The conversation between Wilhelm II, Tirpitz, and Oskar had done more than redraw naval budgets and sketch out future battleships.
It had set the palace buzzing.
Word travelled in palaces the way damp crept through old stone—quietly, everywhere. Valets whispered to footmen, maids chattered in laundry rooms, adjutants gossiped with clerks over late-night coffee.
Everyone knew one thing:
Last night, His Majesty had shut himself in with Field Marshal von Tirpitz and the Fifth Prince…
and kept Oskar in the room to the very end.
Normally, only the Crown Prince ever stayed for those kinds of discussions.
So now, in corners and corridors, eyes widened and voices dropped.
"Did you hear? The Fifth Prince was in the War Council room himself, with Tirpitz."
"They say they talked for hours."
"Perhaps His Majesty is thinking of… changes?"
"No—surely not… but… well… one never knows…"
No one dared say it outright, but the speculation was there, whisper-thin:
If the Kaiser wished, he could change the line of succession.
He was the Kaiser.
Anything was possible if he wanted it badly enough.
---
Crown Prince Wilhelm, naturally, had not gone deaf simply because he had moved out of the Neues Palais.
If anything, his ears in the palace had gotten sharper.
He now lived at Cecilienhof with his pregnant wife, surrounded by his own staff and routines. Officially, he had moved to establish his own household. Unofficially, the truth was more petty:
He simply could not stand to watch Oskar sit at the same table with two maids and three babies every evening, as if those maids and those children belonged there, as if they were equal to real royalty.
At least Cecilie was now pregnant. The family and newspapers could stop harassing him about heirs and hinting he should "learn from your brother Oskar". He did his husbandly duty when needed, but he did not love her, and he resented the comparison.
When the first reports reached him that Oskar had been present at a late-night meeting with Father and Tirpitz, his temper snapped.
"I am the Crown Prince of the German Empire!" he roared in his study, fists slamming the desk. "And yet they shut me out and chat with that… that circus giant of a brother? About the navy?!"
A servant, pale and nervous, chose that moment to knock and enter.
"Your Highness," he said carefully, "I bring further news. This morning His Majesty, Prince Oskar and Field Marshal von Tirpitz have gone together to the Naval Academy in Kiel. It seems they are… finalising certain plans. I do not know the details."
"Hmph." The Crown Prince's lip curled.
He didn't need details. He could guess.
The British had launched Dreadnought. The German Navy had been caught flat-footed. The Naval Technical Committee had been humiliated when it turned out the design they had rejected from a teenage prince looked suspiciously like the future.
And now Father had gone to Kiel with Oskar and Tirpitz to "fix" things. Without him.
A hot flush of humiliation burned under his skin.
"So," he growled, "they mean to play at grand strategy behind my back, do they? My little brother and that beard of an admiral… Very well."
He snatched up his cap and stormed out, servants scrambling out of his way like leaves before a gust.
The Crown Prince was going back to Potsdam.
---
That morning, after business at the Naval Academy was wrapped up—after preliminary approvals and promising nods and more talk of "Nassau" and "super‑Dreadnoughts"—the Kaiser and Oskar rode back toward Berlin in a comfortable open car, with Tirpitz opposite them.
Wilhelm II was in high spirits.
Oskar, half listening to his father and Tirpitz argue cheerfully about dock enlargements and gun foundries, found his gaze drifting out to the roadside.
The roads themselves were changing.
They had once been narrow, muddy arteries half‑clogged with carts and manure, lined only with the occasional scraggly tree or leaning fence.
Now, little by little, they were becoming something else.
On either side of the route into Berlin, graded earthworks had begun to appear. Some stretches were already widened, shaped into two broad strips with a raised central band. On that middle ridge young linden and maple saplings stood in neat rows, each tied to a stake, their roots wrapped in fresh mulch. Further out, on the very edges of the road reserve, workmen from Greenway were putting in mixed hedges: hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, elder, dog rose.
Every few dozen metres a fruit tree broke the line—apple or cherry in the countryside, tougher plane trees as they approached the city.
From above it must have looked like someone was drawing two green lines across the landscape with a ruler.
Green veins for a future of trucks and cars.
Not yet asphalt—Germany did not have bitumen everywhere, and motorcars were still toys for the rich—but the foundations were there.
"Greener and wider," Oskar muttered under his breath, watching a crew tamp earth around a young tree. "Good… very good…"
He had insisted on it from the start:
Wider roads that could one day carry motor traffic in both directions.
A central "green wall" of trees to drink soot, calm the wind, and give shade.
Outer hedges to hold the soil, shelter birds, and, where it was safe, carry fruit and nuts.
Space enough that when the time came, asphalt and concrete could be laid down the middle without tearing whole streets apart.
He'd even had Greenway draw up planting rules:
On busy trunk roads the central strip would be mostly linden, plane and maple—tough, long‑lived shade and bee trees whose leaves could catch coal dust and, one day, exhaust.
In quieter stretches and village approaches, the outer hedges would be studded with apple, pear, plum and cherry, with raspberries, currants and gooseberries woven underneath, the sort of "edible fence" his agronomists swore would keep children healthy and bee‑keepers happy for generations.
And wherever possible, the mix included hazel for nuts, elder and dog rose for syrup and rose‑hip tea, and clover and wildflower strips under the trees so that bees would have a continuous corridor from one end of the province to the other.
"Even if the fruit beside the big roads is too dusty to eat fresh one day," he had told the Greenway men, "we can still use it for alcohol, vinegar, animal feed, compost. Nothing is wasted. The trees pay rent in shade and wood if nothing else."
The Kaiser followed his son's gaze now, then looked at him with a small, surprisingly soft smile.
"All this… was your idea," Wilhelm II said. "Sometimes I do not understand half the things you say, Oskar, but the people seem to like breathing. And the trees look handsome."
Oskar laughed.
"Yes, Father. If Germans can work eight hours and walk home under green trees instead of black smoke, they might even forgive us for the taxes."
For the first time, he had started pushing his own factories—and any enterprise he controlled—toward an eight‑hour shift system: morning, day, night.
Not yet law. But where the Oskar Industrial Group went, others often followed:
Pump World gyms open almost round‑the‑clock.
Angelworks shops and mills running in three shifts.
Albrecht Safety Works fitting more and more mines and plants with belts, helmets and masks.
Greenway buying tired farmland and planting demonstration belts of these roadside hedges, showing local councils how the mix of trees could cut dust, shelter fields, feed bees, and put extra fruit and nuts into village markets.
Better schedules, better pay, less death.
Cleaner air, more shade, and one day whole avenues of blossom along the roads.
Paid, ironically, by money pouring in from abroad.
Tirpitz, sitting opposite, watched the Kaiser and his giant son talk like that—easy, almost affectionate—and rubbed his beard thoughtfully.
There was no denying it anymore.
Oskar was not just a lucky prince.
He was… something else.
Smarter than the Crown Prince. More creative. More disciplined. Less petty. Loved by the people.
In another world, Tirpitz thought, this boy would be a natural heir.
Serving under a Kaiser like Oskar…
It sent a strange, proud shiver down his spine.
But in this world, succession was fixed. Wilhelm, the eldest, was Crown Prince. On paper he had done nothing criminal, nothing outrageous. No minister was going to march in and say, "Replace him with the fifth son." The idea had to remain a private fantasy.
Tirpitz sighed inwardly.
The car rolled on, between young trees and raw hedges that would, in a few years, become a living corridor of blossom and shade.
Germany was changing. And the road they were riding on—literally—would be part of it. And if nothing else, he thought, let me at least anchor this boy to the Navy while I still live.
As if summoned by that thought, Oskar turned toward him.
"Oh, and by the way, Marshal," Oskar said, "while we talk about oil-fired boilers and turbines… there is one big problem we still haven't solved."
Tirpitz raised an eyebrow.
"Only one?"
Oskar grinned.
"Fuel."
He grew serious again.
"Germany has coal. Coal we have like mud. But oil? Almost nothing. In peacetime, we can import from America, maybe Russia, maybe the Near East if we are clever. But in war… the British will try to close every sea route. Russia will be our enemy. What happens when our bunkers run dry?"
Tirpitz exhaled slowly.
"Yes," he admitted. "That is the shadow hanging over all these turbine plans. Without fuel, even the finest battleship is just a floating fort. We can stockpile… but we cannot stockpile forever. We can only hope to fight quickly before the tanks are empty."
Oskar shook his head.
"Hope is not a plan, Marshal. We need another path."
"And you have one?" Wilhelm II asked, amused. "Of course you have one."
"I do," Oskar said. "Synthetic fuel."
Both men looked at him.
He leaned forward, hands moving as he talked.
"In simple terms—take coal, plant waste, anything with carbon and hydrogen. Process it in special chemical plants. Break it apart, rebuild it. Turn it into oil, and then into fuel. Not as cheap or as easy as pumping it out of the ground—but if we invest early, it will be enough that, in wartime, our ships, trucks and engines never stop for lack of fuel."
Tirpitz stared.
"You can truly make oil… out of coal?"
"Not tomorrow," Oskar admitted. "It takes research. Big chemistry. New factories. But Father—" he turned to the Kaiser "—my Greenway farms are already working to make Germany self-sufficient in food by 1914. Once our bellies are secure, we can afford to feed some grain and plant waste into fuel plants instead of mouths. Food first, fuel second. But both in German hands."
Wilhelm II threw his head back and laughed, delighted.
"That's my boy!" he said, ruffling Oskar's hair like he had when he was still the "forgotten" fifth son. "While the rest of us worry about this year's coal, you are already making oil out of cabbages and coal dust. Is there anything you haven't thought three steps ahead about?"
"Well…" Oskar scratched his jaw. "The army still needs better training. Smaller units. Automatic weapons. Helmets that aren't just fancy decorations. And for the sake of money and getting rid of silk imports, I'm thinking of a new kind of artificial thread."
He brightened, the mad scientist look flashing in his eyes.
"Imagine this: stockings that don't tear if you look at them wrong. Not silk. Something made from chemistry. Strong, smooth, cheap. Call it… nylon, maybe. I haven't settled on the name. But I promise you this, Father: when my women wear it, they'll make half of Europe faint."
For a heartbeat the car went completely silent.
Even the driver's ears nearly fell off as he tried very hard not to imagine royal legs in miracle stockings.
The Kaiser closed his eyes briefly.
"God help me," he muttered. "First you want to change naval warfare, then urban planning, then chemistry, and now women's stockings. Are you trying to rebuild the entire world in twenty years?"
"Yes," Oskar said cheerfully.
Tirpitz only shook his head and laughed.
By the time the car rolled through Potsdam and into the palace grounds, the Kaiser looked both exhausted and oddly energised—like a man who had just read ten different blueprints for ten different centuries.
He excused himself to his own quarters with a pat on Oskar's back.
"Rest a little," Wilhelm said. "Even you cannot fix Germany on four hours of sleep."
"I'll try, Father," Oskar replied, though his brain was already spinning toward the next topic.
Tirpitz lingered.
"Your Highness," Oskar said as they stepped out into the palace gardens instead of going indoors, "about that 'modern training' we mentioned in the car…"
They walked under bare branches, boots crunching on frozen gravel.
Oskar began outlining what, to him, was basic infantry sense and to Tirpitz sounded mildly heretical:
smaller units built around squads instead of clumsy blocks,
automatic weapons at the lowest level,
grenades as standard tools,
short, fast movements instead of long parade-ground lines,
officers trained to think independently, not freeze waiting for orders.
"Right now," Oskar said, "the smallest unit in many formations is something like two hundred men. That's a herd, not a unit. In the next war, the enemy will have machine guns, barbed wire, heavy artillery. You can't shove two hundred men at that and hope they walk through. We need small teams that can move, hide, hit hard, and pull back."
"Automatic weapons…" Tirpitz murmured. "Grenades. Assault groups. You're speaking of land war, but… this would change how marines fight too. Boarding, landings…"
They were so absorbed in imagining future fire-teams and trench raids that neither saw the storm marching toward them until it was almost upon them.
"Oskar!"
The shout cracked across the garden like a rifle shot.
Both men turned.
Crown Prince Wilhelm was striding down the path toward them, face flushed, eyes blazing. His greatcoat flared around his boots like a cloak. Behind him, two nervous aides struggled to keep up.
"Your Highness the Crown Prince," Tirpitz said at once, straightening. Oskar did the same.
"Brother," Oskar added, frowning slightly. "What's wrong?"
"Hmph!" The Crown Prince halted a few steps away, glaring at them both. "Do you even remember that I am the Crown Prince, Oskar? Or have you forgotten entirely what respect is owed to me?"
Oskar blinked.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. "I haven't—"
Tirpitz also frowned. "Your Highness, there must be some misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding?" Crown Prince Wilhelm's voice rose, harsh and sharp. "The two of you hold secret councils with my father about the future of the fleet, you spend all night together speaking of dreadnoughts and God knows what else, and now you stroll through the garden plotting like old comrades. And I am not even informed?"
He jabbed a finger at Tirpitz.
"Tell me, Marshal—are you starting to choose sides? Has the Navy already decided it prefers my little brother to me? Have you forgotten that I am the future Emperor of the German Empire?"
There it was.
Open paranoia, naked resentment.
Tirpitz's expression cooled several degrees.
"Your Highness," the old admiral said, voice suddenly clipped and formal, "the Navy does not 'take sides' in the succession. That is a red line we do not cross. His Majesty summoned me. His Majesty invited Prince Oskar to attend. I serve the Emperor and the Empire—not factions."
To suggest otherwise was not just offensive.
It was dangerous.
The Crown Prince's eyes flashed.
"Then why," he shot back, "do I hear of last night's talks from servants instead of from my own father? Why is my idiot brother allowed to meddle in naval construction while I am left to read cheap newspapers to find out what my own Empire is doing?"
On that last sentence, he looked straight at Oskar.
Fury. Jealousy. Embarrassment.
Oskar felt the weight of it, and for a moment his first instinct was to crack a joke, to defuse, to say "my man, calm down" and grin.
But this wasn't a maid in a corridor or a worker in a Pump World gym.
This was the Crown Prince.
His older brother.
And whatever else he was, Oskar did not actually want a civil war in the Hohenzollern family.
So he took a slow breath and met Wilhelm's glare with steady eyes.
"Big brother," he said, "I did not invite myself to that meeting. Father asked me to stay. I obeyed. That is all. If anyone has slighted you, it isn't me."
There was a flicker—just a flicker—of uncertainty in the Crown Prince's gaze.
But the hurt was deeper than logic.
He clenched his jaw, shoulders tight.
Somewhere beneath all the anger lurked a simpler wound:
For the first time in his life, he had watched Father treat another son as… useful. As a partner.
And he could not bear it.
The garden wind whistled quietly between the bare branches. Tirpitz watched both princes, feeling the air grow brittle around them.
This, he thought grimly, was the other front Oskar would have to survive.
Not just Britain. Not just France. Not just Russia.
But the pride of his own brother.
And for all the talk of dreadnoughts and oil and nylon, that might be the most dangerous battle of all.
Crown Prince Wilhelm's brows knit deeper as both Oskar and Tirpitz calmly denied any talk of "sides."
For him, it didn't matter what they said.
He had been watching this for months.
First Father had allowed Oskar to skip the Naval Academy entirely – a scandal in itself. Then he'd allowed him to "play merchant" like some vulgar bourgeois, instead of forcing him into proper royal duties.
Oskar did whatever he wanted.
Women. Factories. Books. Lotteries. Half the time he wasn't even dressed like a proper prince; he was out in public bare‑armed, lifting women and children like circus props. And Father not only tolerated it – he smiled at it.
Wilhelm had swallowed all of that.
But now Father was holding late‑night war councils with Oskar and Tirpitz, and Wilhelm wasn't even invited.
Something in him snapped.
He stepped in close until his chest bumped hard against Oskar's ribs – because that was all he could reach – and with a sudden movement, he seized Oskar's collar in both fists and yanked.
"You dare act innocent with me, little brother?" he hissed.
On anyone else, it might have looked dangerous.
On Oskar – one meter ninety‑eight, shoulders like a siege wall – it looked vaguely ridiculous, like an irritated clerk trying to throttle a statue. The cloth tightened at his throat, but Oskar's boots didn't even shift in the gravel.
He only blinked down at Wilhelm with a puzzled, almost apologetic expression.
"Your Highness, please—" Tirpitz began.
"Silence!" Wilhelm snapped, eyes burning. "This is between me and my little brother."
The winter garden fell quiet. Bare branches creaked softly overhead. Somewhere in the distance a guard coughed and then went absolutely still.
Up close the contrast between them was almost comical.
Wilhelm: perhaps one‑eighty‑two in height, narrow‑shouldered, red‑eyed with anger.
Oskar: towering over him, solid as a fortress, looking down with that strange blend of politeness and gamer confusion that practically screamed: Bro… what are you doing?
"Big brother," Oskar said carefully, hands lifting in a surrendering gesture, "is there some misunderstanding? You know why I do what I do. And besides, if anything, the people have taken to my antics quite well, no?"
It was meant as peace.
To Wilhelm, it sounded like mockery.
"Don't play dumb with me, Oskar!" he spat, fingers bunching tighter in the fabric as if he could squeeze an admission out of it. "I know exactly what you're scheming. First you act like a complete imbecile, calling people 'my man' and other such garbage. Everyone protects you with that stupid story about falling down the stairs.
"But I saw what you were doing. After that fall you started dodging every royal duty. You hid in that room of yours, drawing mad plans in some Asian scribble and then in German no one could read properly. You ate like a draft horse, trained like a lunatic.
"From the very beginning you've been planning this. To get close to Father. To build these companies. To steal what is mine!"
He leaned closer, breath hot with rage.
"Father invites you to councils, lets you talk ships with Tirpitz, lets you babble about the navy as if you were his equal. What next? You sit beside him on the throne? You are planning to take what belongs to me, aren't you?"
For a brief second Oskar just stared.
Has he really been sneaking into my room? flashed through his head. Thank God he'd never left the really dangerous drawings lying around – things like modern stockings and swimwear designs definitely did not need royal inspection.
He decided, as always, to try peace first.
"…You, bro, chill out," he said instinctively, Chinese gamer brain slipping out through his mouth. "I'm not your enemy, I swear. What are you even talking about? You know I've only been trying to help Germany. Didn't you see the doodles of Germany as a little person handing out kisses and flowers of peace to the other countries? I left it out on my desk to make the maids laugh."
To his friends, it would have sounded friendly.
To Wilhelm, it sounded like unforgivable disrespect.
The Crown Prince's face went a deeper shade of crimson.
"Don't you dare 'bro' me," he grated, voice shaking. For a heartbeat his right hand twitched – the impulse to slap his younger brother flashing up from somewhere deep and ugly.
Then reality caught up with him.
He wasn't facing a scrawny cadet.
He was facing a man whose forearms were thicker than most men's thighs, a seventeen‑year‑old who looked like he did squats with artillery pieces for fun. Wilhelm could almost feel the pain in his own knuckles if he actually tried to hit him.
The hand dropped. Instead he spat onto the gravel between them like an angry schoolboy and attacked with words.
"Damn you, Oskar! Don't ever use such crude language with me. I am the Crown Prince, and you will address me as 'Your Highness' and nothing less!"
He jerked Oskar's collar once more and let go, stepping back as if he'd scored some tremendous victory.
"And don't imagine that a few factories and stupid books make you my equal," he snarled. "I have more friends, more eyes in this country than you realize. Do not try anything foolish.
"Continue your little shopkeeper games, make your comic books, play with your lotteries and your maids – I do not care. But do not get in my way. If I so much as hear of you scheming against me, you'll regret it.
"Let the whole Empire sing your praises – 'Oskar this, Oskar that, the people's prince, the genius prince' – in the end you are, and always will be, only my little brother."
His voice cracked on the last word.
"The throne of Germany is mine and mine alone!" he forced out, hoarse.
There was nothing subtle in it. It didn't sound like a calm warning from a confident heir.
It sounded like a man screaming at his own fear.
Tirpitz watched, jaw clenched, the lines around his mouth deepening. Inside, something in him recoiled.
In his eyes the contrast was brutal:
Oskar, who risked money, reputation, and time to strengthen the Empire – funding shipyards, designing battleships, pouring wealth into the navy, reforming laws.
The Crown Prince, who risked nothing and raged that his shadow no longer covered the whole sky.
If Wilhelm hadn't been heir to the throne, Tirpitz would have spoken his mind. As it was, he forced himself to silence and kept his back straight.
Inside Oskar, things were more complicated.
In his old world, a prince behaving like this would already have been quietly removed from succession – or from life. A weak, jealous heir was a walking disaster. But this was Imperial Germany, not some web novel. You didn't just uninstall a Crown Prince because he was infuriating. Succession wasn't a save file you could reload.
Mostly, though, Oskar just felt… tired.
He had never insulted Wilhelm in public. In private he had gone out of his way to be friendly: setting up a gym at Cecilienhof, praising his efforts when he saw him training, hoping that exercise, responsibility and time might shape him into a better man than history suggested.
Looking at him now, Oskar felt that hope crack.
Still, one last try.
"Your Highness," he said softly, deliberately formal now, "you misunderstand. You are my beloved older brother. The throne is yours by right of birth. I have never coveted it."
He spread his hands in a half‑helpless shrug.
"Truly, I have enough headaches with factories and crying babies. If anything, what I desire is to become the German version of John D. Rockefeller. That man has, what, four billion marks in wealth? Next to him I'm a little schoolgirl.
"If I can reach even a fraction of that, I can fund Germany's growth for decades. We would all benefit. You as Kaiser, me as your loyal industrial madman. That is all I want."
He meant it.
Wilhelm didn't, or couldn't, believe it.
He stared up at Oskar, breathing hard, searching for mockery in every word, every gesture.
"Hmph," he spat at last. "That had better be the truth. If I ever find out you've reached for what is mine…"
His gaze flicked up and down Oskar's frame, courage faltering again as he took in the sheer physical reality of his "little" brother.
"…then you will regret it," he finished lamely. "Even if you are my brother."
He turned on his heel and stalked away, coat swirling, two anxious aides scurrying after him like tugboats chasing a badly steering ship.
Silence dropped over the garden like snow.
Tirpitz let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding and stepped closer.
"Your Royal Highness," he asked quietly, "are you alright?"
Oskar smoothed his collar where Wilhelm had grabbed it, checked for damage, then gave a small shrug.
"Well, if it doesn't bleed then it's not getting killed," he said absently – a leftover front‑line joke that made no sense to anyone else.
He caught Tirpitz's baffled look and added with a faint smile, "As for my big brother… forgive the poor performance, Marshal. I'm sure he's merely trying to show his love in his own… big‑brotherly way."
The joke was mild, but Tirpitz's expression sharpened.
If there had been any doubt left in the old admiral's mind, it vanished now.
Oskar remained calm under insult, diffused humiliation with humour, thought first of the Empire and last of his own pride.
Crown Prince Wilhelm had just shown his teeth – and revealed how brittle they were.
Oskar, in contrast, had shown restraint, loyalty, and an almost frightening capacity for patience.
If history ever cracked open enough to allow a different heir…
Tirpitz knew, with sudden clarity, which name he would whisper if the Kaiser ever asked.
For now, that was treasonous even to think.
So he bowed slightly and said only:
"Your Highness, for what it is worth… the navy stands with Germany. And today, you have done more for Germany than most princes do in a lifetime."
Oskar waved it off, embarrassed.
"Come, Marshal," he said. "We still have work to do. Helmets to design, squads to modernise, and apparently a whole Empire to keep from blowing itself up."
They walked on together through the winter garden – one old admiral and one young giant – leaving behind trampled gravel, fading echoes of anger, and the first hairline fractures in the future of the German throne.
What happened in the palace garden did not stay in the palace garden.
By evening, every servant who had been within earshot had their own version of the story. The details changed with each retelling, but the core remained the same:
The Crown Prince had shouted. The Fifth Prince had stayed calm. And the two of them had nearly come to blows in front of a marshal of the navy.
One carefully cleaned‑up version of events, stripped of gossip and exaggeration, reached the only ears that truly mattered.
It was delivered in Wilhelm II's private study by Essen von Jonarett, the Kaiser's long‑time attendant and childhood friend. He spoke in a low, cautious tone: the Crown Prince's anger, the accusations about the navy "taking sides", the hand fisted in Oskar's collar, the very public loss of control.
When Essen finished, Wilhelm's face was so dark the lamplight seemed afraid to touch it.
The Crown Prince is too narrow‑minded. Too jealous of talent, Wilhelm thought bitterly. I have warned him again and again… and still he has not changed. Is this really the man who must one day lead the German Empire?
By contrast, the "useless" fifth son—once written off as a quiet, slightly odd boy—had stood there like a rock. Composed. Respectful. Even apologetic. He made money and poured it back into the Empire's strength. He endured insult without exploding. And he still delivered ship designs, factories, and laws that made workers and ministers cheer.
That, Wilhelm thought, is how an imperial prince should behave.
A dangerous thought rose, uninvited and unwelcome:
Perhaps Oskar is more suited to be Crown Prince than Wilhelm…
No one heard it.
But once such thoughts appear, they rarely vanish. They sink, settle, and wait.
Outside, rain began to streak the windows, turning the Kaiser's reflection into a wavering ghost in the glass.
"Essen," he said at last, voice slow with fatigue, "I do not understand how my son has become like this."
Essen was silent for a moment. He had known Wilhelm since they were boys; there were times to joke, and times to keep one's tongue behind one's teeth. This was the latter.
Wilhelm II went on, staring past his own reflection.
"I always believed he was my most promising son," he murmured. "Since childhood I prepared him for the throne. I praised him. I tolerated his sharp tongue when he mocked his brothers—told myself it was only youthful rivalry. But this…"
He shook his head, moustache bristling.
"This is different."
Essen chose his words with care.
"Your Majesty," he said softly, "His Highness the Crown Prince has always considered himself the sole focus of your hopes. Perhaps he cannot bear that someone else—especially a younger brother—now shines so brightly."
Wilhelm gave a humourless little laugh.
"Yes. That is his greatest flaw. He cannot bear rivals. Not even when the rival is his own blood."
He let out a breath through his nose.
"Oskar's performance has… surpassed all expectations," he admitted. "Once I thought him lost—a quiet boy trailing behind his brothers. Now he shows talent in commerce, in shipbuilding, in medicine, even in diplomacy. If he were my eldest son, I would name him Crown Prince without hesitation."
His jaw clenched.
"But he is not the eldest. And the laws of succession are not clay to be reshaped whenever it suits me. An emperor's heir must be secure in law, or the whole monarchy trembles."
"Of course, Your Majesty," Essen replied. "Even so… Prince Oskar is only seventeen, and already there is no other youth like him in the Empire."
Wilhelm's gaze went back to the rain.
"Yes," he murmured, almost to himself. "My Oskar is… unique."
The word carried pride and frustration in equal measure.
Then his eyes hardened.
"Essen," he said, turning back toward his old friend, "go to the Crown Prince. Tell him this behaviour will not be overlooked again. If he dares repeat such pettiness… even as Crown Prince, he will pay the price."
He lowered his voice.
"Deposing a Crown Prince is difficult," he said, "but not impossible."
Essen bowed, a flicker of relief and grim satisfaction in his chest. He had long wanted the Kaiser to see what many at court already whispered.
"Yes, Your Majesty. I will convey your words exactly."
---
Cecilienhof Palace was not quiet that evening.
The Crown Prince's private office looked as though a small artillery shell had gone off inside it. A vase lay in glittering shards across the carpet. Papers were scattered like snowdrifts. An inkwell had overturned, black streaks crawling across the desk and dripping onto the floor.
"Why?" Wilhelm shouted into the empty room, chest heaving. "Why is Father treating me like this?!"
His voice bounced off the high ceiling and came back to him as a smaller, meaner echo.
"I am his eldest son!" he raged. "The Crown Prince of the Empire! The future Kaiser! And yet for that stupid Oskar he sends Essen to scold me like a child?!"
He slammed his palm down on the desk.
"Bang!"
The inkwell bounced, rolled, and fell with a dull clack, leaving another ugly blot on the carpet.
"Oskar," he hissed, almost shaking, "you've truly enraged me this time. You think you can walk all over me with your factories and your damn hero stories? Once I inherit the throne…"
His thoughts snarled and tangled.
Once I inherit the throne, we will see how long they still sing your name, some dark voice in him whispered.
The door opened.
"Wilhelm? What's wrong?"
Crown Princess Cecilie stepped in, cheeks flushed from the cool corridor, one hand resting instinctively over her still‑flat belly. She was four months pregnant now, carrying his first child—the future of his line, the little life the newspapers already fantasised about.
Her eyes widened at the wreckage.
"Wilhelm," she asked softly, "what happened? Why are you so angry?"
He forced his face to smooth out, like a man dragging a cloth over a stain.
"It's nothing," he muttered. "Just… Father. And Oskar."
He paced once like a caged animal, then spun around, the words spilling out.
"Father is far too biased toward him. Today he actually sent Essen to warn me—me—over a small argument with that boy. As if I were the problem!"
Cecilie had seen the newspapers too. She had heard the way Berliners spoke about "their Oskar" with a warmth she had never heard when they mentioned her husband. She had also seen Wilhelm's expression whenever one of those papers landed on his desk.
She chose her response like a woman picking her way through broken glass.
"Wilhelm… no matter how remarkable Prince Oskar becomes, you are still the Crown Prince," she said gently. "The future of Germany still rests with you. You don't need to let him trouble your heart so much."
He clung to her words like a drowning man to driftwood.
"Yes," he said, trying to sound calm, to sound like the man he believed he should be. "Yes, you're right. I am the Crown Prince. Whatever he does, however the people praise him—he is only a prince. He will always stand below me."
Cecilie smiled and came to take his hand, relieved to see his shoulders loosen a little.
For a moment, some of the tightness faded from his face.
But deep inside, he knew it was a lie.
Because the more praise Oskar received,
the more factories he built,
the more laws he pushed through,
the more children he had,
the more the newspapers called him genius, saviour, miracle prince—
—the more something bitter twisted in Wilhelm's chest.
A small resentment, growing month by month.
A hard little knot of jealousy that no gentle words, no reassurance, seemed able to undo.
Left alone, such knots did not disappear.
They thickened. They hardened.
And one day, they could become a wall inside the Hohenzollern family that no one—not even a Kaiser—would easily climb over.