• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 728 0

on a front which is not the really important one (for example, Hindenburg’s feint before Warsaw, which tricked the Russians into concentrating their resistance there and brought about their defeat at the Mazurian Lakes)—his tactical withdrawals, analogous to those with which Austerlitz, Arcola, Eckmühl began, everything in Hindenburg is Napoleonic, and we haven’t seen the end of him. I must add that if, when we are no longer together, you try, as the war proceeds, to interpret its events, you should not rely too exclusively on this particular aspect of Hindenburg to reveal to you the meaning of what he is doing and the key to what he is about to do. A general is like a writer who sets out to write a certain play, a certain book, and then the book itself, with the unexpected potentialities which it reveals here, the impassable obstacles which it presents there, makes him deviate to an enormous degree from his preconceived plan. You know, for instance, that a diversion should only be made against a position which is itself of considerable importance; well, suppose the diversion succeeds beyond all expectation, while the principal operation results in a deadlock: the diversion may then become the principal operation. But there is one type of Napoleonic battle which I am waiting to see Hindenburg attempt, and that is the one which consists in driving a wedge between two allies, in this case the English and ourselves.”

I have said that the war had not altered the stature of Saint-Loup’s intelligence, but I ought to add that this intelligence, developing in accordance with laws in which heredity counted for much, had acquired a brilliancy which I had never seen in him before. What a difference between the fair-haired boy who had once been run after by smart women or women who were hoping to become smart, and the voluble talker, the theorist who never stopped juggling with words! In another generation, grafted upon another stock, like an actor re-interpreting a part played years ago by Bressant or Delaunay, he was like a successor—pink, fair and golden, whereas the other had been half and half very dark and quite white—of M. de Charlus. It was true that he did not agree with his uncle about the war, since he had ranged himself with that section of the aristocracy which put France above everything else in the world while M. de Charlus was at heart defeatist, but nevertheless he could demonstrate to anyone who had not seen the “creator of the part” what a success could be made in the role of verbal acrobat.

“It seems that Hindenburg is a revelation,” I said to him.

“An old revelation,” he retorted instantly, “or a future revolution. Instead of being soft with the enemy, we should have supported Mangin in his offensive, then we might have smashed Austria and Germany and europeanised Turkey instead of balkanising France.”

“But soon we shall have the help of the United States,” I said.

“Meanwhile, I see here only the spectacle of the disunited states. Why refuse to make more generous concessions to Italy for fear of dechristianising France?”

“How shocked your uncle Charlus would be to hear you!” I said. “The fact is that you would be only too pleased to give the Pope another slap in the face, while your uncle is in despair at the thought of the damage that may be done to the throne of Franz Josef. And in this he says that he is in the tradition of Talleyrand and the Congress of Vienna.”

“The age of the Congress of Vienna is dead and gone,” he replied; “the old secret diplomacy must be replaced by concrete diplomacy. My uncle is at heart an impenitent monarchist, who can be made to swallow carps like Mme Molé and scamps like Arthur Meyer provided that both carps and scamps are à la Chambord. He so hates the tricolour flag that I believe he would rather serve under the duster of the Red Bonnet, which he would take in good faith for the white flag of the Monarchists.”

Admittedly, this was mere play on words and Saint-Loup was far from possessing the sometimes profound originality of his uncle. But he was as affable and agreeable