President Dewey was trying not to laugh. “That’s not how they teach our history in school.”
“Mister President, in my experience, history is very rarely how it gets written up in the history books.”
“I can believe that. You know there is a problem here. Governments get so set in their ways they forget they live in a narrow, self-validating clique. We could use an outside viewpoint sometimes. How advanced are these Commonwealth plans?”
“Pretty well developed although they are intensely theoretical documents. Nobody in the Commonwealth believes that they are going to stage an invasion on their own, not now. They’ve got a lot of the groundwork though. Of course, if we bring in a Commonwealth force this size, it’s going to throw the whole Overlord-Downfall question open again. The Commonwealth forces will insist on making the first strike at England, possibly with Ireland as a first step but definitely aimed at the U.K. Even if they go along with hitting France first, they’ll want a commitment to strike at the U.K. later. I’d say no more than 60 days after hitting France. That’s going to be as bad as our present plans. Another reason why we like going it alone, alliances are an entanglement.”
“No foreign entanglements rings a bell. If there are Commonwealth troops out there we can get our hands on, what about the French? They had colonial interests too.”
“Bit of a different case. They had troops, quite a few of them, in Indo-China but they got hammered during the 1941 war with Thailand and then when the Japanese occupied the rest of Indo-China. They have troops in North Africa but nothing like the resources the Commonwealth has. Anyway, the French are likely to be as demanding as the Commonwealth, they’ll demand they hit France first and go no further. They don’t like the British right now and with good reason. They were still fighting hard when Halifax folded in 1940. I’m not saying they had a chance of winning but they were still hanging on.
When Halifax signed his Armistice, they were left high and dry. If that hadn’t happened they’d probably have got better surrender terms. It was just like with the police here, the first person to fold gets the good deal.”
“Stuyvesant, I know you’re an industrialist, not a general, but I want your honest opinion. Do you think an opposed transatlantic invasion of Europe is really possible?”
Stuyvesant leaned back in his seat, appearing to calculate the balance of forces while an ironic thought passed through his mind. I must remember to tell Lillith and Naamah about the ‘industrialist, not a general’ comment. It was a good question though, was the invasion of Europe, across the Atlantic against a properly defended Europe possible? Images of the correlation of forces surged throughout his mind.
“No, Sir. It is not. We cannot transport enough troops, support them well enough or keep them fighting once they are ashore. We’ll end up with a lodgment that we are hard pushed to hold; a Russian Front in miniature. The Germans have interior lines and that’s always bad news. We can’t get at them without using the B-36. If we try to do so using that aircraft we trade away our trump card. The Big One has to succeed, Sir. It has to shatter the German ability to resist and it has to destroy their ability to move troops around. We have to deprive Germany of its interior lines of communication so that the Russian and European fronts are disconnected. Only then can we invade with a hope of success. That’s assuming Germany keeps fighting after The Big One. All I can hope for is that the Germans see sense and surrender.
“That’ll mean us just keeping order as the Europeans sort themselves out. I hope that’s all we have to do.”
Dewey looked at the huge map on the wall of the conference room. “It would be so much easier if the Germans do see sense after The Big One. Will they?”
“Sir, one of my staff has some suggestions along those lines. Could I impose upon you to listen to her ideas?”
The President grinned quietly to himself. The number of women high up in the Economic Intelligence and Warfare Committee had caused a lot of comment. Oh, sure, women were in the war effort, working in the shipyards and aircraft factories and doing office work for the armed forces. A few were even flying aircraft, delivering them to units, but the number of woman in senior management was infinitesimal. Except in the EIWC where they seemed to be everywhere. That had caused some snide comments around Washington. As EIWC had gained power and influence, they’d waned. “Certainly. Ask her to come in.” The President knew Stuyvesant well enough to guess that the ‘member of his staff was sitting outside, waiting.
Stuyvesant picked up the phone and buzzed reception. “Nell, step inside for a few minutes will you?”
Dewey looked at the red-head with pleasure and a certain element of relief. Stuyvesant had two red-heads on his staff. This was the one that didn’t terrify people.
“Mister President, may I introduce Eleanor Gwynne, she runs the section of the EIWC that is responsible for gathering economic and production data from the U.K.”
“Mister President, as part of my duties, I gather information from the British Resistance concerning the forces in the U.K. and their readiness status. Over the last few months an interesting pattern has started to emerge. It appears that the a substantial number of the troops in Britain are no longer German but British. Even units that are nominally German contain a large number of conscripted British personnel, with the German elements acting as stiffening and reinforcement. For example, in a panzer-grenadier platoon with four half-tracks and infantry, the command track and two of the infantry tracks will be German, the other one will be British. The two British SS divisions are, of course, wholly made of British troops. This pattern … “
Nell spoke quietly and in detail for almost twenty minutes, running through orders of battle, morale levels, force structures and the effects of Russian front casualties on the German units. “So, Mister President, we can only see this trend continuing. If we invade, these units will fight and probably fight hard. Their German corseting will see to that. But, it is likely that, once The Big One is launched, a well-constructed, well-broadcast radio message, sent by people the British trust, Churchill and their King, will have a very good chance of causing the “German” units in the U.K. to lay down their arms. If that happens in the U.K., it is likely that the example will be seen and adopted in other countries. Ireland is a different case of course, given what has been happening there. There’s no way the SS and Partizanjaegers there will surrender. Now would we want them to. There must be an accounting for what those people have done.”
“How would we transmit such a message? We couldn’t put it out over the BBC.” President Dewey was fascinated by the concept.
“We’re exploring that now. We would have to put it out over German radio frequencies. There are a number of options for doing so, all very low cost in terms of assets. Mister President, this option costs us but little and offers significant gains. Perhaps, at the appropriate time you could raise it with the King and Mister Churchill?”
“If it avoids civil war and reduces the fighting, yes, of course.” Dewey noticed Nell’s lips moving and though he had missed something she’d said. “I’m sorry, you hadn’t finished?”
“I was just thinking Mister President, of a previous civil war in England, between King Stephen and the Empress Maud. Neither side could win so both devastated the countryside to starve the other out. Of course, it was the common people who starved, not the nobles. People said it was a time when God and his angels slept. We could apply that description to the world today.”