By Junior Remy Haring

In a series of stories told from multiple perspectives from all over the world– collectively known as the Kaiserreich Files (inspired by the titular mod for Hearts of Iron IV), blogger Remy Haring explores an alternate history, one in which the Central Powers win the First World War.

Hong Kong, German East Asia

June 23, 1936

First it was Black Monday, then Poland left the German Empire, next a civil war in the Qing Empire breaks out, after that a crazy guy seized power in Mongolia–Roman Von Ungern-Sternberg–while claiming to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, and now there’s a revolution in Indochina; ach, mein Gott! What is even happening?

I was on my routine patrol of the waterfront. The night was clear, no clouds, no birds, not even the sound of a foghorn; it was just the stars. It made me forget that there was a massive civil war going on just outside the walls of Hong Kong and that my family had to wait in bread lines back in Frankfurt. My nightly patrol revealed streets covered in sewage and trash, water a greenish-black color, and houses diminished to little more than ramshackle piles of brick and tarp. Rats and cats scuttled all over the dingy streets. Towering over this squalor was the battleship SMS Hohenzollern; with all the lights and whatnot it almost looked like a city skyline itself. My patrol that night was pretty uneventful. No one was out. The most action I got was humming 55 Tage in Peking while smoking a cigarette. Unfortunately, there was no way I was getting the smell of sewage and trash out of my uniform.

June 24, 1936

The next day I was patrolling the urban part of the city. There were sightings of a skirmish between the Qing Dynasty and the socialist Left Kuomintang (KMT) not far from the city, so now the military high command was on high alert. The urban center was crowded with street vendors hawking. The streets were filled with pedestrians, donkeys, bikes, etc. The patrol here was a significant step up from the waterfront, but even here there was still tons of poverty. There were beggars on street corners and bread lines stretching blocks. The Black Monday crash has not been kind to this city.

While patrolling a market square, a little kid, clutching her mom’s dress, pointed at me and said, “Fritz!” I had some food rations in a bag. I kneeled and handed the child a biscuit and the mother some preserved meat. Tears gathered in the eyes of the mother, and she gave me a hug. She said in broken German, “d-danke schön,” and the child had the biggest grin I’ve ever seen. The two left the line and went back toward the houses. My lunch was some fried noodles I got from a street vendor. I sat down at the curb and began eating. I’m telling you, it was so much better than the stale biscuits and meat drowning in preserves that made up my diet for the past year or so. All seemed peaceful, until my commanding officer Heinrich approached me. I stood.

“Sir?” I asked.

“The Chinese Civil war has spilled over here. Left KMT positions are shelling us. Your job is to evacuate the civilians to shelters. Go now!” Heinrich barked.

And, then, I began hearing it: the pack pack of rifles and the distant concussive blast of artillery. The marketplace devolved into chaos. I began directing crowds into the bomb shelters. Everyone in the street was panicking and running around like mad. I had to get up on a box to move everyone to a little shelter in the basement of a shop. It was a tiny, metal room with shelves filled with canned goods–that were soon picked clean by the refugees. Overhead I heard the whistling and subsequent explosion of a shell and the sounds of gunfire. At least I managed to get some people out of harm’s way. 

*55 Days at Peking