By 1941, Featherston is ready for war. With the excuse of redeeming lost territory and with an Action Française-governed France having declared war on Germany to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine, he initiates the Second Great War in North America with a surprise air raid on Philadelphia and Operation Blackbeard (analogous to Operation Barbarossa), which cuts the USA in half through central Ohio. His expectations of quick victory are dashed when President Smith rejects his peace offer, however. His empire begins to unravel, starting with his disastrous attempt to take Pittsburgh in the fall of 1942 and the subsequent loss of an entire army trapped in a pocket there, because Featherston refuses to withdraw even when his generals realize it is the sensible thing to do, much like the Battle of Stalingrad. Meanwhile, Featherston increases the program of systematic genocide of the Confederacy's entire black population.