Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles

The Germans will be in shock once they they see that the units that are ear marked for naval operations instead of sailing thru the saronic gulf in to the Aegean they sail thru the Corinth canal to the Corinthian gulf
 
The Germans will be in shock once they they see that the units that are ear marked for naval operations instead of sailing thru the saronic gulf in to the Aegean they sail thru the Corinth canal to the Corinthian gulf
Going through the Corinth canal would create a traffic jam, given the numbers of ships involved. The fleet would go south at a distance that it can either turn west or east and north depending on the target. Why the Allies don't know they had a leak in Alexandria do they? If the fleet went straight north it would signal Allied intentions that they are hitting Gallipoli. Or not. 😇
 
Tbf if the allies landed in Konigsberg idk if the entirety of the German population would be chased out of their homes.

I do hope the Prussians actually learn old Prussian tho lol.
We love Germany so much that we want to have many of them! 😇 Speaking of which a separate Bavaria is certainly within the realm of plausibility but what scuppered it OTL? After all for a time both Churchill and Stalin were for it...

And my question on the fate of Matome Ugaki ITTL?
Yes. 😇
 
We love Germany so much that we want to have many of them! 😇 Speaking of which a separate Bavaria is certainly within the realm of plausibility but what scuppered it OTL? After all for a time both Churchill and Stalin were for it...
As many Germanies as possible would be an interesting tl in it of itself lol. But true. More Deutschland!

Seriously tho I don't see the WAllies doing this. They'd rather have Berlin and at most Pomerania than Konigsberg and it'd be a better use of their resources. I just hope the WAllies are more lucky ittl.
 

VadisDeProfundis

Gone Fishin'
Well, I guess that one can say that Germany has traditionally had strong ties, ITTL actually allied in both world wars, to Turkey. Were the Germans to actually split up, that would mean that the Turkish state has lost a powerful sponsor, thus empowering either Greece in the post war order, or another great power to become the sponsor of Turkey.
 
Tbf if the allies landed in Konigsberg idk if the entirety of the German population would be chased out of their homes.

I do hope the Prussians actually learn old Prussian tho lol.

Well, revival of Old Prussian happened to some degree even IOTL. There are even Prussian native speakers back after 300 years long interruption.

 
Tbf if the allies landed in Konigsberg idk if the entirety of the German population would be chased out of their homes.

I do hope the Prussians actually learn old Prussian tho lol.
Why though? Prussians were German for hundreds of years and proud ones at that.
 
Last edited:
Part 118 The Wine Dark Sea
Andrianople, April 28th, 1943

Max Merten was a content man. The original plans to clear out Thessaloniki from its Jewish population had had to be delayed due to train shipment constraints, but he had improvised successfully. Thrace had just been proclaimed Judenfrei, as 14 train shipments from Bulgarian and Turkish territory, had moved nearly 25,000 Jews through Bulgaria and Romania to the camps in Poland. The rounded up Jews from Kavala, Serres and Drama, nearly 4,000 more would follow in the next week. Then it would be the turn of Constantinople and finally Thessaloniki, the army there kept complaining the railroads through Serbia were overloaded and under constant air attack and sabotage. He could wait. After all Constantinople and the Dardanelles had over 57,000 Jews, slightly more than Thessaloniki. It was going to take months. And profit one Max Merten handsomely...

Warsaw, April 29th, 1943

The last fighters of the Jewish Military Union, escaped through a tunnel the Warsaw ghetto to the rest of Warsaw. After 11 days of heavy fighting, the Jewish resistance, doomed to destruction from the start was collapsing although it would take the Germans more than two weeks more to fully suppress it. But sometimes you had tot fight even if you were doomed to lose from the start...

Nicosia old town, April 30th, 1943

Lieutenant Alparslan Turkes was woken from the sound of shooting nearby. Moments later Emine Denktas burst into the room in the basement of the house that was hiding him. The 19 year old, her father Raif had named her after her deceased mother she had told him was visibly agitated but still held it together he noticed.

"We must move you. Someone talked, the Greeks just hit the house we were hiding the Germans and Special Branch is on the way here."

Turkes cursed and followed the girl. The last six months had been a frustation to put it mildly. Being a native of the island he had been a natural choice to take part to the mission here. The local Turks had been sympathetic, but with four fifths of the population of the island Greek most of the local leaders were unwilling to support a revolt, Emine here and her father were the exception. Perhaps he shouldn't blame them. Perhaps but he did. The motherland's need mattered more, and the motherland needed all the help it could get. At least if the leaders didn't care the common people did heed to the motherland. He and his comrades had been able to organise sabotage, get intelligence from the many Turks in the police, demonstrations, even a few guerrila bands. But the British had reacted by dismissing any Turks they suspected from the police, recruiting auxiliary police units among the Greeks and unleashing them all and the local army units on them. With the enthusiastic backing of the local Greeks of course. The heavy handed reaction had gained the Kara Cete, the fighting group set in the island, yet more support but after six months it had whittled down almost to nothingness. It didn't matter he'd go on as long as he could...

Buffalo, New York, May 3rd, 1943

The next batch of licence built P-51B, left the Curtiss factory. The appearance of the Italian Series 5 back in the fall of 1942 over the Mediterranean had been something of a shock and Curtiss own P-40 clearly could not compete with them. Switching production from P-40L to the P-51B was an obvious fix, both aircraft were using the Merlin engine and it did not make sense when there was a shortage to Merlin engine supply to use them on Warhawks instead of Mustangs. Production of the Allison engined P-40s was continuing unabated.

Olympus, May 7th, 1943

A thousand guns opened on the German, Italian and Bulgarian positions. As his soldiers hunkered down in their trenched under the barrage waiting for the tanks and infantry to follow Erwin Rommel calmly waited for the attack to develop. He had available more than half a million men to meet the Allied assault and had been forewarned about it. True more than two thirds of his soldiers were Italians and Bulgarians but Rommel was not making the mistake to underestimate them as many of his fellow German officers were doing...

Lemnos, May 7th, 1943


The guns of Georgios Averof thundered at Turkish positions, as Lynx and Mustang Mk III fighters darted overhead to hit targets further inland. The Greek 13th Marine and the 4th Archipelago Infantry regiments had hit the beach at dawn, the III Airborne brigade under Christodoulos Tsigantes had preceded them overnight. Uncle George had led the liberation of Lemnos a generation ago. Now it was back...

Beyazit Square, Constantinople, May 9th, 1943

Fevzi Cakmak looked from one of the windows of the old building of the Ottoman Ministry of war to the square, the Forum of Theodosius back in Byzantine times, he could not remembed what the Greeks called it nowadays and if he could help it it would never matter again. The Greeks had hit Lemnos two days ago, it would likely fall but he expected this, simultaneously with the beginning of the attack on Olympus, this one was apparently developing slowly, the Allies were making small probes for the time being preceded by massive artillery barrages. The Allied fleet had left Greek ports initially heading south. Exactly as expected. He hid a smile. Air reconnaissance had become very difficult given heavy Allied air activity over the Aegean but the Allies apparently still were not aware their plans had leaked, they still hoped to confuse the Axis about the actual target.

Mediterranean Sea, May 10th to 11th, 1943


Ships from ports as far away as Algiers, Tunis, Piraeus, Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut were converging across the Mediterranean. Eight battleships, two aircraft carriers, twenty cruisers and thousands of smaller craft massed with five divisions of the 8th British Army under Richard O'Connor and the 7th US Army under George Patton assembled. History's largest amphibious force since the Greeks had unleashed 1,186 ships for the eyes of Helen would be going to action at dawn...
 
Greeks in the auxiliary police force of Cyprus...that is an uno reverse cart..of course with the needs of the war any political considerations would be left out
 
Andrianople, April 28th, 1943

Max Merten was a content man. The original plans to clear out Thessaloniki from its Jewish population had had to be delayed due to train shipment constraints, but he had improvised successfully. Thrace had just been proclaimed Judenfrei, as 14 train shipments from Bulgarian and Turkish territory, had moved nearly 25,000 Jews through Bulgaria and Romania to the camps in Poland. The rounded up Jews from Kavala, Serres and Drama, nearly 4,000 more would follow in the next week. Then it would be the turn of Constantinople and finally Thessaloniki, the army there kept complaining the railroads through Serbia were overloaded and under constant air attack and sabotage. He could wait. After all Constantinople and the Dardanelles had over 57,000 Jews, slightly more than Thessaloniki. It was going to take months. And profit one Max Merten handsomely...

Warsaw, April 29th, 1943

The last fighters of the Jewish Military Union, escaped through a tunnel the Warsaw ghetto to the rest of Warsaw. After 11 days of heavy fighting, the Jewish resistance, doomed to destruction from the start was collapsing although it would take the Germans more than two weeks more to fully suppress it. But sometimes you had tot fight even if you were doomed to lose from the start...

Nicosia old town, April 30th, 1943

Lieutenant Alparslan Turkes was woken from the sound of shooting nearby. Moments later Emine Denktas burst into the room in the basement of the house that was hiding him. The 19 year old, her father Raif had named her after her deceased mother she had told him was visibly agitated but still held it together he noticed.

"We must move you. Someone talked, the Greeks just hit the house we were hiding the Germans and Special Branch is on the way here."

Turkes cursed and followed the girl. The last six months had been a frustation to put it mildly. Being a native of the island he had been a natural choice to take part to the mission here. The local Turks had been sympathetic, but with four fifths of the population of the island Greek most of the local leaders were unwilling to support a revolt, Emine here and her father were the exception. Perhaps he shouldn't blame them. Perhaps but he did. The motherland's need mattered more, and the motherland needed all the help it could get. At least if the leaders didn't care the common people did heed to the motherland. He and his comrades had been able to organise sabotage, get intelligence from the many Turks in the police, demonstrations, even a few guerrila bands. But the British had reacted by dismissing any Turks they suspected from the police, recruiting auxiliary police units among the Greeks and unleashing them all and the local army units on them. With the enthusiastic backing of the local Greeks of course. The heavy handed reaction had gained the Kara Cete, the fighting group set in the island, yet more support but after six months it had whittled down almost to nothingness. It didn't matter he'd go on as long as he could...

Buffalo, New York, May 3rd, 1943

The next batch of licence built P-51B, left the Curtiss factory. The appearance of the Italian Series 5 back in the fall of 1942 over the Mediterranean had been something of a shock and Curtiss own P-40 clearly could not compete with them. Switching production from P-40L to the P-51B was an obvious fix, both aircraft were using the Merlin engine and it did not make sense when there was a shortage to Merlin engine supply to use them on Warhawks instead of Mustangs. Production of the Allison engined P-40s was continuing unabated.

Olympus, May 7th, 1943

A thousand guns opened on the German, Italian and Bulgarian positions. As his soldiers hunkered down in their trenched under the barrage waiting for the tanks and infantry to follow Erwin Rommel calmly waited for the attack to develop. He had available more than half a million men to meet the Allied assault and had been forewarned about it. True more than two thirds of his soldiers were Italians and Bulgarians but Rommel was not making the mistake to underestimate them as many of his fellow German officers were doing...

Lemnos, May 7th, 1943

The guns of Georgios Averof thundered at Turkish positions, as Lynx and Mustang Mk III fighters darted overhead to hit targets further inland. The Greek 13th Marine and the 4th Archipelago Infantry regiments had hit the beach at dawn, the III Airborne brigade under Christodoulos Tsigantes had preceded them overnight. Uncle George had led the liberation of Lemnos a generation ago. Now it was back...

Beyazit Square, Constantinople, May 9th, 1943

Fevzi Cakmak looked from one of the windows of the old building of the Ottoman Ministry of war to the square, the Forum of Theodosius back in Byzantine times, he could not remembed what the Greeks called it nowadays and if he could help it it would never matter again. The Greeks had hit Lemnos two days ago, it would likely fall but he expected this, simultaneously with the beginning of the attack on Olympus, this one was apparently developing slowly, the Allies were making small probes for the time being preceded by massive artillery barrages. The Allied fleet had left Greek ports initially heading south. Exactly as expected. He hid a smile. Air reconnaissance had become very difficult given heavy Allied air activity over the Aegean but the Allies apparently still were not aware their plans had leaked, they still hoped to confuse the Axis about the actual target.

Mediterranean Sea, May 10th to 11th, 1943

Ships from ports as far away as Algiers, Tunis, Piraeus, Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut were converging across the Mediterranean. Eight battleships, two aircraft carriers, twenty cruisers and thousands of smaller craft massed with five divisions of the 8th British Army under Richard O'Connor and the 7th US Army under George Patton assembled. History's largest amphibious force since the Greeks had unleashed 1,186 ships for the eyes of Helen would be going to action at dawn...
With a fleet so big, heavy and specially including carriers this smell more like Sicilia open waters than Aegean constrained ones.
 
Seeing more end more Greek attacks working is always nice and the allies are trapping the axis in the Olympus line while punching through Sicily makes the most sense really.
 
Correction, the Turkish and the Italian secret services have been reasonably effective throughout the war...
In late1942 (between 1st and 2nd Alamein), some British "commando-type" groups in Egypt staged a wave of raids on Axis rear areas in Libya. (The LRDG was not involved except for transportation.) The raids all failed, some quite badly.

A year later, Major Vladimir "Popski" Peniakoff was scouting in SE Italy ahead of the main Allied forces, and making contact with Italian forces who were now supposed to cooperate with the Allies (which they did with what Popski considered unseemly eagerness). One evening he dined with the staff of an Italian HQ, one of whom had been in intelligence in North Africa. He said the Italians had known all about the raids, and recited from memory the order of battle for the raiding forces.
 
I hope that in TTL Max Merten will get what he deserves - the gallows.
Oh definitely.

Considering Cyprus has a bunch of Greek units I could see the Greeks in Cyprus who're agitating for enosis would have some steel behind their words. I could defo see a spat between Britain, Greece and the US about it. The Turks are going to get nothing ittl which is good I guess.

On the renewed Olympus offensive it's definitely a way to tie down the axis but would they use it to liberate the rest of Greece when the defence lines break?
 
Top