Re: Blood and Iron - Chapter 641: The Sword is the Best For it does not Jest
Chapter 641: The Sword is the Best For it does not Jest
The Oval Office was quieter than usual. Not solemn but tense. The kind of tension that coiled beneath every breath, like a wire pulled too tight.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sat behind his desk, a half-drained glass of bourbon beside him.
His fingers drummed softly against the polished wood. Across from him, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Director of the OSS William Donovan, and a cadre of aides stood like specters in a funeral hall.
The aerial reconnaissance images on the projector wall told the story none of them wanted to say aloud.
Monrovia, gone.
Not bombed. Not razed. Erased.
Every image of surveillance captured only devastation: blocks flattened into cinders, charred bodies still smoldering in the cratered streets, smoke plumes thick enough to blot out the coast for miles.
A modern Pompeii delivered by German Fernbombers that came and went like ghosts.
“And no one saw them coming,” Donovan muttered. “They flew from Germany and back without refueling on the continent. That shouldn’t be possible.”
Hull didn’t answer. His eyes were still locked on the final shot, a German satellite image intentionally leaked globally hours earlier: a thermal view of Monrovia, black and lifeless.
FDR broke the silence. His voice low. Controlled. Seething.
“So we backed a handful of rebels. Trained them. Armed them. Gave them a few wins… and now it’s all up in smoke?”
“Not just smoke, Mr. President,” Donovan replied grimly. “They’re being hunted. By their own countrymen. Germany has embedded their mercenaries with transitionary local councils.
Armed loyalist militias with old surplus, gave them a few lessons in urban warfare, and then turned them loose.”
Hull added, “And now Berlin’s framing it as an anti-terrorist campaign in support of decolonization. With locals taking the lead, it’s hard to argue against that in the press.”
FDR sat back slowly. Rage crept behind his eyes.
“So we gave them a revolution,” he said. “And they gave it back. Wearing our gear. Using our tactics.”
“Yes, sir,” Donovan nodded. “But with German discipline. And air support.”
Another silence. Longer.
“Bruno’s speech just poured gasoline on it,” Hull continued. “He’s turning this into doctrine. Any nation that harbors enemies of the Reich is a valid military target.”
FDR swirled the bourbon and took another sip. Slowly. Bitterly.
“He didn’t say ’harbor terrorists,’ Cordell. He said ’harbor enemies.’”
“He’s not pointing at Monrovia anymore. He’s pointing at us.”
The room fell quiet again. Then a younger aide stepped forward, tablet in hand.
“Sir… German state media is calling it Operation Heimkehr. ’Homecoming.’ They’re painting Monrovia as a nest of foreign-backed killers, and Mittelafrika as a land betrayed by outsiders and saved by its own sons. The African councils are going along with it.”
Roosevelt didn’t flinch.
“Of course they are,” he muttered. “They don’t want to end up like Monrovia.”
He leaned forward, setting the glass down with finality.
“Get me the Joint Chiefs. We need to rethink the entire African doctrine. From the ground up.”
“And start looking inward. If Bruno really wants to bring this to our doorstep…”
He glanced at the photo again.
“…then we’d better damn well be ready when he knocks.”
—
A grey fog clung to the city’s windows like the war ghosts of a bygone age.
Inside the Prime Minister’s war room at No. 10 Downing Street, a handful of Britain’s most trusted men sat in silence.
The air was thick with pipe smoke and tension, a holdover from another war, but made all the worse by what now loomed across the Channel.
Prime Minister Harold Nicolson, the eloquent diplomat turned reluctant war statesman, presided at the head of the table.
He looked ten years older than his actual age, and twice as exhausted.
Across from him sat the head of MI6’s continental directorate, Sir Reginald Wakefield, a spymaster known more for sobering truths than comfort.
Behind them, several aides hovered near maps of Africa, Europe, and the Atlantic. On a sideboard, the latest communiqués from their embassy in Washington sat unopened.
“Gentlemen,” Nicolson began, voice hoarse, “Monrovia has shaken Parliament to its bones. The press is split between horror and applause. Our diplomats have been snubbed by half of West Africa already. And the Americans are screaming about a red line being crossed while privately admitting they helped draw it.”
He set down the paper. The Times headline still burned: “GERMAN WAR MACHINE STRIKES AFRICA – CITY VAPORIZED.”
Nicolson looked up. “What have we learned?”
Sir Reginald exchanged a grim look with his deputy before answering.
“Very little that comforts, Prime Minister. MI6 assets in Berlin confirm German high command has classified nearly all logistical records. Not even their own allied states have access to full production figures anymore.”
“Then estimate,” Nicolson snapped. “That’s what we pay you for.”
“Sir…” Wakefield exhaled. “Even based on publicly known systems, Germany’s declared arsenal is enough to defeat the entirety of the British Empire in a conventional war.”
Silence fell.
“That’s assuming parity in manpower and no escalation to more… unorthodox methods.”
The Prime Minister’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of the table. “Are you saying we’re already outmatched?”
“I’m saying we don’t know what else they’ve developed in secret. But Monrovia proves their capability for undetectable, intercontinental, strategic bombing. And there’s reason to believe that the thermobaric warheads on their missiles are far from the most terrifying weapon they could secretly possess.”
A stunned murmur passed through the room.
“Impossible,” barked one military advisor. “That would require years—”
“Years which they had,” Wakefield cut in. “Our evidence suggests they been stockpiling minds since 1906 at the latest. Every exile chemist, engineer, physicist, absorbed into the von Zehntner industrial combine. Our best projections suggest Bruno’s firms command the single largest concentration of genius per capita since the Library of Alexandria. And they have virtually unlimited funding.”
Nicolson leaned back slowly. The light from the overhead fixtures cast deep shadows across his face.
“So we’re to assume we stand on the knife’s edge. That Germany’s arsenal may be larger, faster, more brutal than anything we can mount. We’ve known that for years.”
“Yes, Prime Minister. But… What we never accounted for is the potential reality that by themselves they may be able to take on the entirety of the Allied Powers.”
“And what of Mittelafrika?”
“That front is lost, sir,” Wakefield admitted. “Not militarily. Narratively. The Germans deployed locals, dressed them, trained them, armed them. It’s a counterinsurgency run by African hands… not boots. Every rebel we backed now appears a traitor to their homeland, not a freedom fighter.”
“And Monrovia?”
Wakefield’s voice darkened.
“Monrovia was a demonstration. Not just of power, but of resolve. They chose to wipe a city clean to make a point.”
Nicolson sat in brooding silence, then finally spoke:
“And what’s the point, Sir Reginald?”
“That from this moment forward,” Wakefield replied, “the world belongs to whoever dares to strike first… and never apologizes for it.”
The Prime Minister closed his eyes.
“Then God help us all.”
—
Paris was quiet.
Too quiet for a city still pretending the war hadn’t already started.
Inside the war room at the Ministry of Defense, Charles de Gaulle sat with his fists pressed against the table, jaw set, face pale, eyes staring blankly at the photographs just dropped in front of him.
Monrovia was gone. Not damaged. Not shelled. Gone. The city had ceased to exist in less than a half hour of concentrated firepower unlike anything France had ever seen.
“They leveled it,” someone muttered. “There weren’t even air raid sirens. The first people knew was the fire.”
Prime Minister Jean-François Leclerc stood behind the chair once occupied by the late Georges Clemenceau, lips pursed, arms crossed.
“How many dead?” he asked flatly.
The answer came from the Director of Intelligence.
“Initial estimates? Fifty, sixty thousand at minimum. Could be more. The Americans lost half a dozen teams. Every OSS asset they had in the region. But the rest? They were civilians. Locals. Traders. Families. All vaporized in a matter of minutes.”
De Gaulle didn’t blink. He only leaned forward, dragging his hand across his mouth. The silence was unbearable.
“And Bruno?” he finally asked.
The Intelligence Director nodded slowly.
“Gave a speech. Said any city, any village, any nation that gave harbor to enemies of the Reich would be treated as an accomplice. That Germany had no interest in winning hearts and minds… only in making sure no one dared lift a hand against them again.”
Leclerc scoffed. “He just carpet bombed a West African capital and called it counter-terrorism.”
De Gaulle didn’t laugh. He stood, pacing toward the window, staring out at the flickering lights of a city clinging to the illusion of peace.
“He’s not wrong,” he muttered.
All eyes turned to him.
“We sent men to stir unrest in Mittelafrika, hoping to bleed the Germans on their own imperial frontier. They responded by ending a city. No invasion. No prolonged war. Just annihilation. Complete and final.”
He turned back to face the room, features tight.
“This is not a conventional enemy. This is not the kaiser’s army. Bruno von Zehntner doesn’t fight wars. He ends them. The same way he ended Belgrade. The same way he’ll end anything he views as a threat.”
Leclerc shook his head, frustrated.
“We can’t match this. Not with our arsenal. Not with our manpower. Not even with British support.”
The Director of Intelligence stepped forward, voice cold.
“And it gets worse. We don’t know what else they have. These bombers? Never seen on any field before. Their range? Unprecedented. Their accuracy? Surgical. Not a single round was wasted. MI6 is reporting the same conclusion.”
“Which is?” Leclerc asked.
“Germany doesn’t just have a technological edge. They have total battlefield dominance.”
De Gaulle ran a hand through his thinning hair, gaze hollow.
“Every time we think we’ve seen the limits of their arsenal, they unveil something new. Something horrifying. We’re not watching a war develop, gentlemen.”
He took a breath, then spoke the words no one wanted to hear:
“We are watching the world reorder itself.”
