Chapter 257: Benevolent Dictator
The advance into Albania was rapid, so rapid one might add that the Guerillas had no time to prepare for the German attack. Panzers swept through every town of the small Balkan nation with precision, German soldiers gunning down the various partisans who stood before them with expert marksmanship.
Or at least those who weren't torn apart by 20mm auto-cannons and 7.92x57mm belt fed machine guns. To say that shock and awe had been accomplished within the opening stages of the so called "Special Military Operation" was an understatement.
Just like in Iraq in 91, and 03, the moment the Albanian guerillas came across the German Panzers, they threw down their weapons and surrendered as it became very apparent within the first hour of combat that they had absolutely no offensive capability against armored vehicles.
Honestly, the Albanian guerillas didn't know what was worse, the unstoppable and rapid tidal wave of steel crashing upon them from all sides, or the bombs that fell from the sky on top of their artillery before the Panzers could even arrive.
Within a matter of twelve hours, the Capital of Albania had fallen, marking what was perhaps one of the quickest conquests of a nation in human history up until this point. With the coasts sealed off and blockaded by the Hellenic, and Austro-Hungarian navies, and the Germans having split up and advanced upon the capital of Albania from all sides.
Any and all rebel leaders of the various factions that had until this moment been fighting for control of the nation were either dead, or rounded up where Bruno made an example of them by having them publically executed via firing squad.
After which he pardoned all guerillas who survived the very brief invasion under one condition. They turn on those who had been involved in fostering dissent within the Austro- Hungarian Balkan territories.
As if starving wolves being consumed by their hunger, and an opportunity to finally engorge themselves to the brink of death by consumption. The rebels quickly ratted one another out, where those guilty were also executed.
Once this was the case, Bruno announced that the so called "Albanian Republic" and the anarchist state it had come to embody was thoroughly abolished, having been an "illegitimate state from the start."
He also stated that he would be Governor Pro tempore until the rightful Prince of Albania could return to restore law and order to the region. Albeit with the aid of Austro-Hungarian Gendarmes acting as an occupying force.
All in all, German casualties in Albania were minimal, zero deaths, and at most ten wounded in action. Leaving Bruno in a position of temporary power over the small Balkan nation, at least over the course of the next few weeks, until Prince Wilhelm Friedrich Heinrich could be rounded up from whatever unit he had joined in the German Army to fight in the war, and sent back to Albania to restore his rule.
At first, Bruno really wanted nothing to do with ruling a nation. He was, after all, a soldier, and he was more concerned with putting down any potential insurrectionist sentiment from the recently pacified Albanian populace than he was actually governing the affairs of the nation.