The Storm That Shook the World

by Walter Soellner

  “Ja, who then?” Markus said impatiently.

  “Russia. Russia is a serious threat to Germany’s rightful dominance in Europe. They’ve been expanding eastward for the last fifty years or more. With France on our western border and Russia to the east, the Kaiser feels threatened. Although the French won’t start a war on their own, they are in league with the Tsar, and they just may be persuaded to attack. As you well know, the French did attack us unprovoked, twice in the last hundred years or so, and lost. Fortunately, both Napoleons are gone.”

  Markus added to his previous thoughts, “But the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire is with us. If there is a threat from Russia, as you say, then it’s Emperor Franz Josef of Austria facing the gravest threat.”

  “Yes, but the fact is, we have—”

  “There you two are. Dinner is ready,” Christiana barged in. “And it’s on the table.”

  The men got up and headed toward the dining room.

  “We’ll continue our discussion later,” Conrad said.

  Etching of Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz Joseph, 1913

  CHAPTER 16

  September 1, 1913, a Son

  The discussion continued later, with Tomas Conrad pointing out that if there was a war with other European countries, the wireless station would be a prime target because of its communications value to Imperial Germany.

  In the end, Helena and Markus decided to take the married officers’ quarters in Windhoek as it was close to the hospital for Helena and to Markus’ duty station. A joyous Christmas of 1913 and New Year’s Day passed, and the necessary months slipped by until July.

  “The doctor says it’s near time.” Helena smiled at her husband in their newly built quarters. September first arrived with a gush of water on the floor, just as Markus was preparing to depart for the wireless station. The doctor was summoned, and half a day later, little Rupert Tomas Mathias was born July 13, 1913.

  A wireless message sent back to Germany produced warm replies of congratulations on the birth of a child, and a boy! Little Rupert, with a grandpapa, an aunt, and five uncles to fuss over him, was constantly amused. The months were warming up in South West Africa, just as they were cooling off in the Northern Hemisphere. Happiness permeated the ranch. Markus’s fellow officers toasted his young son in the officers’ club, all agreeing he would make a fine addition to the officer ranks in twenty years.

  Tomas Conrad had an arrangement with the main post office in Swakopmund. In addition to his regular, local German newspaper, if there were any undelivered foreign newspapers—German, British, South African, or French—he would pay to have them forwarded to him. In such manner, Conrad kept abreast of the latest news from Europe. Headlines read over the past two years that he found disturbing included the following:

  August 1, 1911: “Germany Fortifies North Sea Coast at Helgoland”

  September 30, 1911: “Italy Declares War on Ottoman Empire, Invades Libya”

  October 1, 1911: “Churchill Appointed Naval Minister; Prepares Navy for War”

  November 11, 1911: “Russia Invades Northern Persia”

  March 4, 1912: “France: Mandatory Three-Year Military Service”

  March 13, 1912: “Bulgaria and Serbia in Alliance against Austria”

  July 22, 1912: “Germany Asks British Neutrality if War with France & Russia”

  September 30, 1912: “Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Russia Order Mobilization”

  October 1, 1912: “Germany Declares it Will Not Participate in a Balkan War”

  October 17, 1912: “Montenegro, Bulgaria, Serbia Declare War on Ottoman Empire”

  November 4, 1912: “Ottomans Ask Austria-Hungary and France Mediate Balkan War”

  December 5, 1912: “Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany Renew Their Triple Alliance”

  March 2, 1913: “German Reichstag Votes Five Hundred Million for Army”

  May 28, 1913: “Belgium Requires Obligatory Military Service”

  July 9, 1913: “German Army Increases to 660,000”

  July 17, 1913: “Greece, Serbia, Romania Declare War on Bulgaria”

  Sept. 7, 1913: “Italy, Austria, Germany Triple Alliance: Must Fight as One”

  Granted, the second Balkan War was, what was it, all of six weeks? Conrad thought to himself as he shuffled through a pile of newly delivered newspapers. But all those alliances and cross alliances, with a half dozen little countries flashing their swords, could start a bigger confrontation. With the major powers armed to the teeth, it’s just a matter of time before something sets them off.

  He sighed to himself and thought of his newly married daughter and her baby. They should be staying at the ranch, out of harm’s way, if war comes and the British attack. Doesn’t Markus realize the potential danger if Germany is drawn into a war? They’ll be across the border first thing to knock out that wireless station so we can’t communicate with our navy and other colonies. Even if we can defend the station for a considerable time, if they want to destroy it, they will. I’ll have to talk to him again, he reflected, drawing deeply on his pipe.

  “Don’t you have to go to work or something?” Helena kidded, as Markus bounced little Rupert around on their bed while she adjusted her summer, floor-length dress.

  “I’m meeting Christiana in a few minutes, and we’re going to see what’s come in on the latest merchant freighter. It’s from Spain!”

  “Good idea, darling. Give my greetings to your sister. Spain, uh? Maybe little Rupert here will become a caballero, ha!” He passed the baby to Helena, and continued, “Do you want to become a fighter of the bulls?” He kissed him, got up, kissed her, and left for the wireless station.

  Waiting for him there was a wireless, coded instruction from the chief of staff of the Army in Berlin, marked “secret.”

  It was fairly common for Markus to receive messages marked “secret,” since the wireless station used the latest German technology in its operations. He decoded the wireless message at his desk:

  CONCERNING THE PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION IN EUROPE. STOP. IN THE EVENT OF WAR AND AN ATTACK ON HIS MAJESTY’S GERMAN SOUTH WEST AFRICA COLONY. STOP. THE WIRELESS STATION AT WINDHOEK MUST BE DEFENDED AT ALL COSTS. STOP. IF, HOWEVER, THE MILITARY SITUATION THERE BECOMES UNTENABLE, WITH THE IMMEDIATE POSSIBLE CAPTURE OF THE WIRELESS STATION AT WINDHOEK BY THE ENEMY PREPARATIONS MUST BE MADE NOW. STOP. TO DESTROY THE STATION AND ITS SIGNIFICANT EQUIPMENT TO PREVENT THE ENEMIES’ USE. STOP. CONFIRM RECEIPT. STOP. CONFIRM DATE PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE. STOP. SIGNED: ADJUTANT TO CHIEF OF STAFF

  Markus sat stunned for a few minutes, rereading the orders. War? The enemy? Destroy the wireless station? His mind was racing. Has it really come to this? What about the Congo Pact, the African Colonial Joint Powers Agreement? I know the Kaiser and the British signed it. I can’t imagine the French didn’t sign. No one is supposed to attack any other country’s colonies in Africa if there is a war in Europe. That’s the agreement! Obviously, the Kaiser and the Chief of Staff don’t trust the British, French, South Africans, or Portuguese.

  The officer of the day happened to be near Markus, doing paper work. He noted Mathias’s serious countenance but said nothing. Markus turned and looked at him, knowing the young lieutenant didn’t know the contents of the message. As the lieutenant turned to leave, Markus called after him, “Is the base commander in his office?”

  “I believe he is, sir.” Markus briskly walked over to the base commander’s office. He knocked and was admitted with, “Enter.”

  After showing his commander, Major Alphonse Klein, the coded message, he called a staff meeting. It included a half dozen other officers. All expressed surprise and concern about the issue of arming the wireless station for defense and placing explosives for its destruction in the event of war.

  “What are the possibilities of moving the station farther inland or into the mountains if we are attacked?” Major Klein addressed the question to Markus.

  “There are two challenges with that, sir,” Markus said a
s he cleared his throat. “First, while we could easily move the actual wireless transmitter, we can’t easily move the broadcast towers. We need broadcast towers.” He paused.

  “Yes, go on, Captain, the second challenge?”

  “The second and bigger challenge is power. We need a generator, a big generator similar to the two we have in the power house … and fuel to run it, lots of fuel, for any lengthy operation. And they, the generators, are heavy to move. And it, the whole system, would require around-the-clock maintenance. It must be protected from the weather.”

  Markus stopped a moment and then continued in a decisive tone, “Sir, I believe moving the wireless station would be prohibitively expensive in time and labor and would probably require multiple moves in the field to avoid the enemy.”

  Most of the other officers agreed that moving the wireless station was impractical, at best, and probably impossible in the rainy season. The Schutztruppe officers agreed that the best plan would be to defend the station where it was and set up several lines of defense far enough away to prevent enemy artillery strikes on the wireless station.

  Everyone in the room was silently pessimistic about the success of defending the station for an extended period against a concerted attack. Klein concluded the meeting, “Gentlemen, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that and the Congo Pact holds.” All murmured agreement. “However,” he continued, “I want the necessary preparations made immediately, for defense and destruction, as ordered.”

  As he left the meeting in the late afternoon, heading back to his office, Markus’s mind was filled with conflicting thoughts: We’ve finally got this new equipment installed on one of the most powerful wireless stations in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, and now it might be destroyed! He tried to shake the idea out of his mind.

  If war does come and if the other colonial powers do break with the African Colonial Joint Powers Agreement on Nonintervention, it reads correctly, although nonintervention is not part of the Agreement. This entire base is threatened with invasion and destruction—from without and within! And Helena and the baby could be in danger so close to the wireless station. Markus thought of his father-in-law’s words. Tomas was right; maybe I should move the family to the ranch.

  It was done, but in the spirit of being overly cautious. Helena accepted the move, with “All is in God’s hands.” However, she did miss living in town and in the new officers’ quarters. The whole family welcomed her and Markus “home,” and he felt secure for their safety.

  Now the concern of Helena and her father was her brothers of military age. If war came, would they be conscripted into the Imperial German Colonial Forces?

  Royal Ottoman Empire Flag, 1914

  CHAPTER 17

  Spring 1914

  For many decades, brief but bloody wars, primarily between and among the European kingdoms, principalities, duchies, grand duchies, and city states raged for a few months and resolved themselves one way or another. The usual outcome was one belligerent giving up a bit of territory or being swallowed up completely as a vassal state.

  The general attitude among most people reading their newspapers in the cafés of Europe in the spring of 1914 was that if war came, it would be yet another of these conflicts, to be decided by the kings and monarchs, as had always occurred. Only Napoleon’s conquest of all of Europe a hundred years earlier lasted years, not months. No one, not even the generals of Europe, conceived of that happening again.

  Spring was unusually bountiful, with the forest at Kalvarianhof bursting with flowers and chirping birds. An occasional deer was seen among the grazing cows in the forest.

  The Kalvarianhof manor house, however, seemed quiet and almost empty now that Levi was somewhere along the thousands of miles of track of the Berlin to Baghdad Railway.

  Most weeks found him finishing this or that project and troubleshooting and tweaking the ongoing problem areas of this vast undertaking for the Ottoman Empire. Skillful German and Turkish crews laid track ten to twelve hours a day.

  Levi loved the work of designing trestles, tunnels, bridges, and rail stations. But he was looking forward to returning home in early fall when his contract and military commission were up. Of late, Levi spent most of his time in Baghdad, and to his delight, he found time to assemble several shipping crates full of Persian carpets, rare Anatolian ceramics, and other treasures for gifts back home.

  With both Levi and Katherina gone, Otto and Freidl Levi were happy in the big house, overseeing the nursery and little Rebecca. Katherina had finally accepted the challenge and honor of being co-lead archeologist on a University of Munich-sponsored dig in the ancient ruins of Babylon in Mesopotamia. The tipping point in her accepting the three-month appointment for spring 1914 was the fact that she would see her husband often in Baghdad. It was another great adventure for her and a continuation of her ambition to practice her professional work in the field, after her experiences in Jerusalem in 1907.

  “I worked with the Turks in Palestine and found them tough but reliable,” she began, in one of her frequent, informal chats with the students she brought along with her. “They probably saved my life when a Turkish patrol drove off a band of Bedouins at our dig site in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.” She smiled at them.

  “Don’t worry; there are no Bedouins hereabout!” Everyone laughed. “We were excavating the Tomb of the Kings, well … it was called that then. I like to call it the Tomb of Queen Helene now, because that is what it turned out to be. She was one of the wives of a Persian King and converted to Judaism along with her son. She traveled to Jerusalem so she could worship at the temple of God. It was recorded that the queen preformed many charitable deeds there. Working at her tomb was wonderful.” She was “lecturing” the small group of assistants and university crew members during their afternoon break.

  Professor Schellenberger had, with great effort, secured funding from the University of Munich for this archeological expedition. He used his political friends to convince the powers that be that Germany was cultivating the Ottoman Pasha and his army that were resisting Tsarist Russia’s efforts in pushing its empire westward.

  Berlin had even intervened with the university, paying half the costs. Herr Professor Dr. Schellenberger’s status climbed considerably when the university discovered he had contacts in Berlin. It was also his magnanimous approval that gave Katherina her appointment to the dig. The archeological site itself was one of the great biblical wonders of the ancient world, the legendary city of Babylon.

  Berlin to Baghdad Railway, 1914

  CHAPTER 18

  Summer 1914

  Other archeologists, including other Germans, had worked the huge site for years. And for years, archeological thieves had ransacked the various parts of the vast complex, seeking cuneiform writings on ceramic tiles, magnificent murals of lions and bulls in blue glaze, and of course, sculptures and other artifacts to be sold, on occasion, to the highest bidder. With German, French, and British historians and archeologists on site, the worst of the pillaging had abated.

  To her great honor, Katherina met Robert Kolewey from the German Oriental Society who had worked the Babylon tell site on and off since 1899. She saw the Magnificent Ishtar Gate at the Pergamum Museum in Berlin that Kolewey had helped excavate. Now she was again doing what she loved, digging into ancient history, documenting the art and artifacts—many of biblical significance, including the legendary Tower of Babel.

  “I’m going up to Baghdad on the train tomorrow for a few days. My husband is in town. I want to share our latest work here with him.” She was talking to Professor Schellenburger as they took a break under the canvas canopy shading their dig. “I haven’t been to see him for several weeks. And the workers need a few days to move everything to that new area on the tell. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Ja, fine. Give my fond regards to your husband.” The professor, slumped in a folding chair, smiled up at her. “It’s a shame we have so little time here, but the work continues,” he sighed.


  The following day, Katherina stepped off the train in Baghdad and into the arms of her husband, in a bustling crowd of all manner of humanity and animals.

  “Two weeks seems like a long time between our visits, darling,” Katherina whispered to Levi after a gentle kiss.

  “You look tired,” she observed. “Are they working you long hours?”

  “Oh, the usual; I was just trying to finish up everything in the next few months before going home.” He had a serious look on his face and an unusual tone to his voice.

  “You ‘were’? What does that mean, darling?” She had taken his arm after he picked up her satchel.

  “I have something to tell you, my love. Let’s have coffee in the station restaurant.” They made their way through the crowd of long-robed Arabs, Turks in traditional costume, Ottoman soldiers, and an assortment of Europeans. They found a small table and sat down. She pulled in her long skirts so as not to block the aisle in the packed establishment.

  “What is it, Levi? You look concerned. Did something happen?”

  “No, no nothing like that. But it is a disruption to our current situation.” The waiter brought two small cups of Turkish coffee and slid them onto the little table. Katherina and Levi’s heads were almost touching as they leaned in toward each other.

  “I have been ‘requested’ to take on an emergency assignment. My commander promised it would not affect my discharge date from the army the first of October.”

  “What is the assignment, darling? Is it here in Baghdad?”

  Levi looked at his wife and reluctantly said, “I wish it were.” He knew she would be very disappointed and concerned. And it would permanently end their rendezvous every two weeks or so.

  “I have been ‘asked’ to take the most rapid means of transport to a place called Tabora. A rail bridge collapsed on their main line, their only line actually, and unfortunately, it killed the only two bridge engineers in the country.”