To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [359]
For four years, the Belgian frontier had been a death trap for the British, had swallowed up so many casualties that von Hindenburg had long expected that the British government might simply give up, and abandon their allies. But since August, the combination of British, Anzac, Canadian, and Belgian forces had been too much for the worn-out German army to hold back. With so many of the reserve units sent to the Argonne to face the Americans, in Flanders, there was virtually no reserve left at all. The combined efforts of the American, French, and British forces had driven the Germans back to the Hindenburg Line. But the great defensive barrier, once so impenetrable, was weakened far more than Germany’s enemies knew. All across the Western Front, from Flanders to the Meuse River, Foch’s grand strategy of a massive general assault had been costly but effective. While Foch had cautiously celebrated the victories of the Allied armies, the German High Command knew that his success was due as much to the deterioration of the German army as any superiority Foch had on the battlefield. In the face of the Allies’ devastating pressure, Ludendorff’s field commanders had finally convinced their leader that the Hindenburg Line might not be so impenetrable after all. The battered German army was coming apart from the inside out, and Ludendorff was forced to accept what von Hindenburg already knew. Unless there was an armistice, and very soon, Germany wouldn’t have an army left to put into the field. If the French and British had their way, they might press their armies all the way across the Rhine River. It would not just be the defeat of the German army. It would be the end of the Fatherland.
VON HINDENBURG HAD DECIDED TO GO TO BERLIN, A NECESSITY now with the growing pressure from the Reichstag to pursue some form of armistice. His train rolled across bleak farmlands, empty fields, through quiet villages where churches still offered comfort to the misery of the people. The roads that ran parallel to the tracks were empty. There were no cars, gasoline severely restricted, tires and oil nonexistent. He stared out the window, saw an old man tending to a small garden. There was no horse, no livestock in the man’s fields at all. It was the most common sight now. What the army had not taken, the people had consumed themselves. Horses were a luxury no farmer could afford. Von Hindenburg watched the man for as long as he could see him, a man too old for war, whose grandsons might be facing the enemy somewhere to the west. He turned away from the window, the sights too familiar. He was too tired for work, for the numbing details of troop positions, and the chaotic calls from senior officers who each faced the same kind of crisis. Ludendorff kept him dutifully informed, fed him copies of the significant orders, the reports from the field of casualties and troop movements. But von Hindenburg rarely offered any comment, had not issued his own orders for some time. He understood more than ever that Ludendorff needed him to be a buffer between the army and the kaiser. Von Hindenburg had no argument with that role, had known for some time that it was Ludendorff’s war. He glanced again out the window, thought, Should it have been any other way? If I was younger and had his energy, his fire, would I have done anything so differently? What did I know of tanks? Without von Hoeppner making such a nuisance of himself, we likely wouldn’t have relied on the Air Service. No, this was never my war. I am here because my country expected me to be here. What do they expect now?
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