Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 695: Hearts and Minds

The smell of smoke still lingered in the air.

Erich von Zehntner stood at the shattered edge of Dunkirk’s harbor wall, his posture rigid beneath the weight of his officer’s overcoat.

A cold wind whipped off the Channel, carrying with it the scent of brine, gunpowder, and the faint, acrid memory of war.

Behind him, the ruins of the town stretched in bleak silence, church steeples collapsed, windows shattered, homes cratered by artillery and air strikes.

And in the streets, the civilians watched.

Eyes, too many of them.

From broken windows, behind shuttered storefronts, from the makeshift soup lines now managed under the Triune Red Cross banners.

Men, women, children… all of them staring.

None of them smiling. Some too afraid to speak.

Others too proud to look away. All of them radiating one of two things:

Fear. Or hatred.

Erich had seen that look before.

In Barcelona, and Catalonia, In the mountain villages of the Pyrenees.

But something about it here in France unsettled him in a way those other cities never did.

There had been resistance.

Scattered, desperate, foolish.

A police barracks turned last redoubt.

A cafe basement filled with ex-republican officers and antique rifles.

His airborne battalion defeated them swiftly, and brutally. but not without cost. Not without blood.

He turned away from the water.

A lieutenant approached with a clipboard.

“Supply convoy arrived from Bruges. Medical tents are being erected in the Place Jean-Bart. We’ve got three dead from yesterday’s detonation near the cathedral, looks like some civilian children set off an old mine.”

Erich exhaled slowly.

“Post guards at the ruin sites. If the locals won’t listen to warnings, we’ll enforce them ourselves. No more accidents.”

The lieutenant hesitated. “Sir, the locals are… beginning to talk.”

“Let them,” Erich said, voice clipped. “We’re not here to win popularity contests.”

He paused. His gloves clenched. “We’re here to ensure the war is over.”

But even as he said it, the doubt crept in like frost under the collar. Was it? Was it truly over?

France had crumbled in a week.

Its lines collapsed like paper dikes under storm tide.

And now Dunkirk, once the last hope of Allied withdrawal, once a symbol of stubborn escape, was occupied.

Silent.

Watching.

Smoldering.

But across the sea, the world still breathed. Still watched.

And Erich could feel it.

The Americans hadn’t even mobilized.

They hadn’t had the time.

The British were still fighting, isolated and seething behind their waves, hurling propaganda across the Channel as fast as they sank ships within it.

And every day that passed gave Berlin, Moscow, and Rome time to entrench, to consolidate, to prepare for whatever came next.

Erich looked once more at the ruined skyline.

“We’ve bought time,” he murmured. “But time is all we’ve bought. They’ll come.”

“Who?” Roth asked.

He didn’t answer at first. Just stared at the sky, the color of gunmetal, lined with distant contrails.

Then he said:

“Everyone.”

—

Beneath the gilded chandeliers and oil portraits of long-dead liberators, the war’s next phase was being drawn not in blood, but in signatures and smiles.

The Mexican President, little more than a puppet in Washington’s grasp, hosted envoys from Peru, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil.

Each bore their nation’s flag, their own agendas, and just enough skepticism to make the room taste of sweat and tension.

FDR had chosen Mexico wisely.

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Its military had been modernized with American rifles and surplus allied tanks.

Its trade policies rewrote in English.

Its oil, leased on ninety-nine-year contracts.

And now, it played host to a gathering of hemispheric consequence.

The Mexican foreign minister, coached for days by American State Department advisors, stood tall and confident.

With a voice that echoed off the chamber walls, he laid the bait:

“The fall of France in six days. The Royal Navy bleeding in the Channel. The Central Powers now stretch from Kamchatka to the Pyrenees, their boots planted on every sovereign capital between.”

He paused, letting the silence settle like fog.

“And yet the New World stands untouched. Not by distance, but by providence. We now face a singular decision: Do we wait, and be picked off one by one when the wolf finds our doors… or do we act now, as one.”

The Peruvian delegate stirred. “And you believe Washington will honor its promises?”

The Mexican nodded, sliding a packet across the table.

Inside: military aid packages, industrial investment projections, co-development treaties.

But more than money, it was status. Inclusion.

The promise that, for once, Latin America would not be the chessboard, but the player.

“Help us hold the line. Help us contain the Reich before it turns its eyes across the Atlantic. Join the Allied Pact, and your industries will not just survive, but thrive. Your armies will not fight alone. And when the peace is written, your voices will be among the authors.”

The Argentinians remained quiet.

The Brazilians whispered among themselves.

But already, deals were being made.

Outside the palace, American advisors were distributing maps.

Not of Europe, but of shipping routes. Port upgrades. Oil reserves.

A war for hearts and minds had begun.

And this time, it would be fought with ink and silver tongues before bullets and steel.

But the heart was weak, and the mind was foolish.

While America consolidated its hopes on the power of unity.

Germany placed its faith in blood and iron.

From Burgundy to the Tsaritsyn, forges worked day and night.

Producing armor, artillery, munitions, and everything in between.

Alliances were already forged in the past decades, crowns wielded by men fit to wear them.

Germany’s war machine grew, and its allies bolstered with their advances.

They were not simply forging a war machine, but a railway, into a new horizon.

One that would not end in Paris, nor with France’s fall.

But would thunder on, east, west, and beyond, toward a future shaped not by peace, but by victory.