Chapter 442: On the March Again
It had been years since the French Republic collapsed and entered a state of poverty, anarchy and war. But today, for better or worse, France breathed again. The Gallian Militia had finally seized the last holdout of the nation’s largest province.
Corpses of revolutionaries lie dead in the streets in the countryside as Paris stood in the distance, more ravaged and weary than prideful and jubilant. But to the people who had endured, who had lived through the pain and suffering, like the French soldiers wearing their old uniforms now stained with mud, blood, and oil beyond recognition. They didn’t truly celebrate in recognition of this victory.
Rather, they smoked cigarettes and cracked open wine as they lamented the cost of it. Whether it was the two brutal and bloody years of the Great War, or the following two years of civil war and anarchy.
Paris had been liberated, and the countryside outside its gates was in a similar state. Meanwhile, militias across the country had done the same. France was beginning to see some form of order rebuilt from the ashes of the Third Republic.
But while these loosely connected militias had wiped out what remained of the French reds, there was a new problem to face.
Various "strongmen" like Charles de Gaulle had risen to prominence among these differing groups, none specifically bound by any particular ideology or obligation, simply a desire to restore order to the lawless and chaotic French homeland.
Some were sneering imperialist types, others were hardcore liberals with a patriotic sense of duty, while there were those who felt the military, or what remained of it should be in charge of the nation and its people.
The French Monarchy had failed under the Bourbons, and what remained of the Royal Bloodline had long since fled the country. Either during the Reign of Terror, or whatever the hell this madness that befell the Republic after it had collapsed under the weight of its own hubris.
As for Marxism, and all of its derivatives? Simply gaze upon the ashes of Paris and the million dead souls within it, and your answer for whether or not it was a suitable ideology lies with them.
The violence it began with Marxist revolutionaries taking advantage of a collapsing state, one that was already in a state of Crisis from the Great War, and it had transcended into something so brutal, even Bruno wept when he learned of what had happened to Versailles.
Figuratively speaking of course, but it was a propaganda piece that was painted by a particularly pro-German French "newspaper" showing the "Wolf of Prussia" having a single tear of blood drop down his cheeks as he and his men withdrew from Paris as part of the treaty’s stipulations.
There were a large number of French Veterans who were once treated well by the Germans as prisoners of war had condemned the notions of Revanchism for the bloody fate of the Republic, and the senseless slaughter it brought on. But they were forced to flee the country long ago.
And it was a sentiment de Gaulle had thought nothing but of as he watched the nation bleed before him time and time again. The truth was, the Germans had treated him well during his time as Prisoner of War, that and his men as well.