Re: Blood and Iron

A long puff of smoke rose from the foxhole dug just outside the ruins of the Palace of Versailles, half of which had been reduced to rubble in the chaos that overtook the failed French Republic following its humiliating and devastating losses during the Great War.

Over three million Frenchmen lay dead along the border of the German Reich, their bodies turned to mulch beneath the machines of war that climbed over them and pushed forward toward the city of Paris just a year ago.

Their deaths were caused by incompetent, corrupt, and outright ignorant politicians elected by the uneducated masses. These men were sent to fight a war they were incapable of winning and repeatedly thrown into the meat grinder by generals too proud to admit they had no means of penetrating the defenses their enemies had prepared a decade before the first shot was fired.

It had been a senseless slaughter of epic proportions—one with longer-lasting effects than anyone had anticipated. The French soldiers who were lucky enough to be captured alive by the Germans—and who were treated like guests at a four-star resort during their tenure as prisoners of war—returned to find their families buried beneath the earth.

Disease, starvation, and the collapse of internal order allowed less civilized elements to form roving bands that ravaged the countryside while ideologues fought for control in the metropolitan areas.

The colonies? An afterthought of a government desperately trying to cling to power. They tried to commission returning soldiers—bitter and hardened by war—to fight the revolutionaries, both Marxist and reactionary in origin.

There was just one problem: with no sustainable economy, and with the country under the control of brigand kings, local warlords, and fanatical murderers of every denomination, what could they possibly offer these men? What promise could convince them to risk their lives for a government that had already betrayed them?

Instead, many took up arms not for the glory of France or the survival of its Republic—which, let's face it, was already dead and buried beneath the weight of properly forged German steel—but because the struggle was all they had left.

Rifles from every conceivable nation were in their hands—German, Italian, British, French, Spanish. If a port existed, weapons found their way into the hands of those trying to stake their claim.

Charles de Gaulle led one such militia, having seized the estate grounds of the ruined Palace of Versailles and converted them into a fortress—a staging ground for an advance into the shattered city of Paris.

Makeshift barricades and improvised fortifications had already claimed several sections of the once-esteemed baroque palace, reducing them to heaps of marble and stone that militiamen now used as cover to fire from.

An old MG-01/03 machine gun was currently in the hands of a French soldier, his Adrian helmet painted with the coat of arms of the House of de Gaulle, the once-noble family from which Charles de Gaulle descended.

Originally a minor and landless house, the de Gaulles had lost their status with the fall of the monarchy and its successive empires. Now, the coat of arms had been revived as the sigil of the Gallian Militia—an organization of soldiers loyal to de Gaulle, attempting to restore order to the anarchic city of Paris and the war-torn nation at large.

Next to the machine gunner was a veteran smoking a cigarette, its plume slithering into the cold drizzle that speckled the city's ruins—rain just light enough to remind the world that the heavens wept for mankind's continued addiction to bloodshed.

Their uniforms were old—clearly issued by the defunct French Republic during the war. The blue had faded. Mud and blood had stained the fabric so deeply that no washing could ever remove it.

The Adrian helmets were battered and chipped, coated in soot and grime. Most bore only one new mark: the painted coat of arms, on both the helmet and the armband worn on the right arm—stitched into the center of the white stripe of the old French tricolor.

A burst of gunfire cracked through the air like thunder. But it wasn't unexpected. The MG chugged once, and the red insurgent who had dared peek from behind cover collapsed, his beret torn through, his brains spilled across the wet stone.

The foolish act of an ideologue unaccustomed to real combat—another life claimed by the harsh truths of violent revolution. A debt paid in full by those who wage it, and by those who endure its madness.

Yet no excitement crossed the machine gunner's face. He was younger than the veteran beside him, his uniform less blemished, the paint on his helmet still unmarred by war. But he didn't flinch. He didn't cheer. He was long past the point of being disturbed by taking a life.

The veteran flicked his spent cigarette over the parapet and retrieved his rifle, raising it just long enough to fire a clean shot into the back of another Marxist, who had foolishly tried to recover the corpse of his comrade.

"Nice shooting. But keep an eye out for the rest of those idiots—like that one. Fucking amateur. He actually left cover, knowing there was a mounted machine gun aimed right at his position, and then turned his back while doing it.

Honestly, how the hell did France fall this far if these morons are our enemies? After the hell we saw fighting the Germans, this is a damn turkey shoot."

The veteran's accent was unmistakably American. His ragged uniform identified him as a legionnaire—a foreigner who had served before the collapse. One of the last volunteers who hadn't already skipped town, died, or switched sides.

The younger gunner replied, steady and calm, while squeezing off another short burst:

"You boys had it hard at Ypres. But don't underestimate these zealots. Their appetite for cruelty makes up for their lack of skill.

Sure, you fought the Kaiser's finest. But life hasn't exactly been kind to those of us left behind here in France. Don't forget that."

The American nodded, slinging his rifle and stepping out of the foxhole with a grim smile.

"I'll keep that in mind. You keep mowing 'em down. I'm going to see if I can collect a few scalps."

And so the violence in Paris—and across the fractured remains of France—continued. A free-for-all for anyone with a rifle, a dream, or a delusion of becoming its next ruler.