Chapter 196: Germany’s Guardian Angel
Though Bruno had made a great speech about his brother Ludwig being a suitable candidate for the Bundesrat, it was ultimately of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. Frankly put, whether or not Ludwig made a grandstand to vote against the war and protested it as vehemently as possible, it did not matter.
War would be waged, blood would be shed, and millions of young men would die for no reason. Bruno's only hope was that he could spare as much suffering as possible for his fellow countrymen, with whom he would agonize in the upcoming conflict.
And as another year came and went, the Great War became a closer and closer to reality. It did not take long, just as in Bruno's past life, for the Ottoman Empire to admit defeat in the Balkans. They had been thoroughly trounced, and even quicker than Bruno had anticipated, as a result of him indirectly selling arms to the Balkan League.
Just like in Bruno's past life, a second war erupted almost immediately after, as Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria all began to argue over various disputed territories in the region. The war was, as far as Bruno considered, inconsequential in and of itself.
Rather, what the Black Hand would do shortly after its end was a matter he needed to keep an eye on. And Bruno had been quite satisfied with how he had spent the last decade of his life. Over the course of the last ten years, Bruno had made ample preparations for the upcoming war effort.
Whether it came in the form of modernizing and streamlining German field artillery into four different calibers-75mm, 105mm, 150mm, or 210mm-as well as the adoption of a codification of mortars similarly organized into the following calibers: 60mm, 81mm, and
120mm.
Bruno had ensured through these developments that German artillery was sufficiently capable of both defending their own borders as well as raining hell down upon enemy fortifications. In addition, he had adopted a series of flak guns that were more than capable of lasting until the 1950s as efficient means of shooting planes out of the sky.
He had also helped establish the lines of communication between these units and the greater battalions, brigades, divisions, corps, and armies they were combined with. German communications were protected via a series of advanced encryptions made entirely possible by the introduction of the Enigma machine several decades earlier than it otherwise should have been.
All of these things paled compared to what he believed would be the single largest killer on the modern battlefield. The widespread adoption of machine guns and barbed wire were pretty much confirmed to be the two most efficient killers of the war in Bruno's past life.