Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

Ideas like this, I think, are one reason that Custer has become an icon to the radical conservatives in the Constitutionalist Party. "If only he'd lived…" is something I've heard again and again, and am most tired of.

One thing Custer was not, which many of the racist Constitutionalists would prefer not to hear, was a bigot. He'd never liked serving in the South, seeing the way African Americans were treated and, now, despised the Germans for their treatment of the Jews.

"From what I've heard, the Krauts are trying to kill off all the Jews wherever they go. As soon as the Nazis run up the white flags, we'll have to deal with them.

"I think the Commies have the right idea on what to do with the Nazi Party. We don't need any kind of trials like some people are talking about. Walk 'em all, from Adolf down to the last goddamned SS man, down a corridor, like the MVD does, and put a bullet in the back of their necks and throw 'em in unmarked graves."

I asked if that might not leave Germany a little short of politicians.

"Screw 'em," Custer said. "That's another reason we need a strong army. These AMG units that are hanging about back of the lines… we'll use them to run Krautland for twenty, thirty years, and let the Army train the kids how to think right."

Eventually Eisenhower realized Montgomery'd run his course, and unleashed the American armies. But by then, summer was creaking past, and it was fall before we were closing on the German border.

And Hitler had one great surprise waiting.

In October, we began operations against the Siegfried Line, on Germany's border, and in November Eisenhower ordered the November Offensive, intended to smash all German units west of the Rhine and then cross the great river into the heart of the Nazi homeland.

It was bitter going as the weather grew colder. Ninth and First Armies smashed themselves against the Hurtgen Forest, and even battle-loving Custer told me he was very damned glad none of his divisions had been sent into that frozen hell.

We pushed on, south of the Hurtgen, and by mid-December we'd taken Metz, not thirty miles from the German border.

"Now," Custer rejoiced. "Now, let Ike turn us loose, and we'll bust across the border and have the Rhineland before Montgomery has time to pin his beanie emblems on and have a cup of tea."

The next offensive would take us across the Saar River, into Germany.

And then Hitler moved first.

Twenty-four German divisions, ten of them armored, attacked to the west, through the supposedly tank-impassable Ardennes, on 16 December. At their head was Sixth SS Panzer Army, under Hitler's pet thug, Sepp Dietrich. Hitler's insane orders were to cross the Meuse, then continue on to take Antwerp. Hitler thought this unexpected attack would shatter Allied cohesion, and in the confusion he could find a way to end the war victoriously.

It was nonsense, certainly, but the Germans, as they almost always did, obeyed their orders.

They had utter surprise on their side-Hitler somehow felt German codes were penetrated (they were, of course, by ULTRA, but almost no one knew that). The first wave, eight Panzer divisions, broke the Seventh Corps. The 106 thDivision was destroyed, and the 28 th, one of Custer's former units, broken.

The weather was terrible, and our invincible fighter bombers couldn't get into the air.

The Panzers pushed on, past St. Vith, taking back most of Luxembourg.

Eisenhower threw in his reserve divisions, including the 101 stAirborne, which took and held the road hub of Bastogne.

In the meantime, Sixth SS Panzer moved steadily on to the west, killing civilians and US prisoners as it went.

Eisenhower, after a few befuddled days, put Montgomery in charge of all troops to the north of the «Bulge» the Germans had created.

Eisenhower called a conference at Verdun on 19 December, giving Custer new orders: Take charge of Seventh Corps, and relieve Bastogne.

Custer smiled grimly, and said he'd do it.

Ike appeared unshaken by the German surprise. "I think this is an opportunity for us, actually."

"Exactly, sir," Custer said eagerly. "Let's let them run us all the way back to the Atlantic, then slam the door on the bastards and destroy them in detail. Assuming we've got the nerve."

Eisenhower smiled, a bit frostily. "I have the nerve, and I know you do, as well. But I doubt if anyone in Paris, London or Washington would appreciate it if we did that."

"The other option we could do," Custer went on, unfazed, "is have me keep pushing past Bastogne, right on up until I run into the limeys. Cut off this damned Bulge, and all the Krautheads in it, like it was a boil."

"General," Eisenhower said, "remember your Shakespeare, and the lion hunter who kept thinking about what he'd do with the lion's skin, when the animal was still alive. You just relieve McAuliffe at Bastogne, and then we'll worry about the next step. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Custer said, but I noted his voice was grudging.

Custer, his assistant Chief of Staff, Colonel Paul Harkins, and I, in the battered old staff car he preferred to a jeep, went back to our headquarters and, the next day, visited seven of his divisions, and told them we were changing the axis of their attack through 90 degrees, moving north against the Germans instead of west.

Custer may have been a braggart, but there have been very few generals who could turn 350,000 men in a single day without panic and utter confusion, which he'd done.

"I wonder what Patton would think of that," he said, as we pulled into his headquarters at Nancy. I was bone-exhausted, but he seemed untouched by the day's freezing weather and the bouncing miles over icy, rutted dirt roads.

"Now," he said gleefully as he bounded up the steps toward his quarters, "now we'll see what we shall see about that famous next step."

I managed a salute, told the driver we were through for the night, reported our return to one of his staff officers, and fell into my sleeping bag across a camp cot, knowing I'd have to be awake and alert before dawn the next morning.

One of my unspoken duties was to keep Custer and the press separated, especially when Custer was either bouncy or angry, for that was when he wasn't as careful with his words as he should be.

The next morning, I was getting Custer a cup of coffee and a croissant from a basket an old Frenchwoman had brought to us. It was black outside, with flurries of snow tapping on the windows. I thought of the poor bastards who were out there on the line, crouched in icy foxholes, looking for movement, waiting for a bush to turn into an SS man in a white camouflage cape, aiming a burp gun at them.

I was starting out of the general's mess with my tray when Colonel Harkins hurried in. He was angry and upset.

"Good morning, sir."

"I'm not sure if it is or not. I just got a call from Beetle Smith, and he's pissed."

I waited. Major General Walter Bedell Smith was Eisenhower's Chief of Staff.

"Last night our noble boss, after we thought he was headed for bed, ran into Ed Kennedy of Associated Press."

"Uh-oh," I said.

"Uh-oh is right. He told Kennedy what he said to us last night, about turning almost half a million men around. And then he kept talking. He hopes that Ike can hold the course, and not let his mind get changed by the next general he talks to… good thing Omar the tentmaker Bradley didn't get this assignment, or it'd be spring before he started moving… Montgomery's in the right spot, being the anvil and sitting on his ass, rather than having to figure out how to maneuver.

"Naturally, Kennedy called SHAEF to get comments on what General Custer said, and naturally the shit has hit the fan.

"Beetle said that Ike's about as angry as he'd ever seen him, and told me that Custer had better pull this one off in roses, or his ass is liable to be running a replacement depot in Scotland somewhere."