order to use the loophole to destroy the town came directly from Berun, the artillery that obliterated the town wasn't even under Tanya's command, and the 203rd mostly just fought the Republican mages, with the artillery inflicting most of the civilian casualties.

So why, even today, is Tanya's name linked to this one incident, in a war filled with so much tragedy? Well, perhaps because, even though she did publicly regret the necessity of the destruction of Arene, never once has Tanya ever admitted the action as wrong. Comments made both during and after the war showed that Tanya was fully on board with the legal interpretation that allowed the Empire to ignore civilian casualties and flatten the town. There are even reports that she was the one who pointed the loophole out to Imperial High Command in the first place.

This completely unapologetic attitude, combined with heavy Francois propaganda at a time when they were doing everything they could to drum up anti-Imperial sentiment, meant that for decades, sole blame for this incident would be placed on the head of Tanya von Degurechaff. Personally, I think what really pissed people off is that everything she did was technically legal... and she kinda rubbed their faces into it.

And that's the story of how an eleven year old girl became one of the most reviled people in Europe. Join us next time as we see the first manned supersonic flying machines, the Empire achieve its greatest victory in the war, and how the armies of the world start waking up to the threat of the Empire, and to Tanya von Degurechaff and her 203rd Imperial Mage Battalion. Join us for A World at War.

 

Chapter 3: Tanya von Degurechaff - A World at War - Extra History #3

Notes:

Many people reminded me of the 'Bismarck always has a plan' meme from Extra History, and given what Tanya got up to in Political Record it was way too appropriate to leave out. So I'll do my best to work it in from now on :D This is also the chapter where I have to flesh out the gaps between the end of the Season 1 and the start of Political Record, because it's clear that the divergences from the LN start with the Africa campaign.

Chapter Text

In a top secret engineering facility, twelve of the best mages of the Empire strap themselves into an experimental new craft, the supersonic  rocket-propelled V-1 . At stake is not just their lives, but total victory for the Fatherland.

 

Extra History intro plays.

 

Welcome back everyone, to the saga of Tanya von Degurechaff! Last time, two of the three countries facing the Empire had been defeated, and now Tanya was back on the Rhine front facing their last enemy, the Francois Republic.

 

There are many firsts attributed to this child prodigy, and on 25th May, 1925, she became the first human being to travel faster than the speed of sound, along with 11 other members of her battalion. The experimental V-1 rockets were designed by Adelheid von Schugel, the same man behind the Type 95 and Type 97 computation orbs. These hydrogen-powered rockets had only minimal steering, and the mages piloting them had to use magic to literally hold them together under the stress of supersonic flight. 

 

Yet these deathtraps were the key to what is now considered one of the greatest victories in military history. This is the First World War's version of the Battle of Cannae (we've talked about that before), only it involved over six times as many troops. The plan, called Operation Revolving Door, was simple. First, the Imperial army would conduct a wide scale retreat on the northern flank, luring in the Republic's main army. Then they'd throw a massive amount of explosives, troops, and tanks at the southern flank, break through, and encircle the Republican army, thus ending them as a threat.

 

However, the only way this encirclement could go off as planned is if the Republican generals either didn't realize what was happening, or were unable to warn their forces of the trap. Enter the 203rd Imperial Mage Battalion, and the V-1. 

 

In many ways, the story of the First World War is the story of the 203rd, at least for the Germanians. As the fastest, most powerful mage unit in the world, they were constantly in the thick of the fighting, and the first volunteers for every vital mission. Already, they had acted as the rearguard for the northern flank, over 24 hours of brutal fighting as they kept the attacking Francois from overrunning their retreating forces. 

 

Now, twelve of their best, including the 10-year-old Major Tanya von Degurechaff, strapped into experimental rockets held together by spit and prayers and blasted past the Republican lines to launch an attack directly on the Republican army headquarters.   

 

The operation is a complete success. The Republican HQ is destroyed. When the regular Imperial forces smash through the southern flank, there is no one to send a warning to the Republican Army. The encirclement is complete. Almost half a million Republican soldiers are killed or captured.  

 

This is the Empire's greatest hour. They have faced enemies on three fronts and have emerged victorious. They are poised to take their place as a global superpower. 

 

But their enemies are not yet defeated. On their way back, the twelve mages commanded by Degurechaff report a skirmish against a large number of Albish-speaking mages. Albion denies any involvement, but this is the first sign that all might not be well.

 

July 10, 1925. Parisee has fallen, and all the Empire is celebrating their victory. Yet, Tanya is worried. The Republic has agreed to an armistice, but no official peace treaty has been signed. In the meantime, reports come in that all remaining Republican forces have retreated to Brest. Brest is a port which the Imperial navy has no access to, thanks to a blocking force from the Commonwealth's Royal Navy. Brest is also a port which is less than a week's boat ride away from the Republican colony of Algeria.

 

The young Major makes her decision. She is going to launch a raid on Brest. The armistice has not begun, there is still time for one last attack to ensure the destruction of her enemies. 

 

Her superiors disagree. The local commander refuses to support her. When she remains stubborn, instructions come directly from Berun. Tanya is rebuked, reprimanded, and ordered to stand down. Nothing is to interfere with the armistice and the ending of the war.

 

Exactly one month later, the former Republican Defense Minister Pierre-Michel de Lugo makes a speech from Chiers in Algeria announcing the formation of the Free Republican government, and formally declares war with the Empire. 

 

In response, the Empire sends an expeditionary force to hunt down the Republican remnants. Two panzer divisions, and one mage battalion. No guesses which battalion that is. How frustrating must that have been for the young prodigy? Being able to say 'I told you so' would have been cold comfort at best.

 

At first, the African campaign seemed to go well. The Imperials might have been outnumbered, but they had the edge in mobility, and the Republicans really had no one that could compete with the 203rd. Over the course of three months, the Republican forces are steadily pushed back. Final victory in the war seems imminent. But everything changed when the Commonwealth attacked. 

 

The Commonwealth had been supporting the Free Republic for months. They were not going to tolerate the rise of a continental superpower. In February 1926 they finally decided to openly declare war. This declaration was followed immediately by reinforcements landing in Algeria, and Albish forces pouring out of Aegyptus. Suddenly, the Imperial expeditionary force was caught between two fronts.

 

Yet, General von Romel, the man in charge of the African expedition, was not one to panic. Widely acknowledged today as one of the war's finest tacticians, he coordinated with Tanya's battalion to separate, confuse, and defeat the enemy in detail. It would be also in this year that Tanya would claim her 120th aerial victory, as her battalion shredded the Commonwealth's mages, none of whom had any experience facing the 203rd. 

 

But no matter how well they fought on land or in the air, the combined Imperial and Ildoan navy proved no match for the Royal Navy on the water. The Royal Navy's blockade sent the Empire into a crisis, as they relied almost entirely on imports for their oil. Supply shortages would start disrupting all Imperial operations, giving the Albish breathing room to reorganize. And as a result, one Lieutenant Green would be field promoted to Major and given command of the surviving Albish mages. 

 

Green decided on a new strategy to combat the 203rd. He refused to give them a fair fight. Recognizing that his inexperienced mages were no match for Tanya's veterans, he instead decided to use his superior numbers to keep the 203rd pinned. This was the start of an epic game of cat and mouse. The 203rd could win any open confrontation. But any time they tried to advance, Green would send his forces around their flanks to either threaten their bases or swarm isolated units with overwhelming force. 

 

The war for Africa entered a stalemate. Neither side could advance on land without first winning in the air. It all hinged on which of these two young commanders, John Green or Tanya von Degurechaff, would make the first mistake. 

 

The answer... would be neither. For over two years both mages would engage in a war of maneuver with neither gaining the upper hand. Tanya would actually meet Green years later, and was then heard to say, "It was fun to face off against a commander with the same understanding of war."

 

Eventually, the war for Africa would be decided by the entry of the Unified States into the war. Imperial U-boats had started a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against shipping to Albion, and the US had finally had enough. In September 1928, they formally declared war on the Empire. The world was now at war.

 

The effect of the American declaration was immediate. With the rapidly growing American Navy added to that of the Commonwealth, the Empire had no choice but to withdraw their forces from Africa lest they be cut off. 

 

Imperial High Command was now worried. Not only were they facing drastic supply shortages, but resistance movements in occupied territory were tying up more and more troops. They needed a plan... and as it so happened, Tanya von Degurechaff had a plan. She always has a plan. Her plan was simple - negotiate a peace, even an unfavorable one. In the long run the Empire could no longer win, so they might as well cut the best deal they could.

 

Her proposal triggered a storm of protest. Accusations were leveled at her... defeatism, cowardice, even treason. Finally the Kaiser himself spoke - there would be absolutely no talk of surrender. They would fight to the very end! Degurechaff was once more reprimanded, her words unheeded. 

 

Yet events would once more prove her right. The Empire had finally met its match in the Unified States. And Tanya herself would meet her match among the American mages. But even though the war would end the Empire, it would not be the end of Tanya. Join us next time, for the Fall and Rise of Tanya von Degurechaff.

 

Chapter 4: Tanya von Degurechaff - Fall and Rise - Extra History #4

Chapter Text

It is the year 1929. High in the skies of France flies a girl who has yet to celebrate her 15th birthday. Much like the Empire she serves, she is undefeated in battle. But she is losing the war.

Extra History intro plays.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series on Tanya von Degurechaff. When we last left her, she'd just been recalled to Europe, and the Unified States had joined the Allied Kingdom and the Free Francois in the war against the Empire.

Through the winter of 1928 and all the way up to the spring of 1930, this new phase of the war would be fought on the sea and in the air. The Western Alliance, as they came to be known, swarmed the coasts of the Empire and the Kingdom of Ildoa. Air raids using bombers and mages would pound away at ports and industrial centers near the coast. At the same time, America and Albion would muster an enormous navy to enforce a blockade on the Empire and its allies. This was a siege on a continental scale. The goal? To starve the Empire of the resources it needed to maintain its war machine, particularly steel, oil, and rubber.

Naturally, Tanya was in the thick of it. Her battalion constantly patrolled the northern coasts of continental Europe, skirmishing against the Alliance's air force. But by this time, her enemies had learned their lesson. Standing orders for the Alliances mages - do NOT engage the 203rd unless you outnumber them a minimum of 3 to 1. Do not engage the 203rd out of range of supporting fire from Naval artillery.

This approach... sort of worked. The 203rd were no longer able to run roughshod over their enemies, and actually started taking casualties. But they still did a ton of damage. By summer of 1929, Tanya had racked up over 140 aerial victories, and most of her battalion were now aces, meaning at least five victories each. However, on one fateful day in the fall of 1929, Tanya von Degurechaff would encounter Mary Sue.

Remember we mentioned a Colonel Anson Sue back in episode 2? Tanya killed him during the invasion of Legadonia. Turns out he had a daughter. Said daughter had been sent to the Unified States, and when she heard of the death of her father, she signed up to fight the Empire as an aerial mage. And on that day in September 1929, eighteen-year-old Mary Sue was part of a 12-mage company when they went up against Tanya's 4-man platoon.

It... was a massacre. Mary Sue was the sole survivor. But survive she did. And during the fight, she saw something. The gun Tanya was using - a customized Neuhausen submachine gun, with the letters "A.S." engraved on the stock. Mary Sue knew this gun. It was her father's gun, the gun she'd presented to him as a Christmas gift, the last time she'd ever seen him. It was a gun Tanya had looted from her defeated enemy, and which his daughter now recognized. Mary Sue's vengeance now had a target.

In spite of centuries of study, magic is still a mysterious thing. One of the biggest mysteries, is how some mages would start exhibiting power far beyond what is commonly believed possible. Such incidents occur so rarely that they are still referred to as 'miracles'.

Mary Sue, driven by revenge, now experienced such a miracle. Already a powerful mage, by the time she'd recovered from her injuries, her power levels had shot through the roof. In fact, she routinely started exhibited more power than her F-4 model computation orb could possibly handle. Scholars today suspect that she was flying and fighting using her innate magic alone, with no need for the orb.

For the American forces, this was a mixed blessing. They had a mage who, at least in raw power, could overwhelm the Devil of the Rhine. However, Mary Sue had neither Tanya's skill, nor her tactical brilliance, nor her discipline. She was obsessed with avenging her father's death, and from then on, any time she encountered Tanya, she would attack the Devil relentlessly.

Once Tanya realized what was happening, she, naturally, came up with a plan. Because Tanya always has a plan. Every time Mary would attack her, Tanya would use her superior flying ability to lead Mary on a merry chase through Alliance lines. Mary's wayward spells would eventually end up inflicting more damage on her own forces than she would ever manage to do to the Empire.

But, in spite of her flaws, Mary did succeed in keeping Tanya busy. With the 203rd's invincible commander pinned down, the Alliance started gaining ground. On 25th August 1930 came the Normandy landings. A massive amphibious assault that landed over 100,000 soldiers on the northern coast of the Republic.

The next months would see some of the most brutal and bloody fighting in the entire war. Over the course of winter, the Empire's forces, suffering acute shortages of oil and ammunition, would be slowly pushed back to the forests of Alsace-Lorraine. And there, the offensive stalled. Much of Francois had been liberated, but the Empire still remained inviolate. For a while, it seemed the war would end in a draw.

Then, in May 1931, 150,000 Alliance troops would land at Venezia, in the north of Ildoa. This was not an invasion, but an invitation. The Ildoans had switched sides, and now an Alliance army was only a short distance away from the Empire's southern border.

Tanya's battalion would be rushed south to reinforce what few soldiers the Empire had in place. It would be there, among the towering peaks of the Alps, that Mary and Tanya would duel for the last time.

With no room to retreat, for a while it seemed that Mary Sue would have her vengeance. But then, a second miracle occurred. Tanya's own magic levels rose to equal Mary Sue. This power boost only lasted a few seconds. But a few seconds was all Tanya needed. In that brief window, Tanya settled once and for all the question of who was the greatest warrior of the skies.

But the victory was not without cost. Tanya's injuries were severe. She fell into a coma, and drifted in and out of lucidity for weeks. By the time she awoke, the world had changed.

The Kaiser had abdicated. The Empire was no more, replaced by Germania and several smaller states. The treaty of Triano forbade the employment of mages in the Germanian military, so she was out of a job. The victors had confiscated all of Germania's wealth, so she had no savings. Having served in the military since childhood, she had no other qualifications.

This would be Tanya Degurechaff's lowest point, when she had to return to the orphanage that she had left eight years ago, and earn money with manual labor.

But the world itself could not keep Tanya von Degurechaff down. Within weeks of returning to the orphanage, she had settled on a new career - politics. She joined the then largely unknown Germanian Worker's Party as a paid speaker. The same charisma that inspired her troops in battle, was now turned to the cause of inspiring the voters.

However, while she may have joined as a celebrity speaker, it quickly became clear that the speeches she gave were as much about her own agenda as it was the party's. Combined with the party's original economic platform was an utter rejection of the treaty of Triano and a call for Germania's rearmament, as well as blatant anti-Francois rhetoric.

As a platform it was radical, it was emotional, it was polarizing - and it worked. This extreme position rapidly started attracting voters dissatisfied with the terms of the peace treaty, particularly the heavy burden of war reparation. Within two months, Tanya had gone from a destitute orphan to Chairman of the Germanian Worker's Party. She may have fallen, but she was on her way up once more.

It would be in the next few years that Tanya von Degurechaff would prove that her genius was not just limited to the military. It would be her action in these years that would earn her yet another unofficial title. A title that would be awarded to her not by the public nor by her enemies, but by historians and political scientists looking at her work with the benefit of hindsight. Join us next time as Tanya von Degurechaff takes her first steps towards becoming the Princess of Propaganda.