European Twilight

They thought they were building something eternal. Bismarck said the Federation was a cage, but life inside it was better than out in the jungle. Wilhelm II said Germany needed a place in the sun, and should stand as Britain’s equal on the world stage. The French said they would make a deal with the devil if that was what it took to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine. The devil came. He wore not a black robe, but a well-tailored suit: the chairman’s robes, passed from one party to another in the Federal Parliament. His words were not curses, but “common tariffs, common currency, common defense.” In the summer of 1914, before the blood of Archduke Ferdinand had even dried, Europe’s nations were dragged into the abyss by their own alliances. The Federation did not bring peace. It merely turned war from a series of one-on-one duels into a brawl where everyone fought everyone else. This was Europe’s twilight. Not the twilight of sunset, but the last glimmer of light before the great collapse. Kaspar von Steheim stood beside a wheat field in East Prussia, watching smoke rise along the horizon. He remembered his father’s words: “This child will read many books one day. This world will no longer belong to men who know only how to wield a blade.”