Since December the Germans had suffered many defeats. Sixty thousand were killed in twenty days at the outskirts of Moscow, a fact that forced the Germans to relieve Field Marshal von Bock of his command of the Rusisian front. A rumor spread in Egypt that Marshal Timoshenko, one of the most prominent commanders in Russia, was a Muslim and therefore never lost any battle.
In Egypt, the writer May Ziyada had died weeks earlier, as had Talat Harb Pasha, father of Egypt’s national economy. His Majesty King Farouk and the royal family paid a visit to the Farafra oasis, thus completing visits to all of Egypt’s oases, to make sure that his subjects there were all right. There was a big air raid on Alexandria that left a lot of destruction and dozens of casualties as always happened since Rommel appeared in Africa. Clothing was distributed to refugees in the countryside. The Egyptian film Schoolgirl and the American film The Thief of Baghdad were screened. The Shah of Iran abdicated the throne in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, so Princess Fawziya, King Farouk’s sister, was the first Egyptian princess to sit on the throne of Iran. The vice department celebrated the success of its call for the marriage of single refugee women by having a wedding ceremony for twenty couples on the same night. Two hundred thousand pounds worth of narcotics were seized in the coastal area. There was a surge of interest on the part of Hijazis in the Egyptian takiya, or Sufi lodge, in the Hijaz, and the newspapers called for increasing the budget of the takiya to be able to perform its charitable work. The Feast of the Sacrifice coincided with Christmas, and Dimyan went to Alexandria for two days and returned quickly to keep Magd al-Din company. Measures were taken to protect the bronze statues in Ras al-Tin palace from the air raids. And Rushdi walked along Mahmudiya Canal.
He had decided to make it to the Nile then go south until he arrived at Asyut, and on his way would examine all the corpses that he came across. He was certain that Camilla had been killed and that her body was dumped in the Nile. He was determined either to find her dead or alive. A rumor had spread in the country about a young nun with an aura around her head and face who was healing the sick in Asyut, and people started converging on her place from the surrounding villages. A butcher was arrested and faced a military tribunal for refusing to sell meat. There was meat hanging in his store, and a customer came to buy a kilo, but the butcher refused, saying the meat was not for sale, that it was for display only. The customer felt that he was mocking him so he went to the police station and lodged his complaint. Prices for birds rose: a nightingale was priced at twelve piasters, a canary at thirty-five piasters, and likewise for a parrot. The fighting powers pledged to observe a ceasefire on the last night of the year to celebrate the new year, but most houses in Alexandria were closed, destroyed, or deserted.
25
Traveler, must you go?.
Is the time for your parting come?.
Traveler, we are helpless to keep you.
We have only our tears.
The new year started with a big commotion in al-Alamein. German and Italian planes conducted raids on the desert all the way to Alexandria. Anti-aircraft artillery scattered all over the desert kept firing, but no planes were hit.
The number of German and Italian prisoners of war being captured dwindled. It was Rommel now who was trans-porting more prisoners to Germany via Italy and the Mediterranean. Rommel’s name now struck fear in the Allied troops. In the middle of January, in the early hours of the morning, Rommel turned off the little reading light and lay down on the bed in his command post, asking his private secretary, Staff Sergeant Boettichcr, to wake him up in an hour. When he got up he held his morning briefing with his officers and told them, “We will attack at once.” Then he explained to them that the British would exploit any relaxation to make use of the huge supplies that they had started to receive. That would give them vast superiority over the Axis forces, hence their lines and their plans should be penetrated to make it all the way to the Delta.
A major operation to deceive British intelligence from Rome to Libya began. Strong rumors were spread that the Germans were withdrawing. Rommel began to blow up mock ships and mock camps. The rumors were so strong in Alexandria that the Allied soldiers started drinking roasts to the withdrawal of Rommel, who was now reduced to blowing up his own ships. But only the belly dancer Hikmat Fahmi in Cairo knew that this was just a ruse. She lured high-ranking English officers to her houseboat, and gathered information and secrets and conveyed them to the Germans by a secret transmitter with the help of the two spies, Johannes Eppler and Hans Gerd Sandstetter.
After pretending to withdraw, Rommel began his daring and sudden offensive by dividing his armored force into two divisions, one for the coast and the other for the desert. He seized Ajdabiya, then Antalat and Sawinnu. British armed forces retreated in a state of great disarray toward the Egyptian borders. The road to Benghazi on the one hand, and to al-Makili on the other, was now open to Rommel. Toward the end of January he pretended to launch an offensive against al-Makili, so Auchinleck moved his armored force and his infantry there, but, making a tiger-like leap, Rommel changed direction to the coast, cutting off the Indian Fourth Division and taking Benghazi. The Führer promoted him to general. The British had lost their morale and ran away as if bitten by a snake. Rommel had unleashed his eighty-eight-millimeter anti-tank guns on their armored vehicles, then overran them with his heavy Panzer tanks.
At that time the Russian forces had smashed six German divisions and a big Russian offensive extending from Sevastopol in the south to Finland in the north. Hitler admitted for the first time that the Russians were advancing. Germany prepared by deploying five million soldiers, Russia by deploying ten million. The United Sates allocated the largest budget for the war, fifty billion dollars for military industries and operations. The French ship Normandie caught fire as it was anchored at the harbor of the Houston Ship Channel in the United States, resulting in forty dead and 165 injured. The Japanese landed in Java, and the Kingdom of Siam declared war on Britain after it was captured by Japan. Indian leaders Nehru and Gandhi rejected anything less than total independence from England. The city of Alexandria established fifteen new shelters. The Coptic Church celebrated Christmas in the first week of January amid prevalent sadness because of the raids. A woman died in Karmuz, leaving behind three children. As the people carried her bier, they were forced back to where the children stood in front of their house, crying. That happened three times, and every time the bier would turn and take the men carrying it back to the house. Men, young and old, cried out “God is great!” and women and girls cried. The world was bathed in a brilliant light as the heavy clouds lifted over the city and a gloriously beautiful sun shone. People knelt down and kissed the ground and prayed and cried. The mother could only be buried after the children were carried away. Alexandria spent the night in a state of amazed wonderment. Stones surrounded the statues of Muhammad Ali Pasha and Ismail Pasha to protect them from the heavy raids. The cabinet ministers began to prepare headquarters in Luxor and Aswan, away from Cairo, because of winter, it was said. In reality they wanted to get as far from Rommel as they could. His Majesty the King went on a trip to the Eastern Desert, in which he visited the mines and the Bishariya, the inhabitants of Halayib. Epiphany coincided with the Islamic New Year; a newspaper reader observed that Christian and Islamic feasts were coinciding with, or occurring closer to each other these days. Another reader said in reply to it that that happened only every few generations and that this generation was luckier than others because of this divine blessing. Nahhas Pasha became prime minister after great pressure on the king from the English. Husayn Sirry Pasha resigned, or was forced to resign by the king. Demonstrators chanted, “Forward, Rommel.” The people expressed their love for their young king. A poet poked fun at the English by writing,