Thomas Pynchon's V. (1963)
Read Professor Irwin Corey's acceptance speech for Pynchon's 1974 National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow.
Also, have a look at Douglas Kløvedal Lannark's exhaustive documenting of "love" in Gravity's Rainbow.
Waterberg
The Herero uprising began in January 1903. By late spring the German forces had failed to quell the revolt and had been beaten by the Hereros, led by Samuel Maharero, in numerous skirmishes. As Bridgman states:
"As a first step in righting the boat, the general staff decided that Leutwein must go. After his repeated defeats it was clear to everyone that he lacked the ruthlessness, the military acumen, and the will necessary to bring the war to a rapid and successful conclusion. To replace Leutwein the general staff selected General von Trotha, a seasoned colonial fighter who had won a reputation for ferocity in German East Africa a decade before. In entrusting von Trotha with the task, the emperor was careful not to limit his freedom of action by any specific instruction or directives. 'His Majesty the Emperor and King only said to me that he expected that I would crush the uprising with any means necessary and then inform him of the reasons for the uprising'; thus von Trotha explained his commission to Leutwein. 'I know the tribes of Africa,' he continued. 'They are all alike. They only respond to force was and is my policy to use force with terrorism and even brutality. I shall annihilate the revolting tribes with streams of blood and streams of gold. Only after a complete uprooting will something emerge.'" (pp.111-12)
Von Trotha arrived on June 13, 1904 and, on June 16, 1904, held his first interview with Leutwein. Leutwein wanted amnesty for the Hereros if they surrendered, but von Trotha would have none of it. "I said at once that in principle I was against such a means of handling the uprising and that such a procedure ran completely counter to the intentions of His Majesty," von Trotha wrote of Leutwein's approach.
The Hereros had withdrawn their forces to Waterberg, about 150 miles north of Windhoek. Through June and July 1904, the Germans gathered their forces and slowly surrounded the Hereros encampments. Finally, on August 11, 1904, the Hereros, after several skirmishes, realized they were surrounded and that their options were limited. According to Bridgman,
"Not only were there strong enemy forces in their rear, but German artillery was taking a terrible toll of the densely packed rear area where more than 50,000 men, women, and children and perhaps as many cattle were compressed into a rectangle only 5 miles wide and 10 miles long. Samuel and his chiefs decided that further resistance was futile and therefore gave orders to break out at any cost. The panic-stricken Herero masses followed the path of least resistance, which was to the southeast. [...] No attempt was made to stop the escaping Hereros nor were they harassed. [...] As long as they moved in an easterly direction toward the desert they were unmolested." (p.124)
[...]
"[One observer wrote:] Everywhere there were numerous cattle left behind in their haste--and cattle are sacred to the Hereros--as evidence of the hysterical flight. [...] Numerous blankets, jewelry, whole cases of feathers were strewn about. . .the whole national wealth of the Hereros lay on those roads. . .The general [von Trotha] forbade the killing of women and children but all armed men who were captured soon met their fate. A fearful punishment rained down upon the Hereros; they will never recover from it. (p.125)
[...]
"The German troops, despite von Trotha's orders, went on an orgy of bloodletting when they broke into the Herero camps, killing men, women, and children indiscriminately. One Hendrik Campbell, who commanded a unit of the native troops, said under oath: 'When the fight was over, we discovered eight or nine sick Herero women who had been left behind. Some of them were blind. They had water and food. The German soldiers burned them alive in the huts in which they lay.' [...] A Berg Damara leader who had fought with the Germans also testifying under oath said that 'We hesitated to kill Herero women and children, but the Germans spared no one. They killed thousands and thousands.'" (p.126)
The Germans would not let the Hereros come back from the desert, establishing a series of heavily armed camps along the edge of the desert.
"Far out into the desert wastes, the Hereros were frantically searching for water. [...] The trails through the desert were littered with hundreds of carcasses." (p.127)
On October 2, 1904, von Trotha promulgated his famous Schrecklichkeit order, basically a shoot-on-sight order, in an attempt to stamp out the last embers of the revolt before the end of the year. Leutwein disapproved of this method. By late December 1904, it had been reduced to:
"Those Hereros who surrendered would not be shot [...] but they were to be chained, used for forced labor, branded with the letters GH (gefangene Herero), and any who refused to reveal the whereabouts of weapons caches were to be shot out of hand. [...] When the new policy went into effect in the beginning of 1905 the Herero revolt, or what was left of it, quickly flickered out." (p.131)
