Badoglio looked across the great table at where Benito Mussolini sat. In theory, at least, chairing the meeting. In reality, he was completely silent and motionless. “But it’s not just Wavell is it? The whole Commonwealth is there. They’ve sent their best units, their best aircraft, their finest ships to the Middle East.
“Why? What do they hope to gain?”
“I don’t know.” Ciano’s desperation was almost comical. “Nothing about this makes sense. The British Commonwealth has become the Commonwealth of Nations, but that’s just a change of name. It doesn’t mean anything, except that Britain isn’t the head any more. But, they’re pouring troops into the Middle East as if their very lives depended on it. One would expect them to look to defending their home countries first, but there’s no sign of that. This doesn’t make any kind of sense. General, I’m not a military man. You tell me what Australia and India and South Africa are doing in the Middle East? Because I don’t know.”
Badoglio started to speak and then stopped. He thought for a few seconds, started again and then stopped. Eventually he sighed with a level of despair that equalled Ciano’s own. “I don’t know. There’s no great strategic need for them to be there. Persia and Iraq I can see, for the oil. But they have no need to be in the Middle East or East Africa at all. It’s as if they perceive their major threat as coming through there and they are determined to pre-empt it. I think that isn’t important, though. What is essential is that we take action to stop Wavell’s rampage westwards. East Africa is gone; we must accept that. What is left is to try and save Libya. The naval expedition we sent to do that was a disastrous failure.”
That is an understatement. One battleship sunk; one so badly damaged it will take months if not years to repair. A third with lesser damage. Half our heavy cruisers lost or damaged. Our best merchant ships sunk or bombed in harbor. Wherever we look, we see disaster.
Ciano shuddered slightly.
“We cannot do this on our own resources. We have to get help from Germany. I have sent them a message, asking for mobile troops. Armored and motorized divisions are all that counts in the desert. The British have taught us that all too well. And aircraft. Those American Tomahawks have driven our colonial air force out of the battle, just as our CR.42s drove away the British colonial aircraft. German Messerschmitts will quickly put an end to them and restore air superiority.”
“And what do the Germans say?”
“I have received no reply as yet. I was expecting one and hoped to have it for this meeting. My staff are on orders to bring the message over as soon as it arrives. I am very hopeful though; at this point a little assistance will go a long way. For all the achievements of the British in Africa, the forces they have available to them are very small. Given some aid, we can reverse this situation.”
“I hope so.” Badoglio sounded unconvinced. “I can see no way of recovering from this disaster without it. The aircraft are key. The Tomahawks are greatly superior to any fighters we have, but they are equally inferior to the Messerschmitt 109. Once we have recovered air superiority, we will be able to stop the bombing raids on our troops and consolidate our positions.”
Badoglio had been intending to continue. He was stopped by the telephone ringing. Ciano picked it up, listened for a few seconds and then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “The German Ambassador has arrived with the reply to our request for assistance.”
“Well, get him up here.” Badoglio sounded impatient; as, indeed, he was.
Hans Georg von Mackensen was an almost stereotypical picture of a German aristocrat and ambassador. Even so, he seemed exceptionally embarrassed at being asked to present the reply from Berlin personally. That alone gave Ciano a sinking feeling, von Mackensen’s first words reinforced that sensation.
“Il Duce, gentlemen, I must stress that this is the reply I have received from Herr Ribbentrop himself. These are his words and are counter to the advice I provided. Herr Ribbentrop says ‘Failure has had the healthy effect of once more compressing Italian claims to within the natural boundaries of Italian capabilities. You made your bed; now go whore in it.’ I am sorry, both for the refusal of assistance and the unpardonable manner in which the refusal was made. I do not know what else to say.”
There was a long pause during which complete silence dominated the room. Von Mackensen stood there, shifting from foot to foot in embarrassment; for all the world, looking as if he urgently needed to urinate. Eventually, Ciano sighed and shook his head.
“Thank you, Hans. There is no need to delay you further.”
After von Mackensen had left, Badoglio spoke very quietly. “So that’s it then. We have just been told that Germany considers Britain to be of greater value to its future plans than we are. The Commonwealth squadrons, with their Tomahawks and Marylands, control the air. The British Navy, and its aircraft carriers, controls the Mediterranean. Our forces in North Africa are doomed unless we can arrange an immediate ceasefire. We must contact London immediately.”
“Not London.” Ciano was emphatic. “Cairo. We have already discussed how General Wavell appears to have struck out on his own. We cannot be certain that any military orders Lord Halifax and his government issue will be obeyed by the armed forces they nominally control. There is only one person with whom we can negotiate and that is General Wavell himself. We must ask him for a cease-fire and save what we can.”
The silence returned to the room, broken only by the scrape of a chair as Benito Mussolini got to his feet and quietly left the room. A split second later, there was a muffled thud from outside the door. A guard threw the door open in blind, undiluted panic.
“Summon assistance immediately. Il Duce had collapsed and is unconscious. I think he has had a stroke.”
GHQ, Middle East Command, Cairo, Egypt
The radio crackled. The rolling tones of the speech were masked by the atmospherics, but there was no doubt that Winston Churchill was in full rhetorical voice.
“Rather more than half of a year has passed since the new Government came into power by nefarious and underhanded means. What a cataract of disaster has poured out upon us since then! The whole of Europe, from the North Cape to the Spanish frontier, is now in German hands; all the ports, all the airfields, all the resources of this immense block now stand against us. The perfidy of That Man and his betrayal of our gallant French allies has led to a period of horror and disaster which could challenge our conviction of final victory, were it not burning unquenchable in our hearts. Few would have believed we could survive; none would have believed that we should today not only feel stronger, but should actually be stronger, than we have ever been before.
“The countries that once formed the core of the British Empire, finding themselves alone, stood undismayed against disaster. Not one of them flinched or wavered; nay, some who formerly thought of peace, now think only of war. The banner may have fallen from Britain’s hands, but it has been taken up by the Commonwealth of Nations and waved defiantly in the face of our enemies. Our people are united and resolved, as they have never been before. Death and ruin have become small things compared with erasing the shame of our defeat and our failure in duty. We cannot tell what lies ahead. It may be that even greater ordeals lie before us. We shall face whatever is coming to us. We are sure of ourselves and of our cause, and that is the supreme fact which has emerged in these months of trial.
“Nowhere has our renewed spirit been more apparent than in Africa. The countries of the Commonwealth of Nations have stood together and ferried to the African theater an immense mass of munitions of all kinds: cannon, rifles, machine guns, cartridges and shell, all safely landed there without the loss of a gun or a round. The Commwealth Nations, led by Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa and all the other members of our far-flung family, have poured forth troops into the theater. The great battle, which has been in progress in North Africa for the last few weeks, has recently attained a high intensity. It is too soon to attempt to assign limits, either to its scale or to its duration, but the victory won by the Commonwealth of Nations is already great beyond our poor imagination. Undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, they are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and their devotion. The lands liberated from cruel oppression, the sight of the columns of Italian prisoners and the mountains of captured war materials now in the hands of our gallant Commonwealth soldiers, is unparalleled. Never in the field of human conflict was so much surrendered by so many to so few.
“How much more might we have achieved if our cause had not been betrayed by Lord Halifax and his minions? The effect of their treason is an account that is already overdue and claiming payment is the task which lies before us. It is a task at once more practical, more simple and more stern that simply achieving victory. I hope--indeed, I pray--that we shall not be found unworthy of our victory if, after toil and tribulation, it is granted to us. With the aid of our Commonwealth brothers, we have to gain the victory and exact due and dispassionate penalties on those who betrayed us. That is our task and our privilege.”
Maitland Wilson turned the radio off and took a deep breath. “Winnie certainly knows how to play on the heartstrings, doesn’t he? The question is, where does that leave us?”
Wavell was having his work cut out stopping himself from laughing. “Beneath that bombast beats a political heart, Jumbo. When we get the transcript of that broadcast, read it carefully. He’s recognized that the Commonwealth of Nations has replaced the British Commonwealth and paid tribute to all we have achieved over the last six months. Then, he deftly inserts himself as the leader of that Commonwealth and thus positions himself to take the credit. It’s a classic ‘I am their leader, I must follow them’ gambit. I’d hate to play him at bridge.”
“He’s half-American. He probably prefers poker.” Maitland Wilson opened the file he had brought with him. “The Italians have tried to break out through our blocking force at Beda Fomm. Our Flying Column arrived at the Benghazi-Tripoli road and set up roadblocks just 30 minutes before the leading elements of the Italian Tenth Army arrived. The Italians threw some 20,000 troops and a hundred tanks against what was little more than a reinforced battalion. The fighting was close and often hand-to-hand. At one point, a regimental sergeant major captured an Italian light tank by hitting the commander over the head with a rifle-butt.”
Maitland Wilson paused for a second to think about that and shuddered. “The final Italian effort came this morning. The last twenty Italian M13/40 tanks broke through the thin cordon of riflemen and anti-tank guns. But even this breakthrough was ultimately stopped by the fire of our field guns, located just a few yards from regimental HQ. Our blocking force has been reinforced by additional elements of the 7th Armoured Division, but it doesn’t really matter. The Italian Tenth Army is breaking up and surrendering. God knows how we’re going to cope with all the prisoners on top of the ones we have already got.”
Wavell wasn’t really worried. “Jumbo, that’s going to be a nonproblem. We’ve had an approach from Rome. They are offering an Armistice leading to a peace treaty. They’ll write off East Africa, in exchange for us pulling back to the Libyan-Egypt border and returning their prisoners of war. They’ll return the few of ours they hold, of course.”
“Can we rely on them? Or are we ourselves committing the same sin as That Man?”
That caused Wavell to stop dead. “It is a hell of a thing; isn’t it, Jumbo? We hesitate to make peace and end a war on favorable terms, in case it is seen as following the example laid down by That Man. I can’t think of anything more telling as an example of the damage he has caused. No, I don’t think we are doing the same thing at all. If anything, we have reversed the positions. Now we are the ones who will be dictating terms and the Italians are the supplicants.”
“Getting out of Cyrenaica is a good thing, Archie. The whole area is a deadly trap. It has to be occupied because that’s where all the ports are, but anybody can push a mobile force across the desert and cut them off the way we did. I would advise we include an agreement on force levels in Libya and a demilitarized zone along the border to secure our position and then we’ll be fine.”
Wavell nodded. “I’ll send the reply to Ciano in Rome.”
Maitland Wilson grinned. “And a copy to London?”
“Why on earth would I want to do that? Send one to Ottawa though. Calcutta of course, and Canberra. In fact, Jumbo, everybody but That Man.”
Government House, Calcutta, India
“We’ve won.” Victor Alexander John Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow and Prime Minister
pro tem
of India sounded disbelieving. “India has won. With a little assistance, of course.”
General Auchinleck made a polite choking noise. “I think, Your Excellency, that we had just a bit more than a little assistance from the Commonwealth of Nations.”
