The Order of the Day

by Éric Vuillard

  As an appetizer, they had been served iced Charentais melon, and Ribbentrop had gobbled his down without paying it the slightest attention. The main dish was pullet from Louhans prepared à la Lucien Tendret. Churchill complimented it and, perhaps as a joke on Ribbentrop and to tease Cadogan, he steered the Reich minister back to tennis. Hadn’t this Bill Tilden also been an actor on Broadway, as well as the author of two wretched novels, The Phantom Drive and The Pinch Quitter – or something like that? Ribbentrop didn’t know. In fact, there was much he didn’t know about Bill Tilden.

  The meal continued in the same vein. The Reich’s ambassador seemed completely in his element. Moreover, it was his relaxed demeanour that had drawn Hitler’s notice, his old-fashioned manners and elegance, in the midst of a Nazi Party mostly made up of ruffians and thugs. His regal attitude, coupled with an underlayer of perfect servility, had propelled him to the enviable post of Foreign Minister; and at that moment – on 12 March 1938, in Downing Street – he found himself at the zenith of what life would offer him. He had begun his professional career as an importer of Mumm and Pommery champagnes, and Hitler had sent him to England to lobby on behalf of the Reich, to sound people out and gather, where he could, useful bits of information. During that troubled period, he never stopped assuring Hitler that the English were incapable of responding. He consistently encouraged the Führer to pursue the most audacious courses of action, flattering his brutal, megalomaniacal tendencies. And so he had climbed the ladder of Nazi glory, the man Hitler called behind his back ‘the little champagne salesman’ – for prejudices are hard to shake, even for the most assiduous wreckers of the social order.

  Right in the middle of lunch, as Churchill relates in his memoirs, a messenger from the Foreign Office was shown in. Perhaps they were divvying up one last chicken thigh, unless they had already moved on to the corniotte pastries served with lemonade, or were sampling a tarte aux shions: seven ounces of flour, three ounces of butter, one or two eggs, a pinch of salt, a little sugar, nine fluid ounces of milk, semolina, and some water to help blend it all. I’ll skip over the details of how to cook and garnish this Louhans speciality. For they made a number of French dishes at Downing Street; the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was particularly fond of them. And why shouldn’t he take an interest in cooking? It’s written, somewhere in the Historia Augusta, that the Roman Senate used to deliberate for hours about which sauce to serve with turbot. It was thus between two clinks of a fork that the Foreign Office messenger quietly handed Alexander Cadogan an envelope. There was an awkward silence. Sir Alexander seemed to be reading carefully. The conversation slowly resumed. Ribbentrop, acting as if nothing had happened, murmured a few compliments to the lady of the house. At that point, Cadogan stood up and brought the note to Chamberlain. He seemed neither surprised nor put out by what he had just read. He was pensive. Chamberlain read it in turn, looking preoccupied. During this time, Ribbentrop kept on chattering. Dessert had just been served, marinated wild strawberries Escoffier-style, a true delicacy. They were consumed eagerly and Cadogan returned to his seat, taking back the note. But Churchill, training one of his big cocker spaniel eyes on Chamberlain, noticed a deep crease between the prime minister’s brows; he surmised a worrisome development. Ribbentrop, for his part, noticed nothing. He was enjoying himself, no doubt carried away by the thrill of becoming a minister himself. At Mrs Chamberlain’s invitation, they moved on to the drawing room.

  Coffee was served. Ribbentrop then began discoursing on French wines, his speciality, and for a long while he propped up the flagging conversation. To illustrate who knows what point, he snatched up an invisible flute set atop its invisible pyramid of glasses, and with great flourish proposed a toast. The invisible flute was cool to the touch, the invisible champagne chilled to an ideal forty-three degrees Fahrenheit. His dessert knife tapped on the flute; Ribbentrop nodded and smiled. Outside it had rained and the trees were wet, the pavements glistening.

  The Chamberlains showed some impatience, but politely. You cannot just cut short a reception of this kind, with the minister of a European power. You need tact, a way to exit gracefully. Before long, the guests, too, no doubt started to realize that something was amiss, and that a subterranean conversation was being held between Chamberlain and his wife, which drew in the other protagonists one by one: Cadogan, the Churchills, a few others. The first guests made their excuses. But the Ribbentrops remained in place, oblivious to the general malaise – he especially, whom that farewell event seemed to have intoxicated and deprived of the most rudimentary manners. They grew impatient – though again, very politely, without letting it show. They couldn’t very well throw the guest of honour out of the door, now could they? He just had to realize on his own that the time had come to leave, put on his overcoat, and climb back into his big swastikaed Mercedes.

  But Ribbentrop did not realize a thing, not a blessed thing; he kept on jabbering. And his wife, too, had just engaged Mrs Chamberlain in lively conversation. The atmosphere became unreal; the guests indicated, by very subtle inflections of voice, a restlessness that was barely perceptible, but that should have been discernible to a well-bred person. At such moments, we can’t help wondering if we are crazy or just overly considerate, and whether the other person feels the embarrassment we experience so keenly. But no, nothing. The brain is an airtight organ. Our eyes do not give away our thoughts, and imperceptible changes of expression are illegible to others. It’s as if our entire body were a poem that consumed us, but of which our neighbours didn’t understand a word.

  Suddenly, taking the situation in hand, Chamberlain said to Ribbentrop, ‘I am sorry, I have to go now to attend to urgent business.’ It was a bit abrupt, but it was the best way he could find of ending it. Everyone stood up, and most of the guests thanked their hosts and left Downing Street. But the Ribbentrops lingered with the few who remained. The discussion dragged on a while longer. No one mentioned the note that Cadogan and Chamberlain had read during lunch, which floated between them like a little paper ghost, an unknown retort that everyone wanted to hear, and which was in fact the true script of that bizarre vaudeville. Finally, everyone took their leave, but not before Ribbentrop had run through his entire repertoire of insipid small talk. It’s just that the onetime amateur actor was playing one of his secret roles on the great stage of History. A former ice skater, golfer, violinist – that Ribbentrop could do anything! Everything! Even stretch out an official luncheon to absurd lengths. He was an odd duck, that one, a curious mix of ignorance and refinement. Apparently, he made awful grammatical errors – errors that his rival von Neurath, when he read the memoranda that Ribbentrop composed for the Führer’s attention, scrupulously neglected to correct.

  The very last guests took their leave, and the Ribbentrop couple finally cleared off. Their driver opened the door for them. Frau Ribbentrop delicately folded back her dress and they got into the car. And then they let their hair down. The Ribbentrops had a good laugh at the trick they’d played on everyone. They had, of course, noticed that once Chamberlain read the note sent by the Foreign Office, he seemed preoccupied, terribly preoccupied. And of course, the Ribbentrops knew exactly what was in that note, and had deliberately set out to make Chamberlain, and the rest of his gang, waste as much time as possible. They had prolonged the meal ad infinitum, then the coffee, then the drawing room conversations, testing the limits of reason. During that time, Chamberlain, instead of attending to urgent business, had been kept busy with tennis talk and macaroons. Playing off his excessive politeness, so excessive that it was almost a sickness, a politeness that kept even affairs of state waiting, the Ribbentrops had very cleverly distracted him from his work. Because that note brought by the Foreign Office envoy, the mystery of which hovered over the entire luncheon, contained the dreadful news that German troops had just crossed into Austria.

  BLITZKRIEG

  On the morning of 12 March, Austria waited feverishly and with indecent joy for the Germans to arrive.
In many films of the time, we see people stretching their hands towards the window of a kiosk or delivery van to get a swastika flag. Everywhere, people stood on tiptoe, hoisted themselves onto ledges and walls, climbed up lampposts, anywhere they could, just so they could see. But the Germans let them wait. The morning passed, then the afternoon . . . very strange. Now and then the sound of an engine roared over the countryside, flags waved, smiles blossomed on faces. ‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ could be heard from every direction. Wide eyes were glued to the road – and then nothing. They kept up hope for a while longer, then relaxed, arms limp, and fifteen minutes later they were on the ground again, squatting in the grass, chatting.

  For the evening of the twelfth, the Viennese Nazis had planned a torchlight tattoo to welcome Adolf Hitler. The ceremony would be stirring and grand. They waited until late in the day, but no one came. They didn’t understand what was going on. Men guzzled beer and bellowed out songs, but after a while they didn’t really feel like singing any more and instead just felt vaguely disappointed. So when three German soldiers got off the train, there was a moment of jubilation. German soldiers? A miracle! They were the guests of the entire city; no one had ever loved them as much as the Viennese did that night! Vienna! They were offered every chocolate, every pine branch, all the water in the Danube, all the wind from the Carpathians, your Ringstrasse, your Schönbrunn Palace, its Chinese Cabinets, its Napoleon Room, the body of the King of Rome, the sabre from the Battle of the Pyramids! All of it! And yet, they were just three little soldiers sent to arrange billeting for the troops. But everyone was so impatient to be invaded that they were paraded around the city and carried in triumph. And the three poor dopes couldn’t really understand the enthusiasm they had sparked. They had no idea anyone could love them so fiercely. They were even a bit nervous: love can be scary. And then the questions started. People began wondering, Where was the German war machine? What happened to the tanks? The armoured cars? All those fabulous beasts we’d been promised – where were they? Didn’t the Führer want his native Austria any more? No, no, it wasn’t that, but . . . A rumour started spreading, one they didn’t dare say aloud – you had to be careful with those Nazis, who listened in on everything. They said – nothing certain, mind you, but the situation seemed to bear out the gossip – that after having crossed the border like lightning, the fabulous German war machine had come to a crashing halt.

  In fact, the German army had had quite a time getting over the border. It had taken place in indescribable chaos and with astounding slowness. At the moment, they were stuck near Linz, an advance of barely sixty miles. And yet, the weather was apparently quite pleasant that 12 March, even ideal.

  It had all started off so well! At nine that morning, they simply lifted the border guards’ barrier and there they were, in Austria! No need for violence or bombshells It was all very loving; they conquered gently, effortlessly, and with a smile. The tanks, trucks, heavy artillery, the whole kit and caboodle lumbered slowly towards Vienna for the great courtship dance. The bride was willing; this was no rape, as some have claimed, but a proper wedding. The Austrians shouted themselves hoarse, made their best Nazi salutes as a sign of welcome; they had been practising for five years. But the road to Linz was arduous, vehicles tipped over, motorcycles sputtered like lawn mowers. Those Germans would have been better off gardening, making a little tour of Austria and then heading quietly back to Berlin; turning all this junk into tractors and planting cabbages in the Tiergarten. For as they approached Linz, everything went south. And still the sky was cloudless, calm, the most beautiful sky imaginable.

  The horoscope on 12 March was highly favourable for Libra, Cancer, and Scorpio, but disastrous for everyone else. Against the invasion, the European democracies offered only mesmerized resignation. The British government, aware of its imminence, had notified Schuschnigg. That was all it did. The French, for their part, had no government, having just been hit with a ministerial crisis.

  In Vienna, that morning of 12 March, only the editor in chief of the Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Emil Löbl, would publish an article in praise of the little dictator Schuschnigg – a rather puny act of defiance, and practically the only one. Later that morning, a mob appeared at the newspaper and forced him off the premises. The SA burst into the offices and beat up staff, reporters, and editors. Yet they were hardly lefties at the Neues Wiener. They hadn’t made a sound when the Parliament went up in smoke, had quietly approved the authoritarian Catholicism of the new regime, accepted the editorial purges under Dollfuss, and the suppression of the Social Democrats, who were jailed or barred from working, did not trouble them much. But heroism is a strange, relative thing, and that morning, all in all, it is both moving and disturbing to see that Emil Löbl was the only man to protest.

  In Linz, it was no different. They had carried out horrible purges, and by now the city was all Nazi. Everywhere they were singing breathlessly, hoping at any moment to witness the arrival of the Führer. Everyone seemed to be there; the sun shone and the beer flowed. Then the morning was over, people dozed off in the corner of a bar, and since nothing can stop time, it was suddenly noon and the sun hit its zenith over the Pöstlingberg. The fountains fell silent, families went home for lunch, the Danube rolled its waves. In the botanical gardens, the fabulous cacti were littered with confetti, which the spiders mistook for flies. In Vienna, at the bar of the Grand Café, there was talk that the Germans hadn’t yet reached Wels, maybe not even Meggenhofen! Some wiseacres cracked that they’d got their directions mixed up and were heading off towards Suse or Damietta, that they’d find them next year at the Bobino concert hall! But some whispered that they’d had a breakdown, were short of fuel, faced huge problems getting fresh supplies.

  Hitler left Munich by car, the icy wind whipping his face. His Mercedes drove through the deep forests. He had planned to stop first in Braunau, his hometown, then in Linz, the city of his youth, and finally in Leonding, where his parents were buried – a nostalgia trip, basically. At around four in the afternoon, Hitler had crossed the border at Braunau. The weather was sunny but very cold; his procession was made up of twenty-four cars and around twenty vans. Everyone was there: the SS, the SA, the police, every branch of the army. They communed with the crowd. They stopped for a moment in front of the Führer’s birthplace, but there was no time to lose! They were already late. Little girls held out bouquets, the crowd waved swastika flags, everything was going great. By midafternoon, the procession had already passed through a host of villages. Hitler smiled, waved, his elation visible on his face. He gave the National Socialist salute at every opportunity, to vague clusters of peasants or teenage girls. But most often, he contented himself with the gesture Chaplin parodied so well, arms folded in a lackadaisical, almost feminine pose.

  PANZER BLOCKAGE

  Blitzkrieg is a simple slogan, a label that publicists slapped onto disaster. The theoretician behind this aggressive strategy was named Heinz Guderian. In one of his books, the sharply and strikingly titled Achtung – Panzer!, Guderian developed his doctrine of lightning war. Naturally, he had read J. F. C. Fuller, adored his inane book on yoga, feverishly devoured his stark raving prophecies, in which he thought he discovered the horrific mysteries of the world. But it was especially the writings on mechanized warfare that kept Guderian up at night. Fuller’s little tomes gave him much food for thought; their passionate evocation of war as brutal and heroic spoke to him. For John Frederick Charles Fuller was a passionate man, so passionate that not long afterwards he would join Oswald Mosley in deploring the indolence of the parliamentary democracies and calling for a more rousing form of government. He became a member of the Nordic League, which aimed at promoting Nazism. The little council met in secret, in some very British cottage or other, and spent long hours talking about the Jews. But its sympathizers weren’t just some Mayfair merchants: they also counted among their number Lady Douglas-Hamilton, the famous animal-lover – for as the saying goes, the human soul is t
he seat of all miseries. There was also the good Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, the darling of the salons and an Old Etonian, who had enjoyed every privilege and therefore had no excuse. A connoisseur of Propertius and Lucan, who no doubt took his strolls at dawn over the grounds of his estate, huffing on his panpipe among the shepherds of Theocritus. A collector of art – admittedly not very good art, but even so. A man with a narrow skull, weak mouth, and an empty gaze; the kind of person who, had he been born in a modest London suburb, would not have been given a second look.

  Achtung – Panzer! On 12 March 1938, the tanks led the parade. At the head of the XVI Army Corps, Heinz Guderian was finally about to see his dream come true. The first German tank had been built in 1918, in a run of twenty; it was a heavy metal carcass, a two-hundred-horsepower box, a fat baby-buggy, slow and cumbersome to manoeuvre. At the end of the First World War, one of them met an English tank in head-to-head combat and was blown to smithereens. While tanks had made significant progress since that first baptism of fire, there was still a long way to go. The Panzer IV, which for a time would be the queen of the battlefield, was still in its infancy on that day in March 1938. Produced by Krupp, that little tank was still a rather mediocre war machine. Its armour was too light, unable to withstand antitank shells, and its gun was effective only on soft targets. The Panzer II was even smaller, a real sardine tin. It was quick and nimble, but it couldn’t pierce the armour of an enemy tank, while remaining vulnerable itself. It was obsolete the minute it rolled out of the factory. In fact, it had been intended only for training purposes, but production lagged, war was declared sooner than expected, and it was put into active service. As for the Panzer I, it was really just a tankette, with room for only two men who sat directly on the metal floor, like yoga instructors. It was too fragile and its armament too weak, but at least it was cheap to make – hardly more expensive than a tractor.