Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 575 575: Return to Order

Navarre, near Tudela; dusk.

A dusty wind tore across the old Roman road, rattling shutters in whitewashed hamlets and carrying the faint reek of burnt hay.

Two covered trucks crawled along the ruts, their black-painted flanks bearing no insignia.

Only mud-caked license plates and a sullen cluster of local Guardia escorts gave any clue they were official at all.

Inside the lead truck, under a canvas rig, wooden crates stenciled with blocky Gothic script were wedged tight in straw.

Rifles, submachine guns, sealed tins of 8mm Mauser rounds; all still slick with factory grease from somewhere east of Vienna.

A broad-shouldered German in a drab field tunic watched the countryside slip by. Ernst Röhm’s wolves had arrived.

He ran a finger over the silver wolfsangel badge on his collar, then adjusted the riding crop across his knees.

Beside him, a wiry Spaniard in the faded green of a Guardia lieutenant lit a cigarette with trembling hands.

“Señor Hauptmann,” he rasped, exhaling a ghost of smoke, “the governor in Zaragoza… he does not know you are coming. If the Cortes learns foreign companies march through Aragon — “

“Then remind him,” the Werwolf officer cut in quietly, his accent grinding each Spanish syllable, “that it is either foreign rifles, or Barcelona’s syndicalists with their French coin and French slogans. If he prefers red banners in the Plaza del Pilar, we can turn around.”

The Spaniard swallowed, nodding, smoke curling between sweat-streaked temples.

Hours later, an abandoned Guardia post near Gallur

Bare bulbs flickered in the old barracks hall. Shadows sprawled long over cracked tile floors. Local officers, some stripped of rank insignia, some clutching battered Mausers like talismans, sat along trestle tables littered with manifests and scribbled rosters.

A Werwolf NCO read names from a clipboard. For each, a curt nod or a subtle mark. Sometimes a throat cleared. A guard shifted nervously.

A handful of men were led quietly from the room to “verify credentials,” the Germans said. No one expected to see them again.

At the far end of the hall, Röhm leaned over a new map of Catalonia. Tiny red pins clustered along the Ebro like rot.

He tapped one hard enough to leave an indent in the paper. “Here. Tomorrow, your guard and our men will make an example. Shoot the agitators. Hang their papers in the square, so all Navarre knows what awaits traitors.”

The Spanish captain opposite him, a gaunt man with sunken eyes, managed a hoarse agreement.

“And after that?” the captain whispered. “Madrid is hesitant, the Cortes… they fear more unrest.”

Röhm’s pale eyes glinted under the lamp. “Tell them Berlin does not. Nor does Tyrol. If necessary, we will cleanse all the way to Valencia. Or until no man dares whisper syndical slogans again.”

Outside, by the truck bay

Young Werwolf volunteers unloaded the last crates under a crescent moon. Heavy boots crushed straw as carbines were racked, ammunition checked, spare magazines stacked in neat pyramids.

One paused, wiping sweat from his brow. In the distance, church bells tolled for evening Mass; strangely soft against the low mechanical clatter of bolt checks and magazine slides.

Another laughed under his breath, shouldering a Stg-25 Mod. 32. “Catholics pray while we sharpen the knives. God’s work, eh?”

The first just spat into the dust. “No saints in this business. Only survivors.”

By dawn, Werwolf detachments moved like gray wraiths along the Ebro, pairing local gendarmerie with long columns of blacklists; lists typed up in Lisbon and Berlin weeks ago.

And across Catalonia, farmhouses and workshops awoke to hammering on doors, boots on stairs, and the hush of men who did not wear Spanish colors on their shoulders, but who spoke with authority all the same.

A new order had begun to settle over the fractious north; born not from ballots or sermons, but from cartridge clips and quiet, early morning verdicts.

Madrid, Royal Palace

The antechamber outside Alfonso XIII’s private study buzzed with nervous murmurs, aides whispering to courtiers, officials clutching telegrams so tightly the papers crinkled under white knuckles.

Inside, the king sat alone by a high window, one hand gripping the arm of his chair, the other drumming a ceaseless tattoo on the polished mahogany.

Beyond the glass, the royal gardens drooped under heavy dew, oblivious to the currents shifting beneath Spain’s fragile peace.

Then the door opened, and the Minister of the Interior entered. His face was gray, eyes wide and restless as though he hadn’t slept in days.

Alfonso straightened, his posture snapping from a wearied slump to razor-edged alertness.

“Well? Speak.”

The minister swallowed. “Your Majesty… we have received… disturbing accounts out of Barcelona. And Tarragona. Even small villages in Girona.”

“More anarchist demonstrations?” the king asked sharply. “Strikes? Train seizures again?”

“No, sire.” The minister approached, voice dropping to a hoarse near-whisper. “It’s not strikes. It’s slaughter.”

He laid a slim leather folder on the small table by the king’s elbow. Alfonso opened it with slow hands.

Inside were telegraphs from civil governors, letters intercepted from local mayors, scribbled reports by Guardia officers.

He read one line aloud, voice hollow:

“Bodies strung from lampposts along the Avinguda Diagonal. Each with a placard nailed to their chests reading: ‘Traitor to Crown and Country.'”

Another report, barely legible through smeared pencil, described dozens found in shallow ditches outside Sabadell; men with the red bandanas of the CNT still knotted around their necks, throats cut with professional precision.

Alfonso’s jaw tightened. “And these are not Guardia actions. You assured me we had not yet invoked martial tribunals.”

“We have not, Your Majesty,” the minister rasped. “The local police stations report seeing masked men in the streets at night. Strangers speaking a harsh, foreign tongue, armed with automatic carbines they describe as too fine for any peasant. And… and armored lorries painted over to hide their origins.”

The king pressed a hand over his mouth. Memory stabbed at him: The Germans had reserved advanced weapons, that had never been confirmed.

But whispers of magazine fed automatic carbines being secretly issued to the mercenary group which bore the Wolfsangel as its banner had long since spread abroad.

If such weapons were spotted here, Berlin’s Shadow Army had entered Spain’s borders. Or should he say Tyrol’s?

The king closed the folder with sudden violence, the pages inside snapping together like a guillotine.

“And the people?” he asked, forcing calm into his voice. “How does Barcelona itself react? Is there any rallying to these dead men’s causes?”

The minister’s breath caught. “Quite the opposite, sire. The markets reopened by midday. Strikers melted away. CNT offices stand empty; looted by their own neighbors, who carried off printing presses and typewriters as if fearful they might mark them next.”

Alfonso leaned back, hand gripping the armrest until it creaked. Outside, church bells tolled the Angelus, their solemn peal carrying across Madrid like a funeral march.

“So,” he whispered, almost to himself. “They achieve by terror in a fortnight what my regiments could not with a year of orderly decrees.”

The minister hesitated, then blurted: “Your Majesty, we cannot allow foreign butchers to write Spain’s fate. If this is von Zehntner’s hand, he acts without your crown’s sanction. Without even your knowledge.”

A faint ghost of a smile curled Alfonso’s lips. “Do you truly believe that matters? To the farmers in Valencia, to the stevedores in Cádiz, to the old men who still paint Bourbon lilies on their shutters? Order has returned, Minister. It is a grim, dark order; born of fear and midnight gunshots. But it is order.”

He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, then looked up again, voice regaining its iron.

“Still. I will not have Spain ruled by whispers of wolves in the night. Issue instructions to all governors: no foreign militias may quarter in our provinces without my explicit decree. Should any man bearing arms fail to present papers of the Spanish crown, they are to be disarmed or driven out.”

The minister bowed low, relief flickering behind his eyes.

“As you command, sire.”

As the doors closed behind him, Alfonso rose and crossed to the window. Far off he could see the spire of the royal basilica, stark against storm-thickening clouds.

“Let them whisper of wolves in Catalonia,” he thought. “So long as Madrid stands and the orchards ripen in the south. Perhaps that is enough of a throne for any king.”

But even in that private moment of rationalization, he could not help shivering at the thought of men with no flags, no insignia, speaking guttural commands in the dark and leaving trails of corpses behind them; all in the name of stability.

Outside, Madrid breathed on, blissfully ignorant. While beneath its cobblestones, the next fractures were already forming.

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