The Two-Headed Eagle

We sat dolefully in the mess tent that evening back at Caprovizza. Kraliczek’s Verona raid had been a costly fiasco. Toth and I had got back with little more than a few bullet holes, but the others had fared a good deal worse. Potocznik had managed to limp home with a badly shot-up aeroplane and a dying observer. But at least he had sent down one of the attacking Nieuports in the process. As for Szuborits and Zwierzkowski, they had crashed near Ranziano as they tried to get home. Szuborits was all right except for a few cuts and bruises, but Zwierzkowski had a suspected fractured pelvis, while the aeroplane was a wreck. As for young Donhanyi and his pilot, there was no point whatever in speculating about their fate: in 1916 one did not usually survive a fall from four thousand metres in a burning aeroplane. Even in the k.u.k. Armee there were certain limits beyond which incompetence would not be allowed to run, and with the virtual elimination of an entire squadron those limits had been reached. Hauptma

“It always was a stupid idea,” said Potocznik in the mess that evening, downing a double schnapps to steady hands that were still trembling after the morning’s battle. “Long-range bombing in daylight’s a complete waste of time. If you’re going to drop bombs on cities, then do it at night and do it unexpectedly with everything you’ve got instead of sending out four aeroplanes with a couple of jam-tin bombs each.”

“I agree,” I said, “but the trouble with night bombing is that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them either. Showering bombs about at ran­dom means that i

He looked at me steadily, turning the destroyed side of his face away from me as was his custom. A curious look had come into his normally rather dreamy eyes.

“There’s no such thing as an i

“But that’s monstrous . . . The Hague Convention clearly lays down . . .” “To hell with the Hague Convention and all the rest of the laws imposed on us by the Latins and the Anglo-Saxons. This is a twentieth- century war we’re fighting, not one of Louis XIV’s little summer cam­paigns in Flanders where the ladies come out to watch the battle from a grandstand. And we’re not civilised fighters but Germanic warriors, descendants of the tribesmen who wiped out a Roman legion in the Teuto- berger Wald and then sacrificed every last survivor to their gods. I only wish that I could convince our suet-brained generals of that, what with their permitted targets and their laws of war. Just look at the way we handed Gorz over to the Wellischers: a whole town given to them intact ‘so as to spare it from further damage.’ I tell you, the German Army wouldn’t have stood for it: the Italians might have taken the site of Gorz, but not one stone would have been standing on another when they got there. Every house would have been blown up, every tree sawn down, every well poisoned and every cellar booby-trapped.”

“For heaven’s sake Potocznik, why are we fighting then? If we had to win the war by such means then frankly I’d rather we lost it a hundred times over.”

“And we will lose it too, I know that in my bones. There are too many against us already and the Americans are going to come in before long. But I promise you this, Germany will lose this war only to rise next time and win. That’s the war I’m pla

“Do you mean then that you’re fighting this war now without any hope of our wi

He smiled: the old, agreeable Potocznik smile. “Between ourselves, quite without any hope, my dear Prohaska. I realised back in the win­ter of 1914 when I was lying in hospital that Germany had already lost. The mistakes we made at the begi

“From my experience of poison gas, we deserve to lose for having used such filthy stuff.”

“The trouble, Prohaska, is not that we used such filthy stuff but that we used it half-heartedly. Just like aerial bombing: we do it too little, and piecemeal, without any sort of plan.” He leant across to stare into my eyes. “Personally I couldn’t give a hoot about poison gas, or about bomb­ing hospitals or orphanages. In fact if it were left to me I’d aim for them specially, and use poison-gas bombs on cities too, if it did the job more efficiently. Terror is a weapon like any other, and civilians are as fit a tar­get for it as anyone else. Only, if we’re going to use it, we must use it for maximum effect; not pinpricks with four or five aircraft against cities of a hundred thousand people, but raids with a hundred or even a thousand aircraft against towns of ten thousand people: arrive out of a blue sky and fly away five minutes later leaving the place a blazing cemetery. And leave them guessing which town will be on the menu for tomorrow. That’s war as I understand it: strike ruthlessly and hard, at random, without warning. If thine enemy offend thee—then go one night and blow his house up and cut the throats of his wife and children and poison his dog. That way he’ll leave you alone in future.”

I was silent for some time. I had always considered Potocznik to be slightly odd, a dreaming German poet-philosopher perhaps with some rather strange opinions, but at base a decent enough person. But now here he was preaching this murderous lunacy with the conviction of a dogmatic vegetarian or a convert to Christian Science. It was rather as if next door’s pedigree spaniel, always so playful and gentle, should suddenly appear in front of you with a crazed light in its eyes and a child’s torn-off arm drip­ping in its mouth. I suddenly understood Elisabeth’s remark (which I had previously taken to be flippant) about calling for help when he started questioning her about the shade of her nipples.

“I see,” I said, “so you are an enthusiast for long-range bombing after all. Are you pla

Do it regularly, night after night, and the enemy will have time to build up defences and get used to it, like our famous preparatory barrages which last for weeks and merely serve to let the enemy move up his reserves in readiness. No, the sort of air power I’m interested in is completely different: massive and overwhelming air power, but used as close to the Front as possible in direct support of the armies—battlefield flying carried out by an air force specially designed for that purpose; fleets of aircraft in contact with the ground troops by wireless and used to smash any strong points ahead of an advance.”