That notion finally did enter the Führer’s mind, yet his initial invasion had been countered exactly as Manstein said it would happen. The British Operation Scimitar had been decisive, delivering Damascus and Beirut to the British, and largely destroying the Vichy French forces in Syria. The Germans held on in northern Syria, where the British simply kept a guarded watch, not expecting any further developments after the two German mobile divisions were withdrawn for Operation Barbarossa. Now Manstein’s words echoed again in the Führer’s mind…
“This is a bold and imaginative plan,” he said, speaking of the German movement into Syria. “It would augment the southern emphasis for Barbarossa very well. Yet would even this knock Great Britain out of the war? I do not believe so. It may knock them out of the Middle East, but they will continue to fight on. The British Empire would still have strong outposts in India and the far east. Taking Egypt would be a severe setback, but they will fight on no matter what, and wait for the Americans to get involved. Then we will be moving troops west again, because instead of us planning to invade England as we should have in 1941, they will be planning to invade French colonies in West Africa, or even France itself. You see, my Führer, Ivan Volkov is not the only man who can make predictions.”
Manstein had been completely correct. The Allies did invade West Africa, and Portugal as well. They had overthrown Franco, toppled the Spanish Government and set up a puppet state there. They had retaken the prize Hitler won with Operation Felix, recapturing Gibraltar. They had driven the Germans out of the Canary Islands, foiling Operation Condor, seizing all of Morocco, and most of Algeria. Germany had been forced to disarm the remaining Vichy French forces in North Africa, and send an entire new army there under von Arnim.
Yet if he returned to the strategy that had been foiled by Operation Scimitar, he might accomplish a great deal now. He could force the British 8th Army to halt its offensive towards Tripoli, looking over its shoulder at the new threat Operation Phoenix posed. He would prevent any further possibility that Turkey would fall under Churchill’s spell. He would pose a grave threat to British oil supplies and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq, and also to Palestine and Egypt, forcing the enemy to defend ground it now held with rear area formations.
And he would get to the oil—to Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk. That goal was uppermost in his mind. The locals referred to the place as the “Father of Fires,” where low smoldering flames had been burning in a small crater for centuries. In 1927, when a gaggle of geologists were summoned from all over the world, it became one of the first major gushers in the region when drilled, emitting a tall geyser of black oil over 140 feet high that drenched the derrick and surrounding area in an evil black rain. The well was capped after gushing over 95,000 barrels per day, disaster was averted, and the geologists had tamed the demon that would both feed and haunt an energy hungry world for the next hundred years, the “Age of Oil.”
By 1941, Baba Gurgur was considered the single largest reserve of oil on the planet, as the mighty Ghawar fields of Saudi Arabia would not be discovered until 1948. Ivan Volkov would claim he sat on vast resources in the Kashagan fields of the north Caspian Sea, but none of that had been developed as yet. The British, however, were quick to the tap, and soon pipelines extended from oil fields northwest of Kirkuk, through Iraq to Haditha, where the lines split, one transiting northern Syria to Tripoli, and a second flowing through the Trans Jordan to Haifa in Palestine. They also had seized Abadan in Iran and controlled all the oil in the northern Persian Gulf.
The pipelines that crossed those parched deserts were the life lines of the British war effort. Hitler reasoned that he did not have to kill Britain if he could choke it into submission. Doenitz was doing his best in the Atlantic with the U-boat campaign, but now Hitler believed that a truly serious commitment to Operation Phoenix could yield much more than his fruitless obsession with a place like Volgograd.
I had to commit ten divisions to take that single city, he thought, and all to control the commercial traffic on that river. Yes, I removed it as a source of supply and manufacturing. My troops are sitting right outside their factories even now, but what good did it do me? Perhaps, in six months when the lines of communication to Volkov have been secured, that battle might be worth the cost, but look what I can do now with ten divisions in the Middle East!
The British have pipelines and pumping stations all over those deserts. They have long been considered trophies of war for whoever could secure and control them, but why not simply go to the source itself, the Father of Fires, Baba Gurgur? On the 9th of January it would all begin again….
Lieutenant Hans Gruber was well out in front of the division, as he should be, for he now led the Brandenburg Reconnaissance Battalion. He had taken over the battalion from Hauptmann Beck when the division underwent conversion to a fast motorized force. Beck had led it with armored cars, and there were still a few attached to the battalion. Now Gruber would lead with light motorcycle troops, though they were backed up with a good mix of other vehicles and equipment.
Gruber had three 88s mounted on halftracks, sixteen SdKfz 231-8 armored cars, and another twelve of the lighter 221s. He also had three Pak 47mm guns on a mobile chassis, three mobile 20mm flak guns, nine Kubelwagons, and other support vehicles and trucks. Half his infantry would ride the motorcycles, the other half would deploy in those trucks, and he could build two heavy companies by dividing up all those vehicles between the two infantry groups, giving him a little more flexibility.
The division had pulled out of the fighting near Volgograd long ago, moving to help stop the big Soviet offensive aimed at Kursk. It had been instrumental in stopping the enemy’s left pincer, holding the river line of the Donets at Stary Oskol east of Prokhorovka to keep the lines of communication open to Model’s 2nd Panzerarmee. Yet look where he was now!
A young man at just 24 years, he was tall, powerfully built, and every bit the Aryan warrior that he looked, a blonde haired statue of a man, with flashing blue eyes.
Hitler finally came to his senses, he thought, though that remains to be seen. I was as surprised as everyone else to hear we were pulling out again. Hitler finally gave Model permission to abandon Voronezh and with draw, and that freed up all those divisions to hold a much shorter line.
Of course it will also free up the Soviet units that were forming the pocket Model was in, but I don’t think they have any more fight in them. The arrival of Steiner’s Korps was the key, and getting all those units out of that hell hole at Volgograd was essential, Manstein is not stupid. He never wanted Steiner to push for that city, and it was only circumstances that forced him to do so. Now Steiner’s units will get a little rest, and we go south. That was good news, but I had no idea just how far south we would end up!
It will be much warmer here, he thought. January overnight lows might reach 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and perhaps 55 degrees by day. That is a paradise compared to what the troops will endure in Russia this winter. But they say it is the rainy season now, from December through March. In the summer we get to feel like Rommel’s desert troops, but until then, the weather here gets progressively better week by week.