The thought might have weakened another man, but not Mansfeld. He played for the highest stakes in the most deadly occupation possible: political power. He was also the superior of every man he’d ever met in his life.
“Can it be you lack words, General?” Kleist asked, with a hint of his infamous gloating tingeing his speech.
The Chancellor had a strong voice and he was the same height as Mansfeld. They were two short men among physical giants—even if the others were mental pygmies compared to them. But where Mansfeld was trim like a rapier, Kleist was fat like a knotty oaken club. That was a key to understanding the man. Despite the Chancellor’s intellect, to Mansfeld Kleist seemed like a gutter-born thug. Despite his outer gloss of sophistication, Kleist was a brutal man with the instincts of an alpha wolf. All his life, the Chancellor had struck first and struck hard.
Kleist wore a brown suit and expensive Italian shoes. His chin was strong, his hands thick but small and he wore a silver wedding ring with a large diamond that seemed strangely out of place among these military men.
The General Staff members sitting along the sides of the table were large men with stiff, military postures. Each was well fed and each wore a crisp uniform, with the red General Staff stripes running down the legs of their trousers. Mansfeld wanted to sneer at them. To him, they were like Great Danes secretly quivering in fear of their master. They were also afraid of what he—Mansfeld—might say and that Kleist would hold the words against them.
It’s clear that none of them can understand my calm. None of them realizes how valuable I am to Kleist. What is sad is that Kleist doesn’t realize it yet either. Otherwise, he would not have called me back from Quebec to initiate this farce.
Kleist stared across the conference table at him, and the gloating had reached the Chancellor’s eyes. Yes, Kleist believed himself in control of the situation.
How can he not see that I am his only hope?
Finally, Mansfeld saw a hint of doubt cross the Chancellor’s face. It was a subtle thing. By now, Kleist had to be wondering why his general refused to let this spectacle cow him.
Because I know my worth, Mansfeld told himself. And I know that you will be wise enough to see it…as soon as I explain it to you.
“Are you tongue-tied?” Kleist asked.
“No, Excellency,” Mansfeld said in a ringing voice.
A few of the General Staff members looked at him with new eyes. It seemed their dull minds finally realized that none of this frightened him. A few frowned in puzzlement. It was clear they couldn’t fathom the source of his courage. Chancellor Kleist needed a scapegoat and the man had chosen the commanding officer of the German Expeditionary Force in Quebec, General Mansfeld.
“Well…?” Kleist asked. “What do you have to say for yourself? Come now, speak while you are able.”
“Excellency,” Mansfeld said, having waited for the moment to ripen. “My prediction concerning the Sino-American War proved incorrect in one particular only. Everything that went wrong afterward hinged upon that one fact.”
Kleist frowned, which meant the gloating had disappeared. When the man was winning at something, he became jovial. When he was losing, his bad temper was legendary. It must finally be dawning on the Chancellor that he had made a miscalculation, and he didn’t realize yet what that mistake was. It obviously troubled Kleist.
In an expert’s hands, the rapier always defeats the club. Despite his knowledge of that truth, Mansfeld did not smile. That would have been an error. I am not so stupid.
“You are free to speak, General,” Kleist said. “Please, enlighten us, if you would.”
The exquisite nature of the moment produced a churning feeling in Mansfeld’s gut. Some people referred it to as “the butterflies,” and they hated the sensation. It was otherwise with him. The churning told him he was alive, on the very knife-edge of existence.
I’m actually enjoying this. “The failure was political, Excellency,” Mansfeld said.
The statement electrified the chamber. The bovine faces of the General Staff members showed a mixture of fear and disbelief. Political mistakes weren’t the province of the military but of the Chancellor’s office, which was to say the Chancellor himself.
The words produced a reaction upon Kleist. Two spots of color appeared on his cheeks.
“Would you care to elaborate?” the Chancellor asked.
He chooses this route, does he? Very well, let it begin.
“If you will recall, Excellency,” Mansfeld said, “your political analysts made a clear prediction some months ago. A few of us questioned their findings, me in particular. Then you reprimanded the General Staff and the Planning Committee. If you recall, you told us that politics was outside our scope. You said that we understood military matters, but economics and politics were things best left to the experts.”
The wolf in Kleist showed in his eyes. It meant the man was ready to kill.
Mansfeld knew he would either rise higher than ever because of what he was about to say or he would leave this room dead. For him there were no other choices now. Since he had already weighed the odds and the outcome, he boldly proceeded with his plan.
“Excellency,” Mansfeld said, “the political analysts of the Home Office predicted a clear outcome. Last year, you offered the Americans our neutrality on the condition they cede us Quebec. The Home Office analysts were quite clear on the outcome of that. If the U.S. forced the Canadians to give us Quebec, the Canadians would effectively pull out of their alliance with America.”
“Yes,” Kleist said. “I remember.”
“We all remember,” Mansfeld said. “I accepted your office’s prediction as a truth because you said I must. Then I took into account what we knew concerning American recruitment, training and industry. Given all the facts, I calculated that the Americans would stop the Chinese-Brazilian advance in Wyoming-South Dakota-Iowa. I predicted the Americans would achieve the Aggressor stoppage at great cost in men and materiel to both the U.S. and Chinese-Brazilian forces.”
“It was because of your prediction that I agreed to neutrality,” Kleist said. He tugged as his right suit sleeve, fingering one of the buttons there. “You put yourself on the line and failed us all.”
“Excellency,” Mansfeld said. “My prediction would have proven true if the Canadians had acted as the Home Office said they would. Instead of acting how you predicted, Excellency, the Canadians wisely swallowed the insult to their sovereignty. They gave up Quebec and then acted in their ultimate best interest. They came to America’s aid and sent their army south. In other words, the Canadian military tipped the scales against the Chinese at the most critical moment. You must remember that the winter campaign was a close-fought affair.”
“What?” Chief of Staff Wessel asked, with his voice climbing an octave. He was a giant with snowy-white hair and he was the only Field Marshal present. “You call it close fought?” For such a large man, he had a surprisingly high voice when excited.
“I choose my words with care, sir,” Mansfeld said. “Yes, it was a close-fought thing.”
“No!” Wessel said. “It was not close fought. The Americans pulled a ‘miracle on the Marne’ against the Chinese.”