Chapter 66: Pity The Empty Seat At Midnight, After Asking The People, Ask The Prisoners Of War
It was already late at night, and Lelouch did not want to delay the other’s rest.
The two just chatted briefly for a few sentences, and Lelouch then learned that the other had seen him young yet very focused, and even when questioned by ordinary soldiers at the train station earlier, he did not mind, so he felt he was not an ordinary person and was willing to chat in depth.
In later generations, this might not seem like much, as everyone takes equality for granted.
But in 1915, it was absolutely a very rare excellent quality. At that time, equality between officers and soldiers was not well done in any country; it was very common for soldiers to be rude to officers and then be severely punished or beaten.
The Grand Duke of Baden subconsciously regarded Lelouch as a left-wing figure.
During the chat, Lelouch also learned that the young officer in splendid attire nearby was named Joachim, the Grand Duke of Baden’s young nephew, arranged by the Grand Duke to work at the Wounded Soldiers Affairs Bureau of the Army Ministry.
The Grand Duke of Baden had two sisters; the eldest sister Sophie married King Gustav V of Sweden, who is the current Queen of Sweden. The Grand Duke’s eldest nephew is the future Gustav VI.
The Grand Duke’s second sister Marie married the Duke of Anhalt, and after marriage, they established a charitable organization called the “Germanian Women’s Medical and Nursing Education Association.” After the war broke out, the association was responsible for coordinating nationwide female nurse training, improving medical facilities for wounded soldiers and frontline field hospitals.
But that association only accepted women, so the Grand Duke’s second sister and niece could work at the association, while the young nephew Joachim could only come to his uncle to seek some position, also to avoid unnecessary gossip.
After understanding each other’s basic situations, the Grand Duke of Baden casually mentioned their group and why they suddenly came to the front line to inspect work this time:
“His Majesty the Emperor heard that there might be a chance this time to annihilate the Britannia Expeditionary Force. This should be the largest scale encirclement annihilation battle since the war began; by then, a large number of British Army prisoners will definitely be captured surrendering. We must think of good ways to make good use of this batch of prisoners; perhaps it can even improve our country’s international image or even force the Britannians to seek peace…”
“At the same time, the Dunkirk assault battle, as well as the Stenford and Kemmel Hill assault battles, have all resulted in considerable troop casualties; the frontline wounded soldiers affairs pressure is also great, so I brought Joachim along to understand the specific situation for better overall coordination.”
The war had been going on for nearly half a year, and the total number of enemy troops annihilated by Germania had exceeded one million. Fighting the French Army so many times, which battle was not annihilating two or three hundred thousand enemies each time.
But to talk about capturing enemies on a large scale, none matched the expected results this time, because they had never encircled such a big dumpling before. The French Army was mainly killed; there was almost no large corps encirclement annihilation. No wonder the higher-ups attached such importance, coming ahead to scout the area.
Hearing the Grand Duke’s original purpose, Lelouch felt some regret inside, thinking the Emperor was really whimsical.
The Emperor actually thought that annihilating these 200,000 expeditionary troops would make Britain seek peace? Sigh, underestimating the British determination to fight the Empire to the death—twenty-odd years later on Earth, another ruler thought the same, but history proved those ideas were delusions.
Moreover, considering these now, wasn’t it a bit like popping champagne at halftime?
However, Lelouch felt there was no need to point it out; the Grand Duke of Baden coming to the front line to inspect would always yield some gains. Even if the Emperor’s hoped task was not accomplished, doing something else was good.
Lelouch then followed the other’s topic: “Then your inspection these past few days must have yielded quite a few gains, right? Although we haven’t annihilated the British Army yet, over the past month or so, the various battles have already captured at least twenty to thirty thousand enemy prisoners, and from all races.”
The Grand Duke of Baden was in high spirits and did not stint on saying more: “Indeed, there are some gains; the morale of British Army from different sources varies greatly. Without violating international law, the Empire should formulate separate policies for these federal prisoners in the future, to ensure both humanity and balance prisoner management costs and benefits.
I see those soldiers from South Asia have no morale at all; the Empire just needs to give them a bite to eat, and they will willingly do labor service. Those from Australia and New Zealand have no backbone either; it’s the Britain native and Lord Canna prisoners that will have high management costs, probably can’t do much work, and we still need to consider international optics…”
In the end, the core impression of the Grand Duke of Baden was that peripheral prisoners from other parts of the British federation were easy to handle, but Britain native and Lord Canna people were difficult to cooperate with.
Lelouch had not studied this issue before, and only after the Grand Duke mentioned it did he think on the spot.
Fortunately, he had read a lot of postwar propaganda war cases, so with just a slight stir in his mind, he thought of a propaganda rhetoric to sow discord among British prisoners and make them willingly work for the Empire.
However, this was just thought up on the spot, still quite vague, with some details not perfected, so Lelouch did not plan to show off immediately, and thus said:
“I think human empathy is universal; no matter the ethnicity, they can be educated, and British prisoners may truly work for the Empire in the future.
But discussing this now is a bit early; wait until the campaign is over, if we really capture that many British Army prisoners, we can discuss this when handing them over.”
Hearing Lelouch seeming to speak arrogant words, the Grand Duke of Baden could not help but frown.
If not for everyone being confined in the same train now, seeing each other often, the Grand Duke of Baden might have stormed off and ignored this madman.
But there was no way; long-distance trains were always an excellent closed environment to force leaders to hear reports.
Lelouch knew this deeply, so he dared to speak boldly to arouse the other’s attention as quickly as possible.
The Grand Duke of Baden was steady and prudent, but Joachim nearby could not tolerate the other’s bold words.
He was after all the son of the Duke of Anhalt, raised pampered and arrogant since childhood, and immediately retorted:
“Prisoner propaganda work is very professional! You roughnecks who only know killing, what do you understand! The waters run deep here; frogs at the bottom of a well really don’t know the height of the sky!”
（Note: In German, there is a word “Froschperspektive,” literally meaning “frog-like weak vision,” so Germanians saying “frogs at the bottom of a well” is very normal; don’t complain about Chinese idioms breaking immersion.）
Being questioned by young master Joachim, Lelouch was not angry at all; this was a good chance to show his cultivation and demeanor in front of the Grand Duke of Baden.
So he just listened politely with a smile, waited a moment, confirmed the other had nothing more to say, and then responded unhurriedly:
“Indeed, I’m still young, sometimes perhaps a bit arrogant—maybe because the opponents I met before were too weak.
Who let it be that during the Ostend campaign before, I sent one telegram and incited the Belgians’ last 3 divisions to erupt in infighting.
Major General Viktor and two divisions, because of my telegram, led troops to kill the division commander of the 1st Belgian Division, Lieutenant General Berghgham, who was loyal to the King, and then surrendered politely.
At these words, the Grand Duke of Baden finally widened his eyes; his originally tightly furrowed facial skin completely relaxed, and just looking at his face, he seemed twenty years younger.
The battle record was verifiable! This was more effective than any flowery words!
“You… before, the Belgian Army’s last 3 divisions were surrounded in Ostend, and they didn’t wait for the British Navy to pick them up for retreat but directly mutinied and surrendered to the Empire—that was also your doing?”
Lelouch: “Don’t believe it? Then when you return to Frankfurt, you can call Duke Rupprecht.”
The Grand Duke of Baden and Duke Rupprecht were both leaders in one of the Four Southern German States, very familiar with each other usually; with Lelouch citing the Duke’s name as witness, the Grand Duke of Baden naturally would not doubt.
“Hiss…” The Grand Duke of Baden finally could not help drawing in a sharp breath.
He was the Minister of the Imperial Prisoner of War Affairs Department and had personally handled the incident of the 3 Belgian Army divisions surrendering politely. He just did not know the prior scheme details and thought at the time they surrendered due to running out of ammunition and food.
“Unexpectedly, Major Lelouch has such ability; can you specifically say how you persuaded Major General Viktor and others to turn coats back then?” The Grand Duke of Baden had completely switched to a humble seeking-advice attitude.
Lelouch did not hold back and directly recounted the causes and effects again. He also mentioned that the psychological warfare tactics he used then, like “Chen Yu’s seal to Zhang Han” and “thus the gentleman hates dwelling in the lower reaches,” were learned from the Records of the Grand Historian and Analects, then localized with rephrased wording. This made him seem well-read and knowledgeable worldwide.
Only then was the Grand Duke of Baden completely convinced; after staring blankly for a long time, he sighed deeply: “Talents are rare. No wonder you, a corporal, were promoted to major by Duke Rupprecht in 3 months. If you work with me, I’ll introduce you to the Army Propaganda Department.”
Lelouch: “I have other duties, but Your Highness, if there are prisoner matters to discuss in the future, feel free to find me anytime; this is my contact information—all for serving the Empire.”
While speaking, Lelouch handed over a business card.
The Grand Duke of Baden seriously took it and said that after the campaign, if there were really large numbers of British Army prisoners to utilize, he would come to consult him then.
Because too engrossed, the Grand Duke of Baden did not even notice it was already past midnight in the latter half of the night.
Moreover, due to waning energy and gradually less acute hearing, during the chat, the Grand Duke of Baden could not help leaning forward several times to get closer.
After finally finishing the topic of psychological warfare on prisoners and disintegrating enemy morale, the Grand Duke of Baden was still a bit unsatisfied and casually asked about the topic Lelouch mentioned earlier: “going back to Frankfurt this time to seek funding from IG Farben for a new project on new wound medicine.”
“Can you specifically talk about the wound medicine plan you mentioned—my sister and niece, and Joachim, are all responsible for wounded soldiers affairs. The recent Kemmel Hill assault battle and Dunkirk assault battle have too many wounded soldiers.”
Before Lelouch returned this time, he had also observed that these two recent assault battles caused a large number of wounded; he planned to first produce sulfonamide, the earliest broad-spectrum antibacterial drug, after returning to Frankfurt. This was much easier than penicillin and had no prerequisite technology bottlenecks—because IG Farben had actually produced primitive sulfonamide compounds as early as 1908.
It was just that the thing itself had strong toxic side effects; IG Farben had accidentally developed it while researching chemical dyes. After discovering its toxicity, they naturally did not pursue human experiments further and thus did not discover its medicinal value.
（Note: At that time, many toxic but useful drugs, and many easily settling poison gases in history, were byproducts from IG Farben researching dyes. Because too toxic for dyeing fabrics, they could be used for other purposes.）
Historically, IG Farben only discovered sulfonamide’s broad-spectrum bacteriostatic value in the 1920s. It was not until 1932 that they invented “Prontosil,” a prodrug that slowly generates sulfonamide in the intestine. This finally solved the toxicity issue, allowing it to be used as a broad-spectrum antibacterial drug against infection.
So theoretically, now after Lelouch arrives in Frankfurt, he could go straight to IG Farben headquarters, demand they provide ready-made sulfonamide for severely wounded to use, and theoretically it could fight infection, just with too great toxic side effects, likely causing kidney failure in wounded.
Even for those with strong kidneys without failure, it would at least shorten kidney lifespan—of course, for those originally with severe wound infections who would die directly without antibiotics, a twenty-year kidney lifespan reduction was an acceptable cost.
But no matter what, for Lelouch to push a chemical with serious toxic side effects for wounded soldiers treatment based on his own assertion, it would require very strict approval.
He had no authoritative chemical industry scientific background; others would not believe him. Even if animal experiments were done first, feeding sulfonamide to severely infected animals to fight infection with effect, but following Empire’s standard drug approval process, it would take years to reach market.
In wartime, wound medicine human clinical approval might be accelerated, but still not fast enough.
Fortunately, Lelouch met the Grand Duke of Baden and Wounded Soldiers Affairs Bureau people; with this connection, the matter could advance faster.
Thus, Lelouch half-truly half-falsely laid the groundwork first: “This time going back, I have something to handle incidentally. Because before, the Duke intercepted some data from captured enemy field hospitals, showing certain toxic compounds that our IG Farben Company can produce might have anti-infection effects, and the enemies have already approved human clinical trials.
For such things, following peacetime formal processes would delay a lot. Today I coincidentally met you; I have an unreasonable request:
In the future, if IG Farben’s that compound passes animal experiments, can the Wounded Soldiers Affairs Bureau give wartime emergency special approval to let severely infected, bound-to-die-without-treatment wounded try the new medicine? Just treat it as a last resort. Moreover, nutritional subsidies can be given to those saved wounded soldiers, as slight compensation for body organ damage caused by the trial medicine.”
This matter would be hard to handle with others, but the Grand Duke of Baden was a banner figure among Germania’s left-wing people, with both Prisoner of War Affairs Department and Wounded Soldiers Bureau under him.
Having chatted so congenially with Lelouch, he also believed the other would not harm his comrades; in war era, many things required special handling.
After pondering just a few minutes, the Grand Duke of Baden gritted his teeth and decided: “I’ll take responsibility for this; go ahead boldly! After returning to Frankfurt, I’ll personally call IG Farben people to cooperate with you.”
——
PS: Finished updating everything last night with no drafts saved, too tired and slept in on weekend, so wrote temporarily this morning and updated immediately after finishing.
Striving to resume normal 8 AM first update rhythm tomorrow.
