by Scott Palter
Maletti was sure they were Australians, because he had captured over a hundred of them. He was fairly sure the Australians were bound for Suez because there was nothing else to the east. Headquarters had offered to send Rommel to his relief. Maletti had expressed the opinion that the Germans’ 7th Panzer Division was of better use pocketing the main British army to his south. He also wished to keep Rommel away from Cairo. Taking that city was to be a prize for Italy alone.
1000 hours CET
2 November 1940
Reichschancellery, Berlin
The conference of Gauleiters was supposed to have been chaired by the Führer. Göring had sent a flunky with a ‘deeply regret’ note. Few of the Gauleiters were surprised. Most had been up till near dawn partying with the Führer, which was why many of the chairs were occupied by the Deputy Gauleiters. Even exhausted and hung over, these had to actually show up. In this Reich, there were privileges by rank in these situations.
The Reichsführer would have preferred a proper meeting at a conference table instead of addressing this assembly from a podium. However, the public fiction that Göring was Führer needed to be maintained. The fat fool actually did a lot of useful work. Göring liked to lecture from a podium. so the room had been set up that way.
Heydrich was partway through a speech on labor reallocations and why these would be enforced, when he saw Schellenberg exit to the rear. One of the Oberführer’s minions must have had something that couldn’t keep. Heydrich would ask afterwards what was so important. Schellenberg rarely overstepped his bounds.
Now Schellenberg was back, walking briskly up to the microphone. He leaned into it and said, “Gentlemen, excellent news. The NL has won a great victory in Africa. I must steal the Reichsführer away for a few minutes for urgent matters of state.”
Heydrich let the Oberführer guide him behind the curtain at the rear of the podium. “What was so important that it couldn’t keep?”
“Steiner has taken Alexandria.”
“This is ahead of schedule and outside the plans we were given. What degree of damage?”
“Intact.”
“Impossible. No one could be that careless.”
“Confirmed through OKM, by the naval experts with him. Everything was wired but the order for some reason was never given. It could be that Steiner arrived with his Battalion unexpectedly. He overran his orders from Brigadier Strauss. He has the entire city. They have even recruited a native police force to assist them. The problem as ever is the Italians. OKM has diverted every transport ship they control, to unload in Alexandria. The Italians refuse to do the same, pending the arrival of confirmation from their troops in Egypt. None of whom are within one hundred kilometers of the city. I need to book a direct call to their rulers and then pull you to the phone once it is about to go through. General Wolff or myself will not have the same effect as your voice. Have I your permission to do this? Supplies landed at Alexandria do not need trucking from Libya. The trucks in Libya will be needed to move enough supplies and support troops to Egypt to begin the Palestine campaign.”
Heydrich did not shock easily. Intact! The boy Major had delivered this gift. The propaganda would be incalculable. “Steiner gets his next promotion and the Knight’s Cross. See that the other Brigade officers get suitable rewards. Yes, yes, go place the call.” He could see Schellenberg waiting to say something else. “And … ?”
“My colored antiaircraft shells. The ones that make big bright clouds in the sky like fireworks. I have enough for a thousand-gun salute in Berlin and a few dozen cities. Today is Saturday. We have the Gauleiter order public celebrations in their main cities today, tomorrow, and Monday. Make Monday a paid holiday. The employers will grumble, but who cares. Another huge victory and no lengthy list of German casualties. General von Manstein’s headquarters is doing a count, but the best guess is under two hundred actual German dead, wounded, missing.”
“Under two hundred? The public will be delirious. The Kaiser’s fool generals spent blood like a drunk spends his paycheck on Saturday night.” Heydrich was already thinking of second- and third-order implications. He reminded himself that the Oberführer was waiting for an answer. “Yes, yes. A thousand balls of colored light for a victory. I’ll go tell the Gauleiters. You get the call set up with Rome.”
1140 hours CET
2 November 1940
Comando Supremo delle Forze Armate, Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli, Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome, Italy
Prince Umberto was glad to escape the phone call from Berlin. His colleague in rule, Marshal Balbo, was in transit between Genoa and Verona, so the Prince had been forced to endure the dressing-down himself. Heydrich was polite, but left no doubt that he was giving orders, not having a discussion. Umberto was left to ‘discipline’ his navy. A service that had proven inept at basic staff work. A simple teleprinter message to Italo-German Panzer Army headquarters in Egypt, had produced a confirmation of the Alexandria situation.
The report was from some irregular Ardeti unit that the Prince had a recollection of retroactively authorizing after Malta. The unit had an observer forward. The commander was en route to Alexandria with his Italian battalion. The logic of moving all supplies for the Egyptian campaign directly to Egypt was obvious. His naval command had best not give him backtalk on any of this.
1300 hours local; 1200 CET
2 November 1940
Northeast of I Australian Corps engagement with 1st Libyan Division
He could hear firing to his southwest, but none to his north on any quadrant of north. To Orde Wingate, this told the entire story. The German force at the roadblock he’d detoured around was not just an isolated spearhead. Alexandria was lost, and 8th Army was in hasty retreat. He’d left the collapsing 7th Division with eight hundred plus men, almost all of them his Palestinians, the successors to his Night Squads from the Arab Rebellion. His following had climbed to over twelve hundred men by the time he came up on the cannon-armed roadblock on the coast road, having gathered up strays along the way. And now he had somewhat over 1600 people, including troops from every Dominion as well as the Mother Country, civilians from every major area in the Empire including everything from aged retirees to infants, and a variety of civilian vehicles interspersed with his army trucks and cars. His destination was Suez. He’d try for the bridge or, failing that, the railroad ferry. The key was to keep driving through the night. He’d requisition any fuel he found. Broken vehicles would be abandoned. Blackout rules on night movement would be ignored. This gamble might well fail, but anything else was a surefire disaster. He wished he was as ruthless as a German. They would have shoved the civilians and hangers-on to the side to die, preserving the core fighting unit. He might be eccentric by the rigid standards of the British Army, but he was still a gentleman. English gentlemen did not abandon the inconvenient. If such scruples were lost, what was England fighting for? Surely this war was about something more than a sordid scramble for dominion over Arabs?
1315 hours local; 1215 hours CET
2 November, 1940
Captain Morgan’s House of Rare Treasures, Alexandria, Egypt
Greta’s force of Betar and newly recruited Arab auxiliary police had sealed both the building and the block. Greta led a mixed squad through the front door. Two frightened store security people led her into the back where ‘Captain’ Morgan sat behind a desk covered with the usual business-office piles of paper. This was her Cousin Hymie? The Arab police had provided an address for a Canadian Captain Morgan in the mercantile trade. This apparently was it.
Some dumpy woman was in a chair by the side. His wife? His bookkeeper? She was both too old and too ugly to be his mistress, at least to Greta’s untrained eye. Her idea of a rich man’s mistress, was an exotic beauty such as Coxita.
One of her Arabs knew English and got the man to identify himself. Greta spoke to him in Magyar, which she was fairly sure no one other than her Betar girls spoke. “You were Hymie in Transylvania? I’m your cousin. Pleas
e come with us.”
Morgan was not an easy man to discomfit. He answered in the same language, “I’ll need ten minutes to see to my staff. Can you post guards here? The situation is – shall we say – precarious.” He was frantically trying to place who on Earth the girl was. How had he a ‘cousin’ in German uniform with officer’s tabs?
Greta couldn’t read his face but could easily guess his thought processes. “Israel Levi’s daughter. The Cluj branch of the family. I’m here with the Ploiesti branch of the family. Isaac Cohen and his people. We’re all in the German Army now. My General has need of your professional skills. We have acquired certain items and need to discuss valuation and sale.”
The ‘Captain’ fought to keep a smile off his face. This was business. A German General wanted him on a business matter. He had never hoped for a connection this good to fall into his lap. “What is your General’s command?”
“We have a Brigade that for now is the Alexandria garrison. I don’t know if he is formally Commandant, but as we created a police force and the Reichsführer’s headquarters approved, it sort of amounts to the same thing.”
“Reichsführer?” Morgan’s head was spinning. How highly placed was this little girl cousin?
“Our unit is a direct report to him. You can say he is my General’s patron.”
“And this matter he needs guidance on … ”
“Shall we say expensive antiquities we acquired on Malta.”
Loot. They had loot they wanted fenced. The new masters accepted his criminal connections and found them useful. Maybe there was a God. Morgan could think of no other way to account for this sort of wild luck. Morgan asked if the Palestinian woman Meir could accompany him? (He mostly didn’t want to leave her free to explore his premises.)
Golda was quite confused. She asked him in Yiddish, “What is going on?”
Greta replied in the same language. “This city is now in German hands. You are being taken to my General. I don’t know who you are, but we have need of Captain Morgan.”
Golda followed the group out the door, completely confused. Morgan had said Italian connections. Why was he now linked to the Nazis?
Greta left Naiomi in charge with two composite platoons of Betar, new Arab police, and the mixed-nationality security people of Morgan’s who were now de facto part of the Occupation. Naiomi passed around armbands for Morgan’s guards. None refused them, even the nominal Britishers. In times of transition, official status was a coveted prize.
Greta had everyone driven back to the docks. The streets were mostly fairly quiet. The NL and their new Arab minions had responded to disorder and looting with machine-gun and rifle fire. Order swiftly followed. Greta made a note to tell the new police to collect the bodies. She was still too new at this to tell them to get ID’s so a proper list of the dead could be made. Learning on the job left knowledge gaps like that.
1345 hours local; 1245 hours CET
2 November 1940
Western outskirts of Alexandria, Egypt
Gunter arrived here with most of Di Salo’s Battalion and a composite Battalion from the rest of the Brigade. The rest of his forces were strung out over 100 kilometers of road back to the original line of departure. He was met by Hauptmann von Kleist-Konitz, Gefreiter Collins, and this new Egyptian police recruit, Commissioner Jabar Isa Gaafar. There were big signs up saying ‘this way to the port’ in German and Italian. The streets were calm, but there was a smell of recent small-arms fire and some scattered bodies, none in uniform. Bain Collins saw the General looking. “Rioters and looters, sir. We have kept the streets clear by fire.”
Gunter was surprised that the cook’s young boy was now a Gefreiter. He’d ask Klaus later about it. Klaus usually had reasons for what he did. “The Führer mandated proper treatment, Gefreiter.”
“That was for British service people in particular, and white people in general, sir. Colonial peoples not in British service sometimes need a firm hand, per Hauptmann von Kleist-Konitz and Major Steiner, sir.”
The Egyptian put out his hand to introduce himself. After the handshake he tried to find a common language with the city’s new ruler and was surprised to discover that it was English. This German spoke English with an American accent. A lower class one to boot. Interesting. “If I may be permitted, Your Excellency, Egypt is currently in a state of armed revolt. The religious fanatics of the Muslim Brotherhood, local nationalists, factions from the Egyptian Army, and the usual disorderly elements in the lower classes. They are attacking white people, government buildings, Christian churches; looting stores and warehouses. Under Hauptmann von Kleist-Konitz’s command, my men are restoring order. To do this, examples must be made. Only thing these types understand. Give me twelve more hours plus continued permission to take trustworthy men into the new order police, and the city will again be calm.”
“You are recruiting?”
“I was given permission. Not all the former police are to be trusted.”
Gunter smiled cynically. “Not all of them recognize your authority.” He was pleased to see the Egyptian nod. The man may have been an opportunist, but apparently not a fool. “You give the rest of them notice. Twenty-four hours to bend the knee or quit the city. Tell them no squabbling about rank. You are in command, and decide who keeps their former ranks and pay … as long as we find you useful.”
He turned back to von Kleist-Konitz. “Where are Peiper, and Di Salo’s woman?”
Von Kleist chuckled. Everyone tripped over what to call the officers’ concubines. “Command Observer Arcau LaTorre suggested to the Sturmbannführer that the best use of his battalion was occupying the main airport complex at Grebe. He’s there doing an inventory on the fuel tanks, which like the harbor were not destroyed in the retreat. Luftwaffe wants to move up a bunch of Ju-52’s for some projected air drop at Suez in a few days. The message traffic got too technical for us very quickly. Something about load factors, ranges, fuel usage and the like. There are also over twenty German and Italian planes diverted there today because of mechanical issues. The Command Observer has occupied several key installations with her Betar. I haven’t a clue where she got the Betar from. She herself seems to be at the telephone exchange monitoring long-distance calls. She speaks enough languages to do most, and the rest she is just refusing to put through.”
“ ‘Command Observer’ ?” Coxita’s rank was mistress, as far as Gunter was concerned.
Von Kleist-Konitz went from chuckling to outright laughter. “Her former rank, as in before her association with Oberstleutnant Di Salo, was Company Commissar. She sensibly decided that was perhaps not suitable in this army. I always thought she was purely decorative, but it seems she is actually a veteran. Also worked on a Cheka tribunal, or so she’s claiming today. Might I suggest we just make her a Hauptmann? It’s less bother. Major Steiner’s woman is a Leutnant, after all. Di Salo’s is a veteran, while Steiner’s is as untrained as he is.”
Di Salo came up himself just in time to hear his name mentioned. When the story of Coxita’s day was related to him, he sighed, joined the laughter, and agreed she could be a Hauptmann. Instead of reflecting poorly on him, this day she had done him proud. Women! An abiding mystery to any male.
……….
Gefreiter Bain was beside himself with pride at achieving his father’s rank. Father had been a Sergeant multiple times, including very briefly right before retirement. He’d rarely held it for long, even in wartime. Father claimed conspiracies among the senior NCO’s ruined his career. Mother more sensibly saw it as resulting from too strong a taste for drink and bar room brawls. This was an opinion she never expressed in front of her husband. He beat her often enough after each loss of rank.
Being allowed to report directly to the General was the high point of Bain’s young life. Perhaps, unlike Father, he could be a long-serving Sergeant when he retired in thirty or forty years. Perhaps he could dream of making Sergeant-Major. Bain was hazy on what German retirement age was. He would ask Mot
her if when his new rank insignia were sewed onto his uniform blouse, he could send Father a picture with a note. There had to be some way of finding out what internment camp his father was posted to in Italy.
1400 hours local; 1300 hours CET
2 November 1940
Joint Italo-German Panzer Army Headquarters
Generals Carlo Geloso and Erich von Manstein stood in front of the situation map, watching their carefully constructed battle-plan dissolve in smoke. Two British divisions had vanished. A third had come apart. The bulk of the British Army was in flight, but a hard crust remained behind in the fortified east-west positions.
Complicating matters, the new battle had to be fought with conflicting national goals in mind. When this was over it was the Italians who were to be chasing the British into Upper Egypt and occupying Cairo. The Germans were to cross Suez into Sinai with some Italian support. Yet Hausser’s SS division was best placed to chase the British east and then south, and Rommel was best placed to support 1st Libyan’s march on Cairo.
Geloso decided to treat this as a staff school exercise. “General von Manstein, I propose the following. Your Germans will liquidate the original British position. General Rommel is not, under any circumstances, to send any troops towards Cairo. I must insist on this for reasons of Italian prestige. Your Brigade Strauss has taken Alexandria with only a single Italian battalion in support.” Geloso thought to himself that Di Salo’s battalion was Italian by courtesy. It was a mélange of Italians, Italian Jews, foreign Jews, Magyars, and Catalans. Propaganda would stress the word Italian, and Di Salo himself was presentable enough. Young, handsome, a Spanish veteran, an aristocrat. Use him in the pictures, and the home public would presume the battalion had a thousand young Italian men of good family along as volunteer Arditi.