Reincarnated: Vive La France
Chapter 97: Somewhere east of them, invisible in the night, an army had taken to the sky.

Chapter 97: Somewhere east of them, invisible in the night, an army had taken to the sky.

March 11, 1935.

Reims, France

The sky over the training grounds was unusually clear that morning.

Inside the command tent.

A dispatch from Paris sat unfolded on the desk between Moreau and de Gaulle.

Not a newspaper this time a Ministry communique.

Plain type, top-marked in red.

"Germany announces the official creation of the Luftwaffe under Reich Minister Hermann Göring. Details read over German state radio, 07:30 Berlin time. International protests pending."

Chauvet stood by the open flap, listening, blinking.

"They just said it? Out loud?"

"They didn’t just say it," Moreau replied. "They celebrated it."

De Gaulle crossed his arms. "So much for Versailles."

"They’ve been training pilots in secret for years," Moreau said. "Now they don’t need to hide."

He tapped the paper.

"They’re ready to show teeth. And the world will flinch."

Chauvet muttered, "What the hell are we doing here with half-working tanks when they’re launching air forces?"

By midmorning, a follow-up message came in from the Defense Ministry.

Moreau read it aloud while Chauvet stirred a dented tin of coffee.

"Preliminary diplomatic protests registered by the French Foreign Office. No military response planned. Parliament to convene an emergency session tomorrow."

Chauvet shook his head. "So... we write a letter."

De Gaulle scowled. "They’ll treat it like a clerical error. Like Germany just forgot what the Treaty says."

Moreau laid the paper down. "They didn’t forget. They’re erasing it, line by line."

In Paris, the newspapers ran cautiously.

The government line was thin: restrained concern, calls for clarification.

Headlines like "Germany Tests Treaty Limits" and "Göring Announces New Air Doctrine" dotted the kiosks along Rue Royale.

But behind closed doors, the Ministry of War was less composed.

General Beauchamp paced the floor of his office, jacket unbuttoned, a copy of the German broadcast transcript in one hand.

"He said it was a matter of ’national rebirth,’" he muttered. "He said the Luftwaffe would be ’the sword and shield of a rising people.’"

Moreau, summoned that evening to join a private strategy session, listened without interruption.

Beauchamp stopped pacing and looked at him.

"You’ve said before Germany was preparing for this."

"Yes, sir," Moreau answered.

"And now?"

"They’re not preparing anymore. They’re executing."

De Gaulle, seated nearby, added, "The timing isn’t random. First the Saar, now this. They’re testing response time ours, Britain’s. They want to know if there’s a line."

"There isn’t," Beauchamp said bitterly. "There hasn’t been since 1929."

In London, Winston Churchill stood once more in the House of Commons.

The morning session had been routine trade tariffs, naval appropriations but when the speaker opened the floor, Churchill rose and began.

"I speak not in alarm, but in obligation," he said. "Yesterday, the German Reich announced the creation of an air force. Not a rumor. Not a clandestine rumor passed in shadow but a public proclamation. And not from the mouth of a general, but from a Reich Minister."

He held up a single sheet of paper the London Times’ printed transcript of Göring’s speech.

"They say they will dominate the skies. That their enemies shall look up and fear. This, gentlemen, is not a defensive policy. This is a declaration. And we would be fools to treat it as anything less."

A few murmurs stirred, but most MPs remained seated, unmoved.

From the Treasury bench, Neville Chamberlain leaned over to whisper something to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

The Prime Minister gave a thin smile and shook his head.

Later that evening, the BBC would summarize Baldwin’s remarks with a single line: "This government believes in the peaceful resolution of European questions and urges the avoidance of hasty conclusions."

Churchill heard the phrase quoted in the lobby and shook his head.

"Hasty?" he muttered to himself. "They’re not being hasty in Berlin. They’re being prepared."

That night, the signal team replayed a captured recording of Göring’s speech, intercepted and translated from a Berlin civilian relay.

The voice was gravel and steel.

The words, sharp and theatrical:

"The German airman will be the spearhead of the Reich. We shall not only defend the skies we shall dominate them. No longer will German men be grounded while foreign engines fly overhead. Our enemies shall look up and fear."

No one spoke afterward.

They didn’t need to.

Moreau walked out of the tent and stood under the stars.

They were building tanks.

Germany was building altitude.

And in war, height mattered.

The next day, whispers ran through the camp like a cold current.

"Did you hear about the Luftwaffe?"

"Is it real? They’ve got planes now?"

"Are we even allowed to have those?"

The officers didn’t have answers.

Even Chauvet, normally the most grounded, looked uneasy during briefings.

Moreau had expected doubt, but what surprised him was something else: a growing sense of awe.

Germany wasn’t just ignoring Versailles.

It was outperforming it.

De Gaulle found Moreau seated by a crate outside the officers’ tent, watching the smoke from his cigarette drift skyward.

"We can’t keep pretending this isn’t happening," de Gaulle said.

"We’re not pretending. They are."

Moreau flicked the ash to the dirt. "They think if they delay, if they wait long enough, the danger will pass."

"And you think it won’t?"

"I think," Moreau said, "that the next war will be decided before the first shot is fired. Germany knows it. We don’t."

De Gaulle sat beside him.

"You know they’ll fight us if we push for air support."

"I’m not asking yet," Moreau said. "But when the sky falls, I want someone ready to catch it."

Next morning Moreau joined de Gaulle back in the tent.

They sat opposite each other over maps and tactical notes, the oil lamp flickering weakly.

"The question now is whether we push for liaison with the Air Ministry," de Gaulle said.

"They’ll laugh at us," Moreau muttered. "Especially with what we’ve built trucks held together with wire and paint."

De Gaulle leaned forward. "We’re not asking for bombers. Just radios. Coordination. Maybe even observation flights."

"They’ll say that’s for the Air Force to decide."

"And if the Air Force keeps its distance?"

"Then we close it ourselves. With signals. With couriers. Whatever it takes."

De Gaulle gave a short nod. "It’s coming fast now. The air is theirs. For now."

They sat in silence.

And somewhere east of them, invisible in the night, an army had taken to the sky.

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