Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  ARMY OF PARIS

  CITIZENS OF PARIS

  Fitz’s eye went to the foot of the notice and he saw that it was signed by General Galliéni, the military governor of the city. Galliéni, a crusty old soldier, had been brought out of retirement. He was famous for holding meetings at which no one was allowed to sit down: he believed people reached decisions faster that way.

  The body of his message was characteristically terse.

  The members of the Government of the Republic have left Paris to give new impetus to the national defense.

  Fitz was dismayed. The government had fled! There had been rumors for the last few days that ministers would decamp to Bordeaux, but the politicians had hesitated, not wanting to abandon the capital. However, now they had gone. It was a very bad sign.

  The rest of the announcement was defiant.

  I have been entrusted with the duty of defending Paris against the invader.

  So, Fitz thought, Paris will not surrender after all. The city will fight. Good! That was certainly in British interests. If the capital had to fall, at least the enemy should be made to pay heavily for their conquest.

  This duty I shall carry out to the last extremity.

  Fitz could not help smiling. Thank God for old soldiers.

  The people around seemed to have mixed feelings. Some comments were admiring. Galliéni was a fighter, someone said with satisfaction; he would not let Paris be taken. Others were more realistic. The government has left us, a woman said; that means the Germans will be here today or tomorrow. A man with a briefcase said he had sent his wife and children to his brother’s house in the country. A well-dressed woman said she had thirty kilos of dried beans in the kitchen cupboard.

  Fitz just felt that the British contribution to the war effort, and his part in it, had become even more important.

  With a strong sense of doom, he drove on to the Ritz.

  He entered the lobby of his favorite hotel and went into a phone booth. There he called the British embassy and left a message for the ambassador, telling him about Galliéni’s notice, just in case the news had not yet reached the rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré.

  When he came out of the booth he ran into Sir John’s aide Colonel Hervey.

  Hervey looked at Fitz’s tuxedo and said: “Major Fitzherbert! Why the devil are you dressed like that?”

  “Good morning, Colonel,” said Fitz, deliberately not answering the question. It was obvious that he had been out all night.

  “It’s nine o’clock in the bloody morning! Don’t you know we’re at war?”

  This was another question that did not require an answer. Coolly Fitz said: “Is there something I can do for you, sir?”

  Hervey was a bully who hated people he could not intimidate. “Less of your insolence, Major,” he said. “We’ve got enough to do, with interfering bloody visitors from London.”

  Fitz raised an eyebrow. “Lord Kitchener is the minister for war.”

  “The politicians should leave us to do our job. But someone with friends in high places has stirred them up.” He looked as if he suspected Fitz, but did not have the courage to say so.

  “You can hardly have been surprised at the War Office being concerned,” Fitz said. “Ten days’ rest, with the Germans at the gates!”

  “The men are exhausted!”

  “In ten days the war might be over. What are we here for, if not to save Paris?”

  “Kitchener took Sir John away from his headquarters on a crucial day of battle,” Hervey blustered.

  “Sir John wasn’t in much of a hurry to get back to his troops, I noticed,” Fitz rejoined. “I saw him dining here at the Ritz that evening.” He knew he was being insolent but he could not help himself.

  “Get out of my sight,” said Hervey.

  Fitz turned on his heel and went upstairs.

  He was not as insouciant as he had pretended. Nothing would make him kowtow to idiots such as Hervey, but it was important to him to have a successful military career. He hated the thought that people might say he was not the man his father was. Hervey was not much use to the army because he spent all his time and energy patronizing his favorites and undermining his rivals, but by the same token he could ruin the careers of men who concentrated on other things, such as winning the war.

  Fitz brooded as he bathed, shaved, and dressed in the khaki uniform of a major in the Welsh Rifles. Knowing that he might get nothing to eat until dinner, he ordered an omelette sent up to his suite with more coffee.

  At ten o’clock sharp his working day began, and he put the malign Hervey out of his mind. Lieutenant Murray, a keen young Scot, arrived from British headquarters, bringing into Fitz’s suite the dust of the road and the morning’s aerial reconnaissance report.

  Fitz rapidly translated the document into French and wrote it out in his clear, swooping script on pale blue Ritz paper. Every morning British planes overflew German positions and noted the direction in which enemy forces were moving. It was Fitz’s job to get the information to General Galliéni as quickly as possible.

  Going out through the lobby he was called by the head porter to take a phone call.

  The voice that said: “Fitz, is that you?” was distant and distorted, but to his astonishment it was, unmistakably, that of his sister, Maud.

  “How the devil did you manage this?” he said. Only the government and the military could phone Paris from London.

  “I’m in Johnny Remarc’s room at the War Office.”

  “I’m glad to hear your voice,” Fitz said. “How are you?”

  “Everyone’s terribly worried here,” she said. “At first the papers printed nothing but good news. Only people who knew their geography understood that after each gallant French victory the Germans seemed to be another fifty miles inside France. But on Sunday The Times published a special edition. Isn’t that odd? The everyday paper is full of lies, so when they tell the truth they have to bring out a special edition.”

  She was trying to be witty and cynical, but Fitz could hear the fear and anger underneath. “What did the special edition say?”

  “It spoke of our ‘retreating and broken army.’ Asquith is furious. Now everyone expects Paris to fall any day.” Her façade cracked, and there was a sob in her voice as she said: “Fitz, are you going to be all right?”

  He could not lie to her. “I don’t know. The government has moved to Bordeaux. Sir John French has been told off, but he’s still here.”

  “Sir John has complained to the War Office that Kitchener went to Paris in the uniform of a field marshal, which was a breach of etiquette because he is now a government minister and therefore a civilian.”

  “Good God. At a time like this he’s thinking about etiquette! Why hasn’t he been sacked?”

  “Johnny says it would look like an admission of failure.”

  “What will it look like if Paris falls to the Germans?”

  “Oh, Fitz!” Maud began to cry. “What about the baby Bea is expecting—your child?”

  “How is Bea?” Fitz said, remembering guiltily where he had spent the night.

  Maud sniffed and swallowed. More calmly, she said: “Bea looks bonny, and she no longer suffers from that tiresome morning sickness.”

  “Tell her I miss her.”

  There was a burst of interference, and another voice came on the line for a few seconds, then disappeared. That meant they might get cut off any second. When Maud spoke again, her voice was plaintive. “Fitz, when will it end?”

  “Within the next few days,” Fitz said. “One way or the other.”

  “Please look after yourself!”

  “Of course.”

  The line went dead.

  Fitz cradled the phone, tipped the head porter, and went out into the Place Vendôme.

  He got into his car and drove off. Maud had upset him by speaking of Bea’s pregnancy. Fitz was willing to die for his country, and hoped he would die bravely, but he wanted to see his baby. He had not yet been a pa
rent and he was eager to meet his child, to watch him learn and grow, to help him become an adult. He did not want his son or daughter raised without a father.

  He drove across the river Seine to the complex of army buildings known as Les Invalides. Galliéni had made his headquarters in a nearby school called the Lycée Victor-Duruy, set back behind trees. The entrance was closely guarded by sentries in bright blue tunics and red trousers with red caps, so much smarter than the mud-colored British khaki. The French had not yet grasped that accurate modern rifles meant that today’s soldier wanted to disappear into the landscape.

  Fitz was well known to the guards and walked straight in. It was a girls’ school, with paintings of pets and flowers, and Latin verbs conjugated on blackboards that had been pushed out of the way. The rifles of the sentries and the boots of the officers seemed to offend against the gentility of what had gone before.

  Fitz went straight to the staff room. As soon as he walked in he sensed an atmosphere of excitement. On the wall was a large map of central France on which the positions of the armies had been marked with pins. Galliéni was tall, thin, and upright despite the prostate cancer that had caused him to retire in February. Now back in uniform, he stared aggressively at the map through his pince-nez glasses.

  Fitz saluted, then shook hands, French style, with his opposite number, Major Dupuys, and asked in a whisper what was going on.

  “We’re tracking von Kluck,” said Dupuys.

  Galliéni had a squadron of nine old aircraft that he was using to monitor the movements of the invading army. General von Kluck was in command of the First Army, the nearest German force to Paris.

  “What have you got?” Fitz asked.

  “Two reports.” Dupuys pointed at the map. “Our aerial reconnaissance indicates that von Kluck is moving southeast, towards the river Marne.”

  This confirmed what the British had reported. On that trajectory, the First Army would pass to the east of Paris. And, since von Kluck commanded the German right wing, that meant their entire force would bypass the city. Would Paris escape after all?

  Dupuys went on: “And we have a report from a cavalry scout that suggests the same.”

  Fitz nodded thoughtfully. “German military theory is to destroy the enemy’s army first, and take possession of cities later.”

  “But don’t you see?” said Dupuys excitedly. “They are exposing their flank!”

  Fitz had not thought of that. His mind had been on the fate of Paris. Now he realized that Dupuys was right, and this was the reason for the air of exhilaration. If the intelligence was right, von Kluck had made a classic military error. The flank of an army was more vulnerable than its head. A flank attack was like a stab in the back.

  Why had von Kluck made such a mistake? He must believe the French to be so weak that they were incapable of counterattack.

  In which case, he was wrong.

  Fitz addressed the general. “I think this will interest you greatly, sir,” he said, and handed over his envelope. “It’s our aerial reconnaissance report of this morning.”

  “Aha!” said Galliéni eagerly.

  Fitz stepped up to the map. “If I may, General?”

  The general nodded permission. The British were not popular, but all intelligence was welcome.

  Consulting the English-language original, Fitz said: “Our people put von Kluck’s army here.” He stuck a new pin in the map. “And moving in this direction.” It confirmed what the French already believed.

  For a moment, the room was silent.

  “It’s true, then,” said Dupuys quietly. “They have exposed their flank.”

  General Galliéni’s eyes glittered behind his pince-nez. “So,” he said, “this is our moment to attack.”

  { II }

  Fitz was at his most pessimistic at three o’clock in the morning, lying next to Gini’s slim body, when sex was over and he found himself missing his wife. Then he thought dispiritedly that von Kluck must surely realize his mistake and reverse course.

  But next morning, Friday, September 4, to the delight of the French defenders, von Kluck continued southeast. That was enough for General Joffre. He gave orders for the French Sixth Army to move out from Paris the following morning and strike at von Kluck’s rearguard.

  But the British continued to retreat.

  Fitz was in despair that evening when he met Gini at Albert’s. “This is our last chance,” he explained to her over a champagne cocktail that did nothing to cheer him up. “If we can seriously rattle the Germans now, when they are exhausted and their supply lines are fully stretched, we may bring their advance to a halt. But if this counterattack fails, Paris will fall.”

  She was sitting on a bar stool, and she crossed her long legs with a whisper of silk stockings. “But why are you so gloomy?”

  “Because, at a time like this, the British are retreating. If Paris falls now, we will never live down the shame of it.”

  “General Joffre must confront Sir John and demand that the British fight! You must speak to Joffre yourself!”

  “He doesn’t give audience to British majors. Besides, he would probably think it was some kind of trick by Sir John. And I would be in deep trouble, not that I care about that.”

  “Then speak to one of his advisers.”

  “Same problem. I can’t walk into French army headquarters and announce that the British are betraying them.”

  “But you could have a quiet word in the ear of General Lourceau, without anyone knowing about it.”

  “How?”

  “He is sitting over there.”

  Fitz followed her gaze and saw a Frenchman of about sixty in civilian clothes sitting at a table with a young woman in a red dress.

  “He is very amiable,” Gini added.

  “You know him?”

  “We were friends for a while, but he preferred Lizette.”

  Fitz hesitated. Once again he was contemplating going behind the backs of his superiors. But this was no time for niceties. Paris was at stake. He had to do whatever he could.

  “Introduce me,” he said.

  “Give me a minute.” Gini slid elegantly off her stool and walked across the club, swaying slightly to the ragtime piano, until she came to the general’s table. She kissed him on the lips, smiled at his companion, and sat down. After a few moments’ earnest conversation she beckoned to Fitz.

  Lourceau stood up and the two men shook hands. “I’m honored to meet you, sir,” Fitz said.

  “This is not the place for serious conversation,” the general said. “But Gini assures me that what you have to say to me is terribly urgent.”

  “It most certainly is,” Fitz said, and he sat down.

  { III }

  Next day Fitz went to the British camp at Melun, twenty-five miles southeast of Paris, and learned to his dismay that the Expeditionary Force was still retreating.

  Perhaps his message had not got through to Joffre. Or perhaps it had, and Joffre simply felt there was nothing he could do.

  Fitz entered Vaux-le-Pénil, the magnificent Louis XV château Sir John was using as headquarters, and ran into Colonel Hervey in the hall. “May I ask, sir, why we are retreating when our allies are launching a counterattack?” he said as politely as he could.

  “No, you may not ask,” said Hervey.

  Fitz persisted, suppressing his anger. “The French feel they and the Germans are evenly balanced, and even our small force may tip the scales.”

  Hervey laughed scornfully. “I’m sure they do.” He spoke as if the French had no right to demand the help of their allies.

  Fitz felt himself losing self-control. “Paris could be lost because of our timidity!”

  “Do not dare to use such a word, Major.”

  “We were sent here to save France. This may be the decisive battle.” Fitz could not help raising his voice. “If Paris is lost, and France with it, how will we explain, back home, that we were resting at the time?”

  Instead of replying,
Hervey stared over Fitz’s shoulder. Fitz turned to see a heavy, slow-moving figure in French uniform: a black tunic that was unbuttoned over the large waist, ill-fitting red breeches, tight leggings, and the red-and-gold cap of a general pulled low over the forehead. Colorless eyes glanced at Fitz and Hervey from under salt-and-pepper eyebrows. Fitz recognized General Joffre.

  When the general had lumbered past, followed by his entourage, Hervey said: “Are you responsible for this?”

  Fitz was too proud to lie. “Possibly,” he said.

  “You haven’t heard the last of it,” Hervey said, and he turned and hurried after Joffre.

  Sir John received Joffre in a small room with only a few officers present, and Fitz was not among them. He waited in the officers’ mess, wondering what Joffre was saying and whether he could persuade Sir John to end the shameful British retreat and join in the assualt.

  He learned the answer two hours later from Lieutenant Murray. “They say Joffre tried everything,” Murray reported. “He begged, he wept, and he insinuated that British honor was in danger of being forever besmirched. And he won his point. Tomorrow we turn north.”

  Fitz grinned broadly. “Hallelujah,” he said.

  A minute later Colonel Hervey approached. Fitz stood up politely.

  “You’ve gone too far,” Hervey said. “General Lourceau told me what you did. He thought he was paying you a compliment.”

  “I shan’t deny it,” Fitz said. “The outcome suggests that it was the right thing.”

  “You listen to me, Fitzherbert,” Hervey said, lowering his voice. “You’re fucking finished. You’ve been disloyal to a superior officer. There’s a black mark against your name that will never be erased. You won’t get promotion, even if the war goes on for a year. Major you are and major you will always be.”

  “Thank you for your frankness, Colonel,” said Fitz. “But I joined the army to win battles, not promotions.”

  { IV }