The Beauty and the Sorrow (79 page)

Stumpf himself, as ever, feels divided. He thinks it is a pity the war has been lost but, then, perhaps it was impossible to win it right from the start. He welcomes the fact that the day of reckoning has come but finds it disturbing that those who shouted loudest in support of the strong men of the war are now the very people shouting loudest for them to be sacrificed. Perhaps there is an element of bad conscience mixed with his malevolent pleasure. The sense of drama is great and is increasing day by day but he himself feels remarkably unmoved: “I am living through it all without any strong inner emotions.”

The mass of uniformed men moves along the quay towards the barracks, which is guarded by armed sailors. What will happen next?

As the demonstrators approach the armed men the latter welcome them with shouts of joy and three cheers. People are pouring in from all sides and the crowd, its numbers growing by the minute, moves on. What is to be done? Now and again someone stops, tries to hold up the procession, tries to give a speech and get a decision made. There is confusion all round. Finally they agree to march to SMS
Baden
, the flagship of the High Seas Fleet, to try to get its crew to join them.

That is where the first of the day’s critical moments occurs:

A verbal duel was fought between the ship’s captain and a number of spokesmen for the demonstrators. The prize was the crew of the
Baden
, which was standing lined up on the upper deck. If the captain had been any sort of competent speaker our spokesmen would have had to withdraw without winning over a single
man. But both the officer, who was deathly pale, and the seamen’s council made a rather poor job of it. The result was that about a third of the crew joined our ranks.

The growing host pushes slowly and tentatively on. The march does not have any particular goal, nor is there anyone in particular leading the demonstration. Stumpf and a couple of others fetch their musical instruments and the sounds of the old military marches spur the procession on to move rather more quickly along the quaysides. And the music attracts more people to join them.

The second critical moment occurs on Peterstrasse, where the street is blocked by a platoon of forty armed men under the command of a lieutenant. But the soldiers show no inclination to use their weapons and go and join the demonstrators instead. “It was very funny to see the lieutenant when he suddenly realised he was all on his own.” The crowd pushes on, still driven more by collective instinct than by any clear thought.

At a big, locked gate stands a solitary, elderly major. With his pistol drawn he tries to stop the flood of people. This is the third critical moment. But the outcome is more or less inevitable. The gate is lifted off its hinges in an instant and the major is forcibly disarmed. Some men also try to tear off his epaulettes, after which the officer is just swept along in the mass of people. Stumpf cannot help feeling sorry for the old man “who courageously tried to do his duty.”

There are now perhaps 10,000 men gathered on the big parade ground, where one speaker after another mounts an improvised platform. The messages vary from exhortations to stay calm and orderly to “the most ridiculous demands”—which are, however, met with storms of applause. Stumpf is convinced that the mood is such that virtually any idea at all would be able to win approval.

Then the great host sets off again, with the people of the town watching guardedly from behind closed windows. Any passing women are greeted with “coarse comments and whistles.” A red flag—a coloured bedsheet—flies above the sea of heads and shoulders. They cross the Deichbrücke over the Ems-Jade Canal and arrive at the torpedo boat division. This is the fourth critical moment. The torpedo boat crews applaud them but do not come ashore to join the demonstrators. The explanation follows immediately: “We’re having lunch at the moment.”
Lunch, indeed, and many of the men begin to talk about food. “We moved on in nervous and aimless haste.”

The finale comes outside fleet headquarters. This is the last critical moment. The results of negotiations with Admiral Krosigk, the local commander, are to be announced here.

There is absolute silence as a man climbs up on a large statue in front of the building. Admiral Krosigk has given way on all points: “Our demands have been accepted!” There is applause and rejoicing. It is all about things like improved rations, better conditions for leave, the formation of special committees to supervise military courts, an easing of discipline,
^ee
the freeing of the men arrested at the start of the mutiny. Someone shouts: “Down with Kaiser Wilhelm!” The speaker chooses to ignore this. A dockyard worker with what Stumpf describes as “a classic Apache face” steps forward and demands the formation of a “Soviet republic.” Applause. The first speaker then exhorts them all to go back to their posts. Laughter.

The demonstration breaks up and they “all head in the direction of the nearest canteen.”

WEDNESDAY
, 13
NOVEMBER
1918
Pál Kelemen is demobilised and returns to Budapest

Dusk. The
clickety-clack
of the joins between the rails. The train journey continues. It started some days ago when the staff and the last soldiers in the division entrained in Arlon late at night by the light of pocket torches. Since then they have trundled along jerkily and unsteadily, with many inexplicable stops. Through Belgium, through France, through Germany, through Austria. The officers are travelling separately in a special passenger carriage right at the front; the men and the equipment are in ordinary goods wagons.

In Germany they were treated “as if infected with plague.” Just as they were during those last days in the west, when the German authorities
were trying to prevent the rebellious and homesick Hungarian troops from infecting those elements of the German army still in fighting condition. Discipline, which had already been showing signs of crumbling, has completely broken down during the journey. This is largely due to the effects of alcohol: most of the soldiers are very drunk, loud-mouthed, happy and aggressive. Every now and then there is a crackle of shots as soldiers fire their weapons into the air in joy or intoxication.

When they are about to cross into Austria the train is stopped by German officials who demand that they hand over any military equipment, probably to prevent it falling into the hands of the many Austrian revolutionary groups waiting on the other side of the frontier. There could have been some nasty scenes here since the drunken and combative soldiery refused point-blank to give up its weapons. The situation was defused when the Germans satisfied themselves with taking the horses, the kitchen wagons and things of that kind. (When they crossed the frontier and were met by “unshaven, ill-clad, excited civilians with armbands,” there was nothing left for them to grab but the divisional typewriters.)

Once they are in Austria the mood becomes more exhilarated and more threatening. At each and every station soldiers hop off, usually filled with relief, at the same time as others hop on, usually filled with alcohol. There has also been more shooting during the last night and day. Theft and threatening behaviour is becoming more and more overt. On his journey to Budapest Kelemen is being accompanied by Feri, his batman; Laci, his groom; and Benke, one of the orderlies. These three help to protect him and have even arranged for his luggage to be hidden in the locomotive’s coal tender.

Darkness falls. Lights sweep past outside the windows. Celebratory yells and gunshots can be heard from the goods wagons further back. The train stops and remains at a standstill. The soldiers are becoming more and more impatient and they fire burst after burst through the open doors of the wagons. Some of them are starting to cluster round the officers’ carriage, which is now half empty; they shout, wave their fists threateningly and demand money for wine. Shots crash out and the glass in the windows is shattered, the shards and slivers tinkling down onto the floor. Before anything really serious can happen the train jerks into motion and the troublemakers have to hurry to scramble back aboard.

Gradually the housing outside the sooty carriages begins to get
denser as they enter the suburbs of Budapest. At about twelve at night the train stops very briefly at a small station in Rákos and Kelemen and his three companions seize the chance to get off. The relief he feels at being back in his home city is short-lived: a railway worker warns him that everything is in a state of chaos and people calling themselves revolutionaries are running round the streets, looting shops and ripping the badges of rank and medals off returning officers, and robbing them of any other possessions they have.

“Deeply depressed” and with his military insignia concealed under his cloak, Kelemen walks out of the little station and searches the dark, silent, empty streets for any kind of transport. He just wants to take his things home with him—his saddle, his firearm, his sword and all the other things he has been carrying round since 1914. After searching for an hour he manages to find a horse-drawn cab which is on its way back to the stable.

With his luggage stowed away under the seat, Kelemen and his companions are driven into the city and reach his parents’ house at four o’clock. He rings at the main gate. Nothing happens. He rings again and again. At last the porter appears and approaches cautiously and guardedly across the dark inner courtyard. Kelemen shouts his name, opening his cloak at the same time to show his badges of rank. The porter greets the little group “whispering excitedly” and unlocks the heavy barred gate to let Kelemen and the others slip through.

They take the goods lift up to the kitchen entry. Since he does not want to wake his parents, Kelemen beds down in the clothes closet in the hall.

*
This is not unusual: in 1918 Austro-Hungarian anti-aircraft batteries on average achieved one hit for every 3,000 rounds fired, which was considered a quite respectable strike rate.

†
Corday does not explain the motives behind these measures.

‡
Much of the responsibility for this may be attributed to the Russian Bolsheviks. Since 9 January the Russian delegation had been led by Leon Trotsky, who had been playing a carefully prepared (and transparent) waiting game. He expressed his negotiating strategy for dealing with the Central Powers with the kind of sophistry that was all too typical of him: “Neither war nor peace.” It is hardly surprising that this slogan enraged his German military counterparts. It should also be said that a civil war was breaking out in newly independent Finland at this point: “White” and “Red” Finns began fighting against each other in a war that was also to some extent a sideshoot of the main war. This was partly because it was the main war that made independence possible and partly because German units gradually began to provide significant support for the Whites while Russians sided with the Reds.

§
The story—often quoted—that he wrote it in twenty minutes in May 1915 while sitting in the back of a little ambulance, overwrought after attending the burial of one of his friends, is sadly untrue. As is the story that he threw it away at first but a colleague rescued the crumpled piece of paper.

‖
The present-day road distance between Salonica and Santi Quaranta is 230 miles, but King was not, of course, driving on modern roads.

a
Nicknamed “Wong-Wongs” by the British population because of the characteristic sound of the double, unsynchronised engines.

b
Around 2,600 civilians were killed by Allied bombing raids against Germany; 1,736 civilians were killed or wounded by German bombing raids on Great Britain. In France, a combination of air raids and long-range artillery bombardment resulted in the deaths of over 3,300 civilians.

c
London was only one of the targets on this occasion and the casualty count includes those who lost their lives in other places.

d
The significant growth of German influence in the Ottoman Empire in the years before the war made the Russians nervous and led them to consider their military alternatives. It was one of the factors in the background when Russia initiated its great programme of military modernisation, which in turn frightened the life out of the German general staff and led it to consider its own military alternatives. And so on.

e
Which did not, however, mean he had unlimited influence. He was ignored, for example, when he tried to put a stop to the genocide of the Armenians.

f
The other was the light cruiser SMS
Breslau
. In August 1914 the pair were being chased by the British Mediterranean Fleet after bombarding Bône in French-controlled Algeria. They escaped through the Dardanelles and on reaching Constantinople were officially transferred to the Turkish navy (as were their German crews). The collaboration is widely regarded as instrumental in cementing the alliance between the Central Powers and the Ottoman Empire.

g
Though not against General Townshend, who was spending his time as a prisoner of war comfortably housed in his own private villa on one of the Princes Islands off the shore of Constantinople.

h
It was more of an expansionist decree than a treaty, under which Russia was forced to cede control of Ukraine, White Russia, Finland, the Baltic states, Poland and Crimea. Most of these were to become independent satellite states of Germany. The Caucasus was granted to the Ottoman Empire. Russia, moreover, had to hand over to the victors (or rather victor—the governments of Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria were frustrated and enraged that the fruits of victory were to go almost exclusively to Germany) enormous quantities of oil and grain, as well as a great deal of militarily important equipment such as locomotives, artillery pieces and munitions. The new Soviet Union of the Bolsheviks was set to lose 34 per cent of her population, 32 per cent of her agricultural land, 54 per cent of her industrial enterprises and 89 per cent of her coal mines. German forces had already marched into Georgia—with oil in mind—while German generals, intoxicated by this victory, are now talking wildly of transporting German U-boats to the Caspian Sea and perhaps even invading India.