Wars to End All Wars: Alternate Tales from the Trenches Read online

  “I think you believe people are stupider than they actually are. You can’t just convince people by tellin—”

  A shrill whistling was our warning and we tucked into the small wall, pulling down our helmets as an explosion tore through the night. Stone and earth rained down upon us and something glanced off my shoulder.

  “What?” I yelled, fingering my ears, watching Adolf’s lips move.

  “I said, I’ll prove it to you!”

  Two days later we were relieved and sent back to Flanders. I walked with Adolf beside me; over two hundred of our comrades now gone forever. The boys who had sprinted into battle now strode out as men aged by war. During those days on the mist-soaked fields, bullets and shrapnel taking lives at random, Adolf and I formed a bond forged in blood, both our own and the enemy’s; he had saved my life more than once and I’d saved his in kind.

  It probably took less than a week for Adolf to convince Private Sven his front teeth were off-centre.

  “See,” Adolf said, giving me an elbow.

  Further down the tents, the private was examining his smile in the mirror, the razor in his hand and soap on his cheeks forgotten.

  “Like I’ve said before,” Adolf continued, lacing up his boots. “If you tell a lie often enough with proper conviction, it will be believed. Humans are simple creatures.”

  He always used to say little things like that, things that would send my mind wandering. There was no denying he was a genius. I was just a man trying my best to keep up and it was those snippets of brilliance that I absorbed with relish.

  In the weeks up until the day of Adolf’s reassignment to regiment staff, I learnt more about the way a man’s mind works than I could have ever hoped to read in books. He had a way of breaking down the most complex parts of human nature into basic fundamentals that could be grasped easily. With his words I dreamt of a better Germany. A Germany of unbreakable strength.

  On the day he shipped out we said our goodbyes. It was not sombre, or sad, but real, knowing the chance of seeing each other again was unlikely. The one possession I still own from my time in the Great War was given to me that day. The cooker Adolf had won during training; a possession worth more to a man than cigarettes and dry socks.

  Months faded into years and it wasn’t until chance had us both recovering in a Beelitz hospital that we met again. I had been trucked in with shrapnel fragments up my left side, and after a night in recovery awoke to my friend sitting in the bed beside me, paintbrush in hand.

  “You’ve slept for long enough,” he said, dropping the brush into a jar of water.

  Surprise held back my words as my mind struggled to throw off the anaesthetic.

  Coincidentally, Adolf had also been injured by shrapnel. His left leg had required surgery, but the doctors said he’d be back on his feet in time. One night, the two of us were sitting over a game of chess, candles casting their warm glow over us as Adolf schooled me in the tactics and subtleties of war.

  “A smaller force is usually seen as the weaker, but if their leader can find an advantage in that weakness and the larger force is overly confident, the campaign can be swayed.”

  I looked down at the king, queen, two pawns, one castle and knight before me and then at the handful of his pieces I’d taken. If there was victory to be had, I didn’t see it.

  “I’ll play the overzealous force,” he said, reaching for his cigarette tin. He lit one off the candle and offered it to me. “It’s your move.”

  For some reason I had a determination to win that game beyond any I’d played prior or since. In seven days I made eight moves. Adolf never rushed me, instead he taught me the history of war. The chessboard became a map, the pieces my army. He told me of Sun Tzu, Genghis Kahn, Napoleon, Frederick the Great and many others. Men that would be remembered by ink and memory long after their bones turned to dust. I began to understand the qualities these great men possessed and portrayed to their followers.

  “What are we fighting for?” Adolf asked. “A Serb terrorist shoots a Duke and Duchess and the world goes to war. There is no sense in that. Our enemies fight under a common belief. We’re fighting for nothing and for that reason we’ll lose this war.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I said, without looking up.

  “Can you honestly say you’re still fighting with the same passion as in Ypres on that first morning?”

  “I guess for a time it faded, but eventually I made a conscious decision to accept duty as the reason for my fight. I’ve seen the same in a lot of men on the front.”

  “There’s no denying the bravery of German soldiers, but in the end you must ask yourself one question: Will duty alone be enough to win this war?”

  Worried I knew the answer, I stayed silent, scrutinising the chessboard.

  In the end I won that game and despite knowing Adolf had let me, I felt like I had achieved something mighty, something the boy before the war could not have.

  Before long, the nurses had Adolf on his feet and exercising in the yard outside. This left me alone with few distractions, except the allure of Adolf’s diary hidden under his pillow and the unguarded brilliance in its pages. It didn’t take long for my resolve to break. I was surprised how little he wrote about day-to-day life, instead I found in-depth descriptions of the human psyche, political philosophy and complex theories of everything from war to love. Eventually, I found something that I wish I hadn’t. Something I will never forget.

  Lutz has been worrying me lately. His constant talk of Jews has me seeing a darker side. Before, when he spoke of the Jewish, I’d see a glint in his eye that troubled me, but now I see that same look on him almost constantly. I think his time on the front is changing him. I’m uneasy about our friendship, although I dare not say it to his face.

  I put the diary down, easing back into my bed, numb. It took great strength for me to open that diary again when need forced my hand. Adolf left a week later. I can’t say I wasn’t glad. A few months later and I was back on the front line, now knowing my love for Germany was no bulletproof vest.

  A knock on the door pulled Lutz Bergman from his memories. He turned. A man entered the room at the woman’s bidding and handed her what looked like a photo. She scanned it as he left, before placing it face down on the desk near the recorder.

  “I’d like to move away from Adolf for a moment and ask you if you ever physically harmed Jewish people during The Great War.”

  Lutz eased back into his seat. “It took some lying, but less than I’d expected; the prejudice was already there. . . .”

  “So I’d just taken the bunker, shrapnel lighting up my side when the Jew bastard of a captain strolled in.” I sipped my beer and looked around the dimly lit tavern.

  We’d been given leave until the end of the month and a few of us from the regiment had a mind for drinking. We caught the train into Munich that morning, finding our own fun until the bars opened.

  “He said to me, ‘well done, son, you’ll be commended for this.’ I must have killed eight or nine men to stand where I did, so I believed him. A few weeks later I’m sitting outside my tent and he comes strutting past, my medal pinned to his chest. Bastard didn’t even glance sideways.”

  I looked at the faces of the men hanging on my words. They’d heard stories like this more than once. I raised my beer. “Cheers to the Jews for ruining Germany.”

  We clinked our glasses and drank.

  By nightfall we were dancing badly and drinking excessively, trying our best to lure girls to their feet. After more failed attempts than I could count, I spotted a Jew talking to a German woman. I nodded to my friends and got their attention. When I looked back she had her hand in his and I watched on in disgust as he leant down and kissed her.

  “They’re even taking our women.” I wasn’t even the one that said that.

  Later on, when he headed into the toilets, we followed. It wasn’t anything bad, just a few broken ribs and a black eye. The most interesting part for me was when my comra
des left the toilets thinking they were heroes, more than in any battle they had fought. I hadn’t truly believed humans were so easy to manipulate until I tried it for myself. You see, I knew Adolf would never put his brilliance into form. Before I came along, his ideas would have stayed ideas. I began to understand my purpose that night. Whether Adolf knew it or not, he needed a man to put his theories into practice.

  “From the records I’ve seen—” she straightened in her chair, “—it was more than just broken ribs and a black eye. That man died and there was a warrant out for your arrest, but I suppose you think the death of one Jew is irrelevant. Were there other instances?”

  Lutz shook his head. “I kept my head down after that.”

  “According to the records, you and Adolf met again in Cormines.”

  “Yes, it was toward the end of the war, where the fighting had become a stalemate of trenches, barbed wire and withered men. Adolf’s battalion had come in from Houtham where they’d seen heavy fighting in the streets to help reinforce our front line. . . .”

  “The Captain’s dead,” I yelled over the whistle of falling artillery and the thunder of their arrival. “The last thing he told us was to keep our heads down.” I angled my mirror over the lip of the trench as debris and mud rained down and our machine guns returned a report of defiance. The occasional white flare cast off the black veil of night, illuminating bodies and limbs that littered the ground between us and the enemy.

  “Sound advice. So who’s in charge?”

  I lowered the mirror and turned to see Adolf’s smiling face through the sheets of falling rain. “It’s good to see you’re still alive.”

  “And you too,” I said, ducking back down.

  We embraced not as friends but as brothers in arms, the deluge and fighting forgotten for a time.

  I looked at his boards of rank, then along the trench at the score of men he had brought and the few of my regiment still alive. “I guess you’re in charge, Corporal.”

  Adolf looked from me to the others. “My orders were to deliver a message and report to your captain for duty.”

  “What does the message say?”

  “We’re charging at dawn. Into the gas.”

  You can watch countless bullets fly past your head and fall asleep to your friend’s screams, but gas strikes a deeper fear into a man.

  I saw the mask fixed to Adolf’s belt. “I guess it’s not so bad for some.” The words came out with more venom than I’d intended.

  “If the time comes we can share it.”

  With the words of his diary still clear in my mind, I heard the lie for what it was.

  “Private,” Adolf said, pointing to a short fellow who had arrived with his reinforcements. “I need you to take a message back to command.” He pulled a pad from his pocket and scribbled a note. “Take this. Make sure they know the captain’s dead. And spread the word: everyone needs to find masks.”

  As the man ran away down the trench, Adolf suggested we find somewhere to get out of the weather.

  I led him to a dugout and moved some ammunition boxes around for us to sit on and lit a small lantern. “So it looks like we’re all dying tomorrow.”

  “There’s a chance some of us will make it,” he said, shaking rain from his coat. “I can’t see this war lasting much longer, we should be making plans for when it’s all over. What will you do?”

  “I don’t see much for myself outside of the army. Not like you, you’ve got a mind to rule men.”

  He reached into his coat and pulled out his diary, making sure it was dry. “My ideas aren’t right for this time.”

  Seeing the diary, I couldn’t help but wonder what else he’d written about me. I had spent many cold nights thinking about that exact question. “I believe they are. Perhaps you’re just not the man for the moment.”

  An awkward silence stretched between us and I knew our friendship had ended, if it hadn’t already.

  I detached the bayonet from my Mauser and pulled a rag from my pocket. Glancing down the trench, I wiped water from the blade; if any men were about, the night hid them.

  “What are you doing?” Adolf asked, getting to his feet.

  “Nothing, I just don’t want it to rust.” I put it aside. “What’s got you so jumpy?”

  “I heard some rumours.”

  “I think you’ll find that’ll blow over. I never touched him.” I searched around for a pack of cards as Adolf took his seat again.

  That night was one I’ll always remember, not because it was my last on the front, but because of the silence, the silence before the storm of tomorrow. Although I didn’t wish to admit it, even I knew this war was over, the morning would just see another sacrifice of men. Adolf had been right, duty was not enough. The fire that had blazed within us at the outset of the Great War had dwindled to coals.

  “So why do they think you killed someone?” Adolf asked.

  “Some of my friends beat up a Jew. Apparently they think I convinced them to do it.”

  “Why would they think that?”

  “If you tell a lie often enough with enough conviction, it will be believed.”

  He stared at me coldly. “You know there’s a warrant out for your arrest?”

  “Are you here to take me in?”

  “No.”

  “Really?” I said, shuffling the cards. “I read your diary, I know what you think of me.”

  “Lutz, war has changed you . . .” Adolf got to his feet and walked out into the rain. “Or maybe I have.”

  The weather had cleared by the time the sky to the east was seeing its first touches of light. We readied in silence, loading cartridges, attaching bayonets and preparing to die. I found Adolf at our centre, a dozen men to his left and right. He whispered orders, clutching a whistle between white fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, stepping in beside him.

  He nodded and raised the whistle to his lips. Its cry greeted the first crack of bullets and men scrambled forward, toward their death. Adolf cried out for Germany as he crested the trench. He looked down at me as I stood motionless, looking up at him.

  “Coward.”

  He turned. My bullet followed.

  As he fell back the gas landed, and machine guns met my comrades’ charge. I tore Adolf’s jacket from him and ripped his identification tag from his neck as every breath seared my lungs. I scrambled for his mask, my ey—”

  “Why him?” she interrupted.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I was going to prison. I needed a way out. Not just for me, but for Germany.” Lutz looked down at the date written in pencil on the back of the photo. 10/8/1896. “I knew him so well, not only the man, but the mind within.”

  “How did you convince everyone?”

  “If you’ve ever seen photos of us together, you’ll know how similar we looked. Besides, what everyone sees is just a perception. After a month—with half my face hidden behind bandages recovering from my exposure to mustard gas—I’d convinced every nurse and doctor in the hospital that I was Adolf. After the war there was confusion everywhere, so many had died, who was there to doubt my word?”

  He paused, pushing himself back to his feet. “Can I say one last thing?”

  She nodded.

  “Today I stand here as a man whose legacy can be seen by the millions of crosses and unmarked graves scattered across the world. I do not regret doing what I did, for it was what Germany needed to rise from the rubble left by The Great War. Yet I do regret taking what I did from Adolf. Tell him I’m sorry if he’s still alive. Tell him I did it for Germany.”

  “He died some years ago, but asked me to tell you something if I were to ever catch you.” The woman got to her feet. “All the great leaders I taught you about died for their beliefs. You ran like a coward, fleeing the country you claimed you would die for. You are nothing but a tyrant and your story will always be remembered as one of failure, not glory.”

  She turned the photo over, and pushed it toward him.

 
Lutz looked down at the aged image. He had seen it many times as a boy. A bride and groom sat atop chairs held up by their wedding party, kippahs covering the heads of all the men.

  “Did you know?”

  The answer came without guilt.

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  Inspired by: Adolf Hitler

  G.L. Lathian

  G.L. Lathian is the pen name of Garrett Streater and Luke Jessop. The south west of Western Australia has provided a personal fantasy world to grow up in over the years. Without the distractions of modern conveniences, the two young authors turned to camping, fishing, surfing and exploring the empty landscape. Every day was a new story or adventure, inspired by their imaginations. In 2011, their longtime friendship became a collaboration when they began writing together. Find out more at www.gllathian.com.

  The Foundation

  * * *

  Andrew Leon Hudson

  On the trains heading westward we sing our favourite songs, songs with the melodies we most love to work to, but words we made up for ourselves. These are songs known in every corner of the empire, but we make ourselves their heroes—heroes of love, heroes of battle, heroes of tragedy to stir the heart and wet the cheek, heroes of comedy that make the listeners drown out our voices with their laughter, and a verse for every man on my team.

  My men love me, I love my men, we all love each other, and God Bless The Empire.

  As our train approaches the border with the Westerly Fields, the engineer sounds her whistle, and in the moment that we ride the tracks across the high, endless fence line we all cheer. In the lull as we draw breath, we hear the voices of those in the next car cheering too, then those of the next, and the next, fainter still. Afterwards we fall silent, rocking in our seats side by side, and every man’s eyes on the windows as the smooth, flawless fields glide into our past and we move towards our future.