Re: Blood and Iron-Chapter 445: The Pagentry of Peace

The Olympic Games and Germany's domination within them had an equally resounding effect across the world, as their overwhelming victory during the Great War had been two years prior.

Germany was no longer just a highly militarized industrial state… No, it was an empire who reigned supreme and sovereign during times of war and peace alike. And those athletes who gained their medals, regardless of what tint they were made of? They were paraded as national heroes.

If soldiers and generals like Bruno were heralded as the men who defended the fatherland from the barbarians at the gates, then these athletes were lauded with the prestige and affection reserved for those cultural guardians.

Radio interviews, newspaper advertisements, propaganda leaflets distributed across the city, the men and women who had brought home the gold, the silver, and the bronze for nearly every competition were plastered everywhere.

Profit was to be made off of their prowess, and make no mistake these athletes were buying into it, within legal grounds of course. Nevertheless, the most talked about athletes were Germany's boxers, kickboxers, and wrestlers. Sure, the fencer, archers, and marksman had their highlight as well above the other non-combat related sports.

But few could forget the way Germany's sons had battered and bruised the competition with not just sheer brutality and resilience, but elegance and precision. These were men who stood in front of their opponents and remained completely unable to be hit, while throwing their own weapons right back in a way that was damn near imperceptible to the men they were fighting.

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It was a testament of evolution, not only of the body and mind of these fighters, but of their style and technique. In 1918, boxing, and wrestling were crude, inefficient, brawlers throwing bare gloves hands at each other seeing who was left standing at the end.

But Germany's combat sports program? That was Bruno's brainchild—and the modern world hadn't seen anything like it. The sport had metamorphosed from its initial barbaric form which resembled Lethwei when Bruno introduced it in the 1900s, to a fully modern K-1 style rule set, which required athletes to wear protection in the forms of properly sized and rated gloves, mouth guards, and cups.

Kickboxing was heavily highlighted in the press, the modern version of the sport, the one integrated into the 1918 Olympics was an invention of Germany, and its fighters were a particularly fearsome archetype of the infamous Dutch Style from Bruno's past life.

Lining up powerful low kicks and body kicks with their hands, while always searching for an aggressive knockout with their upper body. It had devastated the competition, of which only those fighters from Thailand really had an answer, and even then the traditional Thai rules were restricted by the lack of elbows and heavy clinch fighting that the Olympic Committee had prohibited.

Currently, the gold medalists of the different Kickboxing Weight classes were posing for photos with powerful figures from the German Reich. The three primary of which were Wilhelm, Bruno, and Franz Joseph. Each of which were dressed in civilian attire, but with their greatest medals earned pinned to their chests.

Despite having created a new order of chivalry for the Grand Principality of Tyrol, and its most deserved citizens. Bruno did not award himself with the Order of the Tyrolean Lion. It was an order whose identity was based upon the new moniker he had been granted by friends and rivals alike after he was granted dominion over Tyrol.