The Generals (39 page)

Major von Peters
: Let the parties in now, Brown.

Captain Schmidt
: I intend to allow the accused to continue his testimony.

Major von Peters
: Yes, but just see to it that he’s brief about it.

Captain Endicott
: He is prepared.

Velder
: The first attack force, then, captured Ludolfsport at eleven o’clock, several hours earlier than had been calculated. At five o’clock in the afternoon, the second offensive force captured Brock and cut off the main road between Oswaldsburg and Ludolfsport at a point only forty kilometres east of the capital. From the radio traffic we heard, we realised that the enemy had been taken completely by surprise.

Colonel Orbal
: Yes, it came as a damned shock, I must admit. Our headquarters were only a little way away from there. General Winckelman was absolutely flummoxed. I remember he said to Me: ‘Everything’s going straight to hell.’ Our forces were more or less intact, but the tactical situation was shot to bloody pieces. But I said: ‘It’s just a matter of holding on, Henry.’ And he said: ‘Mateo, you’re wonderful.’ Yes, that’s what he said. But I’m not supposed to be sitting here telling this story. Go on, Velder.

Velder
: In the afternoon, Ludolf issued a communiqué, the only one he wrote throughout the war.

Captain Schmidt
: Appendix V X/101x. If you please, Brown.

Lieutenant Brown
: Appendix V X/101x, concerning the disturbances.
The communique issued by the enemy of the people, Joakim Ludolf, on 19th November at 1000 hours. The text is as follows:

The Socialist Government Militia this morning went into attack along the whole of the front line. Ludolfsport was surrounded during the morning and soon after ten o’clock three brigades of the Socialist Government Militia advanced into the town, which was rapidly cleared of Fascist troops. A large prey fell into the hands of the victors. Later in the day, militia units that had broken through into the Central Province liberated the important village of Brock. The advance continues.

Velder
: Yes, that’s how it was worded. From seven o’clock in the evening onwards, we had firm signal-communications with both the offensive forces and a complete picture of the situation. Everything was going exactly according to plan. When the position at Brock had been consolidated and built out, some of the motorised units continued northwards. They set off at about ten in the evening and between them and the sea, the north coast, that is, there was no more than twenty kilometres of largely undefended plain. The intention was that from now onwards Brock would constitute the central point for operations and that the offensive should be developed from there in four different directions, first and foremost to the north, as I said. Other militiamen were advancing to the south-west to cut off the autostrad, at the same time as some units were advancing westwards, along the old road to Oswaldsburg. In the fourth direction, the old road to the Eastern Province’s northern sector, we put in the comparatively weakest groups. They were stopped soon after midnight too, by the river, where the Fascists had blown up the bridge and dug themselves in along the banks. Then soon after one o’clock …

Captain Schmidt
: Yes, just go on.

Velder
: Soon after one o’clock, a message came from the militia forces on their way northwards from Brock. The officer in command there said that the advance had been delayed by the rain turning to snow and both men and equipment were beginning to suffer from the wet and cold. Half an hour later, the pilot-boat station on the north-eastern point reported sleet and rain and that the temperature had dropped to thirteen degrees. I was the one who received that message. I read it out and when I’d finished, the others stared
questioningly at me. It didn’t match up with the weather forecasts at all. Stoloff at once set people to work investigating the matter. Gradually we got a vague statement from the meteorologists that a current of cold air had suddenly changed direction and was pressing an area of rain and snow southwards. The change of temperature was probably temporary, they said, and anyhow there was no risk of the weather clearing. There was a strange atmosphere in the operations centre that night. Every hour that went by was decisive, and yet I personally felt quite relaxed, and Ludolf and Stoloff seemed much the same. Not even this question of the weather worried us seriously. At nine in the morning, two important things happened practically simultaneously. First, the Fascists’ resistance collapsed totally in the area south and south-west of Ludolfsport. Five kilometres of the autostrad line, that is the stretch between the original break-through position and the sea, were taken and the troops there capitulated. A minute later, a radio message came through from the forward northern groups of the second attack force. ‘Have reached the sea. Northern coast road cut off.’ This meant that we’d cut Oswald’s Army and all the Fascist-occupied part of the country into two. I remember that I lost control and began walking up and down like a madman saying: ‘Now we’ve got them. Now they’re in the clamp.’ Ludolf took his pipe out of his mouth and said calmly: ‘Yes. It looks like it.’ Stoloff poked his ear with his pen, which he always did when he was thinking. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it really does look like it.’ That was all that was said just then. But what we didn’t know was …

Colonel Orbal
: I’ve been listening to all this. It was a tricky morning, I must admit. At ten o’clock, General Oswald personally came to headquarters in Marbella, although it was such bloody awful weather. Both he and General Winckelman were fearfully pessimistic; the western flank in a state of dissolution and a whole Army division cut off and no one knowing a thing. In Oswaldsburg and in other places, the police had become quite hysterical and were shooting people out of hand. They probably thought that every single person was a Bolshevik and was going to desert. But in actual fact things weren’t so bad. Just hold on. I said so, too. I threw in reserves to form a front between Oswaldsburg and Brock and held back the elite units as barricade battalions, that old system, you know. If the forward line retreated, then they were shot by their own people from
behind. So it paid to make a stand. But the Chief of State wasn’t very happy that morning. I remember him standing in front of the map and talking to himself, as he usually did. ‘The bastard,’ he kept saying, over and over again. I suppose he meant Ludolf.

Major von Peters
: Don’t sit there chattering, Mateo. Let Velder go on instead. What was it you didn’t know?

Velder
: We didn’t know that the temperature had fallen to below thirty degrees and that snow-storms were raging all along the north coast. The roads and the fields were already impassable. This message came at midday, on the twentieth. Ludolf stared at the telex strip for a whole minute at least. Then he handed it to Stoloff and said one single word. ‘Unique.’ And it was true, too. We had studied the meteorological statistics of the last fifty years and nothing like it had ever happened during that time.

Colonel Orbal
: What the matter with him? Is he crying?

Captain Endicott
: I don’t think so, sir.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Some kind of emotion, clearly.

Colonel Orbal
: Looks funny.

Major von Peters
: Don’t stand there staring, Endicott. Get the man going.

Captain Endicott
: Get on with your account, Velder.

Velder
: There’s nothing else to say. That was the end. Of everything. The snow came down all day, the temperature just fell. Everything went all to hell. First the engines froze up, and then the men. They had no winter equipment. And winter came two months too early. It snowed for three days. Everything seized up; the whole operation was paralysed. Then came the air-raids from bases in Marbella and simultaneously the counter-attack started.

There was nothing wrong with the other side’s winter equipment. Men and women on the northern coastal road froze to death at their posts, to no purpose, as on the forth day the Fascists retook the road along the shore and opened communications between the Central and Eastern Provinces. The rest of the second offensive force was stuck in Brock and the area round about. Oswald sent in reserves all the time from the west and as I said, their equipment was better suited to the conditions. The militia south of Brock began to be pushed back from the autostrad. On the night of the fourth day, Stoloff said: ‘Gentlemen, Plan B has failed. The time has come to
abandon it.’ We’d been awake all the time, more or less, keeping upright on pills, like most of the militia in general. I remember that I was in a strange condition, feeling as if I were neither awake nor asleep. There was only one thing left to do; let the second offensive force withdraw from Brock while a retreat route was still passable. This was so obvious that the question didn’t even warrant discussion. The fourth was a difficult day, with clear cold air and a good view. The Fascists began to use their Air Force seriously and their artillery hammered us continuously. During the night, militia from Brock retreated and evacuated the area west of the river and north of the autostrad. We managed to hold the retreat route open and disengage some of the units involved in the fighting, but the price was high. Everyone and everything north of Brock was lost. In the last stages, we put in demolition units. All Brock was razed to the ground and all buildings within the area over which we had had control were destroyed. Many prisoners were shot, and other people too, for that matter.

Captain Schmidt
: Were you also involved in giving those orders?

Velder
: Oh, yes. We often discussed at length whether it hadn’t been a foolish thing to do. It created antagonism to us in fact, even among people who were really sympathisers, or at least neutral. But there was no place for neutrals any longer. We didn’t need to discuss the retreat from Brock, as I said. But General Ludolf and Colonel Stoloff held different opinions on what we should do about Ludolfsport. Stoloff considered that the most rational thing to do was to withdraw the militia from there, although we had full control of the town and the surrounding area. He said that our powers of resistance would be greater if we returned to the old positions and concentrated all our militia units on the fortress and the outer defence belt. Ludolf, however, wanted the town held, and that’s what happened. He had no special motivation. We got a harbour, of course, but now we lacked the means of getting it working, and the blockade also meant that it wasn’t any use to us. By this time, the airfield had been made useless by artillery fire and attacks from the air. We did make some use of the four or five serviceable planes we captured there, however. Before they were shot down, they relieved militia groups in Brock and covered some of their retreat. As soon as it was decided that we were to hold the captured area,
Stoloff left headquarters and set off for Ludolfsport to plan its defence and start new fortifications. Then Ludolf and I composed an order of the day, which was sent out that same evening.

Captain Schmidt
: A copy of this order has been found and kept. Appendix V XI/15.

Lieutenant Brown
: Appendix V XI/15, concerning the disturbances. Order of the day issued on the evening of the twenty-fifth of November by the enemy of the people, Joakim Ludolf. The text is as follows:

The attempt to crush the Fascist régime has failed. The reasons for this are circumstances which lie outside both our own and the enemy’s control. During the first stage of the offensive, the Socialist Government Militia liberated Ludolfsport and the surrounding area and all of the east coast, including the lighthouse and the pilot-boat station on the north-eastern point. The town of Ludolfsport and its surroundings will be held and thus included in the fortification system of the southern sector. The village of Brock and parts of the Central Province were also taken. These areas have now been evacuated. The Socialist Government Militia’s losses in dead, wounded and missing constitute twelve per cent of its total strength. Losses were overwhelmingly in the groups operating in the Central Province and round the village of Melora in the South-Western Province. These losses cannot for the time being be replaced. Large quantities of materials were lost during the fighting in the Central Province, but more than double this quantity was captured at Ludolfsport. Fascist losses in men are three times as great as our own. No one can be blamed for the fact that a decisive victory was not achieved. During the fighting, every man and woman in the southern sector did his or her best. Ludolf. General. Leader of the Socialist Government Militia.

Velder
: When the order had been issued, we talked together for a while. I was very tired and the thought of how extremely close we’d been to victory ground round and round in my head. I remember talking and talking, going through the operation on the map. Ludolf was watching without moving a muscle. Finally he said: ‘Yes, it was close.’ Then we separated—for the first time for more than five days. Although none of us said so, we knew that our chance had gone for ever. Plan B could be filed away and would never have a successor.
The cold wave only lasted for a week, anyhow. Then the temperature rose to fifty degrees, which was normal for the time of year, and the snow vanished. We suffered much from the thawing snow and Stoloff found it difficult to carry out the fortifications round Ludolfsport. He himself always regarded them as provisional anyhow. He used mostly captured Fascists on the work and most of them were killed by their own people in the air-raids.

Captain Schmidt
: Were you involved in making that decision, too? To use people, whose liberty you had unlawfully taken, as slave workers?

Velder
: Yes. We regarded them as prisoners-of-war.

Commander Kampennmann
: What happened then?

Velder
: The fighting had given us a pretty good idea of Oswald’s dispositions. We knew it would be some time before he took the offensive. Naturally we predicted that he would first strengthen his positions all along the front. He had been considerably shaken and was taking no risks. The only thing we could do was to wait and make ourselves even more inaccessible than we already were. Absurdly enough, the winter was very mild. That was lucky for us, as although our stores were large, they were by no means inexhaustible. We were very isolated during January and February, first and foremost from the outside, as most of our agents had been killed during mopping-up operations by the Army and the police in Oswaldsburg and Marbella in December. From the little we could find out, it was clear that Oswald was stocking up, that large reinforcements were coming in to Marbella, despite the non-intervention agreement. But we were also isolated from each other. Every fort, or defence unit as we called them, lived its own life. This was good from some points of view, for solidarity, for instance, and it was easy to limit epidemics. We avoided deficiency diseases, thanks to our medical stores which were very comprehensive and well run. But everything became abstract in some way, almost ghost-like, to use a silly expression. Our whole existence was hardly an existence at all.