From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 42)
I have been watching the nervous twitching of our government as it attempts to befriend Herr Hitler. I can tell them now, it won’t work. This is not because I retain any particular antipathy towards the German people for the last conflict. I may loathe and abhor their leaders and the men whose naked ambition led us into the Great War, but I make a distinction between them and civilians, and even ordinary soldiers.
The Great War was meant to be the war that ended all wars. But did we learn from it? Hardly. The dust had barely settled before we determined to take every ounce of flesh we could out of a cowed and defeated country. The treaty of Versailles, as I have said till I’m blue in the face, was an act of despicable vengeance. It’s hardly surprising that when a decent orator came along that promised a new Germany, it began, like a Phoenix, to rise from the ashes, brighter, braver and bolder than ever.
I hear reports coming out of the country, and I advise strongly that we do not sue for peace. I advise we fight. Indeed, I am making myself extremely unpopular politically by holding fast to my opinion. There have been a number of pointed comments made that as I was never in the trenches I do not understand the true brutality of the last war. I have even been called blood-thirsty and ruthless. Which is ironic as I am actually, at heart, a pacifist. But I am a pragmatic one. There are times when one has to set aside one’s dislike of the taking of life in order to preserve life. Hitler and his cronies are not merely dangerously ambitious - far more so that the Kaiser ever was – but they come close to the very embodiment of evil.
I’m not a religious man (I doubt I could do what I do if I was), but the Nazi party are unlike anything seen before. There is a twisted, arcane doctrine within Hitler’s inner group, but even throughout the party in general there is a belief that all should bow before the Aryan people. One cannot help wondering if they noticed that their great leader is short, dark haired and as far from the Aryan concept of their Ubermensch as a bucket of Scarborough sand is to the golden beaches of the French Riviera? Still, besotted devotion is a marker for blind obedience. Since the party came to power in ’33, six years ago, they have gathered a stranglehold on their nation, such that no one dares to disobey them. It’s far easier to close their eyes or simply look away. The Youth Party is even indoctrinating the young into their particularly unpleasant beliefs.
I am therefore setting my house in order. I believe this will be a very different type of war and it will require different tactics. That said, I am gathering my people around me. I have the luxury of having been in the game longer than most, and the foresight, through my contacts, old and new, to have some sense of what is coming. Frustratingly, before this war begins, I must fight my own war to secure my department. Euphemia is, of course, naturally onside with me. We have been discussing how she will deal with Bertram’s increasing invalidism. I intend her to handle a number of agents for me, and to also aid in training, as well as her continuing role of analysing incoming material. Of late, in our discussions, I have heard her horror as she too sees what is coming, but I have also heard a return to the old Euphemia. She is like a waking lioness, ready to show her claws and teeth in defence of her country.
The question of what to do with Hope troubles us both. We feel she is far too naïve and unskilled to be sent abroad. However, she is smart, and like everyone, she will need to do her bit. The best that Euphemia and I can think of at present is that she be sent into one of the embryonic ‘new ideas’ departments. It’s a bit of a gamble as we have no idea what these may evolve into, but hopefully it will keep her from being deployed behind enemy lines. Although, in the end, if she must enter into the foray, we both know we have to let her. It will be no more than others are doing with their sons and daughters - and I have always thought of Hope as my own. I am not sure Bertram will be able to bear it. Euphemia will show no distress, but of all of us, she will be the one that hurts the most.
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