Re: Blood and Iron

The trench reeked of waste, mud, and blood.

The man crouched against the wall of the pillbox, cradling a bolt-action rifle that was missing its rear sight.

Bandages wrapped around his skull like a cracked helmet, already soaked through in rust-colored red. His cheeks were hollow. His teeth clenched a half-burned cigarette like a final prayer.

He looked down at the photo again.

Her name had been Marisol.

She was smiling in the picture. They always were. Before war. Before Madrid burned. Before all this.

"She's probably dead," muttered one of the others, voice dry as the dust they slept in. "Or with some aristocratic bastard in her bed."

The man with the photo didn't reply. He just dragged on the cigarette and closed his eyes.

They were five in this trench line; five ghosts. Hollow-cheeked, mud-caked, starving. Eyes ringed with sleepless bruises.

Their uniforms barely held together with twine and luck.

Their rations had run out four days ago.

Their morphine? Two weeks.

Their belief in victory?

No one remembered where they'd lost it.

"We should desert," another whispered. "Slip west into the mountains. There's no one watching the southern slope now that the anarchists have pulled back."

"There's nowhere to go," someone muttered. "They'll hunt us down. Or the Germans will just shell the entire ridge again."

That word still carried weight. Germans.

Except something felt off.

It started with the tremor. Subtle at first. A distant vibration in the soles of their boots.

Then came the scream.

Engines.

Not just engines; warhorses.

The sky broke open with a sudden shriek. The men ducked, instinct overriding all thought. One of them began to cry.

But the aircraft streaking low over the horizon weren't Luftstreitkräfte. No Balkenkreuz. No Reichsadlers.

These were Bf-109s and Macchi C.205 Veltros, swooping in formation like falcons on a hare; but they were painted in new colors.

Earthy reds. Oxide yellows. Black sunbursts on their rudders.

And on the fuselages; unmistakable:

The crowned roundel of the Spanish Royal Air Corps.

"What the fuck," someone hissed.

The roar came closer. Now they could feel the tanks.

Down the long valley road rolled Panzers, yes, but not in German patterns.

These machines were desert-camouflage, sun-washed, hand-painted with unit crests that bore Castilian lions, Catalan stripes, and the royal yoke and arrows.

Panzer Is and IIs in spearhead formation; Beside them came the new specters; P-33 Bis, Italian-built but Spanish-crewed.

All angled armor and long 7.5cm guns, with 13.2mm TUF heavy machine guns chattering atop their turrets.

A column of over fifty armored vehicles.

Rolling under the Royal Banner of Spain.

"No…" the man with the photo whispered. "That's… that's not the Germans."

"They gave them the tanks."

"They gave them the fucking tanks!"

The ground erupted ahead; CAS runs from the Royal Air Corps hammered Republican armor scrambling to intercept.

Old Allied Mk IIs, and IIIs, along with the newer AMC-32s blew sky-high under the fusillade of auto cannons and dive-bombers. Explosions lit the trench line as the soldiers shouted in horror.

There was no rallying cry. No speech. No trumpet call.

Just the unstoppable march of steel.

The Royalists had not just been helped.

They had been rebuilt.

Fed, trained, armed, and drilled until they looked not like the broken monarchist holdouts of early 1932, but like a modern war machine; an army of the old crown reborn in modern flesh.

The Germans had taken a step back. As did their international allies.

Instead, they left their older tools in the hands of Alfonso's men.

The international legion had done its part. Now it was Spain's turn.

And for the ragged defenders in that trench… that realization hit harder than any shell:

This wasn't a foreign invasion.

This was a reckoning.

---

The room smelled faintly of waxed wood and stale cigars.

Outside, a cold spring wind swept over the Seine, and the bells of Notre Dame rang out like distant war drums.

Inside, three men sat at a long, polished table beneath the gilt ceiling of France's presidential residence.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, newly sworn in, sat with his fingers steepled beneath his chin, quietly absorbing the scene.

Beside him, the British Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald looked similarly grave, his aged features tightened with tension.

Across from them, General Charles de Gaulle did not sit.

He stood... pacing.

A man too tall for diplomacy and too stern for performance. His gloves were clenched in one hand, a dossier in the other.

"They didn't even use Germans," de Gaulle hissed, slapping the dossier on the table. "They didn't even need them. This wasn't another test of the Luftstreitkräfte or that damn Legion. This was Spain. Spain. Their own men, their own pilots, their own tanks. And we didn't see it coming."

MacDonald frowned. "Surely the Germans are still coordinating it all—"

"Of course they are!" de Gaulle snapped. "But don't you see? That's what makes it worse. They've stopped fighting our war and started building theirs. They're training monarchs to be generals. They're creating allies, not just clients. And it's working."

He turned to Roosevelt now.

"And you, Mister President, must understand what that means. The old guard is gone. This is a new age. Thermobaric weapons, vertical maneuver warfare, mobile divisions that can cross a country in a week—"

Roosevelt interjected calmly. "That's assuming we want to intervene at all."

De Gaulle stared at him. "If you don't, you may find democracy outflanked from both east and west before the decade ends."

Roosevelt's eyes narrowed slightly. "France is calling for open involvement? Just weeks after disavowing any direct participation in the conflict?"

MacDonald gave a tired sigh. "What de Gaulle is saying, bluntly, is that the Republicans are collapsing. The Catalonian ridge is lost. Madrid may fall before summer. We've seen the footage. The Spanish Royal Army is... transformed. And it's not just their appearance. Their command structure. Their coordination. They look like Germans."

De Gaulle nodded, almost whispering. "They are Germans; spiritually, tactically, doctrinally. This isn't about Spain anymore. It's about who shapes the future of warfare."

Roosevelt glanced toward the folder the general had brought in. Grainy black-and-white recon photos. Burnt terrain. Lethal precision.

And those roundels; crowned and red.

"So what is it you're asking for?"

"Aircraft," de Gaulle said without hesitation. "Trucks. Ammunition. Anti-tank rifles. Radar support. Advisors, if you're bold. Volunteers, if you're honest."

Roosevelt didn't move.

De Gaulle leaned forward. "If Spain falls, France is flanked. And if France falls, Britain will be isolated. And if Britain falls, your shores are next."

FDR finally leaned back. "General, America is not in the habit of jumping into European wars because someone else blundered."

"Then don't do it for us," de Gaulle said coolly. "Do it for the world that still believes freedom is worth fighting for."

Silence fell.

Only the ticking of the clock over the mantel reminded them that time, too, was marching.

And it was no longer marching in their favor.