Published at 19th of January 2026 8:47 am

Chapter 831: Meeting in Geneva

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Destabilization... A process that took a minimum of 25 years. A single generation raised in a society so subverted that they would welcome invasion not as a hostile force, but as a stabilizing influence.

The highest art of warfare... supreme excellence, was to win a war without fighting. Bruno was a man who preferred the use of violence to solve his problems in life, where applicable.

It was brutal, simple, and holistically effective when one had a monopoly on force. But in the modern era of intense geo-political entanglements, globalized trade, and certain perpetually neutral countries.

Sometimes utilizing the rifle over the pen was less than ideal. And for the last thirty years, Bruno had been actively destabilizing Switzerland and the Low Countries, much as he had done the United States.

Academia, the Media, employer and labor relations, and of course the government itself had long since felt the purchasing power of the von Zehntner consortium, even if they were bought and paid for by men waving the banners of corporations that on the surface seemed unrelated.

In Switzerland, the re-Germanization propaganda had been significant. In public schools and private universities, the youth were raised to speak German and hold an affinity for its ancient cultural ties as an extension of ancient "Alemannia."

Meanwhile, its centuries longstanding status as a "neutral" nation to the ongoing affairs in Europe were called not question by many academics, and politicians who considered it an act of "moral cowardice" to sit by and watch as the "liberal democracies" in France and Britain continued to provoke a war with their neighbors.

A sentiment that reached its climax after France started the ongoing "Second Great War" or "Second World War" by shelling German border guards unprovoked under the guise of "training exercises gone wrong."

This had led to a strong anti-French sentiment within the nation, which had much of its population composed of French speakers.

And over the last four years in particular since the Second World War began, many of them found themselves speaking German instead of French, even within their own homes.

While the French Republic had fallen and was replaced with a restored Monarchy. The reality was that Switzerland found itself under increasing pressure to realign with Germany, in a way it had not been forced to since 1648.

And they were not alone, with Belgium and the Netherlands finding themselves similarly facing such overwhelming commitments.

Today, King Albert of Belgium, the Dutch Prime Minister Dirk Jan de Geer, and President of the Swiss Confederation Philipp Etter, gathered in Geneva to discuss their current predicaments.

With the Swiss President being the most vocal of his concerns.

"Berlin currently has its eyes cast across the Atlantic. However, there is no knowing how long this will remain. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure that the Kaiser, what with his advanced age, and ambitions for a fully restored German Reich, will wait much longer after the new world fully surrenders. We may face a genuine possibility of a full-scale invasion by the Reichsheer, and with the full weight of Europe’s support behind them...."

The Swiss president could almost feel the gears turning in the world’s unseen machinery.

Bruno’s influence wasn’t merely political; it was infrastructural, industrial, logistical. The kind of influence that didn’t show up on intelligence reports until it was already too late to counter.

Neutral nations assumed safety in treaties and mountains. Empires thought security lay in fleets and armies.

But Bruno had learned in his first life that real power lived in rail lines, factories, ports, ministries, and the invisible lattice that connected them.

He had seeded dependencies quietly: micro-contracts for steel refinement, patent licensing through cut-out firms, university funding grants tied to "technical exchange programs," police modernization packages sold as advisory support, and surplus arms shipments that looked humanitarian, but arrived crated like covenant relics.

None of it traced to Berlin, nor did any of it need to. By the 1940s, entire bureaucracies ran on parts machined in Essen, coded in Tyrol, shipped through neutral banks in Geneva, carried on trucks built in Munich, and signed off by ministers who thought they were acting independently.

Albert said nothing; he simply drank from his tea. He had already made up his mind in this regard, and had given his word to the current Prince of the German Riech. Belgium would agree to annexation within the German Reich, under the terms that it could retain its status as a kingdom within the Federal Monarchy.

But, neither the Netherlands nor Switzerland was aware of this fact. Nor did he want to make them aware of it. For to do so would be to provoke their suspicion.

And in a time where he had already pledged his support to Germany, hearing what these two holdouts had planned was worth its weight in gold in regards to future negotiations regarding Belgium’s status in the Empire.

So Albert kept his mouth shut and waited for the Dutch Prime Minister to take the bait, which he most certainly did, expressing his concern with how Germany treated former annexations following the end of the Great War.

"The Netherlands would not be so easily pressed into submission. I mean, we still remember what happened to Luxembourg, and Burgundy following the Reich’s acquisition of those states... Marie-Adelaïde remained heartbroken and unmarried until the day God took her from us... Even if she retained the title of Grand Duchess, it was clear that surrounding her sovereignty took its toll on the poor woman."

Albert nearly choked on his own tea upon hearing the name. He knew more about the situation than his Dutch or Swiss colleagues did. He, after all, had friendly ties with both the House von Hohenzollern and the House von Zehntner.

And the secret behind Marie’s solitude and "melancholy" had to do with her unrequited love for Bruno, and the rejection he had shown her. One that was so brutal it ended up costing her and her people their sovereignty.

But he would not interject such a crucial detail here and now into the conversation. As doing so would be to show sympathy for the Germans. After all, Bruno was a married man when Marie fell for him.

And he had simply fulfilled his duty, loyalty, and love to his wife by rejecting the Grand Duchess’s affections. Neither was wrong, but it had ended tragically for one side, and not the other.

In the end, because Albert did not reject it, the Swiss president was quick to add to his Dutch colleague’s rhetoric.

"That’s right... the problem is that the people of Switzerland have expressed overwhelming support for Germany. Especially in the years following the end of the Great War. Many of them have even sought a referendum to join the Reich. Such a thing can never be allowed to pass... even if the sentiment grows larger with each victory they gain."

Albert knew all too well the struggles his peers were dealing with. They were the same ones he succumbed to. Germany was growing too large, too brilliantly, too fast. And the nations that bordered it, especially those with a history of once being a part of the German Nation had felt left behind and forgotten.

To demand a referendum to join Germany was to surrender the unique language, culture, and history they had tried to cultivate in the three centuries since separation, and for what? Technological greatness? Rapid transit? Modern medicine? And a military that had proven indomitable over the course of nearly a century?

When Albert reflected on it like that? How could he possibly say no to his people’s increasing demands for a referendum?

He just needed to wait for the war to end for him to pose the idea to the public properly. But his colleagues seemed hellbent on a different path entirely as the Dutch Prime Minister made his thoughts clear.

"If Germany seeks to invade the Netherlands, they will have a far greater fight on their hands than they were ever expecting ,they can be certain of that!"

The Swiss president nodded three times in agreement while expressing a near-identical sentiment.

"I concur. We in Switzerland have spent the last thirty years building a military capable of making life a living hell for the Reichsheer if they were to invade our borders. With our two nations united against Germany and its imperial ambitions, we may not be able to hold them off indefinitely, but we can certainly make the prospect of war so gruesome that they would never think to invade!"

Albert sighed and shook his head in silence. He knew that the Dutch and Swiss were vastly underestimating Germany’s potential to invade and annex their countries by force if they so pleased.

But he was also aware that while Bruno favored blunt force as an instrument of power, he was also more than capable of wielding a surgeon’s scalpel where necessary. Nor was he the least bit intimidating in doing so.

Thus, while the Netherlands and Switzerland began to enter a secret defensive pact, in regards to potential German aggression following the end of the Second World War.

Belgium had quickly relayed all the information it gathered by witnessing this meeting to its friends in Berlin.

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