Men in War, Andreas Latzko [best book club books of all time .txt] 📗

assemblage who did not owe at least two blessings to the war: financial independence and such munificence of living as only much-envied money magnates have allotted to them in times of peace. Among this circle of people the war wore the mask of a Santa Claus with a bag full of wonderful gifts on his back and assignments for brilliant careers in his hand. To be sure here and there a gentleman was to be seen wearing a crêpe-band on his sleeve for a brother or a brother-in-law who, as officer, had seen that other aspect of the war, the Gorgon’s face.

Yet the Gorgon’s face was so far away, more than sixty miles in a bee-line, and an occasional excursion in its vicinity was an exciting little adventure, a brief titillation of the nerves. Inside an hour the automobile raced back to safety, back to the bath-tub, and you promenaded asphalt streets again in shining pumps. So, who would refrain from joining in the hymn of praise to His Excellency?

The mighty man contentedly listened a while longer to the babel of voices aroused by what he had said, then gradually sank back into his reflections, and gazed ahead of him seriously. He saw the sunbeams sifting through the thick foliage and glittering on the crosses and stars that covered the left half of his chest in three close rows. It was a magnificent and complete collection of every decoration that the rulers of four great empires had to bestow upon a man for heroism, contempt of death, and high merit. There was no honor left for the Victor of –- still to aspire to. And only eleven short months of war had cast all that at his feet. It was the harvest of but a single year of war. Thirty-nine years of his life had previously gone in the service in tedious monotony, in an eternal struggle with sordid everyday cares. He had worn himself out over all the exigencies of a petty bourgeois existence, like a poor man ashamed of his poverty, making pathetic efforts to conceal a tear in his clothes and always seeing the telltale hole staring out from under the covering. For thirty-nine years he had never swerved from disciplining himself to abstemiousness, and there was much gold on his uniform, but very little in his pocket. As a matter of fact, he had been quite ready for some time to quit. He was thoroughly tired of the cheap pleasure of tyrannizing over the young officers on the drill ground.

But then the miracle occurred! Over night the grouchy, obscure old gentleman changed into a sort of national hero, a European celebrity. He was “the Victor of –-!” It was like in a fairy tale, when the good fairy appears and frees the enchanted prince from his hideous disguise, and he emerges in his glowing youth, surrounded by knights and lackeys, and enters his magnificent castle.

To he sure the miracle had not brought the general the glow of youth. But it put elasticity into him. The eventful year had given him a shaking up, and his veins pulsed with the joy of life and the energy for work of a man in his prime. It was as a sovereign that he sat there in the shadow of the plane-trees, with good fortune sparkling on his chest and a city lying at his feet. Nothing, not a single thing, was lacking to make the fairy tale perfect.

In front of the coffeehouse, guarded by two sturdy corporals, rested the great grey beast, with the lungs of a hundred horses in its chest, awaiting the cranking-up to rush its master off to his castle high above town and valley. Where were the days when, with his general’s stripes on his trousers, he took the street-car to his home, befitting his station in life, a six-room apartment that was really a five-room apartment plus a closet? Where was all that? Centuries had given their noblest powers, generations had expended their artistic skill in filling the castle requisitioned for His Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief of the –-th Army, with the choicest treasure. Sun and time had done their best to mellow the dazzle of the accumulated wealth till it shone in subdued grandeur as through a delicate veil. Any man master in that house, who mounted those broad steps and shouted his wishes in those aristocratic rooms, necessarily felt like a king and could not take the war in any other way than as a glorious fairy tale.

Indeed, was there ever a royal household that approached the miraculous more closely? In the kitchen reigned a master of the culinary art, the chef of the best hotel in the country, who in other circumstances would not have been satisfied with double the wages of a general and was now getting only a dollar a day. Yet he was using every bit of his skill. He had never been so eager to please the palate of him whom he served. The roast he prepared was the finest piece of meat to be selected from among the two hundred oxen that daily gave up their lives to the army for the fatherland. The men who served the roast on silver platters, wrought by pupils of Benvenuto for the ancestors of the house, were generals of their trade, who in peace times had had their clothes built in London, and stood about tremblingly awaiting each sign from their master. And this entire retinue, this whole princely household, functioned quite automatically, and—entirely without cost! The master for whom every one slaved never once had to perform that inevitable nuisance of putting his hand in his pocket to draw out his purse. The gasoline circulated inexhaustibly through the veins of the three motor cars, which lounged day and night on the marble flagging of the courtyard. As by magic everything flowed in that eye and palate could desire.

No servant asked for wages, everything seemed to be there of itself, as in fairy castles where it is enough to wish for a thing in order to have it.

But that was not all. It was not the whole of the miracle that the table spread itself every day of the month and the store-rooms filled themselves with provisions. When the first of the month came round, bank-notes instead of bills came fluttering into the house.

No worry, no disputing, no stinting of one’s self to be borne with a sigh. With an air of boredom one stuffed his pockets with greenbacks, which were really quite superfluous in this lazy man’s paradise that the war had opened up to its vassals.

One single lowering cloud now and then streaked the shining firmament of this wonderland and cast its shadow on the brow of His Excellency. Sometimes his pure joy was disturbed by the thought that the fairy tale might give way to reality and he might be awakened from the glorious dream. It was not peace that His Excellency dreaded. He never even thought of peace. But what if the wall so artfully constructed out of human bodies should begin to totter some day? What if the enemy were to penetrate all the fortifications, and discipline were to give way to panic, and the mighty wall should dissolve into its component parts, human beings fleeing madly to save their lives? Then the “Victor of –-,” the almighty fairy tale king, would sink back again into the sordid commonplace of old. He would have to eke out his existence in some obscure corner, crowd his trophies into some modest apartment, and content himself, like other discharged officers, with being a coffeehouse king. Were he to suffer a single defeat, the world would instantly forget its enthusiasm. Another general would assume the reign, another sovereign would fly through the town in a motor car, and the vast retinue of servants would reverently bow before their new ruler. The old one would be nothing but a past episode, a scarecrow revealed, which any sparrow impudently besmirches.

The general’s pudgy hand involuntarily clenched itself, and the dreaded frown, the “storm-signal” that his own soldiers, as well as the enemy, had learned to fear, appeared for a moment on his prominent forehead. Then his face cleared again, and His Excellency looked around proudly.

No! The Victor of –- was not afraid. His wall stood firm and swayed not. For three months every report that emissaries brought to camp had told of the enormous preparations being made by the enemy. For three months they had been storing up ammunition and gathering together their forces for the tremendous offensive. And the offensive had begun the night before. The general knew that the crowd gaily thronging in the sun would not read in the newspaper till the next morning that out at the front a fierce battle had been raging for the past twenty hours, and hardly sixty miles from the promenade shells were bursting without cease, and a heavy rain of hot iron was pouring down upon his soldiers. Three infantry attacks had already been reported as repulsed, and now the artillery was hammering with frenzied fury, a prologue to fresh conflicts during the night.

Well, let them come!

With a jerk, His Excellency sat up, and while his fingers beat on the table in tune to the Blue Danube, a tense expression came into his face, as though he could hear the terrific drumfire raging at the front like a hurricane. His preparations had been made: the human reservoir had been filled to overflowing. Two hundred thousand strong young lads of the very right age lay behind the lines ready at the proper moment to be thrown in front of the steam-roller until it caught and stuck in a marsh of blood and bones. Just let them come! The more, the merrier! The Victor of –- was prepared to add another branch to his laurels, and his eyes sparkled like the medals on his breast.

His adjutant got up from the table next to his, approached hesitatingly, and whispered a few words in His Excellency’s ear.

The great man shook his head, waving the adjutant off.

“It is an important foreign newspaper, Your Excellency,” the adjutant urged; and when his commander still waved him aside, he added significantly: “The gentleman has brought a letter of recommendation from headquarters, Your Excellency.”

At this the general finally gave in, arose with a sigh, and said, half in jest, half in annoyance to the lady beside him:

“A drumfire would be more welcome!” Then he followed his adjutant and shook hands jovially with the bald civilian, who popped up from his seat and bent at the middle like a penknife snapping shut. His Excellency invited him to be seated.

The war correspondent stammered a few words of admiration, and opened his note-book expectantly, a whole string of questions on his lips. But His Excellency did not let him speak. In the course of time he had constructed for occasions like this a speech in which every point was well thought out and which made a simple impression. He delivered it now, speaking with emphasis and pausing occasionally to recall what came next.

To begin with he spoke of his brave soldiers, praising their courage, their contempt of death, their wonderful deeds of valor. Then he expressed regret at the impossibility of rewarding each soldier according to his merits, and—this in a raised voice—invoked the fatherland’s eternal gratitude for such loyalty and self-abnegation even unto death. Pointing to the heavy crop of medals on his chest, he explained that the distinctions awarded him were really an honor done to his men. Finally he wove in a few well-chosen remarks complimenting the enemy’s fighting ability and cautious leadership, and concluded with an expression of his unshakable confidence in ultimate victory.

The newspaper man listened respectfully and occasionally jotted down a note. The main thing, of