Re: Blood and Iron

Across the Atlantic, a storm was brewing near the Rio Grande—a river that served as a natural barrier between the United States and the Latin world beyond it. Border skirmishes had been flaring up for the past few years, the most infamous of which came when Pancho Villa dared to lead incursions into U.S. territory.

But in this timeline, the United States was not the burgeoning global military-industrial titan it had begun to resemble in the latter half of the 19th century. Teddy Roosevelt’s ambitions of forging a world-striding American Empire had been stillborn, smothered by his more isolationist successors.

Once again, the electorate had chosen withdrawal over expansion. While American markets cautiously reopened to the world, its overseas colonies were increasingly seen as burdensome relics—especially with domestic concerns mounting along the Mexican border.

Ironically, it was after the Berlin Olympics, and the resolution of the Hungarian-Romanian conflict, that even the most isolationist corners of the U.S. administration began to feel the sting of irrelevance. The world was moving forward—and it was doing so without them.

This was the core of American hubris: the illusion that it had ever been equal to the European empires. It wasn’t—not until 1945, when a different postwar world let America rise from the ashes mostly untouched.

But here? In 1918?

The United States was more of a backwater than even Russia. Full of potential, yes. But it remained a vast, lumbering adolescent—strong in body, untested in soul.

That potential, however, was nearing ignition.

The American-controlled Philippines faced two looming threats. First, the Empire of Japan, which had seized much of Southeast Asia during the Great War, and now stared hungrily at the islands. Second, the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment within.

The Philippine Insurrection had ended less than twenty-five years ago—but its embers still smoldered. With British and French colonies around the world erupting in flames, talk of renewed revolution in Manila was no longer theoretical.

This time, however, things were different.

The Pacific was flooded with surplus arms after the war. Smuggling weaponry into the Philippines wasn’t just possible—it was inevitable. And soon, the cries for freedom might once again be matched with steel and fire.

From afar, Bruno watched. Thoughtfully. Quietly.

The way he saw it there were only two possible scenarios to arise from this inevitability. A full-scale insurrection might push the United States to retreat from its Pacific holdings—or, if he were particularly unlucky the war might compel them to militarize, industrialize, and become the very threat Bruno remembered from his past life.

Either way, his hands were tied. With decolonization in Mittelafrika already underway, Bruno could hardly condemn anti-colonial uprisings elsewhere—especially not while funding one behind closed doors. The risk of exposure outweighed any reward.

And so, he could only sit in his study, gazing at the globe resting near the corner of his desk. He spun it once, slowly, as if trying to divine the future from its axis. A long sigh escaped his lips.

Then he reached into a drawer and retrieved a folder marked with a red tab.

Inside was a photograph. Pancho Villa, rifle in hand, grinning like a bandit king. The man who had dragged the United States Army into the Mexican Revolution—a war that had been raging since 1910.

Bruno knew what history held: a slow collapse of Mexico into factional chaos. But he also knew that Germany’s Werwolf Group—its covert paramilitary mercenaries—could not act unilaterally in the Americas. Not without provoking the Monroe Doctrine, and the full force of American retaliation.

Still… options remained. Bruno ultimately reached nearby into his desk drawer where he found a bottle of vodka, gifted to him by the Tsar himself during his last visit to Russia. By now it was a quarter empty.

In past years, this battle would have been done and gone within the span of a week. Now it had persisted for months, perhaps even close to a year, with only the slightest sign of its clear liquid within vanishing.

Still, if there was ever a time, a need, for a nice stiff drink, now was the moment to do so. Bruno opened up his miniature ice chest he kept within his office to keep his beverages nice and cool.

He plucked a few cubes and put them neatly in his glass before filling it with vodka. After taking a single sip of the clean and crisp liquid, one so smooth it might as well have been water, Bruno reached for the rotary phone on his desk. He dialed a number he had memorized—but never used.

It rang. Once. Twice. On the fifth ring, a secretary answered. Bruno introduced himself. Ever so briefly, the need for extensive introductions was something of the distant past. The simple utterance of his identity was more than enough to make a room go silent.

And this proved to be the case when the line instantly became very quiet on the other end. Moments later, however, he heard a voice he didn’t recognize—but one he knew belonged to the President of the United States.

“I’m surprised to hear from you. From what my delegation reported, you had no interest in speaking with us while we were in Berlin. So… to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Bruno didn’t mince words. His voice was cool, direct.

“I was wondering what you were planning to do about the violence just south of your borders.”

“Because, if the price is right, I know of a group of professionals who could end that situation—however you wish it to end.”

There was silence on the other end.

A long one.

The President had never expected Bruno von Zehntner to call him personally—certainly not on the Oval Office’s private line.

And he most certainly didn’t expect him to offer a mercenary solution to a war that Washington had already begun planning for—grudgingly, reluctantly, and with full awareness of the PR disaster that would follow.

But this?

This was off the books. Clean. Deniable. And eerily convenient.

“Go on,” the President said.

And so Bruno did.

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