by Scott Palter
0200 hours local; 0100 hours CET
14 September 1940
Colonel Mason’s sector, 6th Commando Brigade positions, El Alamein lines
Having neglected to bring a staff section along, Rommel had commandeered Strauss’s. Leutnant von Kleist-Konitz and his gang of Romanian Jewish clerks. Rommel was upfront with his break-through force, a composite Battalion of dismounted infantry and the Pioneer Company he had brought along. They had three pathways through the British minefields, and had captured half a kilometer of forward trenches. Rommel had not chosen to try his luck with the British positions on the small ridge. He’d aimed to its south. The defenders were clearly a second-rate force. They showed neither the will nor the ability to counterattack. There was a core that would defend strongly. These manned the blockhouses. The interval troops between, collapsed when hard pressed. Many simply surrendered to the first Germans they saw. Many more took to the rear.
The blockhouses were crude affairs by Great War standards. None were designed for all-round defense. So the standard drill worked. Get on top of them via the trenches to their sides. Then it was grenades through the firing slits, followed by using flamethrowers. Most surrendered at grenades. It would take into the morning hours for the Pioneers to get heavy-vehicle lanes through the mines. If only he had brought his entire engineer contingent up …
……….
Mason had repeatedly warned division and corps that his troops lacked the training and morale for a serious fight. He’d not been precisely ignored so much as kept at bay with pleasantries. Even senior staff officers thought twice about directly telling a Guards officer with good London connections to just fuck off. In point of fact, his troops weren’t even the lowest quality in the division. The third brigade hadn’t had Money-Penny to line up ‘recruits’. What GHQ had provided them was even more pathetic than the poor sods Mason had had to work with.
The normally dismissive and unresponsive office wallahs on division and corps staff also took seriously Mason’s running commentary on the collapse of his lines. Yet again the social cachet of the Guards worked in his favor. Plus there was his hero status from Malta. His attack against the German paratroop elite at Hal Far had rated mention in dispatches. A man of his age and rank, taking a company-size forlorn hope attack in against greatly superior numbers, had generated serious talk of a decoration, perhaps of a knighthood.
So he’d been allocated reserves. Two battalions of Australians plus their brigadier. Mason found the Australian to be a sensible chap. The man insisted on keeping command of his fellow countrymen. The dominion saw itself as a nationality, not just transplanted Brits. Mason cheerfully allotted the new brigade the south half of his lines. The two new battalions weren’t willing to make a night attack to recover the original trenches. Unfortunate but sensible. They started digging a new second line while sending forward fighting patrols to reconnoiter the situation … and hopefully extract some of the bypassed men. Mason said he’d support them from his ridge position. The bad night appeared to be the harbinger of a still more unpleasant day.
0900 hours local; 0800 hours CET
14 September 1940
Rommel’s break-through, south of Ruweisat Ridge
The first vehicle lane was open. The British artillery fire was pathetic. It was intermittent, and clearly fired blind. Rommel had expected more from the army of a serious power. The English clearly had good observation positions on the ridge. It wasn’t much of a height, but in the relatively flat lands here a good observation post should have been able to see for kilometers. So the British must be seriously short of artillery, or perhaps just short of shells. Either way, these units were nowhere near as good as the ones he had run into at Arras a few months back. Abwehr reports had said the BEF in the West was the best the British empire had, that these colonial garrisons were mostly second- and third-raters. Compliments to the spies.
He'd fed Strauss in with two of his battalions to guard his southern flank. Apparently, Rommel had broken in just north of a division seam. Strauss had been his usual energetic self. He led out patrols to develop the enemy positions. Was sending back good detailed maps and prisoners. Also a sad joke. The passwords had worked. Strauss had twice used them to pass through the Palestinian Jewish lines. He’d even tricked a company into letting his men into their positions. Had sent back two hundred prisoners from that action, plus an amazing haul of documents. Rommel decided that the next time Strauss came to him with something off-the-wall unbelievable, that he would pay Strauss more mind. This whole NL unit was proving its use.
The panting messenger came up to General Rommel with a note. General von Manstein had flown in. He was to return immediately for a liaison conference. Rommel wanted to start cursing like a recruit-barracks Feldwebel, but he simply wouldn’t allow mere rankers to see his distemper. He stalled for twenty minutes by insisting that Major Gorlov be called forward to relieve him. The man supposedly had brigade command experience.
Rommel wanted to stall further. Strauss had found the seam between the Palestinians and the Australians. A battalion battle group based on the company of T-38’s he had almost forward, would rupture the line. He was sure. He was even more sure one doesn’t keep a Corps Commander waiting for hours. Once Ivan Gorlov arrived, Rommel spent three quick minutes giving him the plan of attack, and trotted back to this stupid meeting.
……….
Erich von Manstein received his bad-boy General with a blank affect. He might have wanted to strangle the insubordinate son of bitch, but a proper aristocrat does not betray such emotions in public. He simply ordered Rommel to accompany him into the Storch for a short flight back to Bagush and a commander’s conference with Hausser and von Thoma, who had both been ferried up by air in advance of their main forces.
Rommel tried to argue. “The line is ready to give. With air attacks to keep the Australians pinned, Major Gorlov and I will break the seam between the units. Then Maletti and I roll up their whole line while Oberst Strauss devours their Palestinian Jewish division. I’ve already instructed Gorlov. The attack goes in, in the next hour … ”
“No it won’t. I have sent my aide Claus von Stauffenberg forward to take command. I’ve promoted him to Brigadier … ”. He saw Rommel’s blank reaction. “NL is a new service. I’ve cleared with Berlin to create a rank parallel to Oberführer. Above Oberst and below Generalmajor.” Von Manstein had in fact only sent Berlin a message informing them of this. He was presuming permission as inherent in his original mission orders. “This attack is over. You’ve completely outrun your supplies and reinforcements. If you break the British line – and I repeat the word if – then what? Two advance force Brigades and a ramshackle Brigade equivalent of Strauss’s. Total of an understrength Division with under a Brigade’s worth of artillery support. To defeat an Army? What is the ammunition status of your tanks, your guns?” He could see Rommel’s face start to cloud. “You managed impossible feats against the French. These are British. You didn’t make your magic work at Arras … ” Rommel started to object. Von Manstein plowed over him. “Make all the excuses to yourself you want. You didn’t. You were saved by their abysmal inter-arms coordination between their tanks and the supporting infantry, by the companion French attacks never getting really started. Now you have precisely two choices. You may return to Bagush with me as a Division commander, or as a prisoner under arrest. Choose!” The last word was near whispered, but the command bark was clear in the tone.
Rommel opened and closed his mouth twice. Then his shoulders sagged and he boarded the Storch, still a Division commander but no longer in command.
……….
Von Stauffenberg expected to have to assert his new rank, and argue over whether such a thing as Brigadier existed. Gorlov, and then Strauss, made no objections. They were both quite sure they could split the British lines, but both were also dubious on what came next. Each had seen campaigns they’d been on make operational gains that led nowhere except to the exhaustion of
the attacking force. Instead the three spent an hour devising how to dig in properly for the inevitable British counter-strokes. Requisitions went to the rear for wire, mortars with illumination rounds, and more trained engineers to relay the British mines someplace more useful than where they were currently placed.
1600 hours local; 1500 hours CET
14 September 1940
Prisoner cage, 20 kilometers to the rear of the new front line at Alamein
It was shaping up as another scorching summer day in the Western Desert. Strauss’s brigade had come out of the lines around noon. The captured Empire prisoners had grouped themselves by nationality. British, Indian, Palestinian, and Australian all were clumps of listless sweating men. Major Ivan Gorlov had tasked himself with a job he’d performed often enough back in Russia. He was with two Betar men, a Leutnant and a Company Commissar. He was ‘recruiting’.
Explaining what he intended to the guard commander was easy. The man was a Waffen SS Hauptsturmführer. He was seated on a captured British folding chair so as not to strain his wounded thigh. His guards were all walking wounded. As long as the prisoners kept fairly quiet, the guards were inclined to let them pant from the heat in peace. Dealing with the swarms of flies was bad enough.
Ivan came up to the wire with his two helpers. Tossed a few water jugs over the barrier. That rapidly got attention. Ivan’s Yiddish was accented but serviceable. “Looking for Revisionists. I’ll take General Zionists as well. Labor types, stay seated.”
A few men piped up. “Looking for what, Nazi pig?” “Fuck off!”
“Recruits. We are going to take Palestine. Who wants to go home a conqueror?”
This got more interest. “Why Revisionists and General? Labor runs things.”
“Not any more. Italians are getting most of Palestine. Germany gets Haifa and Galilee. We are Betar. We’ll be the army and police of the new empire. Jabotinsky will come back to run things. What the Germans want is the port and the pipeline. Rest doesn’t mean shit to them.”
By now a crowd of men were up against the wire. Ivan left it to the Commissar to screen the politics. Odds said a lot of Reds would suddenly convert. It had been that way in Russia as the fortunes of war swayed back and forth. For now he was recruiting laborers. A few would run back to the British. No matter. They’d just be swept up when the next German victory happened. Ivan knew they had almost broken the British this morning. It would have been like the 1919 advance on Moscow. Too far too fast. Had Denikin cleaned up his rear, chasing Makhno far enough West, he could have taken Moscow some months later. This German drive had the supplies. It was going to win. Ivan was happy for once to be on a winning side.
1400 hours EDT; 2000 hours CET
14 September 1940
White House, Washington DC
Harry Hopkins had just finished yet another frustrating campaign meeting with Franklin, and then a separate – thankfully briefer – one with Eleanor. Franklin was living in a fantasy world. He refused to be made to see that Farley had actually been a most useful minion. The man had done the endless handholding and petty deal-brokering necessary to keep the New Deal coalition together. It had been fracturing on its own since Franklin’s disastrous 1938 moves on court-packing and party purge. Without Farley’s daily labors of Hercules on repairs, it was now near collapse.
The Roosevelt Depression of 1938 had partially wiped out the New Deal enthusiasm of the first term. The ever more strident anti-capitalist rhetoric from the White House had thinned down a lot of Main Street support. Eleanor’s left alliances and causes had alienated much of Dixie’s ruling elite on race, and many big city machines on patronage control. Franklin’s visible tilt to Britain in the European war was alienating the Irish and much of the Midwest. No one particularly liked the Nazis or Fascists. Many were adamant against sending millions of Americans to risk death for the British Empire in Europe’s perpetual wars.
In the Willkie-Lindbergh-Coughlin triad, Franklin was faced with formidable opposition instead of the usual reactionary Republican hacks like Taft. Willkie could say ‘me too’ on most of the New Deal, other than the TVA, and promise to simply run the machine less corruptly. Lucky Lindy could beat the America First drum without being successfully called a traitor. He was a popular hero for his aviation exploits, and a tragic figure from the death of his kidnapped child. Coughlin could siphon off a lot of the populist anger against those whose profits in the 20’s had bankrupted the nation. Hopkins had access to the real polling data, to thousands of local big shots who could take the temperature of their little piece of earth as alderman or judges or whatever. Outside the South, Willkie was ahead. Ahead enough to maybe win. This was going to be razor-close. It would need more than the same old tired rhetoric. Yet neither Roosevelt was of a mind to listen to reason. Each had their circle of sycophants and ideologues who preferred flattery and ideological purity to victory in November. The next weeks were going to be unpleasant, and potentially brutal in terms of sharp-elbows infighting. Hopkins found himself the advocate of the more conservative end of Franklin’s base. These were not Harry Hopkins’ natural allies, but needs must.
0800 hours local, 15 September
2300 hours CET, 14 September
#33 The Bund, British Consulate, International Settlements, Shanghai
The meeting had played out well. Wang Jingwei, President of the Reorganized Government of China, was enjoying the power reversal placed on Japan by their new Soviet War. Their own propaganda spoke of heroic defenses, valiant incursions behind Soviet lines, and new air aces. Vladivostok was blockaded and North Sakhalin seized. The maps told the tale. The Soviet lines inched towards Harbin in Manchuria.
Wang had ‘defected’ to the Japanese from Chiang as part of a long-game strategy. Placate the Japanese to end the war. A war that was tearing China to pieces. Regardless of who won month-to-month warfare between Chiang and the Japanese, the real winners were chaos, starvation, and, ultimately, the Communists. A China slagged down to semi-bandits hiding in the interior mountains was Mao’s vision of the future.
The meeting had been in the British consulate because the two Anglo-Saxon powers had intervened on Wang’s behalf. The main cause of this was the Christians. Chiang had turned on them, missionaries and converts alike. There had been mass jailing, selective murders, and quick expulsions through the lines. The missionary community as a bloc had vast power in the Anglo world, especially among the rich, powerful Americans. These had promised food, arms, and experts. That was for later, and would take time. What they offered now was money. Money that could buy food for the refugees, that would buy materials to build them new housing on the fringes of Shanghai and the other ocean and river ports. Dollars that meant contracts to local businesses; and jobs as guards, as construction labor. Contracts and jobs that would flow through his regime.
The Chinese business community had already been given cause to turn from Chiang. He was now in alliance with the Reds and the Soviets. The KMT had been left, right and something else entirely, at different phases over its decades of history. This was a renewed turn to the left. That threatened the business owners, great and small alike, with expropriation and murder. But those inputs were all negative and somewhat distant. The KMT and Communists both had activists and assassins in Japanese-occupied territory. They could kill anyone, but scarcely everyone. The Kenpeitai were too powerful. The dollars were a positive inducement. US money was widely accepted. The patronage effect was immediate. Most people were not political. Beyond a core patriotism, they gave no thought to anything beyond their own rice bowls.
There was also a second-order effect. If you had the merchants and manufacturers on your side, you didn’t need the landlords. The French Revolution showed a pattern. Give land to the peasants, and they would fight to keep it. A fight that these Westerners had promised to aid. Back in the crisis years of the 20’s, the British had a division in the treaty ports. The Americans had two brigades. Now it was down to battalions. Both were promising the
equipment kit to rebuild their forces. Both were now rapidly recruiting locally – White Russians, Jews, refugees in general, Eurasians, and even westernized Chinese. Two Western divisions to play off against the now static, and due to shrink, Japanese invaders. Both were offering his forces money and arms in return for protecting the treaty ports and the Christians.
Like any good nationalist, Wang despised the whole treaty port system. But in the long term those could be dealt with in a generation or two, at China’s convenience. The whole peace-faction program was based on buying time for China to reassert its natural superiority. All the advantages the others had could be negated, given time for China to industrialize, to educate itself in new technologies. China always won in the end. There were just too many Chinese and too much Chinese land. Thus the wisdom of Chinese history. Even the Mongols had passed in a few generations.