Gossip from the Forest by Thomas Keneally

First published: 1975

Type of work: Historical chronicle

Time of work: November, 1918

Locale: Berlin, Germany, and Compiegne, France

Principal Characters:

• Matthias Erzberger, a German politician and the leader of the German peace delegation
• Marshall Foch, the leader of the Allied delegation
• Maxime Weygand, Foch’s Chief of Staff, a member of the Allied delegation
• Count Alfred Maiberling, a friend of Matthias Erzberger and a member of the German delegation
• Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss, a British member of the Allied delegation
• General Detlev von Winterfeldt, a member of the German delegation who is married to a Frenchwoman

The Novel

In the autumn of 1918, the war started to go very badly for Germany and her allies. Not only were they beginning to be defeated in the field, but also the armed forces were refusing to obey orders and alarming acts of rebellion with Socialist and Communist overtones were erupting throughout the country. The end was drawing near, and steps were being taken to provide for the belated abdication of the Kaiser and the peaceful transition of power to a republican government. A cease-fire had to be arranged quickly, not only to save lives on both sides but also to halt the complete disintegration of the German state.

This novel, based loosely on the historical record, traces the Germans’ journey through the lines of battle to the conference the preparation of the two delegations, and their meetings in a railway carriage in a forest clearing near the town of Compiegne, a few miles north of Paris.

The delegations, surprisingly small, and narrow in their representative range, are what interest Thomas Keneally most. The Allied group is thoroughly dominated by its chairman, the French Marshall Foch, who is confident that he can “will” the Germans to accept severe terms. He is accompanied by Maxime Weygand, who is hardly more than a messenger boy for Foch, and by two English naval officers, Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss and Hope, who are intent on one thing: destroying the German army.

The German quartet is somewhat more colorful. Matthias Erzberger, their leader, is not a military man but a politician who has been trying to get Germany out of the war for some time, and he sees his appointment as a punishment for his failure to support the war effort. He will bear the stigma of having signed away Germany’s freedom. His delegation is not much help. Count Alfred Maiberling, a last-minute substitute, is a self-pitying drunk and looks as if he is having a breakdown. General Detlev von Winterfeldt, who is suspect in his own profession because of his marriage to a Frenchwoman and his affection for France, thinks that he can, with his intimate knowledge of the French sensibility and his skill in the French language, win concessions from the Allies, and he is determined to play a central part in the negotiations. The naval representative, Vaneslow, is deeply distressed, knowing instinctively that the German military and merchant fleet will be a prime target of the Allies in settling terms for the treaty.

The chaos of their nation, reeling on the edge of political and social anarchy, makes everything difficult for the German group, and its leader, Erzberger, is in constant fear that if their mission is known, they may be assassinated before they reach France. His recurring dream of defending himself from gunmen with an umbrella does not make things easier for him; moreover, the fractious nature of his committee, their difficulties in simply getting through the lines, and the cool reception they meet suggest that things will go badly. In the minds and dreams of all the German participants, they are on a mission which is likely to prove disastrous.

The Allies have similar doubts and suspicions, but they, at least, are in the position of power, and their struggle lies in their variant ideas on how much pain and unmitigated punishment can be imposed on the Germans as well as on the question of who is to rule at the conference table. The British pair, Wemyss and Hope, do not entirely trust Foch, and the French, in turn, make it clear that they consider the British presence to be superfluous. Foch intends to force formidable terms down the Germans’ throats, and he does, satisfying the British demands at the same time.

Some minor adjustments are made to the swinging demands for reparations, but they are hardly sufficient to meet the German plea (and warning) that the obligations forced upon them will destroy any chance of Germany’s recovery from the ravages of war. The Allies, shortsightedly, reject any consideration of the long view; the treaty makers, who will formalize the terms later (at Versailles), can worry about that problem. The Germans sign, aware of the fact that they have no choice and also that they will hardly be received at home with much honor.

Erzberger resumes his political career, but his nightmare with the umbrella will eventually come true.

The Characters

This novel is a combination of three forms: fictional narrative, documentary, and drama, with the occasional intrusions of a fulsome, theatrical interlocutor who has a hand in shaping an ironic point of view.

The characters are less important than the nature of the action, perhaps not surprisingly so, given the historical importance of the signing of the cease-fire agreement in November of 1918. That event, however, is seen in the context of the personalities involved, and Keneally has used biographical materials from the real lives of the participants as well as fictional embellishments on the same to flesh out the dramatic implications of the brief, chilly confrontation which was to end World War I.

Most of the characters function within the ambit of stock typology, but Keneally allows them, through the use of personal rumination and dreams, to be modestly individual within their functions as representatives of the military and political sensibilities. Count Maiberling, for example, has a thrusting, lively personality which is interesting in itself, and his friendship with Erzberger goes beyond any use that is made of it in the workings of the German peace delegation.

Erzberger is the most obvious exception to stock characterization. Coming from modest peasant stock and having established a reputation for second-guessing the mad chauvinism which has pitched Germany into the tragic mess of the war, he is always aware of his singularity, always questioning his right to be in command, and constantly nagged, waking and sleeping, by the fact that he may have fallen into a trap laid for him by the old ruling classes of Germany who are using him to do the dirty work. Much of the novel is committed to his point of view, his anguish and uncertainty. If Maiberling reveals the suicidal aspect of the German dilemma, Erzberger is used to explore the conscience of the common man cleaning up, as best he can, after the carnage of the military disaster, the last grand gesture of the old classridden Junker Germany—or so Erzberger hopes.

There is similar density in the portrait of Foch, though his character is less fully explored. Foch is the mystic theorist of the French military, jeered at by many for his metaphysical musings, his intellectual approach to battle, and his violent quarrels with the politicians. He is revealed as a vivid example of the obsessed military ego, acting out the fitting role of a punishing Jehovah, deaf to pleas for forgiveness, and seeing his role as the vindication of his entire career.

Critical Context

An Australian by birth, Keneally, whose career began at home and who has continued to live in and to write extensively about Australia, has on several occasions written novels which explore non-Australian themes. Among these are some which are directly or indirectly based upon historical events. Keneally often employs the historical novel, a genre which has a rather dubious reputation, as a vehicle for exploring serious themes with considerable aesthetic care. He has written a novel about Joan of Arc (Blood Red, Sister Rose, 1974) and another about the American Civil War (Confederates, 1980), and he has won the important Booker Prize for Schindler’s Ark (1982; retitled Schindler’s List in the United States), a carefully researched novel about the perverse exploits of a German national who saved the lives of Jewish workers during World War II.

Keneally’s use of history, if in a fictional setting, is usually as accurate as he can make it, given the exigencies of the fictional form, and Gossip from the Forest can bear close investigation in its use of the facts and its portrayal of the actual participants in the Compiegne meetings. Only Maiberling is entirely fictional. Count Alfred von Oberndorff was, in fact, the fourth principal in the treaty affair, and he appeared in the British edition of the book, but there was an objection raised by the surviving Oberndorff family to the portrayal of the man, for which Keneally apologized in a letter in The Times Literary Supplement. He did, however, claim that the representations of Erzberger, Foch, Weygand, and others were accurate and that the flaws in the Oberndorff portrayal were caused by a lack of accessible research material.

Bibliography

Burns, D. R. The Direction of Australian Fiction: 1920-1974, 1975.

Burns, Robert. “Out of Context: A Study of Thomas Keneally’s Novels,” in Australian Literary Studies. IV (1969), pp. 31-48.

Geering, R. G. Recent Fiction, 1974.

Keneally, Thomas. “Doing Research for Historical Novels,” in Australian Author. VII, no. 1(1975).