Re: Blood and Iron-Chapter 447: Plausible Deniability

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The United States congress was currently embroiled in turmoil over the southern border, and the ongoing Mexican Revolution. Reports showed that men armed with old Winchester rifles had left a trail of blood and bodies in their wake.

And if these rumors were to be true, they appeared oddly organized and trained, better than even the remnants of the old federal army. Their equipment was lightweight, capable of being moved rapidly via horseback, and was ideal for the terrain they were fighting in.

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They carried repeating rifles chambered in modern calibers, and revolvers suspiciously similar to current-issue U.S. designs. Their arsenals also included heavy machine guns lifted straight from old German blueprints, lightweight man-portable mortars—proven in the Great War, and finally lightweight and rapid firing 75mm field guns that oddly enough looked like sanitized and modernized German 7.5 cm FK 16 nA.

It would appear this was a force armed by both the Americans and the Germans alike, and these men were waging total war against every other faction in the chaos south of America's borders. As for the American congress, they desperately wanted to know who had given the approval to sell US manufactured weapons to these violent guerillas?

The reality was that the weapons were sold in a way that was completely deniable from the Winchester company, their markings were scrubbed if even added in the first place, and were chambered in a caliber Winchester had never produced before, but had also been given a more military aesthetic which otherwise didn't exist in this timeline.

So their response as a company when summoned by the court to answer for this very clear violation of ethics, and potential criminal act, was to claim ignorance, and state it was possible Germany or some other nation managed to reverse engineer Browning's old designs which had been sold under their banner, and were given by said unknown actors to the Mexican guerillas.

But Germany also claimed ignorance. Of course, the reality was that Winchester was lying, and the German nation was genuinely unaware of the agreement between Bruno and the President, conducted entirely through Backchannel diplomacy.

And because of this, nobody really knew who was selling these weapons to this new and terrifying force which was claiming to be fighting not for gods, kings, or country but to restore order to an otherwise lawless hellscape.

Thus, congress could only shout and squabble as the President used his authority to move us troops to the southern border to prevent more senseless violence from revolutionaries like Pancho Villa whom he suspected was already in retreat.

Order from Washington had come down in secrecy to the Sons of Liberty, to capture, torture, and execute Pancho Villa, making a spectacle of his end as a message to others like him, this was the fate of those who dared to intrude upon the lands of the red, white and blue.

Of course these orders could have been deliberately mistranslated by the Germans who relayed them, as the Presidency's only real way of giving out these orders to his Mexican Proxies was first through secured communications with Bruno, who would then pass them along to the Werwolf Group operatives in the area acting as trainers and liaisons to this force of armed combatants forged beneath their tutelage.

Which meant that only Bruno and the President truly knew the hand that guided the chaos. Hence why, at that very moment, the leader of the Sons of Liberty stood smoking a cigarillo... watching as his soldiers utilized their rapid fire 75mm field artillery to batter the hiding place where their target was suspected of residing.

Shots rang out from the trenches, aimed at the riflemen clinging to the crumbling walls of the stronghold. It was almost as if these poor bastards didn't get the memo that fixed fortifications were a thing of the past.

They were a hell of a lot more expensive to build, and so much more so when they needed to be repaired after suffering from mortar and artillery fire like they were currently being bombarded with.

Meanwhile, the earthen fortifications used by the Sons of Liberty who had surrounded the stronghold were far cheaper to repair, and often did so themselves as dirt was launched vertically and horizontally by the enemy shells fired at them, while sandbags split; gaps in trenches sealed themselves with the mud left behind by rain..

Whereas the old stone and concrete walls of the enemy shattered, crumbled, and were eventually worn to ruin as the exchange continued for hours on end. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of heated battle, the Werwolf attaché approached the leader of the Sons of Liberty and gave him an order in flawless Spanish.

"The enemy hasn't returned fire in over thirty minutes, I suspect that they have run low on shells, send a small contingent to test their resolve in a coordinated assault, if they do not return fire with heavier firepower than mere machine guns that means the time to push forward and seize victory has come."

Colonel Oliverez looked over at the German with his dark eyes, which were the only major feature of his identity that escaped beyond the boundaries of the skull bandana tied to his face. His voice was less than ecstatic as he shared his thoughts.

"It would be a lot easier if we had some armored cars, or god forbid tanks of our own to conduct the assault. Fewer of my men would need to bleed and die…"

The German officer responded not with indifference, but with an empathetic tone as he pulled the Mexican colonel aside and told him why that wasn't feasible.

"I understand your sympathies I truly do. The Reich is currently sitting on a stockpile of old armored vehicles that are rapidly being replaced from service in the standard army and are being sold to our group for a fraction of the price it took to make them.

But there is one major problem with this little plan of yours. So, allow me to put this bluntly. If armored cars and tanks end up on this battlefield of yours, then the ability for both the United States and Germany to maintain deniability will vanish with their appearance.

And if that were to happen, then the United States will have no choice but to personally send their army south. Now, if the Americans were to invade Mexico in full force, why would they ever need you and your hearty band of guerillas?

So your two options are this: total annihilation by the U.S. Army—and full-scale annexation. Or a bloody assault that ends in independence. Which will it be, Colonel?"

Not another word needed to be said. Because Colonel Olivarez knew that what his German advisor had said was precisely the outcome that would occur if German armor ended up on Mexican soil. And thus he ordered the assault, hoping to capture Pancho Villa and do as his American handlers in Washington had tasked him with in secrecy.