SUBSCRIBER Despair in Russia!
PATRIOT Disillusionment in Italy!
SUBSCRIBER The overall mood of the Entente!
PATRIOT The edifice is crumbling.
SUBSCRIBER Poincaré is consumed by worries.
PATRIOT Grey is disgruntled.
SUBSCRIBER The Tsar tosses and turns in his bed.
PATRIOT Belgium oppressed by fear.
SUBSCRIBER That’s a relief! Demoralisation in Serbia.
PATRIOT How refreshing! Despair in Montenegro.
SUBSCRIBER Hope so! Consternation in the Quadruple Alliance.
PATRIOT Invigorating! London, Paris, and Rome irresolute. Just look at the headlines, there’s really no need to read any further, you already know what’s coming. You see how badly it’s going for them and how well for us. We have our moods too, but rather different ones, thank God!
SUBSCRIBER Yes, here joy reigns supreme, confidence, exultation, hope, contentment. We’re always in good spirits, and why not? We’ve every reason to be.
PATRIOT Holding out till the end, for instance, we’re passionate about that.
SUBSCRIBER No one else manages that as well as we do.
PATRIOT Your Viennese, in particular, is a real diehard when it comes to holding out till the end. He can endure all hardships as if they were pleasures.
SUBSCRIBER Hardships? What hardships?
PATRIOT I mean, if there happened to be hardships—
SUBSCRIBER Luckily, there aren’t any.
PATRIOT Quite right. There aren’t. But then — if there aren’t any hardships — why do we have to hold out?
SUBSCRIBER I can explain that. It’s true there are no hardships, but we would easily endure them — there’s an art in that and we’ve always had the knack.
PATRIOT Just so. Queueing, for instance, is fun — people queue just for the sake of it.
SUBSCRIBER The only difference to before is that it’s wartime now. If there wasn’t a war on, quite frankly you’d think it was peace. But war is war, so some things you’ve got to do now that you only wanted to do before.
PATRIOT Exactly. Nothing’s changed here at all. And if, once in a blue moon, those exempted first time round are recalled and enlisted, whatever way you look at it, our young people under 50 just can’t wait to get to the front.
SUBSCRIBER And the older age groups haven’t been mustered yet at all.
PATRIOT “Nineteen-year-olds conscripted in Italy”—did you read that? There you have it — the whole terrible truth in the headline.
SUBSCRIBER No, I must have missed that. Just imagine, so young! Ours certainly have to be more mature. Unless I’m mistaken, now it’s still the turn of 50-year-olds, though of course only behind the lines — there are still enough 49-year-olds at the front.
PATRIOT In France they’re already recalling the exempted 48-year-olds!
SUBSCRIBER Greybeards! The younger ones are seemingly all used up already. We’re dispatching our 17-year-olds in March, that’ll please them.
PATRIOT Naturally, the best years of their lives! You know the other difference? Equipment. That’s crucial. Here, it’s taken for granted, we don’t make a fuss about it. Did you read today: Italians worried about warm mountain attire for their soldiers?
SUBSCRIBER The things they have to worry about!
PATRIOT We don’t give such things a second thought. A mere bagatelle! An order is placed for supplies, and that’s an end to it. You must know the story about the wool blankets? No?
SUBSCRIBER No.
PATRIOT It’s a brilliant illustration of how we just take everything in our stride, as it comes. Feiner & Co. sign a contract for a million and a half wool blankets from Germany. Our War Ministry thought that was roughly how many were needed for the Carpathians in winter. But they didn’t take it too seriously since they reckoned on final victory before then. Well, when it gets serious after all, there’s a sudden change of heart and they say: “Fine, but first the customs formalities must be observed.” There’s no way the Finance Minister can be prevailed upon to release the goods before that happens, and the War Minister reiterates: we need them. Then — how can I put it? — for six months this goes back and forth between the War Ministry and the Finance Ministry. Throughout the whole battle for the Carpathians. Then the firm takes a stand, and Katzenellenbogen from Berlin intervenes in person — as you know, he’s virtually our War Minister’s right hand. He goes off to the Finance Minister and tells him to his face: “That’s not on!” The Finance Minister says he can’t sort the matter out straightaway. So Katzenellenbogen tells him — and you know his sheer effrontery and how forceful he can be — he tells him, in the first place, it will bankrupt the firm, in the second place, the wool blankets will have had it. They’re out there in the wet and cold and almost all of them are already done for—
SUBSCRIBER Who?
PATRIOT The wool blankets, of course! They’re lying out in the open.
SUBSCRIBER Who?
PATRIOT The wool blankets, of course! What a question! Anyhow, he declares categorically: “In the first place, the firm goes bankrupt, in the second place, the wool blankets will have had it, and after all, in the third place, the soldiers do need them.” The Finance Minister shrugs and says it can’t be done, the procedure must be followed. First the customs, then the blankets—
SUBSCRIBER But why didn’t the War Ministry pay?
PATRIOT Why, you ask? Because the War Minister took the view that he couldn’t, the formalities had to be settled first.
SUBSCRIBER The customs formalities? But wasn’t that what the Finance Minister wanted?
PATRIOT On the contrary, the formalities about the Finance Ministry releasing funds to pay the customs duty.
SUBSCRIBER Ah, I see. And what happened then? I’m dying to hear—
PATRIOT What happened? Katzenellenbogen goes off again and tells him to his face: “Excellency”, he says, “the War Ministry is digging its heels in. Now let me make a suggestion”, he says. “In business, if a client can’t pay right away, one takes soundings, and if they show the client is reputable, it’s normal to give him time to pay. Excellency, let me make a suggestion. Take soundings about the War Ministry. They’ll tell you it’s reputable. What good will blocking it do you? Give it time to pay!” Well, he saw the sense of that, granted the delay, and the wool blankets were released and distributed.
SUBSCRIBER So, it all ended happily after all.
PATRIOT Up to a point. But it was already March. When they got the blankets they were — how shall I put it — totally ruined. So now they got refugees to stitch them together, two blankets at a time, and by now it’s April and everything has proceeded to plan, even if at double the cost — well, the little matter of stitching together a million and a half wool blankets had to be paid for, of course — well, now everything is ready and waiting, what do you think they discover?
SUBSCRIBER Well—?
PATRIOT They discover the soldiers don’t need the wool blankets anymore. For in the first place, it’s not so cold in the Carpathians anymore, and in the second place, most of them had in any case already lost their feet through frostbite. — So now I ask you, man to man: are woollen blankets something for us to worry about?
SUBSCRIBER But the Italians do! Serves them right! What do you say about “Price rises for food in Italy”?
PATRIOT I didn’t see anything about that, I only read about the “Bad harvest in Italy.”
SUBSCRIBER Aren’t you mixing that up with “Crop failure in England”?
PATRIOT That’s another story, just as you have to distinguish it from “Food shortages in Russia.”
SUBSCRIBER Look, it’s everywhere the same. For example, they’ve already introduced casualty lists everywhere.