The Joint-Military Exercise continued in various mock battles over the course of three weeks. Before Bruno was invited to the Hofburg once more, which was the primary palace of the Habsburg Dynasty. Overall, there was quite a bit that Austro-Hungary learned from their German counterparts.
And during the dinner that followed the event, Bruno brought up many ideas that could be used to improve Austro-Hungarian performance in the field. And while his ideas certainly made sense, there were political, economic, and industrial challenges that needed to be faced to fully implement them.
Meaning that Bruno ultimately did not pursue them any further than mere lip service. Fundamentally, whether or not Austro-Hungary actually performed respectably in the war wasn’t important to Bruno.
What was important was that the Eastern front was closed as quickly as possible. And if Russia ultimately proved to be a German ally, or at the very least decided not to get involved with the war, which Bruno was still not expecting to happen, nor planning for, then Serbia could be knocked out of the game relatively quickly, allowing Austro Hungary to focus their forces in the Western and Southern Fronts.
Thus were Bruno’s thoughts as he continued to discuss things with the Habsburg family. However, after the military exercise concluded, Bruno quickly found that he had a little admirer. And unfortunately for him, the one paying the most attention to him was not the Austrian Kaiser, or the man who would become his successor.
Rather, it was the Austrian Kaiser’s young granddaughter, who wanted to hear more about Bruno’s exploits in war, and the Joint Military Exercise which he had just concluded. The girl followed him around as if she were some kind of lost puppy, and eventually Bruno had to sit her aside, and tell her that although he appreciated her interest in his achievements, she was ultimately preventing the man from establishing relationships with more prominent members of her family.
“Listen, Hedwig, I would be more than happy to discuss my military career with you at a later time. But tomorrow morning I am on the first train back to Berlin. And this gathering is not only being thrown in honor of the soldiers and officers who participated in the exercise of these last few weeks, but also is a means for me to establish greater ties with your family. So please, I am begging you to leave me be for the remainder of the night.”
The girl seemed to take far greater offense to Bruno’s words than he initially intended for them, and because of this, she crossed her arms and began to pout while not even glancing in Bruno’s direction.
“Fine then, go speak with those boring old men, see if I care! But you better live up to your promise and come to visit me soon, or I will never forgive you!”
Bruno could only sigh and shake his head. Quite honestly, Hedwig was not the first young interest to take a liking to Bruno. There was the daughter of Wilhelm, Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, who, for some reason or another, approached Bruno with great interest whenever he visited her home. As seldom as it was.
And next was the young princess of Japan, who was some way or another related to Emperor Meiji. Unlike Lousie, she was not a girl who Bruno recognized from the history books. Whether she existed solely in this new timeline, or simply was never recorded in his past life, he didn’t know the answer.
Yet his troubles didn’t end there. The young Japanese princess affectionately referred to Bruno by the term “Onii-san” and, though they only had one encounter, he could tell she had enjoyed their brief time conversing with one another.
In Russia, or Siberia to be exact within the manor that the Tsar and his family were hiding in, Bruno had made an impression on the Russian Princess Olga Nikolaevna, though she appeared terrified of him at the time, by the end of the war she was far more friendly with Bruno during their last encounter in Saint Petersburg shortly before Bruno returned to the Reich.
And now here in Austria, the young Archduchess Hedwig was forcing Bruno to promise to come back to Vienna and tell her more war stories, which for some reason or another she had a fascination with.
As a result, he could only sigh and shake his head as he made the promise, not knowing when exactly he would be able to fulfill it.
“Alright, fine, I promise… I’ll come back to Vienna when I have the chance, and I’ll tell you all about the battles I have fought, okay?”
The Princess immediately stopped pouting and instead became much more excited as she held out her pinky and forced the man to make such a childish vow with her.
“Pinky promise?”
Ultiamtely Bruno did as the Princess requested, as he was not exactly in the position to reject the request of a member of the Royal House of Habsburg, thus he gripped her pinky with his own and shook on it.
The girl then fulfilled her end of the bargain and left Bruno alone for the rest of the night, where he would speak with other members of her family. Especially the man who would one day replace the current Austrian Kaiser, as well as the presumed heir whose death would ultimately spark the First World War.
After which Bruno spent some time speaking with Kaiser Franz Joseph, who had gained a very high opinion of the German General through their brief time interacting with one another. His last words damn nearly gave Bruno a heart attack and caused him to choke on his drink as he heard them.
“It’s a damn shame you’re already married… Hedwig has taken a liking to you, and I wouldn’t mind marrying my granddaughter off to a man who will one day be the Chancellor of the German Reich!”
Bruno looked at the old man as if what he said was incredibly inappropriate and deeply perverted. No doubt due to the few sensibilities he had left over from the 21st century. And while the Austrian Kaiser had said these words mostly in passing, and as an attempt at humor.
Bruno couldn’t help but shake his head and thank God with a silent prayer that at the very least his arranged marriage was to a woman he had grown up alongside in this new life, rather than as an adult to a girl roughly 16 years younger than him.
In the end he passed off Franz Joseph’s remarks as a joke, laughing and shaking his head, making one of his own that was in far better taste.
“I assure you, there are far better options for a princess like Hedwig than a mere Junker’s son like myself. Besides, my wife would literally kill the girl if you even dared to attempt such a thing.”
Though Franz Joseph found the remark to be funny, and Bruno had said it mostly in jest. There was a lot of truth to the matter. As Heidi was a rather terrifying woman when her wrath was provoked. And Bruno knew this all too well, even if he had not experienced it.
And at the end of the way, there was no better way to provoke such a fury than for a woman to try to steal her man. And thus, for multiple reasons, whether that be the significant age difference between himself and the Austrian Princess, or the fact that his wife would go on a murder spree if the topic ever reached her ears, Bruno tried to distance himself from such a subject as quickly as possible.
As he told Hedwig, the next morning Bruno would catch the first train back to the German Reich. But the promise he made to the girl gave him an excellent opportunity to return to the Vienna and discuss many of Bruno’s ideas regarding the expansion of the rail system between the German Reich and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Something that he unfortunately did not find the time to bring up during this visit.
