“Certainly not. What good would it do there? No. Leave it right where it is, in the belly of a fast armored battlecruiser. I want you to refuel today, and then tonight you steam for Gibraltar. From there you will move to Toulon the following night, and I have arrange a heavy escort for you the whole way. From Toulon, we’ll put that rocket on a fast train to Germany. Well done, Kapitan Heinrich. Let us hope the Goeben gets through as well, and Kormoran with that prize ship. The more, the merrier. Now then, let us meet over dinner to discuss this mission. I want to hear your entire report.”
Heinrich smiled. He was holding a plain leather brief, and inside it he had placed many of the papers and logs his crew had taken from that strange American ship, and the most unusual magazine he had shared with Kapitan Detmers. It was going to make for very interesting dinner conversation, to say the least.
Part III
Too Many Cooks
“Too many cooks will spoil the broth.”
Chapter 7
Plan Orient was dead. It had been little more than a dream, to sweep into Syria, down through Palestine and possibly into Iraq, taking the oil fields at Baba Gugur in the process and then thinking to link up with Orenburg through a friendly leaning Iran. That was not going to happen now, but Admiral Raeder’s daring Operation Condor had been trying to resurrect some advantage from the capture of Gibraltar, and revitalize Rommel’s position in Libya.
They had tried to move into the Middle East, but the British Operation Scimitar had fought the Franco-German axis to a standstill in Syria and Lebanon. Hitler had authorized just enough force to stabilize the French, but it soon became clear that to achieve any real victory there, that force would have to be dramatically augmented. Halder insisted that any real offensive aimed at rolling back the British would require another three divisions at bare minimum, and five to seven to assure success.
“And suppose we do retake Damascus,” he argued. “Then what? Do you honestly propose we should continue on through that desert into Iraq? That is where the British will be, and they can fall back and consolidate there indefinitely, always on our flank if we go for Egypt. Do we then plan a major operation in Iraq? To do so we will have to first drive them out of the north, take Mosul, Erbil and Kirkuk, and then push on to capture Baghdad. After that we will have to pursue them all the way south to Basra.”
“What about the oil fields at Baba Gugur?” Raeder had argued.
“Suppose we were sitting on them today?” said Halder. “How do you propose we move any of that oil to Germany? They can move the oil by sea out of Basra—we cannot. It will have to be trucked over 600 miles to ports in northern Syria and then another 700 miles to Athens by sea, always at risk. The only other option is to move it over that antiquated rail system in Turkey. Barbarossa could link up with Orenburg in the Caucasus in three months, and then, with command of the Black Sea, we can move all the oil he controls easily to ports in Rumania and Bulgaria. That is the oil we should set our minds on obtaining, not this nonsensical adventure in the Middle East.”
“And what if those troops were turned south into Palestine instead?” Hitler’s eyes played over the map.
“It will need at least three divisions driving down the coast from Beirut, four or five to push through Damascus to Amman and Jerusalem. That is a bare minimum, and then we would also have to cover that wide open flank all the way to the Turkish frontier, because the British can move troops by sea to Iraq. That would require another three divisions, possibly more, and they would all have to rely on supply lines through Turkey, and anything else we manage to deliver by sea to northern Syria, which would then be trucked hundreds of miles inland. See the difficulties? What you must do here, my Führer, is make a major commitment to open this new front and sustain it indefinitely. And bear in mind that these troops will have to be mechanized—high caliber divisions. You must either commit the force necessary to smash the British, or face a long drawn out campaign that will become nothing more than a fruitless holding action, just like we have in North Africa. And bear in mind, all these troops will have to be taken from the southern wing in Barbarossa.”
At that Hitler had taken a long breath, quietly shaking his head. He was simply not willing to compromise the long standing plans for Barbarossa. He had listened to Raeder, given him the benefit of every doubt, but the operations had only handed him a stalemate, in both North Africa and Syria. He decided.
“The plans and troop allocations for Barbarossa will not be disturbed. I can see this adventure in the Middle East is entirely fruitless. Make arrangements to withdraw Steiner’s troops for Barbarossa. As for the Mountain Division, send it to Rommel. The 22nd Luftland Division and other airborne troops will be returned to the General Reserve.”
That spelled the end of Plan Orient, which had really been little more than a dream in Hitler’s mind all along, urged on by Raeder’s whispered promises. His fixation with the necessity of destroying the Soviet State was now uppermost in his mind, and Barbarossa was launched on schedule.
The withdrawal of German support led to a quick collapse of French resistance in Syria and Lebanon. They were forced to abandon Beirut, withdrawing north while they still had German support, and consolidating their entire force to hold Northern Syria from Homs to Aleppo. The British pushed up the Euphrates as far as Ar Raqqah, and then occupied Palmyra astride their vital pipeline route to the coast. They were able to advance as far as Tripoli on the coast, but then their eyes strayed to the Libyan Desert, largely at Churchill’s urging after Rommel nearly stormed Tobruk.
The British Operation Crusader had been the first major attempt to push Rommel back, but it had also ended in a stalemate. The British tank losses would take some time to replenish, and the new cruiser tanks they had fielded proved completely unreliable. A lull descended on the desert campaign, with neither side able to take offensive operations with any real prospect of success. In this vacuum, Japan’s dramatic entry into the war commanded the attention of Western planners, but then, Germany’s surprising Operation Condor was launched, using some of the very same troops that had been committed to the ill fated Syrian operation.
Raeder had managed to convince Hitler that a Reichspfening spent here could make a Reichsmark in due course with the capture of the Canary Islands. His arguments as to how this would cut the British supply lines to Egypt and enhance the U-Boat campaign finally fell on good ground, and Hitler approved the operation in January of 1942.
The Germans had made a daring attack, leaping from bases and airfields on the African coast to attack the island of Fuerteventura. The arrival of Force H and Home fleet mustered the bulk of the Royal Navy to make a bold attempt to sever the sea communications in the channel between the islands and mainland Africa. It resulted in the largest naval engagement of the war, with the Franco-German fleet going head to head with the Royal Navy in a desperate and costly battle. Good ships and good men were lost on both sides, including the loss of Admiral Volsky, who gave his last breath at the wheel as he struggled to steer HMS Invincible to safe waters. His sacrifice had already saved Tovey, and ended up saving that ship, but the cost was his own life, a hard blow when the news finally came to Fedorov. In the end, it was a matter of logistics that eventually compelled the British fleet to withdraw north to Madeira and the Azores for refueling.