Ch.33Strange Phenomenon

# The Eunuch Stalin

“This can’t be happening. Me, a eunuch!”

Wow, I came to see a eunuch, and for a moment Stalin looked like a shadow of himself.

Right. This bastard deserves some humiliation too.

“You’ve become quite pitiful. Weren’t you one of the Soviet Union’s most powerful figures alongside Trotsky?”

“Y-Your Imperial Highness!”

“Why so surprised? If you’ve been captured, you should be prepared to face me.”

“Have you come to kill me?”

No, originally I planned to kill him.

But thinking about it now, it feels different.

“I plan to execute Lenin and the others by firing squad, but when I heard you’d become a eunuch, I wondered if I should kill you too. Don’t you think? Wouldn’t killing a man who’s already been castrated make the Tsarina seem too merciless?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll just send you and your wife to Siberia. Live there under surveillance for the rest of your lives.”

With those words, I left Stalin’s hospital room.

He’s no longer the Stalin I knew from history.

Just a eunuch who happens to be a communist. Nothing more, nothing less.

As the leader of the White Army, I have no reason to get involved further.

But honestly, I did feel sorry for him.

The Man of Steel, the Butcher of Georgia. The Great Purge, industrialization.

The man who was practically synonymous with the Soviet Union, who made it a superpower.

That man became a eunuch.

Thinking about his days as a man, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. Sending him to Siberia is punishment enough.

Stalin won’t be able to stage a comeback now that communism has been shattered.

Though the Siberian camps will probably become like gulags before long. Even if Stalin lives, it won’t be much of a life.

On his way there, we could make a spectacle of him, parading the eunuch through every town.

And when he’s been thoroughly humiliated in Siberia…

If he shows any suspicious signs, I can send the Okhrana to quietly dispose of him.

As for Tukhachevsky, we could keep him in Siberia and later bring him back if he shows signs of changing sides.

In the end, what matters is whether he has the will to change.

“With the recapture of Moscow, the Bolshevik main force has essentially been eliminated. But remnants still remain.”

“Yes. We must recapture Petrograd as well.”

The Soviets have lost Moscow.

Moreover, most of their leadership was captured here.

Public support abandoned them long ago, and now only remnants remain.

Well, Trotsky is probably still in Petrograd. We’ll need to recapture it too before we can truly say this plague has been eradicated.

“After securing Moscow, let’s head straight to Petrograd.”

The resistance there will likely be less than in Moscow.

After all, it was the imperial capital.

Although Nicholas II was deposed there, and it’s where the revolution began.

That’s precisely why I, a Romanov, must recapture it.

# # #

The recapture of Moscow was a tremendous achievement for the White Army, giving them the upper hand in the civil war.

Naturally, all the White Army generals were elated.

The captured Reds received the full brunt of the White Army’s anger for all the trouble they had caused.

In the outskirts of Moscow, they died like rags, tortured until they barely resembled humans.

However, despite these circumstances…

Unlike in actual history, Baron Ungern, who had survived, was now in a foul mood.

“Patton. Do you have some inferiority complex toward me? Or were we enemies in a past life?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why do you follow me wherever I go?”

Ungern was beside himself with rage.

Why does this man appear everywhere, trying to steal his glory?

It happened in Ukraine before, and now during the Moscow Red extermination campaign, he interfered when Ungern was capturing fleeing Reds.

Because of that interference, the pursuit went wrong and the Reds escaped to Petrograd.

“I’ve done no such thing. On the contrary, wasn’t it you, General, who kept prancing around in front of me with your cavalry?”

“Watch your words. As a military attaché, shouldn’t you just stand back and observe? Why must you interfere, even mounting machine guns on carriages?”

“Well, the Grand Duchess herself authorized it.”

The Grand Duchess? No, look at this rough-looking American.

He must have intimidated her.

This Yankee must have threatened the fragile Grand Duchess with his imposing physique.

“You must have coerced her!”

“Coerced? I merely shared my burning soldier’s heart with the Grand Duchess. And she, true to her reputation as the Empress on Horseback, understood a soldier’s feelings.”

Is he looking for a fight?

Understood a soldier’s feelings?

Of course, seeing him acting up, she probably just let him have his way.

BANG!

“Are you looking for a fight?!”

“That’s enough.”

Mikhail Drozdovsky restrained Ungern, who had jumped to his feet.

“Chief of Staff, what were you doing right beside the Grand Duchess? Isn’t this arrogant fellow ruining our holy mission?”

“General Patton is a young man who distinguished himself in the Great War and is skilled with tanks. If Russia wants to build a tank corps, we need his help.”

“The Asiatic Cavalry Division is the strongest!”

The cavalry division that Ungern himself had nurtured and developed.

Though multinational, its combat effectiveness was unmatched.

“The Red Army is deploying tanks. You don’t intend to counter them with the Asiatic Cavalry Division, do you? It might work against Chinese bandits in the Far East, but in Europe, the Asiatic Cavalry Division would struggle to be effective.”

“Ugh.”

Ungern couldn’t refute this.

The division was performing well only because they were currently facing the Bolsheviks.

The Asiatic Cavalry Division was diverse in ethnicity and not equipped with tanks.

It might work in the Far East, but was too poorly equipped for European warfare.

That’s why Mikhail Drozdovsky planned to create a tank corps with Patton’s help.

“Hahaha! Should men of valor be red-faced over such matters? This is good for everyone!”

Patton laughed heartily and patted Ungern’s shoulder.

Ungern’s face crumpled with displeasure.

# # #

Berlin, Germany

Around this time, France was experiencing a strange phenomenon.

“My goodness!”

“What’s wrong, France?”

“Germany isn’t paying its reparations!”

That’s right. Germany was refusing to pay its reparations.

“Why aren’t these bastards paying?”

Despite being defeated, despite maintaining their national bonds only through France’s mercy, they weren’t paying their reparations.

What a strange phenomenon.

When others were being torn apart, France had shown mercy and spared them. And now they refused to pay?

France was astounded by Germany’s audacity.

So France, as a victorious nation, confronted Germany directly.

“The reparations seem to be constantly delayed. What’s going on?”

“The reparations are astronomically high, so please be patient.”

“Astronomically high? Thanks to Britain and America, the reparations were drastically reduced, and you still claim they’re too much to pay? The mighty Germany? Are you joking?”

Britain, which had taken all the sweet colonial territories and could afford to reduce reparations, and the Americans from the New Continent who had nothing but money, might have been merciful, but France was not.

The wounds from the Franco-Prussian War ran too deep.

Regaining Alsace-Lorraine from the German Empire wasn’t enough to heal those wounds.

In short, France could assert that it had shown tremendous mercy and restraint toward the German Empire.

“We’ve already returned Elsass-Lothringen.”

“Alsace-Lorraine!”

“Anyway, please be patient. We’re busy supporting White Russia.”

“Fine. But remember this: the only reason Germany preserved its territory after losing this war was solely due to our French mercy! You should know that we showed consideration to your country despite our enmity!”

Though the situation felt unsettling, Germany was still not a country France could handle alone.

Invading with tanks over unpaid reparations wasn’t feasible with British and American eyes watching. And knowing the power of tanks, Germany would surely produce their own.

“Yes, of course.”

After the French ambassador had finished his tirade and left, Ludendorff clicked his tongue.

“Those frogs have grown bold.”

In the past, such a man wouldn’t have dared to raise his face in front of him.

During this period, Ludendorff was overseeing German national affairs.

Of course, not to the extent he had during the war.

Ludendorff had wanted to continue the war despite its bleak outlook, and Wilhelm II had prevented Ludendorff’s solo run, leaving him in control of only the military.

Nevertheless, Ludendorff was an impressive military figure, so Wilhelm II was willing to maintain the current system as long as Ludendorff remained loyal to the Kaiser and government.

The problem was that Wilhelm II was regrettably planning another attack on France.

Ludendorff relayed the news from Russia to Wilhelm II.

“Your Majesty, Grand Duchess Anastasia has recaptured Moscow.”

“Have our troops had a chance to operate tanks?”

“Yes, they’ve operated tanks under the pretext of helping train the Russian army.”

“Good. We need to increase our experience until the civil war ends. Now that Moscow has been recaptured, the Bolsheviks are essentially just remnants, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Can we succeed this time?”

A solo attack on France.

Though it still involved the Schlieffen Plan, it was different this time.

This time, the plan was to use tanks to prove that Belgium was essentially just a highway, and to sweep all the way to Paris in one go—an absurd plan.

However, this plan originated in Ludendorff’s mind first, and Wilhelm II had accepted it, which was significant.

The German people were quiet for now, but if they continued to implement the Treaty of Versailles, the imperial family might be overthrown due to the massive losses from the war.

So attacking France was necessary.

However, what the outcome would be remained unknown.

After all, a red tide was slowly rising within the German Empire.

“Comrade Lenin’s failure in Russia was solely due to his authoritarian, violent approach. Here in Germany, our Communist Party must capture the hearts of the people to ensure success.”

“Yes, Comrade Luxemburg.”

Rosa Luxemburg.

In actual history, when the German Empire collapsed with the November Revolution, she and Karl Liebknecht led an uprising for communist revolution but failed.

However, seeing the German Empire survive and the violence-stained Soviet Union fail, Rosa Luxemburg viewed the Soviet Union as a failed communist revolution and was quietly building strength with Liebknecht.

She had learned of Lenin’s brutal actions to defeat the White Army in the civil war, and his ultimate failure.

An unprepared armed struggle.

That’s how Rosa Luxemburg viewed the Russian Civil War.

The Bolsheviks, stained with authority and violence, claimed to serve the people while exploiting them to maintain Bolshevik power.

Just like during the imperial era.

So Rosa Luxemburg learned from Lenin’s failure and was slowly taking control within Germany.

“The time is approaching.”

The German Communist Party had also received information that the Kaiser and military were planning another war.

So they planned to recruit regular troops dissatisfied with this war when the time came.

Contrary to Anastasia’s expectations, ironically, communism was regaining strength in Germany.