Re: Blood and Iron

The treaty was signed three days later. It bore no grand name—only the mark of three seals, stamped in wax with the authority of the Hohenzollerns, the Romanovs, and the house of von Zehntner.

Its purpose, however, was immense. Beneath the marble domes of the Winter Palace, the future of Eurasia had been sealed with ink and wine. The implications were vast. No longer would Germany and Russia merely trade goods across borders. No longer would their militaries march to different drummers. No—this was the formal birth of what would later be known as the Continental Axis.

A pact not built on ideology, nor on necessity, but on blood, iron, and dynastic bonds. Bruno left Saint Petersburg with the gravitas of a man who had just changed the course of human history. And he had. The world simply hadn’t realized it yet.

By the time he returned to Berlin, the Imperial Court was already abuzz. Whispers echoed through the halls—nobles unsure of what to make of his latest maneuver, ministers stumbling over themselves to draft statements of support, and industrialists practically salivating at the opportunity to integrate with Russian markets.

At the center of it all, Bruno stood still. He had never cared for the court’s politics. That was the Kaiser’s realm, and Wilhelm was more than capable of playing the part of a charismatic monarch, fending off accusations with a charming smile and a carefully delivered toast. Bruno preferred war rooms and factories. He had work to do.

Within a week of returning home, he called a meeting at the Military High Command. Every branch of the German military was summoned: the heads of the Heer, the Luftstreitkräfte, the expanding Marinekorps, and the embryonic Fallschirmjäger command.

Representatives from key industrial firms were brought in as well—Krupp, Rheinmetall, Mauser, Messerschmitt, and several others whose names would one day be etched in the annals of military innovation.

Bruno stood at the head of the table in a sharp, dark uniform. Not dress blues, but something far more practical. The scars across his cheek from his days at university had faded subtly to the point where they now blended perfectly with his fair skin, but in certain lighting they caught the eye like jagged silver threads sewn into his flesh.

He never covered them up. They were reminders. Of what war demanded. Of what peace cost. And most importantly, a life well lived. He began not with a fierce and stern tone, nor one filled with kindness, and a gentle nature. Rather one as cold as his ice-blue eyes, a reminder that this declaration wasn’t personal, it was just business.

“Gentlemen, as of this week, the German Reich has entered a permanent military and industrial alliance with the Russian Empire. That means the scope of our responsibilities has grown tenfold. You are no longer merely the architects of German strength—you are now the vanguard of a new world order.”

Bruno allowed the words to hang for a moment, ensuring that the depth of his speech, and the weight of its meaning fully cemented within the minds of those gathered to witness it before continuing.

“This requires a complete restructuring of our doctrine, logistics, and production systems. We will begin phase one of joint standardization with Russia immediately. Every rifle, every tank, every plane, every bolt and screw must be engineered with both compatibility and efficiency in mind.”

One of the older generals cleared his throat. Hesitant to speak as he was one of the few men within the general staff who had yet to choose a side in the silent war of intrigue being waged between Bruno and his new vanguard of warrior elites, and the old guard of a dying and decrepit aristocracy.

“We’ve barely finished reorganizing after the war, sir. Are we expected to rearm this soon?”

Bruno turned to him, not with annoyance, but with quiet intensity.

“You misunderstand. This isn’t about rearming. This is about preparing for the next fifty years.”

The general sat down, pale and silent. Phase one began that very day. Design bureaus were directed to begin sharing prototypes and schematics with their Russian counterparts. Factory managers were handed blueprints for standardized munitions that could be produced on either side of the border.

A mutual encryption protocol was agreed upon by both nations’ intelligence agencies, and the groundwork was laid for the creation of a joint research facility—one that would eventually surpass even the likes of Peenemünde in Bruno’s former life. But even as the gears turned, Bruno was not content to simply oversee.

He returned to his foundries, to the heart of the industrial machine he had helped build since the turn of the century. Workers greeted him with a mixture of awe and familiarity—he was not merely a general here, nor even a nobleman. He was the architect of their livelihood.

The assembly lines hummed with activity. Tanks rolled forward on the factory floor in various stages of completion—some built on the E-series chassis for the Heer, others modified for paratrooper or marine deployment, lighter and optimized for mobility. Rows of STG-44 variants sat stacked in crates, their side-mounted optics already calibrated to perfection.

Germany, for all intents and purposes, was no longer in recovery. It was preparing for something greater. Back at his estate, Bruno spent his evenings not in celebration, but in quiet reflection.

The winter air had grown sharper, the trees along the estate path barren and skeletal. He sat on the balcony once more, the same one where Heidi had begged him not to return to war. And in a way, he hadn’t.

He was no longer a soldier fighting on the front lines. Now he was something else. The soul of an empire. The will of a civilization that refused to fall to the cycles of collapse that had doomed the old world.

His children played in the gardens below—blonde-haired, sharp-eyed, and full of laughter. They would never know the pain he had known. That was the promise he made to himself. The only promise that mattered anymore.

And yet, there was always a cost. The following week, reports began to arrive from the Balkans. The Werwolf Brigade had moved east, out of Austria and into Bohemia.

Their orders had been clear: identify and neutralize revolutionary elements, secure key infrastructure, and prepare for the arrival of pro-German provisional governments in the region.

Bruno read the field reports with clinical precision. There were, of course, mentions of atrocities. Civilian resistance crushed with overwhelming force. Underground organizations rooted out and summarily executed. Villages razed when it was deemed that entire populations had been compromised by enemy propaganda.

He did not flinch. He had read worse. He marked the margins of the reports with simple notations: “Acceptable losses.” “Expected resistance.” “Continue operations.” At the end of the last report was a personal letter from the brigade’s commander. It was brief and written in the blunt style Bruno had come to appreciate.

“The Balkans will be pacified within six months. Resistance is sporadic and poorly organized. Morale is high. Awaiting further orders.”

Bruno crumpled the letter and set it alight in the hearth. His only reply would be a message of seven words:

“No retreat. No mercy. No survivors. Proceed.”

He returned to the war room that evening, long after most of Berlin had gone to sleep. The map of Europe spread across the wall had been altered. Colored threads ran from Berlin to Moscow, from Saint Petersburg to Istanbul. From the Balkans to the heart of Anatolia.

The future was unfolding exactly as he had envisioned it. But there was still much to be done. His next plan? The West… The United States, while pacified for a time via a subtle manipulation of the masses via his investments in the media had become a sleeping giant.

Sure, its military was a joke within the context of the era, and its industry was slumbering well beyond its full capacity. But, the ferocity if awakened and forced to a state of unfathomable was something which could not be ignored.

In his past life, it was the industrial might of the United States, not the quality of its soldiers, not the brilliance of its generals, and most certainly not the technological supremacy of its equipment that had created a new world order.

One built on the failed ideals of liberalism, individualism, and democracy. Ideals that had proved in less than a century to be the undoing of western civilization as the world had known it, and were in a rapid spiral into a new dark age because of it.

To truly defeat destiny and its cruelest hidden poisons, Bruno would need to fundamental dismantle the United States in a way that ensured it could never rise to challenge his new order.

With all of this in mind, Bruno jotted down a note for his next strategic briefing:

“Begin the decades-long process of subversion within the United States of America… The ultimate objective, complete and total balkanization of the nation within the next fifty years, ensuring North America remains a backwater and destabilized region incapable of challenging the German Reich for the foreseeable future…”

He stood there for a long while, staring at the glowing lines of the map. The empire was growing. But so were the stakes….

—-

That night, in a small village outside Vienna, a child woke to the sound of thunder. It wasn’t thunder. It was the tread of tanks rolling past his house. The iron thunder of a new age. A banner hung from the back of one of them.

The black head of a wolf on the top white half of a shield, diagonally cut in a way that allowed for a white wolfs angel imposed on a black background on the bottom half. The boy would never forget it.

Years later, he would become a soldier. Not out of hatred. Not out of vengeance. But because he saw, in that moment, what kind of world awaited those who were not ready. A world of wolves.