Chapter 4
Author note's= Short chapter just to introduce some major plot points and to set up some more meaty chapters in france i wont lie i hate writing dialogue eh i just suck at it so much hopefully it is not to bad for you guys to read, and yes this will be a romance story eventually Small wait till the next update maybe a day or so
It turned out I would be making the journey to Berlin in a modified transport plane that was designed for carrying ammunition, the prince had already left when I came back and I had to catch up fast, it would not look good if I arrived late to my own welcoming ceremony.
The flight was bumpy and uncomfortable, I hate flying never could get the hang of it and this was not improved by my being in a cargo plane not meant for carrying live cargo, but all this disappeared as the capitals airport soon filled the windows, The airport of the capital is a massive affair with eleven runways, it handles everything from civilian transport to the basing of the Capital defence air force.
My flight touched down with a bang and soon I had dismounted the unwieldy aircraft, I was met by one of the aides of the prince and was quickly jammed into a private car before we left for the Imperial Palace.
The aide never spoke for the entire trip preferring to fill out some paperwork on her lap as the trip preceded through the city, I had never been to Berlin before so I was in amazement as I gasped at the impeccable city that passed the passenger window, it was more splendid then anything I had ever seen in my life with monster sky scrappers that dotted the horizon and massive building sized flags that flew from the sides of buildings, every one looked in a hurry as they walked on the perfectly maintained pavement and went about their business.
Soon our car begun to approach the Imperial Palace and I was in sheer wonder at it, it was the biggest building I had ever seen filling the horizon in any direction you looked, it was not long before the car pulled up before the outer gate (the palace had 2 gates) and the vehicle was inspected by the royal guards, after they checked my ID the car was allowed to pass.
Next we pulled up against the inner gate, it was much heavily guarded with ten soldiers in sight with emplaced machine-guns guarding the road, after again confirming our Ids the vehicle was allowed to pull up alongside the front door of the building.
The aide continued to not speak as she motioned me to follow her into the building, polished marble floors and pilers met my gaze as I entered the building and was greeted by the sight of pairs of royal guards standing at attention everywhere you looked, I had been standing in the entrance dumbfounded for nearly a half minute when the third prince appeared.
He nodded at the guards that had snapped to attention to return to at ease before motioning for me to join him, I walked towards him and he spoke up "Good to see you captain we have a meeting with the emperor" he said looking annoyed.
A meeting with the man himself? The vanquisher, the unification tyrant, the man who had united all of Germany into a empire with one purpose and I was going to meet him? This was impossible why would he ever look at me let alone even know I exist I was too small a man in both rank and accomplishment to even acknowledge my existence and I was going to meet him in the flesh.
I was escorted to the door that led to the emperors throne room when the prince muttered some hints "Bow, kneel and only speak when spoken too" after he said this he placed his hands on the door and pushed it open.
The throne room was exquisite a massive hundred meter long room with a man sitting on a throne at the other end, apart from the emperor only one other man was in the room, the prince gave me a small signal and I bowed deeply and knelt alongside the prince.
The emperor stood and said in loud bellow, "So you have returned Spree?" "Yes my father" the prince responded, the emperor continued " And who is this? Are you going to serve Spree?" I said in as loud as a voice as I could "Yes your majesty" he looked down with a grimace before sitting "Leave" he ordered, I quickly got back on my feet bowed and left through the door I had come through in.
I waited for over half a hour before the third prince emerged from the throne room looking pale in the face, he turned to me as he walked and motioned for me to join him, I quickly fell in step with him as he begun to speak.
"it's as I feared, we will be invading France" I was not very shocked at the news and my lack of reaction must have registered in my face because the prince begun to look annoyed he spoke again "France is not a small adversary like Ukraine or Romania they will be a very tough opponent their ground forces are almost a match for us and their country favours defence it will be tricky, anyway let me show you to your temporary quarters, I am afraid we can not stay here for long as we have to get to Luxembourg to start getting everything in motion, you however are going to Vienna to become the field Commander for the royal guard, have fun" the prince said with a smile as he walked off leaving me speechless 'what the hell is going on, from commander to field commander of the most prestigious unit in the empire.'
The royal guard are no joke, they are equipped with the best vehicles and equipment and are the sledgehammer behind any major empire offensive,it is also unique for being one of the only places men and women serve equally in the entire armed forces.
As I was mulling over this the princes assistant came back and directed me to the car that would speed me off to the airport to head for the royal guard base in Vienna, the plane ride there was quite and boring as nothing off note happened.
I was greeted at the military base we landed at by my future executive officer or to put it in civilian terms the soldier under me in rank, he walked up to me as I was dismounting the plane and I got a good look at him, he was easy six foot tall and had piercing blue eyes and was of a very large build.
He walked up pulled off the most Prussian salute I have ever seen and held out two objects, my new Field commander helmet and Field commander insignia, he quietly stitched the rank on as I stood there dumbfounded and put my new helmet on me before saluting again.
As I recovered I saw his name was Dieter and his rank had him as a lieutenant, I asked him where I was to be accommodated and he gestured me to follow him to the awaiting transport, we came too the car that would be my personal car and he entered without a word into the drivers seat. 'a man of few words I see' I looked out of the window as we drove to my new accommodation, I was quite unprepared for what I saw.
The house was more like a mansion with it being three stories high with almost twenty rooms from what I could tell as we approached along with a garden out the front and perfectly maintained grass.
As I got to the front door I was met there by my new assistant, a young women who I immediately recognised, she was the girl I had met in Romania Arculid, my surprise must have been quite evident on my face as she simply grinned before introducing herself, "hello sir I am to be your personal assistant, my name is Arculid Kalith and it is my pleasure to serve sir" she finished sarcasm evident in every word.
I decided after a few seconds that just glaring back would not change much so I thrust out my hand and replied with a grimace "Nice to meet you Arculid" she smiled her smirk at me before curtseying and saying "If you would follow me sir" before spinning on her feet and walking off.
With very dark thoughts and suspicions in my head I trailed after her barely listening as she named of room after room of bathrooms, bedrooms and the like all without a care in the world to what must have seemed like pure hatred pouring out of my eyes, but even as I waited for the idiotic tour to finish I had some questions that needed answering, such as how was she alive? How did she get here? Who is she really? Should I just shoot her? All sorts of things I needed answers for.
After around a hour she stopped once more and said to me with her trademark smirk "Any questions sir?" I looked at her before replying "Yes a few actually, how are you still alive to begin with I think is a good one?" she seemed confused at my question before responding with another smirk "I just explained exactly who I was and what I was doing after that who knows?" she replied
I was growing annoyed rapidly and told her as much "Arculid, this is growing tiresome what happened there and why are you here?" she looked at me before responding "Well you see I just said there had been a very big misunderstanding and that I apologise for using up their time and that I hope we could all just forget about it and they agreed, after that I applied for a secretary position in Vienna and now here I am sir!" she finished with a grin.
After that display I decided I really did not care so I told her "just stay out of my way" and went to the closest bedroom and fell asleep, I had slept for over 12 hours when I was jolted awake by a knock on the door, "What is it?" I grumbled into my pillow as I prepared to go back to sleep "Sir the troops are being assembled for your inspection" a voice said through the door, I got up with a sigh and quickly saw that my new uniform had been put on the bedside table I had knocked over during the night somehow.
The uniform was a perfect fit, a grey coat with a large silver belt that was polished to a mirror sheen, also on the table was a large grey greatcoat and a grey cap with red lining around it, the insignia on the cap was that of a iron cross with the flag of the empire sitting in the centre, all in all it was a lot better than my previous uniform from when I served as a tank commander it had a much sharper look to it and carried its own sense of power within it.
I had just finished dressing when there was another knock on the door, "yes?" I inquired "may I come in sir?" came the reply, "Yes come on then" I said adjusting my hat, the door opened and a young private walked in "sorry to disturb you sir, I have come to show you to the assembly area" he said with his gaze on the floor "Well then come on show me to them." I said motioning to the door.
The walk to the assembly area was a quiet one as the base was almost silent, after a ten minute walk I arrived at the assembly area and was shown the 40,000 men and women who made up the royal guard, although I would be in charge during combat operations overall command would still remain with the royal family, looking over the assembled mass of troops I was happy to see almost complete perfection in their standard of dress, after examining them from the parade stand, I begun my small speech.
"Good morning troopers of the royal guard, I am here to serve as your new field commander, I expect perfection and will accept nothing else, also I expect you to do everything with perfection or I will find some one else to serve in your place, you are supposed to be the best of the best and I will see you do just that" with that I turned and walked away trusting their inner discipline to accept me as their new commander, I was met when I was walking away by the royal guard second in command, he was a tall man with ice cold blue eyes, he walked close before snapping of a salute, "Sir! My name is general SHIKI and I will be your executive officer!" he had a very strange aura around him, he looked to put it kindly unhinged almost crazy in a way but it looked like he would serve me well as a XO and so I did not give voice to my concerns.
Next on the list of things to do was to get a in depth inventory of just what the royal guard has, the walk to the main command building was quite pleasant apart from the constant annoyance that the man behind me seemed to radiate from his very existence, I put it up as something I would just grow to accept as time went on and continued to the headquarters.
The building was rather small as it was nothing more than a converted office block, maybe a old newspaper company or something along those lines, the front of the building actually had a guard on it so it was obviously something important, and that was because it held the entire battle plans for France inside.
I was greeted on the second floor by all of the colonel's and Major's that would make up the bulk of the command for the royal guard, "Sir!" they all said in unison saluting as one when I entered, "Back to your post's gentlemen I am here to get a look at the plan's for France and a look at our inventory" one major on the side quickly left and returned with a stack of papers listing out the whole unit strength of the guard.
Just from the top off the list I read the most important thing I would need to know
Fighting men -30,000
Medical Personal -150
Cooking staff -200
Crew's for vehicles -1000
Tanks -200
APC's -400
Artillery -100
Artillery men 400
Total Strength -31,750
'That's a lot of men' I mused to myself as I turned my opinion to the laid out map of operations for France, from just a single glance I could tell we would be the opening move of the war as we where to storm through the town of Nancy and smash any French opposition on the way, the actual operation would be called operation Downfall and would be a daring multi week operation to smash France within two months.
It would begin at midnight with over 50,000 paratroopers dropping on key forts and cities all over the country to keep any reinforcements from arriving, it would also consist of a massive naval blockade of the French coast before a major advance would split the country in half, one arm of the advance going for the city of Vichy and another going for the capital of Paris, it was daring that was for sure and it all would depend on three things
1, The town of Nancy and its forts had to fall as soon as possible with minimal losses so the Empires army could move through unmolested
2, The major army base at Verdun had to be neutralised as soon as possible before the major French armoured divisions there could organise any kind of resistance
3, the UK could not be allowed to send in reinforcements otherwise this would turn into a meat grinder on a national scale
After taking these into account it would seem the plan was almost careless in the manor in which it was organised and would require everything to go perfectly for it to work.
I spent the next ten hours in there planing everything into the most minor details, from when the initial barrage would lift to what time the separate divisions would head out, it was painful work but it had to be done, I worked with the other officer's to work out a near perfect plan to take Nancy it was what came after that, which worried me.
After almost a month more of listing to Arculid's attempt to be professional and planing the operation at Nancy and beyond a courier arrived from Berlin to deliver a message to me personally, the letter carried the royal seal and I knew almost immediately what would be on it.
TO field commander Mackintosh
We are now preparing for war with France you are to take your division's to the French border and begin hostilities a week from now unless ordered otherwise
Third Prince Spree
After finishing the letter I quickly sent out the orders to move out and within the day the whole royal guard was loaded into a series of cargo trains and was heading to the border, watching the Austrian mountains fly past the trains window I wondered what would await me and my men in France.