The Moscow Option (26 page)

They clamped the lid down tighter than before. Conscious of their vulnerability the British security forces resorted to measures which they described, in true national style, as ‘stern but fair’. To the Arabs they seemed merely harsh, and a further reminder of their subordinate status. They did not share the British view of the war as a crusade; they knew little of the plight of Europe’s Jews, only that several hundred thousand of them had appropriated land in Palestine. To the Arabs the British were fighting for the right to maintain their global empire, and there was nothing noble in that. But they were not yet ready for rebellion. They waited, as their counterparts in Egypt had waited, for the Germans to engage their well-armed occupiers, before making too overt a move of their own.

The British stepped up the propaganda war. Much was made of the escalating chaos in Egypt, and of the imperial designs of the Italians, whom the British knew were anathema to the Arabs. The latter were not initially impressed; it would be several weeks before the same news reached the Fertile Crescent through a more reliable source - their own people. In those days of June and July it was British repression and Arab caution that kept the area behind the fighting fronts relatively quiescent.

Alexander’s other major task was the supplying of his armies. In losing Suez the British had lost half their port capacity, and now only Basra (which could handle 5000 tons a day) and Aqaba (250 tons) could be used for supplying the armies east of the Canal. The latter, moreover, was well within range of the new Luftwaffe bases in the Suez Canal Zone.

So all depended on the 5000 tons coming into Basra. Not all of it was destined for the British; over ten per cent was loaded on to the Trans-Iranian railway for shipment into Russia. Nor could the other ninety per cent be brought to Baghdad, since the single-track Baghdad-Basra railway could only carry 3900 tons a day. One of Alexander’s first decisions on taking over the Middle East Command was to order a crash-doubling of the tracks. But this would take an estimated three months.

The problem worsened at Baghdad. The road to Haifa could only handle 1200 tons, enough for five divisions. The railway to Aleppo could take slightly more, but it unfortunately ran through Turkish territory and could not be relied upon. In Palestine there were enough supplies stored to maintain seven divisions for ninety days. The conclusion to be drawn from all these figures was that Eighth Army, in the prevailing situation, could only maintain seven divisions in Palestine for six months. Unless something was done in the meantime demand would exceed supply after that period. Alexander set out to see that something was done.

General Bernard Montgomery had arrived in the Middle East on the same plane as Alexander. The two men had known each other for a long time, and as very different people often do, got on very well together. As a military ‘team’ they worked well; Montgomery’s problems had always been with superiors (he had trouble recognising them as such), and Alexander was content to keep well in the background.

In June 1942 he gave Montgomery, with Churchill and Brooke’s backing, only one firm directive. He was not to indulge his well-known penchant for heroics. There was to be no ‘we stay here, dead or alive’ defence of Palestine. It was Iraq and Iran which were vital to Britain, and it was Montgomery’s job to see that Alexander had time to prepare their defence. A dead Eighth Army would benefit no one but Rommel.

Churchill, as usual, had also been more specific. ‘My ideas for the defence of Palestine and Syria,’ he telegrammed Eighth Army’s new commander, ‘are roughly not lines but a series of localities capable of all-round defence blocking the defiles and approaches.’ Brooke was less free with advice. Montgomery knew Palestine well - he had served there twice before, in 1930-1 and 1938-9 - and Brooke thought he could be trusted to work out his own defensive strategy. He was confident that Montgomery, as long as he restrained his enthusiasm, would demonstrate the same energetic drive in slowing Rommel’s advance as he had shown in evacuating 3rd Division from Belgium two years before.

In Palestine Eighth Army was slowly recovering from its traumatic flight. The better part of five divisions had successfully escaped across the Suez Canal, but all the base workshops had had to be left behind, suitably wrecked, in Egypt. The Red Sea had not parted for their transportation. Now, in late June, the South Africans were still manning the east bank of the Canal to prevent the Germans from making too easy a crossing, while the survivors of 1st and 2nd Armoured Divisions (with only ninety-five tanks between them), 50th Division and the New Zealand Division were organising themselves in north-east Sinai. The RAF had extricated itself with less difficulty, and was now filling up the ninety available airfields in Palestine, Cyprus and Syria. But the airforce too had lost most of its repair facilities, and the nearest available were at Habbaniyah in Iraq. Morale, generally speaking, was abysmal.

The saviour was on his way. After talking with Alexander and his newly-inherited staff in Baghdad, Montgomery travelled west across the desert towards Palestine. On 19 June he arrived in Jerusalem, and on the following day motored down to Eighth Army HQ at Rafah. He quickly made an impression on both his corps and divisional commanders and the dispirited troops. The men who had ‘lost Egypt’, and were glumly preparing to lose Palestine and whatever lay behind it, were made acutely aware that their new commander had no intention of losing anything. ‘Rommel will not, repeat not, go through this Army,’ Montgomery told them. ‘He is almost at the end of his tether, and we’re going to be there when he reaches it.’ Three days after Montgomery’s arrival, as if on cue, the first fifty of 120 new tanks arrived from Basra. The new commander of Eighth Army left no one in any doubt that he was personally responsible for this welcome shipment.

There is no doubt that Eighth Army, as a collective entity, responded favourably to the little man’s bravado. Not that there was much time to think about such things. Suddenly lying around in the sun had given way to intensive training and construction work. Montgomery had decided that the six divisions at his disposal - 44th Division was due to arrive from Basra in mid-July - would try to hold, for as long as possible, the strong positions at Jiradi-Rafah and Umm Katef on the two main entry routes into Palestine. Rommel would have difficulty getting round either of these positions since they were flanked by either sea, high ground or soft sand. And he would have ‘a real fight on his hands’ to get through them.

Brooke agreed, but was concerned about the possibility of a German seaborne invasion in the rear of this line. Montgomery correctly discounted this. He had seen for himself in England the problems involved in mounting such operations, and in any case the RAF and the small naval force which operated under its protective cover in the eastern Mediterranean would soon put a stop to any such nonsense. As if to conclude the argument he cabled Brooke: ‘Rommel is a land animal; all Germans are land animals.’

Still, even Montgomery had to admit that these land animals might break through his lines, and other defensive positions were being prepared south of the Jerusalem-Jaffa railway for Eighth Army to fall back to. Further back still, along the Litani river and the Golan Heights to the north and in the mountains behind the Jordan river to the east, more construction work was underway. Alexander was not so confident as Montgomery that Eighth Army would stop Rommel short of the Iraqi border.

One thing was certain. If Rommel did take Palestine the British were determined that he should derive as many headaches from this troublesome land as they had. In the previous two years the British authorities had been inundated with offers of help from the various Zionist organisations. Each had been spurned on the grounds that the military advantage to be gained would not compensate for the political cost to Britain’s post-war plans. But by the summer of 1942 post-war plans were becoming a luxury. The Arabs had demonstrated their deplorable and total lack of loyalty to His Majesty; the Jews, whatever they thought of Britain - which wasn’t much - were obviously not about to collaborate with the Germans. A tacit truce had already been agreed between Menachem Begin, the new leader of the Irgun Zvi Leumi terrorist organisation, and the British Commissioner. Fifteen hundred youths from the
kibbutzim
were already receiving instruction in guerrilla warfare from the British Army. On 23 June British representatives met with leaders of the Jewish
Yishuv
, notably David Ben-Gurion, Golda Myerson and Moshe Sharrett, to expand the area of military co-operation. The 24,000 Jewish police in Palestine were to be given more and better arms, and regular units were to be formed for both counter-Arab and counter-German action. The Jewish leaders were also promised, in the strictest confidence of course, that their sharing in the struggle would reap a postwar reward. There would be no further restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine. Presumably in this case the British Government was less interested in securing the loyalty of the Jews - they would have fought willingly in any case - than in paying back the Arabs for their lack of this precious quality.

Whatever the motives for this dubious promise, it was hoped in Whitehall that the new degree of British-Jewish military co-operation would slow the German advance to an appreciable degree. In London it was estimated that Rommel might take anything from three weeks to four months to reach the Iraqi border. If it could be the latter then there was a good chance he would arrive too late. American and RAF reinforcements would by then have arrived in strength.

In the north General Wilson’s force was still considerably smaller than that at Montgomery’s disposal. But the enemy was many more miles away. At the worst he might cross the Soviet-Iranian border in late August, which would leave two months before winter set in and put a stop to mobile operations in the mountains of northern Iran. Even during those two months the panzers would find it hard to move swiftly or far. Roads were few and bad, winding interminably through mountain passes which offered great possibilities for successful defence. Consequently Wilson was putting his faith in infantry and air power. By late August he hoped to have received the 2nd and 5th Divisions from India, the 51st and 56th Divisions from England, the 1st American Armoured Division from across the Atlantic, and heavy RAF reinforcements from a variety of sources. New airfields were under construction at Zahedan, Mirjaveh and Kerman in south-eastern Iran; here the bomber squadrons so begrudged by Bomber Command would be based.

Through July and August Wilson could do little but wait. He knew that two panzer armies and two infantry armies had entered the Caucasus from the north. It all depended upon how much of them emerged at the other end. And on how soon. And on the attitude of Turkey.

Ankara

Shortly before his death in November 1938 Mustafa Kemal, the founding-father of modern Turkey, had looked ahead to the war he was sure would soon engulf the world he was leaving behind. ‘Stay on England’s side,’ he had advised his successors, ‘because that side is bound to win in the long run.’

The new leaders of Ataturk’s state had done their best to follow his advice, and in 1939 Turkey signed a treaty of alliance with England and France which committed her to joining the forthcoming war should it spread to the Mediterranean. And although the speed of France’s fall gave the Turks second thoughts about actually fulfilling these obligations, their policy of neutrality retained a strong pro-Allied bias.

The German invasion of Russia changed all this. Now the minority pro-Axis lobby, which included Army Chief of Staff Fevzi Cakmak, found itself allied to the nation-wide anti-Russian lobby. As far as most Turks were concerned the Germans had picked a good enemy. When a leading Turkish general visited the Eastern Front and reported back that all that remained of Russia was its snow, the nation as a whole breathed a grateful pro-Axis sigh of relief. During 1942, as the war drew closer to the Turkish frontiers, it became apparent to both the Turks and the world that Hitler might soon find himself a new ally in Ankara.

The Allies redoubled their efforts to buy the Turks off. The British offered fighter squadrons they did not have, the Americans lend-lease they could not ship. The Germans too made promises - definite ones of arms deliveries, vague ones of territorial rewards - which were equally spurious. The difference was that the German promises were riskier to refuse. If their armies in Egypt and the Caucasus joined hands in Iraq then Turkey would be encircled, and forced to dance to Hitler’s tune. It would surely be better, argued newspapers like the pro-Axis
Cumhuriyet
, for Turkey to dance willingly and receive her just reward.

The Turkish President, Ismet Inönü, was still determined, if possible, to remain faithful to the testament of his old friend Ataturk. He suspected that Turkey was doomed to enter the war that was lapping around her shores, and that sooner or later sides would have to be chosen. But better later than sooner. Inönü believed, despite appearances to the contrary, that the Axis powers would lose the war. But he needed an Allied victory to convince his people. In the meantime he had to compromise. He informed the British that they were no longer free to use the vital Aleppo-Mosul railway for transporting war materials, adding in private that he had no choice if he wished to stay in power. If the Caucasus could be held, he told the British Ambassador, if Rommel could soon be defeated, then Turkey could stay out of the war. If not, then at the very least he would be forced to allow the Germans transit rights across Turkish territory. When all was said and done, if the British could not beat the Germans then Turkey would have to join them.

There is less in this than meets the eye.
Tallulah Bankhead

I

The Japanese Fleet returned in triumph to Hiroshima Bay on 13 June. The American carriers had been destroyed, Midway Island occupied after a bitter four-day struggle. It was a modern-day Tsushima, celebrated throughout Japan as a victory for the virtues of the Japanese way and as a defeat for the godless materialists on the other side of their ocean.