I've finally caught up!
Christ, only 1936 and you're making war like it's going out of fashion Hyphen!
Christ, only 1936 and you're making war like it's going out of fashion Hyphen!
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dublish - A very good question, and one which is exceptionally hard to answer. Suffice it to say that he currently overestimates British strength -- at least when talking to a representative of the other camp!
Striker475 - Welcome back! It has been quite some time indeed. Glad to see you're caught up, and yes, there is a danger of war going out of fashion. In OTL the whole UN thing and the MAD thing kindof made that sort of thing unpopular :rofl:.
Striker475 - Welcome back! It has been quite some time indeed. Glad to see you're caught up, and yes, there is a danger of war going out of fashion. In OTL the whole UN thing and the MAD thing kindof made that sort of thing unpopular :rofl:.
Perhaps he will negotiate then. The problem is that he won't anything valuable to bargain by then.
True enough, Kurt!
I may have the next update ready some time tonight (my time). It's very apropos to get it out on this particular day if I can possibly do so
.
I may have the next update ready some time tonight (my time). It's very apropos to get it out on this particular day if I can possibly do so
.
Pierre Laval has always been an interesting character for me to study in French politics.
Chapter III: Part XVIII
Chapter III: The Lion’s Den
Part XVIII
September 21, 1936
At the base of a wide cave cut into the towering cliffs of southern Ireland, forty leading members of the Irish Republican Army gathered in the gusty darkness. A relentless sea lashed the rocky beach, its caps shining faintly under a moonless sky. Atop the sheer faces of rock, a score of armed men stood silent watch for any danger. It was a cold and tiring vigil, and it was already two hours after midnight. One of them pointed and passed hushed word along the line of sentries. A sleek metal shape sat low in the water two hundred meters out to sea.
Halfway to shore, a rubber raft bobbed on black breakers, its lone occupant hunkered down against the pounding surf. He did not paddle; the powerful tide carried the raft forward toward the beach. A light high on the cliff appeared briefly. It blinked on in two short flashes. Then another short blink, a longer one and a short one again. Steadying himself against the side of the raft, Abwehr agent Joseph Auspitz rose to his knees and directed his signal flashlight toward the source of the light. Dot-dash.
The towering cliffs at night.
He was not challenged further. In seconds, the cliff began to fill his field of vision with alarming rapidity. Hearing the roar of the waves crescendo, he crouched as low as he could, and felt the sea heave him up onto the beach. The water receded, and he now felt only hard, rounded rocks through the bottom of the raft. He forced himself to stand on unsteady legs and climb out before the surf came in again and dislodged the raft and all the supplies in it.
“Halt!” Auspitz turned to find a double-barreled shotgun almost in his face. A bearded Irishman with an eyepatch was snarling at him from the weapon’s other end. And then, in the gravest of tones: “Honeypot.”
“Anthill,” Auspitz said, prompting the shotgun’s quick withdrawal.
“Put that bloody thing away, Ronnie!” Another man was running toward them. Auspitz knew him well.
“Seamus, get your men down here to help us unload before the raft gets washed away!”
“Right. Oi!” Four other men emerged from the darkness of the cave and raced down to the beach. In short order they had offloaded the small crates that had been secured in the raft.
Auspitz followed them toward the cliffs as three more men came with ropes to pull the raft clear of the high tide. In the starlight, he could make out forty faces lined up before the cave’s yawning entrance. Forty arms rose to a salute. And a forty-first. Their de facto leader, a leathery Roscommon man with expertise in explosives named Seamus O’Donovan, saluted proudly. He lowered his arm and shook Auspitz’ hand. “Welcome back.”
Luftwaffe Hauptmann Joseph Auspitz had joined the Abwehr almost two years before, after his superiors in the still-secret air force had noted his leadership abilities and talent for organization. He was not, perhaps, as “professional” as some of his new colleagues, and was certainly outshone intellectually, but had nonetheless distinguished himself in a number of small operations during the Belgian Crisis. He was strong, handsome and possessed of very keen eyesight -- outwardly far more a warrior than a spy. He had lived in Belfast just after the World War, and then in Canada during the twenties, and so spoke perfect and accentless English. It was these latter qualifications that made his name first come up back in May during planning for the Abwehr’s first mission to Ireland, known as Operation Harfe. The cell that resulted, known collectively as George, consisted of Auspitz and two others, who had successfully made contact with the IRA as ordered and begun to collect intelligence. When ordered back to Germany in August, the other two had gone with him, apparently so that the Abwehr could replace them with better-qualified people who had become available. There had been delays, though, and only Joseph Auspitz was sent back aboard the U-10 on the eighteenth of September, bound for the Irish coast.
Under the watchful eyes of the sentries, the men on the beach filed into the cave, which was cool and salty-smelling. One of them had a flashlight which illuminated a dim path ahead. Auspitz could tell that they were slowly climbing. At last, they came to what looked like a smooth black wall blocking further progress. In its center was a hair-fine strand of light running from his feet all the way to the roof of the cave. He blinked as the strand widened suddenly. A boy of not more than fifteen appeared, and pulled the blackout cloth aside far enough so the men could pass through single file.
They were in a fairly dry annex to the cave, and Auspitz could see supplies stacked at its far end. The chamber’s two floodlights were the brightest things he had seen since standing in the conning tower of the submarine as the sun set more than two days before. The center of the space was dominated by a table strewn with maps and charts that seemed to depict harbors and rail lines.
“My friends,” he said.
The fighters closed in, forming a circle around the lone German.
“My friends, since last I saw you I have secured great pledges from my government to help in your -- our -- struggle. Three days I spent with our High Command in Berlin, and I am confident after meeting with high leaders that Germany is now truly committed to the goal of a free and united Ireland. Recall, friends, that when I first met most of you three months ago, you were suspicious. You wondered why Germany would be so interested in your struggle. I admit to you that I was suspicious myself. I had read of you as terrorists and murderers -- hush, for that is what I had read -- and found in our time together that it is the other way around. I have seen the desperation of your struggle for Ireland and the danger which is ever ready to come spilling out of the North and wash over you. But in those first days, the dangers we faced together and the burdens I asked you to bear were only shadows. Look!”
A company leader from Belfast named Powell brought up the German’s soaked briefcase and set it on the table. Auspitz pulled a handkerchief from a pocket of his oilskins and wiped the water from the waterproof exterior. With a narrow key he unlocked it and opened the latches. “This!” He pulled out a map and unfolded it across the table. It showed four black arrows sweeping out from Northern Ireland and down through the Irish Free State. Three smaller arrows swept inward from three ports on the south and west coasts. “Captured from the British and examined by the best German experts. Let me tell you what this is.” He didn’t tell the IRA men that one thing that it was was a forgery. Unwilling to part with the originals, the Abwehr’s Section III had issued Auspitz a cleverly-redacted fake.
Auspitz waited several seconds, letting the significance of the map sink in. “The British have a plan, called Plan Cobblestone, to occupy the whole of Ireland. Not just Belfast. Not just Derry and Newry. Not just the Protestant Counties, but Cork, and Kerry, and Limerick and Clare. They’ll loot and pillage in Galway and Tipperary, and in Mayo they’ll pitchcap the priests and rape the nuns. In Sligo and Meath, in Kilkenny and Offaly, in Wicklow and in a thousand other corners of this green land, English men will be your overlords once more. The stones that your ancestors paid for in blood to fifty generations will again know the marching feet of the Blacks and Tans. A thousand years of sacrifice to walk free on this soil will be undone -- if the British cannot be stopped.
“I wish dearly that I did not have to return to you with such urgent danger on my lips and in my heart. But the time will soon be upon us. The campaign against the British that we have been planning these months must now be extended and expanded. The first step, of course is your presence here. The men who you command must be trained and led in the coming battle, and they will look to you more than ever.
“The best strategists on the German General Staff have seen to your problem. How can a guerilla army of the people defeat the tanks and modern bombers of King Edward?”
A very crude remark in Irish came from somewhere in the crowd.
“That too, my friend!”
The chamber rumbled with laughter.
“But that is not what the General Staff thought of. They have drawn up plans for the defense of Ireland. First, they have concluded that by forty-eight hours before the start of Plan Cobblestone, even the combined forces of the IRA and the Irish Army would not be able to repel the invasion. For this reason, success depends on launching our counterattack before the British are fully ready. Luckily, German intelligence will be able to give us advance warning.
“When my government has learned that the British will move in less than two weeks, they will send me a message by radio. I will summon all of you together once more, and then I shall inform you of the signal by which we are to begin the uprising.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, but you promised to tell us about where old Dev stands.” It was William Patrick Hays, a fifty-one year old adventurer who had fought in China, Abyssinia and a half-dozen Latin American countries before returning to fight for the IRA.
“President de Valera has not yet given us his word either way.” According to Canaris, high-level negotiations had been going on since midsummer, trying to bring Éamon de Valera onto the side of the Pact. He had proved evasive, alternately encouraging and rebuffing the Germans. On one hand he was clearly eager to see the united Ireland promised in return for his assistance, yet on the other was exceedingly cautious about taking any step that could provoke a British invasion that might topple the state that he had come to lead.
“So what you’re saying, Captain, is that we might have to fight de Valera first, before we fight the British?” O’Donovan looked willing to do it.
“I’m afraid so, my friends. The greatest unknown factor remains whether de Valera will fight with us, against us or just get out of the way.”
“Then what?”
“Well, Seamus, either way we have to secure the Free State first and then take over Northern Ireland. The way the British plan looks, if we do it in time, we’ll have as good a chance as we’re ever going to get.”
“I mean -- what did your General Staff lay out?”
“The plan is that during the first twenty-four hours of the signal being given, all of Free Ireland must be secured and aware of the emergency at hand. When the time comes, we must isolate de Valera, if he will not come over to our side between now and then. That means railways, police stations, jails and armories -- all must be bombed, and for that we will need bombers. Telephone lines and telegraph cables must be cut, and roadways blocked with checkpoints. Barracks of the Irish Army must be seized and the soldiers within disarmed until they come over and join us. We will have less than a day to sort friend from foe, and by then Ireland must be united against the North. Do I make myself clear?”
There were affirmative rumbles from the men.
“Seán O’Grady, where are you?”
“Here, sir.” A young man in a leather jacket stepped forward.
“What are the latest numbers your men have given you for how many men de Valera can use against us, if it comes to that?”
“On short notice,” O’Grady said, “not more than twelve thousand.”
“What about long notice?”
“On paper, closer to thirty thousand, sir. But half o’ those will join our fight when they see the way it’s goin’.”
“Do you have maps of each and every barracks, as I requested?”
“Yes, sir. Here they are, sir.” He produced a folder bulging with papers.
“Thank you. That’s good. These will be very important. If we act quickly, German intelligence believes de Valera won’t be able to offer resistance. Of course we have to make our plans for the worst case, which says that he’ll be against us. He might join us, and in that case we’ll have to use the first twenty-four hours to set up communications with the regular army, to coordinate our efforts. Once we’re all together, no matter how it happens, we must move like lightning against the British. In doing so, I’ll need these things...”
One of the sentries burst through the blackout drapes and raced to O’Donovan’s side. All the others flinched at his appearance. The man whispered something in O’Donovan’s ear. He thanked the sentry, who slipped back out of the chamber. “There were police lights seen in the distance, but they were just going to an automobile wreck.” The release of tension in the chamber was palpable. Just a few months of sharing the constant tension these men endured had nearly driven Auspitz mad.
“And so I’ll need bombers and saboteurs. I’ll need every fighter and marksman that will join us. The General Staff was very clear to me that we must overwhelm the Treaty Ports immediately. A thousand men are to assault each one with the heaviest weapons that you have. The British will probably not have any significant warships in port, but if they do, they will present a deadly threat. You must capture all the vessels you find and then block the harbors by scuttling ships at their entrances. And we will need runners. Women and children can be useful as runners because they are less likely to attract suspicion. We will need thousands of runners to spread the word of the uprising. Most of the Irish Army will fight for us when it comes to carrying it to the British, and their ammunition and equipment will be vital. From this moment forward, though, all our efforts to stockpile ammunition must be redoubled. Additionally, we are instructed to stockpile as much petrol as possible.
“We’re to form an initial line of defense around the Ballinamore-Ballyconnell Canal. Then, with the sum of IRA and Irish Army fighters, will continue north and try to subdue all police, irregular and British Army resistance before any further reinforcements arrive from Britain.”
“Does your General Staff think that we can manage it with our numbers?” James Hoyne, a feared political enforcer, was looking at him with worried eyes.
“Jackie, do you have reply from the Sligo men?”
Jackie McDonough identified himself to Auspitz’ left. “They’re all with us, Captain.”
“Then we have almost six thousand hardened and dedicated fighters, which should be enough to get things going in a big way.”
“And you can count on more’n twenty thousand more who’ll come quickly to arms when the shooting starts,” ventured the leader, O’Donovan.
A deep voice from the back: “We oughtta start with uprising tonight, then! No more delay!”
“No, man! The time is not yet right. The British have many spies and many means of learning our plans. If they discover you before the moment has come, they will invade before we are ready. No! You must prepare diligently in the time ahead. Stockpile your arms, your food, your ammunition, as I have told you. Scout out the safe paths and places of hiding. Conduct the reconnaissance that is so necessary, and reconnoiter the landing areas we discussed so that Germany can send us the guns and supplies to succeed. Train and drill and prepare your hearts and your nerves.”
Auspitz glanced across the faces of the gathered. He had high confidence in them. They would fight like lions if they thought they had a chance.
“And finally the best news from Germany. I make a further solemn assurance to each man here. When the time for uprising has come, elite and well-armed German soldiers will join you in driving the British out of their strongholds in the north. I have received this promise in person from the German War Minister.”
“How many?” Looking up, Auspitz saw one of the grizzled bomb experts making his way to the front of the circle. “How many Germans are we talkin’?”
“Four thousand men,” he lied. In his actual conversation with Field Marshal von Blomberg -- albeit a brief exchange of memoranda -- he had been curtly informed that it was uncertain that any soldiers could actually be spared from upcoming operations in the Netherlands. He had protested bitterly. Surely after a war with the whole French army, even a few companies could be spared for what he insisted to his superiors was a critical operation. To Auspitz, this only reflected the inflexibility and incompetence of the bureaucrats. He just knew that ten times the men he needed would be just sitting around in some quiet Dutch village while the IRA men were fighting for the life of their island. If he was lucky, he was told after much persistence, a hundred men would be parachuted into County Cork to lead and organize the Irish guerillas in the first hours of the uprising.
“Four thousand,” he repeated.
The Irish fighters seemed unsure whether to believe him. It was a staggering thought.
“Together, fighting our common enemy, I know that we will prevail. My friends, the road ahead will be hard, and you know as well I as I do that some of us will die. But Ireland will be united and the invaders kept from your homes and hearths. Will you fight with me to the end for that?”
Not a man withheld.
“Then the board is very nearly set and the game very nearly ready to begin.”
Throughout Europe, the end of summer brought hard decisions to powerful men. From Gibralter to Dublin, Brittany to Copenhagen, all of Western Europe would soon be forced to decide with whom it would align. Rumors during the summer of an impeding alliance with Britain and France had sparked mutiny in Spain’s deeply conservative army. Clashes with the government had worsened in the intervening months until the situation could now not be fairly called anything less than a civil war.
“In Spain, my friends, General Franco has been forced to choose where his loyalties lie. In France, Premier Laval had to make a hard choice to go to Bordeaux. And soon in Dublin, the President will have to make an equally hard decision. If he will fight with us, you must all be prepared to put aside the differences that I know some of you hold. If he stands against us, you must be willing to bring him down for the sake of Ireland. And above all, you must be ready when the hour comes.”
It the night was getting old. Auspitz arranged for each man to receive coded sets of instructions and a specialized grille with which to decipher them. To the explosives experts he gave several of the packages that he had brought from Germany; to O’Donovan a second packet of instructions. The men began to slip back out through the cave in twos and threes, in order to complete the long climb off the cliffs before dawn.
Last to emerge back out onto the beach were Auspitz and O’Donovan. The sounds of the night were different now. The eastern horizon was starting to turn from black to gray. Auspitz pulled out his signal flashlight and signaled three times to the low silhouette of U-10 that still waited offshore. He saw the submarine run its engines in reverse, slipping lower and lower in the water until it was lost from view.
He was on his own.
Chapter III: The Lion’s Den
Part XVIII
September 21, 1936
At the base of a wide cave cut into the towering cliffs of southern Ireland, forty leading members of the Irish Republican Army gathered in the gusty darkness. A relentless sea lashed the rocky beach, its caps shining faintly under a moonless sky. Atop the sheer faces of rock, a score of armed men stood silent watch for any danger. It was a cold and tiring vigil, and it was already two hours after midnight. One of them pointed and passed hushed word along the line of sentries. A sleek metal shape sat low in the water two hundred meters out to sea.
Halfway to shore, a rubber raft bobbed on black breakers, its lone occupant hunkered down against the pounding surf. He did not paddle; the powerful tide carried the raft forward toward the beach. A light high on the cliff appeared briefly. It blinked on in two short flashes. Then another short blink, a longer one and a short one again. Steadying himself against the side of the raft, Abwehr agent Joseph Auspitz rose to his knees and directed his signal flashlight toward the source of the light. Dot-dash.
The towering cliffs at night.
He was not challenged further. In seconds, the cliff began to fill his field of vision with alarming rapidity. Hearing the roar of the waves crescendo, he crouched as low as he could, and felt the sea heave him up onto the beach. The water receded, and he now felt only hard, rounded rocks through the bottom of the raft. He forced himself to stand on unsteady legs and climb out before the surf came in again and dislodged the raft and all the supplies in it.
“Halt!” Auspitz turned to find a double-barreled shotgun almost in his face. A bearded Irishman with an eyepatch was snarling at him from the weapon’s other end. And then, in the gravest of tones: “Honeypot.”
“Anthill,” Auspitz said, prompting the shotgun’s quick withdrawal.
“Put that bloody thing away, Ronnie!” Another man was running toward them. Auspitz knew him well.
“Seamus, get your men down here to help us unload before the raft gets washed away!”
“Right. Oi!” Four other men emerged from the darkness of the cave and raced down to the beach. In short order they had offloaded the small crates that had been secured in the raft.
Auspitz followed them toward the cliffs as three more men came with ropes to pull the raft clear of the high tide. In the starlight, he could make out forty faces lined up before the cave’s yawning entrance. Forty arms rose to a salute. And a forty-first. Their de facto leader, a leathery Roscommon man with expertise in explosives named Seamus O’Donovan, saluted proudly. He lowered his arm and shook Auspitz’ hand. “Welcome back.”
Luftwaffe Hauptmann Joseph Auspitz had joined the Abwehr almost two years before, after his superiors in the still-secret air force had noted his leadership abilities and talent for organization. He was not, perhaps, as “professional” as some of his new colleagues, and was certainly outshone intellectually, but had nonetheless distinguished himself in a number of small operations during the Belgian Crisis. He was strong, handsome and possessed of very keen eyesight -- outwardly far more a warrior than a spy. He had lived in Belfast just after the World War, and then in Canada during the twenties, and so spoke perfect and accentless English. It was these latter qualifications that made his name first come up back in May during planning for the Abwehr’s first mission to Ireland, known as Operation Harfe. The cell that resulted, known collectively as George, consisted of Auspitz and two others, who had successfully made contact with the IRA as ordered and begun to collect intelligence. When ordered back to Germany in August, the other two had gone with him, apparently so that the Abwehr could replace them with better-qualified people who had become available. There had been delays, though, and only Joseph Auspitz was sent back aboard the U-10 on the eighteenth of September, bound for the Irish coast.
Under the watchful eyes of the sentries, the men on the beach filed into the cave, which was cool and salty-smelling. One of them had a flashlight which illuminated a dim path ahead. Auspitz could tell that they were slowly climbing. At last, they came to what looked like a smooth black wall blocking further progress. In its center was a hair-fine strand of light running from his feet all the way to the roof of the cave. He blinked as the strand widened suddenly. A boy of not more than fifteen appeared, and pulled the blackout cloth aside far enough so the men could pass through single file.
They were in a fairly dry annex to the cave, and Auspitz could see supplies stacked at its far end. The chamber’s two floodlights were the brightest things he had seen since standing in the conning tower of the submarine as the sun set more than two days before. The center of the space was dominated by a table strewn with maps and charts that seemed to depict harbors and rail lines.
“My friends,” he said.
The fighters closed in, forming a circle around the lone German.
“My friends, since last I saw you I have secured great pledges from my government to help in your -- our -- struggle. Three days I spent with our High Command in Berlin, and I am confident after meeting with high leaders that Germany is now truly committed to the goal of a free and united Ireland. Recall, friends, that when I first met most of you three months ago, you were suspicious. You wondered why Germany would be so interested in your struggle. I admit to you that I was suspicious myself. I had read of you as terrorists and murderers -- hush, for that is what I had read -- and found in our time together that it is the other way around. I have seen the desperation of your struggle for Ireland and the danger which is ever ready to come spilling out of the North and wash over you. But in those first days, the dangers we faced together and the burdens I asked you to bear were only shadows. Look!”
A company leader from Belfast named Powell brought up the German’s soaked briefcase and set it on the table. Auspitz pulled a handkerchief from a pocket of his oilskins and wiped the water from the waterproof exterior. With a narrow key he unlocked it and opened the latches. “This!” He pulled out a map and unfolded it across the table. It showed four black arrows sweeping out from Northern Ireland and down through the Irish Free State. Three smaller arrows swept inward from three ports on the south and west coasts. “Captured from the British and examined by the best German experts. Let me tell you what this is.” He didn’t tell the IRA men that one thing that it was was a forgery. Unwilling to part with the originals, the Abwehr’s Section III had issued Auspitz a cleverly-redacted fake.
Auspitz waited several seconds, letting the significance of the map sink in. “The British have a plan, called Plan Cobblestone, to occupy the whole of Ireland. Not just Belfast. Not just Derry and Newry. Not just the Protestant Counties, but Cork, and Kerry, and Limerick and Clare. They’ll loot and pillage in Galway and Tipperary, and in Mayo they’ll pitchcap the priests and rape the nuns. In Sligo and Meath, in Kilkenny and Offaly, in Wicklow and in a thousand other corners of this green land, English men will be your overlords once more. The stones that your ancestors paid for in blood to fifty generations will again know the marching feet of the Blacks and Tans. A thousand years of sacrifice to walk free on this soil will be undone -- if the British cannot be stopped.
“I wish dearly that I did not have to return to you with such urgent danger on my lips and in my heart. But the time will soon be upon us. The campaign against the British that we have been planning these months must now be extended and expanded. The first step, of course is your presence here. The men who you command must be trained and led in the coming battle, and they will look to you more than ever.
“The best strategists on the German General Staff have seen to your problem. How can a guerilla army of the people defeat the tanks and modern bombers of King Edward?”
A very crude remark in Irish came from somewhere in the crowd.
“That too, my friend!”
The chamber rumbled with laughter.
“But that is not what the General Staff thought of. They have drawn up plans for the defense of Ireland. First, they have concluded that by forty-eight hours before the start of Plan Cobblestone, even the combined forces of the IRA and the Irish Army would not be able to repel the invasion. For this reason, success depends on launching our counterattack before the British are fully ready. Luckily, German intelligence will be able to give us advance warning.
“When my government has learned that the British will move in less than two weeks, they will send me a message by radio. I will summon all of you together once more, and then I shall inform you of the signal by which we are to begin the uprising.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, but you promised to tell us about where old Dev stands.” It was William Patrick Hays, a fifty-one year old adventurer who had fought in China, Abyssinia and a half-dozen Latin American countries before returning to fight for the IRA.
“President de Valera has not yet given us his word either way.” According to Canaris, high-level negotiations had been going on since midsummer, trying to bring Éamon de Valera onto the side of the Pact. He had proved evasive, alternately encouraging and rebuffing the Germans. On one hand he was clearly eager to see the united Ireland promised in return for his assistance, yet on the other was exceedingly cautious about taking any step that could provoke a British invasion that might topple the state that he had come to lead.
“So what you’re saying, Captain, is that we might have to fight de Valera first, before we fight the British?” O’Donovan looked willing to do it.
“I’m afraid so, my friends. The greatest unknown factor remains whether de Valera will fight with us, against us or just get out of the way.”
“Then what?”
“Well, Seamus, either way we have to secure the Free State first and then take over Northern Ireland. The way the British plan looks, if we do it in time, we’ll have as good a chance as we’re ever going to get.”
“I mean -- what did your General Staff lay out?”
“The plan is that during the first twenty-four hours of the signal being given, all of Free Ireland must be secured and aware of the emergency at hand. When the time comes, we must isolate de Valera, if he will not come over to our side between now and then. That means railways, police stations, jails and armories -- all must be bombed, and for that we will need bombers. Telephone lines and telegraph cables must be cut, and roadways blocked with checkpoints. Barracks of the Irish Army must be seized and the soldiers within disarmed until they come over and join us. We will have less than a day to sort friend from foe, and by then Ireland must be united against the North. Do I make myself clear?”
There were affirmative rumbles from the men.
“Seán O’Grady, where are you?”
“Here, sir.” A young man in a leather jacket stepped forward.
“What are the latest numbers your men have given you for how many men de Valera can use against us, if it comes to that?”
“On short notice,” O’Grady said, “not more than twelve thousand.”
“What about long notice?”
“On paper, closer to thirty thousand, sir. But half o’ those will join our fight when they see the way it’s goin’.”
“Do you have maps of each and every barracks, as I requested?”
“Yes, sir. Here they are, sir.” He produced a folder bulging with papers.
“Thank you. That’s good. These will be very important. If we act quickly, German intelligence believes de Valera won’t be able to offer resistance. Of course we have to make our plans for the worst case, which says that he’ll be against us. He might join us, and in that case we’ll have to use the first twenty-four hours to set up communications with the regular army, to coordinate our efforts. Once we’re all together, no matter how it happens, we must move like lightning against the British. In doing so, I’ll need these things...”
One of the sentries burst through the blackout drapes and raced to O’Donovan’s side. All the others flinched at his appearance. The man whispered something in O’Donovan’s ear. He thanked the sentry, who slipped back out of the chamber. “There were police lights seen in the distance, but they were just going to an automobile wreck.” The release of tension in the chamber was palpable. Just a few months of sharing the constant tension these men endured had nearly driven Auspitz mad.
“And so I’ll need bombers and saboteurs. I’ll need every fighter and marksman that will join us. The General Staff was very clear to me that we must overwhelm the Treaty Ports immediately. A thousand men are to assault each one with the heaviest weapons that you have. The British will probably not have any significant warships in port, but if they do, they will present a deadly threat. You must capture all the vessels you find and then block the harbors by scuttling ships at their entrances. And we will need runners. Women and children can be useful as runners because they are less likely to attract suspicion. We will need thousands of runners to spread the word of the uprising. Most of the Irish Army will fight for us when it comes to carrying it to the British, and their ammunition and equipment will be vital. From this moment forward, though, all our efforts to stockpile ammunition must be redoubled. Additionally, we are instructed to stockpile as much petrol as possible.
“We’re to form an initial line of defense around the Ballinamore-Ballyconnell Canal. Then, with the sum of IRA and Irish Army fighters, will continue north and try to subdue all police, irregular and British Army resistance before any further reinforcements arrive from Britain.”
“Does your General Staff think that we can manage it with our numbers?” James Hoyne, a feared political enforcer, was looking at him with worried eyes.
“Jackie, do you have reply from the Sligo men?”
Jackie McDonough identified himself to Auspitz’ left. “They’re all with us, Captain.”
“Then we have almost six thousand hardened and dedicated fighters, which should be enough to get things going in a big way.”
“And you can count on more’n twenty thousand more who’ll come quickly to arms when the shooting starts,” ventured the leader, O’Donovan.
A deep voice from the back: “We oughtta start with uprising tonight, then! No more delay!”
“No, man! The time is not yet right. The British have many spies and many means of learning our plans. If they discover you before the moment has come, they will invade before we are ready. No! You must prepare diligently in the time ahead. Stockpile your arms, your food, your ammunition, as I have told you. Scout out the safe paths and places of hiding. Conduct the reconnaissance that is so necessary, and reconnoiter the landing areas we discussed so that Germany can send us the guns and supplies to succeed. Train and drill and prepare your hearts and your nerves.”
Auspitz glanced across the faces of the gathered. He had high confidence in them. They would fight like lions if they thought they had a chance.
“And finally the best news from Germany. I make a further solemn assurance to each man here. When the time for uprising has come, elite and well-armed German soldiers will join you in driving the British out of their strongholds in the north. I have received this promise in person from the German War Minister.”
“How many?” Looking up, Auspitz saw one of the grizzled bomb experts making his way to the front of the circle. “How many Germans are we talkin’?”
“Four thousand men,” he lied. In his actual conversation with Field Marshal von Blomberg -- albeit a brief exchange of memoranda -- he had been curtly informed that it was uncertain that any soldiers could actually be spared from upcoming operations in the Netherlands. He had protested bitterly. Surely after a war with the whole French army, even a few companies could be spared for what he insisted to his superiors was a critical operation. To Auspitz, this only reflected the inflexibility and incompetence of the bureaucrats. He just knew that ten times the men he needed would be just sitting around in some quiet Dutch village while the IRA men were fighting for the life of their island. If he was lucky, he was told after much persistence, a hundred men would be parachuted into County Cork to lead and organize the Irish guerillas in the first hours of the uprising.
“Four thousand,” he repeated.
The Irish fighters seemed unsure whether to believe him. It was a staggering thought.
“Together, fighting our common enemy, I know that we will prevail. My friends, the road ahead will be hard, and you know as well I as I do that some of us will die. But Ireland will be united and the invaders kept from your homes and hearths. Will you fight with me to the end for that?”
Not a man withheld.
“Then the board is very nearly set and the game very nearly ready to begin.”
Throughout Europe, the end of summer brought hard decisions to powerful men. From Gibralter to Dublin, Brittany to Copenhagen, all of Western Europe would soon be forced to decide with whom it would align. Rumors during the summer of an impeding alliance with Britain and France had sparked mutiny in Spain’s deeply conservative army. Clashes with the government had worsened in the intervening months until the situation could now not be fairly called anything less than a civil war.
“In Spain, my friends, General Franco has been forced to choose where his loyalties lie. In France, Premier Laval had to make a hard choice to go to Bordeaux. And soon in Dublin, the President will have to make an equally hard decision. If he will fight with us, you must all be prepared to put aside the differences that I know some of you hold. If he stands against us, you must be willing to bring him down for the sake of Ireland. And above all, you must be ready when the hour comes.”
It the night was getting old. Auspitz arranged for each man to receive coded sets of instructions and a specialized grille with which to decipher them. To the explosives experts he gave several of the packages that he had brought from Germany; to O’Donovan a second packet of instructions. The men began to slip back out through the cave in twos and threes, in order to complete the long climb off the cliffs before dawn.
Last to emerge back out onto the beach were Auspitz and O’Donovan. The sounds of the night were different now. The eastern horizon was starting to turn from black to gray. Auspitz pulled out his signal flashlight and signaled three times to the low silhouette of U-10 that still waited offshore. He saw the submarine run its engines in reverse, slipping lower and lower in the water until it was lost from view.
He was on his own.
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Wouldn't it be also a wise idea to bomb something in London as surely there must be some irish nationalists living around GB?
You've got to admire the irony. 1914 Germany ships arms to the Ulster Volunteers and arms the Unionist movement, 1939 they tried to whip up the Nationalist movement to fight the men their predecessors armed.
Onto the AAR, it appears we have yet another unlikely step towards the inevitability of German world domination. I do hope von Braunn is working hard on his space rockets, Germany will need new worlds to conqueror pretty soon.
Onto the AAR, it appears we have yet another unlikely step towards the inevitability of German world domination. I do hope von Braunn is working hard on his space rockets, Germany will need new worlds to conqueror pretty soon.
Slaughts - Indeed he is!
Enewald - Don't think Canaris isn't thinking along those lines. He just doesn't share such plans with other agents like Auspitz.
El Pip -
I'm from America, El Pip. That sort of stuff doesn't even faze me any more.
And, is there anything that you don't see as just another improbable step toward WC in 1939? Because you seem to react that way even when the Pact loses...
Enewald - Don't think Canaris isn't thinking along those lines. He just doesn't share such plans with other agents like Auspitz.
El Pip -
I'm from America, El Pip. That sort of stuff doesn't even faze me any more
. And, is there anything that you don't see as just another improbable step toward WC in 1939? Because you seem to react that way even when the Pact loses...
WC in 1939? Nahh I don't expect it that late!
If you really want to know I'll drop you a PM and explain why. However I'll try and refrain from such comments in-thread from now on.
However I'll try and refrain from such comments in-thread from now on.
That takes half the fun out of it.
Personally I think Canaris just wants the Irish to cause some trouble when the invasion of Britain starts, so British attentions are split. Four thousand Heer soldiers? Probably won't even be one there.
All I have promised to do is stop predicting WC tomorrow, that still leaves a vast array of similar fun to be had.That takes half the fun out of it.
dublish - Why so glum? You've still got Hardraade to needle! Of course it now looks like he's about to really lay waste to the Spanish, so those days may be coming to an end too .
Slaughts - Canaris could perhaps be seen as an early proponent of what we've come to know as the Powell Doctrine. He'd be loathe to (at least assuming that he stays "motivated") do anything half-heartedly like that. Far better to just see what the IRA can do on their own at no force cost to Germany, according to that reasoning.
El Pip - New slogan: "WC at 12:01 AM the day after tomorrow"?
.Slaughts - Canaris could perhaps be seen as an early proponent of what we've come to know as the Powell Doctrine. He'd be loathe to (at least assuming that he stays "motivated") do anything half-heartedly like that. Far better to just see what the IRA can do on their own at no force cost to Germany, according to that reasoning.
El Pip - New slogan: "WC at 12:01 AM the day after tomorrow"?
I feel like some stars were added since I last saw it. Maybe my monitor's brightness isn't set properly.
Kanil, dublish - Thank you. Those are the actual cliffs in County Cork where the meeting took (well, in the story at least) place. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a suitable night shot, so I took a day shot in color, hopped on photoshop, set it to black and white mildly aged it and added the stars (perceptive there, dublish, although the stars were there when I first posted it, so it must be your brightness settings). I found myself hunched over a star map trying to make sure that the stars were in their accurate configurations for that night in history, when I basically had to just chug the proverbial OCD medicine and leave it alone :rofl:.