27: The Chamber Pot
KING AND STIMSON WERE WAITING for the President, seated in the small alcove in front of the main door to the Oval Office. When he buzzed Miss Tully to announce his arrival, she told him of their presence. He grunted none too enthusiastically and told her to send them in.
King started, “Well it looks Nomura was right—the Repulse and the Prince of Wales are now both at the bottom of the ocean off Malaya.”
“Then it will simply be a matter of time before drunken Winston is on the scrambler. And what about Japanese activities against us?”
“It’s as if they have all gone home. It’s like a holiday—no submarine activity, not even over-flights, nothing, dead calm,” reported Stimson.
Stimson started on a fresh tack, “Mr. President, I want to bring this report to your attention. It’s from that man Dulles in Switzerland, and I think we need to review it here, the three of us.”
At the mention of Allen Dulles, the President feigned no recognition of the name.
“This man Dulles—you likely know his brother, the lawyer John Dulles—got his hands on this report from the Swiss security people. The gist of the story is the Soviets executed about 20,000 men in Soviet-occupied Poland. The Soviets had first bound the men’s hands behind them with barbed wire.”
Looking down at the report Stimson read, “According to Swiss and Swedish Red Cross officials, the Soviet NKVD executed in excess of 22,000 men, mostly army officers and policemen. Most victims had their hands bound behind their back by barbed wire.”
“Jesus. Fucking animals,” Roosevelt muttered.
Calmly, King said, “The British animosity to the Germans seems solely based on the Prime Minister’s views and the oleaginous clique of second-raters with which he surrounds himself. I do not understand how the British could be so blind. Frankly, the actions of the Germans in central Europe seem completely fair and reasonable as far as I am concerned in having German-speaking regions rejoin Germany or a greater German supra-nation. Now, I am just a naval person, but that gives me a perspective that I think some English lack. So while your party line plays well on the East Coast, about the ‘Arsenal for Democracy,’ it’s actually not true, and the Americans of German descent in the Midwest are, at best, lukewarm to the idea. And it’s clear from other reports that the Soviets have executed close to eight millions of their people since 1921—these are facts, not phantasies.”
“And let’s face some other unpleasant facts, Mr. President. Versailles was a joke—it was simply the French getting back at the Germans for 1870,” the Secretary of War said.
“1870?” Roosevelt was confused, in spite of his Harvard education, where his solitary C+ was his highest grade.
Stimson explained,
“In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the smart money was on the French—our generals Sheridan and Sherman were there observing the French, and they both wrote glowing reports lauding the French. The Times of London was effusive in its praise of the French and ridiculed the Prussians—‘this small war is likely to be settled in one afternoon.’ But there was one critical difference—technology. While the French were using their tried and true bronze smooth bores, the Prussians were using the new rifled cast steel Krupp cannon. The Krupp cannon had essentially twice the range and could throw a far heavier shell. Actually, on the day, the Prussians used mainly what they called ‘grape’ or shrapnel shot that Henry Shrapnel had invented, but the point remains. That hot afternoon in 1870 was a slaughter, the French soldiers dropped like flies. They called the battlefield ‘the chamber pot’—that day, they were shit on from a great height.”
“So the French started a losing streak to their hated rivals that continues to this day—1870, and 1914, and last year. After 1870, and their loss of Alsace and Lorraine, the French bitterness spilled over at Versailles in 1919 and this lead to the creation of these nonsense so-called countries like Czecho-Slovakia and other mad artifices and constructs. And these so-called ‘countries’ were designed by the French solely to hem in and limit Germany. You know, in the Treaty of 1919, the Austrians—quiet reasonably—requested their country to be called ‘German Austria’ but the French nixed the name and the ‘German’ adjective was dropped. And the Slavs are even worse than the French—the Slavs in their half of the so-called ‘Czecho-Slovakia’ constructed 24 huge aerodromes. But the Slavs there had no bombers. However, their fellow Slavs in Russia—or the ‘Soviet Union’ as it is now called—had 120 squadrons of heavy bombers. No wonder the Germans were so reasonably concerned about that unsinkable aircraft carrier in ‘Slovakia.’ And let’s not forget Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo in 1914; we must be realistic—southern Europe needs a powerful hand and the Germans have just the temperament to control those primitive and backward peoples.”
“And I agree with Ernie—the Germans do have a point. And with the sudden death of their leader this past September, who knows? From all the reports and with his comical moustache and his postman’s hat, he seemed fairly nutty, but certainly no more nutty than Mr. Churchill. And let’s be realistic, the Germans are a civilized race, whereas the Slavs, well, this Russian massacre just reinforces the point, and don’t forget the pogroms.”
Stimson’s voice trailed off.
King pointed out, “The Swedes and Swiss have no real axe to grind—they make money off the Slavs as well as off the Germans.”
“And speaking of the Russians, I was talking to your young Rex last week and he reminded me of Hank Whitehead’s horror story that I have heard from Hank’s own lips. You must remember Hank’s father from your time in Cambridge.”
Roosevelt frowned for a moment and then smiled his wonderful smile, remembering Hank’s father’s kindness,
“Oh, yes, Jack Whitehead, my Phil professor. Yes, fine man—he gave me a Gentleman’s C Minus to pass the course. Had I read any of the books, I may have gotten a proper C.”
Stimson continued,
“Well, young Hank volunteered for the Spanish War and went over there all piss and vinegar to help fight ‘fascism,’ as he called it. He was in the Lincoln Brigade, as the name suggests, mostly Yanks. As he tells it, the Soviet advisers were all animals. Treated all their troops as chattel, never enough food for the men, even though the commissars lived well in the town with their Spanish whores. Often times, no water on the battlefields when the temperature was 110 degrees. In two of the last battles, the commissars placed their machine guns behind the Republican troops.”
Roosevelt frowned and asked why.