Ypres sat softly under the warm glow of the summer sun.
This city had once been the site of the world’s bloodiest battles.
The Great War had left scars burned deep into the soil, scars that time had only half-buried.
But the people endured. The soldiers who had survived endured.
They lived. They remembered.
And for more than twenty years, life had returned to normal.
Today was no different.
Children ran through the narrow streets, their laughter echoing off old stone walls.
Mothers watched from doorsteps, gossiping idly, cups of coffee in hand.
Men trudged to their work, bent backs carrying the weight of survival, keeping the city alive.
This was life on the border of Belgium and France.
Calm. Familiar. Fragile.
Then, in the distance, came the thunder.
Engines. Dozens, then hundreds, the sound of armored columns rolling in unison.
Overhead, the drone of propellers cut through the morning air.
At first, the townsfolk froze, uncertain.
Only when the sirens wailed did panic seize them.
Children screamed, mothers clutched their arms, and men abandoned their work as gunfire cracked across the horizon.
The Belgian Border Guard opened fire, desperate to stem the tide.
Police and soldiers flooded the streets, urging families toward basements and rail stations.
But everyone knew what was coming.
Ypres was about to be a battlefield again.
Far away in Berlin, the Reich Chancellery was silent.
The lamps burned low, casting long shadows over the map table.
Cigarette smoke curled toward the ceiling in thin, restless spirals.
Aides stood frozen with pens in hand, as if afraid to disturb the stillness before Bruno spoke.
Bruno stood in his full honors, ribbons glinting in the electric light.
At his side, Germany’s greatest generals and admirals waited, pens halted above paper, eyes fixed on the map.
Heinrich was among them.
Once the Reich’s most eligible bachelor, age and family had softened him.
A faint belly pressed against his tunic, a reminder of dinners spent at home rather than in the field.
Bruno noticed, but said nothing. Now was not the time for jokes.
He stared at the telegram from Brussels.
At last, his voice broke the quiet. His voice was iron.
"The French have learned from their mistakes. No declaration of war. No warning. They struck Belgium directly, bypassing our defenses at the frontier. In 1914 they marched into a meat grinder. This time they try another path."
Bruno’s pale eyes flicked over the map. "Unfortunately for them, we prepared for this twenty years ago." This content belongs to novel•fire.net
He moved the figures representing his units into position on the map that stretched across the table.
His hand was steady, his expression carved from granite.
"Deploy the Fallschirm-Panzergrenadiere at once. Together with the Royal Belgian Army, they should be enough to break the French advance."
No one argued. No one dared.
Bruno’s word in such matters was more than command... it was law.
Next Bruno shifted the pieces from their own Borders past the areas of the map marked as Burgundy, Elsass-Lothringen, and Luxembourg.
"Send the First and Third armies directly through our borders into French lands. We will keep the Second and Fourth Armies in reserve for now."
Then his hand shifted to the markers of bombers and escorts.
"The French will learn how far behind they have fallen. Begin immediate strikes on their heartland.... Cities, fortifications, factories, railways, airfields, harbors, and any other target which could be used to support their military... Level them."
He let the words hang in the air, the silence afterward louder than the order itself.
When he spoke again, his voice was colder, almost academic.
"This is not cruelty. It is necessity. War is mathematics. If we annihilate their ability to wage it in the first weeks, we shorten the war, we lessen the graves. Mercy is not restraint, mercy is victory bought swiftly."
Finally, his hand moved to the fleet.
"For the time being the High Seas Fleet will interdict and harass. Sink any vessel suspected of carrying men or arms to France. We are now in a state of total war. Against France, her allies, and, if it comes to it, the world."
The room was silent. Only the rain against the windows dared to speak.
Heinrich stiffened. He had fought beside Bruno since 1900, yet still the words chilled him.
Their allies, Russia, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Greece, had already declared support.
But Bruno’s voice carried the weight of prophecy: sooner or later, the rest of the world would be drawn into this storm.
The rain tapped harder against the windows, a hollow percussion to Bruno’s decree.
Heinrich felt the old dread coil in his chest.
He had marched to war before, alongside Bruno and Erich, young men who thought themselves invincible.
He remembered the mud, the stench of gas, the endless roll call of the dead.
Back then he had believed it would be the war to end all wars. But he had been wrong.
Now he looked at the map, at the marker Bruno had placed over his own grandson’s regiment.
Heinrich felt his throat tighten.
He thanked God his sons were still too young, that they would not yet be fed to this new storm.
But that relief was poisoned with guilt. Others would not be spared. Bruno’s family would not be spared.
He glanced at his oldest friend.
The Reichsmarschall’s expression did not waver. His pale eyes never left the map.
Heinrich exhaled, barely a whisper.
Bruno did not answer.
He only moved another marker forward, his pale eyes fixed on France, as if he could already see it burning.
The war had begun, and while others lamented the idea that they would be sending another generation into the jaws of death.
Bruno did not, no... Only he knew just how destructive, and cruel this war would be.
And yet he gave the orders to send his own grandson into the fray without a second thought.
Because that was his duty. And a man’s duty in life came before all.