Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 582: The International Legion Arrives

The harbor of Santander was a cauldron of salt air, clanging cranes, and shouted orders that carried in half a dozen languages.

Men bustled over the broad docks, hoisting crates from steamships that belched coal smoke into the pale afternoon sky.

Uniforms of every cut and color moved among them; German feldgrau mingling with the deep forest green of Hungarian dragoons, the sand-hued tunics of Italian Celere tank crews brushing past the trim naval blue of Greek staff officers.

At the heart of this tumult stood two men who could have been mistaken for brothers at a careless glance.

Both were broad-shouldered, with stern hawkish profiles. However, one was adorned with understated silver piping; the mark of German staff. And the other a mere captain.

But the elder was unmistakably Rommel, the legendary Wüstenfuchs of another world perhaps, but in this timeline merely a brilliant, still-young general cut from cold steel and mountain frost.

His eyes missed nothing, every piece of dockside confusion mapping itself into neat supply lines and advancing battalions in his mind.

Beside him stood Erich von Zehntner, Bruno’s grandson.

Where Rommel was flint and calculation, Erich was raw iron still warming at the forge; determined to prove himself, yet acutely aware of the older man’s measuring gaze.

They stood together on a slight rise overlooking the piers, the salty wind tugging at Rommel’s peaked cap.

“Can you believe it?” Erich muttered, half to himself. “A Greek destroyer escort bringing Russian artillery shells to Spanish monarchists. A Hungarian signals company trying to figure out if our code ciphers use Cyrillic or Latin. This is either the most brilliant multinational show of solidarity in history; or the worst practical joke my grandfather ever arranged.”

Rommel’s lips twitched in the faintest approximation of amusement. “Perhaps both. The Reich’s intelligence ministry said your grandfather wanted ’proof of loyalty’ from every allied court. He’s getting it. Truly, we are witnessing here and now how deep the man’s understanding logistics truly go.”

Down on the quay, a massive crane lowered a Carro Armato M Celere from an Italian transport ship, its sloped armor plates still glinting with fresh welds. Dock workers cheered; they’d never seen such a beast up close.

Beside it, crates marked with the double-headed eagle of Russia were being unloaded, each stenciled in a peculiar Cyrillic-German hybrid script.

A gaggle of Italian officers argued heatedly with a Hungarian quartermaster over fuel distribution, while a Greek lieutenant gamely tried to translate for both sides.

“I was briefed we’d have an initial strike force of around 5,000, mostly German and Russian professionals,” Erich said. “Now it’s ballooned to nearly double, and I suspect at least a third are adventurers looking to write their own epics about slaying Reds.”

Rommel shrugged. “As long as they remember we’re here for the Crown of Spain; not to loot Barcelona for someone’s family memoir. And as long as they can keep pace with our armored spearheads.”

He cast a critical eye on a line of low-slung Panzer E-10s already parked under camouflaged netting.

Crews checked tracks, calibrated main guns; their new 7.5cm pieces longer and leaner than the stubbier Great War relics once common on European battlefields.

Nearby, soldiers unloaded sleek hybrid rifles, the so-called Sturmgewehr 25/32,.

A Hungarian captain walked past with a pair of these rifles slung crosswise over his shoulders, nodding curtly to Rommel and Erich.

“Your grandfather does not skimp on toys,” Rommel said dryly. “Or on expectations.”

Erich managed a tight smile.

“No. He expects this to be over before winter. Smash the French-backed anarchists and syndicalists here, before their message or their sponsors can carry it beyond Iberia.”

His tone darkened, memories of private lectures echoing in his ears. “Or else France will learn to repeat 1871 in reverse, pouring poison into every throne’sd well across Europe until there are no crowns left standing.”

—

Later that evening, under heavy canvas stenciled with faded German sigils, Rommel addressed the hastily assembled staff.

Lanterns threw stark shadows across maps of Catalonia and Aragon pinned to broad oak boards.

Red wax markers stood clustered around Barcelona and the inland rail hubs. Thin blue strings traced planned advances, flanked by heavier arcs showing expected routes of Italian armor columns.

“This will not be a campaign of grand maneuvers at first,” Rommel said, pointer tapping lightly on a series of supply nodes.

“It will be road control, bridge seizure, demolition of suspected arms caches. The French are sending ’volunteers’ across the Pyrenees; we’ve already heard of light armor and even early 37mm tank guns being field-tested here.”

A Greek major interjected, “And the Werwolf Group, Herr General? The rumors are unsettling. Spanish villagers speak of men who strike at night, leave piles of executed syndicalists, then vanish without taking local credit.”

Rommel did not smirk, but his eyes were coldly approving.

“That is intentional. The Werwolf detachments operate under direct strategic orders from Berlin, but without insignia. They reinforce the terror; make the common rabble doubt every neighbor. Make the Reds fear even a dark barn. You will coordinate with them only by coded dispatch. They do not attend joint briefings.”

A Greek colonel grunted, scribbling something in his notes with a scarred fountain pen. “I do not like ghosts in my theater. Give me men with banners and drums. At least then I know which way the bullets come from.”

Erich leaned forward. “You may wish for clarity, Colonel, but clarity is a luxury we cannot afford. France feeds these Catalonian cells precisely because they expect confusion to be our undoing. We will answer confusion with calculated horror, then with overwhelming force. By the time we reach Zaragoza, there won’t be a village left willing to hide a French rifle.”

The room fell silent at that. Even the Italians who earlier had joked about duels of honor.

Rommel finally allowed himself a thin smile. “That, gentlemen, is how you stabilize a peninsula.”

In the moonless dark three nights later, the first of these plans took shape.

South of Pamplona, a French armored convoy rumbled cautiously along an old Roman road, its lead vehicles tiny AMC-39s.

Prototypes of the joint Anglo-French tank program, their crude sloped plates making them look like angular beetles under the stars.

Inside one tank, the driver wiped sweat from his brow. “They say the Spanish will never fight at night,” he muttered to his gunner. “Too many ghosts, too many old civil war stories. That suits me just fine.”

He was still speaking when a lance of fire cut across the hills. The first Panzerfaust 250 screamed from concealment, a shaped charge striking the lead AMC-39 with an obscene hollow thunk.

Flames belched through the seams, and the turret lurched sideways like a dying animal.

Chaos erupted. French crews scrambled from hatches just as machine gun fire raked them down.

The Werwolf teams, wearing scavenged Spanish armbands and mismatched cloaks, darted from cover to cover, their hybrid assault rifles spitting precision bursts.

Each shot seemed preternaturally calm; no wild fusillades, only methodical takedowns.

A pair of Russians working with them unpacked a stubby mortar, dropping in rounds with practiced speed.

Moments later, canisters hissed open among the rear trucks, spreading a cloying fog. Men choked, clutched their throats, and toppled.

The survivors staggered out, only to be picked off by disciplined bursts from concealed firing pits.

One Werwolf lieutenant, with a sardonic grin wiped blood from his cheek and radioed in a crisp Prussian dialect: “Tell Rommel his road is clear for the Italians.”

By first light, the battered remnants of the French expedition were little more than twisted steel and bloated bodies lining the roadside.

Rommel stood with Erich and a small cadre of Greek and Hungarian observers. Smoke from still-burning trucks drifted across the field, catching in the rising sun’s pale glare.

“You see?” Rommel murmured. “This is what happens when you try to make a proving ground out of another man’s civil war. France wanted to test their armored theory here. They’ve learned it fails against men who’ve been sharpening their knives for twenty years.”

Erich nodded slowly, though his eyes were haunted by the fresh ruin. “And it is only the beginning.”

Rommel clapped a hand on his shoulder, brief but firm. “Be glad you see it now. The world talks of future wars as if they are mechanical, bloodless equations. But the truth is, every rifle, every tank, every whispered rumor; it all feeds back to this. Smoke, iron, and dead boys who thought they were invincible.”

Later that day, on a rise outside Pamplona, the multinational legion formed ranks.

Banner after banner snapped in the wind; German eagles beside Italian royal standards, Greek crosses next to the angular sunbursts of Hungarian volunteer regiments.

Erich stood at Rommel’s right, jaw set, shoulders squared, watching as their columns stretched down the ridge.

Officers barked drills in a chorus of accented German, with translators hurrying alongside.

“These men will be a nightmare to coordinate,” Erich admitted under his breath.

Rommel’s eyes gleamed. “Perhaps. Or perhaps they will be the nightmare that stalks the dreams of every red agitator from Marseille to Seville.”

A bugle sounded. The legion began its slow march southward; armored columns clanking into line, artillery teams setting their sights for the next rail hub.

Above them, on a battered church tower, a sniper unfurled a strange new banner hastily sewn from three allied colors: a promise that for at least one brutal season, Germany, Italy, Greece, Hungary, and Russia would bleed together on Spanish soil.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!