Re: Blood and Iron

Christmas in 1915 was much the same as it had been for the soldiers as it was the year prior. In this life, the Christmas truce did not occur.

Perhaps the soldier who had initiated it was killed in the early days of the conflict, or maybe the enmity between the Allies and the Germans was far greater as a result of the one sided losses the British and French forces sustained.

Either way, men sat in their winter clothing behind their fortifications as the snow fell on their head. The occasional exchange of gunfire and artillery could be overheard in the distance, as planes fought in the air above.

Conflict never really ceased, as the German stormtroopers found the best way to prevent the positions of the standard infantry from being taken over as routine raids into the Allies front lines. A few dozen casualties every other night at random intervals kept the British and French forces from properly organizing a mass assault.

But it was daytime, not that one could really tell, as the sky was darkened by the winter storm clouds. Even so, flares kept the field alight, as the Germans drank from their canteens, and gathered round the fire.

Unlike the Austro-Hungarian defenders in the alps, the Germans ensured men were constantly on watch at their posts, despite the weather and holiday festivities. Rotating between men regularly so that no man was ever exposed to the elements for too long.

True, the border between Belgium and France was far last hazardous than the alpine front in the dead of winter, but that did not mean that the temperature could not kill a man if left to its bidding.

Because of this, two men were sitting at the edge of a trench, one of them leaning against the sandbags from below, while the other sat on his machine gun.

Of these two men, one was German, the other was Belgian. They had long since learned to properly communicate with one another, as they had been more or less in the same mixed unit for close to a year now.

The lines at Belgium had frozen after the Germans pushed the French invaders out of the small kingdom. And the camaraderie between the two armies had grown exceptionally since then.

With jokes about the origin of Belgium, and the irony that the army they were established as a nation to slow down incursions from was now their greatest friend in their most dire time of need.

These two young men in particular, who were no older than twenty had promised to wed each other's sisters should they return from the war unscathed. As they had both seen their fair share of combat together.

And perhaps it was because of this bond that they so jokingly referred to each other in a way that only brothers in arms could truly understand.
Read exclusive content at empire

"Hey you frog eating fuck, if your cousins decided to pull a fast one on us and use this dreadful storm as a cover for their assault, how many of them do you think you could kill before you were overrun?"

The reference to the Belgian soldier being "French" was a comment that the German soldier kept making because he knew it would get on his friend's nerves. And like the best of pals these two were, the Belgian soldier was quick to fire back at what he knew was the German soldier's sore spot.

"Well, if you were to actually spend a mere five seconds opening a history book, instead of playing with yourself in the bunks every night, then you would know that I'm not some baguette munching Walloon, but rather a man of proud Flemish descent.

Now that I think of it, isn't your family from Elsass Lothringen? So you were French less than two generations ago? By all accounts I'm more German than you are, so you can suck on my Frikandel you fake kraut!"

The two men broke out into laughter, that is until a shot was fired from nearby. Hitting the German soldier on the machine gun square in the dome. Dropping him to the ground. At first the Belgian soldier didn't realize his friend was dead, as he scramble to place his helmet on his head, while calling out to the man in panic.

"Shit! Fritz are you alright?"

It was only after silence remained did the man look over to see the body of his friend laying with his eyes wide open in the snow. Immediately, the man rushed over to the edge where the machine gun was, focusing on observing the enemy forces, where he gazed in the distance to see an army of men charging at him, along with the roaring engines of tanks just beyond them.

The Belgian soldier immediately broke out into a series of swears, as he scrambled over to his now deceased comrade's body, flipping the corpse over, and getting on the man's radio where he called in what he was witnessing.

After succeeding in conveying the information higher up the chain of command, the man got onto the machine gun, trying his best to avenge his friend before he himself was overrun.

"Come on, you bastards! Your souls will accompany Fritz in the afterlife even though you are entirely unworthy you degenerate fucks!"

The MG-34 spit out lead at an ungodly rate, tearing through the bodies of the French and British soldiers as they fell by the wayside. Only to be ground into human minced meat beneath the tracks of the allied tanks, which ruthlessly ran them over.

Knowing that the position was loss, and reinforcements were still on the way, the moment the machine gun clicked with the sound that the chamber was empty, the Belgian soldier pulled out one of his grenades and grabbed onto the drawstring.

Looking down at his deceased brother, he said a silent prayer. By the time he concluded it, the Allied soldiers were already about to jump into his trench line when the most curious thing occurred. A burst of fire from the sky above chewed through the Allied tanks, whose armor was weakest at the top of their turrets.

After all, nobody suspected that the tank would come under fire from above, at least not among those who designed them within the British and French armories. Because of this, a standard armor piercing incendiary round was more than enough to eat through the mere millimeter's thickness of riveted steel plates.

And in doing so ignited the ammunition within, cooking off the 2 lb shells, which exploded in a display worthy of celebrating American independence day.

Upon witnessing this explosion, the Allied soldiers hit the ground, staring up at the destruction of their tanks, which were being shot from above by He-51 painted in a striking crimson color.

The plane flew by as quickly as it could, followed by more of its kind, which followed their leader in performing the first Close Air Support strike on an armored unit in world history. And in doing so, shredding the allied armor.

By the time the Allied soldiers realized what was happening, German and Belgian troops rushed forward from their nearby positions where they sat around the fire, and sang Christmas carols.

Now fully in the mood to kill, they lowered their weapons at the French and British infantry who had yet to follow infiltrate the German-Belgian trench line.

And in doing so were gunned down instantly by a torrential hailstorm of bullets. Although the Belgian soldier could sigh in relief as he slowly and calmly discarded the grenade in his hands without detonating it, he could not help but feel aggrieved as the man who was his closest friend.

A man he had just been speaking with moments ago was now lying dead in the snow next to him. It was a terrifying thing, to be fine one moment, and having your brains blown out the next without the slightest warning being given….

And because of this he could not help but break down in that moment, trying his best not to shed any tears as he stared into the distance gazing a kilometer past his own allies, and contemplating how he had ended up in this position to begin with.