Chapter 14:

Chapter 14:

“History has shown there are no invincible armies.”

― Joseph Stalin

Chapter 14

The reports from the eastern front were dismal.

The high-ranking officers of the Wolf’s Lair (the Nazi German Army High Command, OKH, Wolfschanze) thought that the Soviet Union would follow the same fate as France, which was subdued in six weeks, and Britain, which was pushed back to the Atlantic and starved to death.

The Vichy government of France agreed to join the Nazi Germany’s cause.

The Nationalist government of Spain was lukewarm at best, but never challenged the German hegemony.

Italy was an ally that followed Germany’s lead and took charge of the war in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

The only thing left was the Soviet Union.

And the High Command thought that the only enemy in Europe that could rival Germany, the Soviet Union, could be easily subdued.

The Soviet Union was clearly complacent.

They acted humbly and cowardly to avoid confronting Germany.

Even after the war started.

The generals never tried to issue an active engagement order, and the High Command thought it was a border dispute and even urged them to surrender.

During the first week of Operation Barbarossa, he succumbed to the Führer’s vision.

But he, they were all wrong.

The Soviet Union was neither easy nor willing to surrender.

The High Command’s ambition to conquer Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan by 1941 was thwarted before it even reached halfway.

The three army groups of the Wehrmacht were already stalled on their way to their intermediate goals.

The 4th Panzer Group, which was in charge of the armored forces of the Army Group North, managed to withstand the strong and mechanized offensive of the enemy Northwestern Front, but lost nearly 20% of its armored vehicles and requested reorganization and replenishment.

The Army Group Center, which had the most powerful armored forces, could not sustain its offensive in front of the endless Soviet defense lines.

The German army’s strength clearly outnumbered the Soviet army before the war.

But in an instant, the Soviet Union entered a total war mode and deployed millions of troops and built layers of defense lines.

Germany chose mechanization to overcome the nightmare of trench warfare.

The tanks were certainly powerful.

The mobility and breakthrough power of the tanks left a deep impression on the senior officers who remembered the battlefield where infantry advanced step by step with blood and sweat.

But defense lines appeared in front of defense lines, and even after repeated breakthroughs, new divisions and defense lines appeared.

The machines that rolled with steel and oil, spitting fire and smoke, were worn out and stopped.

They sacrificed machines made with German money instead of German blood, but they were experiencing the same war.

Franz Halder, chief of staff of the German Army, held his Walther pistol from Holster.

He should have shot him.

He should have shot him with this pistol.

To prevent him from waging this insane war.

But when...?

When he annexed Austria?

When he took away the Sudetenland?

Or when he divided Czechoslovakia with other countries?

When he went to war with Poland?

Or with France?

At least after starting a war with France, Germany would have had only two choices.

A war to end all enemies or death for German people.

The vulgar tavern owner Ribbentrop boasted about the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union as if it was a great achievement, but the Soviet Union would never keep that pact forever.

They would have invaded Germany in 1944, 1945, or sometime in the 1950s.

Germany had alienated all allies who could fight with them against the Soviet Union by its own hands.

Poland, France, and now Britain.

The Führer argued that if he left the Soviet Union alone to strengthen its power, Germany would never be able to defeat them.

His prediction seemed to have come true too soon.

The sons of Germany were fighting hard.

But there were just too many Slavs.

Many reports reported that they fought bravely and won against overwhelming numbers of enemies on the front line.

And more reports reported that they fought desperately and died against surprisingly overwhelming numbers of enemies.

Their weapons were not much inferior to those of Germany.

Rather, on the front line, they constantly raised the need to improve their weapons’ effectiveness and Germany’s weapons.

There was nothing they couldn’t do that we could do.

“General! The Führer is calling you!”

A young lieutenant came in and told him.

He was a ‘typical Aryan’ young man with a tall stature, blue eyes, and blond hair. Beautiful bastards.

He couldn’t expect any of the essential qualities for an officer from those who came to this position just by their appearance.

They considered disregard for life as fanaticism as courage?

The Führer liked it.

Half of Britain’s elite army had already died or been captured in France, and the other half was fighting a bloody battle with Rommel’s ‘Field Marshal’ Afrika Korps in Africa. Their downfall seemed inevitable.

At least in Dönitz’s plan.

“The heart of British colonial rule is right there in Suez. Britain will lose half of its power if it loses Suez.”

He peeled off the blue round plaques that were attached to the map.

The plaques that read King George V, Prince of Wales, and Warspite were swept away by Dönitz one by one.

The blue square plaque that read Glorious was also removed.

The blue plaques that represented the British fleet were much more numerous than the gray ones from a bird’s eye view of the map.

But the blue ones were scattered all over the map. Dönitz pointed at them one by one with his baton.

“The British fleet can be divided into four major formations. First, the Far East Fleet and the Indian Ocean Fleet, stationed east of the Suez Canal. They are still in their bases to suppress any possible rebellion in the colonies.”

The Far East Fleet had to guard the Malacca Strait, the gateway to Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The Indian Ocean Fleet was protecting India, Britain’s largest and most precious colony.

The Japanese Empire, a fellow Axis ally, was expanding day by day and threatening Britain’s hegemony in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.

The Indian National Congress led by Nehru also thought it was an opportunity while Britain was at war and intensified their anti-colonial protests.

If Britain wanted to keep its colonies, it could not bring back all of its fleets in the East.

“What we actually have to face are half of them: the British Mediterranean Fleet stationed in Alexandria and the Home Fleet based in Scapa Flow. And half of that half, three of their capital ships, have already sunk to the bottom of the sea. If we count HMS Royal Oak, which was sunk by our submarine fleet in their base, it’s already four.”

The Royal Navy, which once ruled the five oceans, was more miserable than ever.

It was enough for the Kriegsmarine, which had grown to an unprecedented level in history, to challenge them.

“And if we succeed in capturing these two places here, we can cut off another half of them!”

His baton pointed at Gibraltar and Malta.

The supply of British troops in the Mediterranean and North Africa was carried out through the Strait of Gibraltar, and the British fleet freely moved between Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Suez, and their own sea, the Indian Ocean.

The Axis fleet?

They could not even access the Mediterranean Sea, which Britain treated as their own backyard.

“Gibraltar is nothing but a cork of a bottle, as you can see. They are holding the cork and shaking our power. But if we plug this cork with our overwhelming force in this area and force them to surrender, we can neutralize the British Mediterranean Fleet!”

The Führer nodded quietly. Dönitz looked around the audience with pride. Göring, who was as pig-like as Churchill, or perhaps even more so, and whose ambition was much greater, also stretched his thick chin and nodded.

The Luftwaffe would also get a big slice of the merit from there.

The army?

They had to justify their heavy casualties in the fight against the Slavs, the inferior race.

Halder tried to find a flaw in the plan.

They could blockade the Gibraltar base with the navy, but they could not capture Gibraltar or Malta without proper ground forces.

They could only cripple both sides, and their chances did not look very high if the enemy concentrated their forces and attempted a large-scale battle later. Perhaps that was why they called him here, to ask for the army’s division.

“But... we need proper army forces to attack Gibraltar and Malta. We are short of troops on the eastern front. We are short of supplies. The more we divert resources and manpower to that side, the more our sons in the east will starve for lack of supplies and fight without ammunition!”

“General Halder, we will not ask the army for something impossible.”

Wilhelm Canaris, the head of Abwehr (military intelligence), spoke softly.

Halder always suspected that Canaris was a traitor.

Canaris never liked the Führer and was not very friendly to the Nazi regime.

His rival Himmler?

Perhaps Canaris was the most hated by Himmler and his gang in the Third Reich’s military.

But now Canaris’s eyes were shining with excitement and enthusiasm.

“Franco has finally decided to join the war!”

Göring announced this good news as if he did not want to lose even this role.

Halder did not notice it because he was buried in his own thoughts, but the attendees’ expressions were too good compared to the dire situation on the eastern front.

“Ah...!”

“‘El Caudillo’ has promised two corps, 70,000 troops, and an air fleet for now. 70,000 regular and colonial troops, excluding those already in the war. Halder, you worry too much.”

The Führer said calmly. 70,000 troops, even if they were second-rate troops like the Spanish army, could be a great help.

Especially for attacking Gibraltar, which was practically their front yard.

With the support fire of a dozen battleships and cruisers, they could enter Gibraltar proudly.

“If Gibraltar falls, their sturdy cork will be ours. They will wither and die without supplies, and we will take Malta and Alexandria as they are. General Rommel has already recaptured Tobruk and is preparing an offensive plan to advance to El Alamein and Alexandria. The goddess of victory is already smiling at us!”

“What about the British home fleet? What if the British home fleet and the Mediterranean fleet attack our concentrated forces in the strait from both sides?”

The Führer stopped Halder’s question with his hand again.

The Führer’s face, which had not been seen smiling for a long time, twisted into a sinister grin.

“The filthy Poles gave them our codes and they were decrypting them. The navy’s codes were less cracked, but they knew everything about the air force and army’s codes. But now that we know this, we can deceive them once with false information.”

Insignificant ones.

The Führer seemed to say so.

Was it the madness of a prophet returning?

The Führer began a long speech as if no mortal’s petty plans could stop him, the prophet of the great German nation.

Canaris, Göring, Dönitz, they all looked at the Führer with eyes of admiration.

“The British intelligence thinks they have eavesdropped on our plan and are happy about it. They think that our fleets stationed in Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg, and Brest will participate in commerce raiding operations at different times. But... our U-boats have already crossed France to Spain and will sortie from Bilbao to form a blockade network. Our main surface ships, except for Bismarck as a tempting bait, will also gather at Gibraltar on the day of operation...”

Bismarck, the symbol of Germany’s ocean fleet. Bismarck had sunk HMS Hood, the pride of the British navy, and sent Prince of Wales and King George V to the cold waters of the North Atlantic.

The British navy was burning with revenge and offered a huge reward for sinking Bismarck.

They would give medals, rewards, and promotions to whoever sank Bismarck!

“While the British home fleet is wandering around the Atlantic alone to catch Bismarck on a rampage, we will stab them at their weakest point!”