Battle of Paris
Defenses in the inner city of Paris

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Date	30 January 2021
Location	Paris and surroundings
Result	Decisive French victory • Siege of France lifted • Norse Brittany returned to French control • Franco-German frontline pushed east of the Rhine
Belligerents
France • Switzerland Supported by: • Netherlands • Russian Empire • Byzantine Sovereignty • Portugal		Deutsches Kaiserreich Kalmar Union Supported by: • British Empire
Commanders and leaders
stryker123abc gorgekush420 TrenchByte TheSpookyBone Aníbal Milhais		LeiteArts10 Lemon_Shot
Strength
35 (At peak)		55 (At peak)

The Battle of Paris was a major engagement of i34, primarily fought between Franco-Swiss and German-Kalmar (Nordic) forces over the city of Paris. Despite numerical superiority, German and Norse forces were dealt a decisive blow in and around the city of Paris by French forces, buttressed by Swiss mercenaries, a single Portuguese soldier, and Dutch allies. The battle was the most largest conflict the server had ever seen, and is widely regarded as one of the most ruthless and sweatiest battles in /int/craft history.

Following the dramatic reversal of French forces on war day 2 - which saw the Grande Armée dislocated from its forward position in Frankfurt and forced into a frantic defense of the homeland following a disastrous cavalry charge into French lines and several Norse landings in Normandy and Brittany - German and Norse trench-lines faced Paris merely a few chunks away from the main walls. The following week was typified by the construction of extensive fortifications in and around Paris, including major extensions to walls, and a grid like chunk by chunk defense system within the city limits. The largest geo-strategic shift during this week was the successful hiring of Swiss mercenaries, which ensured a small, but experienced addition to French forces.

The Battle of Paris was a multi-front affair. From the west in Brittany, stood the excellent but smaller (~17) Norse army. To the east of Paris, the numerous but unruly and zoomer mass levy (albeit with some especially competent members) Germans. The initial French strategy was to hold the Western Front with a small but elite group of French fighters, while attempting to contain the German onslaught with the greater part of the French army. The battle featured extensive use of shotguns on order to facilitate rapid suicide rushes into enemy lines. Every chunk was fiercely contested. Perhaps the only effective use of airplanes in the entire iteration was seen in this battle by Cryostat, who racked up a grotesque number of kills in his biplane.

While the Norse and the Germans had excruciatingly slow progress, their local superiority allowed them to eventually break into the Parisian walls, which led to intense fighting within the chunk defense system. Paris was slowly but surely chipped away at.

A few hours into the battle, French Emperor stryker123abc developed an alternate strategy; instead of trying to sustain two fronts - in which France would find itself fighting against uneven odds, on the east and on the west - the French army would instead swarm one front with its entire army, after which it would repeat the same swarming on the opposite front. This ensured momentary local superiority - against the Norse, numerical superiority, and, against the Germans, an overall qualitative advantage - effecting the rapid collapse of Nordic-German offensive capabilities. Several key nodes were won back in a very short amount of time, and, following the inauguration of the Russian invasion of the Kalmar Union, Norse lines collapsed. A multi pronged French counter-offensive into the Netherlands, Dijon, and against the Rhine therefore unfolded, ultimately forcing the German army into a second defense of Frankfurt, which likely would have fallen had the war period not ended.

The “Miracle of Paris”, as it is called by many French veterans and observers, drastically changed the dynamic of the server. What was expected to be a quick - though by no means clean - Nordic-German victory ultimately - and shockingly - ended the thus-far unchallenged string of Norse victories (Morocco, Italy, Second Franco-German War), and almost completely reversed the territorial effects of the disastrous second war day. The war resulted in the beginning of a brutal 1v1 conflict between Russia and the Kalmar Union. Germany was forced into a defensive position, though ultimately Franco-Austrian attempts to take Berlin - and indeed Frankfurt - in the 4th Franco-German war were fruitless.

The Battle of Paris stands as a strong assertion of the diplomatic and strategic prowess of strykergang, re-asserting the group's dominance in an iteration with numerous peer competitors. The battle is still fondly remembered by participants, and is often discussed in voice calls and 'tism talks.

Some members of the losing side have alleged that the defeat of Nordic-German forces can be ascribed in its entirety to a mid war reset. This claim has been thoroughly debunked.