The Generals

by Per Wahlöö

  Captain Endicott: And the military side …

  Velder: … consisted of a defence and fortification scheme which Stoloff had created. He saw to the military department and Ludolf to the psychological and ideological side, so to speak. When I saw what they’d achieved in three months, I couldn’t believe it. When it came to the crunch, Stoloff did admit that some of the installations had been done long before under various pretexts and that they also could have been used for different civilian purposes. Well, what? Well, the general method started out from the theory that the whole of the southern sector was a permanent fortress. First there was the outer defence belt, minefields, trenches and bunkers, which lay inside each other along the whole of the northern border. The river in the west and the hills behind were a natural fortress in themselves. Not much work had been needed there. Along the coasts, the outer defence belt consisted of electric and magnetic mines, which to a great extent had been there before, and they’d mined the beaches as well. But that was just the beginning, if I may say so. Inside the outer defence belt, there were three chains of fortresses. The outer one was of thirty-two forts, connected to each other by underground passages. In the second, there were twenty forts or defence-units and in the third twelve. Many of them had several storeys. In the very centre was the headquarters itself. All this was only partly finished at the time, but the first chain, thirty-two concrete forts blasted into or dug out of the ground, were already complete, and they were working busily on the inner belts. The headquarters itself had been ready long before the war broke out. Stoloff had built it on three levels under the ground, as laboratories and storage space. But the thought had clearly been from the very beginning that it could easily be converted for military use. When I first saw it all on the map, I thought it looked like three necklaces of beads lying inside each other with a star in the middle.

  Major von Peters: Nice necklaces, I must say.

  Velder: It was a fortress, the whole thing. Like an anthill. The whole of the southern sector. Stoloff reckoned on having it all ready in six months and that happened, too. In August, all three fortified lines were ready. There were huge stores too. They reckoned that provisions, fuel, ammunition and medical stores, even under bad conditions, would last for two years. That was how the general method ran. At first I thought it was awful. There was no land; nowhere where people could live as human beings. But soon I was caught up into the general atmosphere and spirit. I suppose I’d had it in me from the start. I suppose that was what had brought me there, of course. After I’d been there a week, I was made a staff officer. We had a lot of work to do, eighteen hours a day for the first months.

  Captain Schmidt: That was what was called the ‘general method’ then?

  Velder: Terrifying millstone ideologies.

  Commander Kampenmann: What did you say, Velder?

  Velder: ‘Our island mustn’t become an experimental field for terrifying millstone ideologies which grind people to dust beneath them.’

  Colonel Orbal: What did he say? What’s that peculiar talk?

  Velder: Strategically it was like this: we were not going to do anything until the defence system was complete and intact. Only defend ourselves against attack. Keep casualties low. Then when the whole fortification system was ready, Plan A was to be set into action. We worked on it very carefully. That was when the raids began.

  Major von Peters: That’s enough for today.

  Velder: Everything was like a dream. We were quite isolated, all of us in the southern sector. Communiques were never sent out, and we had very few contacts with the outside world. It felt as if everyone had forgotten us. No one thought about it as war. Only us and Oswald of course. We hoped he’d underestimate us. We worked out three plans, Plan A, Plan B and Plan C. The last was an emergency plan and was Ludolf’s idea. Sometimes I think that deep down inside, it was that one that he liked best.

  Major von Peters: That’s enough, I said. Can’t you get the blighter to keep quiet, Endicott?

  Colonel Orbal: If it’s not one fault then it’s another. Just like Pigafetta’s air-conditioning.

  Velder: So in August, on the third, we began …

  Major von Peters: Shut up, man. Push him out.

  Colonel Orbal: The session is adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o’clock.

  Fourteenth Day

  Lieutenant Brown: Those present: Colonel Mateo Orbal, Army, also Chairman of the Presidium of this Extra-ordinary Court Martial. Colonel Nicola Pigafetta, Air Force, Major Carl von Peters, Army, and Commander Arnold Kampenmann, Navy. The Prosecuting Officer is Captain Wilfred Schmidt, Navy, and the accused is assisted by Captain Roger Endicott, Air Force. The officer presenting the case is Lieutenant Brown.

  Colonel Pigafetta: First name and service, Brown.

  Lieutenant Brown: The officer presenting the case is Lieutenant Arie Brown, Air Force. Justice Tadeusz Haller had reported his absence.

  Colonel Orbal: I don’t think Haller’s going to come any more.

  Colonel Pigafetta: No, I don’t think he will.

  Major von Peters: How do you know that?

  Colonel Pigafetta: As you must know, Justice Haller fills a double role in this connection. He not only acts as an observer, but he’s also chairman of what they call the Joint Commission from the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Department of the General Staff, who are working out the formal verdicts and sentences in the case against Velder.

  Commander Kampenmann: I had understood that decisions are to be announced almost immediately after the final summing-up.

  Colonel Pigafetta: Yes, together with detailed argumentations. Bear in mind that it’s a question of verdicts which will become precedents.

  Commander Kampenmann: So the verdicts of this court martial will be settled virtually without our assistance.

  Colonel Orbal: How you do complain and grub into everything, Kampenmann.

  Colonel Pigafetta: The material collected will of course be placed before the presidium of this court martial. Then we have to state our opinion on verdicts and sentences.

  Commander Kampenmann: I can’t help thinking that the procedure seems somewhat simplified.

  Major von Peters: Don’t you see, Kampenmann, that otherwise we’d be sitting here raking about in all this muck for years.

  Colonel Orbal: Exactly. Quite right. Quite right.

  Commander Kampenmann: It worries me all the same. If the members of this Joint Commission are thinking along different lines from ours, then their work will be wasted. And Haller has only presented himself here on eight days out of the fourteen.

  Colonel Pigajetta: Presented himself is probably not quite the right expression.

  Major von Peters: Justice Haller is very close to the Chief of State.

  Colonel Orbal: Haller isn’t a man to talk out of turn with impunity, civilian though he may be. Do you remember how he ran the information services during the disturbances, Carl?

  Major von Peters: He built the reputation up outwards. Both the nation’s and the General’s. Damnably well.

  Commander Kampenmann: So he testified about …

  Colonel Orbal: That business, that’s old hat, Kampenmann. The similarity between a priest and a pair of women’s legs. Heard that in cadet school. Now let’s start.

  Commander Kampenmann: However strange it may seem, that wasn’t quite what I was going to say.

  Major von Peters: It doesn’t matter. Call in the parties, Brown.

  Captain Schmidt: I will now develop further charges numbers one hundred and five to and including one hundred and twenty-seven of the case for the prosecution, concerning murder, accessory to murder, accessory to mass-murder, preparation for genocide, subversive activities, Communism, hounding of opponents and criminal promiscuity. Request to call Corporal Erwin Velder as witness.

  Major von Peters: Yes, yes, granted.

  Captain Schmidt: I intend first to corroborate the accused’s participation in the so-called Plan A.

  Captain Endicott
: You can begin now, Velder.

  Velder: On the third of August, Plan A was put into action. The defence system was complete then. The situation at the fronts had not changed, that is, not during the summer months. The Fascists launched two attacks at the beginning and end of May. During the first, they succeeded in breaking through the outer defence belt in the far north-west and taking up positions along the river ravine on a stretch of about four kilometres, by taking it from the rear, from the east. But Ludolf and Stoloff did not seem in the slightest worried. We did indeed lose the corner in the north-west, an area of about twenty square kilometres, but the attack went on for eight days and the Army suffered many casualties in dead and wounded. Our losses were comparatively small, both in manpower and materials. The next offensive, the one at the end of the month, went on for six days without them achieving anything except insignificant breaks in the outer defence belt. After that, all activity ceased completely—well, shelling went on of course, and there were one or two air raids, but they did no great damage. We found out through foreign sources and our own agents that Oswald’s protectors did not dare use atomic weapons—they were afraid of international complications—and his military advisers considered it better to starve us out by a blockade, until we were so weakened that the so-called bridgehead could be forced or until it capitulated. Meanwhile Oswald was receiving constant reinforcements, but this had to be done discreetly, as the people who were sending arms and men had also signed the non-intervention agreement.

  Major von Peters: Balderdash, pure and simple. I refuse to listen to this.

  Captain Schmidt: We have a summary in Volume Nine which could be considered to present a correct picture of the situation, Appendix V IX/16. May I ask you to read it, Lieutenant Brown.

  Lieutenant Brown: Appendix V IX/16, concerning the disturbances, summary compiled by the National Historical Department of the General Staff. The text is as follows:

  After local punitive expeditions at the beginning and end of May, General Oswald decided to stop all further military mopping-up operations. During the course of the summer, attempts were made to return refractory elements in the Eastern Province’s southern areas to order, amongst other things by offering an amnesty to those who had not been guilty of murder or other serious crimes. Since bandit attacks had begun in August, however, it was clear that the rebels, who had received powerful support from international Bolshevism, would only be brought to their senses by force. As humanitarian reasons excluded the use of atomic weapons, the now strongly fortified rebel forts would have to be routed out by conventional means. The General and his closest collaborators in the Peace Corps and the National Freedom Army, however, hesitated for a long time before resorting to offensive weapons.

  Captain Schmidt: Thank you, that’s enough. Let the accused continue.

  Velder: We were geographically ill-placed for the countries which wished to send us aid, and from the month of May onwards, we were cut off from practically all deliveries from outside. Then the powers that were protecting Oswald began to blockade our coasts with warships, for the maintenance of peace, as they put it. General Ludolf and Colonel Stoloff, however, seemed to have foreseen this and nothing in the original plans was changed.

  Captain Schmidt: Try to link him to Plan A, if you can.

  Captain Endicott: I’ll try to.

  Major von Peters: If you gentlemen didn’t mess about so damned much, this business would be cleared up in half the time.

  Velder: Oh, yes, Plan A. This was implemented on the third of August as a logical preparation for Plan B. All the time we had been training people who were going to launch night-attacks, some against enemy position, but most of all against various vital points in the area behind the front. At first, the core of these troops was made up of the people Bartholic had left behind him. The commando units were built up round these men, shock-patrols, as they were called …

  Major von Peters: Assassins would be a better description …

  Velder: … but we trained, as I said, many more, and it soon became evident that our own people were better than Bartholic’s. They operated in groups, five men in each, and they had very light and efficient equipment. On the night of the fourth of August, we sent out the first wave of shock-patrols, over a hundred groups. The results went far beyond our expectations. The Fascists were quite unprepared and nearly all the patrols came back without a scratch.

  Major von Peters: If he says Fascists again, I’ll shoot him.

  Colonel Pigafetta: That expression really is very irritating.

  Velder: Then we went on striking, sometimes night after night, sometimes with longer or shorter intervals. The plans were very thorough, based on variation in everything, time, place, strength and methods. These attacks continued during the whole of August and September. Guarding on the other side was naturally improved very swiftly and our casualties grew greater. But all this had been foreseen, and in October we allowed shock-patrol activities to ebb away, also according to plan.

  Captain Schmidt: That was Plan A, then. I must now attempt to put a few direct questions to the accused.

  Major von Peters: About time, too.

  Captain Schmidt: Velder, did you participate in the planning of these raids?

  Velder: Yes.

  Captain Schmidt: Were you also aware of the fact that these activities involved innumerable people being murdered, not just soldiers, but also civilians? That women, too, and even children were killed and maimed by bomb attacks and arson?

  Velder: Oh, yes. We discussed the matter at headquarters. The aim in sending out shock-patrols was to spread fear and uncertainty. I remember there was a memorandum in which we stated that it was unfortunate that innocents were sacrificed, but that no such obstacles were to hinder the patrols from carrying out their assignments. On the other hand, the attacks were never directly against truly civilian targets. The doctrine of terror, it was said, could not be used to its full extent in the ways in which it had been in other countries and in other people’s struggle for freedom, because in our case it was a matter of liberating our comrades in the area occupied by the Fascists. I myself had signed this memo together with Ludolf and Stoloff. The reason for allowing the raids to culminate and then successively cease was to get the enemy to believe that the threat had been averted and in that way lull them into a false sense of security.

  Captain Schmidt: That should corroborate sufficiently the accused’s participation in and responsibility for the crimes contained in the concept Plan A. From the régime of terror that the enemy of the people, Joakim Ludolf set up in the southern sector, only a few documents have survived and most of these are rather uninteresting. To illuminate the atmosphere and to show what dreadful doctrines applied, I shall, however, refer to one of these confiscated documents, Appendix V IX/31. If you please, Lieutenant Brown.

  Lieutenant Brown: Appendix V IX/31, concerning the disturbances. Order of the day issued on the seventeenth of March by the enemy of the people, Joakim Ludolf. The text is as follows:

  Comrades. Through this extreme right-wing coup we have been forced into civil war. Paul Oswald and Tadeusz Haller have oppressed the people in the Central and South-Western Provinces by force. They have also allowed foreign troops to invade the country. Our comrades in the northern sector have been defeated. The reasons for this were vacillation, obscure aims and poor preparations. Nothing similar will happen to us. The prerequisites are as follows. Peaceful co-existence with adherents to a capitalist-Fascist military dictatorship is unthinkable. Our earlier system has shown itself to be untenable. So a return to the old order is meaningless. Socialism is the people’s only road to salvation.

  To bring about Socialism peacefully is impossible. So with all our strength and means, we must fight the Fascists and the foreign invaders. We are materially and numerically inferior to our opponents. Our situation is thus serious, but by no means hopeless. The enemy has not succeeded in breaking through our positions anywhere. Our supplies are considerable,
our arms first-class and our belief in victory unassailable. But establishing socialism will demand great sacrifices. It is incumbent upon every man and woman in the southern sector to prepare themselves for the moment when the situation demands their total commitment. Ludolf. General. Leader of the Socialist Government Militia.

  Major von Peters: Singularly enlightening.

  Captain Schmidt: Is the accused ready to continue?

  Captain Endicott: He’s ready.

  Velder: Organisationally, the militia in the southern sector was based on the following principle: we at headquarters supervised the whole system, of course, but each and every one of the sixty-four forts in the three inner fortification chains was in itself a closed self-sufficient unit, under the command of one commandant. The personnel in each fort were practically never moved, except a tactical reserve which was used to relieve units in the outer defence belt. Ludolf and Stoloff said that in this way we could be sure that there was no one outside headquarters who knew enough about the defence arrangements to be of any use, should it so happen that that person fell into the hands of the enemy. We virtually ignored the possibility of spies. All those suspected of unreliability had been eliminated at an earlier stage. We ourselves seldom moved outside headquarters—control was exercised by means of a communications network which was very well developed. One thing happened to me personally which showed how isolated the different units were from each other. On the twenty-second of September …