Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

THE WAR HAD reached its zenith. All the omens, which thus far had favoured the Germans, turned imperceptibly. For a people who had only recently formed into a nation state, the Germans had performed miracles. With his left arm, the Teutonic giant had held off the Russians, already bleeding from multiple wounds, while attacking the two finest fighting nations of the nineteenth century with his right: the British, who had defeated Napoleon, and the French, who under that same Napoleon had been the bane of the old armies. The giant’s right foot had kicked the warlike Serbs into seemingly irreversible submission, while his left had felled the Romanians with a blow to the kneecap. He had terrorised the Romans at the battle of Teutoburg forest, and now he thought the future belonged to him and he wanted to drag it into the present. Only a handful of people on the planet knew that the giant was soft in the head under his steel helmet, quite unable to grasp contemporary realities, and that, just like in a fairy tale, he would forgo that which was within reach out of greed for some other unquantifiable treasure.

That poor feeble head… The Saxon counter-attack the night after the disaster was as ineffective as that mounted by the Silesians and Brandenburgers, because every available rifle had already been thrown into the breaches. The men didn’t show their dejection. That would have been defeatism and would have poisoned the atmosphere. And the French attack was accorded only secondary importance in the highest quarters. The staff studied their mistakes, learnt from the French that the front zone could be moved and that a closer alliance between the infantry and the batteries had advantages, and perhaps regretted the decision taken at Pierrepont. But no one suspected that the French would not be satisfied with their success. The German staff were much too proud and self-important to suspect that. And yet the French sector commander was already preparing his next attack, and this attack was also destined to succeed because it was based on clear thinking and a proper assessment of the realities. They were going to storm the Meuse heights.

But things had not yet got to that point. In a hub like Damvillers, the officers’ messes still filled with bustling gentlemen every lunchtime. Many a new face appeared among them, for example that of Captain Niggl. Captain Niggl went about his business in an unassuming manner – his battalion’s headquarters and Third Company were now stationed in Damvillers – but he was in fact labouring under the burden of fame. Captain Niggl was a hero. He had loyally held out at Douaumont until the last moment at the head of his brave Bavarian ASC men. He was sure to be awarded the Iron Cross, first class. If his king’s military cabinet consented, he might also get an early promotion to major and receive a high Bavarian honour on King Ludwig’s birthday. Bets were being laid in the officers’ mess as to whether he’d receive his Iron Cross on 18 January, the order’s anniversary, or on 27 January, the Kaiser’s birthday. Portly little Niggl wandered among his comrades with an expression of reluctant sociability on his rather sunken face, but his shrewd eyes shone in triumph. His temples had turned grey, white even, but victory had been his. He had not signed, he had not allowed himself to be cowed by a big-mouthed lieutenant, that criminal who had now disappeared. He had bent but he had not broken. His wife and children and he himself would come through this business unscathed – the same was true of Feicht and the others. He ought to reward himself with a nice holiday: Christmas at home with the children, setting up the crib with the Baby Jesus, the shepherds, the ox and the donkey, retouching the gild on the star of Bethlehem. Of course certain papers remained in that shithole of Douaumont. Well, the Frogs could wipe their arses with them. He’d been tested and had passed the test. He padded through Damvillers, which he liked enormously, even in the rain, with a friendly, somewhat battle-weary air. Those he visited felt honoured. Major Jansch felt very honoured, as he visited him quite often.

Today, Jansch sat as usual in his living room at a big desk strewn with newspapers, files and large-format maps. It was very agreeable for Major Jansch to be admired by the hero of Douaumont, and Niggl’s eyes shone with admiration for the Prussian officer.

Editor Jansch was not much liked in Damvillers on account of his being a political know-all. But retired civil servant Niggl found his views fresh and astonishingly broad. Jansch asked him if had he ever heard about the Free Masons’ conspiracy against Germany. He certainly had not. And yet the Grand Orient de France lodge had incited the world against the Reich; otherwise Romania would not have been so stupid as to start a quarrel with world war victors. And what about the role of the Jewish press in spreading enemy propaganda, eh? Jewish journalists spent every day penning poison about the German Michael, especially that Jewish press baron Lord Northcliffe whose newspapers had inundated the world with made-up stories about atrocities, particularly those supposedly committed in Belgium. The British had known what they were doing when they made that bastard a peer, and the Americans also had half a dozen such Jewish journalists, of whom Hearst was the most prominent. They were everywhere, those ink-spilling swine. He even had one in his company. He’d got himself the name of Bertin; no one knew how. He probably came from Lviv and was called IsaASCon a few years or decades ago. This Yid had now had the nerve to claim six additional days of leave that he supposedly hadn’t got in the summer. In the summer, he had in fact got married to some Sarah or other. He’d persuaded her to marry him, in that typical Jewish way, so he could exploit the regulations. He’d got his leave, but the minimum four days of course. And now he’d had the audacity to demand the missing six days under the pretext that he’d been in the field since the beginning of August. Phenomenal! Where should he have been? Instead of being grateful to the Prussian state for allowing him to wear its uniform, he pulls this trick of wanting leave twice in the same year thereby denying some comrade who hadn’t yet been home the same pleasure. Fortunately he’d come to the right man. The First Company had duly passed his request on, but with a note explaining how things stood. The little jumped-up egghead was hoping to receive his leave papers and travel pass today in the orderly room with the other men due to go on leave. No one had told him he was going to have to turn tail and march back disappointed, then go straight back on guard duty. That would give him time to ponder his insolence, because the Jews were insolent – unimaginably so. As long as those sorts of people enjoyed equal rights with their racial superiors and proper Germans, things would never improve in Germany for all her heroic deeds. This was Jansch’s confidential view, whether Comrade Niggl agreed with it or not.

Niggl had nothing against Jews. He didn’t know many, but those who lived in his area gave no cause for complaint, and the Bavarian army had never had any problems with its Jewish officers. He knew that some Prussians had a bit of a thing about them, as did the Austrians. In Bavaria, it was really only the journalist Dr Sigl who went on about the Jews, and he was actually much more vehement against the Prussians. Personally, Niggl had had much worse experiences with Protestants, but he didn’t mention that to his friend Jansch out of politeness. But what difference did it make to him if a squaddy had to march back disappointed and go back on guard duty instead of getting on the leave train? It wouldn’t do the man any harm. After all, things hadn’t been particularly pleasant for Niggl in Douaumont.