I deviated from principle today and amended Turkey's orders, on account that Nick the Mad evidently didn't have full understanding of the rules on support: I transformed F Arm Sev into F Arm S A Sev, which makes more sense considering he's already convoying an army in from Bulgaria. Or alternatively I could have transformed the moves into A Bul H, F Arm Sev, F Bla S A Sev... but fortunately it's all moot anyway since Russia succesfully defended Ukraine. Anyway sorry about not contacting you wrt making those orders make more sense, Nick, I didn't actually read any of them before today.
Anyway, on the more traditional Diplomacy narration front: England advances inland by attacking Kiel from the Heligoland Bight (with support from Denmark and Holland), thus dislodging the German tank that was trying to move to Ruhr but failed because England bumped with it from Belgium. Ruhr is in fact emptied as Germany continues its dogged march into Burgandy. Meanwhile southward Italy continues driving the French into the ocean with its attack into Spain, and sees if Austria might just be willing to leave Venice (but they apparently aren't).
Austria tries to expand every which way, succesfully moving into Bohemia and the Adriatic sea, but having more problems with Warsaw and the tail end of the train at Galicia. They also support Turkey's move into Ukraine, but this too fails due to Russia's expert defensive planning. In fact the only Turkish order that changes any positions on the map at all is their fleet's moe from Smyrna to the Aegean Sea... and, similarly, the only Russian order that's not just part of its chainlink defense is moving their Norwegian fleet back to Sweden.
Germany, your retreat order is due Fri Dec 25 12:00:00 UTC 2009, or if you feel you're done with the game you can just announce that and Germany will go into civil unrest.
Everyone else, orders for the next turn are due Sun Dec 27 12:00:00 UTC 2009
