Otherwise it is to be postponed until May 1941.”
Even as Goering launched his air force at Britain on “Eagle Day” in August of 1940, Raeder continued to advocate strongly for a second alternative, a way to defeat Great Britain by taking a more indirect approach through the Mediterranean. “Take Gibraltar, Malta and the Suez Canal, and you have all but destroyed the British Empire outside the UK. What good are their colonies in the Indian Ocean when they are completely isolated? Then we have a direct link to the Oil from Orenburg. It can flow through the Bosporus to ports in Southern France and Italy, and once these routes are established, all the resources we need will be in hand. Then Soviet Russia will have no option but to sue for peace, or to join the Axis as Orenburg has done.”
“Yes,” Hitler agreed, “But remember this as well- Britain’s hope lies in Russia and the United States. With Russia smashed, Britain’s last hope in Europe would be shattered. Germany then will be master of Europe and the Balkans. Russia’s destruction must therefore be made a part of this struggle. The sooner Russia is crushed the better, and the Spring of 1941 would be the time to begin. Can this operation against Gibraltar be completed before then?”
“It could be launched this winter, my Fuhrer, assuming Franco agrees. All that would be required would be a few divisions, yet the fruit such a victory returns in the harvest will be considerable. How many divisions will be necessary for the struggle against Soviet Russia? How long before we have a clear decision there, and secure rail and sea connections to the Orenburg Federation? Your Generals tell you three months, but I think it will be very much longer.”
“And you tell me three months will take me all the way to the Suez, Raeder. Can I believe you any more than Jodl?”
“Take Gibraltar first, and watch the dominoes fall, my Fuhrer. I am certain of it.”
It was a compelling argument, and one that Hitler began to show more and more interest in, particularly when Jodl and others began to look on it with more favor when it became evident that Goering could not deliver on his promise to smash the R.A.F. The incredible sacrifice of the British fighters in their stalwart duel with the Luftwaffe would finally put an end to Hitler’s dream of Operation Seelowe. Hitler told Halder to continue the planning, but as nothing more than a deception to keep psychological pressure on the British. Now his thoughts turned south to Gibraltar.
A British fortress since the early 18th century, ‘the Rock’ was a bastion of Royal Navy sea power and the crucial link between her Atlantic and Mediterranean forces. If the Germans could capture it they would gain a commanding position from which to influence both naval theaters, along with a deep water port that could hold and service all their biggest ships. There was no comparable port on the Atlantic French coast, and the capture of Gibraltar would drive a wedge of steel into the heart of the Royal Navy.
Hitler listened, seeing the opportunity but yet hesitating for two reasons. What would Britain do in reprisal? Would they seek to mount an amphibious operation through Portugal? Would they land in Morocco or French West Africa? The head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, had argued just that, but when Goering saw how he attempted to persuade the Spanish Foreign Minister to discourage the plan against Gibraltar, he took steps to intervene. Canaris was seen to be the obstructionist he was, and his influence was minimized by an unexpected troika of all three arms of the German military, Raeder, Goering and Jodl.
OKW finally agreed. Before anything was decided about the East, the West should be held secure. Now that Italy had also joined the war on Germany’s side, it might be possible to drive the British from North Africa, Egypt, and isolate them from their colonies in the Middle East and India. The British Empire would be broken in two, and crumble.
Hitler decided the matter. He was the planner that would unhinge all other plans and force his will on the world, or so he believed. The war in the West would now supersede his plans for the invasion of Russia. France was already courting alliance, and only Spain and Portugal remained holdouts on the continent. Detailed plans for the operation against Gibraltar had been drawn up and completed by the Wehrmacht ahead of schedule, and soon they were personally signed by Hitler.
Now there was only one question: Would Franco cooperate?
Preliminary negotiations were underway at that very moment. Franco’s list of demands had run on and on. He worried over British reprisals should he join the Axis, a blockade or possibly even an invasion on his Atlantic coast. He suggested that any German troops involved would have to wear Spanish Army uniforms as a point of honor. He asked for thousands of tons of wheat and other resources to feed his shattered state. He fretted over the possibility that the United States would shut down their extensive Telecom system in Spain. In the end Hitler became so frustrated with the man that he exclaimed he would rather have a tooth pulled than speak with him again.
Urged on by Raeder, Hitler had agreed to this one final meeting on the Franco-Spanish border to secure Spain’s cooperation. If those negotiations failed, Barbarossa was still sitting quietly in his back pocket. The only obstacle to Raeder’s plan was Franco’s Spain. Would he join the Axis, or at the very least cooperate with Germany in the initial phase of the Mediterranean campaign?
Ever equivocating, and a master of playing one side off against another, Franco was proving to be a difficult fish to haul in. Canaris also seemed to be quietly undermining the effort to move Operation Felix along, suggesting that Franco, and Spain itself would be a shaky and unreliable partner. At Raeder’s urging, Hitler agreed to meet with Franco and his foreign minister to see for himself if the man could be relied upon, and then persuaded to cooperate with the plan.
Hitler knew what Franco wanted, nominal administrative control over Gibraltar after it fell to German hands, military and economic aid, a slice of the French colonies in Tangiers and French Morocco across the straits. All this could be arranged, for without Spain, the Gibraltar operation was as problematic as Operation Seelowe, and Hitler always had Barbarossa if Franco proved to be adamant.
Yet none of that mattered, really. Things had already been quietly decided by another man, witless, unknowing, yet slowly tightening a screw on the hinge of fate that would soon decide the future course of the war.
Chapter 18
Hitler’s train pulled into the little railway station at Hendaye, the rain still pattering on the roof as it came to a halt. No one imagined that a rainy day in Spain was threatening to make an end of all these plans and devices; all these directives and negotiations. No one knew how it had been foiled. In fact, in the history Fedorov knew, the rain prevailed, just as it might have here if not for the diligence of one simple man the previous day.
He was not one of the negotiators. There were no medals on his chest or titles attached to his name. He was not one of the planners, scheming and brooding over maps. No. Juan Alfonso was just a simple janitor, last man on the shift the night before the meeting in Madrid. He was supposed to make all the final checks, working through the train car by car to see that all was in order, for this was no ordinary train.
The following morning the Caudillo himself, Francisco Franco, would be riding in this train, along with Foreign Affairs Minister Ramon Serrano Suner. They would travel to Hendaye on the Franco-Spanish border for a secret meeting with the Fuhrer of Germany, Adolf Hitler himself, and his own Foreign Affairs Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. There the two sides were set to negotiate the possible entry of Spain into the war on the side of the Axis powers, a stroke that would have grave implications for the entire course of the war.