Eleven Eleven

CHAPTER 6

Private train of Marshal Foch Compiègne forest, north of Paris, 4.00 a.m.

One hundred kilometres behind the front line, Captain George Atherley surveyed the scene before him and fought back a deep desire to yawn. The pall of tobacco smoke that hung over the railway carriage was making his eyes water and he was desperate for a cigarette himself. He needed something to keep him awake. He knew this was history in the making, and he was lucky to be here taking notes and witnessing it.

The German delegation had been escorted across the duckboards on to Marshal Foch’s private train at two o’clock; now it was four o’clock and they were still talking. It was cold in the carriage, and although the paraffin heaters were taking the chill off, they added to the drowsy atmosphere.

The Germans had been pushing for talks since early October, but negotiations had only been going on in earnest for three days. Every hour, every minute, brought more needless deaths. The German delegation had been arguing every point, but the British and French were giving nothing away. Why should they, thought Atherley. Germany was on the point of collapse. Berlin, Munich, perhaps half the country, was about to fall into anarchy. Just like the Russians with their Bolsheviks the year before.

Atherley was there to take the minutes on behalf of the British government, represented here by the First Sea Lord. Sir Rosslyn Wemyss was as forbidding and stuffy as his name and rank suggested, but he wasn’t as cold-hearted as Foch. Foch was merciless. The Boche had asked for it though, thought Atherley. They had started the war.

But, just tonight, he had actually begun to feel sorry for the Germans. Matthias Erzberger, the man they had sent to represent the shaky coalition that held power in Berlin now the Kaiser had abdicated, was a nobody, raised to prominence, and no doubt future infamy, for this catastrophic peace treaty they were about to sign. Him and Count Alfred von Obersdorff sitting next to him – a somebody from the Foreign Ministry. They would be blamed for this. The army had sent a major general, sitting there in his ridiculous Pickelhaube helmet and overcoat, looking like a cartoon Hun. Nobody above a division commander was willing to represent the army. There were no generals, no field marshals. The Imperial German Navy had only sent a humble captain. A fellow called Vanselow.

The victors, on the other hand, were there in all their glory. The French had Marshal Foch, Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies, looking unforgiving with his great walrus moustache and the killer eyes of a cat with a bird in its mouth. The British had their First Sea Lord. Atherley was in the army, but he was happy to admit it was only proper that the Senior Service represent the Empire at this hour. The Yanks weren’t there. Atherley didn’t really understand why that was.

Now they were arguing about terms again. The French were demanding the Germans hand over 2,000 aircraft. How could they, pleaded Erzberger, after hurried consultation with his military colleagues, when they had only 1,700 left?

They hammered it out. The figures were astounding. The Allies were asking for 5,000 artillery pieces, 30,000 machine guns, 5,000 locomotives – Atherley scribbled it all down – 150,000 railway carriages; he had to interrupt to ask for that figure again. Wemyss looked daggers at him . . . and the entire submarine fleet.

The Germans held out for more concessions. There were women and children starving at home. Would the blockade be lifted immediately? Every day civilians were dying for want of nourishment. The longer they went on arguing, the more would die.

Yes, and more of our soldiers and yours, thought Atherley. He wasn’t really concerned about the German civilians, although a little part of him had to concede he could hardly blame the women and children for starting the war.

All right, agreed Foch and Wemyss. The Allies ‘would contemplate the provisioning of Germany during the Armistice as shall be found necessary’.

Contemplate. As he wrote it down, Atherley gave a little smirk at the mealy-mouthed wording of that particular concession.

Then that was it. They had finished. Papers were to be signed. Atherley looked at his watch. It was 5.10. The war was over. History had been made. The mincing machine would grind to a halt. They all agreed to say they had signed at 5.00, and then the required six hours to bring the Armistice into effect would end the war at eleven o’clock, Paris time. That had a nice ring to it, they thought. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Atherley felt a little indignant. Surely they could bring it to a halt quicker than that? He had a younger brother out near Mons, and he’d lost two already. Both of them on the Somme in 1916. He hoped Lieutenant Peter Atherley, of the Surrey Rifles, would have the good sense to keep his head down. Some would have to die in the last morning of the war – probably a hell of a lot of men, especially with the American divisions. Their staff officers had reputations to seal, and if they were anything like the British staff officers he’d served with, they wouldn’t be too fussy about the cost.

Erzberger was speaking again. He seemed like a man at the end of his tether. ‘The German people will preserve their liberty and unity, despite every kind of violence. A nation of seventy million people suffers but it does not die.’

Foch looked at him with plain disinterest. ‘Très bien,’ he said.

The Germans left with a reminder that the Armistice would hold for thirty days, to be renewed once a month thereafter. Hostilities would begin within forty-eight hours if any of the terms were breached. There were no handshakes.

The war had six hours left to run.