“They’ll be on their way,” Rommel said, shortly. “At most, you’ll have to hold the port for two hours before the reinforcements arrive and start to unload.”
Baeck’s father had served with Rommel and had spoken highly of him in the past. If Rommel said that something could be done, then it could be done, but Baeck knew that it was going to be tricky; street fighting was dreaded by all soldiers just because it could cut down the advantages of training and weaponry to the bare minimum. The British Home Guard wasn’t regarded highly by German observers, but if they counter-attacked swiftly enough to keep most of his force penned up in the ship, they would be defeated rapidly enough to ensure that the British would meet the reinforcements from a position of strength. If that happened, then the invasion would almost certainly fail.
“We’re going to have to run drills,” he said, thoughtfully. “We’ll need a second ship like the Hans Bader, one with the same design, but maybe altered inside to allow for quick unloading under fire, and then run more drills on it. It’s going to be tricky, but it can be done…”
He paused. “Are you going to be coming on the mission?”
“The British will expect to see me,” Kapitän zur See Wulff said, and Baeck saw the naval officer he had once been in his stance. Hell, technically, he was still a naval officer; how long had the invasion plans been maturing? “If there was someone else in command of the ship, they might want to go through more careful checks, just in case. They know me and I bring them some smuggled goods from the continent.”
Baeck lifted an eyebrow. “French wines, mostly,” Wulff admitted. “They sell for a great deal of money in Britain and the customs inspectors have a little business going on the side.”
“Which lets you get into their confidence,” Baeck agreed, smiling. Humans, British or German, were all the same; they were always watching out for the main chance to better themselves. “Are there any other issues that we should be aware of before we start planning?”
“The timing issue,” Rommel said, shortly. “There are other operations being planned, some of them much more drastic, and if you’re not in position by the correct time, the British may refuse to allow you to dock. If that happens, the first part of the invasion plan will fall apart and we’ll have to make a landing onto a beach instead.”
Baeck shuddered. He’d taken part in a drill on several Baltic islands and discovered that landing a large force without a port was very difficult, much harder than anyone had made it seem before they had actually tried it. The results of the first drill had been disastrous, with seventeen fatal accidents in the test, even without live ammunition being issued. The idea of a forced landing under enemy fire chilled his blood; if the British had a unit dug in on the beach, they’d tear his force to ribbons.
“I understand,” Baeck said, seriously. He glanced over at Wulff; they were going to have to work together just to ensure that they got across the Channel without arousing the slightest amount of suspicion. They might have to tear the Hans Bader apart to ensure that the soldiers could disembark quickly and efficiently, but if that weren’t done perfectly, the ship would never sail again. “We won’t fail you, Herr Feldmarschall.”
Chapter Five
London, England
Alex DeRiemer found himself distracted the moment he walked into Ten Downing Street, recognising at once that he was standing in a monument to British history. Ten Downing Street wasn’t as impressive as some of the world’s governing centres, not the White House, or the Reichstag, or the Kremlin before Hitler’s bulldozers had moved in and ground it to dust. However it was still the centre of an empire upon which the sun was supposed never to set.
But that sun was setting, DeRiemer knew. The men he was supposed to be briefing were the men who were presiding over the dissolution of the British Empire.
The pressure of having the Reich on the other side of the Channel and the growing independence movement in India had had their effects on the Prime Minister. India, in particular, would be independent in five years, maybe less.
“It strikes everyone that way,” Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies said, as they walked up the stairs and into the Cabinet Room. Menzies had asked DeRiemer to come in person to brief the Cabinet, but DeRiemer suspected that they weren’t going to listen to him; he was too junior for any of them to take seriously. “This building has never been replaced by anything else, not even abandoned for a few weeks after a bombing attack; this place is history.”
“Good luck,” he said, as the door opened, revealing the Cabinet and a handful of other advisors. DeRiemer felt his heart beating faster as he entered the room and took up position near one end of the table. The man at the other end of the table gave him a reassuring smile. The Prime Minister was surprisingly popular with the rank and file, but not always popular with his own people; he presided over a coalition government with the Conservatives, who held nearly half the important seats on the Cabinet. Neither side had been able to win a decisive victory in the recent election, and Atlee had decided to continue with the coalition rather than accept a lame duck government or, worse, a permanent stalemate.
His gaze flickered around the room, seeing some familiar faces and others who were hardly known outside the government. Anthony Eden, Leader of the Conservative Party and Deputy Prime Minister. Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Halifax, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs — he’d never win an election, not without a more popular patron and everyone else in the race dying. His betrayal of Churchill meant that without Atlee, he was nothing. No one really trusted him. James Chuter Ede, the Home Secretary, Stafford Cripps, Secretary of State for India and Burma; he was the man who had worked out the agreement that would make India independent…
And, finally, Sir Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill looked older now, but his eyes were as bright as ever. Those eyes met DeRiemer’s own long enough to judge him, nod in approval, and turn away to watch Atlee like a hooded snake waiting to strike. The tension in the room was a malignant presence. DeRiemer had been warned several times to stay out of the power struggle at the heart of the British government. Churchill had never forgiven his own party for conspiring against him back in 1943 when they’d forced through a peace with Germany, a peace that DeRiemer suspected was about to shatter.
“This meeting of the Cabinet is called to order,” Atlee said, shortly. He nodded over at a secretary who would record the minutes. “Sir Stewart, I believe that you insisted on holding this meeting.”
Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies stood up. “Yes, Prime Minister,” he said. He nodded to DeRiemer. “This young man was charged with collecting information regarding the various German units that were displayed at their recent Victory Day parade in Germany and the smaller parades that took place in various other cities in the Reich including Paris and Moscow. He has uncovered an interesting amount of information.”
Atlee’s gaze swung around to meet DeRiemer’s eyes. “Very well,” he said, sounding tired. The Cabinet was forever divided on the subject of Nazi Germany with Churchill calling for increased preparations for a war he saw as inevitable and Lord Halifax calling for peace at any price. “You may begin.”
DeRiemer tapped the map on the wall. “My department was charged with monitoring the development, growth, and operations of the Germany military machine,” he said, carefully. “We suspected from the end of the war that Hitler would eventually decide to turn his attention back to Britain and attempt an invasion. With this in mind, we created an intelligence web running through the Reich and the Reich’s allies to monitor the German preparations.”
He paused. “At the end of the war in Russia, Hitler continued to expand his army, but with an increased focus on counterinsurgency,” he continued. “Although Beria’s forces were defeated and he was forced into submission to the Reich — with his government effectively a caretaker government until the Reich took over — the Russian partisans refused to give up the fight and continued to fight
the Germans. They, in return, deployed upwards of one hundred and fifty infantry divisions into the area and hunted the partisans down through brute force and developing their own intelligence networks.”
He wondered how he could explain it to them. The forced relocations, the enslavement of entire cities and villages, the use of forced labour everywhere across the Reich. The massive autobahns the Reich was so proud of, stretching all the way to Iran, or Japanese-held territory in the Far East, had been built with slave labour and millions of deaths. The average German family had more than enough to eat, but much of that food came from plantations in the east, each one working its slaves to death to grow the food. It made him wonder, late at night; did the Germans know what was being done in their name?
“The remaining fifty divisions — Hitler was determined on two hundred divisions as a permanent force — remained as armoured and motorized infantry, with a handful of specialist units,” DeRiemer continued. “The Germans shook their fists at Switzerland a few times, and threatened Turkey when the Turks started providing sanctuary to Jews and other refugees from the German war machine, but the main area of concern for those units was the remains of Russia. Hitler didn’t trust Beria and… well, he wanted to take over the remaining Russian landscape once he had finished absorbing the territory he took in the last war. This ensured that the Nazis would be supreme on the continent and would maintain a viable fighting force if we ever tried a landing in France.
“But, now, the Germans are making a series of odd military moves,” he said. “They have moved four entire Luftwaffe wings from the east to Norway and France. Units that they don’t seem to have any need for in France. They always maintained ten divisions in France itself, but now they have reinforced them with another ten divisions, four of them armoured with their latest tanks and other equipment.
“Overall, there seems to be a massive attempt to bring the German military machine back up to standard as quickly as possible; this effort seems to be spreading everywhere. There are units on counterinsurgency operations in Russia that have been ordered to prepare themselves for action and report on their readiness.”
He tapped the map for a moment. “This puzzled me, and so I dug deeper into the intelligence that we were receiving and found much more,” he continued. “The Germans have been carrying out a vastly increased series of drills in the Baltic Sea, each of them involving their warships… and landing craft. The Luftwaffe has also been running drills, including parachute drills and at least some precision bombing drills. They were recently rearmed with newer aircraft and now they’re drilling endlessly.”
He met Atlee’s eyes, hoping to convince him through sheer force of personality. “There seems to be no need for a mobilisation, sir, and that is what we’re seeing; a covert mobilisation. The Germans don’t need so many units to advance east and finish off the Russians. I don’t believe that they would want to do that at the moment, not with the counterinsurgency operations they’re still running. Even an operation against any of the other continental powers wouldn’t require so much fire-power or a joint services operation; there has to be another reason for the operation.”
His finger traced out the German positions on the map. “I believe that they intend to attack Britain,” he said. “That is the only explanation that fits the facts.”
There was a long pause. “An interesting idea,” Lord Halifax said finally. His voice was clipped, an upper-class accent, but DeRiemer could hear a trace of bitterness underlying his words. Lord Halifax would never be a great man in his own right. “Do we have any reason to believe that it’s not an exercise?”
DeRiemer nodded. “The Germans last conducted a major exercise in 1948,” he said. “At that time, the Germans provided us with a month’s warning of the planned exercise and we raised our own readiness to compensate, just in case. The exercise went off without a hitch — we learned a great deal from watching them — and the Germans declared it a success. This time, they haven’t sent us any warning, and they don’t seem to have told their own people much about the exercise either.”
He paused. “The Germans, like us, run exercises on a regular basis for individual units,” he continued. “As far as we have been able to determine, they have never run more than three exercises for army units simultaneously, let alone all four of their services, apart from the big one in 1948. It’s a weird coincidence, if indeed it is a coincidence. I think the Germans are trying to prepare for an invasion of Britain.”
There was a brief babble of conversation. “We have several trade deals going with the Germans at the moment,” Lord Halifax said, finally. “Why would they want to break up those deals by starting a war?”
“We had trade deals with them back in 1938,” Churchill rumbled, his bass voice silencing everyone else. “How long do you think we have?”
“It’s impossible to estimate,” DeRiemer admitted. “They could start bombing us at once and then attempt to drive the Royal Navy out of the Channel. Or they could be making sure that they have everything in readiness before they start the offensive.”
Churchill looked over at Atlee. “Clement, you will remember the days when the Germans bombed us before they considered an invasion,” he said, grimly. “We cannot let them have another chance.”
“That’s true enough,” Atlee agreed. “If we were to launch a low-level preparation campaign of our own…”
“The deals we have with Germany are vitally important,” Lord Halifax snapped. “We cannot risk losing their goodwill by implying that we don’t trust them!”
Churchill’s eyes flickered with anger. “Are you prepared to risk the safety of this country on your trade deals?”
“Winston, please,” the Home Secretary said. “You know that we are still in a precarious position because of the expenditures from the last war.” DeRiemer noted that he carefully did not point out that that had been Churchill’s war. “We have a major debt to our American cousins that we need to service, we have endless problems with extracting anything from the empire these days, and we have a very shaky manufacturing sector. We must, if you will pardon the expression, cut our coat to suit our cloth… and we have very poor cloth indeed.”
He paused, dramatically. “In effect, we have a constantly declining economy…”
“I am aware of the details,” Churchill interrupted. “I ask you if you are aware of the kind of man Herr Hitler actually is?”
“No,” Eden said. “I have never met him. What I have met are tables and charts and industrial statistics that prove that Britain is on the verge of collapse. We require everything we can get in the way of hard cash and we have very few sources. We cannot export much to America because… frankly, the Americans make it better than we do. We can only export some items to the empire and as those bonds fray, so do the rest of the economy. If we didn’t have the bargains with Germany, we would be in a much worse state.”
Churchill looked over at Atlee. “I fail to see any reasonable grounds for refusing to ensure that we get our own forces ready, maybe even conduct a few exercises of our own,” he said. “If Hitler does intend us ill, we could be ready for him when he comes and catch his forces before they catch us on the ground. If he doesn’t intend to strike us and his forces stand down and return to their normal levels, then we can claim that it was all a drill as well and say nothing more.”
Eden leaned forward. “Winston, I believe that you are running an exercise with Home Fleet at the moment?”
Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, nodded. “Admiral Fraser is running an exercise and the Germans have taken a surprising amount of interest in it,” he said. “The exercise was intended, at least in part, to see how quickly Home Fleet could react if the Germans did send their fleet out into the North Sea, as they did years ago with the Bismarck. That is not, however, a complete exercise; we should, at least, ensure that all of our units are warned that there might be a state of hostilities between us and the Reich.”
Lord Halifax coughed. �
�Would we not have ample warning if the Germans launched an attack against us?”
It took DeRiemer a moment to realise that the question was aimed at him. “We have fairly good radar coverage over Britain and even over parts of France,” he said, carefully. “The Germans now have much faster aircraft than they did during the last war, so we would have a correspondingly shorter time to react and get our own aircraft into the air. If we failed to get the aircraft into the air in time to meet them, the Germans would have ample time to hurt us before we could react.”
He paused. “The Germans also have vastly more aircraft than we have,” he admitted. “We concentrated on fighters, rather than bombers, but they have built at least seven hundred jet bombers and well over two thousand fighters. Not all of them are up to current standards, but they have no shortage of aircraft to deploy against us. It may also give them a chance to hurt Home Fleet before it comes into contact with the German Navy.”
Atlee exchanged looks with Churchill, and then tapped once on the table. “It is true,” he said, nodding to Lord Halifax, “that our relationship with Germany is of vital importance and we should not jeopardise it lightly. We need German supplies to remain a functioning nation, particularly now given the fact we do not have such access to American markets. We also have to worry about the past performance of Hitler’s regime when it comes to attacking nations without warning. Are there any signs of increased German forces in Egypt?”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” DeRiemer confirmed. “The Italians formally hold Egypt, but the Germans maintain very large forces within the nation, despite the opinion of the natives. That force could be attacking the Suez Canal Zone and punch its way into Palestine and Iraq within a day if Hitler gave the orders. They reinforced it quite heavily over the last couple of weeks.”
The Invasion of 1950 Page 5