An Eternal Draw

If you want to raise prices by fifty percent, it is a matter of simple arithmetic: just increase the currency in circulation by fifty percent.

No matter how massive the Sicilian Mafia's counterfeiting operations were, and even when backed by the industrial might of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they lacked the capacity to supply that vast an amount of currency.

'Hmm... But do we really need to print that much? Isn't it enough to simply make them believe that prices are going to skyrocket?'

Thus, Stahl first injected about ten percent more currency into the market, causing prices to climb rapidly. What came next?

"This time, we will flood the market with low-quality counterfeits."

"Excuse me, Director? Of course, we have more than enough low-quality bills, and we can print them instantly, but... why?"

"Trust me on this."

"Very well, if you say so."

Real-world economics never behaved like simple arithmetic. If humans were truly rational actors as depicted in Mankiw's Principles of Economics, the Lehman Brothers collapse would never have happened.

They printed every imaginable grade of counterfeit: bills that barely passed as currency, bills so cheap they wouldn't even make good kindling, and bills so laughably crude they seemed like a deliberate joke.

The sheer volume of these notes far surpassed France's entire existing money supply.

Once these bills began turning up in droves across the country, the French Ministry of Finance quickly grasped the situation.

"Th-This is madness...!"

"We don't know where it's coming from, but someone is flooding the market with counterfeits to destabilize our economy."

"Where else could it be? It's obviously the Austro-Hungarian Empire!"

"Even so, the most Austria-Hungary can do is double our prices. Prevent this news from reaching the public immediately!"

But because they had dumped such an absurd quantity of low-quality fakes, it was impossible to keep the public from noticing. Panic spread like wildfire.

"Wait a minute... then how much of this is actually fake?"

"Don't tell me this one is too?"

"Check the safe right now! We don't even know how much of our cash is counterfeit!"

No matter how formidable the German economy was, France possessed more than enough ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠resilience to handle this. After all, France had successfully weathered the Great Depression in another timeline.

With its massive gold reserves and colonial trade protections, France had the structural strength to absorb this monetary assault.

If Austria-Hungary miscalculated even slightly, this attack might backfire and stimulate the French economy instead. It would essentially be performing quantitative easing for a rival nation.

True to its reputation as one of the world's premier financial powers, France responded with agility.

"More than half of the circulating counterfeits are of atrocious quality. They will naturally be weeded out by the public in due time, so they are of no concern!"

"Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so, the money supply has spiked abruptly. We must address this."

"Actually, this works in our favor! If the quality is above a certain threshold, why not just let them circulate?"

"...Sir?"

"Since things have turned out this way, why not use them for colonial development? We can gather them up and dump them in Vietnam or West Africa."

In peacetime, France's response would have drawn admiration even from Stahl. Though their industrial productivity lagged behind Germany's, France boasted over two centuries of colonial administration experience.

They understood exactly how to manage the vast wealth flowing in from across the globe. It was a level of sophistication that Germany, a latecomer that had rapidly ballooned into a great power in the late nineteenth century, simply lacked.

But... the problem was that they were currently at war.

"The government is doing everything in its power! Supplies and rations will return to normal shortly. Please, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠citizens, remain calm!"

"What? Calm? I'm about to starve to death, and you want me to remain calm!"

"Give us a handful of flour first, then we'll talk! Tear it all down!"

As prices skyrocketed, massive riots, strikes, and demonstrations erupted. Vladimir Lenin, Georges Clemenceau, and Sigmund Freud had already received intelligence from Stahl.

Of course, this unrest was only a short-term disruption. Given time, it would undoubtedly settle down. However, before that time could come, Erich Ludendorff would make his move.

"We have no choice. Deploy the police immediately!"

"You have permission to fire! Order a cavalry charge if necessary! Suppress the rioters at once!"

The French authorities panicked and ruthlessly suppressed the riots, but crushing the protests would not bring the workers back to the factories.

In desperation, France even sent out press gangs to round up random citizens and force them into the factories. Fearing they might escape, they went so far as to shackle their ankles to the conveyor belts.

Such measures could never restore order. If anything, they only fueled the chaos. The price stabilization policies France had painstakingly devised were now on the verge of total collapse due to political instability.

"We have to escape Paris right now."

"It's not the Germans we have to worry about—it's our own police!"

"Is this the Republic we were so proud of? Did our ancestors launch a revolution just so we could drag citizens away and lock them in factories?"

"We need to save ourselves first! Let's flee to Montpellier immediately!"

An immense wave of refugees flooded into Montpellier and Marseille, where the Stahlists lay in wait.

From the very moment the first counterfeit bills were distributed, Lenin, Freud, and Georges Clemenceau had been steadily eating away at the French economy.

They hoarded private gold reserves and industrial goods vital to the war effort. They then funneled these assets to the Sicily Agricultural Cooperative, receiving food supplies in return to distribute to the populace.

"Professor Freud. The time has come."

Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp spoke to Freud. Led by Picasso, the intellectuals of the south had already completely aligned themselves with the Stahlists.

Freud looked toward Georges Clemenceau. Clemenceau shook his head with a sorrowful expression.

"It seems the French Third Republic has truly met its end. Initiate the operation."

With Clemenceau's assent, France began to burn. The uprising erupted first in Marseille, where Freud and Clemenceau had established their stronghold.

The red, white, and blue tricolor hanging from government buildings was lowered, replaced by the black flag symbolizing French Stahlism.

"Stahlists of the world, unite!"

"Overthrow the old regime! Tear down this republic of slave drivers! It is time to build a Stahlist state!"

The next rebellion flared up in Montpellier, Lenin's stronghold. While the workers, students, and citizens of Marseille rose with wine bottles in one hand and flags in the other, Lenin's insurgent forces were far from poorly equipped.

They carried real rifles. To a man, the peasants seized their firearms and began executing the bureaucrats sent from Paris.

If the Stahlists of Marseille were ideologically militant, these men were simply brutal.

"Capital can never reconcile with the workers and peasants! This aligns perfectly with Marx's assertion that social existence determines consciousness! Am I right?"

"You are right, Comrade!"

"Commercial and industrial capitalists at least increase productivity and improve the quality of life itself. But the most reactionary, backward parasites among them are the landowning capitalists! They do nothing but prey upon the productivity generated by the labor of others! Am I right?"

"You are right, Comrade!"

"We till our own fields! Our land belongs to us! Liberate the land!"

Land reform. It was the very thing countless peasants had yearned for. Even to orthodox Marxists, the peasantry had always been a marginalized class.

Independent farmers had been ruined by industrialization, and the countryside had decayed. Instead of being born of the soil and returning to it, they were practically abducted, dragged off to factories to tighten bolts on assembly lines.

The peasants, who had once groaned under feudalism, now suffered even harsher exploitation at the hands of landowning capitalists. As materialism seeped into the backward rural regions, the archaic lord-serf dynamic persisted, but the extraction of wealth grew far more ruthless.

For the landlords who bled them dry now loved money far more than they ever cared for faith or honor.

It was useless to protest as they had in feudal times. The only response they received was that tractors could do their jobs now, so they should get lost to the cities.

'Productive forces are not yet developed enough to place all means of production into the hands of the workers. But... why on earth should private ownership of land be guaranteed?'

By synthesizing Marxism and Stahlism, Lenin forged the most potent ideological foundation of the era. No doctrine possessed the sheer destructive power of Lenin-Stahlism.

They say France is the China of Europe. Though it bore the name of Stahlism, the revolutionary process unfolding in France resembled nothing so much as a Maoist revolution.

In the major cities, uprisings led by intellectuals sought to dismantle the state, culture, and everything in between. In the countryside, the call for "Land Reform" ignited the most formidable peasant rebellion in history.

"...Food? You're saying our food supplies for the front lines have run dry?"

"Yes, Mr. President. What we have left... is barely enough to feed fifty thousand men. Half of the sacks are already filled with sawdust instead of flour."

"...It's over."

Indeed, France was finished. True, they could theoretically suppress the uprisings. How many rebellions had France seen since the French Revolution of 1791?

Over the centuries, revolutionaries had honed their craft. The citizens of France knew better than anyone how to successfully carry out a revolution.

But those very revolutionaries had now become the establishment—the Ancien Régime of the French Republic. Drawing upon their own past experiences, these powerful figures knew exactly how to crush a revolution.

"Mr. President... the uprisings..."

"As long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as we hold Paris, they can do nothing. Did the Paris Commune last ten years? Did it even last one?"

"Then we still have..."

"No, we don't."

Whether the proud French fleet sank in the Mediterranean or not, whether Stahl flooded them with counterfeits or not, or even if half the mainland fell to revolutionaries—

The French government was confident it could manage. None of those blows alone were enough to bring France down.

"But we are finished. Soon, the Germans will reclaim Alsace-Lorraine. They will march into Paris along the very path we took to Frankfurt, cutting through Belgium."

It was still too early to press a pistol to his temple. But there was no harm in at least loading the chamber.

Raymond Poincaré, the president who had wielded unprecedentedly vast authority in a parliament-centered France due to the war.

Now that the French Third Republic was collapsing, Raymond, as its political symbol, felt he had no choice but to perish with it.

"French supply lines are delayed! Their front is weakening! Break through their lines now!"

At last, at last! The clash between the two master tacticians, Auguste Dubail and Erich Ludendorff, was drawing to a close.

Both Dubail and Ludendorff had executed brilliant maneuvers across the complex theater of war without a single misstep.

Whenever the French lines showed the slightest sign of weakening, Ludendorff swiftly redeployed his forces. Yet every attempt proved futile, for the moment the German lines faltered, Dubail would immediately counter-maneuver.

In chess, repeating the same position three times results in a draw. If war were chess, this match would have been declared a draw many times over.

Two generals trapped in an endless purgatory, sitting at the same table, repeating the same moves until one of them died of old age. Now, finally, an escape from this hell had presented itself.

"Hold on! Just a little longer! Food will arrive from the homeland soon! This will be Germany's last victory. Just a little more!"

Auguste Dubail rallied his troops, dragging his aging body from one sector of the front to another. They were indeed the proud defenders of the Republic. Inspired by Dubail's presence, soldiers who had starved for three days still grit their teeth and held the line.

But... Dubail knew in his bones. He would be remembered as a tragic, defeated commander, like Hector or Hannibal.

"Frankfurt is liberated! Long live Germany! Long live Germany!"

The Siege of Frankfurt, which had begun around June 1914. Two years and two months had passed since the first shot was fired. The hell was finally over.

The French army collapsed entirely. The German forces and the Armed Cooperative Alliance now surged forward to "liberate" Belgium from French occupation. The end of this long, grueling war was finally in sight.