Re: Blood and Iron

Bruno's journey home from Manchuria was as long as his visit to it. But it allowed him to further pursue the friendship he had established with a captain in the German Navy. As a result, he spent the next two months in these efforts.

But two months was a long time, especially in terms of geopolitics. Many things could happen within such a duration, and many things did. Not only had the Russo-Japanese war officially come to an end, with the Empire of Japan gaining significantly more out of it than they had in Bruno's past life. There were also significant events with two other major powers in the current world.

First and foremost, Bruno's actions had moved up the Russian Revolution of 1905. A month after the Russo-Japanese war came to an end in September 1904, while Bruno was still in transit to the fatherland. Lenin returned from his exile in Europe and succeeded in mending the rift between the two major Marxist forces in Russia.

The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks united in a common cause to overthrow the Tsar. And violent revolution had begun in the streets of Saint Petersburg, as well as Moscow and several other major Russian cities.

Numbers swelled from an initial estimate of a few thousand to tens of thousands within the span of weeks. The revolutionary's first major acts of violence, outside of a few riots, were to storm military depots where they seized both the arms and munitions within them for their

-cause.

This was no longer a mere ragtag group of rioters, but well-armed revolutionaries. Whose red banners and armbands gathered the attention of those in the streets most of whom simply hoped for the tide of revolution to end as quickly as possible and with limited bloodshed. Meanwhile, France endured another colonial upset. The local tribes of Madagascar had taken up arms against their masters. And as a result, a young French Colonel was deployed to quell it by any means necessary.

Leon Sinclair had in the years since the Boxer Rebellion attended the prestigious Ecole de guerre-Terre, which was the French Army's take on the Prussian War College. However, unlike Bruno, who graduated after three years with the rank of Generalmajor. Leon graduated after two years at the rank of colonel.

This was his first deployment since the Boxer Rebellion. A conflict where his own personal glory was stolen by a German bastard, incited to act on behalf of the Republic by a traitorous general! Or such was the Revanchist Marxist's own take on what had occurred there.

In fact, he was quite happy about what was happening in Russia. Though he had no means of financially or militarily supporting the Russian communist revolutionaries. Leon supported them morally all the same.

But now was not the time for such concerns. At his own request, the Republic had sent him to Madagascar to put down some pesky natives who had taken up arms in revolt against the French Colonial Empire. And in doing so, murdered a French Sergeant at night while he was sleeping at base. It was a troublesome matter, one which Leon thought little of.

After all, the revolt started because of a variety of factors. Over taxation, execution of locals without a proper trial, repression of religious minorities such as protestants and Muslims, and all the other shit that was common whenever colonialism occurred in a region.