The Last Romanov (Under Editing)

The Russian Imperial Army

Anastasia looked at the map on the table in front of her, analyzing the battle lines on it. The map was a special one, one that the high command had just gotten in from Switzerland. It was a mechanical map, one with small, centimeter-by-centimeter panels that could be raised and lowered according to the topography. She didn't know how it worked, but you got the correct topography for an area by inserting small, brass cards, ones with unique bumps and ridges, that somehow told the machine where to put hills, mountains, and valleys. The panels also had magnets on them, where you could put the magnetized figures of the armies to show positions, without having to worry about ground rumbles from battles spilling everything everywhere. Of course, that wasn't exactly a problem in Peter and Paul Fortress, now that the battle lines were a thousand kilometers away. And now that she had the afternoon to discuss battle plans, with Virtanen waiting for some news from Helsinki, she could see that it really wasn't a waste of money, like she originally thought it was.

For once, she actually agreed on one of the minute details Horacek insisted on spending a fortune on. The hundred-thousand korunas he'd spent on the map and everything they needed for it to work had proven to be a wonderful investment, showing their positions in the Caucasus mountains more clearly than that ratty, traditional map that she could barely read ever could.

Of course, that only made the predicament of her troops in the Caucasus mountains even more painfully obvious than it would've been otherwise.

Her armies – shown on the map as tin soldiers painted white – were in a terrible spot to go on the offensive, like she wanted to. Every white figurine was placed in the valleys of the mountain range, while the Bolshevik armies – shown in red – were all placed at higher elevations, with the exception of the few Bolshevik battalions fighting the imperial army in the valleys. Anastasia wasn't exactly a brilliant military strategist, and even she knew that it was a terrible idea to attack a foe at a higher elevation. Everybody knew that it was an awful move, one that would cost hundreds of lives if attempted.

And it was exactly what she needed to do if she wanted to secure that region.

"What are your suggestions?" Anastasia asked, looking up at her generals.

"Well, frankly, Czarina, our predicament isn't good," Horacek said. "The battalions engaging our men are quite small, but they're big enough that our men and resources are getting exhausted. I hesitate to send our men up those mountains to eliminate the Bolshevik battalions in the mountains. Not to mention the fact that the Bolsheviks control the high ground." He looked up at Anastasia. "If you want to get those men out of those mountains and into the valleys, you have to find a way that doesn't involve our men currently stationed in the Caucasus."

Anastasia was thinking along those same lines. She didn't like the idea of diverting even more resources to the Caucasus offensive when things were already spread so thin, but it was starting to look like she didn't have much of a choice.

She looked over at Novak. "What sort of support could your forces give to our troops on the ground?"

The air marshal began to rub his chin as he stared at the map, thinking. "As you already know, my resources are already spread paper thin, your grace. I'll either need to commission more airships from Switzerland – two, maybe three in this case – or I'll have to stop the carpet bombing in Perm."

"How much are those new airships going to cost?"

Novak hesitated before he answered. Oh, boy: she wasn't going to like his answer, was she?

"For three airships... a little over a million koruna, your grace."

She was sure that all the men in that room were expecting her to explode at that information, damning them all for their incompetence, but she didn't. Anastasia stayed silent as she thought about that information, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do.