The Second Seal

This First World War thriller, published in 1950, is one of 11 novels featuring the Duc de Richleau character. Jean Armand Duplessis, the tenth Duc de Richleau, is a French aristocrat but has been politically disgraced and is in exile. On the other side of his family, he is the Count Königstein, giving him strong connections to Austria-Hungary and to the wider German-speaking aristocracy. He’s also related on the maternal side to the Russian royal family. As a career soldier, he served in the Ottoman army during the Balkan wars and in one incident saved the life of a senior Serbian officer. He has taken British citizenship in admiration of the strong principles of the Empire. With a foot in almost every camp as the outbreak of the First World War looms, he’s sent by the British authorities to Belgrade to investigate the activities of the ultranationalist secret society, the Black Hand. He ends up trying to prevent the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. On the outbreak of war, he retained his officer’s rank in the Ottoman army, and had been offered senior military positions in Serbia, Austria and Britain. Through his Austrian role, he visits the German military headquarters in Aachen in an attempt to persuade von Moltke to move German forces from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, allowing the French and British forces to recover from the initial onslaught. Added to all of this confusion is his clandestine affair with Archduchess Ilona Theresa, granddaughter of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria.

The author, Dennis Wheatley (born 8 January 1897), grew up in London. He fought in the First World War as a lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. He dedicated this novel to “the memory of that fine soldier and friend, the late Colonel H.N. Clarke” and for “those good companions of my youth, J. Albert Davis and Douglas Gregson” and for “those other officers, N.C.O.s and men with whom I had the honour to serve in the 2nd/1st City of London Brigade R.F.A. from September 1914”. He served in Flanders from August 1917 to May 1918 before being invalided out of the war. He began writing short stories in the 1920s and his first novel, featuring the Duc de Richleau, was published in 1933.

In an early scene in the novel, the central character is in London in April 1914 and explains to a senior British official his desire to serve in the British army:
“since I am debarred from fighting for the country of my birth, I wish to fight for the country of my adoption. I arrived in England yesterday with the hope that I should be in ample time to make arrangements which would ensure my being in a post suited to my abilities when war breaks out.”
When war does break out, he’s in Vienna observing the mobilisation of troops:
“Meanwhile bodies of smiling troops swung through the streets, lustily singing gay marching songs. The great majority of them were reservists, or young conscripts, on their way to training camps, where they would spend several weeks, if not months, being knocked into shape before they were called on to face the enemy... De Richleau watched it all with unsmiling eyes. He was no pessimist by nature but ever since he had reached manhood war had been his game. He had seen too many youngsters, grinning, vigorous, determined at one moment, and screaming like maniacs from shell-rent flesh or smashed bone the next; too many still, twisted corpses and pulped, messy heads. But his own effort to prevent the colossal madness had failed.”