"General Hindenburg. Major Ludendorff."
Oskar's voice was calm, almost conversational, as if he were presenting a factory ledger rather than proposing to rearrange the skeleton of the German Army.
"These are my recommendations for reforming the command system of the Eighth Army Corps. Please read it. If we streamline the structure, we reduce delays, reduce confusion, reduce mistakes. On the battlefield, that means fewer dead Germans."
He handed over the document.
Hindenburg and Ludendorff took it without ceremony—paper passing from prince to soldier. For several seconds the only sounds were the faint crackle of a stove and the whisper of pages turning.
Then their faces began to change.
First surprise.
Then disbelief.
Hindenburg's heavy brows tightened. Ludendorff's eyes sharpened the way they did when he smelled either opportunity or danger.
They had expected Oskar to bring equipment proposals. A budget request. A lecture about machine guns and trucks.
They had not expected him to reach into the spine of the Army itself and snap a bone.
Because the plan did not "adjust" the structure.
It deleted a whole layer of command.
Brigades—gone.
And behind the brigade reform, like a shadow they could almost feel, was an even more explosive implication:
If a prince could delete brigades, then one day he might delete corps.
The thought sat in the room like an unexploded shell.
They finished reading.
Silence followed—long enough that a lesser man might have begun apologizing just to survive it.
Oskar did not.
Finally Hindenburg spoke, carefully choosing words as if speaking too bluntly might start a fire.
"Your Highness," he said, "eliminating the brigade level will indeed simplify command. A division commander will have fewer intermediaries. Orders may move faster."
He paused.
"But it will also create instability. It will alarm the officer corps."
His thick finger tapped the paper.
"Brigades exist because they support careers. Brigades mean brigadier-generals, deputy brigade commanders, brigade chiefs of staff—colonels with positions, majors with prospects. Remove the brigade, and you remove dozens of ladders."
He lifted his eyes.
"Where do those men go? What do you tell them when their entire life plan vanishes overnight?"
Oskar nodded as if he were listening to a banker explain interest rates.
"This reform will be implemented only within the Eighth Army Corps," he replied evenly. "Not the whole Army. Not yet."
He spoke without hesitation, because he had already seen this objection coming from a kilometer away.
"And those officers will not be discarded," Oskar continued. "Artillery regiments can be commanded by brigadier-generals. Deputy division commanders. Division chiefs of staff. Logistics chiefs. Training inspectors. We will create positions where needed. We will assign them properly."
He let the meaning harden.
"There will be discomfort. That is inevitable. But discomfort can be managed. Inefficiency cannot."
A brief pause.
Then, more quietly:
"I have decided. No matter how loudly the old guard complains, I will not retreat."
Ludendorff finally spoke, voice dry but charged with interest.
"It will create friction," he admitted. "But the operational advantage is obvious. Fewer layers. Less distortion. Faster decisions. A division that can move as one mind."
His gaze stayed on the paper.
"If we are serious about winning modern war… it is worth attempting."
Hindenburg exhaled slowly. There was still one concern he could not ignore.
"Your Highness," he said, "a reform like this will provoke the General Staff. They will see it as a challenge to tradition. And we do not know His Majesty's attitude."
Oskar's eyes didn't flicker.
"Do not worry about Moltke," he said flatly. "If he causes trouble, I will handle it."
He did not bother to soften the statement. There was no point. The feud was already open, already irreconcilable. Moltke would oppose him whether he acted or not.
"As for my father," Oskar continued, "I will explain the logic to him personally."
He paused, then added with the quiet confidence of a man whose projects kept succeeding:
"He trusts results."
Hindenburg studied him for a moment.
The prince was young, yes. Too young. But he was also calm under pressure, terrifyingly prepared, and increasingly impossible to dismiss as a spoiled aristocrat with fantasies.
At last Hindenburg nodded.
"Very well," he said. "Proceed."
The decision was made.
The New Structure
Oskar didn't smile. He simply slid a second packet forward—a neat, brutal set of tables and numbers.
"Then we rebuild the Corps from the bottom upward," he said. "Starting with the squad."
Under Oskar's reform plan, all units within the Eighth Army Corps would be reorganized according to the new system.
Squad (12 men):
10 riflemen
1 light machine gunner
1 grenadier
(with designated marksman capability embedded)
It was small enough to move like a hand. Large enough to fight like a fist.
Platoon:
Three squads plus a weapons squad and a small headquarters element.
Weapons squad (12 men): 1 heavy machine gun + 1 mortar
Platoon HQ: leader, deputy, medic, communications, runners
Total platoon strength: ~54 men.
Company:
Three infantry platoons, one heavy weapons platoon, and a company HQ.
Heavy weapons platoon:
2 light machine guns
3 × 60mm mortars
1 heavy machine gun
(23 men)
Company HQ: commander, deputy, guards, communications, medic, runners.
Total company strength: ~193 men.
Hindenburg's eyes narrowed. A company with that much organic firepower was not a "company" in the old sense. It was a mobile killing machine.
Battalion:
Three infantry companies, plus:
HQ company (recon + security elements)
Heavy weapons company (81mm mortars + LMGs + HMGs)
Infantry artillery company (Type 08 infantry guns)
Total battalion strength: ~1,050 men.
Regiment:
Three battalions plus:
artillery battalion (3 batteries of 75mm field guns)
a heavy mortar company (107mm mortars)
logistics and medical units
Total regiment strength: 4,500+ men.
Division:
Three infantry regiments plus:
artillery regiment
reconnaissance battalion
guard battalion
supply battalion
armored battalion
full divisional HQ
Artillery regiment:
two battalions of 105mm howitzers
one battalion of 150mm heavy howitzers
(each battalion: 18 guns)
Total division strength: 16,500+ men.
Ludendorff stared at the numbers in silence.
Hindenburg read the final comparison twice.
Old divisions: roughly 54 × 77mm guns and 18 × 105mm howitzers.
Oskar's divisions:
54 × 75mm field guns
36 × 105mm howitzers
18 × 150mm heavy howitzers
Artillery nearly doubled.
Overall firepower—machine guns, mortars, infantry guns, heavy howitzers—more than doubled.
And all of it was built into the unit structure so that it moved with the division instead of arriving late, begged from higher command, or lost in bureaucratic delay.
Hindenburg set the paper down slowly.
For a moment, neither he nor Ludendorff spoke. They simply stared at the tables as if the ink might rearrange itself into something more familiar.
Both men felt it at once: the comfortable world they had spent their careers mastering was being dismantled in front of them—quietly, efficiently, without asking their permission.
Neither had imagined an infantry division could be built around this much firepower.
What lay on the table was not an "improvement."
It was a rupture.
By European standards, it bordered on the absurd.
"Your Highness…" Hindenburg said at last, carefully, as though each word needed to be tested before it could be allowed into the air. "Are we truly prepared to do this?"
He gestured faintly at the document.
"If we reorganize divisions according to your design, their firepower will exceed anything on the continent. I dare say no other army in the world could match such formations."
He was not exaggerating.
Under the existing structure, a German infantry division fielded fifty-four 77mm field guns and eighteen 105mm light howitzers—a respectable balance, surpassed in Europe only by Britain, whose divisions carried fifty-four 83.8mm guns and eighteen 114mm howitzers.
France, by contrast, fielded only thirty-six 75mm guns. The French piece had an impressive rate of fire, yes—but its smaller caliber imposed a ceiling on destructive power.
Russia deployed forty-eight 76.2mm guns, but gained no decisive advantage from that arrangement, neither in volume nor efficiency.
All of that careful balance—maintained for decades—would be shattered.
Under Oskar's system, 150mm heavy howitzers, weapons traditionally reserved for corps- or army-level artillery parks, were to be embedded directly into the infantry divisions themselves.
Eighteen per division.
Unheard of.
"Strengthening firepower is the most direct way to increase combat effectiveness," Oskar said calmly, as if stating an axiom rather than rewriting doctrine. "And artillery is the core of that firepower. Long-range striking decides battles before infantry ever closes with the enemy."
"But Your Highness," Ludendorff cut in, practical instinct asserting itself, "equipping divisions at this scale will dramatically increase expenditure."
The numbers were merciless.
Compared to the old structure, each reorganized division would receive eighteen additional 105mm howitzers and eighteen 150mm heavy howitzers.
Across the ten divisions of the Eighth Army Corps, that meant 180 more light howitzers and 180 heavy howitzers.
Even by imperial standards, the cost would be staggering.
And with Moltke firmly opposed, approval through the General Staff would border on impossible.
Oskar waved the concern away with almost insulting ease.
"Funding is not a problem," he said. "I will cover it myself. Moltke will never approve an increase anyway, so there is no reason to ask."
His tone remained flat.
"Compared to what I spend elsewhere, this is trivial."
Hindenburg and Ludendorff exchanged a glance.
For Oskar—whose private fortune rivaled that of small states, if the rumors were even half true—the cost of several hundred artillery pieces truly was negligible. Even with ammunition reserves, training, and maintenance, the sum remained within his reach.
"With this level of artillery," Hindenburg said quietly, almost reverently, "our infantry divisions would possess the greatest firepower in the world."
"That is precisely the point," Oskar replied.
He leaned forward slightly.
"It is as I have said many times: every soldier of the German Empire is precious. If a problem can be solved with shells, then it should never be solved with men's lives."
His eyes hardened.
"If one shell is insufficient, we fire ten. If ten are insufficient, we fire a hundred. Winning means nothing if it costs an entire generation."
Oskar understood that casualties could never be eliminated entirely.
But saving even a fraction—multiplied across years of fighting—would decide the fate of a nation.
He had no intention of burying half of Germany's youth for the sake of tradition.
Hindenburg and Ludendorff—men long accustomed to sacrifice and mass death—found themselves silently agreeing.
A commander willing to spend such sums to spare his soldiers was rare.
A prince willing to do so without hesitation was almost unheard of.
Ludendorff turned another page, voice lower now.
"In addition to artillery…" he said, "…machine-gun firepower has also increased dramatically."
Ludendorff lifted his head, surprise flashing across his face despite himself.
"So according to these tables… each infantry battalion will field fifteen heavy machine guns—six in 12.7mm and nine in 7.62mm—alongside thirty-three light machine guns, eighteen 60mm mortars, and six 81mm mortars."
He read the line again, slower.
Then looked up.
"Your Highness… these aren't the weapons from the Berlin trials, are they?"
Hindenburg, who had been silent, narrowed his eyes at the document as if it had just changed shape.
"The MG09 we heard about… yes," he said cautiously. "But these calibers, these numbers—this is a different scale entirely."
Oskar didn't deny it.
He didn't even look embarrassed.
He looked… satisfied.
"Correct," he said. "The trials were not a full unveiling."
Both men went still.
Oskar's voice remained calm, almost instructional.
"What you saw—or what you heard about—at the trials was the standard model," he said. "What I am willing to show the wider Army, what can be produced broadly without triggering panic, jealousy, or sabotage."
He tapped the page.
"The Eighth Army Corps will not receive the standard model."
Ludendorff's brow furrowed. "You mean… you intend to equip your corps differently from the rest of the Army?"
Oskar met his eyes.
"Yes."
The word landed like a hammer.
Hindenburg inhaled slowly, understanding arriving a second later.
"A crown prince's corps," he murmured.
"A spearhead," Oskar corrected. "A laboratory. A blade."
He leaned forward slightly.
"If I reveal everything at once, Moltke and the old procurement circles will fight it to the death. Not because it is ineffective, but because it threatens their control. Worse, foreign attachés would begin to understand what is coming."
His gaze sharpened.
"Secrecy is protection. If the enemy thinks we are merely improving… they will not realize how far ahead we are until it is too late."
For a moment, Hindenburg and Ludendorff simply stared at him.
This was not the thinking of a wealthy prince.
This was the thinking of a man who had already fought the next war in his mind.
Ludendorff looked back down at the numbers, voice quiet now.
"Then a single frontline battalion would possess more firepower than entire formations once did."
Oskar nodded once.
"Yes. And more is coming."
He spoke with the certainty of a man describing weather.
"With technological progress," Oskar continued, "the old methods—volley fire, massed lines advancing shoulder to shoulder—are no longer merely outdated. They are suicidal."
He let the word hang.
"Machine guns and mortars do not care about bravery," he said. "They care about density."
He looked between them.
"I expect the next major war to devolve into trench warfare—hundreds of kilometers of fortified lines, overlapping fields of fire, men living underground and in mud while death falls from above more often than it comes from the front."
Breaking such defenses through frontal assault would be nearly impossible.
Casualties would be catastrophic.
"The solutions are straightforward," Oskar said. "Overwhelming firepower—mortars, artillery, sustained suppression. And when suppression is not enough… infiltration."
His tone tightened.
"Small, heavily armed, disciplined teams. Not heroic waves. Not bayonets into machine-gun arcs. Teams that slip through gaps, strike weak points, collapse the line from within."
Hindenburg and Ludendorff did not object.
Even if they could not fully visualize the scale, they could feel the direction modern war was moving.
And Oskar's reforms did not stop at battalions.
They reached all the way down to the squad.
"Under my system," Oskar said, "every squad becomes a fighting unit in its own right. Protection improves. Firepower improves. Initiative improves."
He counted with his finger.
"A light machine gun. A dedicated grenadier. Marksmanship capability. Grenades as standard."
He glanced at Ludendorff.
"Yes, the Mauser remains excellent at long range," Oskar admitted. "But rate of fire decides close fights, and most fights become close once men are pinned, exhausted, and terrified. In that environment, semi-automatic rifles outperform bolt-action rifles."
He paused, then added more carefully, so he would not overpromise like a salesman.
"A squad like this—properly positioned, supported, and supplied—can stop enemy platoons that would otherwise overwhelm a normal squad. Not because they are immortal. Because their firepower and coordination breaks assaults before they reach grenade distance."
Numerical superiority would no longer guarantee victory.
"Ultimately," Oskar said, closing the document, "weapons do not win wars—people do."
He met their eyes.
"That is why training matters most. Not parade drills. Not ceremony. Modern tactics. Physical conditioning. Mental endurance."
His voice grew colder.
"Our soldiers must be able to function hungry, exhausted, frightened, under artillery, under smoke, under chaos. The next war will test men in ways the last one never did."
Then he added, almost casually—too casually for what he was implying:
"And when this reorganization is complete… the Eighth Army will be visually unified as well."
Hindenburg's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Unified…?"
"Black," Oskar said simply. "A single identity. A single standard."
A pause.
"A Black Legion."
Hindenburg and Ludendorff went very still.
That phrase carried more weight than the numbers. Symbolism mattered. Discipline made visible. A formation meant to frighten the enemy before the first shot.
And in that moment, both men finally understood:
This prince was not a lucky businessman playing with uniforms.
He was building an army like a machine—cold, modern, deliberate.
He rose.
"Gentlemen. If there are no further questions, I will convene the corps and divisional commanders. Once the final details are agreed, we begin immediately."
Hindenburg and Ludendorff stood at once.
They struck a fist to the heart—formal, deliberate.
"Your Highness," Hindenburg said, voice firm, "I have no objection. I support this with all my heart."
"And I as well," Ludendorff added quickly, eyes still bright with the numbers. "This reform will greatly increase the combat effectiveness of the troops."
Oskar blinked once, slightly taken aback by the speed of their shift.
A moment ago, they had been cautious professionals.
Now they looked like men who had seen the future and wanted to reach it first.
"Hm," Oskar said, recovering his composure. "Good."
He nodded once.
"Then we do it."
They departed with contained urgency.
Oskar remained behind, alone with the paper.
Full rearmament would take at least a year—guns, mortars, ammunition, new production schedules.
But training could begin immediately.
Fitness. Small-unit tactics. Live drills. War games. Wooden weapons. Map exercises. Night marches. Communication practice.
If the next war came, he would not allow the Eighth Corps to learn by bleeding.
They would learn now—while peace still existed.