Nexus Deep (Kirov Series Book 31)

by Schettler, John

  “That does not gain us much ground,” said Hitler. “Operation Panther gives me all the terrain back that we lost in April.”

  “Only if it succeeds,” said Manstein, “and I have my doubts about that, as does General Model. Our objective with Habicht is not to gain terrain, but to destroy the three enemy shock groups we pocket—five or six armies. If we do that, the terrain will come to us as a bonus, and we will have destroyed their offensive potential against Army Group South for the foreseeable future. Then Untergang may proceed in the Summer, perhaps as early as June.”

  “Is there another option?” Hitler was still not satisfied.

  “Kursk,” said Zeitzler. “Operation Zitadelle . We could strike from the Bryansk-Orel sector on one side, and from the vicinity of Belgorod, only this time that group drives north and west, with the objective being the capture of Kursk and defeat of all the enemy forces within that bulge. General Kluge? You command Army Group Center. What is your opinion?”

  “What will I use to attack from the north? I have already sent 42 Korps and 48th Panzer Korps to the Kharkov sector. The only way to get any offensive steam would be if I received fresh panzer divisions, unless you plan on returning Knobelsdorff to my command.”

  “The plan calls for 48th Panzerkorps to remain in the south.”

  “Then I would need fresh panzers. Will the 24th Panzerkorps be refitted and returned to the front?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Zeitzler. In fact, we must also withdraw its last division, 22nd Panzer. The division fought bravely in April, a real life-saver for Model’s flank, but it is simply worn out.”

  “Then perhaps the divisions sitting in Army Group North?”

  “Out of the question,” said Hitler. “No further forces will be withdrawn from that Army Group.”

  Kluge shrugged. “Then I regret to say that I do not believe that Army Group Center, as it is presently structured, is capable of mounting and offensive from Bryansk that has the slightest chance of ever reaching Kursk. At best, I could put in a spoiling attack, and then the main effort would have to come from the south, which I assume would be a combination of Knobelsdorff and Steiner.”

  “That attack alone might be enough,” said Zeitzler.

  “Yes,” said Manstein, “but it leaves that large grouping of forces unfought between the Donets and Oskol, and behind our main offensive. I don’t like that, and I would suggest that Habicht be launched first to destroy those two Soviet Shock Groups.”

  “How much time do you think we have here, Herr General?” Hitler began to lecture again. Time was also money in his mind. “The Habicht operation would take two or three weeks, and there goes May. If we then move forces to launch Operation Zitadelle , another week is lost and it will be late June before we could then begin to contemplate Untergang , possibly even July. I think we must choose one or the other. Habicht is a little bite that hardly fills the stomach, and leaves us hungry for more in Panther or Zitadelle . I think we would be better just to form up for Zitadelle and attack. Kursk is a worthwhile objective, and attacking in great force from the south should get us there. I will see what I can do to strengthen your assault force, General Kluge. My thinking leans towards Zitadelle . Prepare for that as the main operation.”

  It was a strange echo of the decision made in the old history. Then, there had been no consideration for an Operation Untergang , but the strategic situation in Army Group South was very much the same as it was before, with one exception. Manstein still had forces deep in the Caucasus….

  Part IV

  Zitadelle

  “We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave… and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

  —Hunter Thompson

  Chapter 10

  “Zitadelle would require Steiner to move north,” said Manstein, “but a little deception would be in order here. The enemy watches Steiner’s Korps like a hawk. If that hawk looks like it is forming up for the northern pincer of Habicht , and 57th Panzer Korps gets positioned in the south near Kupyansk, perhaps that would convince them we are going to attempt that pincer operation. Knobelsdorff can move in tight behind Model and appear to take up a defensive posture, and if Zitadelle is the final decision, then Steiner finds his Korps in a very good place to quickly move north.”

  And so it was decided, the history leading down the same familiar pathways as it did in another telling of these events, but it left Manstein with more than a few misgivings. First off, the enemy strength between the Donets and Oskol Rivers was considerable. What if that force were used to stage a strong counterattack while the Zitadelle operation was pushing north? He voiced this objection again, but Hitler batted it aside.

  “Once they see what we are reaching for, the enemy assault groups in the south will have no choice but to retreat north if they wish to intervene, and so we solve two problems in one throw.”

  “You assume their counterattack would be aimed directly at the base of our offensive towards Kursk,” said Manstein. “If they do what you suggest, all the terrain east of Belgorod that I mentioned earlier will be a strong shield against such a counterattack, and for this reason I do not think they would do this. A more indirect approach would serve them better. They could just attack towards the Middle Donets again, or even Kharkov.”

  “Nonsense. They will retreat, I am certain of this.”

  “Then they remain unfought,” said Manstein, “a sword the enemy still has to use against us…. Somewhere.”

  “We know where they will be going,” said Hitler. “Why must everything be so complicated? They will try to stop Zitadelle, and then Steiner will deal with them when they do.”

  “Against five more armies? And you expect he will still have the strength to take Kursk?”

  “They will not be able to withdraw all their forces. Half will have to stay behind to hold that front. Do not worry yourself with this unnecessary speculation. You had no difficulty compelling the enemy to retreat from Kharkov, when they were within a hair’s breadth of taking it. This will play out much the same way.”

  Manstein was still uncomfortable, but no one else came to his support. Kluge will not get anywhere from his side of that bulge, he thought. Steiner and Knobelsdorff, when side by side, will have tremendous power, but can they do this alone?

  Hitler could see the displeasure on Manstein’s face, and so he decided to throw his Field Marshal a bone.

  “You may prepare for Habicht to launch on four days’ notice,” said Hitler. “We will also prepare for Zitadelle , with Steiner instead moving north as we have discussed. Will that satisfy you, General Manstein? Target June 1st for the start date of both operations. I will give you my final decision four days before that start date. Now… We must discuss other matters, and how to reinforce the West. The loss of 5th Panzerarmee was a very hard blow—150,000 German troops!”

  No one said anything, fearing Hitler would bemoan that for the next hour and begin a long litany of what went wrong there. Instead, he stayed on topic—how to reinforce the West.

  “I have had to recall divisions committed to operations in the early spring, in spite of the fact that they might continue to bear good fruit. Guderian worked wonders in Syria and Iraq, and your own Operation Edelweiss was masterful, General Manstein. Yes, we have a new enemy now, but Volkov was a do nothing Ally all along, worse than the Italians! That said, we must consider how to keep Mussolini in the fold, and what to do should he falter. I need troops for that, so I have recalled the Brandenburg Division from Guderian, and all of Student’s troops. This means that Guderian will not go to Basra as I hoped.”

  “And the fact that I needed to withdraw 57th Panzerkorps and all of Hollidt’s Infantry also means that I will not be going to either Astrakhan or Baku.” Manstein wanted that point understood early on.

  “I realize that now,” said Hitler. The shock of losing 5th Panzerarmee had sobered
him. “Maykop and Groznyy will suffice, along with Baba Gurgur. We will concentrate our efforts now on getting as much oil as possible from those fields, but this means that our position in the Caucasus is essential, which makes the lower Don Region, and the line of the Donets, areas which we must hold at all cost. For Baba Gurgur, Turkey is essential. All our communications to Iraq and Syria go through that country. The British are probably already scheming on how they can woo Turkey to their side of this war, and that is also a contingency that we must address. What if they succeed? What if Mussolini loses his nerve and attempts an armistice? We have Operation Alaric to flesh out for Italy, but what about Turkey?”

  “You are suggesting we devise a similar plan to disarm the Turkish Army and occupy that country? Turkey has an army of 45 divisions! They are scattered all over the country, and the terrain is murderous.”

  “Yes, but it would not be necessary to occupy and control the entire country. Taking Istanbul; perhaps Ankara, and then positioning strong troops along the rail line to Baghdad would be sufficient. What would that take?”

  Zeitzler thought for a time. “No less than two full corps, mostly infantry, but with enough mechanization to have some clout if needed, perhaps one or two Panzer brigades. There are presently four Turkish divisions along the Syrian border, and those would have to be confronted and disarmed. The same for eight to ten divisions around Istanbul and the Dardanelles Fortified Area.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Manstein. “Then we will get a guerilla war all along that border, and the rail line as well. It would take very little to disrupt traffic on that rail line, and if we do this, do not count on getting long lines of volatile oil cars through Turkey. That will all have to go by sea, which means we must rebuild the pipeline from Maykop to Novorossiysk, and from Groznyy to Rostov. That will take months. As for Baba Gurgur, all the pipelines from those fields flow to Tripoli and Haifa on the Mediterranean coast. In my mind, that field is useless to us. We certainly cannot use the existing pipelines, and we would have to build a new line north from Kirkuk to Mosul and then ship the oil through Turkey to Istanbul, a rail journey of a thousand miles, which could be interdicted by a single determined squad with a few demolitions. Don’t forget Lawrence of Arabia! He gave the Ottoman Turks fits by tearing up their rail lines through Syria in the First War. Frankly, this problem might have been avoided if we had chosen to negotiate with Ivan Volkov instead of making him an enemy. Now we are talking about making another enemy of Turkey. The end of this will be disaster. Where do we even get two infantry korps for such consideration? I cannot spare a single division.”

  Hitler considered all this, his eyes shifting over the map, as if the answer was there, some solution that would finally allow him to reap the harvest of all his campaigns—operations Phoenix, Eisenfall , and Edelweiss . What were the merits of keeping so many divisions in Iraq and Syria? Rommel’s old command was still a threat to Palestine and Egypt, even if the loss of the Wiking Division meant those forces had lost a good deal of their offensive power.

  “We can go over to the defense in Syria,” he said. “General Kübler can stand on defense there now, which will free up 2nd and 16th Panzer Divisions. I will leave the 101st Panzer Brigade with Kübler, and send those panzers to Ankara and Istanbul—or Italy.”

  “Send them to Italy, if you must,” said Manstein. “But I beg you, do not make an enemy of Turkey, by any means. As for Volkov—Make peace! Offer him the return of all his provinces in the Caucasus in exchange for an agreement that the Todt Organizations can rebuild that pipeline to Rostov. Then I can pull Hansen’s Army out of there, and use it to make certain the Russians never get to Rostov, because if they do, then the whole affair would be lost.”

  “Make peace with that conniving slackard, Volkov?” Hitler seemed aghast.

  “Why not? And do so before he thaws things out with Sergei Kirov. When that happens, and it will, then the Soviets can pull another three or four Armies off their Volga Front, and I do not have to tell you where they will go. They will come to the lower Don and Donets Basin.”

  “Do you honestly think Volkov would agree to peace with Germany now?”

  “You have showed him what the consequences of war are,” said Manstein. “Unless he makes peace with Sergei Kirov, he will sit on his oil fields at Astrakhan and Baku, and do little more. At least if he returns to the Axis, we can make some use of him. And you must do nothing to convince Turkey they may be in danger from us. The minute they see troop movements into Bulgaria, they will get very nervous, and do what you fear—they will join the Allies. I have already shown you how useless Baba Gurgur is to us. Kübler will not go to Suez, and Guderian will not go to Basra. That is the fact of the matter. So why keep ten divisions tied up in Iraq and Syria?”

  “To keep ten British Commonwealth Divisions there,” said Hitler. “If we go, then they have all those troops available to put against us somewhere else.”

  “Not so. They had other fish to fry. Many of the divisions now in southern Iraq will return to Burma, or be used to carry out plans they must surely have to retake Ceylon from the Japanese. So do not worry about those forces. As for what they have in Palestine, they took most of the armor from O’Connor’s 8th Army, and one good infantry division, and we have worn them down in the fighting in Syria. Most of the infantry will probably just stay in Palestine as a garrison, as it was before. I know how inimical the loss of hard won terrain is to you, but I state now that neither Iraq nor Syria will be in any way useful to our war effort. On the contrary, the ten or twelve divisions there will be very useful—elsewhere.”

  Hitler frowned, his eyes on the map. Manstein was telling him that all his aspirations in these spring operations were folly. “Do you think I have sent my Generals and troops into these places for mere sport? Now you suggest I simply give Iraq and Syria back to the British—I will not! What we have taken, we will hold. The pipelines will be built! The oil must come to the Reich, and all those troops must stay where they are to make certain that happens. There will be no peace with Ivan Volkov either. In fact, if I must postpone Operation Untergang , and then send all those troops to Astrakhan and Baku to destroy his little empire, so be it!” He pounded the map over Astrakhan, and silence fell heavily on the room.

  “As for Sergei Kirov, wait until he sees Operation Zitadelle unhinge all his plans for another offensive. I have made my decision. Launch that operation as soon as possible! Make some good use of yourself, General Manstein. These notions of handing the enemy Iraq and Syria will addle your mind. Go and take Kursk!”

  That final decision was the deep reverberating echo of the real history—Operation Zitadelle . Yet it would be a much different battle. Kluge would be much weaker with his thrust from the north, yet the Soviets would not be as well prepared, still contemplating offensive action of their own.

  * * *

  “What might they do next?” Asked Sergei Kirov. “Surely they have plans for an offensive.”

  “Frankly,” said Zhukov, “I was surprised they stopped where they did in April. I expected them to continue to try and push us off the upper Donets.”

  “Perhaps they did not have the strength. Steiner had only three divisions this time in their main attack.”

  “But they could have reorganized and continued, particularly after they relieved Belgorod.”

  “Yet they did not do so,” said Kirov. The question is, what will they do now?”

  “Their aim will be to try and upstage any further offensive plans we have for the early summer, and dissipate our offensive strength. They could confront us directly again in the south, or move their assault divisions elsewhere—perhaps to the Orel sector.”

  “Yet we have seen no sign of that kind of movement,” said Intelligence Chief Berzin. “In fact, the latest reports show Steiner consolidating at Kharkov, and we have learned there are orders for him to move to the Donets near Volchansk.”

  “Volchansk? Then they mean to force a crossing there?”

&nbs
p; “Possibly. Their three mobile divisions in the south have moved towards Kupyansk, but I doubt if they would try to take that city unsupported. This is why we think they are planning an imminent operation.”

  “A pincer operation against our 1st and 2nd Shock Groups,” said Zhukov, pointing out their positions on the map. “This would be the safe choice for them now. It confronts our main strength in the south, threatens an encirclement operation, and serves to expend our use of that force in any offensive role.”

  “Then we must beat them to the punch,” said Kirov. “Can’t you use those two shock groups to attack now?”

  “Where? Towards the Middle Donets again? We would have the same battle that we just lost. Steiner would simply cross the Donets at Chuguyev and cut us off. In fact, I believe this is exactly what their General Manstein would like us to do—attack towards the Middle Donets. He would fold back his line and graciously let us go there. And then he would cut us off again. No, I think we should wait and receive whatever offensive they have planned. Then devise an appropriate counterattack.”

  “This pincer operation—is that what they will do?” Kirov looked at Berzin.

  “We have picked up a lot of traffic, logistical orders and such. Something is brewing. The code word is Habicht —Hawk. Yet we have also gotten wind of another operational code: Zitadelle —Citadel.” Both Berzin and Kirov knew of these operations from the Material they still held secret, and now they would seek to plant certain information in the mind of Zhukov to prepare him for things they saw looming on the near horizon. Neither man could be certain that the Germans would do what they did in the Material, but if they did choose such a plan, Kirov wanted Zhukov to have a way to answer it.