Operation Guillotine
Is it actually possible to eliminate the leadership of several great powers simultaneously in one fell swoop? Even for the United States, the undisputed global superpower of the twenty-first century, this would be an impossible feat. If one were to draft a somewhat realistic plan, it would be something like a bombing when everyone from the president to the members of Congress are gathered in one place. Otherwise, precisely striking various leaders scattered across different locations is next to impossible.
"Are there about twenty people on the list? We just need to get three of the big fish! Just three of the big ones!"
The Kaiser, Shtal, and Hitler. Eliminating just one of these three would paralyze the state, if only temporarily. Of course, even if they failed to take out the two who served as Austria's brain, there was always the option of assassinating the figures who acted as its limbs—such as Party Leader Viktor Adler or Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Even if the brain remains intact, a body without limbs is bound to fall into a groggy state.
"P-please, just let us get one of them...! Please!"
But for Serbia, this was not a matter of possibility or impossibility. If they failed, their country would ruin. Did they say that if you desire something desperately enough, the entire universe will conspire to help you? At any rate, the moment Operation Guillotine was launched by the Yugoslavian Black Hand!
When even focusing all resources on a single target was barely enough to guarantee success, attempting to assassinate multiple high-profile figures simultaneously across the continent was, from the very beginning, nothing short of Führer Apis's delusion. The probability of success converged to absolute zero.
"We've apprehended a suspicious bastard in the imperial palace!"
"What?"
"He doesn't speak a word of German and only knows Serbian, so he must be..."
Naturally, the vast majority of the assassins were caught beforehand without even getting the chance to pull a trigger. And even if they somehow succeeded in pulling it, whether the bullet would actually hit the target was an entirely different story.
"S-Stalin, you bastard! In the name of Serbia... cough, ack!"
The Black Hand agent who attempted to snipe Stalin was effortlessly brought down by the Agricultural Cooperative Revolutionary Guard partisans surrounding him.
"Um... Commander Stalin, there was an assassin who tried to shoot you..."
"Feed him to the dogs. It's not like these annoying flies are a rare occurrence."
It wasn't just Stalin. The Black Hand agent who tried to assassinate Hitler, the head of the Hungarian Agricultural Cooperative, was surrounded by the fanatical cooperative members guarding him and beaten so severely that his face was left unrecognizable.
The situation was not much different for the Black Hand agents dispatched to France to assassinate Freud and Lenin. Hitler, Stalin, Freud, Lenin! If the assassinations of the Shtal faction—who were entirely surrounded by fanatical loyalists—failed, the aftermath was all too predictable.
"...What? Does this make any sense?"
"But looking at what has just transpired..."
January 11, 1913. Shtal could not believe his eyes even as he read the reports of what had occurred.
These bastards are completely out of their minds!
Serbia had indeed run wild. However, it was in a manner that even Shtal had not anticipated. These lunatics had attempted a mass assassination campaign targeting the members of the Shtal faction.
Did you really think that would work, you idiots?
Shtal himself had just survived an assassination attempt. The execution had been laughably crude. On his way to the office, a lunatic wielding a knife had charged his carriage. At first, he thought it was just a random madman, but when they tried to question him, the man couldn't speak a single word of German. Who else could it be but a Serb?
"Is anyone hurt?"
"First of all, the attempt on His Majesty the Emperor was thwarted before it could even begin. Archduke Franz Ferdinand is also safe."
However... no matter how sloppy the plan was, once they decided to push through with sheer numbers, the probability of success was not absolutely zero. Shtal hastily dispatched his men to check on the safety of his people and see if anyone had been harmed.
"V-Vice Chairman Shtal! Chairman Wittgenstein has...!"
Chairman Wittgenstein had been attacked. Because he was already terminally ill with cancer and on his deathbed, his security had not been as tight as it should have been. A Black Hand agent disguised as a nurse had stabbed him.
"..."
"Ha... haha. Vice Chairman Shtal. I... I thought I would die of cancer. Well, I'll be. Who would have thought I'd go out from being stabbed by a nurse?"
By some miracle, the blade had missed his heart, so he had not died instantly. However, Chairman Wittgenstein's body was already severely weakened by cancer. The chances of his survival were practically zero.
"Dr. Landsteiner is on his way. Though you've lost a lot of blood... Dr. Landsteiner has a newly developed blood transfusion method."
"D-don't waste your efforts. I am a dying man anyway."
I bit my lip hard. This was my mistake. Had I grown complacent because I had the most notorious monsters of world history, Hitler and Stalin, under my wing? No matter how insane the Serbs were, I never dreamed they would pull a stunt like this.
Let's look back at original history. No matter how much of a ticking time bomb it was, who would have thought Germany would violate the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and invade the Soviet Union? That was Stalin's mistake in the original history. No matter how hard they were hit by the oil embargo, who would have thought Japan would wage war against the world's greatest superpower? That was Roosevelt's mistake in the original history.
In other words, no matter how impossible it seems, a group of unhinged extremists is capable of absolutely anything. I had treated those Serbian bastards with too much common sense.
"S-still, I am glad you were here, Shtal. I was happy because of you."
"Chairman, please don't say that. It is because of you that I was able to come this far."
"Ha... haha. What do you mean, 'Chairman'? I am your father-in-law. Wouldn't 'Father' be, cough, more appropriate?"
"...Father."
Hearing those words, Wittgenstein smiled warmly.
"If... if someone had to die, it is only right that it is me. I am on borrowed time anyway. Use my death as a stepping stone to expand the business. D-declare war on Serbia."
I hung my head, unable to find the words to speak. Chairman Wittgenstein slowly closed his eyes and murmured.
"Take care of Margarete and Ludwig... I must go now, to see my two sons who went before me."
"Father!"
"Do not grieve too much. After all, is there not a heavy burden resting upon your shoulders?"
And so, Chairman Wittgenstein's life came to an end. As I stared at his closed eyes in utter devastation, my secretary leaned in and whispered to me.
"Um, Vice Chairman. I have to report that there are other casualties."
"Who is it?"
"Sophie, Duchess Sophie and Archduke Otto were also attacked. It is reported that both died instantly at the scene."
"Ha... ah."
My mind went blank, and I slumped back into my chair.
"We are going to the Russian legation. Right now."
"The Russian legation, sir?"
"It's war. I am going to wipe Yugoslavia and those Black Hand scum off the face of this earth. But before that, we must notify the backers behind those pieces of trash."
Yes. Just as Wittgenstein had said in his final moments, I carried a heavy burden on my shoulders. Without even having time to grieve, I headed to the Russian legation. However, going there yielded little information. The Russian legation itself was in utter chaos.
"Currently, the Russian legation is unable to conduct any diplomatic affairs."
"Why is that?"
"Well... an urgent dispatch from our homeland..."
The legation staff were gripped by a panic even greater than Shtal's.
"His Imperial Majesty... has passed away."
Tsar Nicholas II had been blown to pieces by a bomb thrown by the Black Hand. Pushing aside the grief of losing my loved ones, I could not hide my sheer bewilderment at this impossible turn of events. What on earth... was happening to Europe?
January 11, 1913. Along with Chairman Wittgenstein, who had anchored the economy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Agricultural Cooperative, Duchess Sophie and Archduke Otto were assassinated. Chairman Wittgenstein had been stabbed by an assassin disguised as a nurse, Duchess Sophie had been poisoned, and Archduke Otto had been shot dead at a party.
It was an incredibly cold-hearted assessment, but it was a relief that not a single key political figure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had actually been killed. Not to mention the Kaiser and Shtal, but also Hitler of the Hungarian Agricultural Cooperative, Archduke Karl and Commander Stalin of the Bosnian Agricultural Cooperative, Lenin and Freud in France, and even Viktor Adler of the Social Democratic Workers' Party. There was virtually no risk of the state falling into a groggy state due to the deaths of its leadership, as Serbia had intended.
Russia, however, was a different story.
"We have to do something about the Russian Tsar as well. Because of that bastard, didn't we end up handing over Albania in that ridiculous treaty?"
"True. Since things have come to this, we will complete the national revolution of Russia."
With that, Serbia sent orders to the Russian National Revolutionary Party.
Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, who had been roaming the Russian steppes with the Cossacks, hunting down communists and decapitating exiles, immediately went into action upon receiving the order from the National Revolutionary International.
"Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, partisan commander of the Russian National Revolutionary Party, requests an audience with His Imperial Majesty."
"Ah, yes. For what reason have you requested this audience?"
"I have a gift to present to Your Imperial Majesty."
Ungern-Sternberg had requested an audience with the Tsar under the guise of National Revolutionary Party business. Believing that he had complete control over the National Revolutionary Party, the Tsar readily granted the audience and soon found himself face-to-face with Ungern-Sternberg.
"A gift? What is it?"
"It is the very essence of the national revolution."
"...What?"
Seeing Ungern-Sternberg's chilling smile, the Tsar instantly sensed that something was terribly wrong. In the next moment, Ungern-Sternberg hurled a bomb at the Tsar, who was standing barely five paces away.
"Die, you traitor to the national revolution!"
BOOM!
A deafening explosion tore through the Tsar's office. The blast was so intense that half of Ungern-Sternberg's face, which had caught the direct heat of the explosion, was practically melted. What, then, of the Tsar who had taken the brunt of the bomb? There was not even enough of his body left to recover.
"Commander!"
"I... I am fine. Hehehe. Summon my cavalry."
Truly, there was no one better suited to assassinate the Tsar than Ungern-Sternberg. He was the most ambitious man in the Russian Empire, and among them, the most proactive and half-mad. Even if one were to search the entire world, let alone Russia, the only person capable of going to greater extremes than Führer Apis was Ungern-Sternberg.
"Y-your burns are severe. We must treat them first..."
"Shut up! The revolution is right before our eyes. A commander abandoning his post at a time like this? Unacceptable!"
Ungern-Sternberg summoned his Cossack cavalry, the very men who had been decapitating communists, into St. Petersburg. They began to run amok in the city center, indiscriminately slaughtering Russian citizens without distinguishing friend from foe.
"Summon every member of the Russian National Revolutionary Party! We seize the State Duma, the State Council, and the Imperial Palace!"
"We have captured Tsarevich Aleksei!"
"He is a hemophiliac, so tell them not to lay a single finger on him!"
While Roman von Ungern-Sternberg turned St. Petersburg into a bloodbath by slaughtering its citizens, members of the National Revolutionary Party swiftly seized control of Russia's key state institutions. Due to the Tsar's past blunders, National Revolutionary Party members had already been embedded throughout various government bodies, making the takeover remarkably easy.
Furthermore, the year 1913 marked the Romanov Tercentenary. Because of the preparations for the jubilee celebrations, the majority of the imperial family had gathered in the capital, making it simple for the Cossack cavalry to round them all up.
Of course, having assassinated the Tsar and slaughtered citizens, they possessed absolutely no legitimacy. The country was bound to split in two, and St. Petersburg might find itself besieged, waiting only for its doom. Upon hearing the news from St. Petersburg, the nobility and the military were already mobilizing nearby divisions to surround and march on the capital.
"Commander Ungern-Sternberg! Prime Minister Vladimir Kokovtsov has escaped the capital and is marching back with other divisions!"
"Damn it, how did they let him slip?! Hold out just a little longer. If we can endure just a bit more, the odds will be in our favor!"
Ungern-Sternberg's judgment was not incorrect. First, he declared a state of general mobilization. Soon, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would wage war against Serbia. Both as a member of the National Revolutionary International and as the protector of the Slavic peoples, Russia was duty-bound to aid Yugoslavia. And if they did?
"The moment we declare general mobilization, the German Empire will also declare war on us. There is no way France and Britain will sit idly by."
"Then...?"
"First, we crown the hemophiliac Aleksei as Tsar. We will use the war as an opportunity to compromise with the feudal forces."
War has a way of overshadowing all other matters. This was especially true for a great war to end all wars. And this was a truth that applied not only to Shtal and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.