The Goddess Of Fortune

by Andrew Blencowe

  Five minutes of small talk followed about the quality of the Cuban cigars.

  Albert moved the conversation to France of the previous year.

  Jodl said,

  “Yes, sitting here is a far cry from the dust of France in last May. Last year in France, we were constantly on the move. There was no quietude or stillness. We covered so much ground. The French collapse was astonishing. It was like watching snowflakes land on a red-hot stove—they were gone in an instant. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t image it happening again in my lifetime.”

  There was a thoughtful pause,

  “I suppose this is what 1870 must have been like, when the Krupps destroyed the French in an afternoon.”

  Albert said nothing. His extensive dealings with officers had taught him that getting them to start speaking was the hardest task. And while a few were buffoons, his experience was that the senior Wehrmacht ranks were far more sophisticated, better educated, and above all, more thoughtful than the shallow politicians who were their nominal overlords.

  “The Russian campaign seems to be going splendidly, would you agree Jodl?”

  “It is going very well, actually a little too well, but Russia is not France, and the Russians are not the French. In spite of the early success, I have some very disturbing reports from my commanders that many of the Russians refuse to surrender—they simply keep fighting, they never surrender. When out of ammunition, they simply charge our troops with their bayonets. From a military viewpoint, this is very disturbing to be facing soldiers with such spirit. I start to see what Napoleon was faced with 130 years ago. And there are so many of them—the Russian divisions seem endless.”

  “So, the notion of ‘All You Have To Do Is Kick In The Front Door And The Whole Rotten Edifice Will Come Crashing Down’ is not true?” Albert asked.

  “I am not sure what the Chancellor was thinking when he made this truly odd remark,” Jodl replied.

  No one spoke as they each tried to determine what the other two were thinking.

  “My concern is when we face reversals, how we will react. As Schlieffen liked to remark, ‘a war without a crisis is simply a skirmish,’ and that is my concern. The Swiss military men I speak to from time-to-time mention that we Germans seem to lack the coherency that we had in France last year.”

  “I share that concern,” Milch added thoughtfully.

  Albert said, “My concern is this, my thesis, as it were, is: we are very strong at home, but we have no foreign policy at all and we are lumbered with extremely brittle allies. The Chancellor seems to be completely under the spell of the Duce, who I see as weak and vacillating. What is your view of Italy, Jodl?”

  “In two thousand years of war, there is probably no worse ally than Italy today—they are just harvest hands, nothing more, nothing less. Remember how they waited to declare war until we had done all the fighting last year in France?” Jodl blandly replied.

  Albert asked Jodl to elaborate.

  What made Jodl so impressive was his complete detachment—he was like a chess grandmaster: always cool and clear; never flustered; never emotional; never theatrical. He simply analyzed the situation as if reviewing the position of pieces on a chess board, and for him they were pieces on a board. With Jodl there was no shouting, no pouting, no insults, no threats as there was from someone who proclaimed to all the world that he himself was a military genius.

  “Mussolini is essentially an overgrown and exceedingly pompous boy scout. He lacks all the basics. He is a typical Italian dreamer, he dreams of a new Roman empire, with him as the new Roman emperor. Look at Abyssinia in ‘35—God help us, he actually had to resort to poison gas against native tribesmen. And I’ve seen firsthand his deployment in North Africa and it makes me shudder—he has his camps much too far apart, so they can be picked off piecemeal by a wily opponent, and while the British are currently on the back foot, the Italians are asking for trouble. Our German attachés have tried to warn him, but the Italians are so proud and vain, proud and vain that is until they suffer their first defeat, when they simply surrender en masse.”

  “In addition, their commanders are all inept. Here is a perfect example of basic rules that our friends in the south break: German field commanders eat only after their men, to ensure their men are fed first in case the food runs out; German commanders share the same rations; German commanders share the same privations. In contrast, the Italian officers eat superior food, they even get wine, and they get special tents, some with electric fans that are run off the trucks’ electric batteries. I can think no better way to create discord, and the Italian fighting men are clearly not of the same caliber as our soldiers to begin with. But we can never broach any criticism of the Duce. Italy could very quickly become a millstone around our neck.”

  After a fractional pause, Jodl corrected himself,

  “Will become, it is simply a matter of time. And remember, the Italians soldiers are all babies—they all lack the guts of the German soldier.”

  Jodl smiled. Observing Albert’s natural coolness, Jodl continued: “I am sure these stories and military points bore you, Albert.”

  Albert shook his head.

  The gazebo was five paces from the edge of the vertical cliff. The largest of the three gazebos was the size of a German workman’s house, typical of Bormann’s complete lack of proportion. It was another brainchild of Bormann who seemed to have an endless list of projects all designed solely to curry favor with his protector.

  Ever the diplomat, Milch asked Jodl: “Forget that fucking horseshit; how is the Russian campaign actually progressing?”

  Jodl said nothing for a moment, looking at the ash forming on the end of his cigar, and then replied,

  “It’s far more brittle than we expected. As I said, our biggest problem is a lack of clear objectives. And our intelligence has been woeful.”

  Jodl was couching his words, as he did not know how much he could trust his companions.

  No one spoke. Albert broke the silence,

  “I have an old professor who now lives in Switzerland. It is his view that the Reich is over-extended.”

  Jodl turned his head to look directly at Albert.

  “The old Jewish chap?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he is an economist, he knows nothing of military strategy. Don’t tell me I have to deal with yet another fucking amateur?” Jodl asked, making a not very veiled reference to the owner of the mountain house.

  “Yes, he is the economist and as he says—and I agree—modern war these days is now primarily an economic battle, not a battle of swords and shields, or men and aircraft. I visited him recently. He pointed out that we are very poorly positioned for a long war—if we do not end this war in ‘42, we’re done for; for one thing we simply do not have sufficient labor for our factories. His point was that America is a huge and untapped powerhouse. While they are neutral at the moment, their presence in this war will likely lead to a German defeat. They don’t even need send any troops, but if they start supplying en masse then Russia could become very sticky for us. We simply lack the labor and we lack the oil.”

  Jodl said, “At present we are out-maneuvering the Russian commanders, but one thing my training has taught me is that enemies start to adopt the winning tactics of their opponents, and Stalin is a wise old bird, the opposite of Mussolini.”

  Albert thought and said,

  “Our immediate goal should be to keep America out of the war. The Germans and the British are natural allies. The Far East is unstable, and the American President Roosevelt is trying to provoke both us as well as the Japanese. The Americans are the winners with a bankrupt Britain and a prostrate Germany, and that is precisely what Roosevelt is trying to create. As far as Japan is concerned, sooner or later the Japanese and the Americans will be at war. When—not if—when this happens, if we throw our lot in with the Americans, we get a strong ally, we isolate Russia and we stir up a hornets nest in London. But, we have to plan for this now,
and we have to be ready for this inevitable Pacific war, and we have to declare for America, not Japan.”

  Jodl decided he needed to take a risk, “Well, he may be correct. Milch, what do you think?”

  “I agree, but in the current political climate, I don’t see how the fuck any of us can change anything.”

  The “current political climate” Milch referred to was the current Chancellor.

  “Albert, you have more sway with him than me or Jodl; can’t you speak to him?”

  Albert said, “I hardly think he will listen to his part-time architect.”

  There was silence.

  “Our leader is hale and hearty, apart from his chronic bowel problems,” Albert continued.

  “Not if you speak to Morell,” was Jodl’s cheeky reply, referring to the Chancellor’s disgusting and obese doctor, who was universally considered a quack by all, apart from his “Patient A.” Milch often told the stories of how Morell would poke two of his fingers (with filthy black fingernails) into an orange and them proceed to suck out the contents of the orange, or how he would plunge his dirty and hairy hands into a glass bowl of ice cubes and grab some ice for his drink, or how he bathed once every two weeks.

  “Nevertheless, our host’s general health is good—for now. But if this is an empire for a thousand years, what happens when he is no longer blessed with such good health, which must happen sooner or later? ‘All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity,’ as the old play has it. And health aside, his choice of comrades is based solely on loyalty and his ability to manipulate them—look at our good friend Martin. And there is the little matter of the oath.”

  At this statement, Jodl’s demeanor suddenly changed—“that fucking oath, total fucking madness—the German army swearing total alliance to a fucking foreigner. Christ Alive! Next, we will be swearing alliance to a French queer—there are enough of them these days.”

  It was true that the German army’s swearing of the oath in 1934 had raised the hackles of all of the officers—to swear an oath to one person—not to the country, or even to an office. And to someone who was not even a German citizen until 1932, for God’s sake.

  Jodl’s fuming subsided a little. Keeping to the safety of the hypothetical, as any good academic would, Albert went on,

  “Just imagine for one terrible moment that the leader suffers a heart attack; how would Germany continue?”

  The bishop had just been moved to determine the outcome of the match—both grandmasters said nothing, but both appreciated they were playing at the highest level.

  Jodl’s reply was shocking in its directness and simplicity, “There would be no difference.”

  Jodl drew on his cigar.

  “Look, Albert, all three of us are adults here. I know precisely what you are asking me, and I would not trust this to another civilian. But you have a brain between your ears, so as you have been frank with me I will return the compliment. There are three military-types who run the Reich: me, Milch and Donitz. That’s it. Milch can speak for himself, and I know Donitz and I think I can speak for him. He is no more enamored with the current regime than I—the murderers, the criminals, the fucking Gauleiters.”

  Jodl stopped, but the point had been made.

  Albert probed, “So, if the terrible occurred and the leader was suddenly incapacitated or even died?”

  Albert paused for effect, which was completely ineffectual on Jodl, who simply looked directly at Albert and waited for the obvious question.

  “So, what would happen; I mean, what would be the mechanics?”

  Jodl paused, looked out at the mountain range in the distance and said:

  “The Untersberg is truly magnificent today, isn’t she?”

  Albert could not believe that Jodl was toying with him, but it both impressed and reassured him.

  Albert smiled, “So, what happens?”

  Albert had deliberately changed the tense as he sensed Jodl was clearly with him. Jodl drew in a deep breath and started to explain as if lecturing young cadets,

  “Clausewitz teaches us the nation state needs a political structure, like a ship needs a command superstructure. Everyone agrees on this. What they do not agree on is the form of that political structure. We could discuss that until Jesus returns, if that ever happens. But for now we will agree a structure is needed. Today, we essentially do not have a structure. What we do have is a foreign dictator from Austria who is a superb actor and who is marvelous at reading people and especially good at detecting and exploiting their weaknesses. Remember how he played that homo Röhm in Operation Hummingbird—Operation Fuckingbird would have been a more appropriate name for the purge. But at running a country?”

  Jodl turned up his face, and knocked the white-gray ash off the end of his cigar and continued—his blood was up:

  “I have seen it for far too long. Have you seen him write a note—the man is almost illiterate? His handwriting like that of a child—that is why he never writes anything. That is why he dictated that pile of horse manure, ‘On Five Years of Struggle Against Lies, Morons And Idiots,’ or whatever the original title was. It’s unreadable shit—total shit, and until his rise to power it had sold 971 fucking copies—the first edition sold 971 copies, then it became our fucking bible, a bible of shit. He cannot write; he cannot organize. And my army has a fucking oath to this man. Christ all fucking mighty, whose side is God on for the sake of fuck?”

  Unfazed, Albert simply stated: “so if the leader died or decided to retire, you, Milch and Donitz could take over?”

  Jodl paused, “Albert, you do not understand—we are already in control, our obstacle is the current political structure.”

  The treasonous talk petered out. And the conversation returned to the current situation in Russia.

  Jodl expanded his explanation, as much as a review for himself as for the other two:

  “Our problem is oil, or more specifically the lack of oil. We’re in much the same boat as the Japanese and the dago shit-eaters, our so-called fucking allies to the south.” Jodl hated the Italians with their posturing, their laziness, and worst of all their desire to leave brave Germans soldiers unsupported when even the weakest enemy appeared.

  The strategic genius returned,

  “It’s the simplest classic problem of military logistics: every kilometer we advance into Russia is one more kilometer our tanker trucks need cover. And in contrast to our tanks, these oil tankers are thin skinned—even the simplest raid by enemy ‘planes can leave a critical oil convoy in shambles.”

  “And as I earlier said, our intelligence has been poor for Russia. It is true that in the early weeks we made amazing progress—Leeb reached Dvinsk; Smolensk was in our hands; Rundstedt was at the gates of Kiev. In contrast to our leader’s proclamation about kicking in the front door, he should have quoted his beloved Frederick the Great: ‘You have to shoot every Russian dead twice, and still turn him over to make sure.’ That is our problem.”

  No one smiled at this stark truism.

  “The Russians are precisely—precisely—the opposite of what we were led to expect. Sometimes they charge our machine guns armed with pitch forks or axes. It’s medieval, not 1941. And much of Russia is trackless. I feel we are the Romans fighting in the northern forests in 9 A.D.—and we all know how the three legions were massacred in the Teutoburg Forest; it’s the same today in Russia. This whole campaign is a massive gamble—France was a bad enough gamble, but a loss or a stalemate in France would not have been fatal to the Reich. And we started the current campaign in Russia with all of 10 divisions in reserve. Guderian told me that the Chancellor had said to him four weeks ago, ‘Had I known the Russians had that many tanks, I would have thought twice about attacking.’ Wonderful. Fucking wonderful.”

  A neutral assessment by the Swiss intelligence service after the Armistice of ‘42 ranked Jodl with Alan Brooke as the two outstanding strategic thinkers of the European war, followed—a long way behind—by Rundstedt, Student and
Guderian. His next statement showed the Swiss were correct.

  “In Russia, we face two unrelated problems. The first is lack of focus—against all that Clausewitz taught us about ‘maximum force on the minimum front’—we are trying to do everything. The second is the civilian administration—using the more brutal elements of the Gestapo, and the clowns—the fucking clowns—that are being assigned.”

  Jodl simply shook his head,

  “It’s like Poland all over again, but a thousand times worse. Here’s an example: in the Ukraine we are being welcomed as liberators. Our German officers attend church services with the local worthies. But with the 17 July dictat, fucking Koch is in charge—Koch that fucking moron. He’s so fucking stupid.”

  Here Milch interrupted,

  “In Berlin at dinner one time Koch said to me ‘If I meet a Ukrainian worthy of being seated at my table, I must have him shot.’ I agree with Jodl completely—the man is a complete moron. Koch went on to tell me—in the most emphatic way—that quote, ‘these Ukrainian peasants need to be taught to count to 400, learn the days of the week and the months of the year,’ unquote. What an idiot.”

  Jodl said,

  “It is people like Koch who will lose this war for us. The Ukraine is huge; it is almost twice the size of Germany. If properly managed, it can become a semi-autonomous pāgus, as the Romans did with Gaul. And the fucking Ukrainians love us and they hate the Russians with a passion. They love us—the fucking Germans—they love us. And so what do we do? The Austrian appoints a horse turd like Koch? The Ukrainians want to fight for us—for us, the fucking Germans—for Christ’s fucking sake. And how do we reward these people? We give them fucking Horse Turd Koch.”

  Jodl shook his head. Jodl’s level of irritation was easy to judge by the increase in the level of his profanity.

  Jodl fumed and then started to return to his normal analytical calculating engine,

  “The first problem is my problem—already, we are spread too thin, just as Albert’s professor said. And why in the name of fuck are we attacking Leningrad? Well, I will tell you why. Solely because it is the birthplace of Bolshevism, for that sole reason, no other. No military significance is attached to it. And we’re running out of time. Today is the 1st of September, and we’re two years into the war. But in northern Russia—like Leningrad—the very first part of winter starts in 30 days’ time. Last night, I was re-reading Napoleon’s diary entries for his campaign in 1812 and it goes like this: 7 September: ‘glorious weather, my troops are happy;’ 14 October: ‘first snow;’ 7 November: ‘freezing cold, my men are dying like flies, and I am losing 100 horses a day.’ I will remind you gentlemen that the seventh of November is 68 days from today and 22 June is 70 days in the past. We are provoking the Fates in a very, very dangerous way.”