In fact, the men still in the barracks had all been carefully selected by Lieutenant General Molka. There were no die-hard loyalists or hardliners among them; most were simply fence-sitters.
As long as the benefits were great enough, they would do anything. Only men like these could ensure his plan went perfectly.
Lieutenant General Molka's ten thousand troops advanced toward the palace. To reach it as quickly as possible, he had long since sent the artillery and other heavy weapons to a warehouse not far from the palace.
To further improve his chances of success, he had also sent a messenger ahead to Hofburg Palace to inform the Imperial Guard that he was coming to help put down the rebellion.
But Lieutenant General Molka had covered only half the distance when he was forced to stop. The scene in the street, which looked like something from purgatory, made it impossible to go on.
The force that had just tried to storm the palace had been wiped out to the last man. Every single body had been finished off with a final blow; each had taken a bullet to the chest or face, or been run through with a bayonet.
The bodies were so densely packed that it was hard not to think of it as a massacre. Lieutenant General Molka should have been thrilled—he could use this to make his lies more convincing.
But all he felt was fear. As a soldier, he knew full well that his army could never have done something like this.
To inflict such heavy casualties in so little time... But he had no time to dwell on it. All Lieutenant General Molka could do now was take a gamble and hope that his trump card would let him through the palace gates.
Then a