Tidal Effects (Gray Tide In The East Book 2) Page 11

  William Leahy by United States Navy

  William Leahy (1875-1959), rose to the rank of Fleet Admiral during a naval career that spanned more than four decades. He held the post of Chief of Naval Operations from 1937 to 1939, when he retired from active duty, for the first time. He served as Governor of Puerto Rico and Ambassador to France before the United States entered World War II. In 1942 he was appointed to the new position of Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, which later would be renamed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He advised Truman against the use of the atomic bomb on Japan on moral grounds, but this advice was disregarded. He was awarded the Navy Cross and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal in the course of his long career.

  Hugh Rodman circa 1915 –

  the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division.

  Hugh Rodman (1859-1940) served in the U.S. Navy from 1880 to 1923, reaching the rank of Admiral. He saw his first action at the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. In 1917, as a Rear Admiral, he was placed in command of Battleship Division Nine, which consisted of four (later increased to five) battleships and sent to fight in Europe. Once there, his command operated under Admiral David Beatty as the Sixth Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet (Royal Navy) in the North Sea until the end of the war. For this service, he was made a Knight of the Order of Bath by King George V. He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet from 1919 to 1921, and later represented the United States at the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

  Winston Churchill circa 1921 – National Library of Ireland

  Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was twice the Prime Minister of Great Britain during a political career that began in with his election to the House of Commons in 1900 and lasted until his retirement in 1964. In between, at one time or another held practically every cabinet position including First Lord of the Admiralty (twice), President of the Board of Trade, Chancellor of the Exchequer and many others. His reputation was damaged by the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign in World War I for which he was blamed, and which was probably was the reason that he did not become Prime Minister until 1940. Besides being a politician, he was a writer and Nobel Prize Laureate, artist, war correspondent and army officer.

  Raymond Gram Swing by Chicago Daily News – The Library of Congress

  Raymond Gram Swing (1887-1968) was a journalist and head of the Chicago Daily News Berlin bureau in 1914. He was a war correspondent who covered the 1915 Gallipoli campaign from the Turkish side and many battles of the First World War. He later became a pioneer in radio journalism. His radio coverage of the 1932 presidential election brought him an offer from CBS to set up a radio news network in Europe. He turned down this offer, and the position was given to Edward R. Murrow. He later signed in 1936 with the Mutual Radio Network, covering Europe, and went on to a long and distinguished career in broadcasting with ABC, BBC and the Voice of America.

  Book Two

  Rip-Tide

  Rip-tide: a strong, dangerous undercurrent, running from the shoreline out to sea, usually caused by powerful off-shore winds. A rip-tide is often the first warning sign of an approaching storm.

  Chapter One

  Vienna, July 16, 1923

  Prince Sixtus Ferdinand Maria Ignazio Alfred Robert Bourbon, Duke of Parma, bent over a massive mahogany Biedermeier billiards table, peering down the shaft of his cue stick as he calculated a tricky carom shot. His left eye was shut, and he was squinting with the right through the cloud of aromatic smoke produced by the Maria Guerrero Cuban cigar which was clenched in his teeth. He was in the billiards room on the second floor of the Schloss Schönbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Hapsburgs.

  “It is an easier game when you can actually see the ball you are aiming for, Sixtus,” commented the man seated on the long velvet-embroidered bench beneath an enormous oil painting of the investiture of the Order of Maria Theresa in 1758. He was an ordinary-looking man in his mid-thirties, and it was not his fault that he was His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, Charles the First, by Grace of God Emperor of the Austrian Empire, Apostolic Fourth King of that name of the Kingdom of Hungary, King of Bohemia and the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia and the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Kingdom of Illyria, King of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Archduke of Austria, Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Grand Duchy of Cracow, Duke of Lorraine and of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, of the Duchy of Styria, of the Duchy of Carinthia, of the Duchy of Carniola and of Bukovina, Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of the March of Moravia, Duke of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia, of the Duchy of Modena, the Duchy of Parma, Piacenza, Guastalla… and so on and so forth.

  Whenever possible, he preferred to be addressed as “Karl”.

  “Am I to suppose that you are handicapping yourself with that cigar to ensure that you do not commit an act of lèse-majesté by defeating your sovereign at billiards?” the Emperor asked.

  The Prince made a quick motion of the arm, which held the butt-end of the cue-stick, and there was a clack! as the white ball collided with its target. He grunted in disappointment, and straightened as the seven-ball struck a cushion an inch to the left of the corner pocket and spun away across the expanse of green felt.

  “Hah! He speaks at last,” Sixtus said, turning to face the Emperor. “Those are your first words since dinner. I was beginning to think that whatever was troubling your Royal and Imperial mind would render you mute all evening.”

  Karl stroked his mustache. “I must beg your pardon for being such poor company this evening, Sixtus,” he said. “I was given bad news just before we sat down to our meal, and I fear that I have been preoccupied with it all evening, to the point of rudeness.”

  “Karl, you know that you can tell me the news, whatever it is,” Sixtus said. He laid the pool cue on the green felt tabletop, and walked over to sit down on the bench next to the Emperor. “As your Prime Minister, it is my duty to advise you on matters of state; and as your brother-in-law and friend I am always ready to share the burden of governance with you, when the weight of the crown grows too heavy.”

  “I was just about to tell you about it, Sixtus,” Karl said. He reached inside his jacket and removed an envelope, which he handed to his companion. “Here,” he said, “you can read it for yourself.”

  The Prince dubiously eyed the embossed coat of arms on the envelope: a black eagle with a red beak and talons, wearing a shield depicting another eagle, this one black and gold, the whole surmounted by a jewel-encrusted crown, the all-too-familiar coat of arms of the German Empire. “A little note from our dear imperial cousin Wilhelm, I suppose?” he asked.

  The Emperor nodded.

  “Now what can be on his alleged mind?” Sixtus asked as he opened the envelope and fished out the letter inside. He read rapidly, and then looked up at Karl, his face beginning to flush with anger.

  “Now he has the arrogance to tell us how to handle ethnic minorities in our own Empire?” he demanded indignantly. He began to read aloud from the letter. “ ‘I have recently become aware of unrest in the Ukrainian territories added to Austria in 1915. Certain nationalist demagogues have dared to denounce your Imperial Majesty at mass public rallies in Kiev and other cities, even going so far as to incite these mobs to revolutionary activity…” (Austria-Hungary had acquired most of the southern half of the Ukraine from Russia under the Treaty of Cracow that ended the war in the east in 1915) “…The success of these demonstrations has also emboldened other rabble-rousers in Ruthenia, Slovakia and Bohemia to commit similar outrages. There is only one way to handle these troublemakers: the ring-leaders should be immediately arrested, and then lined up in front of a wall and shot! As your fellow-Emperor and one with somewhat more experience in these matters, I strongly advise you to take stern and immediate action. If this unrest is not quelled without delay, it may even spread to my realm, where, I can assure you, it will not be permitted. If you find that you are not in a position to squelch these revolutionar
ies by using the stern measures that the times require, dear Charles, I will be more than glad to provide a few divisions of my Prussian Guards to aid you in putting a decisive end to the problem…’.”

  The Prince trailed off, staring down at the letter in his hand again, as if not quite believing what he had just read, then looked up at his brother-in-law. “As is usual with Wilhelm, his threats have all the subtlety of a highway robber pointing a pistol at your head,” he said at length. “If we do not put down the anti-government protests in the Ukraine in the Prussian style, at the point of a bayonet, he will provide ‘aid’ in the form of his spike-helmeted legions to do it for us. And he is even willing to extend the offer to Ruthenia, Slovakia and Bohemia. How generous of him!” he said ironically. “The Kaiser’s concern is touching, although a bit puzzling, I must admit. I am trying to recall exactly when Bohemia was part of Germany, but I confess I am failing. As I remember it, Bohemia has been part of the Empire since the Thirty Years War, a matter of some three hundred years or so.”

  “For my part,” said the Emperor, “I wonder how quickly those Prussian Guards would leave our territory once they were established here. I also wonder what the Hungarian reaction would be to German encouragement of their favored methods of controlling their own ethnic minorities.”

  Here, Karl was bringing up a long-standing quarrel between the two halves of the Dual Monarchy. The system that had been established by the Compromise of 1867 included the creation of separate governments in Vienna and Budapest, with two independent parliaments linked only by the person of the Emperor-King. In the Austrian portion, known as Cisleithania, Karl’s policy had been to deal with ethic unrest by granting rights to various minorities such as the Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and others, so that they would be content to remain in the Empire, instead of seeking to form independent states. To further this policy, the Emperor had forced the Austrian parliament to adopt a Plan of Federation two years earlier, a multiethnic and democratic federation based on the consensus of nations. This plan was gradually transforming the western half of the Empire, taking political power from the Germans, who had formerly controlled Austria, and sharing it with the various ethnic minorities.

  Thus far, however, Karl had been unable to overcome the resistance of the ruling Hungarians in the other half of the Dual Monarchy. The Hungarians, who were in complete control of the levers of power in the Transleithania, had absolutely no use for such radical ideas as Federalism. Instead, the government in Budapest preferred to apply a policy of Magyarization to its ethnic minorities (which included Slovenes, Romanians, Italians, Ruthenians, Serbs, among others). Under this program, all ethnic groups were to be assimilated into an indivisible Hungarian nation, by force if necessary. All state and private business was to be conducted in Hungarian, and Hungarian was the only language permitted in the state schools, this despite the fact that less than half of the population of Transleithania was Hungarian. The government in Budapest dealt roughly with ethnic and nationalist protestors, not hesitating to arrest ethnic agitators and hold them indefinitely, and would no doubt have been happy to apply the even more forceful methods suggested by the Kaiser, if not for the restraints imposed on them by the King.

  “So, this impertinent letter has provided the impetus for you to follow my advice at last?” the Prince asked. “I thought it was more than enough provocation when Wilhelm forced that Tariff and Trade Agreement down our throats. How strange that steel, heavy machinery, chemicals and textiles, all German net exports ended up on the tariff-free list, while somehow coal, petroleum, raw timber and agricultural products, our exports, were still subject to import duties in the German Empire. If that was not enough, he then contrived to nearly drag us into a war with the English and the Americans over some tiny island no one has ever heard of in the Caribbean Sea, and now…”

  “I am aware of the recent history of relations between ourselves and Germany. Indeed, I am all too aware of it,” Karl interrupted. “I must remind you that I never opposed your advice, Sixtus. I agree that it is absolutely essential we find a way out of the embrace of Germany before the Empire becomes nothing more than another German dependency. It was never a question of if, but only one of when and how. The when is decided. This evening, as I sat here, I came to the conclusion that we must act now to pull ourselves out of the German orbit. If we put off action any longer, I fear we will lose the ability to act at all. In fact, this was the very matter weighing so heavily on my mind this evening. Now there is only one question remaining: how do we go about it without alerting Berlin in advance?”

  “Certainly, it would never do to allow Wilhelm to know what we are doing, at least until we can at least arrange a high-level meeting with our new potential allies,” Sixtus said. “We cannot use the normal diplomatic channels, that much is certain. The Foreign Ministry is rotten with German agents, and they probably have a spies in every one of our embassies.”

  “Exactly,” the Emperor agreed. “It was this which troubled me rather more than whether the attempt should be made at all.”

  Prince Sixtus smiled. “Fortunately for you, my dear brother-in-law, your realm is blessed with not only an excellent Prime Minister, but also an efficient and intelligent Minister of the Interior,” he said. “What is more, these two extraordinary civil servants occupy a single body, which is present, and at your service.” He rose and made a sweeping bow.

  “Yes, yes, “ Karl said, waving him back down again. “I am aware that you are a veritable one-man cabinet, Sixtus, but I do not see how that provides the answer to our problems.”

  The Prince resumed his seat. “It’s quite simple, really. I anticipated that the day when you would reach the decision to break from Germany would come soon, and I therefore made appropriate plans for that day. As you may recall, as part of the reorganization of the government, I had the military intelligence agency placed under the Interior Ministry, to maintain civilian oversight, after the Redl scandal had damaged it so badly.” Colonel Alfred Redl had been the head of the Austrian espionage service for many years, until he blew his brains out when it was discovered that he was actually in the pay of the Russians. “Since I knew that we could not entrust the matter to our own diplomats, I ordered an investigation to find the right man for the undertaking.” He paused.

  “And so?” Karl prompted.

  “The man we wanted cannot be a diplomat, since anyone we selected would almost certainly be the immediate object of German scrutiny,” the Prince replied. “Our man, whoever he is, would have to be able to meet with heads of various governments without drawing suspicion. He would also have to be both discreet and trustworthy, and we would certainly require someone who is sympathetic to our cause. For our purposes, we could do no better than an American journalist named Raymond Swing.”

  “A newspaper reporter?” Karl asked doubtfully. “Are you quite certain that we want to entrust state secrets of this magnitude to a reporter, Sixtus? I should think that the temptation to make a great splash by writing up the story for his newspaper would be overwhelming to such a man.”

  “Not this man,” Sixtus said, shaking his head. “He can be trusted. He has already been used as a diplomatic courier, back in 1914, and his discretion is well established. Also, we will make it well worth his while carry out our mission. In addition to that, Swing has been writing articles about the threat posed by Germany for years, so that he has every reason to want us to succeed. I have copies of some of his articles translated into German. He is constantly urging the United States to join a coalition of other Powers to control Germany. Read them, and see if you do not think he is not already our man.”

  Karl waved his hand in dismissal. “That will not be necessary. Your assurances are quite sufficient for me. I assume it is unnecessary for me to worry about exactly how he will be contacted, or what will be the ostensible reason for him to come to Vienna. Certainly, a minister as accomplished and efficient as yourself would have already formulated a solution
for such elementary difficulties.” There was a mild touch of irony in his final words.

  “Your Majesty is correct as usual,” the Prince answered. “Everything has been arranged, and it remains only for me to give the word, and the machinery will be set in motion. Swing will be invited to the Schönbrunn Palace for an exclusive interview, which will be in the first of a series with leaders of the various European governments. We will arrange matters so that Swing will be invited to meet with M. Millerand…” the current French Prime Minister, “… Mr. Churchill, and President Lowden, after his return to the United States, under circumstances where he will be able to deliver our message to them in private.”

  “I trust that he will also request interviews with Kaiser Wilhelm, Signore Giolotti and Mr. Guchov …” the last being the Prime Ministers of Italy and the Russian Union, respectively, “…to allay German suspicions,” the Emperor said.

  “Certainly they will all be asked, as will the heads of other nations as well,” Sixtus assured him, “although I rather doubt that all of them will agree to meet with him. Given what Swing has already written about Germany, I deem it unlikely that Wilhelm, for one, will talk to him. Every eventuality has been examined and allowed for. Now, as long as nothing untoward happens, the plan is absolutely guaranteed to succeed…”

  “Unless, of course, it does not,” the Emperor finished for him.