Altered States -Volume III. Hinge of Fate

Chapter 17

The aid and pledge of friendship offered by the Russians was a great relief to Tovey, but he knew there were things that he learned that would best be kept highly secret. Admiral Volsky had urged his discretion in the matter before the two men concluded their Faeroe Islands conference.

“I hope you do not think I am unforthcoming in regards to the support we can offer you now,” he had said. “I insisted that you come alone for this visit aboard my ship, and for reasons that should now be obvious to you. Things we have revealed to you here will not be easily explained to others. In fact, I would suggest that you consider limiting the information you have in hand to only the most trusted few.”

“In that I agree fully,” said Tovey. “You can rely on my discretion, Admiral, as I am sure I will rely on you.”

Volsky nodded. “I must tell you that I considered this matter long and hard before making the decision to contact you and make these revelations.”

“I am grateful that you did, and also for the able services of your Mister Nikolin here as he builds a language bridge between us.”

Nikolin smiled at that, as did Volsky.

“Yes, our Mister Nikolin is a most capable man. In fact, we owe him more than he may realize, for when the fate of this ship and crew once hung in the balance, it was Mister Nikolin here that saved the day when he came forward with information that was vital and timely.”At this Nikolin blushed, and he gave Tovey a much abbreviated version of that line, but he was deeply appreciative of the Admiral’s praise.

“That said,” Volsky continued, “it is the question of timely information that we must now discuss. Information is power. It can move the hinge of fate we have talked about, but I must tell you now that there may be others in this world with access to information that could prove decisive to the outcome of this war, and they are not all our friends.”

“Others?” Tovey was not quite sure he knew what the Admiral was hinting at here, and Volsky could see this.

“Admiral… Until Mister Fedorov and I have determined how those photographs and reports came into your intelligence archive, I would be very, very cautious. Fedorov’s suggestion that they could only exist here if they were brought here by someone at least makes some sense to me-but there is a darker side to that. Who might this person be, I wonder? How did he get here? I must tell you now that the cracks in time that allowed my ship and crew to slip through to this era remain a great mystery. We came to believe that it was our own foolish meddling here, as evidenced in those photographs you showed us, that caused all the fractures in the history that is now unfolding here, but now we are not so sure of this.”

“Yes, well there is good and bad in all of that. Your meddling was kind enough to see to the delivery of HMS Invincible to the Home Fleet, if I can believe what you have told me, and I would have been lost without her these long and arduous months.”

“Very true. Yet what I am trying to suggest now is that, even as we have slipped through those cracks, some of our analysts have come to think other men may have done the same. A few we know of, but those photographs you have showed me lead me to suspect that there are others we may not know.”

“I understand the implications,” said Tovey. “Perhaps we need to keep watch on more than the cold seas, Admiral.” Even as he said that, he was struck with the feeling that he had come to this same conclusion before, and set a long and well guarded watch on time itself, one that extended through all the remaining days of his life.

“This is a matter of some concern to us,” Volsky continued. “We are presently involved in an operation to see if we can collar some of the other men we do know about, and plaster over a few cracks in the wall, if that makes any sense. I have no illusions that I can ever mend the world and restore things to the way they once were-at least the way I once knew them to be. But I must tell you, even though you may see our coming here as the arrival of a guardian angel with a flaming sword from some unseen future, there are dark angels as well. There are dangerous men at large in this world.” He let that linger, and Tovey thought long and hard about it after the conference concluded and they bid each other farewell.

Volsky had said enough to tip his British counterpart off as to the need for secrecy and vigilance, but he did not tell Tovey anything more about the fate of that operation, or that one of the men he was most worried about from that unseen future, one of those dark angels, was named Ivan Volkov. Nor did he reveal the fact that another man at large had been a member of his own crew, the former Captain of the mighty Kirov. Volsky had decided to reveal nothing of the operation that was then underway at Ilanskiy, or its vital purpose. Tovey had enough to chew on as it was.

Kirov departed, heading west to take up the post Volsky had agreed to watch in the Denmark Strait. This gave Tovey the time he needed to work out with King George V and Prince of Wales, two most welcome additions to his Home Fleet. It was not long, however, before other dangerous men, well known to Tovey himself, began to make plans and arrange meetings of their own.

Hitler had his doubts about the conference as his train made its way through Vichy France under heavy guard. Was he making the right decision here? Was Canaris correct in pointing out how unstable and unreliable Franco and Spain might be as an ally?

It was raining, and the gloomy weather seemed to settle over the whole affair, promising failure and an end to all the grandiose plans that had been argued and debated for months. Now it would all come down to this, a final meeting arranged in a train car at Hendaye on the Franco-Spanish border, and no one would have thought that this simple rain storm could have unhinged the entire strategy of the war in the West. But that is exactly what the gathering weather front threatened to do. It would not be the silver tongued arguments of the negotiators, or even Hitler’s blistering personality and iron will that would decide the day.

It was going to be something quite different.

In the late summer of 1940, the Germans were faced with any number of alternatives. Flush with victory, and with new allies flocking to their banner, Hitler believed his forces were invincible. While many now argued the time had come to consider taking the war to Soviet Russia, Admiral Raeder continued to advocate strongly for alternative operations aimed against Britain. The most direct approach would have been Operation Seelowe, the planned invasion of England, but as it progressed, Raeder continued to identify more and more obstacles to its success. Germany had no amphibious ships worth the name. It had few craft suitable for landing operations or cross channel assault, particularly to move heavy armor or mechanized support units and their artillery. Beyond that, the strength of the Royal Navy was unbowed, and the recent engagement in the Denmark Strait did little to convince Hitler that the new Kriegsmarine he had ordered was as yet ready for the job.

Goering stepped up at this point, claiming he could smash the British with his Luftwaffe, and this confident boast, coupled with a request for a delay until the Spring of 1941 for Seelowe, led Hitler to issue the following orders:

“An attempt must be made to prepare the operation (Seelowe) for 15 September 1940. The army should be ready for action by then. The decision as to whether the operation is to take place in September or is to be delayed until May 1941 will be made after the air force has made concentrated attacks on southern England for one week. The air force is to report at once when these attacks will commence. If the effect of the air attacks is such that the enemy air force, harbors, and naval forces, etc., are heavily damaged, Operation SEA LION will be carried out in 1940.

Otherwise it is to be postponed until May 1941.”

Even as Goering launched his air force at Britain on “Eagle Day” in August of 1940, Raeder continued to advocate strongly for a second alternative, a way to defeat Great Britain by taking a more indirect approach through the Mediterranean. “Take Gibraltar, Malta and the Suez Canal, and you have all but destroyed the British Empire outside the UK. What good are their colonies in the Indian Ocean when they are completely isolated? Then we have a direct link to the Oil from Orenburg. It can flow through the Bosporus to ports in Southern France and Italy, and once these routes are established, all the resources we need will be in hand. Then Soviet Russia will have no option but to sue for peace, or to join the Axis as Orenburg has done.”

“Yes,” Hitler agreed, “But remember this as well- Britain’s hope lies in Russia and the United States. With Russia smashed, Britain’s last hope in Europe would be shattered. Germany then will be master of Europe and the Balkans. Russia’s destruction must therefore be made a part of this struggle. The sooner Russia is crushed the better, and the Spring of 1941 would be the time to begin. Can this operation against Gibraltar be completed before then?”

“It could be launched this winter, my Fuhrer, assuming Franco agrees. All that would be required would be a few divisions, yet the fruit such a victory returns in the harvest will be considerable. How many divisions will be necessary for the struggle against Soviet Russia? How long before we have a clear decision there, and secure rail and sea connections to the Orenburg Federation? Your Generals tell you three months, but I think it will be very much longer.”

“And you tell me three months will take me all the way to the Suez, Raeder. Can I believe you any more than Jodl?”

“Take Gibraltar first, and watch the dominoes fall, my Fuhrer. I am certain of it.”

It was a compelling argument, and one that Hitler began to show more and more interest in, particularly when Jodl and others began to look on it with more favor when it became evident that Goering could not deliver on his promise to smash the R.A.F. The incredible sacrifice of the British fighters in their stalwart duel with the Luftwaffe would finally put an end to Hitler’s dream of Operation Seelowe. Hitler told Halder to continue the planning, but as nothing more than a deception to keep psychological pressure on the British. Now his thoughts turned south to Gibraltar.

A British fortress since the early 18th century, ‘the Rock’ was a bastion of Royal Navy sea power and the crucial link between her Atlantic and Mediterranean forces. If the Germans could capture it they would gain a commanding position from which to influence both naval theaters, along with a deep water port that could hold and service all their biggest ships. There was no comparable port on the Atlantic French coast, and the capture of Gibraltar would drive a wedge of steel into the heart of the Royal Navy.

Hitler listened, seeing the opportunity but yet hesitating for two reasons. What would Britain do in reprisal? Would they seek to mount an amphibious operation through Portugal? Would they land in Morocco or French West Africa? The head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, had argued just that, but when Goering saw how he attempted to persuade the Spanish Foreign Minister to discourage the plan against Gibraltar, he took steps to intervene. Canaris was seen to be the obstructionist he was, and his influence was minimized by an unexpected troika of all three arms of the German military, Raeder, Goering and Jodl.

OKW finally agreed. Before anything was decided about the East, the West should be held secure. Now that Italy had also joined the war on Germany’s side, it might be possible to drive the British from North Africa, Egypt, and isolate them from their colonies in the Middle East and India. The British Empire would be broken in two, and crumble.

Hitler decided the matter. He was the planner that would unhinge all other plans and force his will on the world, or so he believed. The war in the West would now supersede his plans for the invasion of Russia. France was already courting alliance, and only Spain and Portugal remained holdouts on the continent. Detailed plans for the operation against Gibraltar had been drawn up and completed by the Wehrmacht ahead of schedule, and soon they were personally signed by Hitler.

Now there was only one question: Would Franco cooperate?

Preliminary negotiations were underway at that very moment. Franco’s list of demands had run on and on. He worried over British reprisals should he join the Axis, a blockade or possibly even an invasion on his Atlantic coast. He suggested that any German troops involved would have to wear Spanish Army uniforms as a point of honor. He asked for thousands of tons of wheat and other resources to feed his shattered state. He fretted over the possibility that the United States would shut down their extensive Telecom system in Spain. In the end Hitler became so frustrated with the man that he exclaimed he would rather have a tooth pulled than speak with him again.

Urged on by Raeder, Hitler had agreed to this one final meeting on the Franco-Spanish border to secure Spain’s cooperation. If those negotiations failed, Barbarossa was still sitting quietly in his back pocket. The only obstacle to Raeder’s plan was Franco’s Spain. Would he join the Axis, or at the very least cooperate with Germany in the initial phase of the Mediterranean campaign?

Ever equivocating, and a master of playing one side off against another, Franco was proving to be a difficult fish to haul in. Canaris also seemed to be quietly undermining the effort to move Operation Felix along, suggesting that Franco, and Spain itself would be a shaky and unreliable partner. At Raeder’s urging, Hitler agreed to meet with Franco and his foreign minister to see for himself if the man could be relied upon, and then persuaded to cooperate with the plan.

Hitler knew what Franco wanted, nominal administrative control over Gibraltar after it fell to German hands, military and economic aid, a slice of the French colonies in Tangiers and French Morocco across the straits. All this could be arranged, for without Spain, the Gibraltar operation was as problematic as Operation Seelowe, and Hitler always had Barbarossa if Franco proved to be adamant.

Yet none of that mattered, really. Things had already been quietly decided by another man, witless, unknowing, yet slowly tightening a screw on the hinge of fate that would soon decide the future course of the war.