Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 120: "If you so much as try to form a personal army, I’ll shut it down in a week.”

Chapter 120: "If you so much as try to form a personal army, I’ll shut it down in a week.”

The briefing chamber hadn’t changed since the last war.

But the world had changed.

And now, one man stood alone in the center of that room to remind them.

Major Étienne Moreau.

He wasn’t unknown here.

Every man seated at that long table had seen his name before or interacted with him once or twice.

In memos.

In critiques.

In complaints.

In field reports full of phrases like "obsolete doctrine," "mechanized blindspot," and "German tempo outpacing French reaction time."

Or maybe the most rememberd moment when he gave speech to stop the republic from crumbling.

Moreau wasn’t just familiar.

He was famous and not always in a way they liked.

General Maurice Gamelin, cold and composed, sat at the center of the table, arms folded.

To his left was Beauchamp, slightly more relaxed, though his expression gave little away.

Jean Fabry, the Minister of War, had a pen in hand but wasn’t writing.

Flandin, Prime Minister, was at the far end, hands together, expression unreadable.

Others from the General Staff lingered behind silent, observant, nervous.

Moreau walked the length of the room in silence.

Then he stopped beside the table and held up a copy of Le Figaro.

"You’ve all read it," he said flatly.

No one spoke.

He set it down.

"You don’t need to like what I wrote," he said, "but you know why I wrote it."

Fabry lifted his head. "You embarrassed the army."

"No," Moreau said. "I embarrassed the silence."

Gamelin’s voice came.

"You broke the chain of command."

"For the hundredth time," Beauchamp murmured.

"Because the chain is rusted," Moreau said without apology. "I’ve filed the reports. I’ve made the cases. I’ve presented numbers, forecasts, diagrams. And every time, the answer was the same, wait."

He looked each man in the eye.

"Well, Berlin didn’t wait. London didn’t wait. They signed away the Treaty of Versailles while we debated whether to update our training manuals."

Flandin tapped a finger on the table. "You’ve said that in your article. You’ve said that in your reports. What haven’t you said, Major?"

"What I want," Moreau replied.

A pause. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

Then Gamelin gestured. "Say it."

"I want three things," Moreau said. "And if I don’t get them, I walk and you’ll all wish I’d stayed."

The room tensed, but no one stopped him.

"First," he continued, placing a leather folder on the table. "Funding. Public. Immediate. No more shadows. No more scraping together parts from workshops that build tractors and ambulances. PAP is real. It works. You’ve all read the test reports, even if you denied the program on paper."

He opened the folder.

Diagrams.

Training evaluations.

A chart showing casualty differentials between PAP-equipped drills and standard infantry.

"You think I’m reckless," he said. "Fine. I am. But this reckless experiment lets our men win without dying in trenches that shouldn’t exist anymore."

"You ran an unauthorized weapons program," Fabry said.

"I ran a contingency when you ran out of vision," Moreau snapped.

He gambled everything without putting out names of General Beauchamp.

Gamelin remained still. "You’re making demands."

"I’m offering survival."

Flandin leaned in slightly. "Second demand?"

"Authority," Moreau said. "Give me more battalion. Experimental. Fully mechanized. I pick the officers, I write the doctrine. I test it in real terrain, real speed, real scenarios."

"And if it fails?" Gamelin asked.

"Then you bury the name and tell the press I was a rogue. That I overreached. You’ll lose nothing but one voice. But if I succeed France gets a future."

Beauchamp tapped a pen on the table. "And what about the regular army? You think they’ll follow a ’mechanized cult leader’ with a press presence?"

Moreau didn’t flinch. "They’ll follow results. The Germans are already building theirs. We’re the ones still drilling bayonets."

Fabry leaned forward, finally speaking without sarcasm. "You’re not wrong. But the political cost..."

"....is lower than defeat," Moreau cut in.

Flandin sat back in his chair. "And the third?"

Moreau looked to Beauchamp directly.

"I want cover. Support. Someone to keep the politics off my back while I work. I’m not asking for a parade. I’m asking for six months to prove we can think faster than we did in 1914."

"And if you’re wrong?" Fabry asked.

Moreau exhaled through his nose. "Then you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I was just another loud man with ideas."

"You’ve made enemies," Gamelin said. "You made them even before the article. Procurement officials. Doctrine committees. Colonels you outperformed."

Moreau nodded. "Yes. I’ve made enemies. Because I make people uncomfortable."

Beauchamp chuckled quietly. "That’s the first honest thing anyone’s said all week."

"But that discomfort," Moreau continued, "is still less dangerous than what’s coming. Britain just folded. Germany is arming without fear. We’re staring at a decade of war while pretending diplomacy will hold the gates."

Gamelin steepled his fingers. "You’ve always pushed tanks. Now you’re pushing panic."

"I’m pushing urgency," Moreau said. "Tanks are just the first step. Speed. Integration. Radios. Coordination. Germany’s not building for occupation they’re building for lightning."

Flandin turned to Fabry. "And you?"

Fabry didn’t speak immediately. Then, with a sigh: "He’s right. I’ve been watching Berlin too. The naval deal... it wasn’t just betrayal. It was the final nail. They’ll come through Belgium or the Ardennes. And we won’t be ready."

He looked at Moreau. "But I’m not promising you a free hand."

"I don’t want a free hand," Moreau said. "Just one that’s not tied behind my back."

Gamelin spoke again. "Your battalions will be watched. Evaluated. If you so much as try to form a personal army, I’ll shut it down in a week."

"Agreed," Moreau said.

Beauchamp raised a hand.

"He gets his six months," he said. "Let him build something. And if the rest of us see results, then we scale."

Flandin gave a single nod. "Done. Quiet funding. No press. No records. You’ll answer to Beauchamp."

Moreau stood.

"I don’t need records. Just results."

As he walked toward the door, Fabry called out, "This will make you even more unpopular."

Moreau stopped in the doorway.

"I didn’t come here to make friends," he said. "I came to help the army survive what’s coming."

Beauchamp caught up with him in the hallway.

"You pulled it off."

"I gambled."

"You always gamble."

"I’m still here."

Beauchamp smirked. "Half the staff officers want your head. The other half want your notes."

"They can get in line."

Beauchamp looked at him. "You’re not wrong, you know. Just insufferable."

Moreau smiled faintly. "I’ve been called worse."