The Sacred Band of the Empire
The official name the government gave to this incident was the Imperial Military Court Riot. Words decide everything. These men had not risen under the noble banner of "republicanism." It was a riot, instigated by a handful of extremists, to "plunder" the state. Of course, the vast majority of the Imperial military leadership was connected to it. Still, we couldn't allow the Imperial Army itself—the very force that would defend the empire in the future—to take a fatal blow, could we? And yet...
"W-what on earth is this...!"
"This guy was my division commander back when I was doing my military service. Unbelievable..."
"With a package that small, where did he get the balls to pull something like this?"
Nude photographs of the military leadership were leaked to every single media outlet. Stahl had been preparing to deal with Hötzendorf one way or another, but... these damn naked photos threw an unexpected wrench into his plans. The display was so utterly ridiculous and pathetic that the Imperial Army, which was supposed to be the shield of the empire, now looked like some sort of deviant comedy troupe!
He tried his best to suppress the distribution of the images, but... the photos were so shocking that they spread through the press like wildfire. Austria-Hungary was still a strictly Catholic empire. No matter how much romanticism or liberal sentiment had spread, this was the first time naked photos had been printed so blatantly in the newspapers. Ah, let me correct that. It was the first time—excluding the time Archduke Otto ran amok naked in hotels and on the streets.
To make matters worse, the military leaders didn't even wear the dignified expressions typical of men who had attempted a grand coup. How should one put it... They looked like they had just been caught red-handed in a brothel raid. Or perhaps, like a teenage boy caught by his mother in the middle of doing "business" while looking at dirty pictures.
"Bwahahaha!"
"What are these guys doing?"
"While the Imperial soldiers were out fighting, were these bastards having some kind of gay orgy in here?"
"Ugh, disgusting. Why on earth is this guy wearing a flour sack over his head?"
"They must have been doing some weird roleplay. Look at the guy right next to him with his pants off."
"Hmm... is he playing a beggar?"
The photos even reached the Imperial soldiers who had accidentally participated in the rebellion and were currently detained in the holding cells. Upon seeing the images, the soldiers looked utterly devastated, as if they had lost everything in the world. Or they wore expressions of demonic, murderous rage.
"Representative Stahl isn't even kidnapped! He's perfectly fine!"
"Those sons of bitches! While we were choking on tear gas and crawling on the floor, they were pulling this kind of crap?"
"There's no way they were actually partying. But... seeing them try to escape stark naked while we were dying is just... pathetic."
"What... what did I even fight for...?"
The soldiers mobilized for the rebellion would never forget their hatred for the Imperial Army leadership. The military judicial authorities, suddenly faced with thousands of criminals, could not handle such a massive influx. Consequently, after a brief detention, the soldiers were all released under a suspension of indictment, without even being discharged.
"Are we not getting dishonorably discharged?"
"No. Go back and do your duty."
"But... I don't want to serve in the military anymore. I'd rather you force me out."
"Don't you still have six months left before your discharge? We still have an enemy called Russia. To atone for what you've done, shouldn't you fight even harder?"
Though they escaped criminal punishment, their honor had taken a fatal blow all the same. Had they not been fooled by a bunch of naked rioters? Even after they were discharged, they would surely be the laughingstock of the empire for years to come. In the public eye, the incident was already being called the "Imperial Army Naked Commotion" or the "Imperial Army Underpants Run" rather than its official name, the "Imperial Military Court Riot." Jokes were even spreading that the official uniform of the Imperial Army consisted of nothing but a pair of underpants.
"...I'm worried, sir."
"About what?"
"Even if we return to our units... our comrades will never let us live this down. Because of us, the Imperial Army is being called the 'Underpants Legion' and the 'Thebes Brotherly Love Legion'!"
"That... is indeed a problem. I will make a suggestion to the higher-ups."
Thus, the Imperial soldiers who had been dragged into the rebellion were all returned to active duty and reorganized into a single regiment. It was unavoidable that they were handed a collective punishment of a one-year extension of their military service—a horrific penalty unimaginable to any conscript... But this was the early 20th century, an era where old-world notions of honor still lingered. Duel culture even persisted covertly within the empire. To restore their honor, a mere one-year extension was a cheap price to pay!
And so, the offenders were organized into a single regiment. The battalion commanders assigned to them were none other than Manstein, Guderian, and Walter Model, who had all distinguished themselves in suppressing the riot! Then, who would be the regimental commander?
"I am Erwin Rommel, veteran of the Alsace-Lorraine front."
After Ludendorff crushed France, the repatriation of prisoners of war began. And Erwin Rommel, who had endured all kinds of hardships in a POW camp, had finally returned! Rommel belonged to the German army, but with the Kaiser already ousted, what did that matter? With the permission of his comrade-in-arms, Ludendorff, he came to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
"It has only been two weeks since I came to Austria from Germany... but rumors of your exploits have already reached Berlin."
"..."
"Berlin? Ha! The rumors had spread all the way to my POW camp! They say you're an elite force that practices 'brotherly love' just like the Sacred Band of Thebes in ancient Greece, willing to throw away your lives to protect your lovers! Hahaha!"
Regimental Commander Rommel's mockery instantly sent the soldiers' morale plummeting. Most of them hung their heads in unbearable shame, even as their commander delivered his address.
"Yes, the world calls you the warriors of Thebes. Even within the Imperial Army, you are already known as the Thebes Regiment. Breaking that image won't be easy. Therefore, you have only one path left. Fight with your lives on the line for your freedom and the restoration of your honor! Achieve such glorious deeds that the world will never dare mock you again!"
The soldiers of the Thebes Regiment gritted their teeth, their tightly clenched fists trembling. A total of 4,500 remaining rebel soldiers. The so-called "Thebes Regiment." They would become the most elite regiment in the entire Imperial Army.
"Wake up! Wake up!"
"Get your lazy asses out here!"
"You lazy bastards... It's because your minds are so soft that you got tricked by those aristocratic officers!"
The non-commissioned officers of the Thebes Regiment beat the soldiers awake on their cots with wooden batons. They, too, were NCOs who had participated in the rebellion. If anyone's honor had been dragged through the mud, it was theirs, far more than the common soldiers'. They began to train the men like devils straight from hell.
"Russia is vast! Forget whatever marching you've done before! We must traverse the plains of Belarus and Ukraine on our own two feet! Therefore, starting today, we will begin one-hundred-kilometer march training! Any complaints?"
"None, sir!"
"Pack your rations and tents! We depart this afternoon!"
They began a grueling training regimen that would put modern special forces to shame. Before long, they would be deployed to Russia. The concept of "special forces" had not yet been formally established. While elite soldiers performing specialized roles—like Germany's shocktroopers, snipers, partisans, or hydrogen suicide bombers—certainly existed, and had since the Napoleonic Wars, a true "special forces" unit in the modern sense, capable of taking on dozens of enemies single-handedly and throwing away their lives for a mission, did not yet exist. Though the majority of the Thebes Regiment consisted of nothing more than ordinary soldiers, their modern physical conditioning, brutal training, and ample nutrition would soon forge them into the most elite soldiers in the world.
"Why did you do it...?"
"I suppose my death is truly inevitable now. Will you put me in the electric chair like Apis and those Serbian bastards?"
"No. I have no intention of doing that."
"Then will you let me live?"
"You must still take responsibility."
"Haha, indeed. I'd rather die. I might as well have died in that underground bunker anyway. Isn't that right? Stahl, was my death already sealed the moment I got involved with you?"
I treated Hötzendorf, the most formidable nemesis I had encountered recently, with as much courtesy as possible. A man who was unimaginably incompetent when fighting external enemies, but unimaginably competent when fighting his own people. He was so capable that it was almost a shame he was a soldier. Or was it? Perhaps it was a blessing that he was merely a soldier. As Chief of the General Staff, Hötzendorf was manageable. But as a politician, field officer, strategist, conspirator, or administrator... this man would have achieved greatness in any field, so long as it wasn't Chief of the General Staff. Perhaps the reason he had risen to Chief of the General Staff and held the position for so long, despite his lack of military talent, was because his other skills were so overwhelmingly superior. I wondered if I should be harsher on him, but... it seemed he had already paid his dues with that ridiculous naked scandal. Sensing the slight pity in my eyes, Hötzendorf nodded, looking like a man who had completely resigned himself to his fate.
"Stop looking at me with those eyes. ...I see it now. I was wrong."
"Yes, you were."
"I was truly... incompetent."
"That's not true."
"No, it is. I had the ability to make decisions that could change everything. I was prepared to cast aside my family, my title, and my honor. But jealousy and hatred... those were not so easy to discard."
Hötzendorf leaned back comfortably in his chair, his hostility entirely gone.
"Indeed. But didn't you sacrifice countless soldiers with those absurd frontal assaults?"
"Try being Chief of the General Staff yourself. If you want to produce results with soldiers who can't even understand your language, a frontal charge is the only answer."
"That's just an excuse."
"Hahaha, is it? I suppose so. If you had been Chief of the General Staff... you would have used whatever tricks necessary to overhaul the Imperial Army."
"Even I wasn't confident in doing that. That's why I created the Revolutionary Guard, wasn't it?"
"True enough."
Come to think of it, we had been at odds ever since the Great War first broke out, yet Hötzendorf and I had never sat down to talk like this. At first, I had entered his solitary cell feeling incredibly tense. Hötzendorf, too, would surely have received me with a sharp edge. But as an old-world general who had shown his own brand of competence, we shared a strange sort of understanding. Would it feel like this if Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi had been close in private? After all, Cao Cao and Liu Bei, who would later become mortal enemies, still shared a friendly private relationship at one point.
"In any case, I'm sorry."
"For what? For sending all those soldiers to their deaths with absurd strategies?"
"Ah, I am sorry for that too... but that's not something I need to apologize to you for."
"Then what?"
"Scipio was able to leave his name in history only because Hannibal existed. But I am not of Hannibal's caliber. Besides, didn't I put on a pathetic display just to survive?"
"If you had succeeded, it would have been a massive headache for me."
"Yes. If I had escaped this time, I already had a next plan, and a plan after that, all lined up."
Whether as the Chief of the General Staff or the leader of a rebel army... let's just forget about all of that. At the very least, his final showing was quite Hannibal-esque, wasn't it?
"Will you grant me one last wish?"
"What is it?"
"Compared to the other idiots, fighting me was at least a bit of a challenge, wasn't it?"
"That is true."
"Make me out to be like Hector of Troy, Hannibal of Carthage, or Pompey of Rome. That wouldn't be a bad deal for you either, would it?"
As expected of a politician who could rival Sima Yi. Surely, Hötzendorf hadn't staged that ridiculous naked commotion just to set up a board like this... right? Putting on an eyesore of a display to drag down the remaining Imperial Army with him, forcing me to elevate his honor to save face for the military. No, surely not...
"I was already preparing to do just that."
"Thank you."
When I executed Führer Apis, I did so by exposing his personal life in meticulous detail for the history books. I stripped away his persona as a grand villain and highlighted Apis the ordinary man, Apis the lunatic. Hötzendorf would be treated differently. He was cunning, base, and militarily incompetent, but portraying him as a worthy adversary who gave me several good scares would be just right. A picaresque crime drama starring Hötzendorf was already scheduled for release.
"I originally planned to portray you in a comical light, General. But because of that damn naked scandal, you've become so ridiculous that the honor of the entire Imperial Army is sinking into the abyss!"
"Hahaha! Consider it my parting gift."
"In any case... you will ascend the gallows in three days. Farewell."
"Yes. Keep up the good work."