It all started in the shipyards

1. Death to the Empire

Dietmar - The German Empire

Friederike - Austria-Hungary

9 October 1918, Berlin.

Friederike may have been blind, but her eyes saw beyond her environment. She was terribly clever, but cleverness doesn't save you in a war. Soldiers do. Weapons do. Friederike knew this.

Dietmar had always thought of his wife as a pessimist, when she truly was a realist. A fortune-teller. But after years of marriage, and two young girls, he had learned not to argue with her. That was the wrong lesson, of course, because what he should've learned was that she was always right.

They sat in silence. Friederike was "drawing", calmly, yet quickly. She liked to pretend to write, although it was going to end up gibberish in the end. Dietmar had called her scribbles "art" before, and she was so pleased that she made more doodles, pretending she was a writer. Dietmare was reading the newspaper, though these days there were never any good news. He kept reading over the same words, the same paragraphs, trying to understand. He sat the newspaper on his lap.

Friederike sighed, and murmured just loud enough for Dietmar to hear:

"How I wish I could write."

Dietmar turned to his wife.

"You know I'll write anything for you"

"You'll get upset."

"Not unless you want me to write up our divorce papers." He was joking, but Dietmar wasn't a man who was recognised for his humour. Friederike was used to his "comedy", even if it did drive her crazy how unfunny he was.

"My- Our will," she replied, blankly. He swallowed.

"Whatever for?"

"We are on the losing side of a war, my dear, and there are talks to dissolve my empire. I will die soon, and so shall you."

"But, don't you think we have a chance?" he asked, almost shouting.

"I told you you'd get upset"

"Ach! Fine," he spat, taking the pen from her hand. Friederike slid one of her papers in his hand.

"You scribbled on that one."

"Sorry," she said, and Dietmar took another paper, blank and untouched.

"I want our daughters to inherit our empires," she began, as he began to write, "Hopefully they'll both turn out as our kind, and not as mortals..."

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Early November, 1918. Weimar.

A sailors' mutiny. Kiel. That's where it all started. The navy in Kiel had been asked to go against British ships. A suicide mission. They refused, and started protesting, calling for the abdication of the Kaiser. Now Germany was in a state of turmoil, and Dietmar had moved to Weimar, because Berlin was no longer safe.

Almost every night, he'd stare out of window unto the unfamiliar street. He'd cry into his hands, because he knew the worst was yet to come. Friederike was dead. The Austro-Hungarian empire had been dissolved the month before, and on the third of November, their daughters had signed an armistice on her behalf. Friederike had left the day after they wrote their will together, and she had taken the girls with her, believing that Vienna was safer. She was right, she always was, of course. Where was he? He had fled from Berlin because it was too dangerous.

The empire that was once in the palm of his wife, was now to be split up into different countries. Perhaps it was destiny that both the girls go with their mother, because both of his daughters had written to him, informing him that they'd represent the new Austria, and the new Hungary. He was happy that they were safe, but that meant he was without an heir.

Dietmar cried for his future, for his daughters, for his wife, for Berlin, and for his empire.

He wrote letters to foreign powers, begging them to be kind to the unfortunate soul that would come after him. He read the newspaper everyday, unconsciously biting at his fingertips, something that he had never done before, as it became more apparent that an empire-near-death was to lose the war.

On the Ninth of November, the Kaiser abdicated. 

On the Ninth of November, Dietmar scrambled around his apartment, organising everything for the next Germany. He knew it was his last day alive, and all he could do was write. Letters of instruction, advice, and lore to give to the child that he was going to entrust everything to. He dipped his pen in ink time and time again, until he heard a rap at the door. He shuffled clumsily from his desk.

"It must be death, surely it is," he muttered to himself repeatedly. He swung open the door, and standing in front of him was a girl no older than thirteen. She had wide eyes, and a determined look on her face.

"Guten Tag," she said, "I'm Auguste, and I represent the younger Weimar Republic. You must be my father, and predecessor, Dietmar."

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"I am," he said shakily. Auguste nodded slowly. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do at this point. She had only just materialised in the hallways of this building. She knew who she was and where she had to go, but after introducing herself, she had no idea what was supposed to happen next. The man, her father, groaned, and he leaned against the doorframe. Auguste caught him before he fell to the ground.

"How weak I feel!" he exclaimed softly. She nodded and held his head up, so that he'd have at least a shred of dignity as he died. He wanted to tell her lots of things, like how he felt, dying in the arms of a child. Or how he left his memoirs and advice on the work desk. Or how the house key was in his pocket. But his jaw refused to open, and only his vocal chords made a patchy humming sound.

Auguste thought about her opinion on her father, who she'd met for only five minutes, but she decided that she liked him. He was a bit lanky, and his silhouette was defined mostly by his well-cut uniform. She closed her eyes, feeling the fabric between her fingers, but when she opened them, the body that once filled those clothes were gone.

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997 words in two days.

Fun fact, this chapter was going to stop at Auguste's introduction, but most writer's sources say that a chapter should be about a thousand words, so I grabbed three hundred or so words from the next chapter.

Fun fact #2: The daughters of Dietmar and Friederike are Austria (Leni) and Hungary (Ida), but I felt like trying to remember four names at once would be a bit too much. I'm not saying that you have dementia or anything, but I sure do.

Saturday, 6 April 2024

Next chapter next Saturday (hopefully)