Re: Blood and Iron

The corridors of the École Militaire, once filled with the easy swagger of officers, had grown tense, hushed.

The marble floors echoed with clipped footsteps, voices lowered to whispers.

Each week seemed to bring new tragedy, and the mood within France's high command soured into unease.

In the war room, maps of the frontier lay unfurled across a vast table, dotted with pins and scrawled notes.

Yet none of the generals spoke of maneuvers or plans. Their conversation circled instead around the dead.

"General Dupont," one muttered, adjusting his spectacles. "A heart attack, they said. But he was barely sixty."

"Barely sixty and drank like a fish," another replied, but his voice lacked conviction. "These things happen."

"And Marchand," the first officer pressed. "Killed in that car crash. Tires don't just burst like that."

Silence followed. Every man present had thought the same, but none dared say it openly.

A younger colonel shifted uncomfortably. "It's coincidence. A string of bad luck. Nothing more."

The Marshal at the head of the table, grey, heavy-browed, with medals gleaming dull in the weak light, slammed his palm against the wood.

"Coincidence? How many coincidences do you think it takes before they bury you and call it chance?"

The room fell silent. Eyes darted, throats cleared, but no one spoke.

At last, the Marshal leaned back in his chair, his voice lowering to a growl. "Someone is cutting us down. Quietly. Deliberately. I don't know how, and I don't know with what hands, but mark my words, the Germans are behind this."

A ripple of unease passed through the chamber.

"Impossible," a brigadier said, though his tone was strained. "They'd never risk the scandal—"

"Scandal?" the Marshal barked, his face reddening. "You think Berlin cares for scandal? They care for results. And the result is that my best officers are falling like wheat in harvest!"

A heavy silence pressed down again.

One by one, the men looked at the map spread before them, its border pins suddenly meaningless without the men to command them.

Finally, one voice broke through, quiet but bitter.

"If this continues, there won't be an officer corps left to lead when the war does come."

No one disagreed.

The Marshal's hand clenched into a fist.

"Then pray you are not next. And keep your eyes open. These… misfortunes cannot go on forever."

But in his heart, he knew: the misfortunes had only just begun.

---

The war room in Paris had dissolved into whispers and unease.

But in Berlin, there was no uncertainty.

Inside the Kaiser's private office, the heavy curtains were drawn against the spring light.

Wilhelm II sat behind his desk, his mustache bristling as he rifled through dispatches.

The door opened, and Bruno entered, carrying a thick leather folder under his arm.

Without a word, he laid its contents across the desk.

Photographs. Dozens of them.

Officers in full dress, in civilian coats, at dinner tables, standing proudly in regimental yards.

And across each face, in stark red ink, a single cross.

Wilhelm's eyes widened as he looked down the rows. Dozens upon dozens.

Bruno's voice broke the silence, calm, deliberate.

"I told you I would have France pay for their misdeeds a hundredfold. And this… this is only the beginning."

The Kaiser looked up at him sharply, searching his face. "What is this?"

"Progress," Bruno answered coldly. He tapped one photograph with a gloved finger.

"By the time they muster the courage to declare open war, their officer corps will be reduced by an estimated twenty-five percent. Their general staff will be gutted. Their lines of command, broken before the first shot is fired."

Wilhelm leaned back, staring at the sea of faces marked for death. "And you… you call this war?"

Bruno's pale eyes fixed on him, steady as stone.

"Unlike some people… I don't play at war, Majesty. I wage total war, even in the shadows of peace. They kill our enlisted men on the border, and call it a training exercise. But I go for the throat. By the time they realize it, the body of France will already be cold."

The Kaiser looked back down at the photographs, then closed the folder slowly, as if the weight of it pressed centuries of consequence onto the desk.

Bruno remained standing, hands clasped behind his back, expression unreadable. Only his words lingered in the silence:

"This is the quiet war. And it will end as all wars must end: with France on her knees."

The Kaiser was still staring at the folder when Bruno's hand slid another dossier across the polished oak desk.

This one was thicker, heavier, its spine reinforced with brass corners.

A single word was stamped across the cover in bold Gothic script:

ESCALATION.

Wilhelm's mustache twitched. His fingers hovered over it, reluctant. "You mean to broaden it."

Bruno inclined his head.

"France is the spark, yes. But their arrogance alone cannot ignite Europe. They lean on allies. Britain's Parliament rattles its saber. Canada as you know has already attacked our shipping in the North Atlantic, Even the Americans, from across the ocean, send aid on a daily basis."

He opened the folder himself, spreading its pages with the precision of a surgeon.

The photographs here were different, not just officers, but ministers, parliamentarians, financiers, editors.

Men who signed orders, passed budgets, and filled newspapers with calls for German blood. Each marked with the same red cross.

"I propose escalation," Bruno said evenly. "We move beyond France's generals. We strike at the bones and sinew of their alliances. Political leaders who agitate for war. Journalists who whip the mob into frenzy. Industrialists who aren't already on my payroll and instead bankroll the enemy's army. They will die as the generals have died, accidents, illnesses, tragedies. Nothing provable. Nothing that bears our fingerprints."

Wilhelm shifted uneasily. "That is… vast."

"That is necessary," Bruno corrected him. His voice carried no heat, no passion, only iron certainty.

"They kill enlisted men at the frontier, hoping to draw us into a war on their terms. Very well. We will answer not with bluster, but with silence. By the time their diplomats convene, their generals will be dead. By the time they rally their press, their editors will be buried. By the time they vote for war, half the men casting ballots will be gone."

The Kaiser's eyes narrowed. "And you believe this can be done? That our hand will remain invisible?"

Bruno's stare met his without flinching.

"Majesty… I have studied the English methods in Ireland, the American methods in Cuba, the Russians in their secret police. I have spent thirty years using the power you gave me to sharpen our intelligence and police network for this very purpose."

His voice turned cold as he assured the Kaiser further.

"Not only can our agents pull it off, but our counter-intelligence network can intercept any planned retaliation and eliminate the threats before they ever manifest on our soil. No one inside or outside Germany will ever touch us… not while I still draw breath."

He gestured toward the folder, his hand firm.

"Sign the order. Escalation begins at once. We will fight this war before it ever starts, and when the first shot is fired, the enemy will already be headless."

The Kaiser hesitated, his gaze flicking between Bruno and the crimson-marked faces staring up from the dossier.

He knew the Reichsmarschall's reputation, knew the pitiless logic of the man before him. And he also knew, with a weight he could not ignore, that the Reich had not lost a war under Bruno's hand.

Finally, Wilhelm exhaled through his nose and nodded once.

"Very well. Escalate."

Bruno's pale eyes glinted in the lamplight, his lips tightening into the faintest trace of satisfaction.

He gathered the folders, snapped them shut, and tucked them under his arm.

"Then, Majesty, history shall record this night as the moment the Allies began to die… not on the battlefield, but in their beds."

He bowed his head slightly, turned on his heel, and left the Kaiser alone with the silence, the rain against the windows, and the ghosts of men already marked for death.