Ironfall

Chapter 7

The incident that triggered the disaster in the Caucasus was a small thing when it began, but that was the way of time and fate. After a complaint that the troops of Orenburg were sitting in their bunkers west of Maykop, and doing nothing whatsoever to aid the battle against Russian forces in the Taman region, the 3rd Orenburg Army was finally ordered to attack. Their line was originally strung out along the Pshekha River, about 10 kilometers west of the mining and oil worker town of Belorchensk. Just beyond the river, the last relatively fresh rifle divisions of the Soviet 44th Army were dug into their positions through heavy woodland. The line stretched south through Aspheronsk and then down to the coast east of Tuapse, which was still held by the Soviets.

Volkov’s troops had been unable to penetrate that line for over a year, and they knew they would not do so now either, but for the sake of putting on a show and silencing German objections, they attacked. Things went predictably bad, with the heavy log bunkers of the Soviets embedded with machineguns and small caliber infantry guns, and surrounded by mines and wire. But then Hansen’s 11th Army, veterans of Volgograd, fought their way through the big river city of Krasnodar on the Kuban, and were soon coming up behind the Russians.

One by one, those positions were reduced from their weak side, and by the 18th of March, the line had largely been overwhelmed. Elsewhere, the fight for Novorossiysk continued, with the tough Soviet Marines putting up strong resistance in that city, but it was only a matter of time. Volkov’s troops had pushed their line another 20 kilometers west of Belorchensk to make their attack, thinking to occupy an outlying oil field near Saratovskaya that they did not think the Germans knew anything about. They would not have known, save for the map Fedorov had sent the German Abwehr, and Hansen had orders to occupy that field before eventually pushing on to Maykop.

Yet now the German complaints had backfired on them. That field was just beyond another small tributary river, the Psekups, which flowed north to the Kuban, and it was there that the 38th Rifle Division of the Orenburg Federation finally met up with the Germans they had heard so much about since the outbreak of the war. Ott’s 52nd Infantry Korps was operating in that sector, and his 339th and 83rd divisions had just swept through Saratovskaya and were approaching that field. It was on a small hill, marked #69 on the German local area maps, but otherwise not noted as the site of any oil development. Ott had simply been told to secure Hill 69, but when his troops got there, they found it already occupied.

With fighting in the area still mopping up the Soviet bunkers, neither side knew that they were not facing their enemies when the first shots were fired. A forward German patrol was spotted and fired on from the top of Hill 69, with one casualty. It fell back, reported the hill to be enemy occupied, and five minutes later, the Germans put in some well-aimed mortar fire. They were only 50mm rounds, for the Germans had been told not to use heavy caliber weapons if they found the Soviets there. After desultory mortar fire, the Germans were surprised to suddenly receive a radio call in the clear asking them to stop. The hill was occupied by troops from the Federation of Orenburg, it said, and the Division Commander sent orders down to impose a cease fire.

A party was sent forward under the protection of a white flag, and a Lieutenant Schubert, who spoke fluent Russian, negotiated. “We regret the friendly fire incident,” he said, but I am told to inform you that our division will now take possession of this hill, and of the village of Saratovskaya to the south. My General asks that you please vacate these positions tonight, and our troops will move in tomorrow morning.”

“That will not be possible,” said the Kazakh Colonel in charge. “I have orders to hold my position here, and our troops have occupied the entire line of the Psekups River as well.”

“But Colonel, we are as yet a very long way from our objective.” In this the Lieutenant was revealing something that was best left unsaid.

“And just what would that be?”

“Maykop. Our Korps is to move there to take charge of those facilities, and you will therefore be free to redeploy elsewhere—perhaps on the Volga.”

The Colonel folded his arms. “Lieutenant, I believe this may be a question that will be resolved well above our pay grade. It is a matter for the diplomats, and not soldiers to decide. In the interest of continued cooperation between our two respective armies, I must ask you to cancel your planned occupation of this hill—at least until such time as I receive orders to withdraw. Would that be acceptable?”

“I will take your request to my commanding officer.”

So it began with a small friendly fire incident, that soon became this exchange of words. But the diplomats were very far away. The Lieutenant went back and passed the news on up the chain of command to eventually reach Generalmajor Martin Ronicke of the 339th Division. He, in turn, passed it on to General der Infanterie Eugen Ott, who kicked it to Hansen for confirmation on what he was to do the following morning. Hansen had been told to secure the port of Tuapse, and then advance through Belorchensk to occupy Maykop. His Mountain Korps was to move into the hills south of the oil center, with the German lines anchored on the coast at the small port of Soche. He repeated those orders to Ott.

“But Herr General, shouldn’t we get clearance from the other side before continuing this operation? This could create quite a lot of trouble.”

Hansen had to decide whether to kick the can one more time, all the way to General Manstein’s HQ at Rostov. It was a most unwelcome call, for Manstein had already received orders from OKW for Hansen to do exactly what he had related to Ott, but he was not happy about them.

Irrespective of Manstein’s opinion on the matter, Hitler would remain adamant. His troops had pushed all the way to the Volga, through the Donets Basin and now into the Kuban to the Black Sea Coast. His armies had burned Moscow, leveled Volgograd, and all while Volkov’s troops had failed to mount a single successful offensive anywhere on the front. He now viewed Volkov as a devious do-nothing slackard, who had dangled the promise of oil for the last two years, yet always found some reason or another why it could not yet be delivered.

When Ribbentrop returned with Volkov’s ultimatum concerning the Kuban, Hitler exploded. “How dare that man dictate territorial claims! If he wanted the Kuban, then he should have sent his troops there to take it. We do in one month what his armies could not accomplish in two years! Now he wants to make certain that we are kept well away from all his precious oil, but this will not be tolerated. German troops liberated the Kuban, and all of the Taman Peninsula, and it will be German troops that will control Maykop!”

Now Hitler looked at the map, the anger still reddening his face. “What is this river?”

Keitel leaned over the map, squinting. “The Urup.”

“That makes a good north to south boundary, running due south from Armavir and right along the same line as this one to the north. Send a message to Volkov. Tell him that all his troops remaining in the Kuban bend region must withdraw behind that line. They have 48 hours to begin this withdrawal. If movement is not observed, this continued defiance will be met with German steel. I will order Manstein to continue his advance one minute after that deadline. There will be no excuses—no further delays. This is a Führerbefehl!”

A 48-hour hold was placed on all operations south of the Don, and Ribbentrop was sent with firm instructions to clarify Germany’s position. He met with Volkov again on the 28th of March in a short and tense session.

“I have returned with our response, and signed by Hitler himself this time, so there will be no doubt as to Germany’s intentions.” He handed Volkov the document, which was a formal declaration that all territory in the Kuban and Taman liberated by German troops would now be formally annexed.

“This is outrageous!” said Volkov. Not only had Hitler rebuffed his demand for the Kuban, but he also made an additional claim on the whole of the Taman Peninsula. But that was not all. As Volkov continued reading, his cheeks reddened and the lines on his forehead deepened.

“What? In addition to this insult concerning the Kuban, you now presume to make a further claim to the Maykop District? This is absolutely absurd! That area, as well as the Taman and Kuban, have been our sovereign territory for decades! What gives you the right to make any claim whatsoever on these regions?”

Ribbentrop folded his hands. “To put it bluntly, Mister General Secretary, might. German arms in the field liberated those first two zones, and Hitler’s Directive concerning that territory will stand.”

“Might makes right, is it?” said Volkov heatedly. “You are aware that the entire Maykop District is presently occupied by the 3rd Army of Orenburg?”

“I am well aware of that, and this document now requests the formal withdrawal of those forces from that district to the line specified in subparagraph four. The new North-South demarcation line will now begin at the Kuban bend east of Kropotkin, then follow the Kuban down to Armavir, which will be a German occupied city. It then follows the line of the Urup River to its source in the high country to the south, before jogging southwest to the coast just beyond Soche. These are the new permanent boundaries established by the Führer himself.”

Volkov could hardly believe his ears. “Is that so? The Führer himself? Well he might have taken note of the fact that this line is well beyond the present German frontier. You were told earlier, and in no uncertain terms, that all these districts were deemed to be my sovereign territory. You were told that the matter of the Kuban was not a subject for discussion or compromise. Was this related to Hitler directly?”

“It was. He dismissed your claims before dictating the document you now hold.”

“My God man—do you realize this means war with the Orenburg Federation? Do you think we will sit by and permit this blatant land grab? We will not! I will issue no such order for the withdrawal of my 3rd Army, and I repeat once again my demand that all German forces now south of the Don should withdraw north of that river immediately.”

“Mister General Secretary…. As this latest directive from the Führer indicates, that is clearly impossible. There will be no withdrawal of German forces, and in fact, our 17th and 11th Armies now have orders to advance to occupy the Maykop District in 48 hours. If your 3rd Army remains on its present positions at that time, they will be forcibly removed.”

“Forcibly removed….” Volkov gave Ribbentrop a derisive look. “You may find that more easily said than done, Herr Ribbentrop. This is an insult of the highest order. You yourself negotiated the accord which has governed the relationship between our two nations since 1940. Yet I can see now that Germany never had any intention of remaining a faithful ally of the Orenburg Federation. So here is my response. Should one shot be fired at my troops on the line west of Maykop, a state of war will exist between the Orenburg Federation and Germany. Understand? Then we will see who’s might makes right. I am, this very hour, ordering all commanders in 1st and 3rd Kazakh Armies, and 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th Armies of Orenburg, to the highest state of ready alert. All prior demarcation of border zones and areas of responsibility are herewith abolished. Our forces will, as of this day, stand ready to conduct any operation of war deemed necessary to enforce our just and right claim upon all these disputed territories. Furthermore—I should have you hauled out of that chair and shot!”

Ribbentrop said nothing, knowing that many bringers of bad news had lost their heads through history. He stood up, the matter clearly concluded, and finally spoke. “Mister General Secretary, it is with great regret that I see the fruits of our previous accord shattered over this disagreement. You may kill the messenger here, but it will do nothing to change what I have been authorized to relate to you. I do, however, request diplomatic immunity, and will guarantee the same to all diplomatic personnel from Orenburg presently within German held territory. They will be granted safe passage to any destination they wish. As for the orders you say you are prepared to deliver to your armies, they are duly noted and will be reported directly to the Führer by me personally upon my return to Berlin. May I now be taken to my plane at the airport?”

“Go!” said Volkov. “And hear one thing more as you do, Ribbentrop. I am not called the Prophet without reason, for I have seen the end of this miserable conflict, and I can tell you now that it will end with the victorious forces of Russia burning and blasting their way into Berlin! Your armies will be driven out of our homeland and utterly destroyed! It was only my own blindness that saw an ally in Germany, for you have had your way on the battlefield up until now, and success has many friends. But do not think, even for one moment, that you can truly enforce anything in this document by force of arms. The end of all Hitler’s ambitions will be only one thing—the complete and utter destruction of the Third Reich!”

In that single discussion, the entire complexion of the war in the east had suddenly changed.

Chapter 8

Manstein sat in his headquarters in Rostov, staring at the map. This must be what they are doing this very moment at OKW, he thought. They are standing there around the map table, with Hitler probably drawing in new front lines as he is given to do these days. In their minds, this is a simple readjustment of the front, but it may not be welcomed or wanted by the forces of Orenburg. I must take the liberty of getting a firm order of confirmation before something happens here that we may come to regret. And yet, I can already hear what Hitler will say. He will be so full of himself that we have finally delivered the Kuban and eliminated the last of Sergei Kirov’s forces in this region, that he will simply order the nightmare to begin.

Should I set this order concerning Maykop aside and fly to Berlin immediately? Perhaps I could talk some sense into the Führer. Even as he thought that, he knew it might only be a waste of his time and energy. Once Hitler had his mind made up on something, he was immovable. Yet he had shown uncharacteristic flexibility of late. He finally allowed Model to fight his way out of the Voronezh pocket, and some of those divisions were put to very good use here. His sudden reinstatement of Operation Merkur, and this new attack into Syria and Iraq have produced startling results.

Yet the aim of all those operations is clear, just as it is for Edelweiss. He wants the oil, and he is no longer inclined to wait for Volkov to ship it to him. He has been emboldened by our many recent successes on the battlefield, and now he sees the Wehrmacht as invincible. So he will stop at nothing. Halder could not restrain him, nor will Zeitzler, and I do not think he will even listen to my advice on this matter.

Even as he thought this, Manstein knew that he had been quietly preparing for renewed operations into the Caucasus for the last three weeks. Virtually every mobile reserve division in Armeegruppe South had already been sent over the Don through Rostov and into the Kuban. 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions had been pulled out of the Taman, and 17th Army had been moved to the Kuban bend area to occupy all the crossing sites: Kropotkin, Kazanskaya, Labinsk. The 29th Motorized had been sent to back 3rd Panzergrenadiers, and now his elite Grossdeutschland Division was concentrated at Tikhoretsk.

To restore some mobile reserve behind his long defensive front along the Donets, Manstein pulled 22nd and 23rd Panzer Divisions off the line, replacing them with reserve infantry divisions that had been rehabilitating at Kharkov. Lastly, he told Steiner to free up one of his three remaining SS divisions by making any prudent adjustment to his front that he deemed necessary. The division pulled into reserve was the battle hardened 3rd SS Totenkopf.

If this nightmare begins, he thought, then I will fight it north and east of the Kuban River. All those fast motorized divisions will break through and go right for Stavropol, the city the Soviets had called Voroshilovgorad. That move flanks Armavir on the Kuban, seizes a major railhead city, and then from there we simply drive south to Nevinomyssk and cut the main rail line to Groznyy and Baku. That isolates everything Volkov has in the Maykop region, and also opens the road east and south to the real prize fields at Groznyy and Baku, for I have little doubt that I will soon be ordered there. That is all of 700miles as the crow flies from Rostov, farther than our drive to reach this headquarters.

Yet the price for this is war with the Orenburg Federation. Is that oil worth the cost in blood? Our lines run parallel to Volkov’s from the Black Sea all the way up to the Don bend where we just made that minor adjustment by pulling back to the Chir. This front is the only point of contact with Orenburg. All the rest of his troops are still facing down the Soviets along the Volga, but will they stay there? What if both sides had all those units free to use against us? Yes… that is the real nightmare behind all of this. Six more Soviet armies, and Volkov’s 1st, 4th, and 6th armies could be freed up for operations, and if this happens there can be no operation against Leningrad when the winter finally relents.

He shuddered inwardly, knowing the chaos that would bring to the entire war in the east. I could take the Caucasus if Hitler orders it, he thought. It took us only one month to destroy four Soviet Armies in the Kuban. I would go right through these troops from Kazakhstan and a fast offensive, with sufficient mobile forces, will probably not be stopped anywhere forward of Groznyy. However, if Volkov manages to mend fences with Sergei Kirov…. then we get the nightmare. My troops may very well be in Baku when that happens, but something tells me they will not stay there long….

The outcome of the war was on a razor’s edge that was now 48 hours wide. OKW secretly signaled all armies in the field bordering troops of the Orenburg Federation to make ready for offensive operations. Planes and messengers were dispatched to Rostov to brief Manstein directly, where he learned that all his assumptions and misgivings were about to become grim reality. It was too late, he knew, to attempt a direct appeal to Hitler to rescind those orders, and so he bowed to the inevitable, signaling Hörnlein in the Grossdeutschland Division a single pre-arranged Codeword—Edelweiss II.

The seconds ticked off, their sound becoming louder and louder with each passing moment, and then, on the 28th of March, 1943, they finally resolved to the booming sound of artillery fire. Germany had now opened yet another new war front in the deep south of the Caucasus. Now the panzers would advance in to the rolling steppes replete with sunflowers, abundant grain only now emerging from beneath the last of winter’s morning frost, and of course, the oil. It was a vast new frontier, desolate in many places where the dry balkas would creep through desert salt pans, past the old buried bones of previous generations that were gathered in telltale mounds. Eventually the desert would give way to the marshy shores of the far Caspian Sea, and to the south, the land would rise sharply to the towering heights of Gora Elbrus, King of the Great Caucasus Range.

Volkov’s armies had held forth in that region for decades, once holding all the terrain to the line of the River Don, and glaring at the Soviet river forts at Rostov. Sergei Kirov’s 1940 offensive had pushed them all the way back to the Kuban and beyond, with Maykop switching hands twice, finally recovered by Volkov’s late 1941 counterattack. Yet the German army did not fight like the Soviets of 1940 and 1941. Its infantry hit hard, and was backed by good artillery and Stug battalions. Its panzers moved like steel chariots.

After years of simply minding his static borders with Soviet Russia, Ivan Volkov finally had his war. He would soon come to understand the meaning of the proverb that Ribbentrop had handed him—Might makes Right.

One minute after the deadline dictated by the Führer, the guns of Fredrik de Gross, Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm opened fire on the Georgian defenders of Tuapse. From the sea, the German 132nd Infantry Division was lifted from the Kerch area for an assault, while the inland side of the port was attacked by the 97th Jaeger Division. Tuapse fell that morning. As did Hill 69 near that small oil field, where the Stug Battalion of Ott’s 52nd Korps had ground its way up the slope. The Orenburg 38th Division was driven back on the flanks by 339th Infantry, and the Germans controlled the area by dusk.

Further north along the Kuban, the German 257th Division pushed over the crossing sites at Labinsk, and a small bridgehead was obtained near Kazanskaya, about 10 kilometers west of Kropotkin. These attacks were meant simply to draw the interest of any reserves the Orenburg 3rd Army might have deeper in the Maykop Zone. The real action was to the northeast, where the 57th Panzer Korps launched its attack through Novo Alexandrovka towards Stavropol. It would fall upon the 3rd Kazakh Army, a much less capable formation than the regular army units in the Maykop District. Three of the five rifle divisions on the line withdrew, and of the two that stood their ground, the Timur Rifles took 40% casualties. Further north, the Amir Guard Division was surrounded by 29th Motorized Division and tried to fight its way out of the trap.

The Germans had only hit the outer shell of Volkov’s defense in that sector. Anticipating an attack along the lines of what Manstein had ordered, Volkov sent his 7th Regular Army to Stavropol, and they were now hastily marshaling to arms along an inner defense line that stretched from Stavropol to the north. Other measures saw the massive silver behemoths of the Southern division airships climb high to avoid German fighters, penetrating deep behind German lines. They would then descend to deploy their small airmobile company, with a mission to interdict the vital rail lines that would sustain the German offensive.

One landed north of Tikhoretsk, causing a good bit of damage before the Ersatz Battalion of the Grossdeutschland Division surrounded and destroyed the raiders. A company off the airship Krasnodar made good on its name by raiding the rail line northeast of that city. It, too, would meet a sad fate when found by the German 503 Heavy PzJag Battalion that had been moving up the road to the crossing bridgehead at Labinsk. A 3rd Company off the airship Kungur struck the auxiliary rail line running from Rostov to Salsk.

While this effort was made to interdict German rail lines, Volkov made good use of his own. The last four rifle divisions of his 7th Army moved all day and night, down along the Volga to Astrakhan and then on down the Caspian shore towards Groznyy. This route would eventually turn west to take them up towards Nevinomyssk and Armavir, where Volkov determined the Germans would come.

So in these initial days, and in spite of his foreknowledge of how the old Operation Edelweiss had ended, Volkov chose to backstop his forward lines in the effort to hold as much territory as possible. He was perhaps making a grave mistake in choosing to fight for every mile of ground, rather than adopting the strategy the Russian Armies had used in the old history. There they had made a hasty withdrawal, even uprooting and shipping all the oil rigs and equipment at Maykop. They would delay on the line Pyatigorsk, Mineralne Vody, Georgievsk, and then fall back on the Terek River. (See Map of Manstein’s drive into the Caucasus)

In the Maykop Zone, it seemed that Volkov’s strategy was working. His 3rd Army was fighting hard, and its reserve Mech Corps had come forward to deliver some sharp counterpunches against 17th Army. Beyond Hill 69 with that nascent oil field, there was heavy woodland that had stopped Volkov’s troops when defended by stalwart Soviet troops. Now they hoped to use that terrain to their own good advantage, and it was slow going for the infantry attacks, particularly since the Germans had already been fighting for a month.

It was the German bridgehead over the Kuban at Labinsk near Kropotkin that became the major problem. The Germans had used three Pioneer Regiments to get the infantry over the river, and now they had deepened their bridgehead to a depth of 15 kilometers. A brigade from 3rd Army’s Mech Corps was committed there to try and hold the line, but it was unable to make much of a difference. The German infantry found the weak points in the enemy line, hammered their way through, and then presented the strong points with the option to either withdraw or be enveloped. Cavalry Divisions used to plug holes were quickly pushed back, and the weight of this attack would soon begin to threaten the strong defensive front west of Belorchensk.

Yet that was not even the main German effort, for Manstein assumed that Maykop would fall like a ripe plum the instant he had swept through Stavropol and began pushing to cut the rail line to the south. The German mobile units had all but destroyed the outer defensive line of 3rd Kazakh Army, and now they were fighting with the regulars of the 7th Army. Grossdeutschland Division came barreling right up the road from the Kuban bend east of Kropotkin, and was already closing on Stavropol. 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions were mopping up shattered enemy stragglers and forging on. 7th Army had been trying to watch the entire front from Stavropol north to the Manych Canal, a distance of 135 Kilometers, and it was still waiting for its last four divisions.

As the Germans pushed to within 12 kilometers of the main airfield at Stavropol, the order was given to fly off the fighter group there to Elista. The 18 planes took off, heading north east towards the wide empty desert region, but not an hour later the drone of planes could be heard again. The remaining ground service crews rushed to man machineguns, thinking the field was under German attack, but to their great surprise, down came another group of 12 fighters, all Volkov’s Yak-1’s, built with plans he had provided. The bewildered ground crews soon learned they had just flown in from Armavir.

“The Germans have crossed the Kuban north of the city!” the pilots exclaimed. “They have taken Armavir!”

That sleight of hand had been accomplished when the 24th Bridge Column trundled forward and threw up a pontoon bridge on the night of the 30th of March. The following morning, 170th Infantry crossed, soon to be followed by the 81st. This sudden and unexpected attack had completely compromised the defenders at Kropotkin, and those trying to contain the Labinsk bridgehead, and now Volkov’s Generals had to make some very difficult decisions. They had stopped the Germans in that heavy woodland just north of Aspheronsk, the best defensive positions they had west of Belorchensk, but now that whole line had been flanked. The rail line that fed them ran back through Armavir, and the defense of the Labinsk bridgehead was now collapsing. Manstein’s plan was working.

Now Volkov had to either order his 3rd Army into a defensive hedgehog around Maykop, or to withdraw. In that instance, he would have to destroy all the well sites at Maykop, and lose all that equipment, for unlike his historical counterparts, he had not moved anything south. Unwilling to lose one of his best oilfield developments in less than a week, he opted instead for a limited withdrawal. The Kuban Rifle Corps and all elements of 3rd Army in the Kuban bend were ordered to fall back towards the rail line from Armavir. The last four divisions of 7th Army had finally arrived at Nevinomyssk, and he sent the 77th up the road to Armavir, with the others deploying north to the defense of Stavropol.

Volkov was making a mistake, and the German Army would soon show him that, but he was obstinate. He should have pulled 3rd Army out immediately, abandoning the Maykop District an establishing a new line on the Urup River, which is just where Hitler had ordered him to go. But his pride would not allow him to do that. His success in delaying the advance of 17th Army near Belorchensk had made him believe that his regular troops could hold, but the forces advancing on Stavropol were not infantry divisions, they were all fast, well hardened Panzer divisions, and one of them was Grossdeutschland.

It was April Fool’s Day. It was now his to learn the lessons that had bedeviled his enemy, Sergei Kirov, since Germany crossed the frontier into the Soviet state in 1941. What Volkov desperately needed now was not the arrival of a few more rifle divisions—he needed another army, and more if he could get it to the Caucasus in time. The only way he was ever going to have that option would be if he could somehow demilitarize the long line of the Volga River. In order to fight the war he never expected to be facing now, he needed peace with Sergei Kirov.

Peace with Siberia, if he could get even that, would give him but one army to dispose of, his 8th still holding out at Omsk. What he really needed now were the troops of his 1st, 2nd and 6th Armies. With those he could stop the Germans now, and force Hitler to come begging for oil again—but they were all on the upper Volga. So he sent messages to Leningrad, offering an extended truce, demilitarization of the Volga, and the possibility of further concessions for peace

With Doctorov still dickering with the Siberians, Volkov sent a new Ambassador, the hard-chinned Viktor Ivanov, who had obtained permission to fly by airship to Leningrad. There was no way Volkov would ever go himself, nor would Kirov come to him, so Ivanov would have to do.

A tall, straight backed man who was a former high ranking official in Volkov’s intelligence network, Ivanov promised to get the best possible bargain he could. This time the meeting would not be held in a packinghouse, but in the impressive 580-meter expanse of the General Staff building in Leningrad. Sergei Kirov would receive the Ambassador while sitting at his desk, the broad window behind him offering a view of the Triumphal Arch on the Palace Square, where a full regiment of the Palace Guard were staged on parade, complete with a ceremonial band. Behind Kirov, the steadfast figure of Berzin was standing at attention, a man Ivanov knew only too well, for the two men had been rivals in the intelligence business in the past.

Kirov said nothing as the Ambassador was shown in, nor did he rise to shake the other man’s hand. Instead, Berzin merely pointed to the solitary chair before Kirov’s desk, some three meters from the desk itself, indicating that Ivanov should sit. It created the spectacle of power receiving a beggar off the street, which was just what Kirov intended.

Ivanov sat, placing his briefcase on the floor by the chair, and regarded his situation with no small amount of inner displeasure. Theater, he knew. It was all part of the game that would now begin. I am made to sit here in the center of the chess board like that first lonesome pawn after white plays out to King 4. Usually I might meet with just another Ambassador, another pawn like myself, but those are two heavy pieces staring at me from the other side of that desk. How to begin a conversation between two nations that have not had any real diplomatic relations for over twenty years?

Chapter 9

He cleared his throat. “Mister General Secretary… Director…” he also paid his respects to Berzin with a knowing nod of his head.

“You wear the years well, Ivanov,” said Berzin.

“As do you, and that is saying a lot considering how hard those years have been for both our nations.”

“Hard years because we made them so,” said Berzin. “What prompts you to make this request for a meeting? Might it be the little flare-up in the Caucasus?”

“Of course,” said Ivanov, not mincing words. “We’ve just been bitten by the Wolf, and that is something you know of quite well.”

“Oh, yes, we know of it. The citizens of Kiev, and Minsk, and Vilnus, Kharkov, Kirov, Bryansk, Orel, and even Moscow all know so very much about it as well.” He let that sink in, silence being his friend for the moment, and Ivanov was respectful enough to hold his tongue. Then Sergei Kirov spoke for the first time.

“What is it you want, Mister Ambassador? Let me guess—you want what you were unwilling to give us for the last twenty years, and all because you wanted other things we have as well—Volgograd, Rostov, and god only knows what else. You also wanted the Kuban, and to try and get these things, you promised to feed the Wolf. He was the one who would get them for you—things you could never take for yourself—but now it seems that little plan has gone awry.”

“It has.” Again, Ivanov would not quibble. Everything Kirov had just said was true, so why pretend otherwise? “We both made a bargain with the Wolf,” he said. “Now each of us feels his bite.”

“Yes, and while you but lick one small drop of blood from your finger, a tiny wound suffered in but a week of fighting, we have lost an arm and both legs—a million dead men, cities razed and burned, our cropland devastated, factories destroyed, our navy at the bottom of the Black Sea. But still we fight on, and with no help from Orenburg, because you chose to side with our enemy, which is something the Rodina can never forget or forgive. You chose to stand with the Wolf, and stood by while it wrested the children of this nation from their mother’s arms and devoured them. Am I being too dramatic here, or have I made my point?”

“Mister General Secretary, I cannot undo what has happened in the past. I can only look to what lies ahead, and so now I will ask you to do the same, as hard as it may be—as unjust as it is. But if we are ever to have peace, then that is what we must both do.”

“Peace?” said Kirov looking at Berzin. “That is what you want now, is it? He want’s peace, Berzin. Imagine that.”

“After over twenty years of civil war,” said Berzin.

“Yes,” said Kirov, “and even though we have suffered greatly, what has Volkov won in that war? He has taken Samara, but only because it would have cost us too many divisions to prevent that. He has tried to cross the Volga and take the great city named for that river seven times, and only now succeeds because of German assistance. So now he can sit there in the rubble and claim his prize at last. He wanted the Kuban, and look who has it now.” Kirov smiled. “Why would I give even the slightest consideration to a truce with Orenburg, let alone anything approaching an alliance?”

“Because you need us,” said Ivanov flatly. “Because you need the six Armies that watch us on the Volga.”

“Yes,” said Kirov, “just as we needed the four we saw die in the Kuban.”

“They were doomed the day the Germans reached the Don,” said Ivanov. “But consider now what you could do with those other six armies if we were to demilitarize the Volga.”

“I am still considering what I could have done with the men we just lost,” Kirov said sharply. “Don’t think to sit there and tell me this was all the German’s doing. Orenburg was complicit the entire duration of that campaign, and all to protect your precious oil fields at Maykop. If Germany had been more accommodating, would we be even having this conversation? I think not.”

“Possibly,” said Ivanov, “but Germany has betrayed us. That much is clear. Make peace with us now and we will make amends. We will join your struggle, and with the full might of all our forces in the field. The Germans want the oil of the Caucasus, but with the three armies we have on the Volga, we could stop them, and with the six armies you have there you could turn and smash your way all the way to the Dnieper. We would cut off their entire Army Group South and destroy it!”

“My….” Kirov smiled. “Such ambitions. Of course, it would be Soviet and Siberian troops doing most of the fighting again—Soviet tanks, Soviet blood. What could you possibly give us in return for the price we have already paid in this war?”

“To begin that discussion, Samara. We are prepared to pull back our forces there, and turn over the city as a goodwill gesture.”

“Samara…. You would give us one city in return for all the others we’ve lost? Will you give us back Volgograd? I think not, for there is little there to give but complete devastation.”

“As you mention this, yes, I am authorized to offer Volgograd as well. We will also abandon the siege of Chelyabinsk, return Omsk to the control of the Free Siberian State, and open the Trans-Siberian rail connection through that entire region. And then, of course, there is the oil.”

“The oil,” said Kirov. “Yes, the oil. If I am not mistaken, you promised all that to the Third Reich.”

“Those shipping orders have all been cancelled.”

“Because Hitler no longer needs to wait on your paperwork,” said Kirov. “He’s already sitting on Baba Gurgur, and Guderian may soon be starting his push for Basra and Abadan. I wonder which they will take first, Basra or Groznyy? Will they go all the way to Baku? He looked at Berzin now, but his intelligence Director merely shrugged.”

“Will they go all the way to Leningrad this year?” said Ivanov, with just the slightest edge of desperation creeping into his tone. “You both know they have already made their plans for that operation. It will be called Downfall, and perhaps that is what it will be—the downfall and destruction of the Soviet Republic. But don’t you see? With Orenburg and the Soviet Union fighting as one, there will be no Operation Downfall against Leningrad this year, if ever. So, you can add that city to the others. Yes, with us, you can save Leningrad from the destruction that the world witnessed at Moscow.”

“No thanks to you and Volkov. Were you cozied up to Beria? Did you know about his little plan to eliminate me and burn the capital to the ground?”

“I knew many things,” said Ivanov, “and one of them was that Beria was a decrepit bastard. While I was not privy to his plans at Moscow, what he did there was not a surprise. That was on your watch, Berzin. It’s a shame you didn’t stop him.”

“Oh I stopped him alright,” said Berzin. “I shot the man dead myself, and to do the same to you would be one small measure of justice for all you have done against the Soviet State in this war.”

“But we are not savages,” said Kirov. “We are, however, patriots, and if the Germans do come for Leningrad, we will fight them to the last breath in the last man. But they will not come, because we will stop them. We’ll attack Bryansk, we’ll attack them at Kursk, we’ll attack them at Moscow—in every place they have so rudely trodden upon the sacred soil of the Rodina. And we will prevail—with or without the Orenburg Federation. So you can keep the shattered ruins of Volgograd, and keep Samara as well. We’ll take it back when I get around to that sector, and when we come for it, there will be nothing you can do to stop us. So enjoy your little squabble with the Führer. You can go back and tell Volkov that there will be no peace—not until Soviet troops march triumphantly through the heart of Orenburg itself, and that time may not be as far off as you may think.”

“This is foolish!” said Ivanov. “You need us—you need the full might of the nation Russia was before the revolution to have even the slightest chance of defeating the Germans, and you know this. Your pride in this will be the ruin of your Soviet State! Don’t you realize that Volkov could turn about tomorrow and accede to all of Hitler’s demands? We could mend fences there again quite easily, and then where will you be? You will be back in the same cold borscht! Germany will win this war, and then what will become of the Rodina you speak of with such fervent adulation? It will become nothing more than a slave state, your people, your cities, all of it gone to the service of the Third Reich.”

“Mister Ambassador….” Kirov fixed Ivanov with a dark and level stare. “There is a pistol in my desk drawer. It is Berzin’s pistol, the very same one he used to kill Beria. Your claim to innocence concerning that matter was really quite preposterous, for our intelligence is very good. We know damn well that you were involved in that plot, and you are one of the very few, beyond Volkov himself, that survived when I ordered Red Rain in retribution.”

Kirov opened his drawer and took out that pistol, slowly handing it to Berzin, who was still right at his side. “Grishin,” he said quietly. “I believe we have some unfinished business.”

“What?” said Ivanov. “You threaten to kill me? I am here under a cloak of diplomatic—”

Berzin leveled the pistol and fired.

Kirov looked at Berzin, a wry smile on his face. “What did we just do here, Grishin?”

“We have killed Ivonov, the last of Beria’s rats to escape the trap.”

“Yes, we have,” said Kirov. “It seems I was mistaken about us not being savages.”

“Indeed, sir. A pity. Will there be peace with Orenburg? That would make Zhukov’s work a good deal easier.”

“In time,” said Kirov. “All things in good time.”

Outside in the wide stone courtyard. And as if in answer to the single pistol shot fired by Berzin, a rifle company fired three crisp volleys in salute. Hundreds of miles away, new soviet armies, fresh and fat after the long winter, were slowly advancing to take up positions in the Serafimovich Bridgehead….

When Volkov received the package from Leningrad containing Ivanov’s head, he was outraged. In an explosion of temper that would have made even Hitler blush, he ravaged the interior of an office within his Staff Command Headquarters on the Ural River. Finally he relented, sitting down, his breath controlled, pulse returning to normal. No one ever dared to approach him in these fearsome moments of rage, but like a volatile chemical, they burned out quickly. His mined cooled to an icy calm, eyes hard as he stared out the broken window at the dramatic stone arch that marked the gateway from Europe to Asia. Then he summoned his Adjutant.

The man stepped gingerly into the room, thinking he would soon become one of the many victims of Volkov’s rage. The shattered glass on the tiled floor, and broken chairs were testimony enough to his overlord’s mood. Yet when he heard Volkov speak, he knew the low, dangerous tone in his voice well enough. The General Secretary had become a man again, albeit a very dangerous one, and he was thinking.

“You have the latest report from the Kuban?”

“Yes sir.”

“Let me hear it.”

Now the Adjutant passed another moment of alarm, for he would be the bringer of bad news, but he forged on. “Sir, the line in the south remains stable, though the enemy has brought up three fresh divisions that were fighting on the coast at Tuapse, and has now relieved their Mountain Corps.”

“Where was it redeployed?”

“In to the high country, near Chernigovskiy.”

Volkov nodded, knowing the Germans now wanted to use those troops to try and flank the lower portion of his line through those mountains. “Belorchensk?” he asked next.

“The city is secure. The German 52nd Corps has paused along the River Pshish. However, their 4th Corps has reached Dondukov on the rail line to Armavir, and fresh troops have come down from Kropotkin to increase pressure on that city.”

“Dondukov?”

“No sir—Armavir. The defense in that sector has been flanked to the southwest near Stanitsya, though that is only a small reconnaissance. But the headquarters of 3rd Kazakh Army at Urupskiy has reported some alarming news.”

“Well, give it to me man, don’t worry about your head. The furniture died here today, but you may continue to live.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir. But General Gorsov of the 3rd Kazakh reports there are German tanks approaching Urupskiy from the northeast. 18th Panzer Division from their markings. As he has no reserve at hand, he requests permission to withdraw towards Nevinomyssk.”

“Damn!” Volkov swore, giving his Adjutant a start. “They must have crossed the Kuban. What about those two divisions of the 7th Army I sent to hold that north bank?”

“Sir, they were engaged with that very same Panzer Division, but the Germans broke off that attack four hours ago.”

“And they cross the damn river,” said Volkov. “They move like quicksilver! Armavir cannot be held, which means 3rd Army’s supply line is cut, and the entire position around Maykop is useless….”

Volkov simmered with that for some time. 3rd Army was being enfiladed from the east at Armavir, and soon the German mountain troops would attempt another flanking maneuver to the south. He briefly passed through the option of sending a message through the German lines to request a cease fire. He might get far better treatment from his former ally than he had just seen meted out by his fellow Russians in Leningrad.

But then again, they don’t see us as Russians, do they? We are nothing more than Kazakh scum to them. Sergei Kirov sits there in the General Staff building overlooking the courtyard where the Tsar’s men would promenade. Now he is the new Tsar, but not here, and not in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Would Hitler entertain further negotiations at this late hour? No, not while his armies are still making steady progress like this. We’ve kept them out of Belorchensk and Maykop, but that 11th Army infantry has been fighting for a long month, and is most likely tired and understrength.

That river crossing near Urupskiy has unhinged everything. Now I must either leave 3rd Army there to die, or try to save it. Maykop is lost, but Hitler won’t have it. I’ll see it burn first. Maykop is lost, but 3rd Army might still live, and I might still be able to keep Groznyy.

When he spoke again, his voice was dark and serious. “Hitler wants my oil, does he? Get a message to fat Gorsov and tell him to take everything he has to Nevinomyssk and hold that place. Then signal General Timalov with 3rd Army. He is to withdraw immediately, across the Urup River and along the road to Cherkessk. Inform him of that river crossing operation and see if he can stop it. Then I want all the rigs, wellheads, pipeline and drilling equipment at Maykop completely demolished. Understand? He is to burn the wellheads.”

He who controls a thing, can destroy a thing, thought Volkov. So before control of Maykop slips from my hands, I will destroy it. The only way I can get Hitler to negotiate again is if I can deny him what he wants. I can sacrifice Maykop, but perhaps I can stop them and save the rest. I was foolish to deploy forward as I did. I should have done what the Russians did in the real history, and so now I learn a hard lesson. This German Army is not to be underestimated.

3rd Army was a large formation, following the model for all regular armies of Orenburg. While typical Soviet Armies might have five to seven divisions, those of Orenburg had nine regular rifle divisions, a mech corps consisting of three brigades, an armored car regiment, engineers and artillery. All those divisions would now begin a general retreat, which could be quite messy. They would also be joined by the three remaining rifle divisions in the Kuban Rifle Corps, and Gorlov’s remnants of the 3rd Kazakh army that had been on this side of the Kuban. So now the mad rush was on, all his troops stampeding towards the line of the Urup River, and it burned his neck to think he could have withdrawn them there five days earlier in good order, and with his relations with Germany still intact… But without the Kuban; without the Taman Peninsula; without Maykop. Hitler would still take them all now, he knew, which was the hardest blow.

Sergei Kirov would not make peace, but Volkov might still wheedle a deal with the Siberians. They might give him a cease fire for Omsk, and then perhaps he could take four divisions from the 8th Army and send them to Astrakhan. That, too, was a matter of some concern to him, for Astrakhan was the big supply and depot center for all his operations on the Volga, and the gateway to the Tengiz and Kashagan oil fields. Where would this fast moving German mobile force go next? He had to be ready to oppose any thrust it might make.

Think, Volkov! He chided himself. “What do I need, and what can I live without? I need Groznyy and Baku, that much is certain. I desperately need Astrakhan. As for Volgograd, as much as it was a point of pride to take that place, and a long held objective, the city is actually worthless at the moment, a pile of rubble. So I no longer need Volgograd, and if I abandon it, then I can simply fall back on my original fortification lines east of Beketova. 2nd Kazakh can hold that, along with the Turkomen Corps. Then I can pull all of 2nd Army out of the Don Bend. Kirov’s troops won’t bother me, because they still have the Germans to worry about. So off we go…

“That is not all,” he said to the Adjutant, and slowly dictated his orders. “Send to Rybolkin and the 2nd Army. The bridges at Kalach, Nizhne Chirskaya and Golubinskaya are to be destroyed. His army is to move east of the Volga to the rail depots at Volkovskiy. All divisions in the Turkomen Corps will move to positions along the old fortification line south of Beketovo. There will be no changes to 5th Army dispositions, but all airfields and rail stations west of the Volga should be demolished and mined. This withdrawal should be covered by massed volley fire of all artillery, including all the Volga River forts.”

That last bit was just to stick a thumb in Sergei Kirov’s eye as he broke the long held clinch the two of them had been in over Volgograd. He was giving up everything he had fought for and gained since the outbreak of the war, and all in the hope that he might still keep everything he possessed before this conflict started. Whether the Siberians made peace or not, he would trade the rubble of Volgograd for the 2nd Army of Orenburg, and bring it to the Caucasus.

The 1st of April was a very long day.