On the turn of the hour, as the door was pushed open, and the three majors took their place on three seats drawn up in front of the oberstleutnant’s desk, a mental timer began ticking in Ferdinand’s head. He had twenty minutes - at most - to convince them. If he didn’t… he imagined the noose around his neck.
The only differences in the room since last time was the lack of sunlight filtering through the window behind, and the radio on the desk had been replaced by a sturdy, paper package. Gitta’s heart began to beat faster from anticipation.
“Good afternoon, you three.”
Atlas, as the officer with seniority among the three, saluted Ferdinand briefly on behalf of his fellows. “Good afternoon, sir.”
“You may all be seated.” said Ferdinand, picking up a slitter knife. “I have a.. surprise for you.”
The three took seats warily. Ferdinand felt around the package for a moment, then began to spin in around, making incisions with a knife at points. He stopped short of opening it fully, and instead addressed his officers.
“Atlas, Gitta, Felizia; for three years we have defended this stretch of countryside - and I’d say we’ve done that amazingly, - and I’ve known you all for longer than that. There’s no three elsewhere in the empire I trust more than you. I will let you know that you can speak freely, but I hope that outside… you will hold your tongues.”
The same word caught the attentions of Gitta and Felizia. The latter was the first to voice their concern. “Sir, why do you bring up ‘trust?’”
“Please, don’t talk to me as a superior, talk to me as a friend. To answer your question: because of what I have been sent inside this package. Please, do indulge yourself to look.”
With that, he used a talon to rip open the paper weakened by previous incisions. The majors leaned in to look closer. Inside was a pile of papers, on top a letter addressed to Ferdinand. He took the letter, and lay it aside while he picked up the papers. He spread them out over the table, placing them in full view for his subordinates to see. After a moment or two, a gasp of horror escaped from one Felizia, eyes widened on the face of Atlas, while Gitta froze. Ferdinand was expressionless.
The papers only had a few things in common, they all were classified documents and reports, and they all bore the seal of the kaiser’s court. Felizia picked up a stapled report labeled “The fourth meeting of the council of regents” dated only a week before. Atlas held up a detailed list of troops inside Griffenheim, where they were, when they rotated, when they drilled, and so on. Gitta didn’t grab anything, but stared at the papers with the shocked expression they all had.
“Sir! Wha- what is this?” Gitta glanced up.. and almost wished she hadn’t. While they had been distracted, Ferdinand had unrolled a map on the desk, a map - no, a whole floorplan - of the imperial palace. Her sudden silence prompted the other majors to notice it as well.
Ferdinand spoke slowly, “This… is my… solution.”
“Solution to what!? You could be court-marshalled for simply possessing some of these!” exclaimed Felizia with a mixture of anger, confusion, and fear.
Ferdinand shushed, “Be quiet!” he demanded with a lowered voice, “If I am court-marshalled, I’ll die knowing I was doing what was right. Call it a solution, call it treason, I have devised a plan to save the empire, save it from weakness, save it from the regents, save it from… from.. from this.. this rot!”
Felizia’s jaw dropped. “You’ve gone mad. I said this two months ago, there. is. nothing. to worry. about. The nobles learned their lesson, doing whatever… this is, will only make things worse.”
“This isn’t… read the papers - someone risked life and limb to get them. They spell the whole story out. The nobles, clergy, and others are bickering like chicks over the most minor issues, a repeat of 970 is coming, almost assuredly.”
“So what? You stole documents from the palace, and hatched a stupid plan? For what end?”
“This… this…” Ferdinand sputtered. “This is my plan, a takeover of Griffenheim; a coup d'état, to use the Aquilean term.” He picked up the letter, and glazed over it while the majors were left with beaks agape.
They were startled when Ferdinand began to read out loud. “To my old friend. While I must admit that I was incredibly skeptical at first, the further I snooped, the more I realised you might just be right. I’m going to go radio (letter?) silent for a while, avoid suspicion. I really hope that none of this comes to pass.”
Ferdinand put the letter down. “I really don’t know what else to say. History might repeat itself, it might not. But when there is evidence right in front of your beaks that the former might be very possible, are you willing to take the risk?”
Felizia opened her beak to speak, but all that came out were first syllables.
“How deep is this, sir?” asked Atlas, who had been mostly silent the whole time. He rested a claw on the table, tapping it gently.
“What do you mean? How detailed is the plan? How much evidence is there? How many others are in on it?”
“The latter.”
“No griff else knows about this, bar the one who got all this, and he isn’t in the loop about the plan.”
“Even if you were right then… it’s a suicide mission.”
“But we have so many potential allies here, in Besanmiers, right now. If we go ahead with this, all we would need to do is identify those allies, and get their support. With enough friends in the Reichsarmee, the rest should fall in line once we have the capital. Remember, we are in the right here, not those.. vipers that are the aristocratic elite.”
Atlas’ eyes raced over the papers again briefly. Ferdinand’s mind correctly guessed that his past experiences made him the most likely to see reason. “I.. must say, it does make sense. If you’re sure about this, then I’ll pledge my sabre to your cause.”
Felizia glared at Atlas, almost as if rebuking him telepathically.
Gitta sat back in her chair. She studied Ferdinand for a moment. Ferdinand smiled slightly.
“Alright, I’m in,” she said. “I trust you, and.. I will continue to trust you in this situation.”
“Thank you, both of you.”
Ferdinand doubled down. He cleared the remnants of the package off the desk, and stood up. He walked over to a bookshelf while Felizia took the opportunity to protest to her colleagues in a hushed voice. He withdrew another rolled up map, and proceeded to place it on the desk. This one was about the same size as the floorplan, but what it depicted was much bigger.
“That’s Griffenheim,” Gitta recognised, having just come from there. And indeed it was. It was a plan of the Imperial Capital, scribbles and lines and circles of red ink drawn all around. Several areas were labeled as ‘barck,’ others as ‘engpa.’ The great bridges over the Griffking were highlighted, and lines were drawn from several areas to the Imperial Palace.
“This is the plan, I call it Tagesanbruch, or.. Operation Tagesanbruch, for safety.” Ferdinand announced boldly.
“That’s not big headed at all,” Felizia quipped.
“You’re right, it’s not.” replied Ferdinand. Without warning, he stood straight. “The empire needs to come out of the night which it has found itself in, and the aim of this plan.. is to herald Tagesanbruch.” He finished the sentence by grabbed the Iron Cross around his neck. “This… this shows that I truely care, I deeply care about the empire. I care about it because of what it represents. They only care for the empire because it gives them power, power which they squander to eat and drink and indulge themselves. Who really deserves it then?” He was hyperventilating now, the look in his eye couldn’t be deciphered, but it probably lay somewhere between extreme fervour and madness. He continue with his rant, and he struggled to keep his voice from raising to the roof.
“As we speak, the traitor Kemerskai and his rabble are sorting themselves out. Revolutions are continuing to happen across the continent in places such as Prywhen. The continent is about to enter another round of bloodshed, the second one since the Revolution. The empire brought peace, and the nobles caused that peace to end. When - yes when - the empire falls under the incompetence of the nobles, the Griffking will flow red with the blood of those who should really be in charge, the loyal patriot who actually cares for his country.”
“You sound like a Freikorp fanatic.”
The eyes in the room turned to Felizia, who immediately realised what she had not actually intended to say. The Freikorps were a taboo topic amongst the Reichsarmee - and the rest of the empire, in fact. The Freikorps had been paramilitary groups that fought republicanism and successionism during and after the revolution. The Freikorps were nationalists whose leaders denounced the nobles after the latter ordered the former’s dissolution. The Freikorps were dangerous griffons who tried to storm the capital themselves.
“The Freikgriffs were heroes,” Ferdinand whispered. “The Freigriffs were patriotic griffons who willingly took up arms to defend their fatherland.”
Felizia, already having crossed the line, doubled down. “Wha- what are you, a neo-Freigriff?!?”
“I am not.” Ferdinand replied. But Felizia’s next sentence was stopped before she could speak, because he continued to think.
“I did not go into this with the Freikorps in mind, and then come to this plan. I reached a conclusion based on what I saw, and if that’s the same conclusion they came to, maybe that sheds some more light on the situation.
“But I would counter, what do you have against the Freikorps? A lifetime of being told they were evil, that they only wanted to cause chaos?” Ferdinand finished.
“One of my colleagues was beaten in the streets by a mob of self-proclaimed Freigriffs.” Felizia explained. “Overall they may have been noble, I don’t know. What I do know is that extremist groups attract extremist griffons, and I almost lost a friend to extremists.”
“Oh.” Ferdinand’s expression dropped. “My condolences…”
The mood in the room shifted to a more somber one.
Ferdinand continued to surprise his subordinates. “And Yet…”
Und Doch, the rallying cry of the Freikorps. Despite bombshell after bombshell, the three still held their breath in anticipation of what would happen.
“Did you ever wonder what it meant. They found themselves in a hopeless situation, and yet they kept fighting. That ‘And Yet’ saved the Empire, salvaged what little we had left. The spirit to see the empire not fall, it is admirable. Do you want to know what I think? I think that the Freikorps had the right idea. The Empire, should we want to preserve what we have, should we want to once again rise to greatness, should we want to bring peace to the continent, we won’t get there with nobles who wish greatness only for their own personal gain. We will get there through the sheer willpower of the Griffonians, those who actually believe in the Empire, griffons like the Freigriffs. That is what I want.”
Felizia shut her eyes, and quietly hummed the first few notes of a tune. Her eyelids flickered, as if she was experiencing REM. With a sigh, she opened her eyes again, and conceded. “I don’t know. The others trust you, and you make some good points, but I feel like this may be a bit too far.”
Ferdinand regained his composure, and a soft smile returned as he closed his own eyes. He sat down again. “I understand. It took me a while to convince myself too. It’s not easy to make such a difficult decision. I’ll give you some more time to think about it, if you want.”
“Thank you, sir.”
…
A short silence followed. After what he deemed a sufficient amount of time had passed, Atlas pressed for more details.
“So.. when?”
“When?” Ferdinand responded
“When do you plan on…” Atlas motioned to the map.
“Ah, yes.” Ferdinand said. He pulled out his timepiece briefly, and answered as he put it back. “We’ll have to wrap this up soon, if we want to be down for lunch in a timely fashion. But returning to your question, I haven’t thought super in-depth about all the timing. However, based on rough figures, I estimate, and now I’ll set in stone: 100 days. In 100 days, we march on the Palace.”
“100! That.. that seems ridiculous!” Gitta exclaimed. “You want to plan, recruit supporters for, and coup the Imperial Government, all in 100 days? Is that even possible?”
“The longer we wait, the more time the nobles have to entrench their hold. We will have to be swift, not one day can be wasted.”
“But still, how would we even organise such things?” Atlas asked.
“I don’t really think we need much other than allies to help us cement our hold once we’ve got it. As I previously mentioned, there are plenty of officers here who likely share similar sentiments to us. While I would highly stress that only officers I specifically mark should we talk to, we cannot risk leaks.”
“And that brings me to my next question: what is stopping one of these potential “allies” from blowing the whistle on ‘Tagesanbruch?’”
Ferdinand smirked and raised his head. “As of tomorrow, the telegraph machine in Besanmiers will ‘stop working’. As the telegraph is very much an important asset for the exercises we’re doing, I will have it sent to Readewetter to get it fixed. Of course, while this is happening, all information and messages between us and the rest of the Empire will be run through loyal messengers. When they send the telegraph machine back, it’ll be ‘discovered’ that the problem was a cut telegraph line. By the time the telegraph line is fixed, and the news can get out, it’ll be too late for anything to really be done.”
“And what if someone simply bypasses us and sends a messenger on a train back to say.. Griffenheim? What happens then? Does this plan hinge on eighty different ways our opponents need to be dumb?”
“I already have a plan for that. Tonight I’m going to send a letter to a friend of mine, and he’ll be working behind the scenes to prepare a safety net.”
“Really?”
“I won’t go deeper, you’ll find out about that later.”
Gitta also had a question on her mind. “So.. we’ve been talking about the plan.. but what is it?”
“Alright, the general idea is that at dawn 100 days from now, a train will pull into a station in the Griffenheim city centre. The train crew will either be threatened, or replaced with allies. In the carriages, entire zugs of troops will swarm out. Now, we probably don’t have enough troops to successfully fight the entire garrison, so we’ll need to get help. One of my thoughts was we could try our claw at recruiting from the villages along the way, but if we get some more allies in the Reichsarmee, and coordinate correctly, then we - yes we, I’ll be there too - could fight our way to meet up with them, before pushing into and converging on the Palace. If we can break the palace guard, we’ve won.
“As you can see, I’ve labeled important places on the map. Fighting in cities is not really my area of expertise, but if we want to get from A to B,” he traced a line from a station to the palace,” we need to move and strike quickly. This, generally, is the plan. Again, we should probably be wrapping this up, but in a few days we can probably all come together to hammer out some of the details.”
“Griffonpower is going to be a massive factor..” Atlas muttered to himself.
“Undoubtedly. Well, I thank you for your time. May Boreas, Arcturius, and Eyr look favourably upon us. I hope my trust in you three is not misplaced.
“In a general update for today, it’ll be pretty quiet. There are some wargames going on out east, I do need someone to oversee that. Other than that, the rest of the day will be relatively lax. Felizia, I’m sorry I pulled you away from your alone time. As a consolation, I’ll let you have a few more hours off duty.”
“I’ll oversee the wargames, sir,” Atlas volunteered. “I’ve been meaning to get away from charts for days.”
“Alright then, you are all dismissed. For Fatherland?
“For Fatherland,” the three answered. Atlas saluted on behalf of the others, and within a few seconds they were gone.
Something nagged Ferdinand’s mind, but he shrugged it off.
Poor Grover. He was too young, too fragile for this cruel world. But with change, comes an opportuntty.
Gabriela Eagleclaw, Duchess of Strawberry, was deep in thought as she walked down the venerable halls of the Imperial Palace. Gears turned in her head. As much as she personally considered the late emperor her friend, she knew that he had been no proper ruler. Now that his son was in need of a regency, she could fix that. She had a grand vision for the empire, one that would make Boreas proud of griffons again, and more importantly, give the young heir an actual territory to rule once he was old enough. But first… she needed to deal with Eros and his supporters. The archons were such a nuisance, putting forward one of their own to contest Gabriela’s claim to Lead Regent.
With that, she stepped into the Council Chamber. The archon was already there, giving his “sermon” to the gathered nobles.
What a bother. She took a seat next to the Count of Bronzehill - Ignatius. She tuned out the speech, and discussed the situation in hushed whispers with a few of her fellow nobles. Gabriela ignored Eros grandstanding, until he finally decided to remove his old hide from the central podium. With that, she took her chance, strolled down to the centre and addressed the room.
"My fellow nobles and other griffons worthy of respect. The esteemed Archon speaks well of the situation. We must have stability, and we must reassert our authority. But how can we trust the Archonate to provide for our nation?” She ignored the scowls Eros and his lackeys were sending her way.
“They talk of war, but do they care for the little griffon? How can we get anywhere before we modernise our beloved Herzland, before we help our people? I implore you all to consider the right choice."
Cheers and applause followed... with a loud minority of jeers and claw pointing. It didn’t matter. The council would back her claim for lead regent, and Eros would be marginalised, consigned to the altar where he belonged.
The duchess moves to consolidate her power.