Re: Blood and Iron

The Siege of Saint Petersburg had come to a sudden and violent conclusion. One that onlookers from abroad were not expecting in the slightest. First and foremost, it was assumed that the city would fall, and with it all of Ingria soon after.

If this had occurred, the Bolsheviks would have stolen a vital port from the Russians and would have been able to receive military aid from foreign interest groups which supported them. But in a rather shocking display of firepower. The 6,000 man strong Iron Brigade almost single-handedly obliterated the enemy with an absurd degree of machine guns.

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It was still an era where machine guns were not adopted by any military other than the major powers. And even then, they were almost always deployed incorrectly, as if they were another artillery piece.

In addition to this, they existed in such limited numbers they had no real effect to change the battlefield. But two things stuck out like a sore thumb to everyone who learned about what happened in Saint Petersburg.

One, machine guns were a far more valuable weapon of war than initially estimated. Two, the use of steel helmets to protect one's skull from shrapnel might actually be an investment worth looking into. Because of this, Bruno had, as he feared sparked an arms race between the major powers of the world.

This was however an arms race, which, unlike the naval arms race waged between the British Empire and the German Reich, that the Germans had a significant advantage of. Having already manufactured thousands of machine guns over the course of the last few years.

So much so that they were able to send 100 machine guns and teams that knew how to operate them abroad. The result of which was clear enough for everyone to see. But the more important effect of this battle was the fact that Leon Trotsky's death had made him a martyr in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, and those who were sympathetic to their cause.

The death of Leon Trotsky was painted as an abuse of power by the Tsar and his foreign volunteers who according to Bolshevik propaganda were ravenous savages who had needlessly massacred the Red Army at Saint Petersburg, and executed the prisoners they gained. And in doing so, accusing them of War Crimes.

There was only one problem with this line of thinking. Neither the Iron Brigade nor the Red Army were state actors. And because of this, they were neither protected by the conventions of the Hauge nor obligated to abide by its rules.

In fact, rules of war were generally easy to skirt around due to the specific language within them. And this was a time when the Rules of War were even more loosely defined as the Geneva conventions which firmly solidified the concept into international law had yet to be established.