The Strange Phenomenon
The bizarre phenomenon unfolded before my eyes.
“This can’t be real. Me, a eunuch?!”
I had come to see the eunuch, and for a moment, that Stalin looked exactly like Shim Young. Yeah. This bastard deserved to be tibegged too.
“What a pitiful sight you’ve become. Weren’t you once one of the Soviet Union’s towering figures alongside Trotsky?”
“Y-Your Highness!”
“Why so surprised? If you were caught, you should have been prepared to meet me.”
“Have you come to kill me?”
No, my original plan had been to kill him. But now that I thought about it, something felt off.
“I was planning to execute Lenin and the others by firing squad, but after hearing you’d been turned into a eunuch, I started wondering if I really needed to kill you too. Don’t you agree? If I executed a man who’d already been castrated, wouldn’t people say the Tsarina lacks mercy?”
“What are you saying…”
“I’ll simply send you and your wife off to Siberia. Live the rest of your lives there under constant surveillance.”
With those words, I left Stalin’s hospital room. That thing was no longer the Stalin I knew from history. He was just a castrated communist now. Nothing more, nothing less. There was no reason for me, the leader of the White Army, to get personally involved.
Ah, but he really did look pathetic. The Man of Steel. The Butcher of Georgia. The Great Purge. Industrialization. The very embodiment of the Soviet Union that had turned it into a superpower. And now that man had become a eunuch. When I thought about the days when he was still a man, I almost felt a little sorry for him. Sending him to Siberia was more than enough.
Even if Stalin tried to make a comeback, communism was already shattered. Before that, the Siberian camps would probably turn into something like the Gulags. Even if he survived, he wouldn’t be truly alive. On the way there, I could parade him through every town and village as a spectacle—“Come see the eunuch!” And if he showed any suspicious behavior in Siberia, I could just send the Ohrana to quietly dispose of him.
Tukhachevsky was also in Siberia. Maybe he would turn over a new leaf later. Bringing people in like that seemed like a good idea. In the end, it all came down to whether they truly had the will to defect.
“With the recapture of Moscow, the Bolshevik main forces have essentially been wiped out. However, remnants still remain.”
“Yes. We must retake Petrograd as well.”
The Soviets had lost Moscow. Most of their leadership had been captured here. Public sentiment had abandoned them long ago. What remained now was little more than scattered remnants. Still, Trotsky was probably holding out in Petrograd. Only after we took that city could we truly say the plague had been eradicated.
“Let’s stabilize Moscow and head straight for Petrograd.”
The resistance there would likely be weaker than in Moscow. Still, it had once been the imperial capital. Even though Nicholas II had been deposed there and the revolution had begun in that very place—precisely because of that, I, a Romanov, had to be the one to recapture it.
The recapture of Moscow was a monumental achievement that gave the White Army complete dominance in the civil war. Naturally, every White Army general was overjoyed. The captured Reds received the full force of the anger they had built up over the years. On the outskirts of Moscow, they were beaten until they no longer looked human, reduced to nothing but bloody rags before they died.
Yet despite all that, unlike in real history, the surviving Ungern was in an extremely foul mood right now.
“Patton. Do you have some kind of inferiority complex toward me? Or were we mortal enemies in a past life?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m asking why you follow me everywhere I go.”
Ungern felt like he was going insane. Why did this man keep showing up and stealing his glory? It had happened back in Ukraine too. During this Moscow Red purge operation, when he was trying to catch the fleeing Bolsheviks, Patton had interfered again. Because of that, the pursuit had gone wrong and the Reds had fled all the way to Petrograd.
“I’ve done no such thing. On the contrary, wasn’t it you, Lieutenant General, who kept parading your cavalry in front of me?”
“You should speak properly. You’re nothing but a military attaché. Wouldn’t it have been enough for you to stand in the back with your hands behind your back and watch? Yet you had to butt in? And with a machine gun mounted on a carriage, no less?”
“Ahem. Her Highness the Grand Duchess personally authorized it.”
Her Highness? No way. Look at this ugly American bastard. No matter how you looked at it, this American must have threatened her. This Yankee must have shoved his burly body at that frail Grand Duchess and coerced her.
“You must have intimidated her!”
“Intimidated? I simply poured out my burning heart as a soldier to Her Highness. And as expected of the Empress of the Saddle, she understood a soldier’s heart perfectly.”
Was this guy picking a fight right now? Understood a soldier’s heart? Yeah right. He’d probably just gone wild in front of her, and given her personality, she’d simply let it slide.
Bang!
“Are you asking for a fight right now?!”
“That’s enough.”
Mikhail Drozdovsky jumped to his feet and stopped Ungern, who had shot up from his seat.
“Chief of Staff! What exactly have you been doing while staying right beside Her Highness? That arrogant bastard is ruining our holy war!”
“General Patton is a man who distinguished himself in the Great War at a young age and excels at handling tanks. If we want to build a tank corps for Russia, we need his help.”
“The Asiatic Cavalry Division is the strongest!”
It was the cavalry division Ungern himself had cherished and nurtured. Though multi-ethnic, its combat power was unmatched.
“The enemy is deploying tanks. You’re not seriously suggesting we face them with the Asiatic Cavalry Division, are you? That might work against Chinese bandits in the Far East, but in Europe, the Asiatic Cavalry Division will have limited effectiveness.”
“Ugh.”
Ungern couldn’t refute a single word. The only reason they were performing well now was because their opponent was the Bolsheviks. The Asiatic Cavalry Division was ethnically diverse and not equipped with tanks. It might work in the Far East, but it was far too inadequate for operations in Europe.
That was why Mikhail Drozdovsky planned to create a tank corps with Patton’s assistance.
“Hahaha! Must we redden our faces over something like this between real men? We’re all on the same side here. It’s all good.”
Patton let out a hearty laugh and clapped Ungern on the shoulder. Ungern’s face twisted into an ugly scowl.
Berlin, Germany.
Around this time, France was experiencing a truly strange phenomenon.
“Unbelievable!”
“What’s wrong, France?”
“Germany isn’t paying the reparations!”
Indeed. Germany was refusing to pay the reparations.
“Why aren’t these bastards paying?”
They had lost the war. They had only been able to maintain their national debt thanks to France’s mercy. And yet the ones who were supposed to pay reparations weren’t paying them. What a bizarre phenomenon this was.
When others were being torn apart, France had shown them consideration and let them live. And now they weren’t paying reparations? France clutched the back of its neck at Germany’s shamelessness.
So, acting like the proper victor it was, France boldly confronted Germany.
“It seems the reparations keep getting delayed. What exactly is going on?”
“The amount is astronomically large, so please be patient.”
“Astronomically large? The British and Americans drastically reduced the amount for you, and you’re still saying it’s too much to pay? The mighty Germany? Are you joking right now?”
Britain had taken all the juicy colonial territories and generously reduced the reparations accordingly. The Yankees from the New World, who only had money, had shown mercy as well. But France was different. The wound from the Franco-Prussian War had been far too deep. Simply taking back Alsace-Lorraine from the German Empire wasn’t nearly enough to heal it.
In short, France could confidently declare that it had shown the German Empire tremendous mercy and restraint.
“Didn’t we hand over Elsass-Lothringen without complaint?”
“It’s Alsace-Lorraine!”
“Anyway, please wait just a little longer. We’re busy supporting White Russia, you see.”
“Very well. But keep this in mind. The only reason defeated Germany was allowed to keep its territory was purely thanks to the mercy of France! You must remember that we showed tenfold consideration to your hated nation!”
No matter how you looked at it, something felt suspicious, but Germany still wasn’t a country France could handle alone. Dragging tanks in to demand reparations would draw the eyes of Britain and America. And since they knew full well the power of tanks, Germany would obviously start producing them too.
“Yes, of course.”
After the French ambassador finished his long tirade and left, Ludendorff clicked his tongue.
“Those frog bastards have grown bold.”
In the old days, someone like that wouldn’t have dared lift his head in front of him. At this time, the German Empire was under Ludendorff’s overall control of state affairs. Of course, not to the same extent as during the war. Ludendorff had tried to drag out a clearly losing war, and Kaiser Wilhelm II had stepped in to stop his dominance. As a result, Ludendorff only held the military.
Still, from a soldier’s perspective, Ludendorff was undoubtedly an extraordinary figure, so as long as he remained loyal to the Kaiser and the government, Wilhelm II was willing to maintain the current system.
The problem was that Wilhelm II himself was unfortunately already planning another attack on France.
Ludendorff delivered the news that had come from Russia to the Kaiser.
“Your Majesty. It is reported that Grand Duchess Anastasia has recaptured Moscow.”
“Have our troops had a chance to operate the tanks yet?”
“Yes. They drove them under the pretext of assisting with Russian army training.”
“Good. We must increase our troops’ experience until the civil war ends. Since they’ve recaptured Moscow, the Bolsheviks are essentially left with only remnants, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Will we succeed this time?”
A solo attack on France. Of course, they were once again using the Schlieffen Plan as the foundation, but there was one key difference. This time, they would lead with tanks, proving that the country called Belgium was nothing more than a highway, and sweep straight into Paris in one breath. An absurd plan. What mattered was that the idea had first emerged from Ludendorff’s mind, and the Kaiser had accepted it.
The German people were quiet for now, but if they continued to implement the Treaty of Versailles like this, the imperial family might collapse. The losses from the previous war had already been too great. Therefore, they had to attack France. What the outcome would be, however, remained unknown.
And that was because a red wave was slowly rising within the German Empire.
“Comrade Lenin’s failure in Russia stemmed solely from his authoritarianism and reliance on violent measures. Here in Germany, we must succeed by winning the hearts of the people entirely through our German Communist Party.”
“Yes, Comrade Luxemburg.”
Roza Luxemburg. In real history, after the November Revolution brought down the German Empire, she had risen up alongside Karl Liebknecht to spark a communist revolution, only to fail. However, having witnessed the German Empire barely clinging to life and the authoritarian, violence-stained Soviet Union’s failure, Roza Luxemburg viewed the Soviet experiment as a failed communist revolution. Together with Liebknecht, she was slowly building power beneath the surface.
She had learned of the cruel acts Lenin had committed to defeat the White Army in the Russian Civil War, and how that had ultimately led to his failure. An unprepared armed struggle—that was how Roza Luxemburg saw the Russian Civil War. The Bolsheviks, stained with nothing but authority and violence, had claimed to serve the people while exploiting them to maintain Bolshevik power. Just like in the days of the Tsarist regime.
Thus, having learned from Lenin’s failure, Roza Luxemburg was slowly taking control of Germany from within.
“The time is finally approaching.”
The German Communist Party had also received information that the Kaiser and the military were planning another war. So they intended to seize that moment to recruit regular soldiers dissatisfied with the conflict.
Ironically, contrary to Anastasia’s expectations, communism was once again gaining strength in Germany.