Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 185: The Balkan Wars Begin



To say that Germany had made preparations that would astonish their rival powers on the global stage would be the most severe understatement of the century. After extensive testing and trial by error, the Type XXI U-Boat was finally launched.

Or should I say it was an improved variation of the world's first submarine designed to primarily operate underwater? The first of the months following the completion of the mechanical computerized targeting system, which was arguably the hardest part of the U- Boat to develop.

With the submarine's hull being manufactured via pre-fabricated sections, Bruno had managed to streamline the process to where it took a mere 90 days on average to fully commission a single U-Boat. And considering his shipyards in Danzig and Hamburg were capable of producing multiple submarines at once, this meant that every three months, the German Navy received a dozen or so U-Boats per shipyard.

At most, Bruno's shipyards could produce roughly fifty U-Boats a year. Due to Germany's limited coastline, he only had two shipyards, albeit they were significant in size and scale. So much so that each shipyard could produce a dozen U-Boats every three months and half a dozen destroyers every five months.

In addition to this, Bruno's other factories were manufacturing every component that went into these vessels, including munitions and targeting computers. These targeting computers could also be retrofitted onto existing warships of any size and scale.

The reason Bruno had focused on U-Boats and destroyers was twofold: one, he had to start shipyards from scratch, which was a years-long process in and of itself; two, there were only so many vessels he could build in a single year.

When it came to winning the war, protecting maritime trade, and destroying rival merchant ships on the high seas was an easy route to victory, especially if he could freely attack enemy shipping and protect his own with relative impunity.

Sure, such vessels could also be employed in fleet battles to great effect, but at the end of the day, it was a matter of perspective. Perhaps if his family had already been invested in naval endeavors when he was born, producing more state-of-the-art battleships and cruisers would be a route to victory.

But ultimately, he had come from an army family, and because of this, Bruno had limited time and resources to establish the best naval assets he could, hence why he had gone for U- Boats and destroyers.

Speaking of the new destroyers, they had already launched several of such ships. And while they were decades more advanced than their rivals on the sea, such vessels were small and overlooked by the enemy, as in this era, the dreadnought was the most prestigious vessel.

Hence, despite being far more than just a torpedo boat and instead a dedicated destroyer of which there were only a limited number of such warships in existence today, the British Empire and the French Republic paid little attention to the Zerstörer 1911 class of vessels.

Something that would prove to be a major and costly oversight on their part. But Bruno paid little attention to the naval arms race that was still taking place, as maritime warfare was something he had a very limited impact on.

No, the war on the land and in the skies was his expertise, and hence why he was so focused on the Balkans as the new year came around. Italy had demolished the Ottoman Army in North Africa with record speed,

Prompting multiple armed insurrections to occur across the Ottoman territories that they still held within European lands-insurrections supported by the Balkan League, a union of the Eastern Orthodox kingdoms of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, all of whom wanted the Turks out of Europe once and for all.

Bruno cared little for the Balkans other than the role they needed to play in shaping the coming century. But if there was one grievance he had about how things had settled in the area during the course of his past life, it was that the Greeks, for various reasons, had failed to utilize the opportunity presented to them during the first half of the century to reclaim Constantinople.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Because of this, Bruno had decided to bless them with a gift in this new timeline, one that only he would know he had given them. Sitting in his office, drinking from a cup of coffee, Bruno read the latest reports of what was transpiring in the Balkans.

The First Balkan War was on the verge of breaking out, as the Ottomans had begun scrambling troops to the region in the hopes of suppressing the ongoing revolts by the native Europeans who had been under their thumb for far too long.

Bruno had decided that now was the perfect time to advance the Orthodox interests in the region, particularly in reclaiming Constantinople-something that, while not resulting from the Balkan Wars, could be gained from the end of the coming Great War for the Greeks, should Bruno play his hand correctly.

And because of this, the man had a sinister sneer on his face as he commented on what was about to happen within the ancient Roman city, all because of his own machinations.

"I'm sorry, Mehmed, but it would appear that I need to make you a martyr in order to galvanize the Ottomans against the Imperial Powers... After all, Constantinople belongs to Christianity, and you Turks have occupied our holy city for far too long..."

After Heidi weaponized German intelligence against the Black Hand, what remained of their leadership went underground. Bruno had no way of knowing it, but his wife had bought him some valuable time.

Sure, they were plotting against the Habsburgs, but their means of actually lashing out were diminished by the casualties they had sustained in recent months, especially with the death of Apis, who was a major figure among their ranks.

And now, the Balkan Wars had more or less begun, with the Balkan League supplying rebels in those few European regions still under Ottoman control. And while nobody knew it, Bruno also supplied these movements with black-market German arms via unofficial channels.

It was because of this that today, January 27th, 1912, a remarkable event was about to occur, one that would shake the world altogether, and it happened in the streets of Constantinople. Currently, Sultan Mehmed V was stuck in traffic, his motorcade held up by a mixture of automobiles imported from the German Reich and horse carriages used by the people of the Ottoman capital. He thought nothing of the unusual traffic, as he cursed to his driver about the whole ordeal.

"For Allah's sake, can you please do something about this peasant rabble which has us boxed in these streets? Do they not know I could have their heads removed for this insolence?" The driver wanted to mention that the Sultan was no longer an autocrat after what happened a few years prior, and how he no longer possessed the power to just kill people as he pleased. But the moment he opened his mouth, a bullet flew through his windshield and the gaping hole where the words were about to escape from.

Gunfire crackled only after the shot had been made, and it was not just a single round; rather, several shots fired off in the distance. Various automatic weapons sprayed the motorcade and those who sat inside it.

The shots came from the carbines within the hands of various men, garbed in civilian clothing; the only distinction between them and the people on the streets, who had begun to panic, scream, and run amok as a result of the ongoing chaos, were the black bandanas concealing their facial features.

Bandanas that were crudely painted with a Chi Rho. They made use of Mauser C96 automatic carbines, the same overall design that Bruno's Iron Division used as a replacement for dedicated submachine guns during the Russian Civil War nearly a decade prior.

These weapons had long since entered the international black market and were favored by both revolutionary groups and gangsters alike due to their compact design, detachable twenty-round magazine, and supreme rate of fire, which were ideal in urban settings such as

this.

The attackers had deployed from the cars which surrounded the Sultan's motorcade and began opening fire before anybody could figure out what was happening, mag dumping their bullets into the cars and the bodies of those inside.

It was only after spraying multiple magazines' worth of ammunition from each assailant that

they opened the doors to the vehicles to confirm the status of their target. And as expected, Sultan Mehmed V lay dead in his car, his body riddled with bullets, and his facial expression conveying his shock at his swift and decisive end.

Once the attackers had confirmed the death of the Sultan, they ran off as quickly as they had come, getting back in their cars and driving down the road, leaving the Sultan and his motorcade in a completely disastrous state.

This event would officially spark the Balkan Wars in this timeline, and in doing so, permanently sour relations between the German Reich and the Ottoman Empire. While the Kaiser would deny any involvement in the assassination of the Ottoman Sultan, including the selling of weapons to the Balkan revolutionaries,

The Ottoman Empire would still hold Germany responsible for the weapons used by the Balkan League and the extremists who sought to restore Christian rule over Constantine's city, and in doing so, no doubt would be joining the Allied Powers when the Great War finally

arrived.