Now Volkov had to either order his 3rd Army into a defensive hedgehog around Maykop, or to withdraw. In that instance, he would have to destroy all the well sites at Maykop, and lose all that equipment, for unlike his historical counterparts, he had not moved anything south. Unwilling to lose one of his best oilfield developments in less than a week, he opted instead for a limited withdrawal. The Kuban Rifle Corps and all elements of 3rd Army in the Kuban bend were ordered to fall back towards the rail line from Armavir. The last four divisions of 7th Army had finally arrived at Nevinomyssk, and he sent the 77th up the road to Armavir, with the others deploying north to the defense of Stavropol.
Volkov was making a mistake, and the German Army would soon show him that, but he was obstinate. He should have pulled 3rd Army out immediately, abandoning the Maykop District an establishing a new line on the Urup River, which is just where Hitler had ordered him to go. But his pride would not allow him to do that. His success in delaying the advance of 17th Army near Belorchensk had made him believe that his regular troops could hold, but the forces advancing on Stavropol were not infantry divisions, they were all fast, well hardened Panzer divisions, and one of them was Grossdeutschland.
It was April Fool’s Day. It was now his to learn the lessons that had bedeviled his enemy, Sergei Kirov, since Germany crossed the frontier into the Soviet state in 1941. What Volkov desperately needed now was not the arrival of a few more rifle divisions—he needed another army, and more if he could get it to the Caucasus in time. The only way he was ever going to have that option would be if he could somehow demilitarize the long line of the Volga River. In order to fight the war he never expected to be facing now, he needed peace with Sergei Kirov.
Peace with Siberia, if he could get even that, would give him but one army to dispose of, his 8th still holding out at Omsk. What he really needed now were the troops of his 1st, 2nd and 6th Armies. With those he could stop the Germans now, and force Hitler to come begging for oil again—but they were all on the upper Volga. So he sent messages to Leningrad, offering an extended truce, demilitarization of the Volga, and the possibility of further concessions for peace
With Doctorov still dickering with the Siberians, Volkov sent a new Ambassador, the hard-chinned Viktor Ivanov, who had obtained permission to fly by airship to Leningrad. There was no way Volkov would ever go himself, nor would Kirov come to him, so Ivanov would have to do.
A tall, straight backed man who was a former high ranking official in Volkov’s intelligence network, Ivanov promised to get the best possible bargain he could. This time the meeting would not be held in a packinghouse, but in the impressive 580-meter expanse of the General Staff building in Leningrad. Sergei Kirov would receive the Ambassador while sitting at his desk, the broad window behind him offering a view of the Triumphal Arch on the Palace Square, where a full regiment of the Palace Guard were staged on parade, complete with a ceremonial band. Behind Kirov, the steadfast figure of Berzin was standing at attention, a man Ivanov knew only too well, for the two men had been rivals in the intelligence business in the past.
Kirov said nothing as the Ambassador was shown in, nor did he rise to shake the other man’s hand. Instead, Berzin merely pointed to the solitary chair before Kirov’s desk, some three meters from the desk itself, indicating that Ivanov should sit. It created the spectacle of power receiving a beggar off the street, which was just what Kirov intended.
Ivanov sat, placing his briefcase on the floor by the chair, and regarded his situation with no small amount of inner displeasure. Theater, he knew. It was all part of the game that would now begin. I am made to sit here in the center of the chess board like that first lonesome pawn after white plays out to King 4. Usually I might meet with just another Ambassador, another pawn like myself, but those are two heavy pieces staring at me from the other side of that desk. How to begin a conversation between two nations that have not had any real diplomatic relations for over twenty years?
Chapter 9
He cleared his throat. “Mister General Secretary… Director…” he also paid his respects to Berzin with a knowing nod of his head.
“You wear the years well, Ivanov,” said Berzin.
“As do you, and that is saying a lot considering how hard those years have been for both our nations.”
“Hard years because we made them so,” said Berzin. “What prompts you to make this request for a meeting? Might it be the little flare-up in the Caucasus?”
“Of course,” said Ivanov, not mincing words. “We’ve just been bitten by the Wolf, and that is something you know of quite well.”
“Oh, yes, we know of it. The citizens of Kiev, and Minsk, and Vilnus, Kharkov, Kirov, Bryansk, Orel, and even Moscow all know so very much about it as well.” He let that sink in, silence being his friend for the moment, and Ivanov was respectful enough to hold his tongue. Then Sergei Kirov spoke for the first time.
“What is it you want, Mister Ambassador? Let me guess—you want what you were unwilling to give us for the last twenty years, and all because you wanted other things we have as well—Volgograd, Rostov, and god only knows what else. You also wanted the Kuban, and to try and get these things, you promised to feed the Wolf. He was the one who would get them for you—things you could never take for yourself—but now it seems that little plan has gone awry.”
“It has.” Again, Ivanov would not quibble. Everything Kirov had just said was true, so why pretend otherwise? “We both made a bargain with the Wolf,” he said. “Now each of us feels his bite.”
“Yes, and while you but lick one small drop of blood from your finger, a tiny wound suffered in but a week of fighting, we have lost an arm and both legs—a million dead men, cities razed and burned, our cropland devastated, factories destroyed, our navy at the bottom of the Black Sea. But still we fight on, and with no help from Orenburg, because you chose to side with our enemy, which is something the Rodina can never forget or forgive. You chose to stand with the Wolf, and stood by while it wrested the children of this nation from their mother’s arms and devoured them. Am I being too dramatic here, or have I made my point?”
“Mister General Secretary, I cannot undo what has happened in the past. I can only look to what lies ahead, and so now I will ask you to do the same, as hard as it may be—as unjust as it is. But if we are ever to have peace, then that is what we must both do.”
“Peace?” said Kirov looking at Berzin. “That is what you want now, is it? He want’s peace, Berzin. Imagine that.”
“After over twenty years of civil war,” said Berzin.
“Yes,” said Kirov, “and even though we have suffered greatly, what has Volkov won in that war? He has taken Samara, but only because it would have cost us too many divisions to prevent that. He has tried to cross the Volga and take the great city named for that river seven times, and only now succeeds because of German assistance. So now he can sit there in the rubble and claim his prize at last. He wanted the Kuban, and look who has it now.” Kirov smiled. “Why would I give even the slightest consideration to a truce with Orenburg, let alone anything approaching an alliance?”
“Because you need us,” said Ivanov flatly. “Because you need the six Armies that watch us on the Volga.”
“Yes,” said Kirov, “just as we needed the four we saw die in the Kuban.”
“They were doomed the day the Germans reached the Don,” said Ivanov. “But consider now what you could do with those other six armies if we were to demilitarize the Volga.”
“I am still considering what I could have done with the men we just lost,” Kirov said sharply. “Don’t think to sit there and tell me this was all the German’s doing. Orenburg was complicit the entire duration of that campaign, and all to protect your precious oil fields at Maykop. If Germany had been more accommodating, would we be even having this conversation? I think not.”
“Possibly,” said Ivanov, “but Germany has betrayed us. That much is clear. Make peace with us now and we will make amends. We will
join your struggle, and with the full might of all our forces in the field. The Germans want the oil of the Caucasus, but with the three armies we have on the Volga, we could stop them, and with the six armies you have there you could turn and smash your way all the way to the Dnieper. We would cut off their entire Army Group South and destroy it!”
“My….” Kirov smiled. “Such ambitions. Of course, it would be Soviet and Siberian troops doing most of the fighting again—Soviet tanks, Soviet blood. What could you possibly give us in return for the price we have already paid in this war?”
“To begin that discussion, Samara. We are prepared to pull back our forces there, and turn over the city as a goodwill gesture.”
“Samara…. You would give us one city in return for all the others we’ve lost? Will you give us back Volgograd? I think not, for there is little there to give but complete devastation.”
“As you mention this, yes, I am authorized to offer Volgograd as well. We will also abandon the siege of Chelyabinsk, return Omsk to the control of the Free Siberian State, and open the Trans-Siberian rail connection through that entire region. And then, of course, there is the oil.”
“The oil,” said Kirov. “Yes, the oil. If I am not mistaken, you promised all that to the Third Reich.”
“Those shipping orders have all been cancelled.”
“Because Hitler no longer needs to wait on your paperwork,” said Kirov. “He’s already sitting on Baba Gurgur, and Guderian may soon be starting his push for Basra and Abadan. I wonder which they will take first, Basra or Groznyy? Will they go all the way to Baku? He looked at Berzin now, but his intelligence Director merely shrugged.”
“Will they go all the way to Leningrad this year?” said Ivanov, with just the slightest edge of desperation creeping into his tone. “You both know they have already made their plans for that operation. It will be called Downfall, and perhaps that is what it will be—the downfall and destruction of the Soviet Republic. But don’t you see? With Orenburg and the Soviet Union fighting as one, there will be no Operation Downfall against Leningrad this year, if ever. So, you can add that city to the others. Yes, with us, you can save Leningrad from the destruction that the world witnessed at Moscow.”
“No thanks to you and Volkov. Were you cozied up to Beria? Did you know about his little plan to eliminate me and burn the capital to the ground?”
“I knew many things,” said Ivanov, “and one of them was that Beria was a decrepit bastard. While I was not privy to his plans at Moscow, what he did there was not a surprise. That was on your watch, Berzin. It’s a shame you didn’t stop him.”
“Oh I stopped him alright,” said Berzin. “I shot the man dead myself, and to do the same to you would be one small measure of justice for all you have done against the Soviet State in this war.”
“But we are not savages,” said Kirov. “We are, however, patriots, and if the Germans do come for Leningrad, we will fight them to the last breath in the last man. But they will not come, because we will stop them. We’ll attack Bryansk, we’ll attack them at Kursk, we’ll attack them at Moscow—in every place they have so rudely trodden upon the sacred soil of the Rodina. And we will prevail—with or without the Orenburg Federation. So you can keep the shattered ruins of Volgograd, and keep Samara as well. We’ll take it back when I get around to that sector, and when we come for it, there will be nothing you can do to stop us. So enjoy your little squabble with the Führer. You can go back and tell Volkov that there will be no peace—not until Soviet troops march triumphantly through the heart of Orenburg itself, and that time may not be as far off as you may think.”
“This is foolish!” said Ivanov. “You need us—you need the full might of the nation Russia was before the revolution to have even the slightest chance of defeating the Germans, and you know this. Your pride in this will be the ruin of your Soviet State! Don’t you realize that Volkov could turn about tomorrow and accede to all of Hitler’s demands? We could mend fences there again quite easily, and then where will you be? You will be back in the same cold borscht! Germany will win this war, and then what will become of the Rodina you speak of with such fervent adulation? It will become nothing more than a slave state, your people, your cities, all of it gone to the service of the Third Reich.”
“Mister Ambassador….” Kirov fixed Ivanov with a dark and level stare. “There is a pistol in my desk drawer. It is Berzin’s pistol, the very same one he used to kill Beria. Your claim to innocence concerning that matter was really quite preposterous, for our intelligence is very good. We know damn well that you were involved in that plot, and you are one of the very few, beyond Volkov himself, that survived when I ordered Red Rain in retribution.”
Kirov opened his drawer and took out that pistol, slowly handing it to Berzin, who was still right at his side. “Grishin,” he said quietly. “I believe we have some unfinished business.”
“What?” said Ivanov. “You threaten to kill me? I am here under a cloak of diplomatic—”
Berzin leveled the pistol and fired.
Kirov looked at Berzin, a wry smile on his face. “What did we just do here, Grishin?”
“We have killed Ivonov, the last of Beria’s rats to escape the trap.”
“Yes, we have,” said Kirov. “It seems I was mistaken about us not being savages.”
“Indeed, sir. A pity. Will there be peace with Orenburg? That would make Zhukov’s work a good deal easier.”
“In time,” said Kirov. “All things in good time.”
Outside in the wide stone courtyard. And as if in answer to the single pistol shot fired by Berzin, a rifle company fired three crisp volleys in salute. Hundreds of miles away, new soviet armies, fresh and fat after the long winter, were slowly advancing to take up positions in the Serafimovich Bridgehead….
* * *
When Volkov received the package from Leningrad containing Ivanov’s head, he was outraged. In an explosion of temper that would have made even Hitler blush, he ravaged the interior of an office within his Staff Command Headquarters on the Ural River. Finally he relented, sitting down, his breath controlled, pulse returning to normal. No one ever dared to approach him in these fearsome moments of rage, but like a volatile chemical, they burned out quickly. His mined cooled to an icy calm, eyes hard as he stared out the broken window at the dramatic stone arch that marked the gateway from Europe to Asia. Then he summoned his Adjutant.
The man stepped gingerly into the room, thinking he would soon become one of the many victims of Volkov’s rage. The shattered glass on the tiled floor, and broken chairs were testimony enough to his overlord’s mood. Yet when he heard Volkov speak, he knew the low, dangerous tone in his voice well enough. The General Secretary had become a man again, albeit a very dangerous one, and he was thinking.
“You have the latest report from the Kuban?”
“Yes sir.”
“Let me hear it.”
Now the Adjutant passed another moment of alarm, for he would be the bringer of bad news, but he forged on. “Sir, the line in the south remains stable, though the enemy has brought up three fresh divisions that were fighting on the coast at Tuapse, and has now relieved their Mountain Corps.”
“Where was it redeployed?”
“In to the high country, near Chernigovskiy.”
Volkov nodded, knowing the Germans now wanted to use those troops to try and flank the lower portion of his line through those mountains. “Belorchensk?” he asked next.
“The city is secure. The German 52nd Corps has paused along the River Pshish. However, their 4th Corps has reached Dondukov on the rail line to Armavir, and fresh troops have come down from Kropotkin to increase pressure on that city.”
“Dondukov?”
“No sir—Armavir. The defense in that sector has been flanked to the southwest near Stanitsya, though that is only a small reconnaissance. But the headquarters of 3rd Kazakh Army at Urupskiy has reported some alarming news.”
“Well, give it to me man,
don’t worry about your head. The furniture died here today, but you may continue to live.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir. But General Gorsov of the 3rd Kazakh reports there are German tanks approaching Urupskiy from the northeast. 18th Panzer Division from their markings. As he has no reserve at hand, he requests permission to withdraw towards Nevinomyssk.”
“Damn!” Volkov swore, giving his Adjutant a start. “They must have crossed the Kuban. What about those two divisions of the 7th Army I sent to hold that north bank?”
“Sir, they were engaged with that very same Panzer Division, but the Germans broke off that attack four hours ago.”
“And they cross the damn river,” said Volkov. “They move like quicksilver! Armavir cannot be held, which means 3rd Army’s supply line is cut, and the entire position around Maykop is useless….”
Volkov simmered with that for some time. 3rd Army was being enfiladed from the east at Armavir, and soon the German mountain troops would attempt another flanking maneuver to the south. He briefly passed through the option of sending a message through the German lines to request a cease fire. He might get far better treatment from his former ally than he had just seen meted out by his fellow Russians in Leningrad.
But then again, they don’t see us as Russians, do they? We are nothing more than Kazakh scum to them. Sergei Kirov sits there in the General Staff building overlooking the courtyard where the Tsar’s men would promenade. Now he is the new Tsar, but not here, and not in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Would Hitler entertain further negotiations at this late hour? No, not while his armies are still making steady progress like this. We’ve kept them out of Belorchensk and Maykop, but that 11th Army infantry has been fighting for a long month, and is most likely tired and understrength.
Ironfall (Kirov Series Book 30) Page 8