‘From a strategic perspective, Comrade General Secretary, ‘Molotov responded’ it may indeed be in the interest of the British to support a move against us. Our forces are now occupying or threatening important strategic positions in the Balkans which London before the war regarded as their own. Our presence in northern Greece and the reality that we will soon enter Yugoslavia poses a direct challenge to their strategy of re-installing the puppet monarchist regimes that they supported before the war. So there is no question of a motive. It would explain or justify assisting the German raid against Sevastopol or even doing it themselves’ He paused searching for a reaction. ‘What I do not know and only Zhukov or you Comrade Beria can answer is, are the British able to project power into central Europe on a scale sufficient to make this offensive possible on short notice?’
‘They must have the ability.’ Stalin was distant. “They certainly let those Polish reactionaries fly their planes from London to Warsaw.”
Beria rose to the challenge. If Zhukov had conjured up a massive allied airlift to explain being caught napping he was not about to take the blame. He knew that his best sources sat in the hubs of British decision-making; in counter-intelligence, in the diplomatic service, in weapons research. If the British had deployed new weapons into Eastern Europe on a scale big enough for this kind of strategic offensive action, then his men would have heard about it, just as they would have caught wind of a significant air lift of material. Most of his agents were ideologically motivated and this sort of activity was exactly what they would be watching out for. No, if there was such a thing happening he would know. Beria was no soldier but knew enough about logistics to be certain that one did not achieve what Zhukov was implying overnight.
‘I think that the surprise of the offensive has made Comrade Zhukov forget his own assessment of a few weeks ago. The fact that the Americans and the British allowed the German forces to retreat across France without great hindrance has allowed Berlin to redeploy its best units into our sector.’ He was warming to the topic, which his MVD analysts also supported. ‘As I recall STAVKA estimated that over 15 first-rate divisions from France and nearly the same number of second-rate units from Scandinavia and Italy could be sent into our sector if there was no real interference from the west. Is this not what we are confronting?’ Damn he should not have phrased that as a question. It betrayed his own uncertainty.
In truth, no-one in the Soviet leadership had thought the Germans capable of such offensive action. Their advances since the summer had made them complacent. Now they were paying the price. The question was would there be a scapegoat.
Stalin cast a questioning eye towards Beria. ‘Have we any evidence of whether the British are helping the Germans.’
‘Comrade we have asked all our agents to report on anything of this nature over the past weeks. Ever since the reactionaries in Warsaw began co-operating with the fascists. The renegade Polish units that came over to Warsaw do not amount to more than a few hundred men and at most 100 planes. I doubt that after the air strikes of the Air Force, that they are even half that, which means they have been reduced to symbolic status. Politically significant but not a military factor. If there is substantial collaboration then it is well-concealed, and unlikely to allow for strategic level support. In my judgement there is no active support.’ Beria was on safe ground here – using special one-time pads he had asked the London resident to specifically seek out his best placed agents – the Cambridge Ring – to provide a clear picture. From the feedback it was clear that there was a lot of soul searching and heated discussion but no active support for the German war effort. I will concede that there is real support for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the deployment of British forces into Germany and Poland.
‘This is leaves us with the possibility that the Germans have done this entirely on own.’ Molotov stated. In his world the support from the Hungarians and the Poles was not worth mentioning.
‘If so then they are far from beaten.’ Stalin’s voice was neutral. ‘ they may yet hold out long enough for the capitalists to rediscover their long-term historic self-interest. One day Roosevelt will be gone and then we will be on our own again. Churchill will never be our friend.‘ He looked at his henchmen and Beria and Molotov saw a glint of uncertainty in Stalin’s eyes. The same uncertainty that had been there when they had come for him in July 1941 after he had misjudged Hitler’s intention and prevented Soviet preparations to counter the German invasion. Back then he had gone into seclusion for days, fearing to be shot at any moment. When Molotov had finally sought him out to reassume command Stalin had been convinced that they had come to shoot him. Back then the Soviet dictator had known fear. He knew it now. The mighty Soviet war machine ultimately depended on the limitless Russian manpower and American supplies under lend-lease. The latter might soon be a thing of the past.
Mindful of that reality, Stalin had put out peace feelers to Hitler in 1942 and 1943 after Stalingrad. By now he had convinced himself that the Soviet Army would in fact reach into central Europe as it drove the Wehrmacht before it. If Germany and Britain put an end to their hostilities, Russia could face a repeat of the western invasions that had followed the Revolution in 1918. Maybe not immediately but ultimately the danger would become real. Stalin knew that the Soviet system was unlikely to survive this. Not after what he had done to the people during the years of terror in the 1930s. To outsiders this scenario would have been pure paranoia but to Stalin this was long-term geopolitics
Evening 13th October
Athens, Greece
As tensions rose in Greece, General Scobie aggravated the situation General Scobie by recruiting additional security personnel only from one side. Based on a deep ignorance of the historical realities of the Greek situation, he compounded his error on October 13th when he issued an ultimatum to EAM to return to the cabinet and work for stability or face the full might of the law. There were people to be fed and the approaching winter made it imperative that the situation be stabilized. That was the official line; on the side the General got wind that the tone of the Soviet mission in Greece and that of its leader, Colonel Popov, had changed and that arms shipments appeared to be beginning. What Scobie and Churchill did not understand was that Operation Wintererwachen and the Polish crisis changed Stalin’s plans. Originally he had instructed Colonel Popov, to stress to the KKE/EAM leadership the importance of cooperating with the British so that food supplies could be brought in as soon as possible. Now he saw an opportunity to punish the British for their, at least, implicit support for the Warsaw Poles. The small arms of an entire Soviet division based in Bulgaria were hastily crated and transported across the porous Greek-Bulgarian border into the hands of KKE leaders loyal to Moscow. The next shipments were food. This was the deciding factor for the radicals in the KKE to swing EAM towards confrontation.
After a very brief debate, the KKE called for a mass demonstration in Athens Constitution Square on the 15th . That morning under a clear sunny sky thousands of people converged on Constitution Square in a boisterous but peaceful mood. In front of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier EAM leaders began setting up a stage from which to address the crowd. Just as the loudspeakers came on line, a shot rang out and an EAM technician tumbled from the stage, his skull shattered by a bullet. From atop the official buildings lining the square the police, many of whom had worked throughout the German occupation, opened fire. Mercifully their munitions supplies were limited but when the horror ended their indiscriminate fire had left 30 dead and dozens wounded, while thousands fled in terror. The foreign press, installed in Hotel Grand Bretagne alongside Scobie’s headquarters was horrified.
That night Athens held its breath while EAM leaders debated and planned. They proclaimed a general strike for the next day and Greece came to a halt. Scobie unaware of the full extent of the strike sat back, comfortable in the belief that he backed the legitimate Government and that everyone would want the food shipments to continue. He did not know of
the Soviet food shipments from Bulgaria.
Over the next few days ELAS units converged on the towns and encircled Athens. Three days later a British patrol was challenged when it tried to drive beyond the city limits of Piraeus. The incident ended without violence which led Scobie to underestimate its significance. While he held his ground, ELAS asserted control over nearly all of Greece and Athens. Under instructions form the KKE leadership, - OPLA units – effectively the KKE’s secret police - scoured the urban neighbourhoods for suspected collaborators and class enemies. By the time Scobie roused himself, OPLA’s revolutionary justice had claimed over 1200 victims, most simply shot.
When Scobie at last realised the extent of his predicament, he was completely outmanoeuvred; even his access to the Athens airfields was under ELAS control. Frantic communications with London led to the despatch of an additional battalion of troops from France who arrived at the Saloniki airfields which the British India Division still controlled only to join these troops held in place by ELAS units under Markos Vafiadis. An attempt to force a landing at Athens came to nothing when ELAS troops simply pulled dozens of donkey carts onto the runways. Scobie and Papandreou remained isolated and encircled in Athens, an area of Athens about two square miles in size known among Athenians as ‘Scobia’.
15th October
The Minsk-Vilnius road
The Brandenburger unit, wearing the uniforms of MVD troops had watched the highway all afternoon before making their move. Then during the night they had carefully placed two mines on the road. While one jeep remained nearby to take advantage of any opportunity that might transpire, the other two headed west to repeat the exercise with their remaining four mines a few kilometres on. In all three barriers were created and during the night two of them claimed Soviet trucks. In both cases the Brandenburger immediately descended upon the column to ‘render assistance’ and to close off the obviously extensive minefield on the road with the help of the survivors of the ambushed columns. In both cases they left strict orders not to allow any further vehicles to pass for at least a day until the road could be cleared.
As expected the Soviet infantry coming down the road carried out these orders blocking the road for about half a day, but it was enough; the build-up on the road was significant and the Brandenburger alerted the Luftwaffe by radio. A force of light bombers preceded by the Me 262 jets whose machine cannon together with the subsequent bombs closed the road for the remainder of the day. Meanwhile the Brandenburger headed westward towards the approaching frontline, moving and removing road signs on secondary roads at every opportunity and cutting dozens of telephone lines.
Evening, 15th October
Rommel’s HQ
Rastenburg
East Prussia
They had been at it for five days and still the element of surprise appeared to be on their side. Battlegroups 1 and 2 continued to advance towards their targets. Battelgroup 1 had reached Ukmenge a critical junction on the Vilnius-Riga highway. Battlegroup 2 was within striking distance of Vilnius. As planned groups 4 & 5 had turned north towards Grodno to relieve a smaller parachute unit dropped onto that critical junction and consolidate the advancing frontline. Rommel was even toying with going on to Minsk if all went well. From there he would be able to turn north and south to outflank the Russian advance into Poland and the threat to Riga. There were two reasons for this latter target. If the Russians succeeded in taking Riga, the Wehrmacht stood to lose another 100 000 veterans currently retreating through Estonia back towards the Reich. And secondly the longer Germany held the Baltic states, whose puppet regimes Goerdeler had replaced with administrative bodies representing a greater spread of society, the greater the chance that Americans of Baltic descent would exert pressure on President Roosevelt. Unfortunately, due to geography the Finns were on their own.
At the same time von Treskow cautioned against excessive optimism and strongly advised against going for Minsk. The Red Air Force was making things very difficult for the attackers. The Panzers were having to stick to woods or make dashes across open areas for fear of being caught. Although the repair shops were performing miracles, the losses inflicted by the heavy-armoured Sturmovik were sapping the German strength.
Large segments of Battlegroup 4 were stuck in the outskirts of Byalstock where they were taking heavy losses whenever they tried to push forward. Remnants of 3 Russian divisions held the town and although they were taking heavy losses they kept the Wehrmacht from cracking this vital supply node.
October 16th
Gulf of Finland
Baltic See
That night the Kriegsmarine task force – leaving behind the Admiral Hipper, the ancient light cruiser Emden and two destroyers off the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa (Dago and Osel to the Germans) – passed the large Rhinoceros minefield laid by the Kriegsmarine in late 1941 to bottle up its opponent in their Kronstadt base. Their passing had been detected and the next morning Admiral Kutnetzov’s Baltic fleet sallied from Kronstadt. Everything Kutnetzov could get to move was steaming at best speed: the ancient battleship Oktyabrskaya Revolutsia, the cruisers Maxim Gorky and Kirov, eighteen destroyers and torpedo boats and minesweepers. Nearly three years of inactivity in their Leningrad and Kronstadt bases had reduced the once proud Baltic fleet to this; two of its battleships had been sunk by the Luftwaffe, as had a cruiser and half a dozen of smaller vessels.
The arrival of the German battlegroup in the approaches to Leningrad had caught them napping and for a day they had scrambled until finally venturing forward in broad daylight under cover of what the ships commanders hoped would be sufficient air protection. All the way out of the bay of Leningrad they hugged the coastline, then turned and followed the coast south towards Narva. Nearly one hundred kilometers to the west their air scouts spotted the main German fleet stretched out in a line and shelling the Red Army units advancing on Tallin. Half an hour later German spotter planes also sighted the Soviet fleet. The German ships immediately made a great display of turning westwards, although the Soviet force was clearly inferior.
By 3 pm the German fleet passed the Rhinoceros barrier with the Baltic Fleet in hot pursuit. Although harassed by a small Luftwaffe bomber force the Russian vessels safely navigated the dangerous barrier; Kutnetzov once again cursing himself for not having foreseen the need for more minesweepers in the Soviet Navy.[85] Just as the most of the Soviet fleet hard cleared the barrier and was picking up steam, the German line turned and came for the ill prepared Russians. With two squadrons of Me 262s operating from Saaremaa airfield to keep the Red Air force at bay the Tirpitz and its supporting cast brought the superior range of their guns to bear. Pushed against the barrier with a large number of vessels still heading westward in the narrow mine-free channel Kutsnetzov’s ships were caught. The Maxim Gorky and a destroyer were badly damaged when they turned around before leaving the channel and hit mines, effectively blocking the exit. That left only standing and fighting for the Oktyabrskaya Revolutsia and the Kirov and the six smaller vessels caught on the wrong side of the minefield.
It had been a simple trap but the Germans had counted on the lack of training and experience on the Soviet side enforced by three years of being bottled up in their base. They also correctly anticipated that the use of naval crews as infantry around Leningrad over the past years had reduced the level of naval experience even further. Relieved that it had actually worked, the Germans brought the superior range of their 38 cm, 28 and 20,3 cm heavy guns to bear. Oktyabrskaya Revolutsia responded with her 12 30.5cm guns while the Kirov’s 18cm guns lacked the range. In quick succession the German guns found the Soviet battleships range and despite furious manoeuvring three hits damaged her severely but did not slow her down. Just as her fire weakened, Kirov steaming at top speed to close the range, found her targets. Prinz Eugen and the cruiser Nurnberg took hits from the rapid fire of the 18cm guns. Two of the precious destroyers also suffered damage from near misses and withdrew. Unwilling to take more casualties, and fearful of runn
ing low on ammunition if the engagement lasted longer the German commander turned for the open sea and under the cover of Tirpitz eight 38cm guns and a massive torpedo salvo from the destroyers broke off the engagement. One of Tirpitz shell’s found the Soviet destroyer Uritzky which disappeared in a cloud of foam and fire. One of the torpedoes found the Oktyabrskaya Revolutsia bringing her to a stop, while two more narrowly missed the furiously manoeuvring Kirov, but caught one of the mine sweepers.
It took nearly five minutes for the Germans to realise the opportunity that the stricken Soviet capital ship presented, and another ten for them to execute another torpedo salvo, this time from light cruisers as well as destroyers. With thirty six torpedoes in the water both sides held their breath as Kutsnetzov’s ships frantically manoeuvred to evade the deadly projectiles. The Oktyabrskaya Revolutsia never had a chance and took fatal hits. Still firing she slowed to a stop and gradually took on water. Within a few minutes water lapped over her main deck but even then the turret crews kept up the fire. When they abandoned the ship it was too late for most, unable to swim free of the sinking 25 000ton ship, half of her 1200 crew went down with her. But in death she scored a major success: A near miss of her guns damaged the Tirpitz artillery radar effectively removing her heavy guns from the duel. But the Kirov’s luck also left her as she evaded the torpedoes one of the Admiral Scheer’s heavy shells took her behind the second turret and the explosion set off the mines she carried. In a series of spectacular explosions she lurched forward, rocked back before settling slowly under heavy smoke beneath the waves. None of her 700 crew survived.
The Valkyrie Option Page 50
