Operation Mercury Page 2

  Greece became a republic in 1924, a state which appealed to most Cretans, distrustful of monarchies and rather contemptuous of their mainland cousins. Venizelos led a liberal administration until the uncertainties of the economic slump produced a swing to the right. The monarchy was restored and, after a final term in office, the ageing lion was ousted by the hardline General Metaxas, dying in exile in Paris in 1936.

  The new premier, whilst an ardent nationalist, saw no need to retain the democratically elected assembly, preferring the sinister autocracy of the police state, with the King as a compliant figurehead. This repressive regime was stoutly resisted by the independently minded Cretans, to whom the paramilitary gendarmerie became a symbol of oppression. Attempts were made to disarm the islanders and the lingering suspicion would bear bitter fruit when Cretans were starved of arms by a regime that feared to arm its own people.

  In 1940 the island was still something of a backwater, good roads were virtually non-existent, only the single ribbon of the coastal highway linked the towns along the north coast. The economy remained substantially agrarian, peasant farmers working the olive groves that covered 41 per cent of the cultivable acres, and producing 120,000 tons of oil per annum. The remainder of the useful land was given over to grazing for sheep, goats, pigs and poultry.

  Politically, Crete was divided into the four administrative sectors (‘nomos’/‘nomi’) of Chania, Rethymnon, Heraklion and Lassithi (Ayios Nikolaos). Chania, the second largest of the towns after Heraklion, and birthplace of Venizelos, was the traditional, Venetian capital. The superb harbour was surrounded by massive artillery walls (which largely survive), the delightful winding alleys of the old town an eclectic blend of Italianate and Turkish design.

  Both Heraklion, the largest settlement, and Rethymnon exhibited similar provenance, a riot of ancient streets within the span of the Venetian walls.6 Until the dramatic events of 1941 began to unfold, Crete was regarded as militarily insignificant. Its main strategic attraction, particularly from the British view at GHQ Middle East in Cairo, was the magnificent anchorage of Souda Bay, just east of Chania. Possession of so extensive and fine a harbour could influence the balance of naval supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean.

  It could be argued that the fall of France and the evacuation at Dunkirk, apparently catastrophic, did, in fact, confer an element of strategic advantage upon Britain. Freed from the dire attrition of obligations to continental allies, such as had enmeshed Imperial forces during the Great War with the meat grinder of the Western Front, Britain could fall back upon her traditional strengths. These were an all powerful navy and a resolute air force that had, in the summer of 1940, successfully defied the Luftwaffe’s best efforts.

  Germany’s failure to crush Britain presented the Nazi high command with a limited range of strategic options. To all intents and purposes the war in the west was won, as Hitler intimated when writing to Mussolini.7 All that remained was the final push against a moribund and defeated England. Similar assurances were offered to the Russians who appear to have been more sceptical. The key question for Berlin was whether they could afford to turn the swollen and victorious Wehrmacht east to settle with Russia while the British Empire, technically at least, was still in the ring.

  War on two fronts was the strategic nightmare which had haunted German military planners since the end of the nineteenth century. The opening moves of the Great War, in the late summer of 1914, had been carefully choreographed to achieve a swift victory in the west before the Kaiser’s legions had to turn and face the slower but monolithic threat from Russia. Hitler was in no doubt that, to achieve the eastern border of his greater Reich, he would have to deal with Stalin and the Red army; it was merely a question of when.

  Hitler, therefore, had to decide if he could afford to leave an impotent but undefeated Britain in his rear or should he bide his time, consolidate his resources, particularly in the air, so he could finally crush the RAF and make the prospect of invasion real enough to force Churchill to negotiate a peace.

  Nor was east the only direction which counted; Hitler had, yet, hopefully through diplomacy, to ‘sell’ the concept of greater Germany to the world at large and particularly to America. He was obviously aware that Britain’s hope of any renewed offensive capacity lay with the United States and Russia, the unlikeliest of bedfellows.

  Even before the aerial defeat of the Luftwaffe in the summer skies, in July 1940, Hitler had laid out his reasoning to his generals:

  In the event that invasion does not take place, our efforts must be directed to the elimination of all factors that let England hope for a change in the situation – Britain’s hope lies in Russia and the United States. If Russia drops out of the picture, America too is lost for Britain, because the elimination of Russia would greatly increase Japan’s power in the Far East. Decision: Russia’s destruction must therefore be made a part of the struggle – the sooner Russia is crushed the better’.8

  Admiral Raeder, who headed the Kriegsmarine, put forward another option which was to attack Britain and bring her finally to her knees, not through an assault on England but by striking at her empire. The string of defeats in Norway and France had convinced the Axis powers that the British Empire was a rotten hulk, a bankrupt corporation, just waiting for the receivers to move in:

  The British have always considered the Mediterranean the pivot of their world empire [Raeder wrote] … While the air and submarine war is being fought out between Germany and Britain, Italy, surrounded by British power, is fast becoming the main target of attack. Britain always attempts to strangle the weaker enemy. The Italians have not yet realised the danger when they refuse our help ... The Mediterranean question must be cleared up during the winter months … The seizure of Gibraltar …The dispatch of German forces to Dakar and the Canary Islands … Close co-operation with Vichy … Having secured her western flank by these measures Germany would support the Italians in a campaign to capture the Suez Canal and advance through Palestine and Syria. If we reach that point Turkey will be in our power. The Russian problem will then appear in a different light. Fundamentally Russia is afraid of Germany. It is doubtful whether an advance against Russia in the north will then be necessary.9

  With the collapse of France the strategic position in the Mediterranean had changed significantly. It was French naval power that would have secured the western end and the position of the colonies in North Africa and, particularly, Syria was now critical. Would Vichy remain neutral or align with the conqueror thus exerting further pressure on the overstretched British?

  The Tripartite Alliance which linked Japan’s far eastern power to the Axis and which was agreed in September 1940, would, in Ribbentrop’s confident assertion, keep America firmly focused on the Pacific and deter any overt intervention in Europe. With Raeder’s concept in mind Hitler made overtures both to Franco in Spain and to Petain.

  After a tortuous nine hour meeting with the Spanish Generalissimo at Hendaye, the Führer declared that he’d rather have several teeth removed than repeat the experience. Franco was lukewarm and expected any commitment to be rewarded by the distribution of French colonies in North Africa. This was not something calculated to appeal to Vichy.

  If it was made known that their participation in a combined attack on British interests would result in a hiving off of territory to fascist Spain, then where was their incentive? Hitler, showing no great enthusiasm himself, could only suggest that the French could be compensated by the grant of captured British provinces. Franco, cannily, remained sceptical over Axis prospects of finally defeating Britain.

  There was also the question of the oil which in war, as Clemenceau pronounced, ‘is as necessary as blood’.10 Without an adequate and continuous supply of crude oil no state could meet the huge demands of modern warfare. In 1939 Britain was importing some 9 million tons of crude, the bulk of which flowed from Iran, Iraq and the USA. By early 1941 oil reserves had fallen to alarmingly low levels; a failure of supply would force
Britain to seek terms as surely as a renewed and successful air offensive.

  It was estimated, by the Petroleum Board that between spring of 1940 and 1941 some 14 million tons of oil would be required – the USA could be counted on to supply less than half of this and the oil producers were not swayed by Anglophile considerations – they wanted cash on the barrel; precious dollars that Britain could ill afford to disburse.

  The Shah of Iran had seized on the urgency to extort fresh concessions; supplies from the USA were subject to sickening wastage through U-Boat attacks. As the Vichy administration in Syria stood adjacent to the vital oilfields in the Middle East and the vulnerable, key refinery at Haifa, their sympathies were of some concern. In a memorandum of 3 August 1940 the Colonial Office provided a neat précis of the position:

  Our first aim on the collapse of France was to induce the French colonies to fight on as our allies. We established close contact with the local French administrations and offered substantial financial inducements. The reaction leaves no doubt that there are French elements ready to rally to our side. But the Vichy government is in a position to exercise strong pressure on the local officials who have been in a defeatist and wavering frame of mind; and there is no doubt that the official policy of the local administrations is now one of obedience to Vichy and refusal to co-operate with us.11

  This was hardly encouraging – if French naval power, based in the North African ports, was to be added to that of the formidable Italian fleet then the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean would be upset. The oil tankers sailing from Iran would be vulnerable and Britain’s entire position in the Middle East under serious threat. Already Mussolini was massing troops in Cyrenaica for a thrust into Egypt, their numbers vastly exceeding those of the defenders.

  In November 1940 the Fleet Air Arm sallied against Italian capital ships sheltering in Taranto and scored a signal success, a further engagement off Cape Spartivento on 27th of that month reinforced British superiority but the threat from a compliant Vichy remained.

  Germany too, had concerns over its own supply of oil, every bit as pressing as England’s. Lacking natural resources and the advantages of an established international network, starved of cash reserves by the crippling burden of war debt, she looked eastwards to the Balkans and the rich Romanian oilfields around Ploesti. By clever and ruthless economic manipulation Germany had succeeded in exerting a measure of fiscal control over her Balkan suppliers.

  This dependency was not lost on Britain whose own experts had forecast a crisis of supply. At the outbreak of hostilities Germans had reserves totalling some 3 million tons of crude, yet demand over each of the following three years was predicted to nearer 10 million tons. To avoid shortfalls the Germans were obliged to increase imports from Russia and to make use of captured stocks.

  The possibility of a British attack on the Ploesti oilfields was a tactical nightmare which loomed large in the minds of German planners – such an offensive had been considered but the practical difficulties were considerable. To facilitate aerial bombardment the British would need to utilise forward bases located on either Greek or Turkish soil.

  It is highly probable that Hitler, at this stage, was not seeking any direct military involvement in the Balkans. The area had no immediate strategic importance beyond the need to secure Germany’s oil supply and the Führer was reluctant to become embroiled in the morass of Balkan politics at a time when his attention was fixed on the east.

  Added to the traditional swirl of antipathies were the fresh sores opened by the re-drafting of the maps, undertaken by the victorious allies in 1918, dividing the carcass of the old Habsburg Empire. Yugoslavia was a composite state comprising a mix of races and faiths and dominated by the Orthodox Serbs; Hungary smarted from the loss of Transylvania, ceded to Romania from whom the Soviets also sought to recover Bessarabia.

  Rising tensions between Hungary and Romania so alarmed Hitler that he became personally involved, bullying the squabbling parties into acceptance of German arbitration. The resulting enforced settlement, the Vienna Award, cost the Romanians dear but restored some semblance of calm. The Nazis refused to take chances, however, and from September 1940 their military presence around the vital oilfields, with the acquiescence of a compliant regime, was steadily increased.

  No sooner has the hapless Romanians been stripped of territories in Transylvania than the Bulgarians began pestering for the acquisition of Southern Dobrudja. Once again Hitler obliged Bucharest to submit though he did, this time, offer the guarantee that no further limbs would be shorn from Romania’s reduced torso.

  Such arbitrary re-drawing of Balkan borders naturally antagonised the Russians who were accustomed to reserving this for themselves. The Russian Foreign Minister Molotov was quick to reprove the German ambassador for a perceived violation of their Non Aggression Pact. The very last thing Hitler sought, at this point, was to provide the Soviets with a casus belli – war there would be, but only when Germany was ready and fully deployed.

  Aside from possible British aggression, the other fact which alarmed Hitler was the likely intentions of his Italian ally. Il Duce was steadily becoming disaffected with the relegation of his country’s role in the war. Where were the great gains he had hoped for, the triumphal marches of fascist armies through captured Allied dependencies? Now very much the junior partner in the Axis Alliance, Mussolini was hungry for spoils.

  The relationship between the two states was further strained by a clear element of mistrust; the Germans, or at least elements of the high command, were deeply suspicious of their ally’s competence in the intelligence war, to the extent that outright treachery was mooted.12

  Aware that Italy was looking covetously at Greece, Hitler took pains to ensure his fellow dictator was aware that Germany was steadfastly opposed to any military adventure. In August 1940 von Ribbentrop had warned the Italian ambassador that Greece was not on anyone’s agenda. Despite this, suspicions persisted, all too well founded as it turned out, in the face of a string of bland denials.

  In all of this the attitude of the Americans was crucial. President Roosevelt was convinced of the evils of fascism and the need to sustain the British war effort. Initially the majority of the electorate was, at best, lukewarm and opposed to any firm commitment. The President was constrained to keep most of his discussions with Churchill out of the public arena, especially as he was obliged to fight an election in the autumn of 1940.

  Despite the abundant and growing evidence of Nazi tyranny and wholesale oppression, Germany still enjoyed the support of a vociferous minority in the USA. The aviator Charles Lindbergh acted as the focus for a group styled ‘America First’ – fiercely isolationist and dismissive of British prospects, it openly advocated an accord with Hitler and the Nazis. Joseph Kennedy and the Irish lobby within Roosevelt’s own party were rabid Anglophobes.

  As ambassador to St. James, Kennedy was less than a popular success, seeking to gain personal business advantage as a condition precedent to continued aid and openly touting for an armistice. The president was considerably embarrassed and recalled Kennedy. Repellent as his attitude and conduct were, he was not, by any means, in a minority; many US industrialists shared his leanings.

  Gerhard Westrick, a German agent with a trade attaché cover, liaised with numerous leading figures from the sphere of business and commerce, offering significant trading opportunities for US businesses with the Greater German Reich. A number of key industrial figures appeared convinced by his blandishments.13

  By the close of 1940, a year of serial disasters for England, livened only by the twin deliverance of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, the war cabinet was desperate for US support, the continuance of which was beyond the beleaguered and depleted capital of the state and its Empire. Churchill penned an eloquent and detailed essay to Roosevelt, stressing the need for unencumbered aid:

  I believe you will agree that it would be wrong in principle and mutually disadvantageous in effect, if at the
height of this struggle Great Britain were to be divested of all saleable assets, so that after the victory is won with our blood, civilisation saved, and the time gained for the United States to be armed against all eventualities, we should stand stripped to the bone.14

  This passionate plea touched a continuing chord in the president and became the inspiration for the subsequent Lease-Lend scheme. More immediately, and within a couple of days, Roosevelt had dispatched his personal representative, Colonel William Donovan, to liaise directly with Churchill.

  ‘Big Bill’ was a larger than life character; latterly a successful Wall Street lawyer, he had abandoned the brief for the sword at his president’s request even though their politics were, in many areas, incompatible. A much decorated veteran of the Western Front, Donovan had maintained a finger in the counterintelligence pie and was a firm advocate of the Allied cause. He would go on to found the US equivalent to Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Office of Strategic Studies (OSS) which would, in due course during the emergence of the Cold War, grow into the omnipotent Central Intelligence Agency.

  Having met and conferred with Churchill in London, Donovan proceeded on a grand tour of Eastern Europe, including the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, Belgrade, where he spoke with Prince Paul and then to North Africa for discussions with the representatives of Vichy.

  His message to the War Cabinet was a simple one and typically forthright. If Britain wished to restore and maintain its foundering credibility with the Americans then some form of successful military venture had to be undertaken on the European mainland. Clearly France, the Low Countries and Scandinavia were beyond the Empire’s much depleted resources; this left the Balkans, the deadly melting pot and graveyard of spent alliances.