After the long, sleepless night on the train, Oskar barely made it back to the palace before his body finally demanded rest.
He checked on his women briefly.
Anna, determined and serious, had already taken it upon herself to handle all cleaning of Oskar's quarters alone from now on. Tanya, after making sure Anna was alright, disappeared to tend to AngelWorks business—there was much to coordinate, especially now that a terrified but hopeful Schneider tailor family in Augsburg had been promised steady work making cat clothes.
Oskar collapsed into bed.
Anna quietly moved around him, tidying and dusting, every so often pausing just to look at him sleeping with a softness that said more than words ever could.
On the other side of the palace, Karl tumbled into his own narrow bed, the previous night's notes and contracts still clutched in his hand, dreams full of engines, cats, and princes.
When Oskar woke again, it was afternoon.
He washed, dressed, and headed toward Pump World in Potsdam, fully expecting to spend the day teaching a small but respectable group of people some basic first aid and simple martial arts on the third floor.
He was wrong.
The street before Pump World was packed.
Thousands of men and women stood shoulder to shoulder, breath steaming in the cold air, membership cards clutched in gloved hands. The line stretched down the street, around the corner, and spilled into the square.
The moment his car pulled up, the crowd erupted.
Cheers.
Shouts.
"Prince Oskar!"
"The People's Prince!"
"Teacher!"
And right in front, a man holding a fresh morning newspaper with a bold headline:
> "The Dawn of the People's Prince"
The story of the third-class train, the choking girl, and the prince who taught medicine and fighting to commoners had already spread across Germany like wildfire.
Pump World was far too small.
So Oskar did the only thing that made sense.
He turned to Karl.
"Park Sanssouci," he said.
Minutes later, he was jogging through the streets toward the Sanssouci Park, Pump World members and curious onlookers pouring after him like a human river. The crowd grew with every block—workers leaving shops, mothers dragging children along, soldiers slipping out of barracks, clerks stuffing newspapers into their pockets to follow.
By the time Oskar reached the lawns of Sanssouci, thousands more had joined.
There, in the shadow of palaces and terraces, he held his first mass training session:
First aid,
The "Royal Maneuver,"
Fainting, seizures, heart support,
Basic self-defense, leverage, stances.
He only agreed to personally demonstrate and use volunteers from those who could show a Pump World membership card, shouting:
> "You want me to throw you or choke you safely? Good. Join the gym first. Strong bodies, strong lives."
The cold didn't stop them.
Men and women moved, practiced, coughed, laughed, and learned. Oskar felt relief wash through him—people got it. They wanted this. They came not just to watch, but to train.
Over the next days, he repeated it.
More sessions in Sanssouci.
More lessons inside Pump World.
He trained staff first, so they could in turn train others.
He hammered one central idea into every thick skull he could reach:
> "In a fight, technique matters. Knowledge matters. But in the end, strength wins too.
Build your bodies. Build your minds. Germany must be strong in both."
Pump World memberships exploded.
Of course, it didn't go unnoticed.
Crown Prince Wilhelm was livid.
He called the whole spectacle a scandal—a prince running around shirtless in parks, letting commoners touch him, tossing soldiers about like circus acts.
"Royalty is supposed to be above the people!" Wilhelm raved to anyone who would listen. "He's turning us into clowns! He lives and breathes like them, eats among them, rides third class—it ruins the glory of the monarchy!"
But it didn't matter what Wilhelm thought.
The newspapers adored Oskar.
The people adored Oskar.
Social Democrats, conservatives, workers, clerks, even suspicious liberals—all found something to like. He felt less like a distant prince and more like a giant, bare-handed president who actually showed up and helped.
Except:
He was not some old man in a suit giving vague speeches about hope.
He was a towering, half-mythical figure who:
built shipyards,
financed factories,
pushed for worker safety laws,
saved children on trains,
taught martial arts in the park,
and, according to rumors, could lift a grown soldier with one hand.
In the eyes of the crowd, even shirtless in the snow, Oskar did not look like a normal human being.
He looked like what a leader was supposed to be.
Someone whispered:
> "It is not his uniform that makes him a prince.
It is the way he stands."
And that line repeated itself, quietly, across Berlin and Potsdam.
Wilhelm II heard the Crown Prince's complaints—heard the mutterings of older courtiers and stiff-necked generals—and waved them away.
There were more important things to worry about.
Because on the last day of 1904, the Reichstag gathered at the Kaiser's order to discuss two new proposals coming from the Fifth Prince's restless mind:
1. The Imperial Worker Protection Act of 1905
— comprehensive worker safety obligations for all German industry.
2. The German Family Strengthening Act of 1905
— a sweeping set of tax policies and incentives aimed specifically at
German-speaking, loyal families of the Reich:
tax cuts for those who married before 25,
tax reductions scaling with each child,
and, for those who never married or had children,
a permanent extra tax burden—
a symbolic price to pay for not contributing to the nation's future.
The wording was careful.
The message was not.
Germany would be stronger.
Germany would be larger.
Germany would be safer.
And at the center of all of this—
from shipyards to factories, from gyms to parks, from trains to the Reichstag—
stood Prince Oskar.
Even as the New Year fireworks burst across German skies and thousands cheered for the People's Prince in Potsdam, Oskar's influence traveled far beyond Berlin—
across the North Sea, into the heart of the British Empire,
and straight into the private chambers of the Queen Consort herself.
Within Sandringham House, at Norfolk, Queen Alexandra of Denmark—sixty years old, regal, sharp-eyed, still beautiful in the refined way only aristocratic age can manage—stood at the window, watching fireworks blossom in the distance.
The crackling lights reminded her of Prussian artillery fire.
They always did.
Even after decades, she still felt a deep, instinctive twist of resentment in her chest.
Schleswig. Holstein.
The humiliation of Denmark in 1864.
Germany.
She would never forgive that country.
Her expression tightened slightly.
Which is why, when a footman approached, bowing deeply and whispering:
"Your Majesty… a merchant humbly requests an audience,"
Alexandra's first reaction was pure offense.
"Now? During my New Year's gathering? What impertinence."
The servant swallowed.
"He brings… ah… a new line of Royal—" he hesitated, "—cat products, Your Majesty."
Alexandra blinked.
A cat product?
Specifically for royalty?
Her irritation evaporated like mist.
"Show him in."
Because Alexandra of Denmark could resist many things—
but never anything concerning her beloved furry companions.
She could no longer bear children, but the palace whispered that she mothered her animals with the kind of fierce affection usually reserved for infants.
Which was not untrue.
The man who entered was impeccably dressed but had the slick confidence of someone who knew how to haggle sailors out of their trousers.
A former London dockside scammer—now, thanks to Karl's training, a polished salesman of the AngelWorks empire.
He bowed with suspicious elegance.
"Your Majesty, I present the AngelWorks Royal Collection—crafted exclusively for noble households such as yours."
Alexandra lifted her chin.
"AngelWorks… sounds British."
"Of course, Your Majesty," the merchant lied with the ease of long practice, "for only British royalty deserves the finest."
She nodded once, satisfied.
"Show me."
The servants carried in an array of items so absurdly luxurious that even Alexandra's guests gasped.
A golden litter throne, carved and gold-plated, lined with velvet.
A lacquered cat-sand coffer, with silver hinges and royal-blue silk lining.
A gemstone-handled grooming brush, bristles soft as breath.
A brass-and-silk carrying cage, decorated with miniature crowns.
Royal AngelSand, scented lightly with lavender.
A ridiculous array of cat outfits:
miniature naval uniforms,
tiny court dresses,
velvet robes,
hunting coats,
even little boots.
Alexandra's eyes sparkled like a child discovering a hidden treasure room.
"How delightful," she whispered. "Bring the cats."
This order triggered a minor battle.
Her cats—spoiled, proud, stubborn as English lords—
objected violently to being dressed.
There was hissing.
There was yowling.
There were claw marks.
But Alexandra was determined.
What are servants for?
Soon two maids and a footman had, with heroic effort, subdued them long enough to demonstrate:
the cats using the litter throne with shocking eagerness,
enjoying the silky grooming brush,
tolerating the tiny officer outfits,
and sitting elegantly in the brass carrying cage as if posing for portraits.
The queen's heart melted.
"This…" she breathed, "is magnificent."
The merchant smiled exactly as Karl instructed him to.
"Your Majesty, no price is too high for the happiness of the beloved companions of a Queen."
Alexandra nodded firmly.
"I will take everything."
The merchant blinked.
"Er… Your Majesty… everything?"
She waved her hand.
"Yes. All of it. And more clothes—as many as you have in the wagon outside. And bring anything that fits dogs as well."
The merchant's lips twitched.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The Royal Set alone cost:
10,000 Marks—around five hundred pounds…
But Alexandra did not purchase merely the set.
She bought:
every piece of clothing,
every extra royal litter box,
every additional coffer,
every carrying cage,
all the Royal AngelSand,
duplicates for each palace,
and demanded future deliveries to be arranged in quarterly shipments.
By the end—
She had spent one million Marks.
The merchant nearly fainted counting the coins.
One million Marks in 1904 was:
a fortune,
the value of entire estates,
more than some German factories earned in a year.
But for Queen Alexandra, it was simply:
"Everything my dear creatures deserve."
When the merchant departed that night, his wagon was empty and his lap was heavy with a bulging leather sack of coins—enough to make a sane man weep.
He whispered to himself:
"Karl… you mad genius. You were right."
And thus—without ever meeting him—
> Queen Alexandra of Denmark became AngelWorks' first international royal customer.
And Oskar's influence quietly slipped into Britain…
through cats.
Within hours of the purchase, Alexandra had already summoned the other nobles at the New Year's celebration to "come and see something marvelous." Her servants paraded the cats in their absurdly cute outfits—naval coats, silk court dresses, even tiny golden slippers.
Ladies shrieked with adoration.
Gentlemen chuckled approvingly.
Some stared stunned as one dignified Persian cat stepped daintily into its golden litter throne, did its business like royalty, and emerged with a triumphant tail flick.
Applause followed.
Then chaos.
"Where did you get this?"
"Is there only one set?"
"Does it come in emerald green?"
"Can I have a dog version?"
"ANGELWORKS? A British firm, I presume?"
And like that—whispers spread through the noble circles of Britain.
Every duchess, countess, and aristocratic lady suddenly needed an AngelWorks product.
Britain had fallen.
To luxury cat goods.
Meanwhile, far away in Berlin, Oskar and Karl were attending the imperial New Year's festivities with:
the Hohenzollern family,
the Diesel family,
the Krupp family,
various nobles, ministers, and military officers.
Karl, after two glasses of wine and a misplaced burst of confidence, vanished into the palace gardens with Heddy Diesel, holding hands in the dark like two excited teenagers.
Oskar, left alone, found himself suddenly seized by Bertha Krupp.
She dragged him into a formal dance.
He tried.
He genuinely tried.
And failed spectacularly.
Bertha laughed—not mockingly, but warmly—
and patiently guided him through the steps like a mother teaching a very large, very clumsy child.
He learned a bit, enough not to crush anyone's toes, though Kaiser Wilhelm II was visibly pained watching his son stomp about like a giant trying not to damage the floor.
The nobles whispered politely.
The Emperor sighed.
Oskar escaped.
Retreating to his room, he "exercised" with his maids until dawn in a manner not endorsed by any royal etiquette manual.
And thus the New Year—1905—came and went.
In the first week of January, two major laws, both proposed by Oskar, passed through the Reichstag with surprising speed:
1. Imperial Worker Protection Act of 1905
2. German Family Strengthening Act of 1905
More newspapers praised him.
More people idolized him.
Industrialists cursed him quietly.
The church declared him a blessing.
Workers saw him as their guardian.
Germany felt different now—more modern, more hopeful, more alive.
Safety equipment began selling in massive quantities.
Good thing Oskar's factories had already implemented:
conveyor belts,
organized workflows,
modern efficiency ideas
and higher wages and safer spaces than almost any factory in the empire.
Pump World grew even faster.
From Potsdam and Berlin it soon spread:
first to Hamburg,
then to Augsburg,
then to other major cities.
Every Pump World facility now offered:
muscle training,
group fitness,
martial arts classes,
and basic first aid.
Employees received full training so they could train others.
AngelWorks expanded just as rapidly—its stores "multiplying like the plague," as newspapers joked.
Demand grew not only for cat products, but now for dog clothes, dog brushes, and dog thrones, after word of Queen Alexandra's million-mark purchase reached the continent.
Karl and Oskar immediately began designing a royal dog portfolio.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Werke, Oskar's shipyard, grew in power and scope with every passing week.
And Oskar himself—without even trying—
became an international figure.
His ideals of physical strength, worker safety, family policy, and first-aid awareness were spreading across borders faster than newspapers could print.
Spring came and May crept closer.
And inside the palace, two women—Anna and Tanya—had begun to show clear signs of pregnancy.
Round bellies.
Slight wobbles in their steps.
Glow in their cheeks.
Oskar managed to hide them from the outside world thanks to:
loyal servants,
trusted guards,
and keeping the women mostly within his quarters.
But he knew…
He knew he could not hide this forever.
Sooner or later, he would have to tell his family.
And after that…
the world.
However, while Oskar's own star rose, the world around him grew darker.
The war between Russia and Japan had turned into a catastrophe for the Tsar. Port Arthur had fallen; every new naval engagement in the Far East showed just how lethal modern artillery, torpedoes, and engines could be. Oskar devoured every scrap of news he could get his hands on. Part of him was simply curious how newspapers in this era wrote about a war he already knew the broad outline of. But more than that, he was hunting for something else:
Signs.
Hints that his presence was already distorting the timeline. Little ripples in big events.
He looked for clues in every dispatch, every casualty list, every report from Manchuria and the Yellow Sea.
He didn't find any.
The Russian army was still a marching disaster. The Japanese still looked unstoppable. Russian admirals still made the same suicidal choices he remembered. As far as he could tell, the Russo–Japanese War was unfolding almost exactly as it had in his original world—
just as humiliating for Russia, just as instructive for anyone paying attention.
Meanwhile, the Diesel family and their newly absorbed companies threw themselves into work with almost religious fervor. Under the umbrella of the Oskar Industrial Group they were no longer just tinkering with one odd engine type in a draughty shed.
In Augsburg and Berlin, in cramped laboratories and newly refitted halls, German engineers were sketching and testing:
diesel engines,
large steam turbines,
petrol (gasoline) engines,
and early concepts for future aircraft powerplants.
Oskar's instructions were simple and relentless:
> "Land, sea, air. We don't just make engines.
We become the heart of everything that moves."
His primary objective stayed brutally clear:
prevent Germany from being crushed in the next war by giving it a truly powerful, modern army and navy.
He knew that once armies and fleets embraced real mechanization, the hunger for high-power engines would become insatiable. Tanks, armored cars, battleships, cruisers, submarines, long supply columns, and eventually aircraft—
all of them would rise or fall on the strength of what sat in their engine rooms.
If Germany was to survive the next great conflict, it couldn't afford to trail behind. It had to be at least one step ahead.
Preferably two.
Starting this engine research now, in 1905, was his attempt to bend history before it fully hardened into shape.
And engines, in his mind, were the key. A powerful, efficient engine meant:
heavier armor,
bigger guns,
faster movement—
the ability to carry more weight, more firepower, more protection, without collapsing under its own mass.
The engine was the heart.
Everything else was just limbs and armor plates.
It almost felt like he was back in his old world playing a strategy game.
In games like Civilization, the player knew what the next technology on the tree was. You knew which research unlocked which unit. All he had to do now was pull those future pictures and stats out of his memory and turn them into orders, diagrams, and budgets. Then let his people do the work of dragging them into reality.
By May 1905, across the empire, Oskar's businesses had clearly entered an explosive growth phase.
German Works—the old Danzig shipyard—was almost unrecognizable. Massive capital investments, new cranes, new drydocks, expanded slipways: what had once been a tired yard for repairing coastal tramps and fishing boats was transforming into an industrial fortress.
Brutus, the manager, was driving the men hard, working toward one simple goal:
> "We build ships so powerful and advanced that even the British have to look at this yard and take it seriously."
The Diesel companies, though still modest in physical size, had already vaulted from half-bankrupt experiments to world leaders in diesel and turbine design. With Rudolf Diesel's complete patent portfolio and knowledge in hand, and Oskar's money behind him, they could finally make the leap from fragile prototypes to robust, repeatable industrial machines.
In a draughty upstairs office, teams of engineers bent over the Curtiss steam turbine blueprints smuggled from the United States. Oskar's directive was written in big letters across the top of the main board:
> "Understand this. Improve it. Make it German.
Then scale it until it can drive a battleship."
He knew it wouldn't be easy. He knew he'd have to step in personally more often than he liked—reviewing designs, clarifying concepts, hitting idiots with reality. But progress, real progress, was being made.
And there was a fierce satisfaction in feeling the world shift—just a fraction—because of things he had set in motion.
His influence on Germany and on history was still small for now, but the trajectory was there. The line was pointing upward.
If he kept pushing, if he kept investing and planning, if he didn't end up dead in some palace corridor over court gossip…
Germany would change.
Maybe the whole world would.
Whether that would be enough to actually win the war he knew was coming, he couldn't say.
History's inertia was powerful.
He was just one man.
But one man—with money, future knowledge, and a few very unfair cheats—could still change the direction of the wind.
All he could do was everything in his power to improve Germany's chances.
Meanwhile, the crisis in Morocco kept getting worse.
Oskar's Industrial Group and all his projects were giving Germans new jobs and even new muscles, but Berlin's political machinery was grinding itself to pieces.
Germany now faced a dangerous diplomatic confrontation. Foreign policy had stumbled, and anger burned through cafés, barracks, and newspaper offices. The country felt humiliated.
The spark had come from Morocco—a North African kingdom that had been a playground for European powers since the 15th century. Once, its warriors had crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, overrun much of Iberia, and even pushed into France before being beaten back. That same proud Islamic realm was now a minor piece on the great-power chessboard. By the early 20th century its politics were a tangle of sultans, tribal leaders, foreign advisers, and European gunboats.
France and Spain had been circling it like vultures. Much like Gibraltar, Morocco sat beside the key gateway to the Mediterranean, and whoever controlled it could touch the flow of trade. German banks and trading companies had already poured money into Moroccan concessions and ports. It was a small but strategically tempting market—one of the few places left where Berlin could hope to plant a flag and say, "Here too, Germany matters."
Then came April 1904.
Britain and France signed an agreement:
France would not interfere with British control over Egypt,
In return, Britain would recognize Morocco as lying firmly within France's "sphere of influence."
To French politicians, it was tidy diplomacy.
To Germans, it felt like a slap in the face.
Just like that, France had effectively been handed a country of millions. In the 21st century it would have seemed insane; in the early 20th century, it was exactly the sort of thing empires did to each other over lunch.
The problem was that Germany had shown up late to the imperial game. It had few strong allies and a scattering of underdeveloped colonies. It was like the biggest boy in the schoolyard trying to act tough in front of the teachers when all the best toys had already been snatched up by the older kids. Yes, the Reich had become a first-rate industrial and military power in record time—that was its one big advantage. But when Berlin looked at the map, it saw the globe already carved up. Britain, France and others sat bloated on empires, rich in resources and manpower, while German goods were shut out by tariffs and exclusive colonial markets. Germany's own colonial possessions, by comparison, were pathetic.
To many Germans, this was intolerable. They believed that a great power like Germany deserved more. Anything less simply wasn't fair.
The latest twist came in early 1905, when France took another step. Paris demanded that Morocco accept "reforms" under French supervision—reforms that, in practice, would reduce the sultan to a puppet and turn Morocco into a French protectorate, another captive market locked inside the French imperial system.
Germany refused to stand by and watch France—its rival—swallow yet another country without even a protest.
Oskar had tried to talk his father out of it. He told the Kaiser to let Morocco go. It was, in his view, not worth a crisis. Morocco was not rich or decisive enough to justify the risk. So long as Germany kept expanding, any profits France squeezed out of Morocco would be pocket change next to what the Oskar Industrial Group could earn in Europe and beyond. But his words were dismissed as cowardice. The Kaiser, backed by his aging generals, ministers, and the ever-proud Crown Prince, could not stomach backing down.
So Oskar, having failed to derail the script he knew too well, watched in grim resignation as, on 31 March 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II dramatically sailed to Tangier in Morocco and, from horseback, announced to the world that Germany would uphold Moroccan independence and that all foreign powers had equal rights there.
It was a symbolic punch square into France's face—
and it made Oskar bury his own face in his hands, Karl beside him doing the same, both of them equally unhappy at a crisis that could easily be the first step toward the very World War they were trying to avoid.
German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow—the Kaiser's chosen successor to Bismarck's role as imperial strategist in foreign affairs, and a man far more inclined to show the flag than Bismarck ever was—proposed that all signatories of the Treaty of Madrid (1880) be called to an international conference to settle the Moroccan question.
The Treaty of Madrid had guaranteed equal commercial rights for all foreigners in Morocco. Berlin claimed it was merely defending that principle and the sanctity of the treaty.
Germany sent a stern note to Paris hinting, not very subtly, that it would not shrink from war if pushed too far.
French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé took a hard line, backed firmly by Britain. Tensions spiked. Newspapers on both sides of the Rhine filled their pages with outrage and patriotic thunder. Talk in cafés, clubs, and barracks turned again to the old question:
> "Will there be a new 1870?"
Back then, the French Emperor had declared war because he felt insulted by a telegram, which Oskar still considered one of the most ridiculous casus belli in history. Now it seemed Wilhelm II might drag Germany into war over a conference and a coastline.
Though, to be fair, France was indeed deliberately edging Germany out and expanding its reach.
On 6 June, a furious debate exploded inside the French cabinet. Delcassé was pushed out—forced to resign, though his principles remained embedded in French policy. Prime Minister Maurice Rouvier took on the foreign ministry himself and began talking to Germany.
In Berlin, the Kaiser's reaction that day wasn't reserved only for the French.
He also summoned Oskar.
Not to congratulate him on his laws or industry…
but to shout at him about his "inability to keep his trousers closed."
Wilhelm II had learned that two maids—Anna and Tanya—were both very visibly pregnant.
The Kaiser ranted, lectured, and thundered, but Oskar, humble and honest, leaned on his recent reputation: the Worker's Prince, the naval visionary, the man whom the people adored. He begged his father:
not to tell the Empress,
not to scandalize the court,
and not to punish the maids.
Remarkably, Wilhelm II relented—for the moment.
A crisis was temporarily averted. The maids were allowed to remain, essentially as permanent roommates in Oskar's quarters instead of being driven back to the servant dormitories.
By 8 July, however, everyone in the family knew.
At a tense family dinner, Crown Prince Wilhelm chose his moment with malicious precision and informed the Empress that her fifth son had "installed a small harem and succeeded twice."
Their mother fainted on the spot.
Oskar's little sister, Luise, burst into tears, called him a liar and a hypocrite, and fled the table.
Oskar scrambled into full damage-control mode, trying to calm his sister, reassure his mother, and reassure everyone that he did, in fact, love both women and intended to care for them and their children.
Wilhelm II just sighed and tried to see the bright side.
"At least," he muttered loud enough for half the table to hear, "one of my sons is capable of giving me grandchildren…"
It was ridiculous. Oskar was his fifth son, and yet the first to produce an heir—
and he had done so with two maids.
More importantly, that same day, regarding Morocco, an agreement was reached: there would be an international conference of the Madrid Treaty powers to discuss Morocco's fate.
On paper, Germany had forced France to the table.
In reality, Berlin had overplayed its hand.
Germany now found itself diplomatically isolated. Britain, France, and even Russia were drifting into closer understanding. The image of Germany as a loud, clumsy troublemaker was spreading.
And in the salons and gossip circles of Europe, people whispered not only about "the Moroccan madness," but also about:
> "that enormous young German prince with two pregnant maids."
The men debated tariffs and treaties.
The women debated Oskar.
Even foreign aristocratic ladies, who barely understood the Moroccan question, could happily spend half an afternoon discussing:
how shockingly handsome the Fifth Prince was,
how daring those maids must be,
and how impressive it was that two of them had secured him at once.
The scandal actually helped his popularity.
Anna and Tanya were, in some circles, quietly admired rather than condemned—
two ordinary women who had, somehow, claimed a prince.
Back on Anna's home farm, the effects of her "scandalous" actions were unmistakably positive.
Her large family, once living from harvest to harvest, now had access to:
tractors and modern machinery,
better seeds and fertilizers,
guided advice from Oskar's people on yields and crop rotations.
With Oskar's help, the farm's output skyrocketed. They began buying neighboring plots. The Müllers were turning into a serious agricultural dynasty—wealthy, respected, their fields were humming with diesel engines instead of horse-drawn plows.
Anna's three daughters back home no longer went to bed hungry. They slept in warm beds, wore clean dresses, and would grow up with choices their mother had never had.
All because she had walked into a palace one day as a maid…
and caught the eye of a strange, towering prince.
Meanwhile, in the marble halls of the Berlin palace, Wilhelm II convened a royal council.
Around the table sat the Empire's top men:
Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow,
Foreign Office State Secretary Friedrich von Holstein and his colleague Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter,
Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Younger,
War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn,
Navy Minister Alfred von Tirpitz,
and Crown Prince Wilhelm himself.
As for Prince Oskar, despite his spectacular year—laws passed, engines launched, shipyards expanding, newspapers singing his praises—he was still considered too junior. And now, with his "two-maid problem" fresh in everyone's mind, nobody was about to invite him into a room where empires were weighed and war was measured.
So while they debated Morocco inside, Oskar went to Pump World.
He spent the day training with ordinary people—punching bags, lifting iron, drilling first-aid maneuvers—waiting, as he always had, to see what would come out of the council chamber this time.