Re: Blood and Iron - Chapter 699: No Safe Harbor
Chapter 699: No Safe Harbor
The golden chandeliers of the Palais Bourbon sparkled with ceremonial pomp, their brilliance refracted a thousand times in the gilded mirrors that lined the hall.
Outside, Paris simmered with uneasy calm, occupied, yes, but intact.
The flags of the Reich, the tricolor of a resurrected Bourbon France, and the black imperial eagle of the Romanovs fluttered side by side in the breeze.
At the head of the long polished table, Kaiser Wilhelm II sat erect in a chair too ornate for war council.
Despite his advanced age, he stood firm, strong, proud.
King Henry VI of France sat beside him, resplendent in his newly tailored uniform, looking every bit the monarch he had been sculpted to resemble, but far too silent to be anything more than a guest in his own land.
Bruno von Zehntner stood across from them, one hand resting on the table, the other gesturing toward the western flank of the large strategic map.
“Gentlemen,” Bruno began, his voice calm, “with the fall of Vichy and the last republican holdouts in the Pyrenees collapsing, we must now reallocate our strategic posture.”
He moved a marker to the Italian coastline.
“I propose that Italian, Hungarian, Spanish, and Greek forces remain garrisoned throughout the Mediterranean arc. Their job is simple: deny the Allies any landing ground, any forward operating port from which they might regroup. The Americans are slow, but they are coming. If we cede even one beachhead, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, Crete, it becomes a springboard.”
The Kaiser nodded gravely. “And the British?”
Bruno shifted to the British Isles on the map.
A red ring of naval pins already encircled the isles. “We tighten the noose.”
He flicked several markers forward, submarines, destroyers, frigates, cruisers and carriers.
Then came small black models of long-range bombers, pushed toward London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Edinburgh.
“The Luftflotten and Baltic Naval Command are to be retasked immediately. We initiate a continuous shelling and bombing campaign, strategic infrastructure, port facilities, and psychological targets. Fuel stocks, rail stations, hospitals, factories. No more harbors. No more mercy.”
Wilhelm raised an eyebrow. “You mean to starve the lion?”
Bruno spoke without hesitation. “I mean to break its teeth, your majesty. The British Isles must become a liability to any would-be liberator. We must make the act of reinforcing them unthinkable.”
Henry VI cleared his throat, meekly. “And if the Americans retaliate? They will not take kindly to such… methods.”
Bruno didn’t even look up. “Then they are welcome to die at sea. The Atlantic belongs to us, for now. But the window is closing. The Panama Fleet, the Canadians, the Anzacs, every day we delay, their strength grows. We must shatter the illusion that they can reach Europe.”
He looked up then, not at the King of France, but at the Kaiser.
“If Britain falls, utterly, the rest will not come. They will not dare waist their naval assets when they know that we are coming for them.”
Wilhelm drummed his fingers on the table, then gave a low chuckle.
“A blockade of Britain… A daring strategy. Many have tried, none have succeeded.”
Bruno gave a thin smile.
“That is because none have had the sheer force of arms and will that our alliance commands…. We will issue a warning first. British Parliament is to dissolve, and the Rightful King of England must step forward and negotiate a complete and total cease to hostilities. We are offering a white peace. If they should refuse our benevolence… Then may god have Mercy on England, for there shall be none to be found from Europe.”
A cold silence followed an acknowledgment of what was to come.
The burning of cities. The shrieking of sirens. The silent hunger of islanders trapped beneath iron skies.
A servant quietly poured dark roast coffee into porcelain cups as the golden war council lingered in uneasy silence.
The weight of Bruno’s final words “Then may God have mercy on England…” still clung to the walls like the fading scent of gunpowder.
It was Wilhelm who spoke next, breaking the pause with imperial steadiness.
“And the Americas?”
King Henry VI visibly shifted in his seat, clearly uneasy with the topic.
“The United States has been… deliberate. But Latin America now postures like a chorus of little emperors. Brazil, Argentina, even Chile have joined the Allied declaration. The Monroe Doctrine, it seems, lives on.”
Bruno, still hovering over the map, gave a low laugh, quiet, but almost joyous.
“The Americas?” he repeated, turning from the table with a smile far too calm for what followed. “The wolves are starving. They haven’t been fed since Spain.”
Wilhelm raised an eyebrow. “You mean…”
Bruno cut in, eyes gleaming. “Werwolf.”
He said the word not like a commander issuing orders, but like a priest invoking scripture.
“They were meant for France. For if this war turned against us. Tens of thousands, trained, scattered, hidden among the masses, our ghosts in the ruins.”
He turned fully to face the table now, hands behind his back. “But France fell with a whimper. We never needed them here. And so, they have waited. And grown.”
A hush fell over the room.
“You would… export Werwolf to the Americas?” Henry asked, incredulous.
“I would release them,” Bruno said plainly. “Brazil and Argentina have declared for the Allies, imagining themselves safe… distant from our guns, smug beneath their jungles and sunshine.”
He stepped forward, lifting a red wax-sealed folder from his satchel and placing it on the table.
It bore only a single sigil: a wolfsangel.
Wilhelm studied it silently.
“These are not armies,” Bruno said. “They are curses. Vengeful, patient, without uniforms or borders. They do not conquer. They haunt. Derail trains. Burn crops. Poison wells. Assassinate officials. Ignite local feuds into infernos.”
His eyes darkened.
“They will whisper fear into every home south of the Rio Grande. Every president who joined the Allies will sleep with a pistol under his pillow. Every town will wonder which neighbor has been bought. Which schoolteacher, which priest.”
Henry looked ill.
“Is it necessary?”
Bruno did not smile. Rather his expression was as cold as ice.
“Wars are not only won with battles. Sometimes, they are won when your enemy looks into the shadows and sees only teeth.”
Wilhelm gave a slow, approving nod. “A specter to haunt the New World…”
Bruno returned to the map, tapping a long finger against the continent.
“Let them hear the howling. Then we’ll see how many nations still wish to die for London or Washington.”
Outside, Paris remained calm.
But far across the Atlantic, the wolves had begun to stir.
