That big mess you're seeing in the southeast is Turkey using its Black Sea fleet to convoy its army from Ankara to Sevastopol with the support of its Armenian fleet and Austria's Rumanian army. The onslaught overwhelms Russia's Sevastopol fleet which has nowhere to go and hence is destroyed. Austria's attempt into Galicia is far less impressive and is dispatched by the defenders with the cooperation of the Warsawian and Ukrainian armies.
In the northwest corner, on the other hand, Germany's Danish fleet is defeated by the largest cooperation in the game so far: England's fleets in the North Sea and the Heligoland Bight are joined by Russia's Swedish fleet in supporting the English advance from Skagerrak. It took me a while to realise that all the black you see in there is just the head of one big attack arrow.
England's other actions are to support France's advance into Burgundy and to defend Belgium from invaders, but both of them turn out more or less pointless as neither the French nor German forces receive any orders from their commanders this turn. In fact the French commander has decided to French it up and give up the game completely; hence, unless a player takes up the French cause, France will be in civil unrest from now on. This means that French units will automatically receive a hold order for each unit on each turn, dislodged French units will be automatically disbanded, and no builds will be made even if they somehow manage to be possible.
Germany, you have a retreat order to gi: You can either move to Bal or disband the fleet in Denmark. This retreat order is due Tue Dec 15 12:00:00 UTC 2009, in public in this thread.
France... if a player shows up for France, I'm going to give you a special dispensation: Your retreat order (retreat to either Gascony or Burgundy, or disband) is due Thu Dec 17 12:00:00 UTC 2009, that is the same time as the normal move orders. You must still submit it in this thread, though, not in private. This is to give time to candidate players to join the game, even if it does give them a bit of an unfair advantage since if you submit your retreat orders late the other players won't have the benefit of seeing where you're retreating.
Otherwise, everyone: Orders for this turn are due Thu Dec 17 12:00:00 UTC 2009.
