Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  Gus shrugged. It seemed trivial. After the battlefield it was going to be difficult to take seriously some of the stuff people worried about in peacetime.

  Rosa said: “More importantly, he hasn’t brought any Republicans.”

  “He wants allies on his team, not enemies,” Gus said indignantly.

  “He needs allies back home, too,” Rosa said. “He’s lost Congress.”

  She had a point, and Gus was reminded how smart she was. The midterm elections had been disastrous for Wilson. The Republicans had gained control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. “How did that happen?” he said. “I’ve been out of touch.”

  “Ordinary people are fed up with rationing and high prices, and the end of the war came just a bit too late to help. And liberals hate the Espionage Act. It allowed Wilson to jail people who disagreed with the war. He used it, too—Eugene Debs was sentenced to ten years.” Debs had been a presidential candidate for the Socialists. Rosa sounded angry as she said: “You can’t put your opponents in jail and still pretend to believe in freedom.”

  Gus remembered how much he enjoyed the cut and thrust of an argument with Rosa. “Freedom sometimes has to be compromised in war,” he said.

  “Obviously American voters don’t think so. And there’s another thing: Wilson segregated his Washington offices.”

  Gus did not know whether Negroes could ever be raised to the level of white people but, like most liberal Americans, he thought the way to find out was to give them better chances in life and see what happened. However, Wilson and his wife were Southerners, and felt differently. “Edith won’t take her maid to London, for fear the girl will get spoiled,” Gus said. “She says British people are too polite to Negroes.”

  “Woodrow Wilson is no longer the darling of the left in America,” Rosa concluded. “Which means he’s going to need Republican support for his League of Nations.”

  “I suppose Henry Cabot Lodge feels snubbed.” Lodge was a right-wing Republican.

  “You know politicians,” Rosa said. “They’re as sensitive as schoolgirls, and more vengeful. Lodge is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Wilson should have brought him to Paris.”

  Gus protested: “Lodge is against the whole idea of the League of Nations!”

  “The ability to listen to smart people who disagree with you is a rare talent—but a president should have it. And bringing Lodge here would have neutralized him. As a member of the team, he couldn’t go home and fight against whatever is agreed in Paris.”

  Gus guessed she was right. But Wilson was an idealist who believed that the force of righteousness would overcome all obstacles. He underestimated the need to flatter, cajole, and seduce.

  The food was good, in honor of the president. They had fresh sole from the Atlantic in a buttery sauce. Gus had not eaten so well since before the war. He was amused to see Rosa tuck in heartily. She was a petite figure: where did she put it all?

  At the end of the meal they were served strong coffee in small cups. Gus found he did not want to leave Rosa and retire to his sleeping compartment. He was much too interested in talking to her. “Wilson will be in a strong position in Paris, anyway,” he said.

  Rosa looked skeptical. “How so?”

  “Well, first of all we won the war for them.”

  She nodded. “Wilson said: ‘At Château-Thierry we saved the world.’”

  “Chuck Dixon and I were in that battle.”

  “Was that where he died?”

  “Direct hit from a shell. First casualty I saw. Not the last, sadly.”

  “I’m very sorry, especially for his wife. I’ve known Doris for years—we used to have the same piano teacher.”

  “I don’t know if we saved the world, though,” Gus went on. “There are many more French and British and Russians among the dead than Americans. But we tipped the balance. That ought to mean something.”

  She shook her head, tossing her dark curls. “I disagree. The war is over, and the Europeans no longer need us.”

  “Men such as Lloyd George seem to think that American military power cannot be ignored.”

  “Then he’s wrong,” said Rosa. Gus was surprised and intrigued to hear a woman speak so forcefully about such a subject. “Suppose the French and British simply refuse to go along with Wilson,” she said. “Would he use the army to enforce his ideas? No. Even if he wanted to, a Republican Congress wouldn’t let him.”

  “We have economic and financial power.”

  “It’s certainly true that the Allies owe us huge debts, but I’m not sure how much leverage that gives us. There’s a saying: ‘If you owe a hundred dollars, the bank has you in its power; but if you owe a million dollars, you have the bank in your power.’”

  Gus began to see that Wilson’s task might be more difficult than he had imagined. “Well, what about public opinion? You saw the reception Wilson got in Brest. All over Europe, people are looking to him to create a peaceful world.”

  “That’s his strongest card. People are sick of slaughter. ‘Never again’ is their cry. I just hope Wilson can deliver what they want.”

  They returned to their compartments and said good night. Gus lay awake a long time, thinking about Rosa and what she had said. She really was the smartest woman he had ever met. She was beautiful, too. Somehow you quickly forgot about her eye. At first it seemed a terrible deformity, but after a while Gus stopped noticing it.

  She had been pessimistic about the conference, however. And everything she said was true. Wilson had a struggle ahead, Gus now realized. He was overjoyed to be part of the team, and determined to do what he could to turn the president’s ideals into reality.

  In the small hours of the morning he looked out of the window as the train steamed eastward across France. Passing through a town, he was startled to see crowds on the station platforms and on the road beside the railway line, watching. It was dark, but they were clearly visible by lamplight. There were thousands of them, men and women and children. There was no cheering: they were quite silent. The men and boys took off their hats, Gus saw, and that gesture of respect moved him almost to tears. They had waited half the night to see the passing of the train that held the hope of the world.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  December 1918 to February 1919

  The votes were counted three days after Christmas. Eth and Bernie Leckwith stood in Aldgate town hall to hear the results, Bernie on the platform in his best suit, Eth in the audience.

  Bernie lost.

  He was stoical, but Ethel cried. For him it was the end of a dream. Perhaps it had been a foolish dream, but all the same he was hurt, and her heart ached for him.

  The Liberal candidate had supported the Lloyd George coalition, so there had been no Conservative candidate. Consequently the Conservatives had voted Liberal, and the combination had been too much for Labour to beat.

  Bernie congratulated his winning opponent and came down off the platform. The other Labour Party members had a bottle of Scotch and wanted to hold a wake, but Bernie and Ethel went home.

  “I’m not cut out for this, Eth,” Bernie said as she boiled water for cocoa.

  “You did a good job,” she said. “We were outwitted by that bloody Lloyd George.”

  Bernie shook his head. “I’m not a leader,” he said. “I’m a thinker and a planner. Time and again I tried to talk to people the way you do, and fire them with enthusiasm for our cause, but I never could do it. When you talk to them, they love you. That’s the difference.”

  She knew he was right.

  Next morning the newspapers showed that the Aldgate result had been mirrored all over the country. The coalition had won 525 of the 707 seats, one of the largest majorities in the history of Parliament. The people had voted for the man who won the war.

  Ethel was bitterly disappointed. The old men were still running the country. The politicians who had caused millions of deaths were now celebrating, as if they had done something wonderful. Bu
t what had they achieved? Pain and hunger and destruction. Ten million men and boys had been killed to no purpose.

  The only glimmer of hope was that the Labour Party had improved its position. They had won sixty seats, up from forty-two.

  It was the anti-Lloyd George Liberals who had suffered. They had won only thirty constituencies, and Asquith himself had lost his seat. “This could be the end of the Liberal Party,” said Bernie as he spread dripping on his bread for lunch. “They’ve failed the people, and Labour is the opposition now. That may be our only consolation.”

  Just before they left for work, the post arrived. Ethel looked at the letters while Bernie tied the laces of Lloyd’s shoes. There was one from Billy, written in their code. She sat at the kitchen table to decode it.

  She underlined the key words with a pencil and wrote them on a pad. As she deciphered the message she became more and more fascinated.

  “You know Billy’s in Russia,” she said to Bernie.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he says our army is there to fight against the Bolsheviks. The American army is there too.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Yes, but listen, Bern,” she said. “We know the Whites can’t beat the Bolsheviks—but what if foreign armies join in? Anything could happen!”

  Bernie looked thoughtful. “They could bring back the monarchy.”

  “The people of this country won’t stand for that.”

  “The people of this country don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Then we’d better tell them,” said Ethel. “I’m going to write an article.”

  “Who will publish it?”

  “We’ll see. Maybe the Daily Herald.” The Herald was left-wing. “Will you take Lloyd to the child minder?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Ethel thought for a minute, then, at the top of a sheet of paper, she wrote:Hands Off Russia!

  { II }

  Walking around Paris made Maud cry. Along the broad boulevards there were piles of rubble where German shells had fallen. Broken windows in the grand buildings were repaired with boards, reminding her painfully of her handsome brother with his disfigured eye. The avenues of trees were marred by gaps where an ancient chestnut or noble plane had been sacrificed for its timber. Half the women wore black for mourning, and on street corners crippled soldiers begged for change.

  She was crying for Walter, too. She had received no reply to her letter. She had inquired about going to Germany, but that was impossible. It had been difficult enough to get permission to come to Paris. She had hoped Walter might come here with the German delegation, but there was no German delegation: the defeated countries were not invited to the peace conference. The victorious Allies intended to thrash out an agreement among themselves, then present the losers with a treaty for signing.

  Meanwhile there was a shortage of coal, and all the hotels were freezing cold. She had a suite at the Majestic, where the British delegation was headquartered. To guard against French spies, the British had replaced all the staff with their own people. Consequently the food was dire: porridge for breakfast, overcooked vegetables, and bad coffee.

  Wrapped in a prewar fur coat, Maud went to meet Johnny Remarc at Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysées. “Thank you for arranging for me to travel to Paris,” she said.

  “Anything for you, Maud. But why were you so keen to come here?”

  She was not going to tell the truth, least of all to someone who loved to gossip. “Shopping,” she said. “I haven’t bought a new dress for four years.”

  “Oh, spare me,” he said. “There’s almost nothing to buy, and what there is costs a fortune. Fifteen hundred francs for a gown! Even Fitz might draw the line there. I think you must have a French paramour.”

  “I wish I did.” She changed the subject. “I’ve found Fitz’s car. Do you know where I might get petrol?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  They ordered lunch. Maud said: “Do you think we’re really going to make the Germans pay billions in reparations?”

  “They’re not in a good position to object,” said Johnny. “After the Franco-Prussian War they made France pay five billion francs—which the French did in three years. And last March, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germany made the Bolsheviks promise six billion marks, although of course it won’t be paid now. All the same, the Germans’ righteous indignation has the hollow ring of hypocrisy.”

  Maud hated it when people spoke harshly of the Germans. It was as if the fact that they had lost made them beasts. What if we had been the losers, Maud wanted to say—would we have had to say the war was our fault, and pay for it all? “But we’re asking for so much more—twenty-four billion pounds, we say, and the French put it at almost double that.”

  “It’s hard to argue with the French,” Johnny said. “They owe us six hundred million pounds, and more to the Americans; but if we deny them German reparations they’ll say they can’t pay us.”

  “Can the Germans pay what we’re asking?”

  “No. My friend Pozzo Keynes says they could pay about a tenth—two billion pounds—though it may cripple their country.”

  “Do you mean John Maynard Keynes, the Cambridge economist?”

  “Yes. We call him Pozzo.”

  “I didn’t know he was one of . . . your friends.”

  Johnny smiled. “Oh, yes, my dear, very much so.”

  Maud suffered a moment of envy for Johnny’s cheerful depravity. She had fiercely suppressed her own need for physical love. It was almost two years since a man had touched her lovingly. She felt like an old nun, wrinkled and dried up.

  “What a sad look!” Johnny did not miss much. “I hope you’re not in love with Pozzo.”

  She laughed, then turned the conversation back to politics. “If we know the Germans can’t pay, why is Lloyd George insisting?”

  “I asked him that question myself. I’ve known him quite well since he was minister for munitions. He says all the belligerents will end up paying their own debts, and no one will get any reparations to speak of.”

  “So why this pretense?”

  “Because in the end the taxpayers of every country will pay for the war—but the politician who tells them that will never win another election.”

  { III }

  Gus went to the daily meetings of the League of Nations Commission. This group had the job of drafting the covenant that would set up the league. Woodrow Wilson himself chaired the committee, and he was in a hurry.

  Wilson had completely dominated the first month of the conference. He had swept aside a French agenda putting German reparations at the top and the league at the bottom, and insisted that the league must be part of any treaty signed by him.

  The League Commission met at the luxurious Hotel Crillon on the Place de la Concorde. The hydraulic elevators were ancient and slow, and sometimes stopped between floors while the water pressure built up; Gus thought they were very like the European diplomats, who enjoyed nothing more than a leisurely argument, and never came to a decision until forced. He saw with secret amusement that both diplomats and lifts caused the American president to fidget and mutter in furious impatience.

  The nineteen commissioners sat around a big table covered with a red cloth, their interpreters behind them whispering in their ears, their aides around the room with files and notebooks. Gus could tell that the Europeans were impressed by his boss’s ability to drive the agenda forward. Some people had said the writing of the covenant would take months, if not years; and others said the nations would never reach agreement. However, to Gus’s delight, after ten days they were close to completing a first draft.

  Wilson had to return to the United States on February 14. He would be back soon, but he was determined to have a draft of the covenant to take home.

  Unfortunately, the afternoon before he left the French produced a major obstacle. They proposed that the League of Nations should have its own army.

  Wilson’s ey
es rolled up in despair. “Impossible,” he groaned.

  Gus knew why. Congress would not allow American troops to be under someone else’s control.

  The French delegate, former prime minister Léon Bourgeois, argued that the league would be ignored if it had no means of enforcing its decisions.

  Gus shared Wilson’s frustration. There were other ways for the league to put pressure on rogue nations: diplomacy, economic sanctions, and in the last resort an ad hoc army, to be used for a specific mission, then disbanded when the job was done.

  But Bourgeois said none of that would have protected France from Germany. The French could not focus on anything else. Perhaps it was understandable, Gus thought, but it was not the way to create a new world order.

  Lord Robert Cecil, who had done a lot of the drafting, raised a bony finger to speak. Wilson nodded: he liked Cecil, who was a strong supporter of the league. Not everyone agreed: Clemenceau, the French prime minister, said that when Cecil smiled he looked like a Chinese dragon. “Forgive me for being blunt,” Cecil said. “The French delegation seems to be saying that because the league may not be as strong as they hoped, they will reject it altogether. May I point out very frankly that in that case there will almost certainly be a bilateral alliance between Great Britain and the United States that would offer nothing to France.”

  Gus suppressed a smile. That’s telling ’em, he thought.

  Bourgeois looked shocked and withdrew his amendment.

  Wilson shot a grateful look across the table at Cecil.

  The Japanese delegate, Baron Makino, wanted to speak. Wilson nodded and looked at his watch.

  Makino referred to the clause in the covenant, already agreed, that guaranteed religious freedom. He wished to add an amendment to the effect that all members would treat each other’s citizens equally, without racial discrimination.

  Wilson’s face froze.

  Makino’s speech was eloquent, even in translation. Different races had fought side by side in the war, he pointed out. “A common bond of sympathy and gratitude has been established.” The league would be a great family of nations. Surely they should treat one another as equals?