Berlin, Prussia
Winter 1855
Berlin no longer resembled the cautious capital it once was.
The city had changed too quickly for that.
Factories stretched farther beyond the old districts every year while rail terminals expanded almost nonstop beneath clouds of steam and coal smoke. Entire neighborhoods near the industrial corridors remained awake through the night as locomotives rolled endlessly across Prussian rail networks carrying steel, machinery, coal, and military supplies between growing industrial centers.
The capital felt alive now.
Not elegant like Vienna.
Not refined like Paris.
Berlin felt purposeful.
Every railway being laid.
Every factory being expanded.
Every steel mill being constructed.
Everything felt connected to something larger.
And increasingly, the men governing Prussia understood exactly what that larger future might become.
