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All were dead inside by the time Peter came to, the noise of the firefight outside helping to bring him to his senses.

By the time he had shaken the dust off of himself he had also realised everyone else inside the truck was dead, the collision having crumpled the vehicle like the inside of a tin can which had been kicked around far too many times. His position in the cupola at the time of the collision had seemed to prevent him from experiencing the severe trauma on impact that had done for the rest of the crew.

The noises of the battle were somewhat muffled by the interior of the armoured truck, which had a silence all of its own. It was a quiet of the sort one might expect after several individuals had been thrown between metal plates and themselves several times at 60 kilometres per hour.

No-one looked correct.

Peter decided he would take his chances outside, grasping his sidearm he was able to kick the truck’s battered door out before limping to a tenement’s covered entrance across the street from where they had impacted with the barricade. Bullets whooshed past him, impacting the pavement as he hopped. Landing in the doorway he groaned as all the force went on his wounded arm, he tried to calm his breathing whilst getting a better idea of the situation around him.

He could see what the problem had been now, what had seemed like a barricade made up of furniture and scrap was actually a wall of fresh concrete at least two metres thick dressed to look otherwise. The truck’s battering ram had partially smashed through it but not enough to prevent the full force of the kinetic impact from being experienced by the truck’s crew. It appeared that whilst Peter and his fellow young officers had been learning lessons of what had gone well for the Reichswehr in Berlin, someone amongst the revolutionaries had been working to correct what had gone wrong for them.

Those Reichswehr forces who followed behind him had attempted to storm over the barricade but were now being assailed by gunfire emanating from the buildings around them as well as what appeared to be some sort of petrol bombs the revolutionaries were throwing. With the barricade largely still standing the armoured trucks behind him hadn’t been able to advance and being bottled up in the streets appeared to make them easy targets for such bombs.

One man, an officer much like himself sat upright atop the cupola on one such truck, his entire body on fire. The figure sat there motionless whilst he burned and to his distress Peter realised it was his friend Franz, the older man they all had teased in Russia for having secret girlfriends despite his uptight attitude was now just another corpse.

Peter tried to avoid the sight of his former friend by looking down the street but all he could see was other armoured trucks bursting into flames from these bottle bombs whilst the infantry flailed around to find new cover. From the barricade a number of infantrymen appeared to be retreating, scrambling back over the exposed gap his truck had created. Clearly it hadn’t done much good.

Peter smashed the doorknob off of the front door of the building he had been using with his good arm and tried to ram the door open but it wouldn’t budge, at optimal strength it wouldn’t have caused him much trouble but now he was left worn out and cursing. The sound of a man firing his service revolver brought his attention back towards the barricade and he saw more troops retreating, one man led them, screaming for what was left of the regiment to follow him.

To his great surprise, his friend Klaus was leading them on foot. Despite the fact he was no longer wearing his officers jacket he had established himself as the one in charge of getting them out of this mess. His badly singed undershirt might have implied what had happened to his jacket, and his armoured truck for that matter. Peter’s eyes met Klaus’ and his friend pointed towards him.

Peter felt himself being pulled into the wind as a Reichswehr infantryman checked if he was able to stand before placing Peter’s arm over his shoulder and helping them forward. To his relief it seemed the town’s defenders had ceased firing upon witnessing the retreat but while being helped to limp past the still-burning body of his friend Peter began to lose consciousness when noticing the different smell emanating from the armoured truck. It stood out from the gunpowder and petrol smoke elsewhere.

Pushing the man assisting him aside he realised he was able to stand on his own two feet before the world began to spin around him. He began to stagger out of the town, almost drunkeningly, whilst his routed comrades fled around him.



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Johann noticed the lack of recoil from the rifle on his already protesting torso and realised with another unsatisfying click he was out of bullets once again.

The Reichswehr advance had been partially forced and partially lured into another zone of overlapping fire and though many of them had been brought down in the hail of bullets, grenades and petrol bombs from all sides they continued to push on, establishing their own positions whilst their enemy ran out of bullets in desperately trying to throw them back. Johann cursed their cold dedication to the task at hand, even at the expense of their own lives. They had been ordered to take this town as quickly as possible and it didn’t seem to matter how many of them died in doing so.

The People’s Guard had dedicated themselves to defending it to the last man as part of a strategy that demanded the Reicshwehr be held back as long as possible but any academic reflection on the strength of the will power of either side was being brought down to how much ammunition was left, an argument it was clear the Reichswehr would win in short order.

This left the last stand; blowing up the railway lines that made the town valuable with pre-attached munitions and causing as much chaos as possible in the meantime. It was a simple enough plan but would ensure a good martyrdom story in the future, he was confident of that at least.

Behind him in the headquarters of the cement factory preparations should have already been underway for that contingency, but instead he saw Feder, his uniform now more singed than grey, waving over to him frantically. Patting Lars on the shoulder Johann jogged back, his legs in agony at having to kneel for cover whilst doing so.

“Come to join our last stand?” Johann asked wearily, happy as he was to see his old comrade he had more urgent matters to attend to.

“It’s a bit better than that,” Feder replied shakingly, grabbing Johann. “Their armour’s all burned up, they’re retreating. I’ve just seen it!”

Johann felt his stomach turn even as his friend grabbed him and he reciprocated the embrace. A moment ago everything had been so certain in his mind but now…

“The chaos bringers, we can use them to advance!” Johann exclaimed, breaking off from the hug only to see the earnest grin on the face of his perpetually sardonic friend indicate that the idea was already in motion.

The Reichswehr troops seemed to be sensing a drop in resistance and once again grew more reckless in their advance, even as the armoured monstrosities began to advance out into the square that had made up the killing zone alongside those troops who had driven back the Reichswehr’s own armour following behind them. The “chaos bringers” were on the march/

The contraptions were not a pretty sight compared to the sleek modifications the Reichswehr had made to the Bussing trucks as a prelude for real armoured vehicles; each of the so-called chaos bringers were a Frankenstein’s monster of sheet metal and corrugated iron fused together over the chassis of buses, cars and tractors, some of which were clearly having their suspension being reduced to breaking point,Johann smelled burning rubber as the advanced amongst the already familiar stench of blood and fire. They plodded forward nonetheless, rifles and even pistols protruding from makeshift holes firing at the bemused attackers, unsure of how to react.

A well placed grenade thrown underneath one of the machines caused it to collapse with a large pop, before the whole thing exploded sending shards of hot metal flying everywhere. Those advancing around the armoured car were forced to scatter momentarily but the other machines ground forward. With a shout from the barricade Johann shot his pistol into the air and called on what was left of the shattered defenders to rally, crossing over into the melee himself before helping Lars and others over alongside him, following behind the advancing columns.

The Reichswehr, caught confused and exposed by the rallied defenders with armour of their own, began an unorganised retreat out of the town. The People’s Guard were firing at their backs. Every street of the preceding battle, blackened with the carnage of killing zones and grinding advance, were now revisited by the same forces, the pursuers having switched places with the pursued. Unfolding in this way Johann couldn’t but think of a hierarchical society with a privileged few at the top, held up by their lackeys, suddenly being turned on its head by those kept down below for so long.

No rear guard was left to cover the retreat, as though the Reichswehr after hours of seeing their comrades die around them were broken to see the battle turn against them. Their disorderly withdrawal back towards Immensen was clearly visible and many of those amongst Johann cheered at the sight, others gasping in relief, embracing each other, some in tears. They had made it.

But this wasn’t over.

Lars wrapped him in a bear hug but Johann merely reciprocated with a pat on the back before gently pushing his comrade off of him.

“No, we can’t allow them to retreat!” Johann turned to see Feder addressing the assembled crowd, somehow he had made his way on top of one of the chaos bringers. “If we celebrate now, they’ll have artillery raining down on our heads in an hour. Forwards Genosse, onwards to Immensen, into the Reichswehr nest!”

The crowd was restive, a murmur of apprehension rippling through the assembled forces. Whether or not Feder noticed Johann couldn't tell but his friend merely stamped his foot hard on the armoured monster.

“We can do this!” He roared, before jumping off and setting off in pursuit of the retreating forces. It seemed for a moment he didn’t care if he was going by himself and perhaps it was this act that brought another cheer from the crowd. It was more reluctant in the knowledge the victory was not yet won and their lives were not yet safe but all the same, they seemed to acknowledge the point, and began to march once more.

“Dem morgenrot entgegen…” A young voice in the column sang out,

“Ihr Kampfgenossen all!”

Many in the crowd joined in the singing, an increasing number chanting the socialist anthem whilst marching towards the rising sun.


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The drawing is Civil War by George Grosz