Bruno’s recovery was rather swift. And why wouldn’t it be? The bullet had barely lodged itself in his flesh. The projectile was extracted, a stitch or two was applied, followed by some bandages. Which were tenderly replaced in a timely manner by Bruno’s wife.
Sure, he had damn near died, and would have done so if he wasn’t an alcoholic, but the wound itself which had been inflicted on him was minor. The near death incident came from the fact that had he not been wearing a thick and heavy wool greatcoat, with a steel flask in his breast pocket. Then the bullet most definitely would have pierced his heart and killed him.
Because of how Heidi reacted in an overly protective and almost motherly way. Bruno was quite literally forced to rest in bed by the woman, and to be tended to by her as if he were a sick child. While this had some appeal in its own right. Bruno honestly believed his beloved wife was overreacting.
If there was one upside to the attempt on his life, at least from the perspective of those who had initiated the failed attack. Then it was the fact that the Winter Offensive, which Bruno had planned in the Volga Region in a maneuver to root out and destroy the Red Army and their supporters in the region had been effectively postponed until spring.
This gave the red army time to properly prepare for the Tsarist Forces and their assault. Frankly, Bruno had wanted to prevent this from happening, even if it meant marching on Tsaritsyn in the Winter. A mistake the German Army had made during the Second World War of his past life that had in many ways cost them the entire war.
After all, the Soviet Union had renamed many historical Russian cities after the leaders of the Socialist Revolution. For example, Saint Petersburg became Leningrad, while Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad. Hence why Bruno was overly cautious with the preparations of his supply lines in order to sustain his assault on the city and the Bolsheviks within it.
Bruno was, after all, not the type of man to make the same mistakes as others before him. In fact, he had a tendency to learn from said mistakes, and avoid them altogether. It was a rare quality in a man. After all, most people tended to repeat the same mistakes as their forbearers, even if they were warned in advance not to do so.
Perhaps it was the intrinsic arrogance of mankind, but such was the way of life for many human beings. However, Bruno was not cut from the same cloth as these lesser men, and because of this he had made ample preparations for the Winter Offensive to ensure his soldiers had the clothing, rations, medical supplies, weapons, and munitions needed to capture not only Tsaritsyn, but the entire Volga region.
Of course, with the attempt on his life, and the injury sustained during this. These plans had utterly gone to waste. Because of this, Bruno had much time in the day to make other preparations for a far more distant future.
Currently, he was lying in his bed thinking about the natural consequences that would result from the deployment of the Iron Brigade in Russia. And what he had given to the Tsar to deal with the Red Army more efficiently.
The Tachanka was a valuable weapon in an era lacking in armored warfare. But Bruno already had a sufficient answer to deal with them. The power train used on his modified E-10 tank was largely modeled after the one used on the Panzer V Panther Medium Tank in his past life. It was capable of producing 690 HP or 515 KWs.
But the Panther Tank weighed 44.8 tonnes, while the E-10 Series tanks weighed a maximum of 25 tonnes. Or as Bruno called it in this life the Panzer I. With his specific model weighing roughly 20 tonnes in total. Which was less than half that of the Panther Medium Tank.
This meant that the overall power to weight ratio was much more favorable when it came to speed and maneuverability. Hence, while the Tachanka had a maximum speed of roughly 12 miles per hour or roughly 19 kilometers per hours.
However, the German Panzer in this life could easily triple that speed as the Panther Tank was more than capable of doing so itself. Realistically, the max speed of the Panzer I in this life could potentially be as much as 5x the speed of the Tachanka, if not more.
Not only that, but the Tachanka was only equipped with a Maxim Heavy Machine Gun. Which, when the Russians adopted their own variant would fire the 7.62x54rmm Cartridge. In other words, a .30 caliber cartridge.
Meanwhile, the Panzer 1 was equipped with a 5cm main gun on its turret, along with a coaxially mounted 8mm machine gun. This meant that the Panzer 1 in this life which was modeled after the E-10 prototype light tank in Bruno’s past life was not only capable of outrunning the Tachankas that they may fight on the eastern front in the upcoming Great War, but could also obliterate them with a single shot fired from its main gun.
In other words, Bruno had no fear leaking the effectiveness of machine guns, or even the Tachanka, as these things would either already be discovered at the start of the Great War, or were simply incapable of really dealing with what Bruno had already made preparations for.
It was while Bruno was contemplating on these matters that his three children ran up to him. At the moment Bruno was resting in his bed, as even getting out of it for more than just a bathroom break, or to take a shower was enough to spur the wrath of his wife.
The kids had obviously been worried the moment their father returned home early. They were not alerted to the fact that someone had tried to take their father’s life. But they weren’t stupid. Obviously, by the way, their mother was babying the man, and the fact that he lied in bed all day. He was either injured or sick.
And because of this, Bruno’s two daughters, and his only son ran up to him, and jumped into his bed. Checking on their old man to see if he was alright. With Eva being the oldest, she had a better mastery of the German language and was thus more capable of asking her father what was wrong.
“Is daddy hurt? Or just sick?”
Bruno who did not want to worry his children over what had happened, or his minor injury was quick to drag the girls into both of his arms, while assuring them that everything was alright.
“I’m fine, I am just a little under the weather is all. And on top of that, I was a little homesick. So I decided to take a break from my trip overseas to come see your mother and the lot of you.
You all don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine in a few weeks. But I’m afraid once I am feeling better I will have to leave all of you once more…”
Bruno naturally didn’t want to get his children’s hopes up, or give them the idea that he would be staying with them for very long. That would be cruel to them, and that was the last thing he wanted as father.
Because of this, Bruno made his kids aware of the reality of the situation, without revealing unnecessary matters that would only haunt them. And perhaps cause some childhood trauma. Something that Bruno wanted to avoid as long as possible.
As if Heidi had a sixth sense about Bruno’s wellbeing, she instantly burst into the room wielding a wooden spoon that appeared to be coated partially in the food which she was no doubt preparing prior to this moment.
There was a stern look on the woman’s face as she gazed upon her children who had so brazenly jumped on top of their father, and was quick to reprimand them.
“Be careful with your father! He has been through a lot, and you jumping on top of him like a bunch of little hooligans is not going to help!”
The kids instantly bolted from the room, running past their mother as if they were doing so in fear for their lives. Not out of any seriousness, as they were clearly laughing as they did so, cracking jokes at their mother’s overbearing personality.
“Run away! Mommy is mad!”
“Mommy is going to get you!”
“Wait don’t leave me behind!”
Once the kids had all disappeared around the corner even Bruno broke out laughing. Which only caused Heidi to pout as she averted her gaze from her husband and crossed her arms.
“Honestly, you spoil them too much…”
For a brief moment, Bruno’s wife and kids had made him completely forget about his worries. Filling him with nothing but a sense of worth. It also acted as a reminder of what he was fighting for.
Not only did he want to ensure that the evils of Marxism never spread across the world. But he was also fighting to preserve the traditional way of life that he found himself enjoying at the moment.
Bruno fought not only to rid the world of the evil that was Marxism but also for the sake of God, Family, Kaiser, and Fatherland. That’s right, he was now fighting for God along with the other three most important things in his life.
In his previous life, Bruno had been an atheist, or at the very least agnostic. He was the type of man to curse God and frequently at that for a world which had gone very wrong. Even in this new lease on life, he had stubbornly refused to accept religion as a major part of it.
But as he sat here in bed, after surviving an assassination attempt that would have killed him in any other circumstance while surrounded by a loving family, which had been a luxury he had been denied in his previous life. Bruno found himself pondering about whether or not what had just happened to him was a part of God’s will.
Had God brought Bruno back in time to correct the mistakes of the past that had resulted in what was clearly a doomed timeline? I mean, how else would you explain his reincarnation, and his survival in an attempt on his life that should have left him dead in the Russian Snow?
Bruno no longer merely shouted the words “God With Us!” as nothing more than a mere battle cry of his people’s culture and history. No, he genuinely believed God was with him. That he was acting in accordance with God’s will, and that God desired the very thing he desired.
This newfound sense of faith had become yet another reason for Bruno to pursue military excellence in this life, even if it cost him the sanity of his mind. Such was a worthy sacrifice to ensure that the world did not degenerate into the state it had been in when he had perished during the final days of his last life.
Soon enough, Bruno would be back on his feet, taking the first boat back to Saint Petersburg. Where he would rally with the Iron Brigade, and the Loyalists who fought for the Tsar. Then they would begin their Spring Offensive, and in doing so, annihilate the Red Army and its supporters in the Volga Region.
