The bells of St. Paul's tolled in the evening fog, their echoes swallowed by the endless sprawl of London.
Elias sat by the window of their Mayfair lodgings, notebook open, pen tapping against the page.
Sonya dozed in a chair across from him, exhausted from the day's errands.
The firelight flickered across her pale face, catching the shadows under her eyes.
He ignored her.
His mind was elsewhere—across the ocean, in a land he had never seen since being brought to this new world, but knew better than most men alive after his experieces living in North America most of his life.
The United States of America.
A nation of contradictions.
Freedom proclaimed while slavery endured.
Vast lands, untapped riches, a population swelling with immigrants.
A future power—perhaps the future power.
But only if it survived the crucible that loomed before it.
Elias sharpened his thoughts with deliberate precision, the way he had once sharpened a blade.
The Civil War is inevitable.
The question is not whether it will come, but how long it will last—and what scars it will leave.
He glanced down at the column of figures in his book.
His daily credits now surged past 300.
Factories back in Montenegro were humming, arsenals filling.
At present, his Iron Hand numbered just under two thousand—each rifleman equipped to a standard nearly thirty-fourty years beyond the current age.
By the onset of the American conflict, he could have five thousand at his disposal, trained, disciplined, armed with the most lethal weapons the mid-19th century would ever see, with more ready to be deployed as the conflict deepens.
Five thousand men against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands sounded small, almost trivial.
But Elias knew better.
Five thousand modern troops could shape battles, bleed armies, alter entire campaigns.
They were not an army—they were a scalpel, to be placed where the wound would fester deepest.
And when compared to the forces fielded especially at the start of the war, conscripted militia, it would be a one sided slaughter.
The question remained: which side?
The Union's cause appealed to his sensibilities more than the South's, and historically speaking they were destined to win, having all the advantages with only minor weaknesses.
Slavery was abhorrent, backward, a system that would only cripple the Confederacy even if they somehow triumphed.
But siding with the North presented a problem: the Union had the industry, the manpower, the fleet.
With even a fraction of his soldiers aiding them, the war would collapse swiftly, the South crushed within two years.
That would be a mistake, history already had the war lasting for four years, and he wanted to extend it if possible.
He needed America bloodied.
He needed its wounds to run so deep that, after the guns fell silent, North and South would still hate each other more than any foreign foe.
He needed the war to last until exhaustion ground both sides into dust.
The Confederacy, then.
Not because he believed in their cause—he despised it—but because they were weaker, and in weakness lay utility.
His men could prop them up, not to victory, but to endurance.
They could blunt Union offensives, inflict staggering casualties, ensure that every battle was costlier than the last.
The South would still lose; that was inevitable.
But they would drag the Union through rivers of blood before surrender.
Elias turned another page, writing in sharp, deliberate strokes:
Objective: Prolong war.
Method: Deploy at least 5,000 riflemen/skirmishers/cavalry, equipped with bolt-action rifles, and carbines.
Operate as shock troops in Confederate service. Focus: high-casualty engagements.
Strike Union morale.
Force prolonged mobilization.
Ensure postwar bitterness and reluctance for further foreign wars..
He paused, tapping the pen against his teeth.
He could already see it: battles that in his memory had been Union triumphs transformed into drawn-out slaughters, possibly even resulting in Confederate victories.
Generals lionized in history books would instead be remembered for bungling campaigns against a phantom legion, or being unlucky enough to be assassinated by his spies.
The war would still end with Northern victory—but a hollow, pyrrhic one.
The United States would survive, yes, but scarred.
Its postwar swagger blunted.
Its appetite for conquest restrained.
A necessary pruning of a future rival, one that would possibly keep them from interfering in Mexico, or even abandoning the monroe doctrine for a while while the nation recovers, giving European powers the ability to meddle in the region once again with the watchdog slumbering.
Sonya stirred, blinking awake.
She rubbed her eyes and frowned at him.
"You're still at it,"
she murmured.
Elias didn't look up.
"Yes."
She dragged her chair closer, peering at his notes.
"America again."
"Yes."
"Why do you care so much about a country across the ocean? You already have enough perceived enemies in Europe."
Elias leaned back, steepling his fingers.
"Because in time, America will be more than a country. It will be an empire, greater than Britain, greater than Russia, but shameless enough to deny such heights. If left unchecked, it will stride across the world with armies few can resist, and more simply cower under. But if it bleeds itself half to death first…"
He gestured at the map laid open on the table.
"…it will stumble. It will hesitate. And that hesitation will leave room for me."
Sonya frowned, hugging her knees.
"But you would fight for slavers."
"I would fight for balance,"
Elias said flatly.
"The Confederacy is doomed no matter what I do. But its survival for a few more years, propped up by my hand, will cripple the Union. That is what matters."
Her gaze lingered on him, troubled.
"And if i can interfere in their war, perhaps i can even set my men to 'purchase' up the slaves and giving them true freedom, just like i did with you."
"You sound like you hate them both."
"I don't hate them persay, i can say i hate the curren state of the union, a nation that made grand promises, but then fell back to traditional european ideals far to quickly, meanwhile the south they are even deeper rooted in their beliefs, and only can invision the short term gains but not long term struggles their choices will make."
She looked away, out the window at the fog-choked street.
"It still feels wrong, siding with slavers even if you're only pretending."
Elias closed his notebook.
"Most necessary things do."
The following week, Elias attended another parliamentary debate, this one on Britain's trade with America.
Whigs urged neutrality, Tories flirted with Southern sympathy as the situation of the upcoming presidential election deepened.
The cotton trade tied Lancashire's mills to the Confederacy, yet public opinion abhorred slavery at least on the surface, but the very idea of a seperate America, and overall weakening of the still infant nation was a charming thought.
Elias listened with keen interest.
If Britain recognized the South—or even merely supplied it more openly—the war could drag on longer still.
But Britain could not forsake the north, their territory of Canada still bordered the states, and to side with the south could embolden the north to reopen the war of 1812, which could easily bring france to compete once more with Britan escalating everything again.
That was fine.
He did not need Britain.
He needed only himself, and his hidden army.
As the session ended, he lingered in the gallery, watching the politicians file out.
To most, the matter was one of economics.
To Elias, it was a lever.
If need be, his agents could stir sympathy in London, spread pamphlets, bribe editors, plant stories of Union atrocities.
The Confederacy's image could be burnished just enough to keep Britain hesitant, balancing on the knife's edge of recognition.
War was not won only by armies.
It was won in minds, in perceptions, in illusions of the people who were paying for those armies.
That night, Elias laid out the first sketches of his plan:
By 1860, he'd insert agents into American shipping lines and ports.
Establish footholds in New Orleans, Charleston, and Richmond.
Begin smuggling arms under false European manifests.
Deploy first contingent of 1,000 men who would rise up with the war started as volunteers with other foreign volunteers coming in latter years."
Gradually increase presence by delivering another hundred every couple of weaks as 'immigrants', bringing in as many men as he can before the war starts, then after when the union blockade descends he would look at deploying his own naval forces hopefully after securing a 3rd base at a portside location one that he could construct a naval yard to expand his forces from strictly land based.
Strategically he was hoping to extend the war by another year possibly two at the most, while increasing overall casualty rates by 30-40%.
If five thousand of his men had to bleed America for the sake of the world he meant to build, then so be it, and post war his forces would be experienced and returning from one war to participate in the second ottoman war at which point Elias could consider stepping out of the shadows and into the light revealing the emergence of another great power on Earth.
The bells of St. Paul's tolled again, distant and hollow. Elias listened, and marked the rhythm in his mind. A clock ticking toward the next war.