Re: Blood and Iron

The Balkans were lit aflame, France was in the process of destabilization after two years of burning to cinders, and Britain, it had somehow managed to stem the tides of revolution without giving up too many colonial territories.

As for Latin America, it was both stable, and unstable. Mexico was in revolution, and the countries in the south were having their own affairs. But that was a matter to discuss at another time. No, the other place in Europe most affected by the fallout of the Great War was none other than the Iberian Peninsula.

Refugees from France had flooded the country during the final days of the war, many had used Spain as a way to reach north Africa, while others had tried to stay. But the weight of caring for hundreds of thousands if not millions of sudden new arrivals was far greater than any nation could reasonably sustain.

And soon Spain itself became barren, and depleted of the resources that made it seem like the perfect lifeline, as economies both local and national began to falter. Portugal became another place for the refugees to flew to, like locusts upon a fertile crop of wheat they tried and failed to ravage the nation.

Portugal had seen what asylum had done ot spain and mobilized its army in defense. During the war they had remained neutral, but had indirectly aided the Central Powers by patrolling their waters and intercepting several British violations of their territory.

Flagrant attacks on German merchant colonies had been stopped because of this, and Germany responded with their thanks in the form of weaponry, and engineers to be used in the construction of border defenses to better repel the migration crisis coming from France and Spain.

However, any more support than that Germany did not provide, the reason was simple, Portugal had assassinated its monarch in 1908, and succeeded in overthrowing his successor two years in 1910, an act which disturbed Germany who was currently in an unofficial cold war with republican style governments after the Great War came to an end.

So the Reich did what it could, they had repaid the favor in material worth of arms, but did not actively pursue friendship beyond fair and reciprocal trade. Nord did Portugal reach out to do so.

Still, there were many in Portugal’s current republican government who felt that replacing the monarch in an age where Empires were on the rise, and republic’s were on the decline had been an unwise move.

Germany, and Russia were now the two greatest powers in the world, and the announcements of betrothals between the Kaiser and Tsar’s future heirs to Bruno’s oldest daughters made this alliance cemented into the long term future.

Only a fool would not understand what this meant for the world economically, and militarily. Worse yet, rumors of joint research agreements, and standardization of high speed rail systems, and military equipment had leaked beyond the borders of the two Empires, creating a grave concern to those who had the foresight to understand how terrifying of a prospect this would be if true.

But the Portuguese army remembered who they were before the republic, and the navy never forgot who had ordered their ships to be stripped, sold, or scuttled in service of a vision that had never truly taken root.

Within quiet barracks and coastal strongholds, in Lisbon’s officer salons and backroom mess halls, the whispers had begun. Whispers that grew bolder with each failed food shipment, each foreign policy blunder, and every humiliating concession made by the republican administration.

The time of poets was over. Portugal, they said, needed a king again.

And so, beneath the crumbling arches of an old fort overlooking the Tagus, a group of men gathered under false orders of a routine coastal defense inspection. General Silveira, one of the last officers trained before the fall of the monarchy, presided over the meeting with a calm that unnerved even his closest aides.

There were ten men in attendance, not one below the rank of major. Three from the navy, the rest from the army.

“You’ve all seen the future,” Silveira said, standing before a chalk map of the Iberian coastline. “It belongs to crowns. The eagle and the bear have mated, and the lion is dying. And here we are, without a shield, without a sovereign, begging for table scraps from fools in Lisbon who still speak of liberty while their people starve in the streets.”

He let the silence hang—let the truth settle like dust.

“This republic,” he continued, “was born in cowardice and sustained by corruption. But it ends with us. Our friends in Berlin will not act, but they will watch. And if we restore the crown, with order, with unity… they will remember our loyalty. Perhaps then, we will be remembered too.”

One of the naval officers leaned forward, his voice rough with salt and smoke. “And who wears the crown?”

Silveira allowed himself a rare, thin smile.

“That… is being arranged.”

A low murmur passed through the room—uncertain, but not resistant. They had all felt the same weight pressing on their chests each night, the same bitterness burning in their bellies when reading foreign papers that called their homeland irrelevant, decayed, finished.

Major Esteves, youngest among them but with eyes that had seen the worst of the Spanish collapse, cleared his throat.

“And if Lisbon does not yield?”

Silveira turned slowly, the smile gone from his face.

“Then Lisbon will burn.”

A pause—measured, deliberate. Not a threat. A forecast.

The men exchanged looks—some grim, some eager. Not one protested.

“We have discreet backers within the Guard, and loyalists still embedded in the Ministry of War,” Silveira continued. “When the moment comes, the capital will be taken before dawn. The republic’s remnants can choose exile, or they can choose the rope. I’m not particular.”

A sharp breath from a naval officer. “And the king?”

Silveira walked over to the table and unrolled a smaller parchment. On it was a formal declaration, unsigned, bearing the royal seal of the House of Braganza—faintly embossed but unmistakable.

“His Majesty, Manuel II, awaits our word. He will return as king—not as a politician, not as a negotiator—but as sovereign. And beside him, a Habsburg bride to bind our fate to the imperial order of Europe. That marriage is already in motion.”

There was a weight in the room now, one that no man spoke of—but all felt. This was no longer a whisper. It was a decision. A conspiracy in name only. From this moment forward, it was an operation. Silveira looked to each man in turn.

“We will give Portugal back her soul. And if we must carve it from the flesh of traitors—so be it.”

No one applauded. They didn’t need to. They stood, one by one, and gave the general a silent nod. Outside, the Tagus moved slowly under a pale moon. Lisbon slept, unaware that in the ruins of an old fort, the kingdom had already begun to rise again.

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