Buckingham Palace.
Westminster, London. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
2nd of April 1984/1848 A.D.
10.00 am (GMT +1 - CEST).
12 days post-Transition.
-
"Gone, you say?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. A great swathe of land, stretching from northern Mecklenburg to as far south as Saxony is simply gone. It has been replaced by a new and mysterious nation, one that calls itself the 'German Democratic Republic'."
Queen Victoria struggled to process the news that she'd just been given. For a moment, she thought that the man that she'd only just promoted to the title of Envoy Extraordinary to the Kingdom of Prussia, was joking. The report of this newfound nation had come off the back of a Hamburger merchant vessel that had been caught in some mysteriously maelstrom off the coast of Rügen, little over a week and a half ago. Other reports that had come both hours and days after that had all but confirmed the existence of this new state, which had stayed remarkably silent for the duration of its 'existence'.
"Has there been any word from this so-called Democratic Republic?"
"There have been more actions, as opposed to words, Your Majesty. Tales of fast-paced flying machines, mysterious steam-powered vehicles with great Howitzers affixed to their front ends and strange uniformed men have recently become the talk of the German states..."
The Envoy cleared his throat for a few moments before continuing onward.
"We've received no word from their diplomats, nor have we received any from ours. However, I've made sure that Cologne will now function as the primary location of our embassy to the Kingdom of Prussia."
"If it even has a King…" Victoria mused. "What has become of the surviving half of Prussia?"
"Utter chaos, Your Majesty." The Envoy spoke once again. "Reports of French activity along the Rhineland have sparked panic in both the civilian and military spheres. The prior chaos from the various protests haven't helped matters. We've received no reports of what's going on in Konigsberg or Danzig, but I'd imagine that both the Polish and the Tsarist forces would like to get a slice of what remains of Frederick's Kingdom…"
Victoria stayed silent for a few moments, processing the very words that the Envoy spoken. The Congress of Vienna was falling apart at the seams. The French and Russian states were in the process of making independent gains, tearing whatever they could from the dying Prussian Kingdom. While it wasn't her choice to make, Victoria wondered what use that her Empire could be in what seemed to be a purely Continental problem. Perhaps it was just best to let the Cockerel and the Bear tear the revolting states apart.
Then again, once this new nation had come for their neighbours, they would most likely come for both her and her nation.
-
Schloss Niederschönhausen
Pankow, East Berlin. German Democratic Republic.
2nd of April 1984/1848 A.D.
10.00 am (GMT +1 - CEST).
12 days post-Transition.
-
Armeegeneral Heinz Hoffmann, Minister for National Defence, sat around a table with a great number of his fellow military officers. The Heads of the Volksarmee, Luftstreitkräfte and Volksmarine were studying a large, formerly-outdated map of Europe, which was taking up most of the large conference hall in which the men were situated.
The small group of men studied the modified map, which now included a rough outline of their own Democratic Republic and a slew of pins that showed the positions of both their own troops and those of their neighbouring countries.
The more time the men had to study the historical documents, newly-developed photographs and contemporary written pieces on the military technology of the era, the more a sense of overwhelming guilt began to wash over them.
This was going to be far from a mere 'walk in the park', as the Americans might've put it.
This was going to be a massacre.
Hoffman cast his mind back to the decades before the Transition, when he read about the history of the various colonial wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. These tiny, technologically primitive German statelets were soon to be crushed underfoot by the powerful, expansionist Democratic Republic, much like the American Indians or the millions of Africans that had suffered under Western colonialism.
The key difference between those self-centred, mercantile imperialists and their modern, socialist nation-state was that they weren't going to subjugate them. They were here to save them from themselves, while also saving their Republic from eventual starvation and stagnation.
"We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down..."
The words of the old Führer came to him in a brief moment of self-reflection. He knew this initial conflict was to be the most pointless, one-sided war imaginable, but he and his fellow men had no choice. They had to do it for the survival of their nation, for any other technological powerhouse that was trapped centuries in the past would easily do the same. It was in their own pure self-interest to do so.
Machiavelli would be proud.
There were to be no misleading cries of 'pan-European solidarity against the tyrannical Kings and Presidents' from the higher-ups. That was to come from the indoctrinated battlefield commissars and the young men that served them.
Those cries would also come after the dust had settled. Once they'd secured the lands of the altes Kaiserreich, it was only a matter of time before they went after the other reactionary forces that were seeking to tear the burgeoning liberal-democratic order to pieces.
Hoffman turned his gaze away from the German states, instead choosing to focus toward the East, to what he knew as Romania, once a key ally in the fight against Western capitalism. They could easily become that trusted friend once again.
Before he was to begin his own speech to his fellow kameraden, Hoffman looked over the typewritten list of planned military operations. The first on the list, Fall Siebenbürger, named after the long-forgotten German settlers of Transylvania, was to be the tip of the spear. Fall Siebenbürger was the first strike against the rump Romanian-speaking principalities, who held great and bountiful wells of crude oil below their primitive farmlands, which would serve as the fuel for further operations into Europe.
Low-intensity air strikes against major cities and barracks would serve as the opening salvo against the outmatched armies of these defenceless Kingdoms and Principalities. Other minor operations, such as Fall Hansa, Fall Ost, Fall Böhmen and Fall Fulda, would soon come into play, once the inbred Austrian aristocrats and their oppressed populace were snuffed out from the pages of history.
Another factor in their upcoming fight against the alte ordnung would be the rebelling Magyars, located in the centre of the Hapsburg territories. A series of limited, but mildly successful operations by the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, had worked in securing the loyalty of the Hungarian rebels. Small numbers of surplus weapons from the Great Patriotic War and and even the prior conflicts during the Wiemar and Imperial eras were starting to funnel into the battlegrounds of Budapest, Pressburg and Debrecen. It would take a few more weeks to see the results of such an armament, but Hoffman and his fellow men knew that the unstoppable Nationale Volksarmee would be halfway to Bucharest by then.
If they struck quickly and decisively, they could easily rout the numerically superior Russians, Hapsburgs and Ottoman Turks. This little jaunt into the East would serve as the opening salvo to a long series of conflicts, which would all work out for the benefit of the German volk and their fellow European comrades-in-arms.
Hoffman took one last look around the room, taking in the sight of the maps, notes and books that covered every inch of the table he and his fellow men were standing over. They were the men that were to decide the future of Europe with the swift strike of Soviet-German armour.
"Gentlemen, we have a week until Fall Siebenbürger commences. Any potential alterations to the battle plans are to happen now."
