In Potsdam, in the royal palace, old men argued in a room built to make arguments feel small.
The Kaiser's office was all dark wood and discipline. A broad oak desk anchored the space like a gun platform, its surface crowded with folded memoranda, sealed folders, and maps that never seemed to stay folded for long. The air held the faint haze of cigar smoke, and beneath it the sharper smells of ink, leather, and polish—an old Prussian perfume of authority.
Behind heavy curtains, winter light slipped through tall windows in pale strips, falling across a wall-sized map of Europe. Pins marked borders that never stayed still. Threads and notes clung to places that everyone pretended were permanent.
The chair behind the desk was high-backed and slightly elevated.
The visitor seats in front of it were lower and placed close together—so that men who entered had to sit side by side like schoolboys awaiting judgment.
This was not a room for conversation.
It was a room for decisions.
Wilhelm II stood behind the desk, hands planted on its edge, mustache twitching with restrained irritation. He had listened to enough petitions in this room to recognize the smell of one before the first word was spoken.
Moltke the Younger stood at the front, rigid and controlled. Prittwitz remained just behind him—too smooth, too patient, waiting like a man who had come not to warn, but to witness.
"Your Majesty," Moltke began, voice tight with outrage carefully forced into discipline, "His Imperial Highness is still too young."
He did not say Oskar's name at first. He didn't have to.
"Without understanding the full military situation on the ground," Moltke continued, "he has begun forcing reforms in the eastern command. He is not merely adjusting procedures—he is dismantling the traditional structure of the Imperial Army."
His finger jutted toward the map as if he could stab the province itself.
"Brigades dissolved. Chains of command rewritten. Officers reassigned. Training cycles disrupted."
Each phrase was a hammer blow.
"Worse," Moltke pressed on, "his actions have caused resentment among generals and officers. The eastern forces have been disturbed. If this continues, the combat effectiveness of the future Eighth will not improve—"
He leaned forward slightly, letting the word sharpen.
"—it will be crippled."
Wilhelm II's jaw tightened.
Moltke had always spoken like this: certain, righteous, incapable of imagining he might be wrong. It was one of the reasons Wilhelm trusted him… and one of the reasons Wilhelm sometimes feared him.
Moltke's voice hardened into warning.
"And if war breaks out—if Russia strikes East Prussia first—how exactly is the Eighth meant to withstand that pressure while in a state of internal disorder?"
For a moment, the only sound in the room was the faint tick of a clock.
Wilhelm frowned.
He did not want to believe it was as serious as Moltke claimed. He didn't want to believe Oskar—brilliant in industry, relentless in reform—could be reckless in the one sphere that truly mattered.
But Moltke spoke with such earnest certainty that doubt pricked at the Kaiser's confidence like a cold needle.
Was Oskar, for all his strength, still unfit to hold an army?
Before Wilhelm could answer, another voice slipped into the space—smooth as oil.
"Your Majesty," Prittwitz said, "I agree with the Chief of the General Staff. It is necessary to remove His Imperial Highness from the eastern post at once. Otherwise, the Eighth will fall into complete disarray."
Wilhelm's eyes narrowed.
He knew perfectly well why Prittwitz was here.
Oskar had ordered him transferred. Not quietly. Not gently. And Prittwitz's pride had bled in public.
This wasn't doctrine.
This was revenge wearing a uniform.
Still…
Wilhelm also knew the simple rule of power: even good reforms created friction, and friction could become flame if handled poorly.
He leaned back slowly, mustache twitching as he considered the balance.
Then, at last, he spoke.
"Enough."
Both men went still.
"I understand your concerns," Wilhelm II said.
Moltke held his breath, expecting the next words to be the victory he wanted.
Instead, Wilhelm's gaze sharpened.
"But I will not decide this from rumors and wounded pride."
Prittwitz's mouth tightened imperceptibly.
Wilhelm continued, tone cold and imperial.
"I will summon Oskar back to Berlin immediately. He will explain his actions to me in person."
Moltke and Prittwitz both bowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
It was not the immediate dismissal they wanted.
But it was not nothing.
Forcing Oskar out of East Prussia—dragging him back from the eastern frontier into the palace's shadow—was still a win.
It bought time.
It disrupted momentum.
And it turned reform into a trial.
They could work with that.
As they withdrew, Moltke's face remained disciplined.
But inside, something tightened with satisfaction.
The Iron Prince had finally been pulled back into a room where old men still believed they owned the rules.
---
When the Kaiser's order reached Oskar, he was not in a war room.
He was in velvet.
High above the gilt-and-marble splendor of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the imperial family sat behind a low rail on a private terrace, looking down at a stage flooded with lamplight. Dancers moved like bright blades—white stockings, soft shoes, impossible balance—while the orchestra pulled the hall forward on strings and breath.
Oskar had come for the children.
Some of his daughters had developed a fierce fascination with dance—eyes wide, bodies swaying unconsciously with the rhythm—while the boys cared less about pirouettes and more about the music…
…and the snacks.
Popcorn, of course.
It still amused him that the most modern thing in the opera house wasn't the lighting or the instruments, but a simple paper cone filled with puffed corn. Cheap. Warm. Addictive. And, in moderation, harmless.
He had pushed it into fashion himself—partly as a joke, partly as a business experiment, and partly because he enjoyed watching serious aristocrats pretend they were not enjoying it.
The supply chain behind it was pure Oskar.
Through Greenway, a branch of the Oskar Industrial Group, he had turned corn from a seasonal novelty into something reliably available even when the world outside was frozen.
Greenhouses no longer had to be delicate glass gardens reserved for rich men's oranges and exotic flowers.
He treated them like industry.
Built them near power stations and factories. Wrapped them in structure and safety. Fed them with heat that would otherwise bleed uselessly into winter air.
Warmth below.
Electric light above.
Water and fertilizer measured like ammunition.
The result was simple: winter crops, predictable yields, and enough corn for a nation to chew happily through an evening of ballet.
Corn wasn't an ideal greenhouse crop—too tall, too hungry for sun.
But popcorn didn't need ideal.
It needed enough.
So Oskar made "enough" a certainty.
---
He was mid-bite—watching one dancer hover for a heartbeat longer than physics allowed—when a discreet palace aide appeared at the terrace entrance.
No announcement. No interruption.
Just a folded note presented with the careful reverence reserved for things that could ruin evenings.
Oskar opened it.
Read it once.
Then his face tightened.
A summons. Immediate. Military matters. The palace.
He didn't need a second glance to know the real hand behind it.
Moltke.
Of course.
Moltke had been trying to slow him down since the day Oskar's machines and doctrines began humiliating the old guard in public. This was simply the next move: not a battle of guns, but a battle of schedules—interruptions, pressure, forcing the prince to dance to someone else's tempo.
Desperate men did desperate things.
Oskar had seen the pattern everywhere—at court and abroad. When a rival couldn't stop you directly, they tried to poison you: whispers, slander, international campaigns against German goods, "warnings" printed on labels like moral sermons.
But the truth remained the same in every arena:
Germany's rise could not be slowed much longer without extreme measures.
And neither could his.
Oskar's mouth curled—more irritation than amusement.
"Hmph," he breathed. "Let them try."
On either side of him, Tanya and Anna stiffened. Each held one of the youngest babies—bundled, drowsy, warm. The older children sat with the serious discipline of small royals bribed by spectacle: Imperiel, Juniel, Lailael—hands sticky with popcorn, eyes locked on the stage whenever dancers leapt.
On Oskar's lap, the two-year-olds shifted and leaned against him in soft confusion, watching the glittering world below as if trying to understand why people moved like music.
Tanya glanced at the note, then at Oskar's face.
"Oskar," she whispered, voice tight with worry, "is it Moltke again? Does His Majesty truly believe whatever nonsense they're feeding him?"
Anna's hand found his forearm, gentle but urgent.
"Does this mean you have to go?" she asked. "The show has barely begun… and we haven't had much time together lately."
Oskar exhaled once—slowly—then slid an arm around each of them, pulling them closer without disturbing the children.
"It's only a few hours," he murmured. "I'll handle it, and then I come back to you."
His gaze flicked toward the stage one last time—one dancer spinning, weightless, while the orchestra surged like a tide.
"I promise," he added, quieter. "The rest of the week is ours. My people can keep the machine running."
He kissed Tanya first—brief, familiar. Then Anna—softer, steadier. He touched the children's heads with gloved fingertips one by one, a silent apology offered in the only language toddlers truly understood.
Then he stood.
The motion alone rearranged the terrace—guards straightening, aides stepping aside, the sheer size of him shifting the space without effort.
Oskar handed the toddlers to an attendant, nodded once to his family, and left the terrace.
Below, the ballet continued—graceful, untouched by politics.
Above, the Iron Prince walked back into winter, already hearing the scrape of knives being drawn inside the Empire's spine.