Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  Moltke nodded, convinced but disappointed. Falkenhayn picked up Werner’s report from the table, and leafed through it thoughtfully.

  ‘It seems to me, Major von Weichsaker, that what we are discussing is a situation of enormous potential for the Empire of His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm. I fully appreciate the detailed study you have given to it, and both General Moltke and I accept the point you raise that it is politically impossible for us to be seen to interfere openly in this conflict. But . . . I think perhaps General von Moltke would like to explain to you why this civil war is so crucial to the fortunes of Germany.’

  Moltke had lumbered importantly to his feet. It was not the first time in the interview he had done this; it was as though the constriction of a chair and a desk were too much for him, and he yearned to be back in the saddle at the head of his troops. He strode to the large map of Europe on the opposite wall, and slapped it emphatically with his riding crop. The end of the crop landed on the Belgian border.

  ‘You see this, von Weichsaker, don’t you? The weak point in the French defences. All along the French border with Germany the French Army are prepared — perhaps to attack us. It would take millions of men to overcome them. But if we sweep around the outside, through Belgium, there will be no resistance, none. The French have no fortifications at all on their Belgian border. We shall be in Paris within a month, and the French will be annihilated. Then we can regroup and concentrate our forces on our destiny, which is in Poland and Russia, to the east.’

  Werner had smiled, perhaps a trifle too complacently. ‘Yes, Herr General, I realise that.’ It was not only he who knew about the Schlieffen plan; knowledge of it was so widespread amongst senior army officers that Werner would be surprised if the French did not know of it also. Even if they hadn’t found out, they ought to have been able to work it out for themselves. They had maps in France, after all, didn’t they? That was why the French had been so keen to get the British to sign a guarantee of Belgian neutrality. And to get the Germans to sign it, too.

  Moltke waved his hand again, imperiously. ‘You realise it, Major, yes. But you do not think about it enough. You do not realise its importance. Whereas I, who will have to implement this plan, think about it day and night.’

  Werner had sat back in his chair. It was the first indication he had had that he had been summoned to discuss matters far wider than Ulster. What has this got to do with my report, he had wondered.

  ‘Over a year ago, in December 1912, I wanted to implement this plan.’ Moltke continued. The army was ready, we could have crossed the Belgian border and smashed the French in a few weeks. I recommended action, but the Kaiser overruled me because of the navy — Tirpitz told him they would not be ready for another eighteen months, when the Kiel Canal would be opened. That will be in June of this year — 1914. That gives us just two months from now — do you understand me? Then, if there is the slightest pretext, I shall recommend that we move — through Belgium, into France. You follow me so far, Major?’

  ‘Perfectly, Herr General.’

  ‘Good! And as an astute intelligence officer you will know that the neutrality of Belgium is guaranteed not only by the French, but the British.’

  And ourselves, Werner thought. Poor Belgians.

  ‘So, when we invade Belgium, we shall find ourselves fighting not only the French, but the British Empire too, unless . . .’ Moltke scowled ferociously at Werner, as though to ensure his full attention. Werner watched him with his pale blue eyes and thought, this is it. This is why they are so interested. A pulse of fear and excitement began to throb urgently in his throat.

  Moltke thwacked his riding crop across another part of the map — the British Isles, where the coast of Scotland reached out towards Northern Ireland. ‘Unless this civil war that you talk about has begun before we move. Preferably by the middle of May. In which case the British will be too preoccupied with killing each other to be able to send any effective help to Belgium at all.’

  Werner nodded, and stretched his aching right hand carefully across his thigh. ‘I see, Herr General. But . . .’

  ‘But nothing!’ A grim smile crossed von Moltke’s face, a smile of almost boyish enthusiasm like that of a hunter who has seen his quarry. He returned to the desk, and thumped his open palm down hard on it, flat on the top of Werner’s report. ‘The answer General von Falkenhayn and I want begins with ‘so’, not ‘but’! That is why we have summoned you here. It is obvious to us that we should do everything in our power to foment this civil war, in the interests of the German Empire! It is less obvious to us that the man Carson will be foolish enough to begin such a war on his own. So what I want from you, Major von Weichsaker, are constructive suggestions as to the best ways in which we can act! What plans do you have for this?’

  Werner had paled. His right hand had been aching badly by then, and a pulse was beating irritatingly under his arm. He felt like a young recruit being bawled out on the parade ground by the sergeant-major. Only these were the two most important sergeant-majors in Germany.

  Feebly, he said: ‘None at the moment, Herr General. As I said, we have helped them with the purchase of arms, and beyond that there are many difficulties . . ‘

  Von Falkenhayn frowned and tapped a pencil irritably on his desk. ‘There are always difficulties, Major. But the world does not belong to men who can point them out. It belongs to men who can overcome them.’

  ‘Yes, Herr General.’ Werner remembered admiring his father when he had said something like that, years ago. But to start a civil war, all on my own . . .’

  ‘I am glad to hear you agree,’ von Falkenhayn continued. ‘You can have all the resources you want, but I want a coherent plan worked out, and the details back here on my desk a week from today, do you understand? The civil war in Ulster must begin in the summer of 1914, so that the German Army is free to march through Belgium without interference from the British. From now on, as far as you are concerned, this has priority over everything else. That will be all, Major. Dismiss!’

  Werner got to his feet, saluted, pushed his chair carefully to one side, and turned to the door. His hand was hurting him abominably, and he was sure his face was pale.

  As he reached the door, Falkenhayn spoke again. ‘And, Major?’

  Werner turned. ‘Yes, Herr General?’

  To his surprise, Falkenhayn had been smiling; a bleak, ironic smile. ‘If you do provoke this war, Major, then you may consider it the crowning success of your career.’

  And if I don’t?

  Hemmed in by a crowd of loyal Ulstermen, Werner remembered the approval his slim plan had met with when he had presented it to von Falkenhayn a week later. Now he wondered if it could possibly succeed. Can one man, all on his own, push these people over the brink into open armed rebellion?

  Perhaps I won’t be needed. The guns are on their way, the soldiers are well-drilled. They might do it all on their own.

  A clergyman had mounted the platform behind Cavendish and begun speaking. Werner let the familiar phrases about religion and loyalty roll over his head, and concentrated instead on the faces of the people in the crowd. Dour, heavy-featured farmers for the most part, with big noses and solid jaws. Most of them wore flat caps or bowler hats, they had heavy, serviceable suits, broad leather belts, strong hobnailed boots. They listened to the preacher earnestly, in silence, taking in every word.

  Hardly the sort of people one would want to take to a concert of chamber music, Werner thought irreverently. But in truth he liked the Ulstermen. They took life and religion seriously, they meant what they said. Not the sort of people you would want to get into an argument with, if you could avoid it. As soldiers, fighting for what they believed in, they would be unbeatable. What was it the leader of the Conservative party, Bonar Law, had said? ‘Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right.’

  The UVF soldiers, in particular, impressed him. Cavendish had deployed them well, in positions where they could guard the platform and the entrances to the squa
re. They were relaxed, proud, and well-drilled. It was clear that no one in the crowd resented being controlled by them. They obeyed orders quietly, quickly, without fuss. Cavendish has them eating out of his hand, Werner thought. Just as he organised the prefects and monitors at school.

  If these people knew what he was really like they would tear him to pieces in seconds.

  Werner heard cheering approaching from a distance. Hoove rattled in South Street; the UVF soldiers sprang smartly to attention; and Sir Edward Carson himself came into the square.

  Sir Edward Carson, the MP for Dublin University who wanted to save Ulster from an Irish Parliament. The brilliant lawyer who had been offered the job of Home Secretary, and turned it down. The puritan advocate who had demolished the Irish wit Oscar Wilde in court, and put him in an English gaol for homosexuality. The leader of the Ulster Unionist Council, who proclaimed that Ulstermen were so intensely loyal that they would set up a Provisional Government of their own, rather than accept the decision of Westminster.

  The man who could, if he wanted, plunge the United Kingdom into civil war.

  He was sitting in an open coach, waving and doffing his top hat to either side. The coach stopped, the soldiers presented arms, and Carson got out and returned their salute. Werner noticed the pride on Charles Cavendish’s face as he nudged his horse through the crowd to clear a way for the great man to the platform, and he nearly laughed aloud at the irony of it.

  Carson, the scourge of Oscar Wilde, with a guard of honour commanded by Charles Cavendish!

  What would he say, if I told him?

  In the centre of the platform, Carson turned to face the crowd. The noise was deafening. Werner watched, open-mouthed, pretending to cheer with the rest. What was it about this man, he wondered, that appealed to these people so much? Clearly it was not physical beauty. Despite his expensive, well-tailored clothes, Carson was a big, burly, truculent bull of a man with a huge, heavy, pugnacious jaw and a solid, square, lowering face. Like a bare-knuckle prize-fighter in top-hat and mohair suit.

  It was the conviction in him that set the man alight. Carson believed in himself utterly. He had accepted his role as these people’s Messiah. He held up his hands and bade them be silent, and the cheering stopped. The huge Union flag behind him rippled in the wind as they waited, attentive. It was so silent that Werner could hear the sound of a rooster crowing half a mile away in a farmyard. An inner light of belief and happiness burned under Carson’s heavy features. The man is a prophet, Werner thought — a prophet at home amongst his own people.

  The voice was as big as the man. It filled the square and echoed down the side streets. He reminded his listeners, first, of their history. ‘We are the people who made this land,’ he said. ‘It is ours, and we will hold it. Our ancestors came here three hundred years ago, from Scotland and England, to keep this country loyal to the crown. They were threatened; sometimes they were attacked and murdered and massacred; but they survived. They survived because of the strong Protestant character that was in them — a character of godliness and thrift and self-reliance and courage and the knowledge of right and wrong — those were our ancestors’ virtues! And when they were betrayed by an unjust Catholic King, it was not the Protestant people who were cast out, but that traitor king: James II. You know the story well. At the siege of Derry and the Boyne and Aughrim — did our forefathers surrender then? Did they listen tamely to a discredited ruler from Whitehall, who planned to hand over our land to Rome? Or did they gird up their loins and march with King Billy to smite the unbeliever hip and thigh, banish him to the wilderness? Answer me that!’

  A wild burst of cheering filled the square. Werner glanced around him curiously. He had been here often enough to know how those words — ‘Derry’, ‘Boyne’, ‘King Billy’ — could excite the Protestant people of Ulster, but he still found it curious. So long ago, and yet for Carson and his audience, it seemed, so closely remembered . . .

  As close to their hearts as the Bible. Part of it, almost.

  Carson surveyed his audience, smiling grimly. When the applause had died down he continued, his voice strong, steady, hypnotic, telling them that they faced the same choice today, of an unprincipled government which schemed to deprive them of their rights without even daring to put the issue before the people in a general election or a referendum. He told them of the great rallies there had been in support of the Union, in Hyde Park, and at Blenheim Palace.

  ‘I tell you this, my friends. We will maintain our fundamental rights as British citizens under the crown — and no maimed Parliament or corrupt Liberal government will take them away from us!’

  He glared round the square at the hushed crowd, right hand raised, his great jaw thrust out pugnaciously. A man would have to have a death wish to challenge him, Werner thought grimly. Carson’s great fist swept down, and smashed expressively into the palm of his left hand.

  ‘Not today, not tomorrow, not ever! All of us here have signed a solemn Covenant to say that we will never, under any circumstances, submit to Home Rule!’

  He held his hands out in front of him and tapped the fingers of his right hand against his left wrist. ‘I signed it in a silver pen, some of you cut your wrists and signed it in your own blood! Half a million of us, men and loyal women, signed it! And there will be no backsliding, no shabby compromises with the words of that Covenant. Men like Colonel Cavendish and his fine soldiers in front of this platform will keep us from that. Their discipline and resolution has already called the bluff of this immoral, unprincipled government. We are prepared to take control of Ulster tomorrow and make no mistake, we will if we have to — and with your support we’ll hold this province loyally for His Majesty the King, until this madness of his ministers has passed away for ever!’

  Carson took a deep breath, filled his lungs, and raised his already powerful voice to a new crescendo of defiant thunder.

  ‘The Liberal government has erected a boom between Ulster and the British people, as King James did before them at Londonderry. I promise you one thing, my friends! We will burst that boom just as our fathers did before us! There will be No Surrender!’

  There was a brief, echoing silence. Then the mighty throb of the huge Lambeg drum signalled an explosion of cheers and applause.

  All around Werner men were shouting, waving their caps in the air, cheering until their faces were red and the veins stood out on the side of their necks. Carson watched, impassive, his big hands thrust into the pockets of his coat. His face glowed with grim resolution and pride, accepting the burden of their trust.

  It was magnificent, Werner thought, and quite terrifying. How could any government tolerate a man like this? But then, how could any government dare to arrest him?

  Werner felt his crippled right hand shaking, and grasped it with his left to steady it. He thought of the plan on von Falkenhayn’s desk and shivered at the lunacy of it. It was all very well to report on events, gather information about them, learn secrets about the background of some of those involved. It was quite another to try to use his knowledge to begin a war.

  It’s impossible, he thought. I wish I’d faced Falkenhayn down. Carson is far more frightening than von Falkenhayn could ever be. Not to mention his UVF bodyguards.

  The trouble is, Moltke and von Falkenhayn were right in a way. Carson may be frightening but he is too intelligent to begin a civil war himself. All this talk of a Provisional government and the UVF fighting the British army is just a gigantic bluff. He won’t start a war because he’s not strong enough. He’d be bound to lose. He just wants it to seem as though he’s ready to fight. So that the British government are afraid to attack him.

  This could never happen in Germany. The government would simply arrest him. But in this country the government are too feeble, they’re afraid to try. Anyway it would be too difficult.

  Werner smiled to himself as he imagined half a dozen policemen trying to push their way through the crowd and arrest Carson here. The idea was ludicrous. I
n a town like this, the crowd would wrench their limbs apart in seconds, and feed their fingers to the seagulls.

  The smile stiffened on Werner’s face, and his spine crawled as though a spider was on it. He remembered the three sailors von Falkenhayn was sending to meet him in Belfast ten days from now. I must have been drunk when I wrote that plan, he thought. It was a bad idea. I’ll just turn the sailors round and tell them to go home.

  If Carson were arrested or kidnapped, what tremendous, uncontrollable fury would be awakened! The whole province would run around like a bear with its eyes put out, smashing and rending anything it could find.

  Including — and especially — the British Army.

  There would be civil war.

  Definitely. No question.

  I don’t want to have anything to do with this, Werner thought. I wish I’d never thought of it. It’s impossible and far too dangerous and bound to go wrong. I’ll stay here for a few weeks and then write another report to Falkenhayn. It’s a bad idea that couldn’t possibly work.

  And I shall never become a Colonel.

  I’ll go back to Germany and become a small town reporter for the rest of my life. Much safer. Let the British organise their own civil war . . .

  It’s only the impossible that’s really worth trying for, Werner’s father had once said, when he was trying to encourage his son. Werner had scorned such talk then. After all, if it hadn’t been for his father’s foolish ambitions he might have had a sound arm and a full army career.

  But if I fail . . .

  There’s that bastard on the horse over there, smiling calmly as though he owns the world. Charles Cavendish. He’ll have beaten me again.