that's der heimliche aufmarch -- although it'd be fun to see the basic concept of that animation as a post-revolution *Babelsberg fantasy-propaganda movie. Red workers vs. the capitalist bugmen...
"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
Chapter XCVI
The rise of anti-war and anti-fascist sentiment among the working masses of Japan, the growth of conflicts between labor and capital, between the landlords and tenant peasants, the increasing financial difficulties and the rising discontent of the moderate section of the bour-geoisie with the adventurous policy of the fascist militarists, who are leading the country to complete economic and military catastrophe—these are the facts of the situation in Japan itself which prompt the Japanese militarists to hasten their aggression on the mainland.
~ Wang Ming, China Can Win!
“Are we ready to go?”
“I still think we should wait.”
Captain Shintaro Imada, squad leader of the Mukden military police, narrowly avoided groaning in despair. He was an Imperial Officer after all and needed to maintain a certain reserve, even if he had had a few drinks. Nonetheless the intransigence of the older man was testing his patience. The problem was that the older man in question was Colonel Seishiro Itagaki, the Kwantung Army’s Chief of Intelligence. His opinion was more important than most in this cloak and dagger affair.
The men were here in the name of goals which, however clandestine, represented the best interests of the Japanese Empire. For several years those who had maintained Japan’s somewhat unsteady grip over Korea had regarded the lands to the north with increasing unease as a struggle for control had played about between Chinese nationalists, Communists and warlords of various affiliations. Those warlords loosely affiliated with Japan had maintained a buffer in the regions known as Manchuria between the northern expedition of the nationalists and the Japanese Empire. This status quo had worked well for a few years until an unfortunate incident involving one of the major pro-Japanese warlords and an exploding train had led to the late warlord’s son switching sides in a cowardly act of betrayal. Not only were Japanese interests in the region now under direct threat from a pro-nationalist warlord but Korean nationalists could also potentially get more direct assistance from their Chinese comrades.
Such threats to the Empire required swift, decisive action but Tokyo was not forthcoming. As such the duty now fell to the men of the Kwantung Army, the force created to protect Japanese interests in northern China, to take matters into their own hands. Chinese provocations had been building for months but no specific incident had given the Kwantung Army enough cause to invade. Thus the Kwantung Army would create one, before the Chinese could do some real damage. Imada and his cohorts had been planning this operation for weeks and he was eager with anticipation to carry it out. They would blow up a small section of railway, not enough to do any real damage, but enough to create an impression of Chinese sabotage. The barracks was packed with armed men ready to do their duty. The Colonel was having second thoughts however.
“It would be far better if we were to consult with General Honjo before we proceeded,” he mused, “Tokyo has been wishing to discuss such matters after all. We wouldn’t want to embarrass the Commander-in-chief by having Tokyo call to demand answers about an action he wasn’t aware of.”
This was true, the high command in Tokyo had recently sent General Tatekawa to Kwantung Army headquarters in Port Arthur on the basis of curbing independent actions. Although it was suspected this was motivated by rumours that an invasion of Manchuria was imminent the man hadn’t yet reprimanded them for planning to do so. They hadn’t been told to carry out the action by Honjo either however, leaving them in limbo. Imada took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. All this tip-toeing was making his head hurt.
“Respectfully Colonel we may not have time. We have a window of opportunity now, and we are ready to go upon your order.”
“The General will agree with our action, waiting one day will spare us all the embarrassment carrying out the operation tonight would bring. It isn’t a lot to ask.”
It wasn’t, and Itakagi was his superior after all, but Imada still couldn’t help but feel time was against them.
“For all we know Taketawa is travelling to tell General Honjo to cease such actions right now. If we were to go ahead tonight then he could claim we had to act on our own initiative but if we wait then we might not get another chance.”
Imada could sense he wasn’t the only one feeling frustrated but reading the room he had the sinking feeling the Colonel’s hesitancy was beginning to catch on. There was a silence between them for a moment before the Colonel stood up and parted the crowd, going to one of the tables adjacent to them. He took a chopstick from a plate of the very good bean stew they had had not long before and wiped it with a handkerchief before sitting back down.
“We will use this to settle it.” He announced before holding the chopstick upright on the table.
“If it falls to the left we will proceed tonight. If it falls to the right we will wait until we have the order from General Honjo. How does that sound?”
Imada sat back, perplexed.
“Would it really be responsible to leave such a thing down to chance?”
“Not usually.” The Colonel admitted. “But we are at an impasse.”
He let go of the chopstick.
It fell to the right.
“That settles it then!” The Colonel announced before Imada could respond. “I’ll discuss the plan with the General in the morning, I’m sure he’ll be able to see sense but in the meantime let’s have a proper drink and tell stories of the past.” With that he opened another bottle of the local rice wine and led a toast to the Mukden Military Police. Imada, feeling uncomfortably swept along, accepted another drink.
The next morning he awoke with a pounding headache, still in uniform.
“Wake up! You need to get your men ready for inspection.”
Imada wanted to sink back into his uneasy sleep but realised he was being shaken by his friend ,Major Tadashi Hanaya. Hanaya had been there the previous night as well and also looked worse for wear. Imada knew that Hanaya had also believed they should have gone ahead then but as head of intelligence in Mukden and subordinate to Colonel Itakagi, he had been wary of saying so last night.
“We have visitors.”
Imada worried the look of sorrow on his friend’s face wasn’t merely to do with a hangover.
He hadn’t had time to wash properly or eat anything, merely to dunk his head into freezing water in the washrooms to try and gain some composure, before organising his men on the parade ground. Imada felt a bit better in the fresh air but feared it would be obvious he had slept in his uniform and stank of drink. When the guests arrived from Port Arthur, General Honjo and General Taketawa, they didn’t seem to mind. Taketawa looked rough himself but Honjo simply looked embarrassed. And so did Itagaki standing alongside them.
With the units gathered, Honjo stepped forward to address them. He read out loud the letter Taketawa had brought with him from Tokyo, stating that the Emperor’s command was total and armies must not take independent action that would dispute that.
The window had closed.
Taketawa cried out “Long live the Emperor!”
Imada, in repeating the cry, accidentally wretched.
---
The painting is Yoshiwara at Night by Katsushika Ōi
and so the Army is restrained and Manchuria remains out of Japanese hands.... for now
All great tunes although as you note the Song of the United Front (and Song of October as far as I'm aware) wouldn't have been around at the time and Arbeiter Von Wien might have been a bit too specific to Austria although it is actually due to feature very soon. All of them are going to be prescient though so I can't see any of them being butterflied.
That's correct, it was one of the more common ones a lot of People's Guard fighters knew and it's a good marching song so it became a sort of unofficial anthem even before the DAR.
That's probably true to a certain extent, similar to how the Nationalists would occasionally use the republican flag in the early part of the Spanish Civil War.
It's a great song but it probably would need a bit of reworking here. Obviously there's the references to NATO, neutron bombs, etc but more thematically the DAR doesn't have the same emphasis on maintaining peace that the DDR officially did. Because of this the stuff on the hyprocrisy of the west might also be seen as a bit flippant.
Stimson did promise Oaks a short holiday after all.
The version linked is the pre-WWII one, the one that doesn't have references to NATO or America. I think it fits.
Definitely more of a headache for Oaks at any rate.
Your comments are always insightful but I was not expecting an Alex Harvey reference!
That version's maybe a bit too specific to the Soviet Union whereas the Cold War one at least has reference to (part of) Germany being a socialist state as well as their Soviet ally but thematically it does work better, more combative with an emphasis on worldwide revolution rather than just an armed peace. I could imagine the DAR comissioning an "updated" version of their own.
Best band I ever saw live. One of the comments under the video says that they performed this version at The Valley in 1976. Well, I was there - it was one of three dates on "The Who Put The Boot In Tour", with SAHB second on the bill. I don't remember whether Alex did this version, tbh.
I also saw a second on the tour, in Swansea, when SAHB blew The Who off the stage, and not many could ever do that.
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Chapter XCVII
A nation is a totality of men united through community of fate into a community of character.
~ Otto Bauer
~ Otto Bauer
The road to the union between Austria and Germany can be taken back to the final disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire in the early nineteenth century. The demise of the ancient confederation had provoked calls for a unified nation of those who German speaking peoples who had made up the majority of its population. This idea became especially pronounced in the wake of the liberal and nationalist revolutions that erupted throughout Europe in 1848 where the two most powerful German states of Austria and Prussia both pledged themselves to the idea of a Greater Germany, at least in theory. In practice both states vying for dominance over any potential union left the issue unresolved for decades until the wars of German unification. Through these conflicts Prussia established its primacy over the other German states in the Austro-Prussian War before carving out a unified German state in the Prussian image amidst their victory in the Franco-Prussian War. Austria turned inward, attempting to resolve internal divisions within its multicultural empire by reestablishing itself as a dual monarchy between Austria and Hungary whilst maintaining its place as the major power in the Balkans.
The German speaking peoples of the empire, despite their dominant position within the Empire continued to yearn for unification with Germany and this began to manifest itself in new political ideals, such as in the futurism of a young Adolf Hitler. Ethnic and nationalist tensions in the Balkans, and within the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself, worsened as the twentieth century began and were the major factor in the outbreak of the First World War. Austria fought alongside Germany within the Central Powers but performed poorly, frequently relying on their more powerful ally to achieve success whilst internal divisions only grew worse. In the face of a swathe of economic, military and political crises Austria-Hungary began to fall apart and even before the war had ended it had dissolved entirely.
The creation of the Austrian Republic in the aftermath of the First World War was a troubled one. The vast losses of territory imposed upon it by the post-war settlement left Germans as the vast majority of the remaining populace and a German identity dominated from the outset with even the preamble of the Republic’s constitution stating a desire to one day unify with Germany. The post-war settlement however also stipulated that the new republic was not allowed to compromise itself, effectively prohibiting it from joining Germany and leaving Austria as an independent state with a populace who largely didn’t want it to be.
The political atmosphere of the short-lived republic was one where a competition between Austrian and German nationalism was prevalent alongside those issues more common to Europe at the time, namely divides between urban and rural populations and, most importantly, the class conflict. Austria was a largely rural state but one with an peculiarly large urban sprawl in the form of Vienna which had been built around the function of being an imperial capital with an industrial base to match. Within Vienna and other industrial cities the dominant political force was the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs (Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria) or SDAPÖ who, similar to their German sister party had been a powerful force in the old Austria-Hungary before playing a leading role in the foundation of the new republic. This was despite the party’s stated desire for union with Germany. Their main rivals were the Christlichsoziale Partei (Christian Social Party) or CS, who represented the conservative ideology of the old Austrian elites and rural peoples. With some of their beliefs bordering on fascism, they favoured an Austrian identity based around Catholicism in contrast to the largely Protestant, Prussian notion of Germany and the ‘Judeo-Bolshevik’ Social Democrats. Whilst the two parties tended to be evenly matched at a national level the CS could rely on the support of smaller conservative and liberal parties (who tended to be German nationalists themselves) and as such it would tend to be the ruling party within coalitions at the National Council, the republic’s legislative assembly with members of the party making up most of the nation’s Chancellors throughout the life of the republic.
This political dominance by the right did not translate to political stability however with the twenties being fraught with strike action, inflation crises, and political violence. This reached a peak in the July Revolt where the murder of an eight year old boy and his father, supposedly by members of the far-right Heimwehr militia, led to an uprising within Vienna after those accused of the murder were acquiited. Armed police had fought workers wielding construction materials; dozens were shot down and hundreds injured in the ensuing violence. The Social Democrats were wary of civil war and urged restraint in the aftermath of the slaughter. Further violence was averted but tensions remain high throughout the country, exacerbated first by the Wall Street Crash and then the collapse of the nation many Austrians considered their true Fatherland into Civil War.
The collapse of the Creditanstalt bank was the first major shock to Austrian society brought on by the global depression and the German Civil War. The announcement in the October of 1930 that the bank had lost more than half of its capital and hence, by Austrian law, had to be declared failed was a disaster for the country. Not only was the Creditanstalt bank the country’s largest, it was bigger than all other banks put together. Its balance sheet was larger than the government’s annual expenditure and more than two thirds of Austrian corporations did business with it. This gave the bank an apparently unassailable position within the Austrian economy and with it an undue amount of influence upon Austrian politics. The bank was too big to fail, and if that wasn’t the case financially the government had made sure of it by other means.
Creditanstalt had actually been in trouble for a while, since at least 1925 where it had never really recovered from the hyperinflation the Austrian economy had suffered in the previous years. Short term loans were sought from Britain and France with that money then being plunged into uncertain investments in the former territories of the Habsburg empire. These poor investments and increased debts only led to further trouble, exacerbated by urgent demands of payment following the stock market crash. By early 1930 the bank was already buying its own stock to prevent panic. The CS-led government knew about this and actively colluded in the cover-up. The outbreak of civil war in Germany gave both the bank and the government the opportunity to blame the failure on external factors beyond their control but too many people were involved in the previous cover-up for it to be anything other than a poorly kept secret. When the government announced a rescue package to bailout Creditanstalt, one which would incur severe cuts to government spending alongside tax rises, the stories of collusion began to run amok and the public were inflamed with anger over the conspiracy. The governing coalition collapsed as each party involved attempted to distance themselves from the scandal but in the resulting elections the public were granted a chance to punish those responsible.
The result was a crushing victory for the Social Democrats who came close to securing a majority in the Nationalrat. They were assisted into government by the Kommunistische Partei Österreichs (Communist Party of Austria), or KPÖ, who entered the assembly for the first time on the basis of an increased anti-capitalist radicalism within industrial areas. The Communists, who were a small albeit disciplined organisation, were aided in exploiting this due to the actions of Adolf Hitler, an Austrian Communists who they had previously distanced themselves from but whose popularity they now exploited on the basis of the public being oblivious to the intricacies of the far-left. The historic enmity between the Communists and the Social Democrats, particularly with the the former’s allegiance to contemporary Comintern line of ‘Social Fascism’ prevented any United Front from being formed between the two but the willingness of the handful of newly elected Communist members to work on a vote by vote basis in the Nationalrat left the Social Democrats with an effective majority. What had happened in Germany made both parties keen to avoid the left being unnecessarily divided, particularly with the growth of the far-right within Austria.
With their record of good governance in ruins the Christian Social Party had turned to the tried and tested methods of blaming ethnic minorities and Jews for the country’s economic woes. Their propaganda had always portrayed the Social Democrats as being in hoc to these groups along with being guilty of atheism, Viennese cosmopolitanism, Bolshevism, and other alleged sins but this had often been in the background in times where a greater respectability could be maintained. Now this poisonous rhetoric made up the bulk of their platform during the election campaign. It didn’t work, such talk could find an audience but it wasn’t one willing to listen to men who had just destroyed the nation’s economy. However, the fact that men in senior positions were willing to come out with such rhetoric did open the door for such ideas to be openly entertained in a way they hadn’t necessarily been before.
This allowed men who were also willing to espouse such beliefs but weren’t tarnished with economic failure to prosper. The Heimatblock (Homeland Bloc), the political wing of the Heimwehr, was catapulted into becoming the second largest party in the Nationalrat in spite of this being their first attempt at electoral politics. This was an organisation that believed in German unification as much as the Social Democrats but they had no intention of joining a Germany governed by the United Front. Indeed, their ranks were galvanised that Winter by a large number of former Volkisch Bund Blackshirts fleeing Germany. These were men who hoped to return to Germany one day but for now they were keen on maintaining their safe haven.
Hence by 1931 there were finally governments in both Berlin and Vienna committed to the practicalities of union but those who opposed both governments were now also coalescing to defend an Austrian identity they did not truly believe in.
~ Shaun Williams, Weimar's Rise and Fall
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The painting is Allegory of Vanitas by Antonio de Pereda
So is the implication the Anschluss between the Oster and German Reich's occurs during the twilight of the Weimar Republic?
Chapter XCVIII
The situation changed visibly when sentimental reasons and long-term political aims gave way to a stern, ruthless nationalist ideology which would brook no compromise.
~ Kurt Schuschnigg
~ Kurt Schuschnigg
It was an old women’s summer in Vienna and even in the late afternoon a warm breeze could accompany an artist on his walk home.
It was days like these in which Franz Cizek felt younger than his 65 years and he took a notion, as he often did, for a walk through the city’s Stadtpark. Whilst many of his young students would be off to spend the rest of their Saturday afternoon at the ever expanding funfair around the ferris wheel at Prater the Stadtpark remained Franz’s go-to place for peace and serenity. The park’s small bumps and bends were so familiar to him that he felt he walk through it blindfolded without accidentally walking into a pond and disturbing the swans. He got a lot out of it nonetheless even if it had changed over the years. People were more relaxed about their appearance these days, and the attractions on offer were more gaudy. There were no longer any young men selling their own art it seemed. A person would need a license for that sort of thing these days.
It was when Franz had been walking through the park on a day where the weather had been similar that he had first met Adolf Hitler selling his paintings. It was hard to think that almost twenty years had passed since that day. Franz had tried to follow the progress of his former protege since he had first been shaken to read his name in the paper in 1924, from that day he had grown accustomed to it. He had even seen Hitler’s political text in the more raggedy bookshops he would sometimes frequent. It was a work he wasn’t sure whether he should read and he had held off on doing so.
Franz had contemplated contacting Adolf but he always seemed to be busy with whatever was going on in Germany. The sort of politics Franz had tried to rein him in from following were now the younger man’s life, at the expense of his art. Did he even paint anymore? A letter from an old man from his past self of poverty and near-vagrancy might not be welcome even if he had now stood to speak for millions of people who were still like that. Franz had seen that strange mix of inferiority and superiority within his friend more than a few times.
Franz sauntered over to one of the many cafes adjacent to the park and managed to grab a seat outside. He could contemplate things here from a relaxed setting after his stroll. It was good to see the cafes busy again, although an integral part of Viennese culture they had suffered when the recession following the Creditanstalt collapse had hit the city. The Social Democrats nationalising and subsequently breaking up the giant bank was cathartic but hadn’t brought any immediate economic relief. It was the customs union with Germany that had really brought deliverance, the free trade between the countries had kickstarted both of their economies but Austria’s especially. This didn’t mean that unemployment was solved, far from it, but there were other things for idle young men to do these days other than sell paintings to tourists.
Franz wished trade was the only thing Germany had gifted Austria recently but their political radicals on both the left and the right had been another major export. First it had been the communists and socialists fleeing the military takeover but as the civil war had turned in favour of the United Front and the so-called Third Reich had turned in on itself many fascists and other blends of reactionary had also made their escape south. Austria had hardly been averse to political militias and violence beforehand but these new arrivals, along with the economic and political instability in both countries, had taken in to a new level. The militia’s appeared to be larger than ever and their goals now seemed to be framed in a wider German context, whether that meant joining the radicalised form of revolution unfolding in Germany or turning Austria into a fortress against it until such a time came that a reconquista could be launched.
He tried to put such thoughts out of his mind and focused on enjoying his coffee. He was supposed to be having a leisurely time after all, the politics of the day could weigh a man down if he spent his entire day dwelling on them.
He marvelled at the ducks and swans disembarking en masse from the park and wondered what might have caused such a sudden exodus.
Then he heard the rumbling.
It came in the form of banging drums and chants and Franz was taken away from his coffee once again by the march that was coming down the street. At their front they carried a large banner which swayed backwards and forwards in the light breeze.
TODAY AUSTRIA HEARS US BUT TOMORROW ALL OF GERMANY SHALL
This was a new message and Franz couldn’t help but be reminded about an old English idiom about things not lasting for long after reading it but the uniforms of the Heimwehr were well known to him by this point. the faces of the men were serious, some even seemed reluctant but steered on by a determination amongst their comrades. They were chanting the slogan on the banner like a religious mantra.
Visitors to the park began to vacate the scene and the few policemen mulling around the park were clearly panicking, it was clear this march wasn’t scheduled, Franz observed, but there were those in other uniforms running from street corners to form a cordon. Cries broke as at several loud bangs. Franz dived under the table, before hearing the chants grow louder. The militiamen were armed and trying to clear the way ahead.
Franz’s knees protested as he broke into a run that he hadn’t put his body through in many years, eventually forced into more of a tense jog, whilst he focused on getting to his home and away from this madness. He had slowed himself due to the pain in his legs but also because so many people were also now fleeing. He was wary of collisions.
Not everyone seemed to be running however, and it seemed a larger collision was imminent. In a bizarre display of unity men in the uniforms of the Republican Protection League and Communist League militias had linked arms alongside men and women wearing just their work clothes. They had linked arms in a rushed fashion and were now marching towards the Heimwehr. It wasn’t long before they had broken out into song to march the chant of the their opponents:
Wir sind das Bauvolk der kommenden Welt.
Wir sind der Sämann, die Saat und das Feld.
Wir sind der Sämann, die Saat und das Feld.
The singing went on, mixed with the chanting, until both sides collided. More shots could be heard. The police, already unsure of how to react, now gave up on trying to contain either side and began to join Franz and many others in getting out of the way of the riot.
Continuing to jog across the Donaukanal Franz realised that people were now running towards the scene whilst others appeared to be running away but from other directions. Whatever was going on it seemed to be big and he sighed with relief that nothing was happening outside of his home. At least for now. Leopoldstadt’s population were already preparing themselves for the conflagration that could still be heard from nearby. Worn out he staggered down the cobbled streets towards his home.
Once inside he double checked that he had locked the door and then pulled the shutters down until he was sitting almost entirely in the dark, mere cracks of light emanating from what had previously been the pleasant day outside.
Franz sat down on the table within his studio, weary from the run. The crackle of gunfire from outside made him flinch.
Franz began to shake. He wasn’t sure if he was in shock or had merely had been undergoing a joint surge of adrenaline and caffeine but his eyes couldn’t stop themselves from pacing up and down the room, from easels, to canvasses to old works of his own, to those not yet completed. Before finally, they fixed on a painting he had bought over twenty years ago.
It was clear that the shadow men were now upon Vienna once more.
---
The painting is The Metaphysical Muse by Carlo Carrà
Long time no see good ol' Franz! I'm not well-versed in modern arts (or arts in general for that matter), but the initial chapters' rundown of early 20th century artistic movements was very nicely done.
I wonder if Hitler would be willing to give Franz a job in the DAR's Ministry of Culture-equivalent?
I wonder if Hitler would be willing to give Franz a job in the DAR's Ministry of Culture-equivalent?
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Chapter XCIX
‘Let’s go!’ I said. ‘Friends, away! Let’s go! Mythology and the Mystic Ideal are defeated at last. We’re about to see the Centaur’s birth and, soon after, the first flight of Angels!… We must shake at the gates of life, test the bolts and hinges. Let’s go! Look there, on the earth, the very first dawn! There’s nothing to match the splendor of the sun’s red sword, slashing for the first time through our millennial gloom!’
~ Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism
~ Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism
Filippo Tomasso Marinetti tried to shake off the encroaching tiredness as the rocking of the truck tried to lull him back to sleep. He was being summoned to the Austrian border on orders of the Duce and he did not want such a dynamic leader to hear that he had been napping on the way there.
Marinetti had found himself and his works elevated in Italian society by the fascist regime, his futurist ideals of nationalism, renewal and youth were much the same as those of the fascist party. Mussolini hadn’t brought about the complete transformation Marinetti had pined for but he was no longer a young man himself and it had been necessary to make his own temporary peace with the classical art he despised and the old elites he resented in his many roles within the arts and propaganda worlds of Italian life. To be taken from Milan to the Austrian border in the middle of the night was one of the more bizarre favours Mussolini asked of him but he did it all the same. Even if his vigour was beginning to fail him and the uneven roads that Mussolini had long insisted would soon be fixed caused the truck to rock from one side to another. Having made the trip on a bicycle in the past it would have been churlish for him to complain about being driven.
Marinetti may not have had the stamina he had once been gifted with but he still felt he could fight. He had spent a great deal of time fighting in the Alps they were now approaching, first in a volunteer cyclist unit composed of many of his fellow futurists and eventually as an artillery officer. He had suffered from the same cold, hunger and fatigue as everyone but even as discipline and morale had begun to falter around him he had never lost the nationalistic fervour of his beliefs. Even being grievously wounded had not dampened his passion for the rejuvenating violence of patriotic warfare, his hatred of the Austrians had only been intensified. Now it seemed there might be a chance to put them in their place once again.
He hadn’t been told why he was being taken to the Alps but he had an inclination as to why it might be. He and his wife had followed the events unfolding in Vienna the previous day and when he had answered the knock on the door in the early hours his Benedatta hadn't even blinked at this departure, merely asserting that he should say farewell to his daughters in case he didn’t see them again for a while. The socialist regime in Austria was crumbling and Italy would now act to ensure they must perish.
The increasing number of horses and military vehicles around the village of Colle Isarco he could see in the early morning light seemed to confirm that he had guessed correctly. The truck pulled up at a command post and he disembarked, his driver apparently in a hurry to be elsewhere. He was left in the care of General Federico Baistrocchi.
“Roman legions march once more Marinetti!” The fascist general boomed, snapping to attention and sticking his right arm into the air. The man’s broad, leering face didn’t match the pomp of his uniform. He was a Blackshirt at heart. Marinetti grinned and returned the fascist salute. Mussolini might have kept too many of the old guard around but Baistrocchi’s sincerity for the fascist cause could not be doubted. It was no wonder he had been made responsible for the army corps based on Italy’s northern borders. He beckoned Marinetti into what seemed to be a parish hall. Inside the radio was announcing something in garbled German.
“Can you speak German? I’m afraid I’ve lost the few words I learned in the war.” Marinetti nodded at the General’s request and put his ear closer to the set. The signal wasn’t good but the points being stated were clear enough.
“Resist the Bolshevik incursions from Berlin.” Marinetti mumbled in translation, “restore Austrian independence, reclaim the Fatherland...it seems to be repeating itself.” The General laughed at that.
“The German has guts but they lack artistic expression. I take it you’re aware of the German fascists’ rising in Vienna and Styria?”
Marinetti nodded.
“Good, well we’re going in to help. The plan for such an operation has taken some reworking but we’re better prepared for such a task than we ever were in the last war. The initial operation had been planned on assisting the Austrian government in putting down a Marxist revolt but now the lunatics are in control of the asylum and we’re having to go in on the basis the Bundesheer will resist. “
“Are we sure that they will?” Marinetti asked. He didn’t know much about the current state of the Austrian army, only that it was a shadow of its former imperial incarnation.
“Hopefully they won’t but we can’t be sure. At any rate once we’re over the border it should become clear to them that they can’t stop us and they’ll fold. We’ve had to take the precaution of evacuating the village as you might have guessed.” The General stretched out his arms, Marinetti looked around and it did seem everyone inside was an Italian soldier.
“A lot of the locals aren’t particularly happy with being Italian and we had to make sure they wouldn’t run off and tell the Austrians what was going to happen. Maybe after this is over it will be clear to them they’re Italian whether they like it or not but until then I have use of your artistic talents.”
“You want a painting?”
“I want poetry man, like the ones you wrote during the last war. The Duce wants them as well and that’s why you’re here. You will record your experiences here and we’ll use them to tell the Italian people of our exploits in ways a newsreel can’t manage! Sound good?”
“The only thing that would sound better was if I had a chance to fight.” Marinetti proclaimed, standing up from the radio and saluting once more.
“I agree!” The general responded, returning the salute, “but the roles we are most accomplished for in life aren’t always the ones we desire. Do not worry Marinetti, there are plenty of Italian heroes out there. We don't need you in that capacity.”
The General turned to his adjutant and the man nodded.
“Let’s begin.”
The adjutant spoke the order down the phone to the divisional commanders and they stepped out once more to look out into the hills in the distance. The sun was rising in the sky now and a long column of Italian troops was visible amongst the mountains and forests on either side of the narrow pass.
Little bursts of light began to spring from the hills and Marinetti wondered if it was something reflecting the light from the sun. But the sun was in the wrong place. The columns seemed to have come to a halt.
“Shit.” The general was using binoculars but whatever he could see clearly wasn’t putting his mind at ease. He handed the binoculars over.
It was tracer fire.
“I am going to string up every elder in this village and if they cannot account for the whereabouts of every single person under their care I am going to throw them down a well.”
Marinetti chuckled, the noises of the battle were getting louder and he could see Italian mortar shells beginning to go off amongst the trees where the machine gun fire was coming from.
“Isn’t this what you wanted me to write about?” Marinetti asked, handing back the binoculars.
“I was looking for heroics, this is just going to hold us up. We both know how easy it is to defend terrain like this if you’re prepared.” The General said mournfully.
“There’ll be plenty more heroes by the end of the day!” Marinetti patted the General on the back and went to find something to write with. Artillery fire was starting to be exchanged between the Austrians and Italians. With every impact he felt a jolt, bringing him back to his youth. It was empowering.
Once again blood would move the wheels of history.
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The painting is Bright Sun, Dark Shadows by Tullio Crali
They're so well prepared that they don't have any German speakers attached to the invading units.