"Your Highness—" Moltke's voice stayed polite, but the edge beneath it was sharpened steel. "The Schlieffen Plan was formulated ten years ago. The situation then is not the situation now. You have given us armored vehicles, motorized logistics, motorcycles, aircraft—tools no staff officer in Schlieffen's era could properly account for. The General Staff has revised the plan according to reality."
He spoke faster now, because he could feel it happening—his authority slipping. In front of these men, in front of the Kaiser, he could not remain silent and let the Crown Prince lecture him as though he were a schoolboy.
"The revised plan is safer," Moltke continued, jaw tight. "More adaptable. Even with the right wing reduced, we will break through. Even if Belgium resists."
Oskar stared at him for a long beat, eyes cold, expression almost bored.
A single breath.
Then—
"Hmph." It wasn't a laugh. It wasn't even contempt. It was the sound of a man listening to someone gamble his nation with the calm confidence of ignorance.
"Chief of the General Staff," Oskar said, voice level, "you speak of safety as if safety wins wars."
He leaned forward slightly, fingers resting on the map like he was about to press the continent down by force.
"The core of Schlieffen's idea was not complicated," he continued. "The right wing operates in terrain favorable to offense with overwhelming strength—enough to sweep around the fortresses, enough to encircle Antwerp and Namur, enough to roll the French line from the side and reach Paris before France can breathe."
His eyes flicked to the west on the board—Belgium, the channel coast, the soft underbelly Schlieffen had always meant to crush.
"The left wing holds defensively," Oskar said. "Not to win. To hold. To lure the enemy forward, to keep them busy, to let them commit while the hammer falls on the right."
He straightened.
"And now you have weakened the hammer."
The silence in the room thickened.
Oskar continued without mercy.
"With our new strength, it is even more reason to commit properly. Let the center fix the enemy in place while the right wing does what it exists to do: encircle, collapse, and end the war fast."
His voice sharpened.
"If the offensive fails, the consequences will not be 'unfortunate.' They will be catastrophic. If we are halted in Belgium, the occupation itself becomes a second battlefield. We will bleed men into garrison duty, supplies into escort details, time into policing a population that will cut our lines the moment they realize we are stuck. Any occupied people will resist—because that is what people do."
Moltke's face darkened. His ears flushed red.
He had been many things in his life—disciplined, ambitious, meticulous—but he was still a Moltke in blood, and blood did not endure being questioned.
"Your Highness," Moltke said, the formal title suddenly sounding like an insult, "the plan has been examined by the General Staff in full. Thoroughly. It will succeed."
He forced the words through clenched teeth, trying to keep his voice from shaking with irritation.
"To change it now would throw the army into confusion. And we will not 'hold' in the center like a timid old man hiding behind sandbags. We must apply pressure across the entire front and exploit whatever gaps appear. Yes—the casualties will be heavy."
He did not soften it.
"Time is not on our side. Sacrifice is inevitable. And the people are willing to do it—as you just proved on the balcony."
A few of the generals shifted in their seats, uneasy. Everyone in that room already knew Oskar and Moltke disliked each other. But this was more than dislike now. This was a war of wills in the middle of a war council, in front of princes and commanders and maps that would soon become graves.
The argument had ripped through the last polite layer of ceremony.
It was raw.
It was personal.
And it was dangerous.
Then Wilhelm II spoke.
"Alright, Oskar." His voice was calm, but the authority behind it made the room still instantly. "Your Excellency's modifications to the Schlieffen Plan were made with my approval."
Oskar blinked once—genuinely caught off guard.
For a heartbeat he didn't know what to say.
Then understanding crawled up his spine like cold water.
Of course.
Of course Moltke had the Kaiser's blessing.
Moltke and Wilhelm had been friends long before Oskar became a force. Not political allies—friends. Men of the same world, bonded in the old Prussian way: rifles, horses, hunting trips at dawn, shared jokes over blood and smoke and the simple certainty that strong men were meant to decide history. Wilhelm trusted Moltke because Moltke spoke the language Wilhelm loved most—confidence without doubt, willpower without hesitation.
Birds of a feather.
No wonder they had become so close.
And in that moment, Oskar couldn't help the bitter thought that flickered through him:
If he had spent more time with his father—if he had ridden beside him, hunted beside him, laughed beside him—maybe things would have been different.
But he hadn't.
He didn't enjoy killing things for sport.
He didn't enjoy pretending cruelty was tradition.
And while Oskar had built his world with Karl and factories and discipline—
Wilhelm and Moltke had built theirs in forests, with rifles in hand.
And that shared instinct… had shaped the map now lying on the table.
He held little hope that the Western campaign would deliver the clean, decisive victory the others imagined. Not anymore. Not with the right wing diluted. Not with hesitation built into the design.
At best, he hoped for speed.
At worst, he feared mud.
His real wager lay in the East.
If the 8th Army could shatter the Russian advance quickly—if it could break their first thrust, maul them, unbalance their mobilization—then he could pivot. Redeploy. Strike west with fresh steel. Change the rhythm before it calcified.
Historically, the East had required nearly a million men just to hold.
He did not intend to repeat that mistake.
He already had ideas.
Risky ones.
Moltke glanced at him then—eyes narrowed, faint contempt curling in them. The look of a man who believed the game was already his.
The pointer moved again.
"First Army," Moltke announced.
Von Kluck's force—seven corps, three cavalry divisions, three national brigades—three hundred and twenty thousand men.
"Second Army."
Von Bülow—six corps, two cavalry divisions—two hundred and sixty thousand.
"Third."
Hausen—one hundred and eighty thousand.
"Fourth."
Württemberg—another one hundred and eighty.
"Fifth."
Eitel Friedrich—two hundred thousand.
"Sixth."
Rupprecht—two hundred thousand.
"Seventh."
Heeringen—one hundred and twenty-five thousand.
Numbers rolled across the table like thunder.
Over one point four million men on the Western Front.
More than fifty percent of Germany's mobilized strength.
And this was only less than half the Empire's manpower.
Wilhelm still believed this would be enough.
Enough to win.
Enough to avoid draining the nation dry.
Germany had seventy million souls. But too many graves would cripple industry. Cripple agriculture. Cripple the future.
Machines could replace some hands.
Tractors could plow fields.
But they could not replace sons.
Oskar understood the calculation.
He simply wasn't sure the war would respect it.
Tirpitz stepped forward and outlined the naval deployment. Battlecruisers would sweep into the North Sea. Submarines would slip like knives into British and French trade arteries. Shipping lanes would burn. The Entente would be made to feel hunger.
"Very good," Wilhelm declared at last, rising. "The forces are deployed according to plan. When the order is given, you will strike without hesitation."
His fist struck the table again.
"Germany will prevail!"
"Germany will prevail!" the generals echoed. "For God and Fatherland!"
Confidence filled the chamber like smoke.
Promotions.
Glory.
History.
They could taste it.
But Oskar did not join the chanting.
As the meeting drew to a close, a thin unease tightened in his chest.
Something was off.
Not wrong.
Not obviously flawed.
But incomplete.
France and Belgium—even reinforced by Britain—should only delay the inevitable. Germany's firepower would grind them down.
Eventually.
Africa troubled him more.
Not because it was weak.
Because it was far.
German Cameroon.
German West Africa.
German East Africa.
He had already done what others would have hesitated to do.
He had pulled back the thin lines. Abandoned the small, exposed outposts that Germany used to have plenty of in Africa before. Concentrated civilians and garrisons into three hardened cores.
Cameroon first.
The Bauxi towns—fortified, supplied, populated with only German's, layered in concrete and steel. Southern Bauxi especially, its coastal batteries staring out to sea, daring any fleet to test them. Mines in the approaches. Guns sighted. Shore defenses ready.
No easy bombardment.
No quick landing.
Further west and east, the remaining holdings were tightened and armed. Rail hubs reinforced. Stockpiles built. Jungle alliances secured. Men who knew the land now carried German rifles.
If the Entente came, they would not find scattered colonies.
They would find strongholds.
Still—
Africa would stand alone once the seas closed.
And distance, in war, could be as dangerous as weakness.
And Japan—
He had sold them islands for peace.
He hoped they would remember the bargain.
He hoped they would not be tempted by opportunity.
If others joined the Entente, then Bulgaria would be called upon. Serbia would be struck from another side. Pressure would be applied where it hurt.
Everything balanced on momentum.
For now, there was nothing more to say.
The meeting dissolved.
Maps were rolled. Pins gathered. Orders drafted.
Oskar remained seated a moment longer.
Then he rose.
He would return to Potsdam.
To his family.
To say goodbye.
And on the tenth of July—
He would mount Shadowmane.
And ride east.
Into the storm he had chosen.