He glanced at the officer standing beside him.
“You wait and see, Willi. A Frenchman commanding German troops. It will be a disaster.” Lieutenant Colonel Otto Yorck shook his head. Only a little shorter than von Seelow, his bleached blond hair and faded blue eyes made him look more like a ski instructor than an army officer.
Von Seelow smiled. As CO of the 191st, Yorck had a reputation for straight talk, even when it might be more politic to keep silent. He had also been a ready friend in the brigade’s hierarchy, one of the few fellow officers who didn’t seem to care about Willi’s eastern birth.
Privately, of course, he shared Yorck’s feelings. Under the newly signed Articles of the European Confederation, the French and German armed forces were being joined at the hip, blended together to form a new multinational army. This new EurCon II Corps, for instance, would include not only the German 7th Panzer and 2nd Panzergrenadier divisions but also the French 5th Armored.
Close military cooperation between the two former NATO allies was nothing new. In just one example, German and French airborne divisions had worked together during annual
What was happening now, though, was a very different and vastly more complex process. The two nations were trying to merge their military command, communications, intelligence, and logistics functions into a single seamless whole. And all in a matter of months. The language barrier alone was formidable, but there were also significant differences in operating procedures, even basic organizations. For example, at full wartime strength, the 7th Panzer Division could field more than three hundred Leopard 2 tanks, nearly two hundred Marder APCs, and seventeen thousand fighting men. Its closest French counterpart, the 5th Armored, was only a little over half that size.
But this new drive for unity was going forward, even at breakneck speed. Moreover, it was a curious merging. Most of the corps and higher joint commands were being given to French officers, some newly promoted for their billets. Even the new II Corps, with its two German divisions, now had a French commander.
There’d been a lot of grumbling against Schraeder and the rest of the German leadership. Many of the more conservative officers were complaining about being sold out by their own leadership. The idea of allying with the French, recent partners but longtime enemies, made Willi uneasy as well. The French certainly seemed to be well in charge.
Willi winced inside. His father, Colonel Hans von Seelow, and his grandfather, the old general, were certainly spinning in their graves.
The radio on his belt crackled. “Private Neumann to brigade. Helicopters in sight.” Even as he looked for Colonel Bremer and nodded, shouts rang out across the parade ground,
The once-quiet compound burst into activity. Equipment rattled and boots thudded into the soft, rain-soaked ground as the panzergrenadiers shook themselves into close formation.
Von Seelow acknowledged the transmission, then took his own place in line. Silence settled over the compound. Some men were shivering. The late winter wind had a sharper bite when you couldn’t move to stay warm.
Their wait was mercifully short. Only moments after the brigade staff and the battalion took their places, a dark dot appeared just over the skyline, quickly growing into a clattering gray-green helicopter. It flew low overhead and then circled, sliding downward toward the marked landing area.
Even though the brigade staff stood a discreet distance away, Willi had to brace himself against the Puma’s rotor blast.
The troop carrier settled heavily onto the helipad, kicking up a fine, cold gray mist. A descending whine matched the slowing rotor blades. When they stopped turning, the Puma’s door slid to one side, and General de Corps d’Armee Etienne Montagne alighted.
As Montagne’s foot touched the ground, shouts of
He studied the new corps commander. Montagne was tall, so tall that he had to crouch to get out of the helicopter. Once on the ground, he carried himself carefully erect, ramrod-straight. In his late fifties, his hair was almost completely gray, with just a few streaks of brown poking out from under his service kepi.
Seeing the general’s distinctive headgear sent a strange feeling through von Seelow. The French kepi was an almost perfect flat-topped cylinder, about six inches high, with a small straight visor. In Montagne’s case it was dark blue, generously decorated with two gold rings of oak leaves, his four-star rank in a wreath on the front, and a red stripe around the crown. In various forms, it had been worn by the Army of France for a hundred years. Nothing else was so distinctly French.
Another officer stepped down, not as tall and much darker. Willi recognized General Alfred Wismar, a German and another tanker. Assigned as deputy commander for the new II Corps, Wismar did not look particularly happy with his new assignment. General Karl Leibnitz, commanding officer of the 7th Panzer Division, trailed along behind his two superiors.
Colonel Bremer braced and saluted the group. The two German generals hung back while Montagne cheerfully returned Bremer’s salute.
The two chatted briefly, in passable German, Willi noted, before Bremer guided the tall Frenchman down the line of brigade staff officers. Greeting each one warmly, the corps commander seemed careful to pronounce each man’s name properly.
It was his turn. The Frenchman had a firm handshake and his dark brown eyes seemed as friendly as his manner. Von Seelow let himself feel a little more optimistic. Maybe this won’t be such a disaster, after all, he thought.
With the senior officers following and a burly-looking German sergeant taking notes, Montagne moved on to conduct a quick, perfunctory inspection of the 191st. The general strode confidently, almost arrogantly, past the assembled battalion, stopping only occasionally to exchange a few words with one of the officers or for a closer look at the soldiers or their gear.
Von Seelow’s first favorable impression faded slightly as he watched the French general examine a panzergrenadier’s weapon. The G3A3 assault rifle was older, longer, and heavier than the ultramodern MAS rifle used by French forces. Everyone in the Bundeswehr knew it was outdated, but budget cuts in the early 1990s had slowed production of the army’s high-tech replacement, the Heckler & Koch G11. Even so, the G3 was still a ragged, reliable firearm, perfectly capable in the hands of a well-trained soldier. So there seemed little justification for Montagne’s contemptuous glance when he tossed the rifle back to the blank-faced grenadier. Or for a later comment that some of their Marder personnel carriers seemed “a little long in the tooth.” Considering that the comparable French APC, the AMX-10P, was almost as old, the remark seemed unnecessarily snide.
His inspection apparently over, Montagne marched back to a small raised platform and microphone near his grounded helicopter — trailed by a frowning group of German officers.
“Soldiers of the 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade, I greet you! Today marks an historic moment, a moment of glory for all Europe! For France! And for Germany!”
Von Seelow stirred uneasily. The general’s words were spoken in accented German, but the underlying posturing seemed all too French. With old customs and forms tainted by Nazism’s absurd melodrama, the Bundeswehr cultivated a deliberately low-key professionalism.
“I look forward with great eagerness to the coming years.
You and the other men of this division show great promise. And I am sure that, with hard training and constant devotion to duty, you will all become fine troops — soldiers for the future.”
From his position behind the Frenchman, Willi could see the carefully concealed resentment rippling through the ranks. He felt it himself. Who did this general think he was dealing with? These men were seasoned volunteers, not callow conscripts.
“In the coming months, my staff and I will institute a series of refinements to your tactical doctrines. New thinking is always hard, but I promise you that the advantages of these reforms will be readily apparent to each and every one of you — even to the lowliest private! And with these new tactics will come greatly increased fighting efficiency and combat power.”
No wonder Wismar looks unhappy, Willi thought. We are schoolmasters being taken to task by the students.
