Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  “A triumph.”

  “What more do we want, then?”

  “Total victory!”

  Walter leaned forward in his chair, looking intently at his father. “Why?”

  “Our enemies must pay for their aggression! There must be reparations, perhaps border adjustments, colonial concessions.”

  “These were not our original war aims . . . were they?”

  But Otto wanted to have it both ways. “No, but now that we have expended so much effort and money, and the lives of so many fine young Germans, we must have something in return.”

  It was a weak argument, but Walter knew better than to try to change his father’s mind. Anyway, he had made the point that Germany’s war aims had been achieved. Now he changed tack. “Are you quite sure that total victory is attainable?”

  “Yes!”

  “Back in February we launched an all-out assault on the French fortress of Verdun. We failed to take it. The Russians attacked us in the east, and the British threw everything into their offensive at the river Somme. These huge efforts by both sides have failed to end the stalemate.” He waited for a response.

  Grudgingly, Otto said: “So far, yes.”

  “Indeed, our own high command has acknowledged this. Since August, when von Falkenhayn was fired and Ludendorff became chief of staff, we have changed our tactics from attack to defense in depth. How do you imagine defense in depth will lead to total victory?”

  “Unrestricted submarine warfare!” Otto said. “The Allies are being sustained by supplies from America, while our ports are blockaded by the British navy.We have to cut off their lifeline—then they’ll give in.”

  Walter had not wanted to get into this, but now that he had begun he had to go on. Gritting his teeth, he said as mildly as he could: “That would certainly draw America into the war.”

  “Do you know how many men there are in the United States Army?”

  “It’s only about a hundred thousand, but—”

  “Correct. They can’t even pacify Mexico! They’re no threat to us.”

  Otto had never been to America. Few men of his generation had. They just did not know what they were talking about. “The United States is a big country with great wealth,” Walter said, seething with frustration but keeping his tone conversational, trying to maintain the pretense of an amiable discussion. “They can build up their army.”

  “But not quickly. It will take them at least a year. By that time, the British and French will have surrendered.”

  Walter nodded. “We’ve had this discussion before, Father,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “So has everyone connected with war strategy. There are arguments on both sides.”

  Otto could hardly deny that, so he just grunted disapprovingly.

  Walter said: “Anyway, I’m sure it’s not for me to decide Germany’s response to this informal approach from Washington.”

  Otto took the hint. “Nor for me, of course.”

  “Wilson says that if Germany will write formally to the Allies proposing peace talks, he will publicly support the proposal. I suppose it’s our duty to pass this message on to our sovereign.”

  “Indeed,” said Otto. “The kaiser must decide.”

  { IV }

  Walter wrote a letter to Maud on a plain sheet of white paper with no letterhead.

  My dearest darling,

  It is winter in Germany and in my heart.

  He wrote in English. He did not put his address at the top, nor did he use her name.

  I cannot tell you how much I love you and how badly I miss you.

  It was hard to know what to say. The letter might be read by inquisitive policemen, and he had to make sure neither Maud nor he could be identified.

  I am one of a million men separated from the women we love, and the north wind blows through all our souls.

  His idea was that this might be a letter from any soldier living away from his family because of the war.

  It is a cold, bleak world for me, as it must be for you, but the hardest part to bear is our separation.

  He wished he could tell her about his work in battlefield intelligence, about his mother trying to make him marry Monika, about the scarcity of food in Berlin, even about the book he was reading, a family saga called Buddenbrooks. But he was afraid that any specifics would put him or her in danger.

  I cannot say much, but I want you to know that I am faithful to you—

  He broke off, thinking guiltily of the urge he had felt to kiss Monika. But he had not yielded.

  —and to the sacred promises we made to each other the last time we were together.

  It was as near as he could get to mentioning their marriage. He did not want to risk someone at her end reading it and learning the truth.

  I think every day of the moment when we will meet again, and look into one another’s eyes and say: “Hello, my beloved.”

  Until then, remember me.

  He did not sign his name.

  He put the letter in an envelope and slipped it into the inside breast pocket of his jacket.

  There was no postal service between Germany and England.

  He left his room, went downstairs, put on a hat and a heavy overcoat with a fur collar, and went out into the shivering streets of Berlin.

  He met Gus Dewar in the bar of the Adlon. The hotel maintained a shadow of its prewar dignity, with waiters in evening dress and a string quartet, but there were no imported drinks—no Scotch, no brandy, no English gin—so they ordered schnapps.

  “Well?” said Gus eagerly. “How was my message received?”

  Walter was full of hope; but he knew that the grounds for optimism were slight, and he wanted to play down his excitement. The news he had for Gus was positive, but only just. “The kaiser is writing to the president,” he said.

  “Good! What is he going to say?”

  “I have seen a draft. I’m afraid the tone is not very conciliatory.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Walter closed his eyes, remembering, then quoted: “ ‘The most formidable war in history has been raging for two and a half years. In that conflict, Germany and her allies have given proof of our indestructible strength. Our unshakable lines resist ceaseless attacks. Recent events show that continuation of the war cannot break our resisting power . . .’ There’s a lot more like that.”

  “I see why you say it’s not very conciliatory.”

  “Eventually it gets to the point.” Walter brought the next part to mind. “ ‘Conscious of our military and economic strength and ready to carry on to the end, if we must, the struggle that is forced upon us, but animated at the same time by the desire to stem the flow of blood and bring the horrors of war to an end’—here comes the important part—‘we propose even now to enter into peace negotiations.’ ”

  Gus was elated. “That’s great! He says yes!”

  “Quietly, please!” Walter looked around nervously, but it seemed no one had noticed. The sound of the string quartet muffled their conversation.

  “Sorry,” Gus said.

  “You’re right, though.” Walter smiled, allowing his feeling of sanguinity to show a little. “The tone is arrogant, combative, and scornful—but he proposes peace talks.”

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

  Walter held up a warning hand. “Let me tell you something very frankly. Powerful men close to the kaiser who are against peace have supported this proposal cynically, merely to look good in the eyes of your president, feeling sure the Allies will reject it anyway.”

  “Let’s hope they’re wrong!”

  “Amen to that.”

  “When will they send the letter?”

  “They’re still arguing about the wording. When that is agreed, the letter will be handed to the American ambassador here in Berlin, with a request that he pass it to the Allied governments.” This diplomatic game of pass-the-parcel was necessary because enemy governments had no official means of communication.


  “I’d better go to London,” Gus said. “Perhaps I can do something to prepare for its reception.”

  “I thought you might say that. I have a request.”

  “After what you’ve done to help me? Anything!”

  “It’s strictly personal.”

  “No problem.”

  “It requires me to let you into a secret.”

  Gus smiled. “Intriguing!”

  “I would like you to take a letter from me to Lady Maud Fitzherbert.”

  “Ah.” Gus looked thoughtful. He knew there could be only one reason for Walter to be writing secretly to Maud. “I see the need for discretion. But that’s okay.”

  “If your belongings are searched when you are leaving Germany or entering England, you will have to say that it is a love letter from an American man in Germany to his fiancée in London. The letter gives no names or addresses.”

  “All right.”

  “Thank you,” Walter said fervently. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

  { V }

  There was a shooting party at Tŷ Gwyn on Saturday, December 2. Earl Fitzherbert and Princess Bea were delayed in London, so Fitz’s friend Bing Westhampton acted as host, and Lady Maud as hostess.

  Before the war, Maud had loved such parties. Women did not shoot, of course, but she liked the house full of guests, the picnic lunch at which the ladies joined the men, and the blazing fires and hearty food they all came home to at night. But she found herself unable to enjoy such pleasure when soldiers were suffering in the trenches. She told herself that one couldn’t spend one’s whole life being miserable, even in wartime; but it did not work. She pasted on her brightest smile, and encouraged everyone to eat and drink heartily, but when she heard the shotguns she could only think of the battlefields. Lavish food was left untouched on her plate, and glasses of Fitz’s priceless old wines were taken away untasted.

  She hated to be at leisure, these days, because all she did was think about Walter. Was he alive or dead? The battle of the Somme was over, at last. Fitz said the Germans had lost half a million men. Was Walter one of them? Or was he lying in a hospital somewhere, maimed?

  Perhaps he was celebrating victory. The newspapers could not quite conceal the fact that the British army’s major effort for 1916 had gained a paltry seven miles of territory. The Germans might feel entitled to congratulate themselves. Even Fitz was saying, quietly and in private, that Britain’s best hope now was that the Americans might join in. Was Walter lounging in a brothel in Berlin, with a bottle of schnapps in one hand and a pretty blond fräulein in the other? I’d rather he was wounded, she thought, then she felt ashamed of herself.

  Gus Dewar was among the guests at Tŷ Gwyn, and at teatime he sought Maud out. All the men wore plus fours, tweed trousers buttoned just below the knee, and the tall American looked particularly foolish in them. He held a cup of tea precariously in one hand as he crossed the crowded morning room to where she sat.

  She suppressed a sigh. When a single man approached her he usually had romance on his mind, and she had to fight him off without admitting she was married, which was sometimes difficult. Nowadays, so many eligible upper-class bachelors had been killed in the war that the most unprepossessing men fancied their chances with her: younger sons of bankrupt barons, weedy clergymen with bad breath, even homosexuals looking for a woman to give them respectability.

  Not that Gus Dewar was such a poor prospect. He was not handsome, nor did he have the easy grace of such men as Walter and Fitz, but he had a sharp mind and high ideals, and he shared Maud’s passionate interest in world affairs. And the combination of his slight awkwardness, physical and social, with a certain blunt honesty somehow amounted to a kind of charm. If she had been single he might even have had a chance.

  He folded his long legs beside her on a yellow silk sofa. “Such a pleasure to be at Tŷ Gwyn again,” he said.

  “You were here shortly before the war,” Maud recalled. She would never forget that weekend in January 1914, when the king had come to stay and there had been a terrible disaster at the Aberowen pit. What she remembered most vividly—she was ashamed to realize—was kissing Walter. She wished she could kiss him now. What fools they had been to do no more than kiss! She wished now that they had made love, and she had got pregnant, so that they were obliged to marry in undignified haste, and had been sent away to live in perpetual social disgrace somewhere frightful like Rhodesia or Bengal. All the considerations that had inhibited them—parents, society, career—seemed trivial by comparison with the awful possibility that Walter might be killed and she would never see him again. “How can men be so stupid as to go to war?” she said to Gus. “And to continue fighting when the dreadful cost in men’s lives has long ago dwarfed any conceivable gain?”

  He said: “President Wilson believes the two sides should consider peace without victory.”

  She was relieved that he did not want to tell her what fine eyes she had, or some such rubbish. “I agree with the president,” she said. “The British army has already lost a million men. The Somme alone cost us four hundred thousand casualties.”

  “But what do the British people think?”

  Maud considered. “Most of the newspapers are still pretending the Somme was a great victory. Any attempt at a realistic assessment is labeled unpatriotic. I’m sure Lord Northcliffe would really rather live under a military dictatorship. But most of our people know we’re not making much progress.”

  “The Germans may be about to propose peace talks.”

  “Oh, I hope you’re right.”

  “I believe a formal approach may be made soon.”

  Maud stared at him. “Pardon me,” she said. “I assumed you were making polite conversation. But you’re not.” She felt excited. Peace talks? Could it happen?

  “No, I’m not making conversation,” Gus said. “I know you have friends in the Liberal government.”

  “It’s not really a Liberal government anymore,” she said. “It’s a coalition, with several Conservative ministers in the cabinet.”

  “Excuse me, I misspoke. I did know about the coalition. All the same, Asquith is still prime minister, and he is a Liberal, and I know you are close to many leading Liberals.”

  “Yes.”

  “So I’ve come here to ask your opinion as to how the German proposal might be received.”

  She considered carefully. She knew who Gus represented. The president of the United States was asking her this question. She had better be exact. As it happened, she had a key item of information. “Ten days ago the cabinet discussed a paper by Lord Lansdowne, a former Conservative foreign secretary, arguing that we cannot win the war.”

  Gus lit up. “Really? I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t. It was secret. However, there have been rumors, and Northcliffe has been fulminating against what he calls defeatist talk of negotiated peace.”

  Gus said eagerly: “And how was Lansdowne’s paper received?”

  “I’d say there are four men inclined to sympathize with him: the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey; the chancellor, McKenna; the president of the Board of Trade, Runciman; and the prime minister himself.”

  Gus’s face brightened with hope. “That’s a powerful faction!”

  “Especially now that the aggressive Winston Churchill has gone. He never recovered from the catastrophe of the Dardanelles expedition, which was his pet project.”

  “Who in the cabinet was against Lansdowne?”

  “David Lloyd George, secretary for war, the most popular politician in the country. And Lord Robert Cecil, minister for blockade; Arthur Henderson, the paymaster general, who is also leader of the Labour Party; and Arthur Balfour, first lord of the Admiralty.”

  “I saw the interview Lloyd George gave to the papers. He said he wanted to see a fight to the knockout.”

  “Most people agree with him, unfortunately. Of course, they get little chance to hear any other point of view. People who argue agai
nst the war—such as the philosopher Bertrand Russell—are constantly harassed by the government.”

  “But what was the conclusion of the cabinet?”

  “There was none. Asquith’s meetings often end that way. People complain that he’s indecisive.”

  “How frustrating. However, it seems a peace proposal won’t fall on deaf ears.”

  It was so refreshing, Maud thought, to talk to a man who took her completely seriously. Even those who spoke intelligently to her tended to condescend a little. Walter was really the only other man who conversed with her as an equal.

  At that moment Fitz came into the room. He was wearing black-and-gray London clothes, and had obviously just got off the train. He had an eye patch and walked with a stick. “I’m so sorry to have let you all down,” he said, addressing everyone. “I had to stay last night in town. London is in a ferment over the latest political developments.”

  Gus spoke up. “What developments? We haven’t seen today’s newspapers yet.”

  “Yesterday Lloyd George wrote to Asquith demanding a change in the way we manage the war. He wants an all-powerful war council of three ministers to make all the decisions.”

  Gus said: “And will Asquith agree?”

  “Of course not. He replied saying that if there were such a body the prime minister would have to be its chairman.”

  Fitz’s impish friend Bing Westhampton was sitting on a window seat with his feet up. “That defeats the object,” he said. “Any council of which Asquith is the chair will be just as feeble and indecisive as the cabinet.” He looked around apologetically. “Begging the pardon of government ministers here present.”

  “You’re right, though,” said Fitz. “The letter is really a challenge to Asquith’s leadership, especially as Lloyd George’s friend Max Aitken has given the story to all the newspapers. There’s no possibility of compromise now. It’s a fight to the knockout, as Lloyd George would say. If he doesn’t get his way, he’ll have to resign from the cabinet. And if he does get his way, Asquith will go—and then we’ll have to choose a new prime minister.”