"Ach du scheiss!" Guderian said.
"Oh my, that is a bit much," Alexander said.
Novogrudok, Poland, Tuesday, September 17
The American observer stood on the edge of a shallow valley and looked out over the devastation. For the moment General Guderian, busy with the encirclement of the Red Army's rear-area supply center at Loda, could spare the American, and so the general and his aide had driven out to the scene one of the smaller actions of the war. The reconnaissance unit of the Sixteenth Division had ploughed through a rear-area camp and sent the supply troops scattering. In an hour or so, a feldkompanie of Landesturm would arrive and bury the dead, sort out what might be usable, and otherwise rehabilitate the battlefield.
But for the moment General George S. Patton looked out over smashed tents, wrecked guns, ruined vehicles, and corpses. There was a tang of winter in the air, though it was still (or so the calendar said) summer. A pillar of smoke smutched the pale-blue sky. Above, the German Air Force now dominated the air, though it would give way every now and then to masses of Soviet planes.
The general harrumphed, then began to walk down towards the ruined base, through the remaining patches of grass. As he walked he observed. "This is the sort of result that I have been predicting," he said, his high-pitched voice a trifle hoarse. "Guderian has gone through the Red lines like crap through a goose! Their army is a team -- tanks, artillery, infantry, even air, all working together to deal out the greatest devastation that can be inflicted! Do you have that, Codman?"
"Yes, sir." The aide took a note.
"General Marshall now must build such a force itself in America. This settlement cannot last, he may be losing now, but Stalin will not give up! He has an entire empire of slaves at his disposal with which to repeat this terror! America will inevitably be drawn in, and at that time an American army prepared to fight on these terms must exist!"
He stopped and looked at a panje wagon. Flies buzzed around the chafed sores of the horse that still pulled it. "Those carts," Patton said. "This offensive is finished. They're finished. It was like that the last time here, when we put the wounded, what supplies we had left, in the carts. It was cold then. There was no green, no red of blood even, just white. There we were a few thousand. Someone came up and asked 'Where is the Grand Army?' We laughed at him. It was the first laugh we had had since Moscow. But we were finished."
He sighed and came back to the present. "Joe Stalin won't stand still forever. He may be checked by this, he may talk peace but he will be back. If only Guderian were in control! What a superb military machine he has! He could be in Moscow by Halloween!"
Then the general set to unstrapping the harness. Freed of its burden, the weary horse trotted forward and began to graze on some fresh grass. Lieutenant Codman put his hand to his hip. "Let me, sir--"
Patton raised a hand. "That horse is in basically good shape, and will pay back the Polish people, in some small form, for the Red barbarianism that has been unleashed upon them. Let him eat, and then we can put something on those galls and hand him over to the locals."
Minsk, Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Sunday, September 22
The days of the konarmiya, Budenny's First Cavalry Army that had swept into Poland in 1920, were past. Even though here and now, here they were, and here they were indeed were fighting German cavalry. Their opposite numbers, in name if not in equipment. That was what the vehicles, the armored cars and the guns, said: "Ulanenregiment Nr. 1". Regimental stationery and the like, with more space and time for such matters, proclaimed the unit to be in full Ulanenregiment 'Kaiser Alexander III von Russland' Nr. 1.
Alexander III had died; so had his son and heir, less peaceably. Now the Uhlans of his name were fighting on the soil of Russia, fighting the Bolsheviks as their fathers had fought the Russians.
Marshal Budenny was trying to repeat his success. The Red Army cavalry had come by train to Minsk, unloaded, and now was to strike across the base of the German advance. Kleist's corps was moving east to forestall them, to link up with Küchler, who was bringing his divisions south. The advance guard had run into problems.
Its new commander loved good horses, and was secretly pleased that the Reds had dismounted. He could shell them without guilt or favor, and did. But there were so many!
The day was dark enough as it was; by noon the clouds of gunsmoke and burnt buildings, trees, fields, made it darker. At every turn in the road the process was the same; put the cars in defilade if possible, site the guns, shoot, shoot, shoot, under a storm of artillery, then mortar fire, then bullets; thin out the lines as they got closer, then pull out at the last minute.
The rittmeister had taken a mortar shell early on, and one of the newest and most junior subalterns in the regiment was now in charge, his rank insignia still fresh and new. But he had to live up to it, and so dashed from barricade to hole, from tree to ditch, encouraging the resistance.
All through the day they fell back. Behind them the Grenadier-zu-Pferde were fighting their way forward, the Panzer division's infantry moving up to reinforce the advance guard, but Stalin had saved up his planes for his favorite Budenny, and the Sturmoviks blocked the roads with the occasional bombed vehicle.
When the advance guard of the infantry finally came up, near sunset, the feldwebel with the rear guard -- which by then was also the advance guard -- saluted his opposite number and said, "Get the leutnant back to an aid station. He was a little too close to a shell."
Then he said, in a lower voice, "I don't envy whoever's going to tell the Reichskanzler about his son . . ."
Grodno, Poland, Sunday, September 22
General Popov had managed to do the unimaginable. He had disengaged from the advance against the Polish Prussian Army, turned around, and counterattacked the German Prussian Army. Or at least the Panzergruppe. By good luck or blind fortune, he had struck at the "join"; the seam beween the British I Corps and the German I Panzer Corps. While to the west, the lumbering British Matildas and their speedier Crusaders drove south, and to the east, Manstein's panzers did likewise, in between there was a screen of infantry.
The British Second Division had been on the left, and had been driven back by the force of an entire army. While the other divisions wheeled and sought to counter pocket the encirclers, for the moment some of General Irwin's men were in a rather sticky wicket.
The Second Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment, was holed up in a small Polish village. For the moment there were few civilians to worry about; they were fled, at one time or another, or dead. There were the riflemen, the one Boys anti-tank rifle (whose wielder, after seeing how well it did against the Reds' T-34, or didn't do, almost burst into tears at having lugged that weight so far for nothing, until he started sniping at anyone who looked like a Red officer), a few mortars, and most of all the radioman.
A constant stream of begging messages flowed from the battalion headquarters, established in someone's basement. Not the one where the Reds had taken the local women without sense or ability to flee, no not that . . . "Any unit within range, I can pass on coordinates! Is there any artillery within range!"
Then a confident, commanding voice came on the air. "I have artillery. Two batteries of fifteen centimetre and three of ten and a half. What coordinates do you have?"
They didn't know if fifteen centimetres was a little or a lot -- twenty-five pounders would have been a lot more reassuring -- but it was, nevertheless, artillery. The colonel took the first Polish map he could lay his hands on and told the radioman what numbers to pass on.
A few minutes later great explosions rose up around the village. The enthusiastic "URRA! URRA!" that the Reds had been issuing suddenly became less enthusiastic. "Tell the lads to hold their fire for a bit," the colonel said, and then, "Tell him bloody good shooting. Now have him fire on this one . . ."
The shelling continued for about an hour, then the reassuring voice told them, "Relief is almost at your position."
Meanwhile, out in the mortar pits, an old
sergeant cuffed the enthusiastic young private who had lobbed a 2" mortar shell in the direction of this new force advancing on them. "You bloody thick git!" he said. "Don't you know the difference? Them's Huns, not Reds! This time we don't shoot them!"
To the tired and panicky soldiers, the Panzer Mark III of the Leib-Kuriasserregiment Grosser Kürfurst Nr. 1 might well look like T-34s. Fortunately, the few fragments of mortar shrapnel only made a clatter, drowned out by the treads.
While the relieved soldiers were forming up, ready to be pulled back into reserve, their benefactor arrived. One of the majors recalled that the man was a Duke, or had been a Duke, or something, and they formed up to salute . . .
Königsberg, East Prussia, Tuesday, September 24
The Reichswehr Minister and the Reichsheer Chief were being invited to examine the latest example of Soviet technology, captured at the front and dragged to the rear for inspection. Out of some idea of courtesy, Noske had invited representatives of their Allies to view it; only the English Colonel Hobart had accepted. The American General Patton was at the front; the French colonel de Gaulle was chafing at the bit in Paris; and so on.
Fritsch had brought several of Guderian's bright young men from Kummersdorf to inspect the Red tanks. One said, thumb over his shoulder pointing at the T-34, "We can build something like this, but far less crude."
Noske said, "Crude can kill just as well as fancy, and is quicker to make."
Behind him Colonel Hobart rapped on the armour of the bigger Soviet tank. "Good God! It's a bloody pantechnicon!" he said. At the incomprehension of his escort, who thought he had learned English, the colonel went on, "A lorry, like the ones they move furniture in."
"Oh, a panel truck."
"What?"
The leutnant remembered his school days in America and shrugged his shoulders. Then he saw motion, turned, and snapped off a crisp salute. "Herr General."
Fritsch had come up, he returned the salute and inspected the KV-1 with serious mien. After looking it up and down for a minute or two he said, "I will take his advice."
"Herr General?"
"Oh, after we ran into a few of these goliaths, Herr General Guderian proposed that anyone who knocked out one of them should get the Iron Cross First Class. For three, they would get the Pour le Mérite. Now that I have actually seen them, I will forward the proposal to our Minister over there with a firm recommendation. God in Heaven, we should be glad we have something to counter them!"
"Quite so," Hobart said. But he kept shut about that work the chap was doing with something he called "shaped charges". One can never know who may be the enemy . . .
Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, September 29
The Armée de Pologne was advancing slowly, cautiously, as the Soviet resistance faltered. There were rumors about les Boches, but no one took them seriously.
Until a courier came back to Général Touchon with a message. He prised it open and read it:
AM FIFTEEN KILOMETERS AWAY FROM YOUR POSITIONS STOP WILL FIRE GREEN ROCKETS AND FLARES STOP HOEPNER
Meanwhile at the front, the first Landsers of the Dragonerregiment von Bredow were conducting a stupefaction test with their French opposites over the relative efficacies of schnapps and Calvados. It had taken a while for the message to pass through channels. Popov's Northern Front was now completely in the bag.
Reichskanzlei, Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany, Monday, October 7, 1940
Manfred had to struggle to notice the map on the wall. No matter how much he tried, other things stayed on his mind. Mother, Ilse, and Carmen had driven the long, jolting route across Poland to the hospital in Königsberg. But he was alive, alive, alive . . .
"Excuse me, what is it, Herr Mertz?" he said.
Mertz von Quirnheim looked at the typed sheet, then at the map, "That is, Herr Reichskanzler, the Second Army has closed to the assigned stop line along the Dnieper-Dvina line. General Guderian reports that the Panzergruppe has reassembled and is ready to counterattack, or attack if need be.
"Meanwhile, the Poles and French have advanced southwest into Volhynia. They may be in Kiev by now. General Rommel in the Pripet Marshes, in between, reports little sign of resistance. That improvisation of his with the Flak guns persuaded the Reds not to try there."
Manfred finally brought himself to speak. "Do they have any more definite report on the number of prisoners?"
"Do you mean, Herr Reichskanzler, that 'three hectares of officers and fifteen of soldiers' wasn't enough?" Papen said.
For days the pictures had been strewn across the front pages of the newspapers. Red Army troopers with their hands raised, great stacks of submachine guns and Nagant rifles, long columns of trucks and panje wagons going west . . . Guderian's men had made off with a half-dozen of the Red tanks, still working, and were tearing them down even now at Kummersdorf, promising a far more powerful version of the next Panzer. Their airplanes were not so great, but Udet had already flown a Sturmovik and pronounced it adequate. A junior officer from General von Bock's staff named Strik-Strikfeldt was already interviewing the prisoners, taking notes.
Papen had continued his habit of showing up for the day's briefing. This day Noske had turned up as well, wanting to hear the latest confirmations of his attitudes about Bolsheviks. Sometimes other ministers had shown up but not today.
But his son would get better.
Papen went on, "We haven't even won the war yet and already there's confusion. Rydz-Smigly has already recognized this 'Ukrainian National Committee' and even set them up in Zhitomir for the moment, and this 'Belarus Liberation League' in Minsk seems to be another of the same. Both sponsored by Poland, of course.
"Meanwhile there is a standoff at Vilno. Or Vilnius. President Smetona himself has gone there and the Lithuanians have moved an infantry division into the town. He says the Poles stole it in 1920; needless to say, Colonel Beck says that it was the will of the inhabitants to join Poland. Beck offered them the old 'Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth' proposal they had made back then. I don't think Smetona is overly thrilled by the idea.
"And they are still making trouble in Danzig. We may have to give the Polish government some concessions in return for getting it back."
Noske spoke for the first time. "Herr Mertz! What is the report on the Bolshevik atrocities?"
"Which ones?" Mertz shuffled through two or three reports. "Did you want to see the one on what they did in Minsk? Moved about five thousand prisoners into a mine, it was, and tried to flood it. Or further south? All those stories about that famine weren't exactly true, it seems. The famine was a lot worse than even the professional anti-Bolsheviks had it. Some of those stories . . ." his voice trailed off. "God have mercy."
Noske scowled. "That, Herren, is what the Moscow system does when its power is unchecked by any external constraints. Looking at the enormity of these terrors, I consider myself fully vindicated!"
"Indeed, it would be most helpful to publicize these atrocities. I understand the British General Alexander has broken with a friend of his -- an American journalist named Duranty -- over the extreme and untoward Soviet behavior in eastern Poland," Papen said.
"Normal behavior for Bolsheviks, you mean!" Noske shot back. "The army has taken prisoner over a dozen high-ranking Ogpu officials, captured lists of Polish notables to be liquidated -- their terror campaign was being exported! Just what our Bolsheviks did when they had power in Munich!"
Manfred said, calmingly, "Normal behavior indeed. I think you will be quite able to publicize the news of the Bolsheviks' behavior quite well. The problem will be how to hold back Herr Hugenberg. You can imagine what glee he will have savaging them. We will have to present the matter in a less inflammatory fashion; the facts will speak for themselves. They really haven't changed since 1919, have they?
"You can use Randolph's reports to back these up. In England, the Telegraph is giving him all the space he needs, and I understand he has already sold a book.
"Is there anything else?"
; Mertz said, "No, I believe that is all."
Manfred stood up. "Thank you very much, Herr Oberst."
The colonel picked up his papers, nodded to a leutnant who took them, and said as he was leaving, "It looks like you will have the good Stauffenberg back soon, Herr Reichskanzler. I understand he did very well in the campaign. General Beck says he has some sweeping plans for reorganization at the Truppenamt -- or will we be able to call it 'General Staff' now?"
"It will be up to the new government." What was more important now was that his son would recover, would ride again.
Mertz clicked off a salute and left. After a moment he heard the Prince (whose turn it was to be guardian of the gate -- "Hohenzollern" came from "Zollern", "customs house" after all) say, "Do come in, Herr General."
A moment later Rickenbacker entered. "I think I have some good news, Manfred," he said. "Oh, good, Herr von Papen is here, I suppose this is really for him. And I think you have something to say here, Herr Noske."
"What?" Manfred said.
"There's the details here but . . . I was at our Embassy and Mr. Dodd had just received the message, so he asked me to deliver it. The Soviets' Ambassador Oumansky, in Washington, met with President Roosevelt this morning. Stalin is offering a cease-fire in place to begin at noon, local time, the day after tomorrow, October the ninth. He wants the president to mediate a peace conference and Roosevelt has agreed."
Silence filled the room. Then Manfred said, slowly, "We will grant the Bol -- Soviet government an armistice on the ninth day of the tenth month at the eleventh hour." He smiled. He would not be flying over those lines then, with or without Rickenbacker, but where it counted . . .
Papen said, "It looks like we found a government that can rule after all."
BOOK SEVEN
THE PEACE TO END ALL PEACE
CHAPTER 37
Reichstag, Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany, Friday, October 11, 1940
A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany Page 55