Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 600: The Return of the Crown

The morning mist clung low over Barcelona like a mourning veil, the rising sun struggling to pierce the ash-choked sky.

Buildings still bore the wounds of war, bullet holes in the façades, craters in cobbled roads, scorched ruins where anarchist firebombs had consumed homes and barricades alike.

Yet the guns were silent.

For the first time in nearly two years, silence returned to the capital of Catalonia, not the tense, pregnant silence of dread, but something else.

Something closer to breathless anticipation.

From the heights of Montjuïc Castle, the Republican tricolor, tattered, frayed, and half-burned, hung limp.

Wind barely touched it, as if the fabric itself had given up the fight.

Below, from the western gate, came the sound of armor.

A low rumble. Rhythmic. Measured. Metallic.

The Royal Spanish Army had arrived.

Columns of tanks crested the hill, Panzer Is and P-33s moving with martial grace, freshly painted with the yoke and arrows of the Falange on their turrets and the Royal Crest emblazoned proudly on hulls and shoulders alike.

They bore the symbol of a monarchy that never fell.

Infantry followed in close order, boots crunching broken glass, rifles slung over shoulders, bayonets sheathed. They were not here to fight. Not today.

They were here to reclaim.

Behind them came the medics. Then came the water trucks.

Then came the men in grey and field green, the International Legion.

Italians, Russians, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Greeks, foreigners, yes, but not conquerors.

They came bearing crates of bread.

They came with barrels of clean water, with field surgeons and stretchers, with mobile kitchens that belched the scent of onions and broth into the morning air.

The people of Barcelona, gaunt and shivering, began to emerge from their ruined tenements and shattered shopfronts.

They stepped over the broken glass of their own dreams and peered out at the soldiers, not with anger, but with cautious hope.

A woman held out her child, eyes wide and desperate.

The boy was little more than bones, his face waxen, his lips cracked.

A German medic knelt wordlessly, lifting the child into his arms and shouting to a nearby truck.

Moments later, the mother was weeping over a bowl of soup she hadn’t dared imagine tasting again.

She blessed the medics in Catalan between sobs. No one stopped her.

At the heart of the city, in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, stood the grand flagpole once seized by anarchist militias. The Republican banner had flown there for years now.

A Royalist officer stepped forward, young, clean-shaven, uniform impeccable. His hands bore no tremble as he grasped the halyard.

With a single pull, the tricolor came down.

No one cheered.

No one clapped.

They only watched, still unsure if the nightmare was truly ending.

Then, slowly, the red and gold banner of the Spanish monarchy rose into the wind, bearing the lions of León, the castles of Castile, the chains of Navarre, and the fleurs-de-lis of the Bourbons.

The crowd inhaled as one.

And then came the first cheer.

A boy, no older than twelve, shouted, “¡Viva el Rey!” from the rooftop of a shattered tobacconist.

Another voice echoed him. Then another.

Soon, the plaza was thundering with the chant:

“¡Viva el Rey! ¡Viva España!”

Some wept. Some fell to their knees. Others simply stared skyward as if seeing their country again for the first time.

From a side street, a group of ragged Republican militiamen approached, hands raised.

Their weapons were slung muzzle-down or discarded altogether.

A Royal Army captain met them without disdain or mockery. His orders were clear:

“Those who lay down arms will be treated. The war is over… for you, at least.”

They nodded. Too tired to protest. Too broken to resist.

A detachment of International Legionnaires approached next, one of them holding a white armband with a red cross. They began triage right there on the sidewalk.

An older Catalan woman pressed her hand to one Legionnaire’s sleeve and muttered, “You’re not from here.”

The man smiled. “No, señora.”

“Then why help us?”

He handed her a tin of condensed milk and moved on. She stared after him for a long time.

High above the square, a camera shutter clicked.

German war correspondents embedded with the International Legion began documenting the transition.

Not for propaganda, but for history. For Berlin. For Brussels. For Moscow, Constantinople, London and Washington to see.

That Spain had not been conquered.

She had been reclaimed.

In the courtyard of the old Generalitat, a makeshift dais was constructed.

King Alfonso XIII was not yet present; he would arrive within days, after the final operations near Tarragona concluded.

But his presence was already felt.

A Royalist general stepped up and gave a short speech.

No flourish. No arrogance. No revanchist vengeance.

Just a solemn promise.

“The war is not yet over. But for Barcelona, the nightmare ends today. You are not our enemy. You are our brothers and sisters. We come not for vengeance, but with bread and medicine. We will rebuild this city together. For the Crown. For Spain.”

It was not met with thunderous applause. But it was heard.

And in a city where silence had once been synonymous with fear, even that was a victory.

—

The port of New York was cloaked in gray.

Fog rolled in from the Atlantic, smothering the skyline and softening the angry voices that gathered at the docks into a dull, sullen murmur.

A procession of caskets moved with the rhythm of a funeral dirge, hoisted from the bellies of two freighters; one bearing a flag from Manila, the other from Gibraltar.

The Stars and Stripes fluttered at half-mast, caught in a wind that carried the scent of salt, diesel, and mourning.

Dozens of them, rows of polished wooden boxes, each marked with stenciled names, rank, and the silent shame of foreign soil.

The crowd was larger than expected.

Not just families.

Not just widows or grieving parents.

But workers. Veterans. Students. Union men. Priests and pastors. Men in suits, and women in threadbare dresses. They came not to protest, at least not at first, but to bear witness.

Because the war was no longer “over there.”

It was here now. In the ports. In the papers. In the ground.

A middle-aged woman collapsed to her knees as one of the caskets passed, her gloved hands trembling, lips mumbling a prayer no one could hear.

A photographer tried to raise his camera.

A dockworker knocked it from his hands.

Across the city, headlines screamed from every newsstand.

YANK DEAD FROM SPAIN RETURN HOME

FILIPINO INSURRECTION: 3,000 MORE TROOPS DEPLOYED”IS THIS NEUTRALITY?” ASK MOTHERS OF THE FALLEN

And above them all, on front pages from coast to coast:

FDR: THE PEACE PRESIDENT WHO BROUGHT US WAR

In Washington, the mood in the Oval Office was anything but calm.

President Roosevelt stood behind his desk, face tight with strain, the lines under his eyes deeper than usual.

A telegram lay open in his hand, fresh from Madrid.

CONFIRMED: BARCELONA FALLS. REPUBLICAN DEFENSES IN CATALONIA NEARLY COLLAPSED. ROYALIST BANNER RAISED. GERMAN FORCES DISTRIBUTING RELIEF TO LOCAL POPULACE.

He crumpled the paper, not out of rage, but frustration. His knuckles ached from how tightly he gripped it.

Behind him, Eleanor watched with silent worry.

“You tried,” she said gently.

He didn’t respond.

James Farley, his Postmaster General and longtime political ally, sat on the couch, arms crossed, hat resting in his lap.

“This isn’t the Philippines, Frank. You could spin the Philippines. The press could sell it. ’Legacy of McKinley.’ ’Uplift the islands.’ But Spain? Spain’s killing your presidency.”

Roosevelt sat heavily.

“They were losing. We all knew they were losing.”

“And you sent boys anyway,” Farley said. “Volunteers or not, they’re American. And they’re coming home in pieces.”

Eleanor’s voice was soft but firm. “Franklin, you need to address the nation.”

Roosevelt looked towards the radio in the corner of the room.

“How do I explain,” he said bitterly, “that I believed we had a chance to hold the line? That I thought if we held Barcelona, if we gave them just enough, just enough to survive, they could negotiate peace?”

“You explain,” Eleanor replied, “that you didn’t know the Germans would drop weapons from nightmares.”

Farley scoffed. “Nightmares? No, Eleanor. They dropped something even worse. They dropped proof. Proof that Germany can fight and feed at the same time. Proof that they can win wars and win hearts. That’s what’s killing us. Not the dead boys, God bless them, but the living Germans handing out bread in Barcelona while our boys come home zipped in flags.”

In Chicago, the crowds were louder.

A rally had formed outside the federal building. Mostly veterans, many of them World War I survivors, veterans who had fought in the French Foreign Legion and paid the price.

This time, their signs read:

“NO MORE FOREIGN GRAVES!””NEUTRALITY MEANS NEUTRAL!””BRING THEM HOME!”

In the crowd, a young man shouted into a megaphone.

“They say it’s to stop tyranny, but whose? Germany’s? Spain’s? Whose sons are dying, huh?”

Applause.

“Mine? Yours? Not Roosevelt’s. Not the Rockefellers’. Not the Hearsts’! They don’t send their sons, they send yours! And when they come home in pine boxes, they say it was for peace!”

Boos. Shouts of “Shame!”

Somewhere, a police whistle blew. A scuffle broke out. A flag was torn.

At Columbia University, a debate flared between two professors in front of a packed auditorium.

One, a stern-faced man in spectacles, slammed his fist on the lectern.

“Spain is the proving ground! If we don’t stand up to Germany now, it will be France next. Then Belgium. Then Britain. Then us!”

The other countered coolly.

“Gentlemen, that’s the same logic that led to sending our boys to the South Pacific under the banner of France during the Great War. And that war killed thousands of our finest. What did we get for it?”

Silence.

“Nothing,” he said. “Except more war.”

Back in Washington, Roosevelt walked the gardens with Eleanor.

The roses were late in blooming.

“Do you think they’ll forgive me?” he asked quietly.

“No,” she said. “But they might remember you tried.”

He nodded. “Then we’ll try again.”

“You can’t win this war, Franklin,” she said. “Not without losing the next election.”

He stopped. Looked out across the Potomac.

“Then maybe,” he said, “it’s not about winning anymore.”