The Angel Strikes: Volume 1 of the Brandt Family Chronicles

An Overview of The Brandt Family ChroniclesIn The Angel Strikes, (Vol 1) patriarch Paul Brandt becomes an unlikely 12-year old hero. As the years pass we witness triumph, betrayal, jealousy and rage. We marvel at the courageous actions of his descendants, through two centuries of adventures that bring us to the modern age. The Chronicles start with Paul’s life and his stunning action as a boy at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (1806), when Prussia is defeated. This is where the legend of Paul Brandt as ＂the Angel of Jena＂ is born. (Vol 1). The choice before him is stark, to win or die. He must overcome the obstacles lurking at every twist and turn on his path. He must exploit opportunities and take chances if he is to prosper. Driven by a maniacal desire, Bonaparte continues his rampage and invades Russia. Paul Brandt, as a young man, knows the ’the game has changed.’ He has met Clausewitz, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and others who have planned Napoleon’s downfall in the winter wastes, but Paul will be exposed to dangers there. (Vol 2).With half a million dead, Bonaparte raises a new army to crush any independent spirit in Berlin or Moscow. But he has enemies now and they are ready. Paul must escape the spider’s web of English intrigue and righteous revenge before he can rejoin the Prussian force to cross the Elbe and push the French out of Leipzig. He has his heroic role to play again. The Angel of Jena is still a potent symbol for Prussian soldiers. (Vol 3).Bonaparte is defeated and the Tsar reaches Paris before Wellesley and his force from Spain, but Castlereagh cannot achieve a treaty that will survive. While Paul is in the United States the English let Bonaparte slip to do what they know he will do - raise another army from the depleted ranks of French youth. The Battle of Waterloo is a set piece in Count Radetsky’s Trachtenberg plan. Wellington and Gneisenau tempt Bonaparte to believe that he cannot lose, but he must commit his last reserves to win. When Napoleon is fully committed, Prussian troops penetrate his unsuspecting flank to destroy Bonaparte forever. (Vol 4).You may think that was the end of it, but Bonaparte’s Code lurks inside a vengeful French government that pines for lost glory. Fifty years later the ailing Napoleon III, Bonaparte’s nephew, is faced with a collapsing economy and in 1869, is tempted to attack his neighbours, just like his forebear. There is always an excuse and the Franco-Prussian war follows. Here you will meet Dr. Otto Brandt, Paul’s grandson, as he travels between Spain, Paris and Berlin and becomes involved in America’s humanitarian struggle, led by American Minister Elihu Washburne, to save twenty thousand German speakers trapped in Paris. (Vol 5). Otto must save his sister, under sentence of death by guillotine, if he can. He must rescue a beautiful American spy, if she will let him, and he is called to save civilian lives in the slaughterhouse that Paris will become as the Communes fight it out against the Army of Versailles. (Vol 6).In Volume 7 (due 2017), you will meet aircraft ferry pilot Valentine Brandt and witness his involvement in the last days of the Siege of Stalingrad and the opening stages of the Cold War. You will struggle to refit exhausted aero engines dripping aviation spirit all over you as you play your part in the Berlin Airlift. As the political landscape changes for the better you will find connections and links you never suspected but that shaped your life up to now. You will see what schemes and stratagems were stealthily moved forward while no one watched. You will realize the evil power of vested interests while, all the time, the world was focused on an increasingly aggressive Soviet Union’s worldwide ambitions. (Vol 8 et seq.). The Chronicles will eventually push into the future and the time of ’The Collapse of the Blocks’ as Patrick Brandt joins an idealistic effort to restore meaningful democracy to Europe.