On 15 May 1910, Oskar departed Berlin by train.
He was not travelling as a young prince on some ceremonial excursion. He travelled as Germany's Acting Crown Prince, Inspector of the East, and the man personally shaping the future Eighth Army. The weight of that authority followed him as surely as the guards surrounding his carriage.
Across from him sat Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter, Germany's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was neat, composed, and almost impossible to read, with several folders stacked beside him and the scent of fresh ink lingering in the compartment.
The train carried them northwest through the Empire, past green fields, dark forests, and industrial towns still wearing coal smoke like a second skin. As they approached the coast, the air gradually changed. Salt mingled with soot, and beneath both came the metallic scent of shipyards.
Their destination was Wilhelmshaven.
From there, they would cross the North Sea to England.
Oskar went reluctantly.
He did not fear Britain. What troubled him was leaving his family again. Potsdam had become crowded with warmth, noise, and the dangerous softness that tempted a man to forget the outside world existed. Tanya, Anna, and Gundelinde were all pregnant now, and every departure felt heavier than the last.
Yet obligation was the price of power.
Oskar had never been permitted to forget the bargain he had made with himself: if he wished to change the future, he had to keep entering the rooms in which that future would be decided.
The crossing itself should be brief by naval standards, perhaps little more than a day if the weather remained favourable. London presented the greater uncertainty. There would be Edward's funeral, meetings with the British court, and all the careful smiles of a nation that mourned one king while measuring the intentions of another empire.
On the morning of 16 May, Oskar boarded SMS Nassau.
She was the first dreadnought of her class in German service, a declaration of steel built to answer Britain's revolution in naval warfare. Newer and more ambitious vessels were already appearing in German yards, but Nassau still possessed a presence that made men lower their voices when they came aboard.
She was broad, heavy, and uncompromising, her turrets rising from the deck like fortifications. Even at rest, she appeared prepared to fight.
The sailors snapped to attention as Oskar crossed the gangway.
At more than two metres tall and built with the mass of a carved monument, he did not simply step aboard. His presence seemed to claim the deck around him. Passageways designed for ordinary men narrowed noticeably when he entered them, and even the planks beneath his boots answered his weight with a deeper creak.
He had dressed for both the sea and his position. A dark, double-breasted naval greatcoat covered his broad frame, its collar raised against the wind. Beneath it he wore a restrained uniform bearing only the insignia required to identify him: Acting Crown Prince, Inspector of the East, and representative of the German Empire.
There was none of the theatrical excess his father preferred. Oskar looked more suited to a command room than a ballroom.
The ship vibrated beneath him as her engines awakened. Propellers began turning below the water, and Wilhelmshaven slowly receded behind them.
Once Nassau entered the open North Sea, she gathered speed. Her bow drove through the grey water with steady, brutal confidence, sending white spray rolling along the hull. She was capable of approximately twenty-one knots at full power, though there was no need to strain her machinery unnecessarily. Most of the journey would be made at a more economical pace.
Barring poor weather, they would reach the Thames by the following afternoon. Edward's funeral remained several days away.
They had time.
Oskar stood upon the open deck and allowed the cold wind to strike his face. The air carried salt, spray, and a hard cleanliness that made every breath feel honest.
He watched the sea rise, break, and reform around the ship, and once again found himself considering the absurdity of his life.
In another world, he had been a nobody with a camera and microphone, chasing attention, money, and views. He had been a student with unfinished plans, then a soldier caught in the wrong place at the wrong moment—a man whose first life had ended in a burst of violence that should never have belonged to him.
Now he stood upon the deck of a dreadnought.
Not truly his in law, perhaps, but a ship whose existence carried his fingerprints in steel, engines, doctrine, and investment. It sailed beneath his family's flag and formed part of the fleet he had helped drag years ahead of its time.
Authority still unsettled him occasionally, not because he disliked possessing it, but because of how few people remained capable of refusing him. Only the Kaiser could truly overrule him, and even then Oskar had learned how to bend policy without openly challenging the Crown.
He looked back across the deck.
Turrets. Armour. Steel. Sailors moving through their duties with disciplined precision.
Germany had already changed beyond recognition.
It was no longer the country he remembered from history books and documentaries. More and more of it carried his influence: its factories, ships, roads, armies, medicines, machines, and ordinary comforts.
Even small details aboard Nassau revealed how far that influence had spread.
At Oskar's feet stood a compact insulated cooler packed with ice and glass bottles—an almost ridiculous convenience upon a battleship in 1910. He bent, took out a bottle, and drank.
Cold apple juice beneath the North Sea wind.
It was a minor luxury, almost laughable beside the guns and armour surrounding him, yet it reminded him that the future was not built only from weapons and treaties. Sometimes progress meant that a man could drink something cold at sea because an industrial system had learned how to turn convenience into infrastructure.
Captain Carter of the Eternal Guard's Third Company approached with the measured calm of a man who treated every open space as potentially hostile. He struck his fist against his heart.
"Your Imperial Highness, the State Secretary requests an audience. Shall I admit him?"
Oskar took another drink. Condensation ran down the bottle and across his fingers, making it look absurdly suited to a summer picnic rather than a dreadnought's deck.
"Let him through."
Carter turned, and the protective formation surrounding Oskar shifted almost invisibly. Eternal Guards adjusted their positions, opening a narrow passage through dark coats and watchful eyes.
A moment later, footsteps sounded behind him.
"Your Imperial Highness."
Oskar turned.
Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter stepped onto the deck with the controlled stiffness of a man better suited to maps, documents, and sealed rooms than wind and salt. The sea tugged at his coat and disturbed the disciplined perfection of his moustache by the smallest degree.
He bowed correctly, without theatrics.
Officially, he was not Germany's foreign minister. The Empire did not use that title. He was the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs—a harmless-sounding office that nevertheless controlled the machinery deciding whom Germany reassured, whom it offended, and whom it prepared to outlast.
Oskar acknowledged him with a nod.
"State Secretary. What is it?"
Kiderlen-Waechter did not answer immediately. His gaze moved instead across the ship: the heavy turrets, armoured superstructure, disciplined sailors, and darker figures of the Eternal Guard.
For a moment, his composure gave way to something resembling wonder.
"Your Highness," he said at last, "I still find it difficult to accept that this exists."
His eyes followed the long steel deck.
"That the fleet has reached this point so quickly."
He hesitated before adding, more quietly, "Britain will not take it lightly."
Oskar watched a wave break against the hull and trail away in white foam. Beneath his boots, the engines maintained their steady pulse.
He understood what the State Secretary truly meant. Britain would not merely dislike this fleet. Britain would remember it, and perhaps never forgive it.
For years, Oskar had been drawing the cautious men of Germany's civil government closer to him: Bülow, Kiderlen-Waechter, and the broader faction that valued predictability over brilliance and documents over prophecy.
They had never been his enemies.
Neither had they truly been his allies.
They supported whichever succession appeared most likely to preserve the machinery of state, treating crowns almost as another seal affixed to official paper.
Oskar understood their hesitation.
He had three wives, a household that offended half the traditions of Europe, and a Church powerful enough to contain scandals the old court could not control. He changed too much, too quickly, and rarely asked permission before beginning.
The Army respected results. The public admired strength.
The civil ministries valued stability.
And Oskar still carried the word acting before his title like a hook buried beneath the skin. It was only one word, yet another word from the Kaiser could theoretically remove him. Not easily, not without consequences, but it remained possible.
For men whose careers depended upon continuity, uncertainty of that kind was poisonous.
Kiderlen-Waechter spoke again.
"I know how much effort has gone into concealment," he said. "Covered weapons, strengthened shipyard security, restricted access, false reports, misleading rumours."
His gaze moved briefly toward the sailors, as though even the ship might overhear them.
"If war comes, the world will be surprised."
Oskar allowed himself a faint smile.
"This was the work of many hands," he replied. "The Navy, the shipyards, the industrial group—and the Cabinet."
He raised his bottle slightly in a mock toast.
"These machines are expensive."
Kiderlen-Waechter made a sound that came close to laughter.
"Your Highness, I know the true condition of the programme. Without you, none of this would exist."
Oskar did not openly accept the compliment.
Praise in politics was rarely offered without a purpose.
The State Secretary stepped closer and lowered his voice, not because anyone nearby could hear them, but because secrecy had become habitual to him.
"Based upon your achievements alone," he said, "it is only right that you become the heir to the Empire in fact as well as in practice."
His gaze remained fixed upon Oskar.
"No one else possesses the ability—or the strength required to carry what you have taken upon yourself."
He paused before forcing out the final comparison.
"Even the former Crown Prince was greatly inferior."
Oskar's expression did not change. Within him, however, something sharpened. The civil faction was moving, or at least this man was.
Oskar placed the bottle upon the rail and folded his hands behind his back. He regarded the State Secretary with the calm expression of a prince who had never needed to demand attention.
"You flatter me."
He turned toward the horizon, as though the succession of the German Empire interested him less than the colour of the sea.
"Whether I become Crown Prince in full is my father's decision. I will support whatever choice His Majesty makes."
The answer was flawless.
Obedient. Humble. Reassuring.
And carefully incomplete.
Oskar would not willingly surrender the succession now. Not merely for his own ambition, but for his wives, his children, and everything he had already created. Too many lives depended upon the continuity of his authority.
He would wear the mask of the dutiful son for as long as it remained useful.
Should circumstances eventually demand another face, the world would receive one.
For several moments, Nassau's engines supplied the only sound between them.
Then Oskar spoke again, more quietly.
"My goal has never been the title itself."
Kiderlen-Waechter studied his profile, attempting to measure where sincerity ended and ambition began.
"Whether I remain acting Crown Prince or receive something more permanent, the work remains the same. I intend to ensure that the Empire survives what is coming."
His tone hardened, losing the warmth of polite conversation.
"The next war will decide whether Germany remains a great power or becomes a warning taught to other nations."
The State Secretary's mouth tightened.
"If we lose," Oskar continued, "the Empire will not simply decline. It will break—violently, completely, and without dignity. Our people will continue paying for that defeat long after the men responsible for it are dead."
That was the difference between Oskar and the older men of court.
He did not speak as though discussing policy.
He spoke as though counting graves.
Kiderlen-Waechter remained silent for a moment, his coat pulling in the wind.
Then he inclined his head.
"Your Highness, the Chancellor and I are not blind."
Oskar waited.
"For a long time," the State Secretary continued, "the civil ministries remained neutral. Not because we doubted your abilities, but because our entire world depends upon stability."
A dry breath escaped him.
"And stability does not welcome surprises."
His eyes moved toward Oskar.
"You are, by nature, a surprise."
The corner of Oskar's mouth lifted.
"Nevertheless, we have watched the results," Kiderlen-Waechter continued. "Industry has aligned behind you. The Navy has expanded. The police reforms have held. The treasury has stopped bleeding."
He met Oskar's eyes directly.
"It would now be foolish to pretend that any other man in the Empire could carry the burden you are carrying."
He paused, then delivered the next sentence with the precision of a key entering a lock.
"This is not flattery. It is a decision."
Oskar remained still.
"From this point forward, you will have the support of the Chancellor's office and of the Foreign Ministry, provided you continue to act as a stabilising force within the Empire."
There it was, not devotion or friendship, but a bargain made by men who understood how power truly moved.
Oskar felt something loosen faintly within his chest, though none of it reached his face.
"Does the Chancellor share this intention?"
"He does," Kiderlen-Waechter answered immediately. "He instructed me to speak plainly."
Oskar nodded once.
He could not respond with triumph. A prince openly celebrating support for his succession would sound too much like a man reaching for his father's crown.
"Then I accept your support," he said. "I will continue doing what I have done—protecting the state, preparing it, and strengthening it."
His gaze returned to the horizon.
"I will not waste what you are placing behind me."
Kiderlen-Waechter exhaled as though only then realising he had been holding his breath.
They remained on deck for some time afterward, speaking of France, Russia, Britain, and the narrow path Germany walked between strength and provocation. Oskar asked questions that appeared simple until the State Secretary tried to answer them.
His responses were restrained, though he kept the sharpest truths inside his own thoughts.
The conversation left Kiderlen-Waechter quietly unsettled.
Not because Oskar seemed foolish or reckless.
Because he appeared far more knowledgeable than expected, particularly regarding Russia, China, and the uncertain future of the Qing dynasty.
By the following afternoon, SMS Nassau entered the Thames estuary.
The sky was low and pale, and the water had thickened with traffic. Pilot boats and tenders passed between the arriving vessels while signal flags snapped in the damp wind. Beyond them, London's smoke hung upon the horizon like a veil the city could never completely lift.
Foreign warships were directed toward their assigned anchorages. The colours of numerous nations flew side by side above lines of grey steel.
Britain was mourning.
Britain was also performing.
A naval review would accompany the funeral ceremonies, serving as an elegant reminder that even in grief the island kingdom still commanded the sea.
Oskar stood at the rail as the English coast drew nearer.
He neither smiled nor frowned.
He simply watched, measured, and remembered.
At last, he spoke softly.
"We are close enough to London to smell it."
Kiderlen-Waechter glanced toward him.
Oskar kept his eyes upon the shore.
"Let us hope," he murmured, his voice smooth and unreadable, "that the next German battleship to come this close is still welcomed."