"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
— General William Tecumseh Sherman (1879)Scenarios
In March, the post-war order suffered a fatal blow. Adolf Hitler, rolling the iron dice of history, ordered the Wehrmacht into the demilitarized Rhineland. It was a blatant, brazen violation of the Treaty of Versailles. The world watched, breathless, waiting for the guns to fire. But the guns remained silent. France hesitated; Britain appeased. In that fatal quiet, a terrifying precedent was set: aggression would go unanswered. The machinery of the Third Reich slipped into a higher, deadlier gear.
“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. ”
― Adolf Hitler
The fields of Waterloo were choked with mud, blood, and the suffocating haze of black powder. For over a decade, Europe had trembled under the boot of one man, but as the afternoon wore on, the golden light that had always seemed to bless his conquests began to wane. This was not the brilliant, triumphant Sun of Austerlitz. This was the bruised, bleeding sunset of an empire.
“History is a set of lies agreed upon.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte