June 16, 1920.
Vienna.
This ancient European city had lost its former prosperity.
The streets were bleak and desolate. Shops that had once bustled with noise now stood cold and lonely. Pedestrians wore masks and hurried past, afraid to exchange more than a few words.
Vienna's military police force was also visibly larger than usual, tasked with keeping the city running. Beyond epidemic prevention, they bore responsibility for suppressing any small-scale riots that might erupt within the city and monitoring outsiders.
From time to time, houses sealed with white notices could be seen, signaling the hidden danger within. Anyone who approached would be driven away by uniformed patrolmen.
The vast majority of these houses served as quarantine zones for severely infected patients and were therefore under close watch.
For the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an old and traditional European great power, the years since 1914 had ushered in another era of calamities.
That was evident from Vienna as it stood today. Since the World War began, Vienna had lived in an atmosphere where every rustle of wind and cry of a crane set people on edge. It had only just endured until the war ended, only to be met by the great outbreak of the 1920 European flu.
The plague's impact on Vienna had even surpassed that of the war. Even during wartime, Vienna had remained in the rear, its nights still glittering with red lights and revelry, drunk on luxury and decadence. But the plague knew no spatial boundaries. Most regions of the empire had been affected, and densely populated places like Vienna had become breeding grounds for the epidemic.
Crown Prince Rudolf sat in the car, frowning deeply as he watched through the window the disaster sweeping across the empire.
"How bad is the situation in Vienna now?" Rudolf asked.