The morning after the Panzer demonstration, East Prussia awoke beneath a hard blue sky.
Snow covered the fields in a thin, frozen crust, while the forests stood black and motionless against the pale horizon. The cold sharpened every noise: boots upon stone, doors closing, engines catching beneath the breath of exhaust.
Oskar allowed his father little time to enjoy the previous day's triumph.
Shortly after dawn, a small convoy departed Königsberg and travelled north-northeast.
There were no ministers, foreign observers or ceremonial carriages. Only the Kaiser, Oskar, several senior generals, a few technical officials and the guards required to protect them. Three dark Muscle Motors automobiles carried the principal party, with motorcycles moving ahead and behind through the winter road.
Wilhelm rode beside Oskar.
For the first twenty kilometres, his questions concerned the Panzers. Their production, armour, fuel consumption and the possibility of using them against France occupied him almost without pause.
Oskar answered patiently.
Then the fields opened, and the Kaiser fell silent.
A military complex appeared beyond the trees. Two fences surrounded it, the outer barrier topped with wire and watched by timber towers. Black Legion soldiers stood at regular intervals beneath dark helmets and winter coats, rifles resting ready against their chests. There was only one visible entrance: a reinforced gate wide enough for trucks, guarded by an inspection house and a movable steel barrier.
The convoy slowed.
Documents were examined despite the imperial standards flying from the vehicles. Guards checked beneath the automobiles, opened the luggage compartments and confirmed every passenger against a prepared list.
Wilhelm watched with faint surprise.
"They are thorough."
"They would be equally thorough if God Himself arrived without papers," Oskar replied.
The barrier lifted, and beyond it lay the Black Legion's principal military airfield.
Wilhelm leaned forward.
The base spread across an enormous section of level ground. Long hangars stood in ordered rows beside workshops, fuel depots, barracks and warehouses. A glass-fronted control tower overlooked the centre of the field, surrounded by signal masts, lamps, wind instruments and wireless aerials.
Service roads connected every part of the complex.
Fuel trucks moved between storage tanks and aircraft stands. Mechanics pushed engine carts across cleared concrete aprons. Snowploughs worked along drainage channels while Black Legion patrols watched from the perimeter roads.
Through the centre ran a broad, dark runway.
It was neither grass nor packed earth. Asphalt stretched across the frozen ground in a perfectly measured strip, marked along its edges and supported by drainage deep enough to keep the surface usable through rain, thaw and snow.
It looked less like an airfield of 1912 than a piece of another century placed upon the East Prussian countryside.
When the automobiles stopped, Wilhelm remained seated for several seconds.
"How much of this was built without my knowing?"
"Nearly all of it," Oskar answered.
The Kaiser looked at him.
Oskar smiled and opened the door.
The scale became even more striking once they stepped outside.
Almost two hundred aircraft occupied the field, though most were not the machines Oskar intended to reveal. Rows of trainers, reconnaissance craft and early F-1 biplanes stood near the smaller hangars. They were useful aircraft—reliable, inexpensive and well suited to teaching pilots—but beside the newer machines they appeared fragile and antiquated.
The F-2 fighters waited upon the main apron.
They sat low upon widely spaced landing gear, their single wings extending from streamlined fuselages covered largely in smooth metal skin. Enclosed canopies protected the pilots from wind and cold. Dark green and grey camouflage broke their shapes, with pale winter markings added across the wings and fuselage.
Iron Crosses identified them as German.
Everything else about them appeared unfamiliar.
Gustav Lilienthal and Hugo Junkers waited near the first aircraft with several senior engineers. Lilienthal looked older than when Oskar had first recruited him, his face weathered by years spent around open fields, oil and dangerous machines.
Junkers appeared as severe as ever, clutching a folder of specifications as though expecting someone to challenge every figure inside it.
Oskar greeted them briefly before leading the imperial party toward the apron.
A whistle sounded.
Two F-2s began moving toward the runway.
Their engines started cleanly, settling into a controlled mechanical roar far removed from the spluttering uncertainty of early aviation. Ground crews removed the wheel blocks and stepped away.
The first fighter turned onto the runway.
It paused only long enough for the pilot to receive the signal.
Then it accelerated.
Its wheels struck the asphalt in a rapid rhythm before lifting clear. The fighter climbed steeply into the winter sky, banking over the airfield as the second machine began its run.
Wilhelm followed them with open astonishment.
"They climb like falcons."
"They are F-2 fighters," Oskar said. "The F-1 proved that we could build an aeroplane. The F-2 proves that we can build a weapon."
The fighters levelled above the field and began a wide circuit.
The F-2 was a single-seat combat monoplane, constructed around a light metal frame and a powerful liquid-cooled engine. Aluminium covered much of its structure, while steel protected the pilot, fuel system and other vital components.
It was not bulletproof.
No aircraft could be made completely so without becoming too heavy to leave the ground. Yet its structure could survive scattered rifle hits and shell fragments that would tear through the canvas aircraft of other nations.
The enclosed cockpit protected the pilot from the cold and allowed him to concentrate at speeds that would make an open machine almost unbearable. Every man carried a silk parachute and could abandon the aircraft if damage made continued flight impossible.
Each fighter also carried a compact wireless set developed with Imperial Image Works. Its range remained imperfect and interference sometimes reduced speech to little more than static, but formations could communicate in the air and receive instructions from the ground.
That alone separated the F-2 from nearly every military aircraft then operating in Europe.
Its performance completed the difference.
The fighter could exceed six hundred kilometres per hour under favourable conditions. Its maximum range approached eight hundred and fifty kilometres, with a practical combat radius slightly above four hundred.
From East Prussia, it could reach deep into Russian Poland and return.
Its armament consisted of fixed, forward-firing machine guns synchronised to fire through the propeller's rotation. The pilot did not need a separate gunner or a flexible weapon mounted beside the cockpit.
He aimed by turning the aircraft itself.
Where the nose pointed, the guns followed.
The two fighters climbed higher, then separated.
Beyond the runway, a range had been prepared upon a low rise. Straw figures surrounded an old motor truck loaded with enough fuel to make the result visible.
The fighters turned.
Their engines descended into a thin, approaching howl.
One after another, they dived.
The first opened fire.
Lines of earth erupted across the slope as the bullets moved through the targets. Straw figures broke apart beneath the burst, pieces scattering into the wind. The fighter passed over the range at tremendous speed and climbed before most of the watching officers had properly followed its movement.
The second aircraft came lower.
Its guns struck the truck. Metal panels folded beneath repeated impacts. Glass shattered. A moment later flames burst from the engine compartment and spread through the vehicle, sending a column of black smoke into the winter sky.
Both fighters climbed away and formed up above the field.
The entire attack had lasted only seconds.
Wilhelm stood staring at the burning target.
The generals said little.
There was no useful criticism to offer. The aircraft had climbed faster, flown farther and struck more accurately than anything they had believed possible.
Moltke finally looked toward Oskar.
"How much?"
Oskar did not answer immediately.
"Later," he said. "You have not yet seen the expensive machine."
They continued across the airfield.
The older biplanes occupied the nearer rows, followed by reconnaissance aircraft equipped with cameras, observation stations and wireless sets. Several carried racks for small bombs or ground-attack equipment, though their primary value remained training and scouting.
Oskar did not linger beside them. He led the group toward two enormous hangars at the far end of the apron.
Their doors stood open, and a large aircraft waited inside each.
The H-1 bomber possessed none of the fighter's compact aggression. It was broader, heavier and built around an entirely different purpose.
Twin engines projected from the wings. A long fuselage extended behind a glazed forward compartment, while a closed bomb bay occupied the centre beneath the main structure. Defensive gun positions covered the approaches from above, behind and below.
The aircraft did not resemble a machine improvised from timber and fabric. It looked complete. A working system rather than an experiment.
Wilhelm stopped beneath one of its wings.
"This is an aeroplane?"
"A bomber," Oskar replied. "The H-1."
The H-1 carried four men: pilot, navigator-bombardier, wireless operator and defensive gunner. Its enclosed cockpit contained dedicated instruments for altitude, speed, engine performance, fuel, direction and navigation.
The bombardier occupied the forward compartment with charts and sighting equipment. He calculated altitude, speed and wind before releasing the bombs from the internal bay.
The pilot's task was to hold the machine steady.
Mathematics did the rest.
The bomber could carry approximately one thousand kilograms of explosives internally and deliver them at distances beyond one thousand kilometres. Its maximum speed approached four hundred kilometres per hour—slow beside the F-2, but extraordinary for an aircraft of its weight.
Machine guns protected the most vulnerable approach angles. An attacking fighter could still destroy it, but it would have to enter a field of defensive fire to do so.
Moltke walked slowly beneath the fuselage, examining the closed bomb-bay doors.
"What is the intended target?"
"Anything too distant for artillery," Oskar said.
"Railway junctions. Supply depots. Bridges. Headquarters. Ports. Troop concentrations. Aircraft fields."
He rested one hand against the cold metal.
"The enemy should no longer be permitted to believe that distance means safety."
The crews began preparing the two bombers.
Fuel lines were disconnected. Ground engines pulled the machines from their hangars and onto the apron. Mechanics completed their final checks while the imperial party withdrew to a protected viewing area near the runway.
The engines caught one after another.
Four propellers blurred into motion.
The sound was deeper than that of the fighters, steady enough to vibrate through the ground beneath the observers' boots.
The lead H-1 taxied onto the runway.
It accelerated gradually, carrying the full weight of fuel, crew and practice bombs. For several moments it seemed too heavy to rise.
Then the nose lifted.
The wheels left the asphalt, and the bomber climbed into the winter air.
The second followed.
Together they formed above the field and turned toward the distant bombing range.
Oskar watched them settle into position.
"They do not throw explosives over the side," he said. "They fly at an assigned height and speed. The bombardier corrects for wind and movement, then releases according to calculation."
The two H-1s levelled.
From the ground, they appeared almost motionless.
Then the bomb-bay doors opened.
A sequence of small dark shapes fell from the first aircraft. The second released moments later.
The targets below represented a railway depot and supply concentration: wooden sheds, painted wagons, stacked crates and marked earthworks.
The bombs struck in two measured lines.
Explosions moved across the range, one following the next. Buildings disappeared beneath soil and timber. The mock railway wagons broke apart, while smoke and flame joined above the target until the entire position vanished inside a rising wall of dust.
The pressure reached the viewing area seconds after the light.
Several officers flinched despite knowing they stood beyond danger.
When the smoke began thinning, little remained of the artificial depot.
The H-1s turned back toward the airfield.
Wilhelm watched them approach.
"We must have these."
Oskar had expected nothing else.
The F-2 cost approximately thirty thousand marks.
The H-1 cost closer to eighty thousand.
Those figures purchased only the aircraft.
They did not purchase pilots, mechanics, fuel stores, replacement engines, ammunition, bombs, navigation equipment, radios, workshops, paved runways or the thousands of specialised workers required to keep the machines flying.
Oskar explained this without ceremony.
The air service could not be created by purchasing aircraft as though they were rifles. Every fighter required men who understood engines, instruments and structural repair. Every bomber required several trained crewmen and a larger supporting organisation upon the ground.
If the machine broke and no one could repair it, then it was not a weapon. It was an expensive sculpture.
Production also remained limited.
Germany now possessed bauxite and growing aluminium works, but aircraft consumed lightweight metal in quantities that competed directly with naval, electrical and industrial programmes. Their engines demanded precision alloys and tolerances difficult to maintain even within Oskar's most advanced factories.
Wireless sets remained another weakness. The devices worked, but range, interference and reliability varied with weather and terrain. Pilots still required flags, lamps, formation discipline and carefully planned procedures whenever the radios failed.
Moltke appeared almost relieved to hear that expansion could not happen immediately.
It gave cost time to become policy rather than catastrophe.
Wilhelm was less pleased.
"How many can we purchase now?"
"Enough to begin," Oskar answered. "Not enough to waste."
He proposed a network of military airfields rather than one enormous concentration.
The East Prussian base would protect the Russian frontier and train the Black Legion's principal aviation formations. Additional fields would eventually be constructed near the western approaches, another farther south opposite France and Switzerland, and a smaller station near the Austro-Hungarian frontier for rapid allied support.
Each field would begin as a functioning military station capable of operating approximately one hundred aircraft, with enough land reserved to double that strength later.
The expensive F-2s and H-1s would form the striking core.
The older F-1s would provide numbers.
Their timber-and-fabric construction made them far cheaper to produce and repair. They could train pilots, conduct reconnaissance, patrol roads and railways, carry messages and attack exposed troops when opposition remained weak.
"Six H-1s per principal field at first," Oskar said. "Fighters in larger numbers, because bombers cannot operate safely if the enemy controls the sky."
"And the F-1s?" Moltke asked.
"As many as we can build without disrupting the newer programme."
Oskar looked toward the rows of trainers.
"A modern fighter without a trained pilot is merely a coffin with an engine. We need hundreds of men learning to fly before we need hundreds of advanced aircraft."
That was the foundation of the programme. Pilots first. Mechanics beside them. Navigators, radio operators, armourers, fuel crews and instructors behind both.
Only then could aircraft become an air force.
Wilhelm looked once more toward the returning H-1s.
His expression carried the same excitement Oskar had seen beside the Panzers. To the Kaiser, the aircraft represented more than military power. They represented prestige—proof that Germany had reached something Britain, France and Russia had not.
"Who could challenge us now?" Wilhelm murmured.
Several generals nodded.
Oskar did not.
These machines were decades ahead of the world around them, but machinery did not abolish war. It merely changed the speed and distance at which men killed one another.
His purpose was deterrence.
The generals already appeared to be imagining opportunity.
"We build carefully," Oskar said.
His voice cut through their quiet excitement.
"We keep the programme controlled, secret and properly supplied. These aircraft are not toys for parades or demonstrations. Nor are they excuses for beginning wars simply because our enemies cannot yet answer them."
Wilhelm glanced toward him but did not object.
Oskar looked across the modern runway, the hangars and the aircraft circling above East Prussia.
"If we build this force correctly, our enemies will understand that attacking Germany has become too dangerous to consider."
That was the future he wanted.
Whether the men beside him desired the same thing remained less certain.
None of them argued.
They had watched fighters hunt from the sky and bombers erase a target beyond the reach of any ordinary gun.
Whatever they believed aircraft should be used for, they understood one truth. Germany had entered another century, and it would not be stepping back.