Chapter 414: The Price of Order
Contrasting with the battles being waged in France, Austria was calm and quiet. Nearly half a year of violence had scarred its landscape, spearheaded by the Werwolf Brigade. The rot had been systematically cut out from the nation and burned away in the fire of war.
Austria now stood strong. Its military assets had been reorganized under the crown of the Habsburgs, its soldiers given proper treatment for the horrors that plagued their minds and the drugs that had ravaged their bodies. The banners of the Archduchy now flowed proudly through the streets of Vienna as tanks and armored vehicles rolled through like conquering heroes returning from a decade-long campaign in the ancient East.
But the infamous Werwolf Brigade and its dreaded banners were nowhere to be seen.
They remained at the borders—baring their fangs at the lands of Saint Stephen. Hungary and the Balkans could feel the weight of a true apex predator watching from the hills, waiting for the moment to strike.
Fear was a powerful motivator, especially for those who had watched their betters in the wealthiest and most developed parts of the Dual Monarchy fall to blood and iron at the hands of wolves disguised as men. And now those same wolves sat mere kilometers away, their leash slipping with each passing day.
Such monsters could not be allowed to enter the Balkans. Militias and national armies began to gather at Austria’s borders, hoping to drive the wolves back into their den.
And yet, amid the buildup, a voice of reason pierced through the madness—a voice far more dangerous than war drums. Bruno von Zehntner, in a move that shocked diplomats across Europe, announced that if the peoples of the Balkans could hold peaceful referendums within the next three months to determine their own fates and future borders, he would relinquish his and his family’s claim over the Grand Principality of Transylvania in perpetuity. The people, he said, would be the first to determine who would rule them.
Few understood that this had been Bruno’s goal all along. The gesture of "selfless" diplomacy was a calculated maneuver—an elegant trap. In offering peace and liberty, Bruno compelled the Habsburgs to take the bait.
Transylvania had been a gift from the dynasty to the man who had avenged their honor, who had led the coalition army that dismantled Serbia and answered the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife with fire and steel. Now, to see it relinquished—given back—was a symbolic rebuke of their failures. It was a gesture that said: "This is how you fix your mess."
And in return for such a noble act, Bruno would demand something else.