Christopher Nuttall - Axis of Evil

“General Flynn is in command,” Cunningham said. Hanover nodded impatiently. “For the moment, he’s holding a line running from Jordan to Baghdad to Basra, so the Republic of Arabia – which is providing some of the rear-area defence – is safe, for the moment.”

Hanover smiled at the look of relief on both McLachlan’s and Noreen’s face. Both of them, for very different reasons, were very emotionally attached to the new republic, positioned in the heart of Islam.

“The problem he is facing at the moment is two-fold,” Cunningham continued. “For the moment, the flood of Jewish refugees from Palestine has abated slightly, but Egypt is making a fuss about accepting more. We really need a long-term solution to the problem, particularly if we want to avoid creating a second Israel. Both Australia and South Africa are willing to accept them as immigrants, but our shipping is still limited.”

“Once the Americans start mass-producing Liberty Ships, that will change,” McLachlan injected. “They’re due to begin the first models in a few weeks.”

“The second problem is logistics,” Cunningham said. “Quite frankly; both sides have piss-poor logistics. At presence, we are dangerously exposed; if either side got their act together enough to launch a joint attack, we might be in trouble. In fact, Flynn has come up with a plan to abandon Baghdad and fall back to Saudi – sorry, the Republic – if the defence lines crumble.”

“That would abandon Iraq to the Soviets,” McLachlan protested.

“They don’t have the logistics themselves to overrun all of Iraq,” Cunningham said. “The good news, at least, is that we’ve been making real progress; both in fitting out new regiments and divisions, and in stockpiling resources in Arabia. Give us a month or so and we might be able to launch a counter-offensive. It won’t be as spectacular as the American victory in 2003, but with some luck we might be able to force the Soviets back out of Iran and the Germans out of Iraq. We might offer that role to the Americans; give them some real practice.”

“Good thinking,” Hanover said. “And Australia?”

The comment was aimed to the room at large. McLachlan spoke first. “The Japanese have conquered the Dutch East Indies,” he said flatly. “Even with Admiral Turtledove’s assistance, the attempt to hold toeholds on the islands has failed; they’re now pulling back in a second Dunkirk. Fortunately, we can provide escorts for their ships and keep them safe from Japanese submarines.

“Politically, this has cost Menzies, our ally, in their Parliament. They’re scared, and following the reports of Japanese atrocities in Burma and the Indies, it’s hard to blame them. In essence, they are reluctant – read utterly unwilling – to release any of their forces for duty elsewhere – and they want as much as we can pour in.”

“They already have the largest force outside here and the Middle East,” Cunningham muttered. “Admiral?”

“The submarines have been having reduced successes recently,” Grisham admitted. “Partly because of the overriding need to protect the evacuation convoys, but also because of the Japanese developing some counters for our torpedoes. They came up with a device that makes a speedboat sound like a battleship; we think we blasted four before we got a radar scan from the AWACS. That let the cat out of the bag.”

Hanover met Stirling’s eyes. “Someone is helping them,” he said. “Whom?”

“Perhaps a neo-nazi organisation?” McLachlan suggested.

“Perhaps,” Hanover said. He cleared his throat. “So… we have to hold the line in the Middle East, defend Australia and India, and somehow assist the Americans in invading Europe.” He chuckled. “Aren’t these meetings fun?”

“No,” McLachlan said flatly, and the others muttered agreement. “Perhaps we should try to speed up preparations for the Middle East.”

“We can’t finish that war by invading through the Caucasus,” Cunningham said. “Later, Major Stirling will brief you on the war plans, but fighting in the Middle East is a holding option, at best.”

The room quietened. None of them had wanted to acknowledge a grim truth; to end the war they would have to hammer their way to Berlin and Moscow… or go nuclear.

“At least we can now recruit openly for the Bundeswehr ,” Stirling said afterwards, once the meeting had been concluded. “That should allow us to swell their ranks up to a hundred thousand or so, and we can arm them now.”

Hanover nodded. The Bundeswehr , the Free German Army, commanded by General Rommel, would be needed desperately in the days to come. It was currently working up in Algeria, being trained on the new equipment from war stocks.

“Yes,” he said absently, with other matters on his mind. “You are going to tell me about the war plans now?”

Stirling chuckled nervously. “The PJHQ and the Oversight Committee were divided,” he said. “Unless we commit everything to the effort, it would be difficult to launch a direct invasion of France, and then march into Germany. They wanted to postpone a direct invasion until 1942.”

“Approved,” Hanover said. “It might be tricky to convince the Americans, but I’ll do it somehow.”

“There are two plans for the remainder of 1941,” Stirling said. “Basically, we can hammer away at a corner of the German Reich , either Norway or Sicily, or we can fight it out in the Middle East. Norway offers the advantage of trapping a German army, but our logistics would be bad, even though we’ve now made contact with the Finnish Resistance. Communications are bad, though.”

“We’ll have communication satellites up soon,” Hanover said. “Carry on.”

“Sicily offers the advantage of bad German logistics, particularly since there are only two German forces on the island itself, and a lot more Italians. If we can convince the Free Italians to join in, they might just join us and fight the Germans, but…”

“It seems a lot to risk an adventure on,” Hanover observed.

“It is,” Stirling said. “The Free Italians are hardly under our control, sadly.” Hanover nodded; the Free Italians were the remains of the forces that had been trapped in Ethiopia when Libya had fallen to General Flynn. “Personally, I favour the Middle East option; sooner or later Stalin is going to make a grab for India and the chaos of the Northwest Frontier must be a constant temptation to him. If we do it properly, we might also embroil the Americans…”

“Not something to be discussed,” Hanover said sharply. “Carry on.”

“Japan offers the least chance for changing the war, although we can push forward the submarine program and send non-nuclear submarines to Australia. Given our bad logistics, I would recommend against attacking the Japanese in Malaya; we don’t have the strength to throw them out at the moment.”

“And, of course, any major concentration affects the other theatres,” Hanover said. “Tell me; can the Japanese invade Australia?”

“I don’t think that they have a choice, but to try,” Stirling said. “It’s a major base of operations and it will become a major industrial centre. They have to take it out.”

“Any decision will have to wait for a while,” Hanover said grimly. “You know; we have an entire 2015 industrial base here – you’d have thought that beating the crap out of the Germans would have been easy.”

“Prime Minister,” Stirling said, “blasting them to radioactive rubble would be easy. Building a better world is not.”

“True, true,” Hanover said. He studied the map for the moment. “This would be a lot easier if America had come through the Transition instead.”