Chapter 969: Border Crisis in the Balkans
A Hungarian soldier walked past the laborers who worked tirelessly to pour the concrete, which acted as the foundation for the future maglev line that would run straight through the border and into Bucharest.
A cigarette hung in his mouth as he inspected the laborers who sweat and swelled beneath the scathing heat of the evening Transylvanian sun.
One hand rested on the pistol grip of his rifle. An older German Sturmgewehr model that had been standardized among the Kingdom of Hungary’s armed forces in the years following the Second Weltkrieg.
He looked over from the laborers to the other side of the border, where Romanian soldiers stood equally armed.
After tossing his cigarette on the ground, the Hungarian soldier stomped its embers out beneath his boot before spitting in the general vicinity of his Romanian counterparts.
If that were the end of the interaction, then the heavens would be spared from weeping for one day.
But one of the Romanian soldiers, a brash and petulant young man barely out of infantry school, shouted across the border towards the Hungarian sentry.
"Dă-i înainte și scuipă ca jegul jegos ce ești!"
There was just one problem with this.... The Hungarian soldier spoke Romanian, and when he heard those words, he looked back at the Romanian and shouted back at him in his own tongue.
"Mamei tale i-a plăcut foarte mult salivatul meu de aseară, ciudato!"
He walked away ,thinking nothing of the interaction, that is until he heard the crackle of a gunshot and felt the soaking sensation of his own blood staining his tunic.
The Hungarian soldier couldn’t even look back, or observe the terror in the laborers’ eyes as they began to run the moment the rifle went off.
He simply fell over and died, as the Romanian soldiers began to shout at their brothers in arms with utter dread.
Even the young man himself only realized what he had done after the gunfire began to erupt from the Hungarian side of the border.
And what followed the automatic weapons was artillery pounding the Romanian position, overwhelming their own forces and their heavy weaponry before they could even get it online or figure out what was happening.
All hell had broken out in the Balkans...
---
Bruno was already at home, having just barely gotten back from his daily commute to Berlin. He could barely even sip from the beer which his wife had brought for him before receiving a never-ending series of calls in his personal study.
Ultimately, he approached his phone, and perhaps prophetically, or perhaps simply out of sheer historic memory, Bruno spoke to the man on the other line....
"The Balkans better be on fucking fire, or I swear to God I’ll have your head for calling me so insistently at this hour!"
He was surprised to hear the voice of Kaiser Wilhelm III on the other end of the line.
"It’s funny you should say that...."
The man clearly had no response to Bruno’s sudden outburst, but the exact phrasing led Bruno to immediately conclude what was happening. Rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, he sighed and groaned heavily before finally voicing his complaint without censorship, knowing that the line was secure.
"Fucking hell, when is it not on fire? Okay, let me guess, Hungary and Romania, right? One of those fucking idiots couldn’t keep it in their pants and fired on the other?"
Wilhelm III couldn’t help but chuckle at the colorful way Bruno had to describe geopolitics, as if the nations were personified by two incompetent, trigger-happy nut jobs.
But he had to admit there was some truth to it. And perhaps because of this, his words trailed at the end.
"That is certainly... one way to put it...."
Bruno sighed and shook his head once more, breaking out his best liquor, as he poured himself a cup, moving the beer in his stein entirely to the side in favor of something more stiff.
He took a sip and then responded with cold and calculated clarity.
"Alright... I need a damage report so I can accurately assess what kind of shit show we’re dealing with."
Wilhelm took a moment on the other end before responding, presumably confirming the initial reports of casualty statistics before finally speaking up.
"So far, I’d classify this as a relatively small skirmish. The forces at a certain point on the border opened fire on one another, with Hungary emerging on the better end of the engagement. Both nations are calling for total mobilization for war and are preparing for war. But there have been no additional troop movements since, estimates at the higher end have put the casualties with both nations combined at roughly 1,200. But this has the potential to quickly escalate into something bigger."
Bruno sighed and shook his head. He couldn’t believe he was still dealing with this bullshit. Even letting his actual thoughts escape his breath on the particular region of Europe and the people in it.
"I swear to God, it never ends... Can’t these people behave with at least some civility? Fine... get Budapest and Bucharest on the line. And issue a formal request for an immediate ceasefire to all hostilities. In fact... do that first, and get Saint Petersburg, Rome, and Constantinople to co-sign our request. These motherfuckers need to know that we can dismantle them both if they refuse to behave themselves like functioning adults!"
The line went silent with nothing but static for the longest time until finally Wilhelm III’s voice quivered with slight trepidation.
"Should I begin partial mobilization of the Reichsheer?"
Bruno collapsed back in his seat, tapping his finger on his desk as he thought about it for a few moments before finally making a decision.
"Mobilize the 3rd Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier Division and a Luftstreitkräfte detachment to support them. Give them orders to remain on standby for deployment. If push comes to shove, I want a swift decapitation of Bucharest and Budapest, not an all out war. But they should only be deployed if all else fails."
"It will be done...." Was all that Wilhelm III said before hanging up the line, leaving Bruno to sigh in lament while shaking his head and sipping from his drink.
"The damned Balkans, will this foolishness never end?"
