Berlin — Wilhelm II's Office
It was late when the telegram arrived.
Berlin slept.
The palace did not.
Wilhelm II sat at his desk with the posture of a man who could not afford fatigue. Paper lay everywhere—reports, memoranda, petitions, military summaries—empire reduced to ink and stacks. A coal fire hissed behind him. The lamps burned with that steady, unforgiving light that made even gold look tired.
His mustache twitched as he read, signed, dismissed, read again.
Managing an empire was not a performance.
It was a grind.
"Your Majesty," Essen von Jonalright said softly, entering with a fresh cup of coffee.
Wilhelm did not look up.
"Put it there."
Essen placed the cup down.
And did not leave.
That, more than any words, made the Kaiser pause. He lifted his eyes.
Essen was one of the few men who existed outside imperial distance—an old anchor in a life filled with flatterers and fears.
"Yes?" Wilhelm asked. "What is it?"
Essen produced a telegram and held it out.
"From Königsberg," he said. "His Highness asked that it reach you directly."
Wilhelm took it.
He read.
And the room seemed to cool by several degrees.
His expression tightened, then darkened, then sharpened into something dangerous.
"Damn it," he snapped. "Prittwitz."
The name came out like a curse.
"Who gave him the audacity to provoke the Crown Prince of the Empire?"
Essen did not answer immediately. He allowed the Kaiser's anger to spend itself—because a man like Wilhelm always needed a moment to burn before he could think.
Then Wilhelm's eyes returned to the telegram.
"Is this necessary?" he demanded. "A transfer—because he missed a welcoming dinner?"
Essen's voice remained measured.
"Your Majesty," he said, "it was not the dinner. It was the message."
Wilhelm's nostrils flared.
"He is twenty," Essen continued carefully. "Young. Ambitious. He will be… impatient."
The word was chosen with surgical caution.
"But General von Prittwitz used your favour as a shield to disregard the Crown Prince. His Highness is taking command for the first time. He requires your support. If this goes unanswered, others will learn that the Crown Prince can be ignored."
Wilhelm drummed his fingers once on the desk.
"You believe I should agree."
Essen inclined his head.
"I believe it is necessary."
Wilhelm exhaled through his nose, slow and irritated.
"If Prittwitz is transferred away from the East," he muttered, "he loses face."
Yes.
That was the point.
And it was precisely why it would hurt.
Prittwitz had been one of Wilhelm's favourites—pleasant company at dinners, loyal in conversation, useful to the imperial ego. The sort of officer who never raised his voice at court but could always be found near the right people.
Essen did not push. He had said enough.
Then Wilhelm's gaze sharpened again, finding the true center of the matter like a blade finding the gap in armor.
"Tell me," the Kaiser said slowly. "Was he actually ill?"
Essen waited half a beat—just long enough to be sure his words would land with weight—then replied with the calm cruelty of a man delivering facts.
"No, Your Majesty. Not as far as we can determine."
Wilhelm's mustache twitched.
"After returning to Berlin," Essen added, "he went directly to the Chief of the General Staff's residence. It is said they drank together until very late."
Wilhelm went still.
For a long moment he said nothing.
Because now it wasn't about a missed dinner.
It was about a faction.
It was about Moltke and Prittwitz behaving as if they could test the Crown Prince—using the Emperor's favour as armor and the Emperor's patience as permission.
Wilhelm II stood abruptly, chair scraping.
"Summon Moltke," he ordered. "Immediately."
His eyes flashed.
"Also summon the Minister of War."
Essen bowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Wilhelm remained standing, telegram in his hand, staring at it as if it were not paper but a challenge.
"Oskar wants authority," he said quietly.
Then his voice dropped further—low, final, almost intimate in its threat.
"Then he will have it."
---
It was not long after Essen bowed out that Moltke arrived in a hurry.
He entered Wilhelm II's office still wearing the look of a man dragged from sleep and forced into uniform—hair not quite tamed, eyes heavy, collar buttoned in haste. And he was not alone.
Von Falkenhayn was already present.
Moltke halted, visibly surprised to see the Minister of War at this hour.
"Your Majesty," Moltke the Younger began, forcing dignity into his posture, "what brings you to summon me so late?"
Wilhelm II did not answer immediately.
He could smell alcohol on Moltke.
Not the subtle trace of a single glass with dinner—the unmistakable stale edge of a long night. It displeased him at once and confirmed, with unpleasant accuracy, that Essen's earlier report had been true.
Falkenhayn remained expressionless. He had already received the echoes of Oskar's message and understood the larger game: Prittwitz had been used as a probe—perhaps by Moltke, perhaps by others—and Oskar intended to snap that probe off and throw it back to Berlin.
Falkenhayn approved wholeheartedly.
Maximilian von Prittwitz und Gaffron was, on paper, a fine officer—old war service, a respectable career, a name that sounded good in court conversation. The Kaiser liked him. The Kaiser called him simply "Prittwitz," as if they were old comrades.
But Prittwitz was also a Moltke man.
And if Prittwitz could be pushed out of the eastern structure entirely, it would not merely strengthen Oskar—it would bleed Moltke's influence in exactly the place where influence mattered most: the army that would take the first удар, the first blow, of any war against Russia.
Wilhelm II held the telegram in his hand and spoke without softness.
"Your Excellency, Chief of Staff. Your Excellency, Minister of War." His gaze cut to Moltke first. "His Highness the Crown Prince has requested that General Prittwitz be transferred out of the eastern command structure and reassigned elsewhere. What are your thoughts?"
"What?" Moltke blurted before he could stop himself.
The sleepiness drained from his face as if someone had poured cold water down his spine. In the same instant, the haze of drink vanished too—not because he was suddenly virtuous, but because fear and anger were better sobering agents than coffee.
Only yesterday, he had privately applauded Prittwitz for embarrassing Oskar—applauded him for "standing firm" against the so-called Iron Prince.
But he had not expected Oskar to strike back so directly.
And Moltke understood the threat immediately: if Prittwitz was removed from the eastern structure now, he would not be sent to glory. He would be buried in a polite corner—some harmless posting, some ceremonial role, a slow fade into irrelevance.
A general without influence.
A man silenced.
A Moltke pawn removed from the board.
Moltke's voice rose, sharp with indignation.
"Your Majesty, this is unacceptable. General von Prittwitz is a capable officer. To transfer him away from the eastern command because he missed one dinner—because he was ill—this is excessive. Absence due to sickness is not a crime."
Wilhelm II's eyes remained cold.
He did not argue with Moltke.
He turned to Falkenhayn.
"Your Excellency," he said, "Minister of War—your view?"
Falkenhayn did not rush. He chose his words like a man placing stones to build a wall.
"Your Majesty," he asked, "what reasons has His Highness given for requesting this transfer?"
Wilhelm II's mustache twitched once.
"He believes Prittwitz lacks the qualities required for the East," the Kaiser said bluntly. "The eastern mission will be to defend against Russia. That requires endurance, discipline, loyalty, and calm under pressure. On His Highness's first day in Königsberg—on the first meeting where the corps commanders were expected to present themselves—Prittwitz was absent."
He leaned forward slightly.
"His Highness interprets that absence as a lack of dedication."
"Slander!" Moltke snapped at once, unable to restrain himself. "It is slander against a general of the Empire. Prittwitz is a veteran of wars—his record is spotless. How can he be called unfit simply because he did not attend a welcoming meal?"
Falkenhayn's expression did not change.
"I do not consider it slander," he said evenly. "I consider it judgment. And I share His Highness's concerns. Prittwitz's temperament is… not ideal. In my experience he is cautious to the point of passivity, easily unsettled, and not the sort of man one wants commanding a corps on the first day of a Russian invasion."
Moltke's eyes flashed.
"Minister," he said, voice tightening, "you are lying through your teeth. Prittwitz has no major achievements, perhaps, but neither has he failed. He missed a ceremony—nothing more. And the Crown Prince wishes to ruin him over it. It is unbelievable."
Wilhelm II's patience thinned visibly.
Moltke's tone—his willingness to accuse a minister in the imperial office at midnight, while smelling of alcohol—was eroding the last of the Kaiser's tolerance.
Wilhelm II raised his hand sharply.
"Enough."
The room obeyed.
"For the stability of the eastern command structure," Wilhelm II said, voice firm, "General von Prittwitz will be transferred."
Moltke stiffened.
Wilhelm II's gaze hardened further.
"My son is an exceptional man," he said. "If his instincts tell him this is necessary, then so be it. The East is now his responsibility. He will not be undermined in it."
Moltke looked as if he wished to speak again, but he swallowed the words.
He could read Wilhelm II's face. Further resistance would not change the decision—it would only deepen the Kaiser's displeasure. Moltke, cautious by nature, chose to absorb the blow rather than risk his own position.
The meeting ended with the cold finality of imperial decision.
Moltke left the palace with a gloomy expression, resentment coiling in his chest.
Outside, he watched Falkenhayn's A-Class Muscle Motor pull away into the Berlin night, lamps gliding over wet cobblestones.
Moltke's jaw clenched.
"Just you wait, Oskar," he muttered, low and venomous. "I won't let you get away with this."
---
The next day, Oskar received Berlin's answer.
Essen von Jonalright and von Falkenhayn both telegraphed him: Wilhelm II had approved the transfer. The formal order would follow.
Relief washed through Oskar—not joy, exactly, but the satisfaction of a lock turning in the correct direction.
Even so, the irritation remained.
After all he had done for this nation—after all the factories, reforms, and momentum—there were still men willing to test him.
He wished, not for their ruin, but for their understanding.
He truly believed he wanted good things for Germany. Unity. Peace. A future where the empire did not stumble blindly into catastrophe.
But people did not always appreciate a hand reaching toward them.
Sometimes they tried to bite it.
"Luckily," Oskar thought, folding the telegram, "my father is with me in this—this time."
Then his mind, always practical, tightened the lesson into a warning.
"Such a move can only be used once," he admitted to himself. "If I demand a transfer like this again soon, Wilhelm II may refuse—or worse, decide I am being too harsh."
At nine o'clock, Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived.
They were visibly pleased when Oskar informed them of Berlin's decision. It was proof—tangible, undeniable—that the prince's authority in the East was real.
When Oskar asked for a successor to command the XVII Corps, they brought him a name.
"Johannes Friedrich Leopold von Seeckt," Ludendorff said. "He is forty-two. Highly intelligent. Ruthless in training. Modern in thought."
Oskar considered it only a moment before agreeing.
He remembered the man from another timeline: a figure who would one day be called the father of a future German army, a man capable of preserving an institution even when the peace treaty of World War 1 attempted to suffocate it.
That spoke volumes.
With Oskar's decision made, the news spread quickly through the eastern command.
Prittwitz—an Emperor's favourite—was being removed.
The shock ran through staff offices and mess halls like an electric current. If even a favourite could be transferred for offending Oskar, then everyone else understood the lesson immediately:
Do not test him.
Do not embarrass him.
Do not mistake his youth for weakness.
Oskar's prestige rose.
Not through speeches.
Through consequence.
And under those conditions—authority secured, resistance muted—Oskar finally set in motion the reforms he had contemplated for years.
The Imperial German Army was, on paper, a marvel of order. Its structure rose in neat tiers: squads, platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, and, in wartime, armies.
On paper, it was precise.
In practice, it was slow.
Burdened by layers that existed as much for tradition and prestige as for necessity.
To Oskar's eyes—shaped by another life and another century—the problem was obvious:
Too many commanders. Too many reporting lines. Too much delay between decision and action.
His first target was the brigade.
In Oskar's view, brigades had become an unnecessary middle layer—an inheritance from earlier wars that no longer matched modern firepower, rail mobility, and communications. He intended to abolish them entirely, placing regiments directly under divisional command.
This alone would shorten command chains, reduce friction, and force division commanders to shoulder real responsibility instead of hiding behind intermediaries.
But Oskar's ambitions did not stop there.
If conditions allowed—if communications, staff training, and doctrine could be modernized sufficiently—he intended to go further still. In selected formations, even the corps level could be bypassed, with higher commands exercising direct control over divisions.
A radical idea by German standards.
One that would horrify traditionalists.
But Oskar understood its value: fewer layers meant faster decisions, clearer intent, and less room for hesitation to metastasize into disaster.
This was not chaos.
It was compression.
Flattening the structure would not weaken the army.
It would harden it.
Orders would travel faster. Responsibility would be impossible to evade. And when war came, speed of command would matter as much as courage or numbers.
The German Army had been built to win the wars of yesterday.
Oskar intended to reshape it for the wars of tomorrow.
Of course, Oskar knew this would cause a huge uproar.
Therefore, he first consulted Hindenburg and Ludendorff about it.