1920: America's Great War

EPILOG

Robert Lansing, President of the United States, looked over the latest report from California. It had been two months since the surrender of the German Army at the small port of Monterey, on the Pacific coast and south of San Francisco. The Germans had been besieged for three months. They had been left stranded when Admiral von Trotha, replacing the seriously wounded Hipper, decided to withdraw the remains of his fleet to Cam Ranh Bay for refit and repair. This had become necessary when the German Navy realized that Los Angeles facilities had all been damaged and were in danger of falling to fast-moving American columns under General Pershing. A spearhead under Lejeune had moved quickly and taken up position in the hills overlooking Los Angeles.

Trotha had been more than a little spooked by the presence of the British fleet, which trailed him and threatened his few ships with annihilation. The threat was never spoken, but it was understood nonetheless.

San Diego had fallen earlier to Lejeune’s mounted columns. Pershing might have been in overall command of the southern wing, but the American public was cheering the exploits of John Lejeune, pride of the United States Marine Corps. Liggett and Sims were also national heroes.

Mrs. Tuttle knocked and opened the door to the president’s office. She was radiant. She had just found out that her young cousin, Luke Martel, had not only survived the fighting but had been promoted and decorated. He was resigning his commission as an officer and would go into civilian life as a hero. He’d received his second Medal of Honor for capturing von Hutier, and Douglas MacArthur had also been given the same medal for leading the insane charge that had broken the German attack. Luke had gotten married and would soon be a father. Lansing was curious about the timing of all that, but he was far too much of a gentleman to comment. The happy couple would stay in southern California, apparently making babies, growing grapes, and making wine. Mrs. Tuttle was already planning a visit.

“Sir, the British are here and it’s that silly Mr. Churchill.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Tuttle,” Lansing said, fervently hoping that the silly Mr. Churchill hadn’t heard the comment. Apparently he had. He glared at her as she departed.

Lansing sighed. He didn’t much like Churchill either. Just a tad overbearing, even for a Brit.

“I have excellent news, Mr. Lansing. It appears that the Kaiser will abdicate in favor of his second son and will declare for a constitutional monarchy. The defeat in California was too much for the German public to stomach.”

With Crown Prince Wilhelm dead from a sniper’s bullet, the next in line was Prince Eitel Fredrich, age thirty-seven. He was an unknown quantity save for rumors of corruption. Apparently the kaiser-to-be was susceptible to bribes. Lansing wondered if the rumors of a British sniper killing the younger Wilhelm were true. The Brits solemnly denied it.

Kaiser Wilhelm II had been devastated by the loss of his oldest son. Lansing found it hard to find sympathy for the man who had ordered the invasion of the United States and who had participated in the destruction of Belgium and France in 1914.

Churchill continued. “The overall German military position has been seriously compromised. She lost nearly half her main battle fleet at San Francisco, and I understand that your people are taking great advantage of that.”

Lansing smiled. “Indeed.” It was no secret. The Bayern and Arizona had been refloated and were being repaired. The Bayern would be added to the American Navy, as would at least two other fairly modern but badly damaged German capital ships. Sadly, the Nevada had sunk in deep water and would remain there.

“Kaiser Wilhelm wants his army back,” Churchill said with a grin.

Lansing smiled tolerantly. “And he shall have it once he agrees to pay indemnity for all the damage Germany caused. Constitutional monarchy or not, the new German government cannot hold themselves blameless for their kaiser’s actions. The military and the aristocracy, along with the average German, indulged in Wilhelm the Second’s insane desires for a German empire.”

Lansing continued. “In the meantime, the prisoners will work repairing what they have destroyed. We are paying them and they are, allegedly at least, volunteers, so the terms of the Geneva Convention are not being violated. Besides, the victors write the terms, not the losers. Same too with war criminals. We’ve already hanged the man who ran the prison camp near the town of Raleigh, and others will follow.”

Churchill shrugged. The winners always wrote the rules. “Would you care for a cigar? It’s Cuban.”

Lansing accepted and, after the appropriate cutting and sniffing ritual, lit up. “Ecstasy,” he said. Perhaps this Churchill fellow wasn’t such a bad chap after all.

“The Germans are in bad shape in Russia,” Churchill added. “Or perhaps I should call it the Soviet Union. Trotsky’s armies are pushing the German and Austrian armies back by sheer weight of numbers. It’s an incredible bloodbath. Epic proportions, they say. It is rumored that the Germans will sign a treaty with the French, which will enable them to evacuate both the Channel ports and Belgium in return for a nonaggression pact. That would permit them to move troops against Trotsky.”

Lansing offered brandy which Churchill accepted. England would be delighted to have Belgium and the Channel ports out of Germany’s control. It would mean no feasible threat of a cross-channel German invasion.

“And your brief war has turned military thinking on its head,” Churchill added with a knowing smile. After all, the landships, now universally called tanks, had been his idea. Or at least Churchill was taking full credit for it. “Now everyone will want tanks, and everyone also realizes that airplanes are the weapon of the future of naval warfare, and not battleships. I have it on good authority that no warship will go within flying distance of enemy land until this new weapon is figured out.”

“Which won’t take long,” Lansing said. “As you are doubtless aware, my own people are planning both antitank weapons and antiplane weapons along with bigger and stronger tanks and additional capital ships. It appears that war is a series of cycles, and damned expensive ones at that.”

America and Britain were quietly building ships that could launch and recover planes. Carriers, they were called. In the months since the German Army’s surrender, the American Army had been reduced in size from the more than a million it had reached. But Congress had already approved an increase in the standing army to two hundred thousand men and authorized increases in the various states’ National Guard units. Hopefully, there would never be a need for untrained volunteers to defend the United States. Additional budget increases had come to strengthen the Navy and the infant Air Corps.

“Where will it ever end?” Churchill sighed.

Churchill shrugged. “It won’t.”

The train pulled into the station in Seattle and a young woman got off carrying a threadbare cloth carry-bag. She was young and thin and an observer would logically conclude that the cloth bag contained all her worldly positions.

Trains coming from the east and heading in that direction were no longer a novelty. All of the bridges had either been repaired or temporary replacements had been built, and the same with the other rail lines. California was no longer isolated and transcontinental commerce was beginning anew.

Other passengers swirled around the woman, who scanned the crowd. She was nervous and tired. She’d spent almost a week sitting on a bench since she couldn’t afford Pullman accommodations. She hoped to God the trip had been worth it and that she hadn’t been stranded at a train station. Regardless, she’d needed to escape the emotional hell that her home back east had become.

Tim Randall watched cautiously. She hadn’t spotted him yet. It had taken all his nerve to invite Kathy Fenton to join him. He’d been discharged and had no plans to go back to Camden. There were too many memories and still too much guilt being laid on him by his family.

He’d been shocked and delighted when she’d responded to his telegram and agreed to come.

He walked up behind her. “Kathy?”

Startled, she wheeled and turned. She recognized him and her smile became radiant.

They embraced discreetly, timidly. She pulled apart. “Did you find us a place?”

Tim grinned. “I did and it overlooks Puget Sound.”

Kathy picked up her bag and handed it to him. “Then let’s go see it.”

“What do you think?” Marcus Tovey asked. The end of the fighting had brought an end to the need for volunteer units like his and he too had been discharged. He had no plans to go back to being a Texas Ranger. He’d had enough of guns to last a lifetime.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything flatter,” Martina said with a hint of a smile. The land north of San Antonio seemed to go on forever with only slight undulations to the ground. It was certainly nothing like the mountains of her home that formed the spine of Mexico.

“How much of it do you own?” she asked.

“Several thousand acres with options to buy more. And I’ll raise cattle on them. Beef cattle for the people out east and for the growing population of California. I’ve heard from an engineer that there might also be oil underneath the land, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes. Right now, California supplies all the oil we need.”

“That will change, Marcus. Just think of all the automobiles that are being built.”

Tovey grunted and concurred. He decided to make sure he owned the mineral rights to his property.

Martina urged her horse forward. “Do you call that a house?”

The one-story building looked dilapidated, but at least it was built of stone. “I’ll admit it needs work.”

“A lot of work if you expect me to live there, Marcus Tovey. And I will require something more than an outhouse.”

“Of course. But is it a place where you can learn to forget the past?”

She reached over and took his hand. “No. It’s a place to begin a future.”