It is believable that Otto could get away with shooting peasants because Kings once had

i am a strong (insert gender here) my father and his brother were to, they were killed not by the cold, not by the bears or wolves that roam our streets at night, but by the   bolsheviks. we must stand up and fight communism or we all end up dead, starved dehydrated, enslaved. the time is now we must fight. lenin is a dangerous man but he can be stopped. so my comrades we shall siege there weapons tonight on ward. (rides away with ak(not invented yet) and sword in hand while on bear into snowstorm)

by explaining that it took the same total time to travel by plane as it did by train