Chapter 196: Germany's Guardian Angel

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.

Bruno often wondered in his past life how the man who invented barbed wire for the purpose of containing cattle would react had he known that his creation would one day be used as one of the single most devastating instruments of war-a device that helped contribute to the deaths of millions of young men.

But those deaths would only be compounded in scale as Bruno had introduced a far more effective machine gun, one that, if need be, could be entirely operated by a single man. The biggest problem facing machine gun crews during the Great War was that their weapons were entirely static.

It required significant effort to move them; an entire team of men had to disassemble the weapon and carry it to the next position. It simply was not feasible as a mobile weapon and could not reasonably be used in an assault.

However, when Bruno gazed upon the papers his wife handed him, he was well and truly shocked. He was quick to check the numbers repeatedly before asking the question on his

mind.

"Are these figures accurate?"

The tone in his voice was one of absolute severity, as if, should his wife lie to him about what he was witnessing, he would be very angry with her, but she simply smirked smugly before leaning over the desk and grabbing hold of her husband's tie, where she dragged him in close to her before whispering her answer.

"Of course they are... I always told you I would do my best to help you... You have been rambling on about the Great War that is to come for some time, and until now, I could never help you or ease your constant worries. But what about now, my love, did I do good? Was I finally able to help alleviate at least in part the massive burden you constantly carry on your shoulders?"

Bruno forced himself away from his wife's controlling grip, instead placing the folder down, which contained the information that had so stunned him, all the while he himself grasped her wrists, pulling her into his arms as he hugged her tightly and kissed her on the lips, before responding to her question with an answer she had been longing for.

"Heidi, my love, you may have just saved the lives of a million young men... Words cannot express how thankful I am for all that you have done for me this past year..."

What Bruno said was revealed by the folder and the contents that lay openly on display, as he

had not shut it when he placed it down upon his desk. Heidi had been hard at work using her charity and Bruno's connections to recruit over a hundred thousand trained nurses and doctors for the sake of the upcoming war.

She had also been stockpiling medicine in near-unquantifiable figures, as well as any other medical supplies that were necessary. Among these massive reserves was a newly invented medicine that Bruno's largest pharmaceutical company had only recently finalized the development of, one that had been in the process of creation since 1903.

Penicillin, the life changing anti-biotic, was on the list of most sought after medical treatments on the litany of resources which Heidi had purchased in bulk. Meaning that not only would the German Army have the support staff of reserve nurses and doctors for the unprecedented figures of wounded soldiers who would be treated, something they were severely lacking in Bruno's past life, but the antibiotic which had saved more lives than just about any other medicine was ready to be used, thus increasing the likelihood of a man's survival upon being treated.

Heidi's actions would go on to single-handedly save the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of young men who would be wounded in action during the Great War, and it was something that Bruno had completely overlooked in his preparations.

Bruno would go on to call his wife an angel who God had sent to the Earth as a means of saving

the German Reich in ways which he had rather ashamedly failed to prepare for on his own. A quote that would forever lie next to her name in the annals of human history.