Failed to roll influenza (again). Attemptred to roll up American forces. Finally succeeded with somewhat normal odds – rolling up 7 divisions (from about 20 units still at Red Eff)! This means I now have 2 full strength American divisions in each of 5 hexes! Wonder of wonders!

Strong shift this turn in player will. Germans now despondent about their planned strategy. French player relived to hear this….

German Morale has now dropped below 50 (pre-rebound), Italian has gone below 40 (post rebound), While the French is now down to 84 (post rebound), after gaining 50 points this turn due to American Mobilization status. The French can survive only 9 more losses before surrender

In the last few turns the game had begun moving slowly in favour of the Entente Forces. This trend continued in the Entente turn with more German Trench divisions ending out in body bags with pathetically few losses to the Entente forces. The lifespan of these units is now tenuously brief. Things then changed for the worse. The CP player succeeded in rolling every single army corps for reaction purposes.

Between these reactions and their regular turn 6 attacks were conducted on the Italian front, with the Germans now having 2 full strength Stoss corps (including the mountain Stoss) now operating on this front. All 6 of their attacks were wildly successful. The Italian morale is now hanging at 13 points whiuch means they will surrender most probably in Aug II or at the latest Sep I. The only hope for the Italians now is Influenza in the Aug II turn as this would drive Germany into collapse, which would result in the Austrohungarians going into collapse which would see the Italians gaining 25 morale points. To finish off the turn the Germans pulled back their foprces from the drive on Paris, providing the French with some respite.

It is now the Entente Reaction phase, with much work to be done and some hard decisions to be made about the future of Italy and how to safeguard southern France – as one is fully aware that this retreat in front of Paris is only temporary. The assault on France must continue if the Central Powers are to win!

The tension around the gaming table tonight was tangible. The session began with the Entente having to inflict 23.5 morale hits on Germany to cause them to collapse, which would cause Austria/Hungary to collapse which would mean Italy would receive a 25 point morale boost, as their own total surrender was worryingly close.

To combat this the Entente had worked on a desperate plan to counterattack the Germans and drive their morale down, with one of the attacks even coming from Italian troops. There followed a raft of failed reaction rolls, with a couple of attacks on the British front securing a couple of BX’s on the helpless trench divisions. At the end of the turn German national will was down to 17.