Inside, in a large, high-ceilinged room heavy with smoke and tension, Wilhelm's voice was the loudest.
"Father," he said heatedly, "we cannot keep yielding. The French trample our interests in Morocco as if we were some second-rate power. It is an insult to the Empire's honor and a blow to our prestige. We must show them our strength. They must learn that Germany will not be pushed aside."
His words rang with confidence—
and with calculation.
On Morocco, the army brass stood firmly behind him. Much of the public, whipped into fury by nationalist papers and patriotic clubs, agreed as well.
By calling for "firmness," Wilhelm wrapped himself in the flag and aligned with what people liked to call "the voice of the nation." It was excellent politics.
And politics mattered to him more than to anyone else in that room.
Oskar's meteoric rise over the past year had gnawed at him like rust.
A fifth son, once dismissed as a sweaty, useless boy, had abruptly become:
a legislative reformer,
a patron of industry,
a hero to workers,
and the darling of foreign correspondents.
For the first time, Wilhelm felt something in his chest he did not like.
Not just danger—
but the irrational, creeping image of his younger brother standing behind him, smiling that infuriating, easy smile, those huge hands capable of crushing a man like a matchstick. In his more unhinged moments, Wilhelm could almost imagine Oskar snapping his neck in a corridor and the Kaiser simply shrugging and saying, "At least he is strong."
He knew it was paranoid.
But the feeling remained.
Wilhelm no longer feared only that Oskar might outshine him in popularity. He feared that Oskar might, in some grotesque metaphorical sense, take the throne by sheer force of presence.
Nibbling his fingers like a man chewing through his own nerves, Wilhelm realized he needed to do something to secure his position as heir. He needed to sound useful. Intelligent. Decisive. He needed to impress his father and these old men.
So he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and let righteous indignation pour from his mouth like artillery fire, hoping to drown out the echo of his brother's name in the streets.
"Your Majesty," Chancellor von Bülow added carefully, picking up Wilhelm's thrust, "the public is deeply agitated. Many believe that if we retreat again, our overseas interests will never be taken seriously. Britain and France will shut us out of their colonial markets completely."
He did not mention the subtext everyone knew:
Germany had unified too late.
By the time it arrived on the world stage, the colonial banquet was nearly over.
The best pieces were already on British and French plates.
The Moroccan affair had become more than a dispute over a strip of coastline in North Africa.
It had become a test of whether Germany could still demand a voice in global affairs—
—or be quietly shoved into a corner.
The Moroccan crisis had lit a fire under German pride.
And outside those palace walls, ordinary Germans were already asking:
"Will our Empire stand up for itself…
or bow its head and accept humiliation?"
The Kaiser's brows furrowed deeply; his mustache twitched. He knew that if he took a hard line, the likelihood of war would be very high. Could Germany actually win such a war? The question haunted him constantly—and even his reckless, womanizing fifth son understood the danger.
"The French have the backing of the British and the Russians," Foreign Minister von Kiderlen-Wächter said carefully. "The Russians may be tied down in the East, but the British support France eagerly. Their position is hard and will remain so—unless we can secure clear commitments from Italy and Austria-Hungary. If we continue on this course, we may trigger a war I am not certain we can win—and even in victory, the cost would be immense."
"Excellency, you worry too much," the Kaiser replied, forcing a broad smile. "The French are nothing more than a gaudy Gallic rooster. We beat them more than thirty years ago when we were only the Kingdom of Prussia. Now we are the German Empire. Our strength is many times greater. If war came, we could defeat them in four weeks."
He waved a hand dismissively.
"That is why the French dare not fight. And even if the Russians join them—so what? We have the world's finest army and the second-largest navy. Even if we faced all three—France, Britain, Russia—we are not destined to lose."
He turned toward the man responsible for Germany's war plans.
"Excellency, Chief of the General Staff," the Kaiser asked Moltke the Younger, "are our troops ready?"
"Your Majesty," Moltke the Younger began, "the army can be mobilized at any time. Full mobilization would take roughly three months. On land, the French army is, in our estimation, still vulnerable. As in the last war, we believe we can break them with a strong offensive."
He paused, then continued, more cautiously:
"However, we must consider Britain and Russia. In the Franco–Prussian War, we benefited from the neutrality or goodwill of other powers. This time, they stand on the other side. Once we send troops west, the British will almost certainly reinforce France. The Russians, even with their current troubles in the East, will still threaten us from the east. The army will not be able to concentrate its full strength on France. That will severely constrain our operations and could change the course of any war. And…" He hesitated. "I do not believe we can truly rely on Austria-Hungary or Italy to cover our flanks."
He believed in the quality of the German army. He did not, however, believe that even Germany's army, with Britain and Russia behind France, could guarantee victory.
Wilhelm's jaw tightened.
"Excellency, we should not discard our allies so quickly," he protested. "If war breaks out, Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy will not simply stand idle. They are bound to us by treaty. They will fulfill their obligations and assist us. Once we defeat France quickly, the others will think twice. Victory will be ours."
He spoke with the brash certainty of a man who had never seen a real front line.
He also failed to notice the Kaiser's slight look of displeasure, or the faint upturn at the corners of some ministers' mouths. To them, Wilhelm—though not entirely foolish—was still too young, too hot-blooded, and too blind to unpleasant realities.
Austria-Hungary was indeed Germany's most faithful ally on paper.
In reality, it was a chronically ill patient—
torn by internal conflicts, worn out by national quarrels, its army's fighting power deeply suspect.
Even if Vienna marched, few here believed it would change much.
Italy was even worse.
Italy belonged to the Triple Alliance, yes.
But everyone knew it had joined for its own advantage. The king who signed the treaty, Umberto I, was dead—assassinated. His son, Victor Emmanuel III, now sat on the throne, a man who cared for Italy's interests above all else and would not hesitate to abandon Berlin and Vienna if it suited him.
Whether Italy would actually contribute any meaningful strength was… doubtful. Its army was poorly equipped. Its navy, with a small handful of battleships, did not comfort anyone.
"Very well, Prince," the Kaiser said at last, cutting off further enthusiasm with a raised hand. "I have heard your opinion. I will take it into consideration."
"…Yes, Father," Wilhelm muttered, caught off guard.
A flicker of shame and anger crossed his face. He understood, suddenly and painfully, that no one in this room truly considered his words decisive.
The Kaiser exhaled slowly and turned his gaze to the other side of the table.
"Your Excellency, State Secretary of the Navy," he said to Tirpitz, "in the event of war, would our fleet be able to break a British blockade?"
He already knew the answer.
He just hoped, irrationally, that it had changed for the better over the past year.
As Emperor of the German Empire, the Kaiser was acutely aware of Germany's greatest vulnerability: if Britain imposed a naval blockade and severed overseas trade and supplies, and if war dragged on into a stalemate, it could strangle Germany slowly. He had even discussed this more than once with Oskar. The fear gnawed at him.
Tirpitz, expression unreadable, folded his hands.
"Your Majesty, the German Navy is growing rapidly," he began. "At present, we have completed four Brandenburg-class battleships, five Kaiser Friedrich III-class battleships, five Wittelsbach-class battleships, and two Braunschweig-class battleships—with three more Braunschweig under construction. Construction of five Deutschland-class battleships has also begun."
He paused a moment, then continued:
"In total, we currently have sixteen battleships in service. Eight more are under construction. When all are completed, the fleet will field twenty-four capital ships."
He didn't bother to sugarcoat what came next.
"However, the Royal Navy currently possesses a total of forty-one battleships in commission, spread across several classes, with approximately ten more under construction and additional ships planned. In other words, they have roughly twice our heavy strength—and more on the way."
Tirpitz spoke without dramatics, but the impact was brutal.
Everyone in the room knew the British fleet was larger. Hearing the cold numbers out loud was different.
Sixteen versus forty-one.
Twenty-four versus more than fifty, once both sides completed their current building programs.
Every face around the table stiffened.
The gap was immense.
Yes, the German Navy was formidable by continental standards. Yes, the High Seas Fleet was a source of pride. But compared to the Royal Navy—the greatest sea power of the age—it was still a junior challenger.
And that was before adding the French fleet to the other side of the scales.
Even if Germany's ships were individually excellent, even if the officers were brave and well-trained, the math remained grim. If war came, breaking a British blockade head-on looked almost impossible.
Suddenly, all the talk of "showing strength" and "teaching France a lesson" felt much heavier.
It was one thing to bluster about honor.
Another to stare at a ledger of steel and tonnage and realize the numbers did not care.
Although the German Navy had grown rapidly in recent years, its weaknesses against the established sea powers of Britain and France were still painfully obvious. Yes, the Japanese were tearing the Russian fleet to pieces in the Far East—but the Russian navy had never been the real benchmark. The benchmark was the Royal Navy.
In capital ships alone, Germany was outnumbered.
Hopelessly.
And battleships weren't the whole story. The British also had a swarm of smaller vessels—cruisers, destroyers, torpedo boats, auxiliaries—armed to the teeth. Against that layered, global force, even a well-trained, high-quality German fleet looked alarmingly small.
After Tirpitz's cold recital of hulls and tonnage, the room sank into a heavy silence. Faced with such a gulf in raw metal and guns, the idea of "breaking a British blockade" felt less like strategy and more like wishful thinking.
Wilhelm, who only minutes earlier had been talking about swift victories and dutiful allies, now looked like a drenched dog. His shoulders sagged. He stared at the polished floorboards, jaw tight, pride and fear wrestling inside him.
For the first time, he truly grasped—deep in his gut—that Germany's enemies were not the straw men of his speeches. Against such overwhelming numbers, even his youthful imagination struggled to picture a certain victory.
"Gentlemen," the Kaiser said at last, his voice heavier than before, "there is no doubt that our enemies' strength is formidable, and that the gap between their fleets and our own is enormous. We are striving to catch up, but it will take time. A very long time."
He paused, his fingers drumming once on the arm of his chair.
"As much as it pains me to say it, for now we must avoid war with them as much as possible. We must let our rivals be, at least for a time. And we must hope that they do not grow so strong that an invasion of our own lands—or the seizure of our few colonies—becomes a real possibility."
For a man as proud and self-important as Wilhelm II, this was not easy to admit. If he had believed that Germany could win, he would not have hesitated for a heartbeat. He would have thrown his people into battle with a ringing speech and a gleaming helmet.
It was only because he understood how slim the odds were that he held back.
He did not want to send his people to die for nothing.
In his own, twisted imperial way, he did care for them.
The realization left him frustrated.
Despite all his efforts, all the money poured into steel and shipyards, despite Germany's soaring economic power, the gap between his fleet and Britain's was not shrinking as he had hoped.
If anything, it seemed to stretch like a horizon.
Germany was building ships furiously—and yet Britain, with its deeper pockets and older infrastructure, simply built more.
We chase them, the Kaiser thought bitterly, and they just lengthen their stride.
He clenched his jaw.
Germany would have to increase spending again.
There was no alternative.
If the German fleet ever reached parity with Britain's—if he could look at Tirpitz's charts and see equal columns of steel—then things would be different. Then London might hesitate before backing France so brazenly. Then threats might actually mean something.
The rapid ascent of the German Navy, a fleet now viewed with suspicion and fear even in Whitehall, was largely his doing. It was his pride, his favorite toy, his instrument of power.
But starting late meant every gain was a struggle.
He was trying to catch an opponent who had begun the race a century before him—and was still running hard.
Then the Kaiser suddenly remembered something.
A card he hadn't yet played.
His thoughts shifted to Oskar.
German Works—formerly the old Royal Shipyard in Danzig—was almost finished with its massive expansion. New battleship construction was already beginning there. The Kaiser was fully aware of what his fifth son had been doing.
Oskar had poured money into the yard, then locked in a major cooperation agreement with Krupp for heavy armor and new large-caliber guns. At the same time, he had brought in oil-fired boilers from Sulzer in Switzerland and, with the Diesel family, set up a dedicated German power research center to develop advanced turbines and engines of every sort—big and small.
All of it was clearly laying the foundation for a new generation of warships.
The Kaiser was both astonished and quietly moved by the scale of it.
He didn't particularly like admitting it—even to himself—but this young son of his, who slept with maids, exercised with commoners, and caused fresh headlines almost weekly, was showing undeniable talent.
In almost every meaningful way except age and propriety, Oskar had already overshadowed his brothers.
Even Wilhelm.
He remembered, too, Oskar's talk about the new helmets his factories were making—the "next line of protection" for Germany's soldiers—and how first-aid training would keep more men alive, turn them into veterans instead of casualties, and let a smaller army stand against greater numbers through sheer quality.
For the briefest moment, the Kaiser wondered if the wrong son wore the title of Crown Prince.
The thought passed quickly.
He would not disinherit Wilhelm unless his eldest became completely unfit—through scandal on a scale even Oskar couldn't match, through madness, or through death. Otherwise, when the Kaiser died, Wilhelm would be Emperor. That was tradition. That was how it had always been.
And if there was one thing Wilhelm II still clung to, it was tradition.
"Your Majesty," Prime Minister Bernhard von Bülow said, breaking the silence, "given the current situation, if war breaks out now, our chances of victory are very slim. I believe we must exercise restraint. Perhaps we can find some compromise with the French."
It was not easy to accept.
But it was reality.
Pride had to yield to arithmetic. No matter how their blood boiled, they had to endure—for now. At this point in time, Germany simply did not yet have the power to shape world events as it wished. It had to watch as older empires took what they wanted and ignore who they offended.
"Yes, Your Majesty," Moltke added. "This is not surrender. It is a pause. Restraint now, so that next time we face them, we do so from a position of real strength. Then we may defeat all our enemies together."
As powerful as the German army looked on paper, it did not fight in the airless void of an exercise map. Without a stronger navy behind it, its reach and its endurance would always be limited.
The Kaiser nodded heavily.
"Very well. For now, we leave it at this. On Morocco, we will do everything we can to avoid further escalation. But we must not appear weak. Any sign of weakness, and they will only press harder. Our interests in Morocco must still be defended as far as possible."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the ministers and generals answered.
Oskar, meanwhile, did not spend much time agonizing over each twist and turn of the Moroccan crisis. He already knew the rough ending.
Germany's stance grew louder and more aggressive. Troops shifted. Staff officers filled maps with colored arrows. Speeches were drafted and delivered.
But to Oskar's eyes, it was mostly theater.
With Britain—and to a lesser extent Russia—now behind France, Paris could stand firm. Every German roar was answered by an equally defiant French reply. Tensions rose, but no one at the top truly wanted to pay the enormous bill that a general European war would bring.
To Oskar, the core truth was simple:
Germany was bluffing.
France, backed by its friends, could afford to call that bluff.
All across Europe, people felt the strain in the air. The Moroccan question might be settled at a green table under chandeliers, but beneath the formalities lay something sharper, colder—a test of nerves and numbers.
And Germany, for the moment, was not yet ready to pass it.
The very next day, the expansion of the German Works shipyard was almost complete.
With a flood of newly recruited engineers and skilled workers, the yard had finally built up most of the technical base it needed to construct large warships. What it still lacked was only one thing:
Experience.
That morning, Oskar arrived at German Works and personally presided over the keel-laying ceremony for the Nassau-class battleships. Four massive slipways—still partly under construction themselves—already held the first frameworks of four hulls.
Four battleships.
All started at once.
It was reckless, ambitious, and exactly the sort of thing he wanted.
Because the yard was still learning, progress would be slower at first. Mistakes would happen. Workflows would need fixing. But once the men had gone through the entire process once—once they had mastered the steel, the plates, the armor, the engines—everything afterward would move far faster.
Oskar set the deadline himself:
> All four ships must be launched before November 1907.
If he remembered his old world's history correctly, the British battleship HMS Dreadnought would be commissioned on 3 December 1907. That date already included months of trials and adjustments.
The British Admiralty would, of course, be aware of Dreadnought's capabilities before her formal commissioning. If the four Nassaus were in the water by that time—if Germany could show a new generation of ships alongside Britain's—it would be a huge psychological and diplomatic win.
It would say to the world:
> "Britain is no longer alone in the future."
The thought pleased him.
That evening, the satisfaction of shipyard progress didn't last long.
When he returned to the palace, Oskar was ambushed by his mother and his sister Luise.
"We are going to church," his mother declared.
Before he could protest, they bundled him into a carriage and hauled him to the family chapel. For the first time in a long while, Oskar found himself sitting in a dark confessional, the wooden screen between him and a priest whose voice sounded both cautious and curious.
"Speak, my son," the priest said softly. "What sins weigh on you?"
Oskar exhaled.
"Yes, Father, I have sinned," he began. Then, because he was terrible at lying and constitutionally incapable of just saying "I'm sorry" and stopping, he explained.
He spoke of Tanya and Anna.
How he had lain with them.
How they were now both very pregnant.
But he insisted he had not acted purely from lust. He wanted, he said, to bring more of God's children into the world. Why else had God given him such strength, such health, such opportunity?
Tanya was young, strong, "obviously made to be fruitful," as he put it. Seeing how ready she was to bear a child, how could he not "fulfill that design"? God had made her that way, had He not?
Anna, he argued, was different. Without him, she might never have found stability or joy again. She would have spent her life scrubbing floors, growing old with nothing but grief, and her three daughters back on the farm would have stayed poor forever. Now Anna smiled. Her family prospered. Her girls had full stomachs, warm clothes, and a future.
"How," Oskar asked quietly, "is it sin to make sure God's children live well and happy, instead of hungry and discarded?"
The priest listened, troubled. Then he did what he was trained to do: he pushed back.
He reminded Oskar of chastity.
Of fidelity.
Of scandal.
Of the example a prince must set.
Oskar's patience frayed.
He did not want to leave this booth branded "wrong" in the eyes of the Church, not when he was planning to reshape half the moral order of Germany. So he changed tactics.
He lowered his voice.
"Father," he said, "God has spoken to me. In dreams."
The priest went still.
Oskar leaned into it.
He told him that God had shown him a mission: to strengthen the German people—especially the ethnic Germans—so they would not dwindle, so they could grow strong enough to carry the faith beyond Europe, beyond this earth.
To the stars.
He spoke of future lands under God's sky. Of worlds that would one day be reached by ships that flew without wings, by steel that floated in the heavens. Not in precise terms—no dates, no engines, no equations—but in vague, powerful images.
For that future, he said, families had to be strong. Births had to rise. More children, more workers, more mothers, more soldiers.
Therefore:
the German Family Strengthening Act was part of that mission;
the Worker Protection Act was part of it too, keeping fathers alive;
and even Tanya and Anna, he argued, were pieces in this design—two women who would have been lost in obscurity, now raised, protected, and given honored children.
Then he went further.
He spoke of a future earth more crowded and hungry, and of a new kind of war—not of German against French or Russian, but of humanity against… something else.
"Dangers," he said. "Not only between nations. From above."
The priest gripped his rosary tighter.
"From above?" he whispered.
"Visitors," Oskar said solemnly, seeing in his mind the giant alien ships from a movie he had watched with a beer and pizza in his old life. "They come in great burning chariots that darken the sky, not as angels but as thieves. They want what we have built. They come to erase us."
The priest's breath caught.
"And then?" he asked.
"Then," Oskar said, voice low and even, "the nations must stand together. Germans, Britons, French, Russians, Americans. All. No more petty quarrels. No more stupid wars over colonies. Either humanity stands united and fights… or it is swept away like dust."
It was, essentially, Independence Day retold as an apocalyptic prophecy—but spoken with such conviction that it felt like something out of Ezekiel.
"The world will need millions," Oskar continued. "Millions of strong men. Millions of wise women. Millions of children to man the fleets and lead the work of that age. A small, shrinking people will vanish. God's people must be many, Father. Many, and strong, and ready."
The priest had never heard anything like this. It sounded mad. It also had an internal logic that was hard to shake off.
"So you see," Oskar said gently, "why God might care how many children we bring into the world. Why He might want laws that protect workers and mothers. Why He might not be pleased to see Germany dwindling while others grow fat."
He let the silence linger, then pressed the most personal point.
"You asked if lying with Tanya and Anna was sin. If I had used them and cast them aside—it would be. But I have taken responsibility. I care for them. I intend to raise their children in faith and strength. How can that go against God's will if He has given me such a task?"
The priest's heart hammered in his chest.
Part of him wanted to cry out heresy.
Another part—the part that had spent years burying infants and consoling abandoned mothers—could not ignore the simple fact that a prince actually supporting "fallen" women and their children was a better outcome than what he usually saw.
He tried one last time.
"But marriage," the priest said, clinging to the doctrine he knew. "Holy matrimony is one man and one woman, joined before God. You speak of two women."
"Oh, I intend to marry them," Oskar replied at once. "In church. Before God. Properly. With the Church's blessing."
The priest made a small, strangled sound.
"I know it is not our custom," Oskar said. "But customs change when reality demands it. After wars, in villages with no men left, what should happen? Should widows starve? Should children be raised without fathers if there is a man willing and able to care for them all?"
He had seen such villages himself—back in the modern world, near the front lines of the Russian war in Ukraine. When men died and only women remained, there were places where a single surviving man found himself carrying the burdens of many, simply so life could continue. So the women would not be left alone. So the children would still have someone to call father.
He had watched this with his own eyes, and when he hadn't, he had seen it in documentaries and modern debates—enough truth, enough heartbreak, enough raw human necessity—to argue the point with absolute conviction.
"Is it better," he asked quietly, "for a woman to be alone and poor… or to share a home and be safe, her children provided for? Would God prefer abandoned wives and bastards, or a house where everyone eats and grows under His eye?"
The priest opened his mouth. Closed it again.
He thought of weeping widows and hungry children in poor parishes, of men who vanished, of daughters who disappeared to the city and never wrote back.
"And you say," he managed at last, "that God showed you these dangers? This… future?"
"Yes," Oskar said, staring straight ahead, voice soft. "In dreams. In flashes. I know things no boy my age should know. I have strength no boy my age should have. I move iron, money, and men in ways that make no sense for a fifth son. You have seen what I've done just in the last year. Is that not… at least a sign that something beyond me is at work?"
The priest was deeply unsettled.
But he could not deny what he'd seen with his own eyes:
a prince who had pushed for worker safety,
whose laws genuinely reduced accidents in mines and factories,
who spoke of protecting families instead of using them,
who saved a choking child on a train with knowledge no one else had,
who now talked—not of pleasure—but of responsibility.
He did not know if this was divine, or dangerous charisma, or both.
But outright condemnation died in his throat.
"Continue to pray," the priest said at last, voice unsteady. "Seek God's guidance. Act with justice. And remember humility, Prince Oskar. Even great gifts can lead a man astray… perhaps especially great gifts."
"I will, Father," Oskar replied.
And the strange, frightening part was that the priest almost believed him.
Almost.
A tiny seed lodged in the priest's mind—a thought he would not be able to shake, one he would later share in cautious, half-whispered conversations with other clergymen:
> "Perhaps… God truly is using this boy for something.
I do not know if I approve.
But I cannot say He is not."
Oskar stepped out of the confessional and into the bright open nave, where his mother and Luise were waiting in a pew. He knelt beside them as the choir began a familiar hymn.
Word had spread that he was in the church. People came in ones and twos, then by the dozen, until the aisles were full.
Some came out of curiosity.
Some to stare at the prince who lifted grown men.
Some because, for the first time in a long time, they felt that a man close to the throne might actually see them.
> "Maybe," they thought, "this one is different."
They sang psalms and hymns together, Oskar's deep voice rumbling along—a strange, reassuring anchor in the crowded space.
After the service, he returned to the palace exhausted.
In a single day he had:
overseen the beginning of four battleships,
sparred theologically with a priest and left him dazed,
and made a kind of uneasy peace with God, his confessor, his mother, and his little sister.
Back in his quarters, two women waited for him.
Tanya and Anna—both heavy with child now, their bellies full and round, their movements slower and more careful than before. Tanya's back ached; Anna's feet were starting to swell; both of them had the unmistakable softness and glow of women approaching their time.
Tanya was nearly eight months along. Anna a little over seven.
Their children—his children—were coming soon.
Very soon.
And for the first time, Oskar felt the full weight of what that meant.