the lives of his officers; he still had the power to throw whole regiments and divisions into battle, to promote and demote his men, to sign orders for decorations. He still smoked his usual cigarettes… But deep down something was changing; and this change was on the point of becoming irrevocable.
General Paulus had lost the feeling of being in control of time and events. Until recently he had only cast a quick, unworried glance over the reports furnished by his intelligence section. What did he care about the movements of the Russian reserves? What did their latest plans matter to him?
Now, however, when he looked at the file of documents and reports placed on his desk every morning by Colonel Adam, the reports of Russian troop movements during the night were the first thing he studied. Colonel Adam had noticed this; one day he had changed the order in the file so that the intelligence reports were on top. Paulus had opened the file and looked at the first page; he had then raised his eyebrows and slammed the file shut.
Surprised by the rather pathetic look that had crossed Paulus's face, Colonel Adam realized he had been tactless. A few days later, Paulus had looked through the documents and reports – now once again in their usual order – and smiled.
'You're evidently a very perceptive man, Herr innovator.'
It was a quiet autumn evening. General Schmidt was on his way to report to Paulus. He was feeling triumphant.
He walked down the silent, deserted street. In his head, beneath his heavy-peaked cap, were the plans for the most ruthless offensive yet to be launched in Stalingrad. That was how he described it when Paulus received him and asked him to sit down.
'There have indeed, in German military history, been offensives for which we have mobilized far greater quantities of men and equipment. But I for one have never been asked to organize such a dense concentration of both air and ground forces in such a limited sector of the Front.'
Paulus's attitude, as he listened to Schmidt, was not that of a commander-in-chief. His back was hunched and, as Schmidt's finger pointed to columns of figures and sectors marked on maps, his head turned quickly and obediently from side to side. Paulus himself had conceived this offensive. He had defined its parameters. But now, as he listened to Schmidt – the most brilliant chief of staff he had worked with – he felt unable to recognize his original conception. It was as though Schmidt was imposing his will on him, as though he had planned an offensive that went against his commanding officer's wishes.
'Yes,' said Paulus. 'And this concentration of forces is all the more impressive when you compare it to the void on our left flank.'
'But what can we do about that?' said Schmidt. ' Russia 's so vast. We simply don't have enough men.'
'I'm not alone in feeling worried,' said Paulus. 'Von Weichs said to me: 'We didn't strike with a fist. We struck with an open hand, our fingers stretching across the infinite spaces of the East.' And others are worried too. In fact there's only one man who isn't worried…'
He didn't finish the sentence.
Everything was going as it should, and yet somehow failing to go as it should. It was as if the trifling uncertainties and chance misfortunes of the last weeks were beginning to reveal something quite new – the true face of war, the face of war in all its joylessness and hopelessness.
The intelligence section obstinately continued to report a build-up of Soviet forces in the North-West. Air- attacks seemed powerless to prevent this. Von Weichs had no German reserves to cover Paulus's flanks. He was attempting to mislead the Russians by installing German radio-transmitters in zones occupied by Rumanian troops. But was this enough to turn the Rumanians into Germans?
The campaign in Africa had begun triumphantly. Fierce punishment had been meted out to the English at Dunkirk, in Norway and Greece – and yet the British Isles remained unoccupied. There had been magnificent victories in the East, they had marched thousands of miles to the Volga – and yet the Soviet armed forces had still not been smashed once and for all. It always seemed that what mattered had already been achieved; that only chance, only some trivial delay had prevented a victory from being decisive…
What did they matter, these few hundred metres that separated him from the Volga, these half-ruined factories, these burnt-out shells of buildings, compared to the vast spaces conquered during the summer offensive? But then only a few kilometres of desert had separated Rommel from his Egyptian oasis… And at Dunkirk they had been only a few kilometres, only a few hours, short of an absolute victory. It was always the same few kilometres… And there was always a lack of reserves, a gaping void in the rear of the victorious forces and at their flanks.
Summer 1942! Probably only once in a lifetime is a man allowed to live through days like those. He had felt the breath of India on his face. He had felt what an avalanche would feel – if it had feelings – as it smashes through forests and forces rivers out of their beds.
The idea had occurred to him that perhaps the German ear had grown accustomed to the name Friedrich. He had not really thought this seriously, but still…It was just then that a little grain of very hard sand had grated under his foot – or rather, against his teeth.
Headquarters had been full of a general sense of triumph and exultation. He was constantly receiving written reports, oral reports, radio reports, telephone reports, from the commanding officers of his different units. This hadn't seemed like work at all; it had been simply a symbolic expression of German triumph. And then one day the telephone had rung: 'Herr Commander-in-Chief…' Somehow this matter-of-fact voice had immediately sounded out of harmony with the peals of triumph filling the ether.
Weller, a divisional commander, had reported that in his sector the Russians had gone over to the offensive. An infantry detachment, equivalent in size to a reinforced battalion, had succeeded in breaking through to the railway station. It was with this seemingly insignificant incident that he had felt his first prickle of anxiety.
Schmidt read the plan of operations out loud. As he did so, he straightened his shoulders and raised his chin. He wanted to indicate that, in spite of the good personal relations between him and Paulus, he was aware of the formality of this meeting.
Quite unexpectedly, Paulus came out with some words that Schmidt found strange and upsetting. In a quiet voice – not that of a commander-in-chief, not that of a soldier at all – he said:
'I believe in victory. But you know what? There's something quite senseless and unnecessary about the whole struggle for this city.'
'That comes a little unexpectedly from the commander-in-chief of the armies around Stalingrad.'
'You think so? But Stalingrad no longer exists as a centre of communications or heavy industry. What do we want it for? We can cover the north-eastern flank of our Caucasian armies along the line Astrakhan-Kalach. We don't need Stalingrad for that… I'm confident of victory, Schmidt – we
'The course of events changes their meaning,' said Schmidt. 'But the Fuhrer has never yet withdrawn without first attaining an objective.'
Paulus himself believed that if the most brilliant victories had failed to bear the expected fruits, this was because they hadn't been carried through with the necessary tenacity and decisiveness. At the same time, he felt that the ability to abandon an objective that had lost its meaning was a sign of strength.
He looked into Schmidt's intelligent, piercing eyes.
'It's not for us to impose our will on a great strategist.'
He picked up the order of operations and signed it.
'Four copies only, in view of its particular secrecy,' said Schmidt.
13
After his visit to Army Headquarters, Darensky went to a unit deployed along the south-eastern flank of the Stalingrad Front, in the waterless sands around the Caspian Sea.
The steppes, with their small rivers and lakes, now seemed like an earthly paradise. Feather-grass grew there, there were horses, an occasional tree…
Thousands of men – all of them used to morning dew, the rustle of hay, and humid air – had now taken up
