The Moscow Option (31 page)

Casey hoped so. The political situation, he told the General, was as satisfactory as could be expected, and also likely to improve. The long hiatus between Rommel’s capture of Egypt and his advance into Palestine had been most beneficial to the British cause. The Germans and Italians had found time to disagree on just about everything, and in the process to wreck Egypt’s fragile economy. ‘The Egyptians are growing disenchanted very quickly,’ Casey said. ‘There are even unconfirmed reports of armed clashes between the Free Officer group and the Italian military police.’

The Minister of State warmed to his subject. ‘You see, the important fact is not that the Egyptians have realised that Farouk and Ali Maher are Axis puppets, but that the Arabs in Palestine, Syria and Iraq have realised it too. Now most of the sensible ones are feeling decidedly ambivalent about the prospects of liberation served up on a German plate. For the moment they are waiting to see which way the wind blows. If we can stop Rommel short of Jerusalem then I think most of the Arab leaders will remain neutral. Of course a few fanatics will shoot the odd British soldier and blow up the odd building, but the ones who matter will sit tight and try for the best bargain. Naturally we’re offering all we can - vague promises of a plebiscite in Palestine, full independence for all and sundry once the war is over.

‘We were lucky that the Iraqi rebellion happened last year rather than this, and that we had the chance to put all the dangerous characters out of the way. Nuri es-Said will stick with us through thick and thin, and he’s popular with everyone but the Iraqi Army. We’ve disarmed them. The same goes for the Shah of Iran. He’ll do what we tell him to do as long as the Germans don’t appear in front of his palace in Tehran.

‘The only leaders that got away last year were Rashid Ali and the Mufti. The Mufti’s in Egypt, and having trouble with the Italians. Rashid Ali, as far as we know, is in the Caucasus with his three hundred Arab volunteers, but the Germans will be holding him on a tight rein. And it seems that he and the Mufti are not on the best of terms. Now that the Turks are entering the war the Germans will have a lot more trouble on their hands, though presumably they’re not yet aware of it. The Turks will want Armenia from the Russians, and they’ve doubtless been promised the Mosul region by the Germans. They asked us for it, but we refused. And we have proof to show the Iraqis. The Germans don’t seem to realise that they can’t expect to have Turkey as an ally and still get support from the Arabs. The same goes for Azerbaijan. They seem to have accepted an independent Azerbaijan republic - a puppet of course - without considering how it’ll go down in Tehran. Persian Azerbaijan has been hankering after its independence for years, and the Shah knows it only too well. The Germans, for all their talk about the power of nationalism, seem completely unaware of its importance outside Germany. They have made a right mess of their Middle East policy.’

Alexander heard Casey out with a great deal of interest. Though nearly fifty-one he was very much one of the new-style soldiers, who appreciated the importance of the political dimension in warfare. If the Germans were, as Casey suggested, losing the political battle for the Middle East, then the military task of the British would be that much easier. Montgomery’s optimism had already been discussed; in the north as well, Alexander reported, the situation was looking more hopeful. The German spearheads would probably cross the Russian frontier in the next few days, but the British forces deployed to meet them would not be easily shrugged aside. It was unlikely that the Germans could throw more than four panzer divisions across the border. They were far from their bases, they had been campaigning for over four months, and their supply problems would be almost insuperable. And the terrain would not suit them. In such mountainous country the panzers would be confined to the roads, and the roads were terrible. There were now five infantry divisions and three armoured brigades deployed to stop them, and Alexander had high hopes that they would do so.

On this optimistic note the two were interrupted by the sound of a ringing telephone. Casey went inside, to emerge a few minutes later with a broad smile across his face. ‘The Yanks have given the Japanese a thrashing off Panama. They’ve sunk four carriers. Now that’s what I call good news!’

The news reaching Field-Marshal Rommel in Hebron was not so pleasant. In the near future a high-ranking SS officer would be arriving to discuss ‘German policy in occupied Palestine’ with him. This did not sound good. Rommel had already heard disturbing stories, from Balck and the other officers who had served in Russia, of SS activities in the occupied territories of the East. He did not much care to know more. Still less did he want such ‘activities’ on his own doorstep. With a conscious effort the Field-Marshal turned his thoughts to a more amenable topic - the coming battle.

This would be the decisive one. The British had escaped his trap on the frontier, but they could not be so lucky twice. If he could puncture their new and hastily-constructed defensive line, then Eighth Army, he was certain, would break up. The road to Jerusalem would be open, and within a few days the panzers could be across the Jordan and on their way into Iraq. And out of this country. Palestine as a battleground did not appeal to Rommel. ‘It feels strange to see the name Bethlehem on a divisional order,’ he wrote to Lucie. He would rather be in Iraq. The SS could catch up with him there!

In the early hours of the following morning Winston Churchill sat deep in thought in front of a dying fire in his Chequers bedroom. He knew the next few days would decide a great deal. Perhaps the outcome of the war, certainly his own political future.

After the Egyptian debacle he had won a motion of confidence in the House of Commons by only forty-four votes. A pathetic majority, hardly a majority at all. Yet even this vote exaggerated his current popularity in the country as a whole. He had considered resigning. But in favour of who? Eden could never cope with the responsibility, and he knew it as well as Churchill did. Which left only Cripps, who was so eager to get his hands on the levers of power. A clever man, but not a national leader. No, he could not resign in favour of Cripps.

And in any case what could Cripps, or anyone else, do differently? Some of his critics accused him of interfering too much with the military, others of not interfering enough. Some said he didn’t understand that this was a peoples’ war, not a Victorian war waged by the upper classes and their obedient cannon fodder. But had he not spoken for the people in 1940 as no other man could have done?

It was fortunate that Egypt had fallen so fast. There had been no time to take breath, no time for the critics to make it a resignation issue. He felt sorry for Auchinleck, who he knew had done his best. That was the way of the world. Eighth Army needed fresh blood at the top, and if Montgomery succeeded then Auchinleck himself would be the first to applaud. The next few days would decide. If Jerusalem fell then Montgomery would be sacked. And so, very probably, would he.

A million miles away from the late summer calm of Chequers advance units of the Turkish Army were crossing the Soviet border in the regions of Yerevan, Leninakan and Batum. Only in the last-named did they meet with serious resistance, mostly from the sailors of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet.

The Fleet itself was at sea. The imminent German-Turkish seizure of Batum would deprive it of the last available port, and escape from the Black Sea through the Turkish- controlled Dardanelles was out of the question. Soon after dawn on 29 August the skeleton crews aboard the one old battleship, five cruisers and fifteen destroyers lit the fuses to the charges that would send each ship to the bottom. As they sailed south towards Trebizond in their motor-torpedo boats - even Turkish hospitality was preferable to German - the Soviet sailors watched ship after ship explode in columns of flame. It was an historic moment: a new record for tonnage scuttled in a single hour.

IV

Through the final week of August both armies in Palestine feverishly prepared for the resumption of battle. Eighth Army was holding an east-west ‘line’ - in reality a series of blocking positions on the north-south roads - some five miles to the south of the Jaffa-Jerusalem road. This ‘line’ was well-chosen. The road behind it facilitated the shifting of forces from one end to the other, the roads through it were few and far between. In the eastern sector the terrain was extremely difficult for the motorised warfare at which the Germans excelled.

Three of the armoured brigades were deployed along the east-west road, around Ramie, Latrun and outside Jerusalem; the fourth was stationed on the Jerusalem-Hebron road to the south of Bethlehem. The infantry formations were further forward, dug in on the north-south roads passable for the German armour.

Rommel wished to attack as soon as he could, even though his Army was far from ready. There was a serious shortage of fuel, and the Panzer Army had only 335 tanks in running order, 85 of which were Italian. Bayerlein pointed out that another 70 would have come through the mobile repair shops by the second week of September, and urged the Field-Marshal to wait. But Rommel, urged on by both his superiors in Lotzen and his own desire to deny the British a breathing-space, refused. The Panzer Army would attack at first light on the last day of the month.

The need for haste also influenced his strategy. The sensible course might have been to concentrate on clearing the Levant coast, and so allow supply by sea. But Rommel thought this would take too long. He intended to pierce the centre of the British line and get his panzers round behind Jerusalem, astride the British supply route from Jordan. This was more likely to cause a speedy British collapse.

15th Panzer, which had been reduced to fifty-five tanks in the Rafah crossroads battle, would advance up the coast road with
Ariete
; 7th Panzer, minus its tank regiment, and elements of 164th Division would move north towards Bethlehem on the Hebron-Jerusalem road. Both these attacks would be essentially diversionary. They would tie down strong British forces on the two flanks while the main German force - 20th Panzer, 7th Panzer’s tank regiment, and 14th Motorised - would break through the centre. It would take the old Roman highway north-east from Ashkelon, cross the main Jaffa-Jerusalem road at Latrun, and climb up the hill road to Ramallah. From there it would command the high ground above Jerusalem, and be in a good position to cut the British supply artery at Jericho.

On the morning of 31 August the panzer engines burst into life once more, and Balck’s tanks led the main force north along the road to Latrun. At the Sejed level-crossing it met resistance from units of 44th Division, but after an hour or so the tactical skill of the German tank-crews and their heavy Stuka support cleared the panzers’ path. To the west and east, on the coast and Bethlehem roads, the Germans were also pushing forward.

By early afternoon Montgomery had realised that the central threat was the most dangerous. He ordered the two armoured brigades of 1st Armoured Division to support the 4th South African Brigade at Latrun. By early evening elements of six divisions were fighting for control of the vital Latrun crossroads. On the two flanks the weaker German attacks were being held without undue difficulty.

Through that night and the following day the battle raged on around Latrun without the Germans achieving their desired breakthrough. The terrain made outflanking impossible, the RAF were proving more than a match for the Luftwaffe, and the Shermans just issued to 1st Armoured Division - they had been ‘borrowed’ from an American-Soviet shipment at Basra - were making their mark on the panzers.

On the evening of 1 September Rommel decided to change his tactics. After dark he pulled 20th Panzer and 14th Motorized out of the Latrun battleground and sent them on a fifty-mile night march. By dawn they were ready to attack on the Hartuv road.

At around 07.00 garbled reports of ‘enemy tanks attacking’ reached Montgomery’s HQ from the 6th South African Brigade at Hartuv. Half an hour later Balck’s tanks had shrugged the South Africans aside and were approaching the Jerusalem-Jaffa road. By 08.00 they were astride the road, and striking into the heart of the British position.

In Montgomery’s HQ there was a brief moment of panic. The panzers were turning east towards Jerusalem! But Rommel had not abandoned his basic strategy, and it was soon apparent that the Germans had turned north up the ridge between Maale Hamisha and Kastel. By 11.00 Balck was in Biddu, an hour later entering the village of Nebi Samuel. To his right the panzer general could see the Holy City spread out beneath him.

Twelve miles to the west the defenders of Latrun had realised the new weakness of the German forces in front of them. The British armour began to push 7th Panzer’s weakly supported tanks backwards. But this enjoyable activity was soon halted, as crisp new orders flowed in from Montgomery. A crisis might be brewing, but Eighth Army’s commander was not about to be stampeded. ‘Rommel has stuck his neck out,’ he told General Ramsden. ‘Let’s wring it!’

Montgomery also had a better card up his sleeve than Auchinleck had ever had. The 1st US Armoured Division, originally earmarked for North-west Africa, was moving up the road from Jericho to Ramallah, having arrived at Basra some ten days before.

This Rommel did not know. Nor was he to find out for several hours. His first crisis of the day arrived at noon, as 14th Motorised, left to hold open 20th Panzer’s supply route at Abu Gohash on the main road, found itself assailed from east and west by British armoured formations. Rommel considered pulling back 20th Panzer, but was naturally loth to do so. Instead he decided to reinforce 14th Motorised from the two flanking German forces, a company of tanks from 15th Panzer and a rifle regiment from 7th Panzer. It was the wrong decision.

14th Motorised was under attack by both 2nd and 4th Armoured Brigades, over 150 tanks. By 14.00 the two British brigades had linked up on the main road, and the Germans had been forced out to the north. Now both 14th Motorised and 20th Panzer were cut off behind the British ‘line’.