Fall of Giants

“These are desperate times. You could get married three months from now. Your father will make sure you get special leave for the wedding and the honeymoon.”

“He said that?” Normally, Father was angrily hostile to special privileges for well-connected soldiers.

“He understands the need for an heir to the title.”

Father had been talked around. How long had that taken? He did not give in easily.

Walter tried not to squirm in his seat. He was in an impossible position. Married to Maud, he could not even pretend to be interested in marrying Monika-but he was not able to explain why. “Mother, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I am not going to propose to Monika von der Helbard.”

“But why not?” she cried.

He felt bad. “All I can say is that I wish I could make you happy.”

She gave him a hard look. “Your cousin Robert never married. None of us were surprised, in his case. I hope there isn’t a problem of that nature… ”

Walter felt embarrassed by this reference to Robert’s homosexuality. “Oh, Mother, please! I know exactly what you mean about Robert, and I’m not like him in that respect, so set your mind at rest.”

She looked away. “I’m sorry to have mentioned it. But what is it? You’re thirty years old!”

“It’s hard to find the right girl.”

“Not that hard.”

“I’m looking for someone just like you.”

“Now you’re teasing me,” she said crossly.

Walter heard a male voice outside the room. A moment later his father entered, in uniform, rubbing cold hands together. “It will snow,” he said. He kissed his wife and nodded to Walter. “I trust the party was a success? I could not possibly attend-a whole afternoon of meetings.”

“It was splendid,” Walter said. “Mother conjured up tasty snacks out of nothing at all, and the Perrier-Jouët was superb.”

“What vintage did you have?”

“The eighteen ninety-nine.”

“You should have had the ninety-two.”

“There’s not much of it left.”

“Ah.”

“I had an intriguing conversation with Gus Dewar.”

“I remember him-the American whose father is close to President Wilson.”

“The son is even closer, now. Gus is working at the White House.”

“What did he have to say?”

Mother stood up. “I’ll leave you men to talk,” she said.

They stood up.

“Please think about what I said, Walter darling,” she said as she went out.

A moment later the butler came in with a tray bearing a goblet with a stiff measure of golden-brown brandy. Otto took the glass. “One for you?” he said to Walter.

“No, thank you. I’m full of champagne.”

Otto drank the brandy and stretched his legs toward the fire. “So, young Dewar appeared-with some kind of message?”

“In strictest confidence.”

“Of course.”

Walter could not feel much affection for his father. Their disagreements were too passionate, and Father was too flintily intransigent. He was narrow-minded, outdated, and deaf to reason, and he persisted in these faults with a kind of gleeful obstinacy that Walter found repellent. The consequence of his foolishness, and the foolishness of his generation in all European countries, was the slaughter of the Somme. Walter could not forgive that.

All the same, he spoke to his father with a soft voice and a friendly manner. He wanted this conversation to be as amiable and reasonable as possible. “The American president doesn’t want to be drawn into the war,” he began.

“Good.”

“In fact, he would like us to make peace.”

“Ha!” It was a shout of derision. “The cheap way to defeat us! What a nerve the man has.”

Walter was dismayed by such immediate scorn, but he persisted, choosing his words with care. “Our enemies claim that German militarism and aggression caused this war, but of course that is not so.”

“Indeed not,” said Otto. “We were threatened by Russian mobilization on our eastern border and French mobilization to the west. The Schlieffen Plan was the only possible solution.” As usual, Otto was speaking as if Walter were still twelve years old.

Walter answered patiently. “Exactly. I recall you saying that for us this was a defensive war, a response to an intolerable threat. We had to protect ourselves.”

If Otto was surprised to hear Walter repeating the clichés of war justification he did not show it. “Correct,” he said.

“And we have done so,” Walter said, playing his ace. “We have now achieved our aims.”

His father was startled. “What do you mean?”

“The threat has been dealt with. The Russian army is destroyed, and the tsar’s regime teeters on the brink of collapse. We have conquered Belgium, invaded France, and fought the French and their British allies to a standstill. We have done what we set out to do. We have protected Germany.”

“A triumph.”

“What more do we want, then?”

“Total victory!”

Walter leaned forward in his chair, looking intently at his father. “Why?”

“Our enemies must pay for their aggression! There must be reparations, perhaps border adjustments, colonial concessions.”

“These were not our original war aims… were they?”