Foch’s car turned toward the large stone building designated as his temporary headquarters, the Saint-Martin church. Already, staff clerks crowded its steps, unloading crates and arranging tables. Inside, electric lamps were being wired to generators; signal officers hammered boards into makeshift map walls; orderlies carried in coffee urns and blankets. The entire structure hummed with the low, organized chaos of high command settling into place.

  Foch stepped out of the Renault and breathed the cool afternoon air. Distantly, twenty miles north, he could already hear the rumble of artillery. It was the German guns firing test rounds, the Entente counter-battery units answering. The new line was alive.

  Pershing arrived moments later, dismounting from his Cadillac with his usual crisp bearing. He approached Foch, removing his hat. “Général,” he said simply. “General Pershing,” Foch replied, shaking his hand. Haig joined them shortly after, his boots dusty from the road. The three commanders stood together in the fading light as the roar of the front drifted over the fields. “Gentlemen,” Foch said, looking toward the distant rumbling horizon, “Nantes was only the beginning.”

  Pershing nodded, while Haig’s jaw tightened. “We press north, then east. The line won’t hold once we smash their center.” Foch folded his arms behind his back. “Tomorrow, we begin planning the next phase. Tonight, we prepare.” The guns thudded again in the distance, giving the three men a promise of a series of steady and relentless battles yet to come.

  The Easter Rising of Ireland

  Wednesday, April 26th, 1916

  Patrick Harper had been fighting for almost three days and had gotten used to the sounds of war and gunfire. However, nothing in the world sounded like the low, eerie whistle that drifted over Sackville Street that Wednesday afternoon. It came faintly at first, too soft to belong to a rifle or a machine gun, too distant to be anything familiar, like distant thunder. He looked up from the parapet and frowned, scanning the pale sky above the city’s rooftops. There was a strange stillness, a pause in the rhythm of battle, as if Dublin itself had drawn breath to listen. Down below, the British blew whistles as if to warn the soldiers of something that was about to happen. Then the roar returned, but closer this time, sharper. It was the unmistakable approaching shriek of something huge cutting through the air at terrifying speed. Harper had never heard artillery shells in flight before, but instinct told him what his mind struggled to name. He opened his mouth to shout at the others, but the warning arrived too late.

  A tremendous blast erupted on the street below them, somewhere near the tramline in front of Clery’s. The GPO roof shuddered like a struck drum. Dust burst upward in a towering plume, raining down grit and splinters on the parapet where the five rebels crouched. Patrick threw his arms over his head as fragments of brick clattered across the roof tiles. The air trembled with shock. He felt it inside his ribs, as if his bones had resonated with the explosion.

  “Jesus Christ almighty,” muttered Michael Murphy, blinking through the dust cloud. “They’re shelling us. They’re bloody shelling Sackville Street!”

  Another whistle rose before anyone could move. This one was quicker, screaming like a banshee, tearing down from the clouds. Patrick clenched his jaw and pressed himself against the parapet. The shell fell short again, smashing into the buildings opposite the GPO. The entire row of shopfronts heaved upward in an eruption of flame and shattered brick. A choking cloud roared across the boulevard, and through the smoke, he saw the façade of a drapery shop fold inward like wet cardboard.

  Thomas Kelly, who had fought in the Boer War years earlier, crossed himself. “They’re bracketing their range. The next ones will be closer.” Patrick felt the truth of it settle into his stomach like cold lead. The British weren’t firing wildly; they were correcting, measuring, hunting. The GPO had been the rebel headquarters since Monday, and a major thorn in their reconquest attempt. Every soldier south of the Liffey knew exactly where they were.

  He crawled along the parapet, peering down Sackville Street. The wide boulevard was nearly unrecognizable. The trams remained frozen where civilians had abandoned them during the first hours of fighting, but the street around them had turned into a graveyard of debris. Dust swirled in thick clouds. Fires flickered inside shattered windows. But even as he watched, British soldiers moved into new firing positions near the bridge, ducking behind sandbags and collapsed storefronts. They waited for the artillery to do its work before advancing again.

  The third whistle came, shrill and vicious. Patrick clenched his teeth. The explosion struck even closer, shaking the GPO roof so violently that one of the stone ledges split and tumbled down into the street. A portion of the cornice broke off and crashed through the lower rooftop like a thunderbolt. Tiles slid, cracked, and disappeared from sight.

  John Byrne, crouched at Patrick’s right, wiped blood from his brow where a flying pebble had opened a cut. “If they keep this up, they’ll bring down the whole street.” James O’Connor knelt beside him, gripping his rifle though there was nothing to shoot at. “We hold,” he said automatically. “We hold the roof.”

  But the others heard the doubt in his voice. They all understood the same terrible truth: rifles meant nothing now. Courage meant nothing. They were being targeted by a weapon that could crush them like ants.

  Another whistle screamed overhead. Patrick’s heart slammed into his throat. This time, the shell went long. It detonated behind them, hammering the north side of the GPO. The shockwave rolled across the roof like a giant’s shove, knocking Murphy off his feet. The building groaned, ancient beams straining under the impact. Smoke drifted up through widening cracks between the tiles.

  Patrick scrambled to his knees. The fire had begun somewhere below, faint but growing. He could smell it. It was burning timber, scorched dust, something sharper, tasting like metal on the tongue. He crawled toward Murphy and helped him upright. “They’re walking the fire toward us,” Kelly said, breath ragged. “They’re zeroing in.”

  The next whistle came almost immediately, and with it the crushing realization that the British had found their range. Patrick heard the descending shell as if time slowed around it, the scream building into an unbearable pitch. He felt every hair on his neck stand upright.

  The explosion struck the GPO façade directly below them. The entire rooftop jerked upward. Patrick was thrown backward as the parapet disintegrated into a storm of stone fragments. Heat and dust punched into his lungs. For a moment, he couldn’t see anything. Not the sky, not his hands, not even the outline of the roof beneath him. Only swirling orange and grey filled his vision, accompanied by the deafening ringing inside his skull.

  He coughed, choking on dust. Flames licked through the blast hole below. The roof groaned with a sound like a massive beast in pain. Smoke billowed, turning the air into a choking fog. Kelly staggered to his feet, eyes streaming, and pointed toward the west side of the roof. “Look! Look there!”

  Patrick followed his gaze. The building across Sackville Street had collapsed into itself, its entire front wall gone. Flames poured upward through the skeletal remains of its structure. Burning timbers collapsed in slow, agonizing tilts before crashing into the street below. The air shimmered with heat.

  Then he realized something worse: the British gunners had adjusted again. The next whistle came almost instantly. Patrick dropped to the tiles, arms over his head. He braced for the impact, feeling his entire body tense. The shell struck to the right, detonating inside the GPO itself. The explosion ripped through the upper floors, sending a column of fire and debris belching upward through the roof. Flames burst through the postal hall windows in a violent roar.

  The roof beneath them buckled. James O’Connor lost his footing and slid toward a widening gap in the tiles. Byrne lunged and caught his arm, but part of the roof collapsed beneath them, and both men vanished in a cascade of smoke and crumbling stone. Patrick reached out instinctively, fingertips brushing the air where they had been a moment before, but nothing remained except drifting ash.

  Murphy stared in horror. “Patrick … they’re … ” He didn’t finish. Another shell screamed overhead, lower, faster, aimed like a spear at the burning heart of the GPO. Patrick knew in his bones that this one was for them. He felt it before it hit, a trembling in the air, a pressure in his skull like an oncoming storm. He grabbed Murphy’s shoulder. “Down! Get down!”

  They dropped to the tiles. Kelly threw himself beside them, arms over his head, eyes wide. The whistle became a shriek. Then the world exploded. The shell hit directly on the center of the rooftop.

  The blast was monstrous, like Thor’s hammer itself, shattering stone, tearing beams open, and sending a tower of fire catapulting upward. Patrick felt himself lifted from the roof as if snatched by a giant hand. Heat seared his face. The world turned a blinding white, then a deep, suffocating black.

  He was dimly aware of falling, crashing onto something that cracked beneath him. He tried to breathe, but dust filled his lungs. The world had become a crush of rubble, flame, and smoke. He could hear nothing except a horrible ringing, as if the city itself screamed.

  He thought of his family on the north side. Of the Volunteers who still fought in the streets. Of Ireland, of whatever would rise from this inferno after they were gone.

  Another beam snapped. The floor under him tilted. Patrick closed his eyes while the roof fell, and he fell into the fiery maelstrom below.

  (…)

  By the end of the artillery bombardment, the rebellion in central Dublin was effectively broken. Sackville Street had been reduced to a burning canyon of ruins, its buildings gutted, its pavements buried beneath collapsed masonry. The General Post Office, which was the nerve center of the uprising, burned like an inferno of hell, forcing the rebels to flee through smoke-choked lanes and shattered courtyards. Those who escaped the GPO regrouped in Moore Street, battered, burned, and bleeding, clinging to their last pockets of resistance.

  British troops tightened their cordon with methodical precision. Machine gun posts raked every crossing; snipers watched every window; infantry pushed cautiously through the debris, bayonets fixed, advancing behind the lingering pall of smoke. The rebels were exhausted, low on ammunition, and overwhelmed by fires that spread faster than they could move. Civilians, terrified and displaced, fled the collapsing neighborhoods, adding further chaos to the shrinking battlefield.

  By Friday evening, the rising had no clear center, only scattered bands fighting from building to building. With the GPO gone and Sackville Street in flames, the rebellion’s leadership realized continued resistance meant only more civilian deaths. On Saturday, Patrick Pearse, one of the main surviving leaders, ordered the general surrender. The fight was over. Dublin burned, and the dream of the republic slipped into oblivion once more.

  11th Bavarian Infantry Division

  Beyond Vilna, town of Bienica, April 30th, 1916

  “Let Artillery commander Major Stobl know that I wish to see his guns unlimbered where they stand and that I need gun support within the hour,” said General Paul von Kneussl, the commander of the 11th Bavarian Infantry Division. “Yes, Sir,” answered his second-in-command, Colonel Eric Vanderheim. The staff officer left without another word, while the men before them deployed in columns to prepare for the assault on the small town before them.

  The village, or rather a very small city, Bienica, was a small Belarusian provincial town that lay at the intersection of several roads (dirt-packed, but they were called roads in these lands), but had yet to receive rail, like many areas of the Russian Empire.

  Von Kneussl thought a moment about his mission to secure the area, as the main body of the German advance toward Minsk was south of him, probably busy attempting to capture the rail town city of Lusk, while on his left, another German column of units was advancing on the rail line from Vilna to Minsk, capturing one rail node after the other.

  The Bavarian general wasn’t happy about being stuck in the middle of nowhere, attacking shitty small towns, but there was no going around the fact that the German forces needed to advance on a broad front to the left and the right of the rail lines, or else risk those same lines being cut off or destroyed. War in the Russian Empire could only be waged effectively from these railheads, as supplies had to be transported over great distances. Capturing the rail cities was thus an essential step toward reaching the next major town, like Minsk.

  He lifted the pair of binoculars hanging around his neck to check the outlying buildings of the town. His recon cavalrymen had reported that a Russian unit was holed up in Bienica, and he’d learned to listen to the reports. His scouts were smart, experienced, and had seen everything since the beginning of the war. He could see some movement, and even some defensive positions, but nothing major. He wondered what size unit was holed up in Bienica.

  (…)

  An hour and a half later, the smoke drifted in long, billowing gray columns above the shattered town, following the heavy bombardment the 11th’s artillery park had subjected the small town to. From a distance, it looked as if nothing would survive the shattering bombardment. Many buildings were now piles of rubble, several more were on fire, and a heavy smoke curtain hung over the area like a thick morning fog. “Colonel,” then said von Kneussl. “Please order the men to advance.” “Yes, General.”

  The entire Division started to move, with loud clicking noises, sergeants and other NCOs barking orders, and the unit made its way across the large field of not-yet-growing hay, giving them no measure of cover from possible Russian fire.

  Von Kneussl had looked at many ways to do this, but since Bienica was in the middle of nowhere and located in the middle of farm fields, there was no way to approach under the guise of any cover, especially since the growing season had not yet started.

  It didn’t take long for the entrenched Russians in the town to start firing, as they crawled out of their holes. Like every battle he’d been in, the infantry facing him had survived the bombardment. At least, he thought, the barbed wire was smashed to bits, which would help the men get into bayonet range.

  (…)

  The first Russian shots cracked out from the forward trenches on Bienica’s southern edge. The fusillade was scattered, and irregular, fire from a line that had already lost its nerve. Yet even shaky men with empty stomachs and half-empty ammunition pouches could kill. A Bavarian private in the first wave dropped instantly, his helmet flying off as he folded into the damp earth. Another stumbled back, clutching his thigh, screaming as a battalion medic pulled him to the rear.

  The Russians of the 56th Brigade (the near-demoralized unit tasked with defending Bienica) fired in ragged bursts, each man squeezing off the last cartridges he had hoarded through weeks of retreat. Their trenches were shallow, hastily dug between the smoldering ruins of cottages and the splintered timbers of the Orthodox chapel fence. Smoke from the bombardment stung their eyes. Some soldiers coughed black dust from their lungs while trying to reload, others cursed as their battered Mosins jammed.

  Still, von Kneussl watched the determined gray shapes of his Bavarians press forward across the bare fields. No hedgerows, no tall crops, no depressions, but just open swaths of trampled, muddy earth punctured by shell-holes. The artillery had churned the topsoil into a mud-and-brick-dust paste. Any man standing upright for more than a moment became a silhouette against the drifting smoke.

  The Russian officers tried to shout orders, but half the line didn’t hear, and the other half no longer cared. One Russian lieutenant, his greatcoat torn, raised his saber and screamed for his men to hold. A few around him obeyed, firing again into the gray mass advancing without pause. But the lieutenant’s voice cracked, and the men closest to him saw the truth spreading through his eyes: they were finished.

  As the Bavarians closed to three hundred meters, Russian fire intensified briefly in a desperate flicker of resistance before the fuse burned out completely. A machine gun, dug into a crater behind an overturned cart, rapped out a short burst, cutting down two Bavarians in the third company. Another Maxim gun jammed after only a few rounds; its crew cursed and hammered at the receiver as the German line drew nearer.

  Suddenly, a section of the Russian trench to the right erupted in movement. However, and unfortunately for the Russians, it wasn’t forward, but back. Six men scrambled out of their shallow pit and sprinted toward the northern streets of Bienica, tossing rifles aside as they ran. Their sergeant shouted after them, but his words dissolved beneath the roar of German rifle fire sweeping across the position. The deserters reached a half-collapsed barn when a Bavarian volley mowed them down. Three fell instantly; another staggered, clutching his abdomen, collapsing near the barn door.

  The collapse spread like a contagion. Men who moments earlier had fired their last cartridges now retreated in twos and threes, some crying, some silent, some dropping their weapons entirely. The Russian 56th Brigade had reached its breaking point. Well, it had been edging up to it for weeks on end, and the Bavarians were only putting the last drop into a bucket that was already pretty full.

  Still, pockets held out. Von Kneussl could see scattered muzzle flashes amid the wreckage of the town, some of the enemy soldiers and officers determined to sell their lives dearly. One Russian corporal stood alone at a shattered fence line, firing steadily from behind a broken stone pillar. He hit one Bavarian officer square in the chest, then calmly cycled his bolt and fired again, dropping a second man. Only when the Bavarians came within fifty paces did he finally throw down the empty rifle and reach for his bayonet. A shot through the neck cut him down before he could affix the blade.