After the American victory in the Battle of Istanbul, American forces regrouped and began pushing southward. In victory after victory, the advanced American army took several major Turkish cities. The Turkish war machine, once one of the most powerful in the world, now seemed to be in shambles. Advanced American stealth bombers struck targets all the way from the US homeland across the Sea of Istanbul, and most of the time American forces enjoyed almost complete domination of the skies.
Eventually, the American army reached the aluminum rich city of Oidu.
The city fell after a minor battle, which granted the US much more important war materials.
Since the American army was encountering so little resistance, American bombers began to strike targets well inside Turkish territory that were not even engaging American ground forces.
Turkish forces suffered immense losses because of these bombings.
During the siege of occupied Brussels, the Ottomans mustered up a small army to try to stem the tide against American forces.
But American forces quickly wiped out the rear of the Ottoman forces and almost completely surrounded the remaining Turks. They were quickly wiped out, and American forces continued to siege Brussels. The city was taken fairly easily, and the people of Brussels decided to join the US instead of becoming independent again.
Meanwhile, the US received the news that Siam, Persia, and the Songhai had all declared war on the Ottomans. China later joined the war as well.
After the victory at Brussels, American forces began attempting to destroy an Ottoman mobile SAM division south of Antalya. The SAMs held out for about a month to American aerial bombardment, but were eventually wiped out.
After destroy any remaining Ottoman forces near the city, American troops began the siege of Antalya.
Meanwhile, American intelligence discovered the shocking news that the Ottomans had sent some of their airforce to escort an atomic bomb to the city of Bursa.
Fearing a nuclear attack, American forces at Istanbul were ordered to evacuate, and the American airforce there was ordered south as well. The Turkish government used the bomb as a threat and offered a peace treaty to the US. But the American command was fairly sure that the Ottomans could not reach any major American cities with the bomb. So the US refused the peace offer. The Ottomans then dropped the bomb on their former city Ankara, doing major damage to the city and killing some American and Siamese troops.
Ottoman forces followed up the nuclear attack with an air attack and wiped out all that remained of the American armor division at Ankara. Meanwhile, to the north, American fighters fended off Turkish air strikes near Istanbul.
The Turkish nuclear strike and air raids had not been expected by the US, and it showed that, for all their defeats, the Ottomans still had some fight left in them. The war was not over yet.