Name: Ophelia Nikoletta von Hohenzollern

Age: 26 (born January 13th, 1900)

Spouse: His Serene Highness Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg (Emperor-consort and Großadmiral of the Kaiserliche Marine

Titles/Styles:

(in English)
(1900-1926) Her Royal Highness Princess Ophelia of Prussia
(1926-????) Her Imperial and Royal Majesty the German Empress, Queen of Prussia

(in Deutsch)
(1900-1926) Ihre Kaiserliche und Königliche Hoheit die deutsche Kronprinzessin, Kronprinzessin von Preußen
(1926-????) Ihre kaiserliche und königliche Majestät die deutsche Kaiserin, Königin von Preußen

Biography:

Born on a particularly cold winter day at the turn of the century, from the outset Ophelia's life was dominated by Imperial duty; her father being absorbed with managing the Great Eastern War (1897-1922) and her mother being relatively poor at parenting. Thusly the girl was left alone most of the time, learning proper etiquette and the things a lady should learn from her teachers. But she was never one for social normality, and was more interested in 'boyish' things like horseback riding, fencing, and military strategy.

Alongside her brother, the young Princess spent most of her childhood and teenage years shadowing her father, absorbing the plans and stratagem used against the French and Russian adversaries of the German Empire, and dueling their personalities for their fathers affection. Both were sent to the Eastern Front, Ophelia with more trepidation, but after she proved herself time and again in battles, and especially during the drawn out Battle of the Carpathians, even going so far as singlehandedly dueling and skewering the Tsarevich of the Russian Empire (whilst her brother was routed twice by more intelligent Russian generals). Upon their return and the end of the war, her father oft discussed in private circles the possibility of raising her as the singular heir of the German Empire and House Hohenzollern.

With the other Imperial Houses of Orange-Nassau and Hapsburg without heirs to the throne, this left the Prussian monarchy in a special case, where two ruling Emperors could be maintained back to back and carry on specific policies. And upon Wilhelm III's death in 1926, the stresses of the war years finally catching up with him, Ophelia rose to become the first female ruler of the German Empire as its Kaiserin.

Upon her ascension to the Imperial seat, Ophelia immediately embarked on a reconstruction campaign of the ravaged territories in the east, along with developing even closer economic and military ties with the nations of the German Mitteleuropan alliance system. Poland was gifted German colonial territory in the former French Guyana in exchange for raising three new armored divisions in its small territory and hosting several German army bases. Similar arrangements were made with other German satellite and union states.

Ophelia's continued activities in regards to military expansion angered the conservatives and moderate representatives in the Reichstag, who found her public antagonist campaign against Russia childish and inherently bad for the reputation of Germany. Disheartened by their disapproval, Ophelia dissolved the Reichstag for three months, in an unprecedented move in German history. During the recess she issued several Imperial decrees increasing centralized authority, including the federalization of the other Houses private colonial states in the East Indies and Borneo, suffrage for women and ethnic minorities, a reinstitution of universal military service for men and women 21 to 40, and upon the re-establishment of the Reichstag, several laws were passed delineating the increased powers of the Imperial office.

With her opposition frightened into submission for the time being, Ophelia went on a whirlwind tour through out the empire, receiving praise in the colonies, the union states, and even upon her return to the German heartland itself the controversial Kaiserin was accepted with praise and adornments from her loyal support base amongst the working classes and the more liberal elite. Several months after her return in 1929, Ophelia's opposition reminded the young monarch of her mortality and the need for an heir, and her personal advisors reminded her of the necessity for the House of Hohenzollern to maintain its Imperial monopoly, as her own father and grandfather had done and which had been so instrumental in German successes in the last quarter century. Several candidates arose from across Europe, particularly from Sweden and Great Britain, but Ophelia chose Louis of Battenburg over all others for his particular German heritage and his charismatic ways, and after vowing to her now to wrestle with her for Imperial control, the odd couple was wed on Ophelia's 30th birthday the following year.

Continued provocation of the Russian Empire eventually led to the Russian declaration of war on the Empire in early 1933, insultingly enough on the date of the late Kaiser's death. Since the German Empire and its dependencies already well-prepared in advance for a Russian attack, Ophelia was confident in her long-awaited 'Daedalus' offensive, which, put simply, was a two pronged German invasion of Russia north  and south deep into Russian territory, intending to reach Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, respectively. The invasion started off quickly, starting as winter ended and peetering off once the German, Polish, and Ukrainian cavalry had reached the tundra and the muddy slog of southern Russia in late summer 1933, and Ophelia thus requested (privately) assistance from her allies to avoid any massed offensive by the Russians to take back lost territory.

Luckily the British launched their own offensive before the Russians did, capturing the Kola peninsula and killing Russian trade through the Arctic, then besieging Arkhangelsk. Russian morale was steadfast, but slowly fading, and the Germans pushed deeper and deeper, passing Saint Petersburg (occupied at last a month before winter began) and nearly reaching the White Sea in the north, while victorious German heavy armor units and their mechanical arachnid toys finally crossed the Volga and liberated the Volga Germans. In the Russian heartland, the Czar and his loyal cadre of Generals and the main Russian forces fell back over the Urals and fled, anarchy following their wake as they fled from Moscow to the Russian Orient.

Thusly the Russian forces remaining in European Russia were left in disarray, and easily swept aside by Ophelia's final, personally led offensive while the similarly confused Russian naval forces in the Baltic were pulverized or captured by the Emperor and the Kaiserliche Marine.

The end of the war was not a good time for Ophelia. Her idealistic vision of crushing the Russians utterly had not been met wholesale; to do so hundreds of thousands of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians, amongst countless other ethnicities fighting for the Empire, had simply ceased to exist in the muddy slog of the Eastern front. The ground would be fertilized for decades. And so, Ophelia withdrew from the public eye, her flamboyant political behavior toning down for what over a decade. By 1950, the monarch known worldwide as an unpredictable minx was barely in the public eye.

But just as Ophelia had entered the world scene before, she did so again. In Africa, decolonization was an intense situation, socialist revolutionaries in British colonies not exactly helping the situation. The eastern Kongo was a mess, the west firmly held by the Germans, but the rest of Mittelafrika was far from within government control. The Weltstag was divided; go through with letting the Africans become independent, or crackdown and stifle the revolutions that spread into German land. Africans supporting the government wouldn't particularly like the government if they forestalled decolonization. Losing the political support of their subjects would be devastating.

This is where Ophelia came into play, for her brainchild over the last 17 years had finally reached a majority in the Weltsag; the Social Nationalist Party, founded by a particular political ally of hers, the now dead Adolf Hitler. Luckily for her, she could still control the party through his loyalist son, Adolf Jr, and thusly the 2/3rds majority in the government would allow Ophelia to steer the nation back on course, even as she aged. Combining elements of rightist politics with leftist idealism and social policy, the SNP had attracted a wide spectrum of supporters, from the workers to the wealthiest of Junkers, and since it now sat in control of the Empire's legislative body, it owned the country.

The first order of business was the withdrawal from Mittelafrika. Ophelia's opening speech to the Weltstag to congratulate the party laid out a comprehensive plan for the revitalization of the German nation and its allies, which started in its colonies. Although the Africans were loyal, her rather supremacist side came to light when she stated that no African could ever truly be a German, regardless of citizenship or language, culture or education. To be a German, you must be born a German. Kindly enough, the public played it off as senility. It was not, but they never knew. Thus, the colonies and protectorates in Africa had a right to choose whether to completely unite with Germany "for all time", or to go their own way. A vote found most of the African states in favor of independence, while the western Kongo decided to integrate with the Fatherland.

Next in order was the restructuring of the economy, from a war economy back to a commercial civilian structure. As German soldiers returned home, they found jobs awaiting them all across Mitteleuropa, as factories changed production from tanks to cars, mechanical arachnids to zeppelins and trains. Ophelia insured that as much war surplus was sold off to the rapid amount of independent nations springing up in the world, both to supplement German capital and to simply be rid of things no longer needed. Germany was safe for the first time in a century, and thus could finally let its guard down. She'd succeeded at her ancestors divine right.

The next twenty years were quiet ones. Germany had retreated into isolation, compared to the British isolation of the 18th century for its serendipity. The nation was on the path towards restoration. On January 13th, 1970, that was Ophelia's thoughts as she closed her eyes for the last time.