Tannenberg News

So ends another campaign. It was a closely fought battle, with 538,375 Central Powers casualties to 528,779 Entente losses - a difference of less than 10,000. The Entente came out on top again, but not by a huge margin. In the historical battle there were probably somewhat more losses for the Entente, but the overall outcome of the battle was complicated. Parts of the French army actually made some of the largest advances since trench warfare began in earnest, but nothing close to what General Nivelle described before the battle. He claimed that a breakthrough could be achieved within two days, which absolutely did not happen.

A village devastated by fighting during the Second Battle of the Aisne.

The morale impact of this failure, alongside heavy casualties, led to French mutinies and Nivelle's replacement. While the new commander-in-chief General Petain immediately established a more defensive posture and took time to restore morale among his troops, the British continued offensive action for the rest of 1917. Later in the year there were some limited French offensives such as the successful Battle of La Malmaison, which built on ground captured during the Second Battle of the Aisne.

[h2]Good luck out there soldiers![/h2]

[h2]New Campaign Event in Verdun & Tannenberg[/h2]
From today until next Friday 24th, the Second Battle of the Aisne Campaign will be running in Verdun and Tannenberg. Will the Entente or the Central Powers emerge victorious in this epic battle of attrition?

[h3]What is a campaign event?[/h3]
For those who haven’t fought before, our campaign events are special multi-front battles in Verdun and Tannenberg, where every kill is tallied up, and the side which manages to lose the least troops wins. You can earn a medal for participating in the campaign, with a shinier medal for fighting on multiple fronts. The Second Battle of the Aisne Campaign will run from Friday May 17 and end on Friday May 24.



[h2]The Second Battle of the Aisne[/h2]
French General Nivelle planned the Second Battle of the Aisne as a breakthrough offensive for early 1917, following the major battles of Verdun and the Somme in 1916. He expected the German Army to be exhausted. His vision was for a decisive victory in 48 hours, and he put his reputation on the line by threatening to resign if the offensive wasn't approved.

It involved a massive coordination of troops, starting with British attacks towards Arras, then French forces beginning their assault further south in the direction of the Aisne river. Ultimately the battle was not a clear defeat for the French, but Nivelle's grandiose claims about achieving a decisive victory made it feel like that for the soldiers suffering massive casualties in the battle. Morale fell throughout the French Army, with units starting to mutiny - often taking the form of holding a defensive position but refusing any orders to attack. Desertions also increased.



Nivelle was fired and replaced with General Pétain, who moved quickly to stamp out mutinous sentiment with a combination of carrot and stick - though mostly carrot. A small number of soldiers were shot for mutiny, but he mostly put effort into improving food, providing better equipment, increasing pay, and allowing for more leave. This worked, and the morale crisis was defused.

[h3]Quiet on the Eastern Front[/h3]
In the East, the Russians were no longer fighting under a Tsar - the February revolution had dethroned Tsar Nicholas II, and since March 2 the country was governed by the Russian Provisional Government. There would be no grand Russian offensive until the Kerensky Offensive in June, intended to knock Austria-Hungary out of the war. Instead it would effectively break the back of the Russian Army. But that's a story for another time.

The Tsar blessing troops earlier in the war.

However, it wasn't all revolution and disaster in the East. The Romanians successfully fought off a major German - Austro-Hungarian offensive from July to September, halting the Central Powers advance and inflicting heavy casualties.

[h2]Good luck soldiers![/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Experience first person mountain climbing in the Ascent game mode in our Italian Front FPS Isonzo! A team of Alpini must scale a sheer cliff face to capture an Austro-Hungarian outpost. Climbing is freeform so you can choose your own route up the mountainside - and you'll need to make use of that to try and catch the defenders by surprise!

The Austro-Hungarians will need to stay vigilant against sneaky climbers assaulting or bypassing their forward positions lower down the mountain. Piles of rocks will provide excellent improvised weapons to use in situations where a rifle might not be handy.

Get all the details about how Ascent mode works in the recent Isonzo blog.

The Ascent event is free for all Isonzo players to join, and will run until April 24th. If you don't own Isonzo yet, now's the perfect time because it's on discount!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1556790/Isonzo/

We'll see you on the cliff face, soldiers.

This update should make your connection less prone to third party outages.

• Fixed certain connectivity issues with Epic Games Services.
  

The patch size is expected to be around 20 mb.

Historically with the Battle of Verdun the Germans hoped to inflict heavy casualties on the French by taking vital ground and then smashing their counter-attacks. This plan failed, with both sides suffering enormous losses over the course of one of the longest battles in history.

In our games, so far the Entente always win the campaigns, so we challenged the community to see if they could give the Central Powers an ahistorical victory, with the potential prize a teaser about the upcoming new Isonzo game mode. The result…

[h2]Entente Victory! Again.[/h2]
It’s not so easy to change the course of history. But, if you look at the numbers below you’ll notice the Central Powers only lost around 7000 more troops during the campaign. In previous campaigns the difference would usually be closer to 40-50,000 more Central Powers casualties.

The final results from the campaign.

It’s still a good performance, and while you couldn’t quite beat our challenge we’ve still decided to share a very mini-teaser with you:

[h3]You can see part of the combat area of the new map from the most recently released map in Isonzo: Marmolada.[/h3]

There will be a bigger teaser coming in next week’s Isonzo blog! If you don't own Isonzo yet and want to explore some higher altitude environments, including the famous Ice City of Marmolada, the game is currently on sale:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1556790/Isonzo/

[h2]Have a great week, soldiers![/h2]