Re: Blood and Iron

With the League of the Four Emperors established in the Year 1907, Bruno was one step closer to fulfilling all of his goals. Currently, his interests lie outside of work and family was on these ambitions. For example, a joint infrastructure project was announced, partially due to Bruno's connections with his father in the Bundesrat.

Where, after a small fortune was used to bribe the right officials of the Three Empires, Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Russia decided to work on reinforcing and extending their railways. Germany had begun undergoing this effort after Bruno returned from the Russian Civil War, and after a year of working on it, had made some significant progress.

Now Austro-Hungary and Russia wanted in. Which, thanks to the League of Four Nations, was a new possibility. This meant that the Russian Oil Fields could now ship much needed oil and natural gas to their allies in the West. Who no doubt would be taking the brunt of the fighting against the Entente when the Great War Finally Broke out.

This was a major relief for Bruno, firstly because he had yet to really establish ties to Romania where he could coerce them into siding with the League of the Four Emperors, and thus gain access to their oil deposits.

Meanwhile, his efforts to build the necessary infrastructure in German Kamerun were indeed going as planned, but the transport of the oil and natural gas from Africa to Europe required heavily protected convoys to get the job done. And said convoys would be prone to attacks from Entente Naval forces while they were en route, making them a less than a reliable supply of critical resources to continue the war effort.

And while Bruno would continue with these other two alternatives, the very idea that Russian Oil and Natural Gas would flood into Germany and Austro-Hungary via their newfound infrastructure projects, including both railways, and pipelines, made Bruno far less anxious about Germany's oil stockpiles for the future.

But the League of the Four Emperors wasn't the only alliance currently making efforts towards preparing for the upcoming Great War. Italy had in the recent months since the League was formed discovered that the meeting had taken place without them being invited. Seeing this as their previous allies snubbing them, the Italian King decided that the best course of action was to pursue alternative allies, considering the fact that the nations he thought were friendly to him had formed a secret alliance behind his back without even consulting him.

As a result, King Victor Emmanuel III arrived in Paris to meet with the representatives of the French and British Governments. Both of which were growing incredibly anxious about the current state of affairs in Europe. Especially after the Italian King betrayed his former allies and warned them what the Germans were up to.

"It is simply outrageous. We had formed a pact in years past, and yet the Kaiser did not even invite me to this secret meeting held for the sake of forming a military and economic alliance! It is clear to me now that they never wanted Italy to side with them. They were merely taking advantage of my friendly nature and my naivety!"

While the British and French representatives didn't outright say it, they conveyed with their eyes that they were incredibly lucky that the Kaiser had excluded Italy from this secret meeting. As it meant there was one more nation to fight alongside them.