I dont get the joke?
It might be emphasized by Gobbels as a way to show the superiority of the Aryan race on the global stage
The Iron Eagle - The History of the Cold War
- Thread starter Kaiser of Brazil
- Start date
I would assume at this time that the Liberals in Canada weren't re-elected due to losing the war in Europe. Someone like John Bracken from the Tories is likely in charge. In fact, Liberals might have dropped to third place with the CCF/NDP becoming the opposition.
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So long as there are people able to speak while gargling water, there will be those able to speak Polish.
I think there would be a huge Polish diaspora in England, USA, and Russia, tbh.
Hopefully the Poles in exile will be able to keep their culture alive, similar to the way Jewish people were able to keep their culture alive after they were exiled by the romans.
I'm not sure about that. The best case IMO would be the Russian Empire establishing a "New Poland" somewhere in Siberia for Polish refugees to settle in.
How is Truman doing rn? Also, has Eisenhower retired from the Army or is he still a general by 1959?
I would think Truman is likely popular enough in his state to get re-elected as a senator. Eisenhower is likely still in the military.
Maybe, but given Missouri seems to be firmly entrenched in Long's camp, i wouldn't be shocked if he had lost his seat in the 1958 midterms.
How popular is the name Adolf in Europe? I feel like it would be just as popular as Muhammad is in the Islamic world.
XXXIX - TZEVAOTH
THE IRON EAGLE
TZEVAOTH
TZEVAOTH
The Russians were not the only people aware of the suffering that came with laying down arms to an enemy that despises you, in the case of Israel the situation was even more hostile. The first and primary enemy of the Germans, and subsequently of the whole Continental Europe, was the Jewish people, it was inevitable that so much effort would be done by the enemies of the State of Israel to extinguish it, although their enemies were as divided as ever. The German-Italian alliance was still official in Europe, but in the Middle East it was obvious ever since the Suez War that the Reich and the Imperio were fighting the same enemy for different reasons with different champions in their place. To the Germans it was clear why they would want to fight Israel, it is unecessary to repeat yet again why the leadership in the Welthauptstadt wanted the extinction of the Jewish nation. To the Italians, there was no hatred, although there were many anti-semites in powerful positions in Rome, but a matter of Realpolitik that encouraged the Italians to support the Arabs in their struggle to claim Palestine, Nasser wanted the control of Jerusalem for himself to solidify his United Arab Republic, formed with Jordan shortly after the Suez Conflict. To the North, Saadeh knew that his regime was in a more shaky ground with more radical factions, his military officer corps had grown very affectionate with the Wehrmacht since the Independence and despised the inaction against the hated Zionist entity in the south. He could risk being overthrown himself if he did not turn the Greater Syria into a reality which is the reason with the Syrian-Iraqi war happened in the 1950s and the reason why an alliance had been made with Iran to secure the Eastern Front.
Iran was a nation that had many reasons to despise the former allied powers and the Soviet Union. In a desperate move to allow supplies to come from the Gulf into the Caucasus, the British and Soviet forces invaded the nation and occupied the country within days, forcing the abdication of Shah Reza Pahlavi and installing his son as a puppet ruler. The occupation began to suffer in 1942 as the Germans pushed the Soviets fully from their last holdouts in the Caucasus and the British continued to divert forces towards Burma and Egypt. With the Soviet collapse, the troops responsible for the occupation of Northern Iran retreated into Central Asia under Stalin's orders, which led to a cold front between German and British forces in Tabriz once the Wehrmacht captured the city. The Treaty of Lisbon ended the country's occupation in 1943 and Reza Pahlavi was allowed to return home, his son abdicated in his favor and celebrations came with the return of the Shah. It did not last long, while his personal morale was improved, his health declined from chronic heart problems, leading to his death in 1945. There was a great funeral to the "Modernizer" of Iran, who overthrew the Qajar dynasty in a coup and made himself Emperor, bringing in much-needed changes to the country from the legal code to the civil service. His son inherited his modernization drive, especially after the invasion as the humiliation of two years of occupation would serve as an impulse to future events.
Between 1945 and 1952, Iran would sit on the crossroads to the changing world around, the retreat of the Soviets came with the civil war and the first great opportunity of the Pahlavi Dynasty to reverse the losses of the Qajar. Still under Reza, the Iranian Army marched into Turkmenistan in October 1944, with the Civil War in Russia grinding into a stalemate and forcing Stalin to divert forces from the Central Asian republics to the fight against Zhukov and the White Army. Ashkabad was taken as well as a large part of the SSR, reaching the port city of Krasnovodsk before Soviet reinforcements halted the seizure. The Shah did not wish to throw his country into an open conflict with the Soviets, hoping to reach an agreement with the winners to keep the territory. Thankfully to his son, Mohammed Reza, The White Army triumphed over Stalin and dissolved the SSRs in Central Asia, making an agreement with Iran to recognize their possession of Ashkabad, Merv and large parts of the Iranian territory once annexed by the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries, in return of the retreat from Krasnovodsk as it was an strategic port for Russian operations against the German Caucasus. In the same year the treaty was signed, an earthquake shattered much of Ashkabad and the Iranians ironically spent more rebuilding the city than it was spent in the military campaign to claim it. Overall it was a boom for the Pahlavi regime, reversing part of the humiliating losses of the Qajar dynasty and incorporating former Iranian territories into Iran proper. For the Russians it was a small territory that was not worth the resources that had to be fully concentrated on the Reich or later the Chinese.
The Shah was not an absolute Monarch, despite the vast powers given by the 1906 Constitution, he still had to deal with the Majles, the Consultative Assembly elected by Universal Male Suffrage which formed a government that at times would come at odds with the Shah. While their powers were practically null by his father's Authoritarian policies, the first years of the young Shah's rule was marked by the issue of "Nationalization", the conquest of Soviet Territories was only part of what the Iranian people desired, a true independence after two centuries being carved by foreign powers such as Russia and Britain. The greatest symbol of this infamous influence, other than the Anglo-Soviet occupation of course, was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British company which was granted the exploitation of the rich oilfields of Iran, all while only around 20% of the company's shares were owned by the nation whose reserves were being extracted. After the Levantine War, the Middle East had become the forefront of the Cold War and the dwindling influence of the British Empire was only made more apparent by the Independence of India at the end of the decade. The Emperor of Iran was a modernist man, although he was still on dubious grounds in regards to the Nationalization as he still had connections with Britain (He himself had been educated in Switzerland and held sympathy for the Western models) and feared launching a decisive action.
Instead, the Crown focused on it's own powers, in 1944 Reza Pahlavi banned the Socialist "Tudeh" Party on the grounds of espionage and collaboration with the Soviets, it was part of a harsh crackdown against the Iranian left due to the conflict with the Red forces in Turkmenistan. Later in 1948, the Shah used the popularity and political capital of the victory in Central Asia to call a Constitutional Assembly to review aspects of the 1906 constitution which were not implemented, such as the creation of the Senate, of which half of it's 120 members were appointed by the Monarch. The reform passed and his powers were expanded, but he would end up caught in the aftermath of the British decolonization of India that provoked a wave of anti-British sentiment, there was a sense of weakness coming from London amongst the Iranian people who pushed for the Nationalization of the AIOC, namely the man who would seize that opportunity was Mohammed Mossaddegh. Mossaddegh was a constitutionalist and nationalist lawyer who served in the Iranian Parliament since 1923, but only in the aftermath of the Levantine War and the Shah's Constitutional revision was he allowed to rise to power propelled by a strange coalition of Nationalists, Socialists and Islamists known as the "National Front", formed in 1948 to oppose the Constitutional Assembly and push for the Nationalization of Oil. After standing in the opposition in Parliament for years, the fall of Prime Minister Ebrahim Hakimi opened the way for the National Front to win the 1949 election with the support of Urban voters and former Tudeh members.
Mossaddegh's rule from 1949 until 1952 was one filled with tension between the Shah and his Prime Minister, the former seeking to increase his own powers while the latter was a firm believer in the idea that a King was not supposed to rule a nation, merely to reign as a symbolic figure at best. Nonetheless, the end of the Russian Civil War and the Levantine War brought in a new reality to Iran where the British influence dwindled and the German Reich began to pervasively influence the Iranian politics. Hitler saw the Middle East as the next frontline in the fight against the "Judeo-Capitalist" enemies, with the Syrians being made into the German foothold in the Middle East. Many looked at Syria with a certain admiration, within 5 years Saadeh had expelled the French from his nation, imposed a Land Reform and pushed for the modernization of his country into a Secular Nationalist State based around the SSNP's program and backed by the Wehrmacht's substantial support that made them a fearsome force which was able to hold the United Nations from marching into Damascus (at least that is how it was seen). Mossaddegh was far from a Fascist leader, his alliance with the former Tudeh showed that as well as his belief in Constitutional Democracy. But to many in London, he was seen as another Saadeh, a political leader who threatened their interests and could turn Iran towards the Germans, closing the access of the allies towards Russia from the Persian Gulf. Of course, an invasion was hardly a possibility with the current reality, especially with the dwindling influence in the region, but other means could be used by the MI6 to prevent the nationalization of the AIOC.
The Nationalization had been made by Parliament in November 1951, much to the celebration of the Iranian people. The Shah himself had supported the Nationalization in private, but he felt overshadowed by the Prime Minister who was now riding new heights in Popular support as a heroic figure for facing the British Empire. In retaliation for the nationalization, the British embargoed exports to Iran and ordered the technicians of the AIOC to refuse to work with the new Iranian administration, causing a pitfall in the production, with the Royal Navy blockading several ports to pressure the Prime Minister. 1952 came with a renewed pressure on the British, the Egyptian revolution and the rise of Pan-Arabism in Egypt and Jordan were believed to be a domino effect in the region that could shatter the influence the British held and throw the entirety of the Middle East into the arms of Hess (before London came to realize Mussolini was the greater threat in the region, many believed the Pan-Arab movement was backed by Germania). With the growing pressure in Iran, with bribery and economical crisis, the Prime Minister began to suffer defections and resignations in the National Front, at the same time as his constant abuse of emergency powers and calls for a refferendum to reduce the Shah's powers began to turn many against him. The Ulema, the Islamic leadership in Iran, met earlier that year and opted to oppose political activism, threatening with excummunication any member who participated into National Politics. It did not take much for the Shah to be convinced to do what he did next at the suggestion of the MI6, hardly did they know what they caused when provoking the Shah's action.
The Shah dismissed Mossaddegh from his office in August on the 9th, during the tense period when Jordan and Egypt both fell under the rule of Nasser and Nuwar and both Britain and Italy began making plans for the coming confrontation. The British feared that Mossaddegh would push the Iranians to back the Pan-Arabist gamble on the Suez Canal and the tensions also made the continued blockade of Iranian harbors unsustainable. The Prime Minister refused to go down without a fight, calling his supporters to the streets. However, the support he had was below expected, many had grown to respect more the Shah and his modernization efforts since the capture of Ashkabad and Merv with a relatively low cost of lives. When it came to pick between the Pahlavi Dynasty and the Prime Minister, the latter would feel disillusioned that many came to the support of the Monarchy, accusing the Prime Minister for his dictatorial accumulation of powers during his government, some drawing comparisons to Mussolini and the Italian King. With the threat of the country falling into civil war and the military firmly loyal to the Monarchy, the Prime Minister stood down and was replaced by Lieutenant General Haj Ali Razmara. The Prime Minister was arrested but his death sentence was commutted to 5 years under House Arrest by the Shah who decided to grant mercy to many National Front members. Essentially the coup backed by the MI6 brought Iran back to the pre-1941 Status Quo under Reza Pahlavi, an Authoritarian monarchy desiring to modernize the country.
However, as October came and the Suez war broke, an unexpected move happened in Iran, Prime Minister Razmara would be assassinated by a radical islamist, leading to the Shah choosing Nematollah Nassiri, a personal friend of his and commander of the Imperial Guard, as Prime Minister. As the country was cracking down on both radical Islam and Socialism, the agreement being finished between Razmara and Eden's government was suspended and the Nationalization remained standing. Most shockingly of all was the visit of the Shah himself to Geneva in the French State, where he met German Foreign Minister Bohle and Minister Albert Speer, negotiating instead the "German-Iranian Agreement" which opened Iran to the investments from Germania, invited Wehrmacht attaches as part of the modernization program of the Iranian military and made plans to connect Tabriz and Baku through a railway. The Shah saw how Mossaddegh was crippled by the sanctions and found a way to circumvent it. Hess remarked that the Iranian people were descended from the Aryan civilization of old, seeing them as "equals" in some ways, to other peoples such as the "Assyrians". Many ended up fired from the MI6 in the subsequent Rab Butler government, the crucial mistake that London made was in underestimating the Shah. With the defeat in the Suez War, Britain also lost much of it's strength in the Middle East, contesting the Iranian Nationalization and agreement with the Reich was not an option any longer. The RSHA and the SAVAK would both cooperate closely to crack down on British agents and former Communists who still opposed the Shah.
The aftermath of the Suez War in 1953 revealed that much had started to change. The Egyptians were the clear winners by breaking off the British influence on the country as Nasser wanted and holding the vital artery that was the Suez Canal. While the importance of the canal was greatly reduced to the British, especially as they left Cyprus, it proved to be the main access of the Linz Pakt to the Indian Ocean, including the connection between Rome and their prestigious colony in Eastern Africa. That is why it was vital for Mussolini to ensure Egypt would remain in friendly hands, their prized horse was Nasser who had become the voice of the rising Pan-Arab ideology across the Middle East. Ciano would pay a visit to the country in February of 1953 to firm several new agreements following the war, including the purchase of Italian military equipment following the abysmal performance against the IPF's Air Force. The Egyptians had to rebuild much of the destroyed infrastructure due to the Suez War, making the necessary repairs to the Canal and airfields, as well as the Radio Cairo station, which served as the primary propagandist of Nasser's ideology to the Middle East.
Ali Abu Nuwar was in a tenuous situation in Jordan, he did manage to overthrow the Hashemites and created an Arab Republic, yet Jordan lost roughly half of it's territory to Israel and Syria during the previous years, including the Negev, West Bank and the city of Irbid. An union with Egypt was practically inevitable and it was considered a necessity for the Jordanians surrounded by hostile states, cut off from it's most important costal region, with an unstable government and a shattered military. There was no lack of officers who would turn on Nuwar to reinstate the hashemites, many in contact with the Iraqi Monarchy. The talks began in December on the aftermath of the war, although there were preliminary moves in the months preceding the Suez War. Nasser knew that Jordan was more of a burden, with hundreds of thousands of arabs fleeing from the territories taken by Israel, some were previously ordered to leave by the Arab leaders themselves, others feared subjugation under Israel, others yet feared that the Syrians would be the ones making the move for the Holy Land again after the bloody conflict. Theories of a combined Syrio-Zionist conspiracy against the Arab world had spread and many Palestinian groups who once collaborated with Saadeh in the first Levantine War were now on the run to Jordan and Egypt, seeing Nasser as the only leader willing to combat the Zionist influence and free the Arabs of the Middle East.
Nuwar himself stepped down from the Presidency of Jordan in April, the same day the official act of Union was signed between the two nations. The United Arab Republic was formed and reinvigorated the efforts of Nasser in the region, in fact this union would be the main factor that led to the events in Iraq in 1954. Until then, Nasser had many other matters to solve, such as the settlement of Palestinian refugees, the modernization of the Arab Army and of Egypt as a whole. One of his most propagandized projects, the Aswan Dam, required extensive funding in order to ensure the Egyptian control over the water flow on the Nile river. Who could offer that? Britain was obviously not an option, the United States would not be on friendly terms either, Nasser attempted to reach the Reichsbank and instead was rudely dismissed under several excuses by the Germans. Hess was not a man he could count on, he despised Egypt, being born in Alexandria and remembering it for the supposed filth of the Arab people. That only left the Italians, but even with Mussolini's support during the War there was a question of how committed the Italian government would be in sponsoring this project, Mussolini held a strong grip around Egypt's Artery with his control of Ethiopia after all. Rumors began to spread that the British could build a similar dam in Sudan, which would be a form to return to project power by blackmailing the Egyptian people. Needlessly to say, the Aswan dam was a matter of National Independence.
Two major events would happen in the Arab Republic by the end of 1953, the Cooperation pact with Italy, which started to be drafted by Ciano in February, was approved in September, with the Italian Empire granting the necessary loans at a low interest to invest on Arab infrastructure, as well as the drafting of plans to not only start the construction of the Aswan Dam, but also to study the possibility to excavate a canal between the Mediterranean and the Qatara depression, which would allow an ambitious project to create a large artificial lake to facilitate transportation in the region. A new railway would also start to be built to link Cairo, Alexandria, Tobruk and Benghazi. Italian companies were granted several exceptions on Egyptian tariffs and taxes, including on certain labor laws of course, investments do not come for free. There were also agreements to purchase Italian Beretta guns, artillery shells and for Italian air instructors to train Arab flying crews. There was a surplus of weaponry in the Italian armories as Mussolini began to modernize the Royal Army following the embarrassing show during the war in Libya and Greece, so much of the equipment the Egyptians received was little better than their existing armories, however it was cheap and capable of arming an expanded Egyptian Army. German Tanks in use through the Linz Pakt such as the E-50 model and the lighter "Panzer IX" models, nicknamed as "Jaguar", were sold to the Egyptians through Italy, although they were already outdated models by the time the Wehrmacht fought the Ural War and were outmatched by the Israeli Sherman Model 55.
The second event was the Arab Constitution of 1953, the Free Officer corps was dissolved by Nasser and instead a One-Party state was created under the so called "Arab Union" Party, it also brought in influences from Europe such as a higher degree of censorship and anti-Jewish laws inspired by the Nüremberg Laws. Nasser was the President, naturally elected with an overwhelming Majority in an election which now had included the female suffrage as gender discrimination was abolished by law, it was another demonstration of Nasser's Secular nature, which was similar to the Syrian constitution: The suffrage was universal but it mattered little as only one party and one leader was allowed. He did not go as far as implementing a model similar to the Führerprinzip or Italian Totalitarianism in the Arab Union, but his words were considered as such nonetheless by his devoted followers who considered him as the liberator of the Arab World. Such reputation was shown in the Egyptian support for rebel groups in Algeria, Morocco and Sudan, although there was an interesting exception towards Libya where Arab operators usually were able to traverse the desert under the willfully ignorant Italian eye to deliver supplies to Algerian rebels. Despite repeated promises to the German and French governments, the MSVI never stopped this flow during Mussolini's rule.
In 1954, as Egypt was beginning it's modernization drive, several officers in Iraq wished to follow the example of Egypt and Jordan. Ever since the British occupation during the war to crush the "Golden Square" uprising which attempted to turn Iraq into a German ally, the country has lost the little autonomy it previously held, in fact while the Levantine War happened, Britain was still negotiating it's new status quo with Iraq. It was only after the loss of India that the British would be compelled to sign the 1949 Agreement which withdrew British forces from the region, except for Kuwait where the Al-Sabah family still ruled as a British protectorate, the region experiencing an economic boom that contrasted with the depression on the North. King Faisal II had recently ascended to the throne after the regency period and he would see that his rule was already not going to last long, the early months of 1952 showed the Upheval spreading across the region from Egypt to Jordan and Iran. Iraq was caught in the middle where the people first began to make protests against the Anglo-Iraqi settlement, the little tolerance the people had evaporated when Iraq was forced to oppose the Pan-Arabists in the Suez War, although not directly sending troops into Jordan, they did commit with volunteers brought in by the British to defend the canal in the weeks before the attack came. Many of these volunteers deserted during the war, and the officers who returned only had a worsened opinion of the British interference on the Middle East. Pan-Arabism, in some ways, was born from the Baghdad Intellectual Middle Class, it was an outrage that now Iraqi troops were fighting their arab brethen on the same side as Westerners and Jews for most of the people. During Hitler's era, the RSHA had prepared the terrain in the region, using Syria as a base to spread dissent into the Arab world. Despite Hess' rhetoric, Heydrich's work still remained in Syria.
The straw that broke the Camel's back came in April of 1953 when the United Arab Republic was formed, many among the leading circles that surrounded Faisal proposed that Iraq should seek a closer relationship with Britain in order to oppose the growing influence of the Linz Pakt in the region. Besides, with Iran breaking away, Iraq stood to benefit from foreign investments as many saw the growth Kuwait was starting to experience as an opportunity to save the country from the post-war recession and inflation circle it was trapped in. When news leaked that Faisal would seek to approach the British, the people took to the streets and so began the Iraqi Intifada, or the Iraqi revolution of 1954. Protests and strikes broke out on the 4th of May as Ramadan began, the pressure would begin to mount and while the people protested against the Monarchy, the majority also called upon the military to save the country, which is exactly what was done when Faisal was ousted on the 9th, fleeing the country as army officers took the Palace, also ousting the Prime Minister Nuri Al-Said. The Hashemites escaped into Kuwait and went to London in exile as Abdul Salam Arif, general who had been ordered to quell the protests when Al-Said desperately attempted to enact Martial Law to avoid the collapse, became President of the Arab Republic of Iraq. This Revolution was celebrated across the UAR while bringing further fears that such sentiments could begin to spread, as General Arif was, like Nuwar, a Pan-Arabist who desire to unite his country with Nasser's Egypt, which would have isolated both Syria and Israel from all sides. The encirclement was being set, but there was time to act, and just a few days after the coup, the Syrians acted.
Antoun "Al-Zaim" Saadeh, known to the outside world as Saadeh, was not in an enviable position in Syria. On the outside he was the most feared man in the region, the Syrian army demonstrated it's crushing superiority on the outmatched Jordanians in the Suez War, the Air Force ravaged everything down to the Aqaba Gulf and the Syrians annexed two Jordanian regions with their prestige restored after their last bid to strike the South. He was their leader, their Führer, the Al-Zaim, and yet Syria was not a monolith, on the inside he feared Nasser, the influence of a "poisonous and unnatural" idea such as Pan-Arabism, which went against his own sociological ideas on the history of civilization, and the fear he had of his own General Staff led by General Adib Shishalki, who now began arguing that Saadeh was a man far too moderate to decisively crush Zionism and Pan-Arabism in the region, leaving Syria isolated against a sea of enemies with only Germany to rely on.
The first priority, even before the War, was to ensure that Germany would keep it's commitments towards Syria. Saadeh went on a trip in January 1952 to visit Hess in Germany, he met the then unknown new Führer in the Reich Chancellery, his first impression was that the man was disgusted by him. Saadeh's conversation with Hess and Bohle would take hours and evolved from pragmatic concepts to racial theory which he was forced to indulge in. Saadeh eventually managed to convince Hess, in no small part with the help of the Deputy Führer Heydrich, that the Syrians were descended from the Assyrian civilization rather than the Arab people, and the Assyrian bronze age warriors were somehow descended from the Aryan race in a somewhat distant way, just enough to make them seem like the Middle Eastern Aryans. Hess further inquired on the influence of French, rather than British, colonialism in Syria and certainly he could not sound more insulting to the man responsible for expelling the France from Syria, but Saadeh had to indulge him with an hour-long conversation. Hess was impressed by the Syrian Leader's intellect and profound knowledge about human societies, claiming that the Lebensraum was the German way to achieve a "Natural" Germany just as he was seeking a "Natural" Syria. When Saadeh went back, he commented privately that he would rather throw himself off the plane than to ever have a meeting with that "German Barbarian" again.
Nevertheless, the mission was accomplished, the support granted by Hitler would continue as Hess now was fully committed to Syria as a bastion of Aryanism in the Middle East. German companies continued to support the industrialization push of Saadeh's government as the final remnants of the old feudalistic order were being swept away through land reform. The State now owned the majority of the fertile lands in Syria, opting to distribute the land amongst cooperatives of farmers under State supervision. Saadeh was neither a Marxist nor a fascist, although there was certainly influence from the latter. He argued in favor of a whole different socio-economic theory on the "natural" process of civilizations with the work on the land as a liberation of the mind and energies of a society, which led to great investments on irrigation projects and the distribution of lands to allow the people to connect more to the soil. He did not reject industry, greatly improving the existing infrastructure with the help of foreign investors and building the Homs Industrial park, located on a strategic position in central Syria and connected to the major cities of Damascus, Beirut, Latakia and Aleppo through highways as a part of the new working programs to fight unemployment. The Homs Park was mostly finished by the end of the decade to become the main production hub in the Middle East, fueling the growth of the Syrian economy.
The Syrian Armed forces was perhaps the largest and most well equipped Army in the Middle East with the exception of the Israeli Protection Force, from Germany the Wehrmacht sent one of their most experienced commanders after the Suez War, meant to oversee the proper modernization and instruction of the Syrian Army and the officer corps. Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel, one of the most famous Marshals of the German Army, was sent as military aide to the Syrian forces and an informal representative of the German interests to the Army. For Germany, this was also about removing the competition within the armed forces, Heydrich, who was the Deputy Führer at the time, was constantly at odds with some German officers over the Waffen-SS' autonomy, shown to be more of a hindrance than an asset during War exercises and training with other member-states of the Linz Pakt. Rommel was one of the men in the Wehr who had more dissenting opinions compared to the SS and their then dominant role on German politics through Heydrich, besides, the proud Marshal aspired to succeed the aging Guderian in the leadership of the OKW, which went in contrast to other commanders that would later meet their own fate in the Ural War. In a way, Rommel's assignment was a blessing in disguise as he was not suffocated by Germania's politics and held such admiration by the Syrian general staff that even Shishakli was willing to submit to his "advice".
The victor of North Africa, who led a campaign which shattered the British resolve to continue the war by pushing from Libya to the gates of Cairo with a theoretically inferior force, also called "Desert Fox", was the most obvious choice to prepare the Syrian military to the type of warfare best suited for the Middle East. Although the Jordan River was not exactly a Tobruk, Rommel spent weeks only studying the terrain with a tour around the Syrian countryside. Afterwards, Syrian commanders would launch a military exercise, which alarmed Israel at the time, the results were not as impressive as the propaganda claimed, the army still relied mostly on Panzer IV tanks, an outdated model against the newest anti-tank weaponry, there was a terrible lack of coordination between the armored divisions, the infantry and air force. Logistics were still handled by horses and even cavalry forces were incorporated in the infantry as they were yet to implement proper half-tracks and APCs in large scale, which is part of the reason why the Homs Industrial Complex was being built. In a memorandum written in August 1953, Rommel described the situation of the Syrian Armed Forces: Gripped with Factionalism, Lacking in proper discipline, and implementing crude Wehrmacht tactics that failed to learn the lessons of the Second World War and properly adapt them for the Levantine terrain. The Air Force had only a few rare jet planes while the majority was made up of Messerschmitts which were used in Russia, some still had bullet holes.
It did not take long for changes to come, but meanwhile Saadeh himself was dealing with the Army. The Officers, trained by Wehrmacht commanders, instructed by the SS, or even studying abroad on Germania all came with different ideas when they came forwards to the Syrian leader, mostly the concern that he was being far too cautious and moderate. A decisive strike on Israel, many argued, could wipe them out decisively as the British no longer held the Suez, a temporary agreement with the Arabs could be reach to close the Tiran Strait and cut off the constant flow of help coming from London and Washington, this isolation would enable the combined Syrian-Arab force to crush the Zionist colonial state, a last affront to the Orient, the last vestige of colonial rule, the last foothold of the Western Powers in the Mediterranean Sea. No doubt the Germans were pushing forwards with this "encouragement", many times Saadeh had to give explanations as to why Israel continued to exist on his southern border, which is odd because before the "International Community" demanded explanations over why wars happened instead of pushing for them to begin. Shishakli was one of these officers, a man who became fascinated with the German military prowess like many young soldiers around the world and now desired to have that power for their own country. He had studied in Germany between 1943 and 1946 and rose up to be the mastermind behind Operation Whirlwind, the invasion of Israel in 1947. Despite the failure, the General managed to stay in command, blaming the unexpected intervention of the United Nations and the lack of resources from the Central Government to oppose their pushback, he had organized the defense of the Golan Heights in an attempt to halt Bradley's troops, which was unecessary thanks to the German intervention against UN troops marching on Syria itself.
Shishakli was a man who many in Germania saw as their "Plan B" on Syria, if not the "Plan A", Saadeh was never a true Totalitarian leader, only with some hesitation did he accept instructions given to Damascus to crush dissidents and push for a true revolutionary effort to build up Syria. Most Jews in Syria either fled or were expelled rather than sent to work like they were in Europe, Saadeh himself was Anti-Zionist but he never expressed any desire of exterminating the people of Israel. The General lacked such qualms, he was willing to do as necessary to ensure the final victory of the Greater Syria against Zionism, even to the point of allying Arab States. However Saadeh had a different ally in mind, after the formation of the UAR and the constant isolation of the Syrian State, the Al Zaim flew to Tehran, meeting with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It was a natural alliance, both states were isolated in the region who could not rely on Britain or the United States to provide them support, both had fear of the influence of Nasser and the Pan-Arab ideas, especially for Saadeh, both had common partnerships with the Linz Pakt and were led by Authoritarian, Secular and Modernist leaders with a shared vision of a greater future for their nations. Although there was an overlap when it came to the Syrian desire for Natural borders expanding eastwards to the Taurus mountains, Saadeh knew he needed to be pragmatic and scoring a diplomatic victory would dissuade those who quietly doubted his leadership of the SSNP. And so, in December of 1953, the Damascus-Tehran Axis was formed.
Their test came on the 9th of May as Iraq fell to the Pan-Arabist General Arif.
The Syrian Army alone mobilized over 130 thousand soldiers, including an armored corps of 650 Tanks, supported by a force of 180 planes which started by bombing cities such as Mosul, Samarra and Baghdad. The Iranians concentrated their efforts on two moves, headed north to capture Mosul and south to capture Basra, including the use of Napalm bombs provided by the Luftwaffe to the Iranian Air Force and the use of German bombers such as the Junkers 287, a Jet-powered bomber which delivered a heavy payload on the city of Basra on the night of the 15th to the 16th of May when the war broke out. The Iranian army alone matched the numbers of their Iraqi foes, led by General Fazollah Zahedi, a loyalist of the Shah who was also trained in German tactics after the occupation ended. Shishakli led the Syrian war effort with the opening barrage that overwhelmed the Iraqi frontier troops and began to drive at record speed with an overwhelming breakthrough against the disorganized enemy which was being attacked from all sides. Nasser prepared his forces in Jordan to strike into Syria itself, but in Cairo there was doubt. If the Arab troops committed to a war against Syria, it would mean the majority of their military assets would remain in the east, which would allow Israel to strike the Sinai as it was done during the Suez War and drive almost unopposed towards Cairo. There was a real fear of an Israeli attack, especially as many Pan-Arabists believed the Syrians to be allied with the Zionists to destroy their movement by seeing them on the same side during the Suez War. Needlessly to say the Syrians also feared a joint Zionist-Arab strike from the south, such as it had happened in the First Levantine War. Israel was at the same time an enemy and an ally of both Wehrmacht-trained Syrians and Italian-trained Egyptians and Jordanians, being thrown around as a wildcard by two paranoid enemies when they had little desire to start a war for a reason other than their own self-defense.
The Iraq War, as it was called, was a short and bloody conflict, Nasser decided ultimately to not declare war as his own military readiness was far from desired and he feared a strike of the IPF while his forces were turned against the Syrians. Besides, there was also a certain resentment that General Abdul Salam Arif's own popularity and the control of Baghdad would make him a rival in the Pan-Arabist struggle. But still, he sent help as he could in the form of an expeditionary force of 4 thousand men led by General Salah Salem who fought fiercely during the Battle of Samarra. None of that would save Iraq from the massacre that came in the next 3 weeks as part of "Operation Fertile Crescent", with Rommel serving as a de facto commander of the Syrian forces from the North, Mosul was cut off and placed under siege with the Iranian troops marching in from the east and the Syrians from the west, splitting the city on the Euphrates River. Basra was reduced to ashes as a firestorm engulfed the city due to the Napalm bombs and artillery strikes which shattered the morale of the disorganized defenders. Perhaps only the resistance of the Arab corps in Samarra was what allowed Iraq to last for over two weeks as the Iranians took Basra and much of the territory east of the Euphrates, while the Syrians pushed south with a relentless offensive, capturing the city of Samarra after intense fighting on the 29th of May and bombing the outskirts of Baghdad as June arrived. General Abdul Arif fled westwards to Egypt after calling for the people to fight to the last drop of blood for the Capital, instead the city was engulfed in panic as bombing attacks became more intense and, following a vicious fight at Fallujah, the city was declared an open city out of fear it would be further ransacked by the invaders. On the 3rd of June, the Arab Republic fell after less than a month of existence. A plethora of factors, from the disorganization of the officer corps, the lack of experience and outdated equipment of the Iraqi Army, the political instability of the nation following the May Revolution, the overwhelming advantage and mobility of the Syrian and Iranian forces, and the decisive control of the skies put an end to the independence of the Iraqi nation, carved between Syria and Iran roughly along the Euphrates river, although Baghdad now belonged to the Greater Syrian Nation.
The reactions in Israel following the Suez War were of celebration, the Negev settlements, including Bersheeba, were now reunited with the State of Israel, Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem were now annexed to a large Jewish state that went from Kiryat Shmona in the North to Eilat in the South, now with access to the Red Sea independently from the Egyptian-controlled Suez Canal. Everything after just brought in more and more reasons to feel a looming threat against the nation, Nasser himself came out stronger from this conflict, fully uniting Egypt and Jordan into a single Arab Republic with expressed goals of pursuing the destruction of Israel, especially as the conquest of the Negev split the UAR into two. The Suez was not safe for shipping any longer, so places such as Jaffa, Haifa and Tel Aviv saw their importance diminish while Eilat became the only access to the outside world, even then it involved the dangerous route of the Red Sea until either reaching Sudan or traveling through the strait of Aden, where on one side was the Italian colony of East Africa and on the other there was a Pan-Arab friendly republic to Egypt in Yemen. Nonetheless, despite being a nation under siege, it was still a time of peace, Mussolini did not needlessly hostilize the State of Israel by using the Italian Navy to harass the Israeli shipping, which sometimes required the use of a Convoy system to be able to travel abroad.
Of course there was the threat to the North, which was considered even more dangerous than the Arab forces, the Syrian Army and Saadeh's Regime were openly hostile to Israel, with no lack of Army officers calling for the complete extermination of it's population.
At this point it became a trivial routine to wake up and receive news of another threat made from Syria, the UAR or Germania, but that did not mean the threat was any less real. Proportionate to it's GDP, Israel invested more in it's armed forces than all of it's neighbors, a matter of national survival for a nation which was still building itself and even lacked a proper constitution. Thankfully, not all was lost, the British did not forget the support during the Suez War, and once Burton K. Wheeler was fired from the Secretary of State, showing a change of Long's government to favor more daring foreign moves under Secretary Rusk. The United States was perhaps one of the few nations which could be counted on to support Israel, New York had one of the largest Jewish populations in the world, with the backing of traditional families that supported the Zionist movement since it's inception such as the Rothschild family in London or the Rockefellers in America. Long had political stakes in getting the backing of the Jewish lobbyists in the US to pull them from the declining Democratic Party, although most of them ended up with the Republicans. Naturally, as Rusk claimed during a meeting, there is no single nation on Earth, other than Russia, that could be counted on as an unconditional ally against Germany as much as Israel.
The State of Israel itself made clear that the old joke was as true as ever, where there are two Jews there are three opinions, and why is that? Because even when under practical siege of foreign enemies that include a nuclear genocidal power, the Knesset could not come into an agreement on what path the State should take. The once dominant left in Israel had seen a sharp decline after it was revealed to the World that the Soviet Union ran concentration camps in Siberia and Stalin himself was an anti-semite who intensified the persecution of Jews during the civil war, especially under the influence of Ivan Serov. Socialism worldwide had taken a hit from the Soviet collapse as many in the Mapai, the Socialist Party, now had to face the fact the Soviet economic policies were inefective to fight a German invasion. The persecutions of the Arab states after 1947 led to hundreds of thousands of Jews from Morocco to Iraq to be expelled, especially after 1951 whn Darnand took control of the French State and began to persecute Algerian Jews in a scale that Laval and Petain never did. In 1949, the Law of Return was approved, where every Jewish person in the world had the right to possess Israeli citizenship and move to the new State, a law approved with absolute urgency after the war due mainly to the persecution still ongoing in Europe. Over the next decade, the Jewish population swelled in Israel, at the same time as many Arabs left the state, most settling on Jordan or Egypt under the protection of Nasser who began to organize them into a force to destabilize the Israeli State through terror attacks and raids. He called for Israel to be replaced by a Palestinian Arab Republic, coining this term first in his speech in 1953 following the formation of the UAR, naturally such a Republic would be another member of Nasser's growing State.
Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, faced the elections following the Suez War with a surprising result, the left had lost more seats than anticipated and for the first time, the right-Zionist leader Menachem Begin, had taken his seat in the Knesset as the Herut (Freedom) Party achieved a historical vote. The Herut was a Revisionist Zionist movement, claiming that Israel needed to strike first against it's enemies and expand further around the Jordan valley and other neighboring regions, not only out of historical right and as justice against the expulsion of local Jewish communities, but out of strategic necessity to allow for a defense-in-depth against the Syrians and Arabs alike. Religious Parties, such as the Agudat Yisrael, started off as anti-zionist movements in the Mandate, opposing the creation of a secular Jewish state as it could only be reinstated by Divine intervention. Needlessly to say, after their central in Poland came to meet the artillery shells of the Wehrmacht, the party stance had changed, millions of Polish Jews were lost, and those who remained were willing to set aside their opposition to Zionism, although they desired a greater influence of the Torah's principles in the State of Israel and stood in opposition against Ben-Gurion. The Prime Minister had his backers, such as the Histadrut, the General Confederation of Labor in Israel, who continued to back the Mapai. However, after Mao's victory in China, the Socialist movement saw itself divided. Many had sympathies for Maoism, believing it's emphasis on the peasantry and it's connection to the land was very much compatible with the Kibutzin, the agricultural communities established by Jewish settlers since the last century. Mao also had a stronger emphasis in supporting anti-colonial movements, with many Jews having sympathy for groups such as the Ethiopian independence groups that were suppressed by Fascist Italy. Others wanted to continue on a more Soviet mind, focusing on Industry and a more mainstream Marxist approach to economics.
However, in 1954, Iraq ceased to exist in a matter of weeks and no nation was more unnerved by the new Syrio-Iranian Axis than the State of Israel. Furthermore, several raids were launched that year targeting Jewish settlements in Gaza and the Negev, some with the support of local Arabs. Curiously, the Bedouin tribes of the Negev stood with the IPF to repel such raids as they saw many more benefits in allying with the Jewish State than to ally with Nasser. Moshe Dayam, Chief of the Israeli Protection Force, studied closely the tactics used by the Syrian Army, his conclusion was the vital need of furthering the Air Power of the IPF, with the use of fast fighters to counter the slower Syrian-German Dive Bombers that gave crucial support to the advancing enemy forces. Without the control of the air, he argued, the German Tactics could be countered, an equally aggressive action by cutting off enemy communication lines, sabotaging the operations behind their lines with the support of commandos, paratroopers and Secret Services, and the heavy emphasis of anti-armor equipment was the best form to counter the Syrian Army. Dayam's analysis would later be used by Russian Commanders during the Ural War to counter the German advances, however contrary to Russia, Israel was not a nation which could endure a defense in depth as they lacked the needed territory to trade land for time and overextend their enemies. "The Preemptive Strike", Dayam claimed, "is the greatest defense we can muster".
While after the Levantine War there was already an emphasis on the purchase of armaments as one of the State's greatest priorities, the Iraq War put that on Overdrive. The United States was now an open market, several American companies now were interested in selling armaments to Israel as Long imposed restrictions on the sale of weaponry through the American Protection Act, reducing it to "Friendly Nations", Israel was included on that list at the insistence of Rusk. Furthermore, the Free French and India proved to be unexpected allies, the former did not possess the necessary industry to sell weapons en masse, but West Africa turned out to be one of the most important training bases for IPF soldiers, away from the eyes of the Linz Pakt and with relatively similar geographical conditions in places such as Mali. India was a state many saw as a friendly nation, especially as Delhi had their own concerns about Iran and the threat of the Syrio-Israeli axis on the Persian Gulf. The Indians provided help in the manpower that Israel lacked in large projects, such as the construction of the Nation's first Nuclear reactor, finished in 1955 in the Negev. Furthermore, Ben-Gurion and Begin both held a secret obsession with Nuclear Weapons, something few could blame them for, even before Germany's first bomb was detonated in 1951. The Nuclear Research Center on the Negev, in collaboration with Nuclear Physicists such as Oppenheimer and Einstein, who moved to Israel in order to contribute to their secret program, it helped the fact both of them were Jewish and agreed with the Israeli leadership that only with the bomb could Israel stand a proper chance of long-term survival in the area.
Menachem Begin became Prime Minister at the end of 1954, with a more moderate tone and more focus on the security necessities of Israel. Ben-Gurion and him did not enjoy a good relation, the latter even came to call him a criminal in the Knesset during a speech, but Gurion was well-treated following his retirement as he claimed he could no longer handle the political disputes in the Knesset and was frustrated in his push for more socialist policies and an electoral reform in favor of a British Bipartisan system instead of the fragmented proportional representation. The Herut government came in the wave of fear caused by the Syrian conquest of Iraq as it was almost unanimous that the next target would be to march down into Jerusalem again. Begin kept Dayam in the command of the Armed Forces despite their large political differences as he came to understand better the man's capacity following several weeks of talks in the beginning of 1955. Plans were already being drafted for what would come, Begin and Dayam both agreed on the necessity of a preemptive strike, which is what the IPF began to work on, they could not allow the Syrians to march south to the gates of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem again, they could not allow crimes such as the massacre of Haifa to be perpetrated, the initiative could not be given to a force which was especialized in quick and aggressive warfare.
For Five years, there was no peace or war in the region, raids and attacks were launched against Israel by Nasser to keep the pressure on the IPF while he purchased more and more equipment from the Italian military and Egyptian officers were put under training. In Syria, Rommel would oversee the nationwide modernization between 1954 and 1958 when he was finally recalled back to Europe due to the planning of the Ural War (although he would not come to lead the expedition due to political reasons). In Iran, the Iranians worked to integrate their new territories while the Shah continued his modernization drive on the country, using the petrol sales to fund the growth of Industry and the military. Saadeh, following the conquest of Iraq, spent the next three years working to pacify it, crushing the Pan-Arabists and Communists who continued to resist his conquest and annexing it as a part of Syria proper. The conquest also emboldened the victorious General Shishakli and his own political ambitions as he was placed in command of the Pacification of Baghdad, managing it with brutal effectiveness by borrowing methods from the RSHA to control the population, it is estimated at least 60,000 thousand Iraqis died during the campaign between 1954 and 1957, more than those who died in the actual conflict. The Syrians had to keep a standing number of troops in the east to suppress the rebel movements, while others watched over the Jordanian border where Nasser and Saadeh continued their ideological standoff and watched Israel as a wildcard.
But once the Ural War began, the balance of the three main powers of the Levant was broken: The German supplies were diminished and several officers were recalled once the conflict began to stall, the political instability of Germania and the increasing irrationality of Rudolf Hess' actions resulted in contradicting orders being given to opperators. Hess was convinced that Israel was conducting operations of sabotage through the Mossad in support of the Russians. The Mossad did indeed take part in many operations, most famously they were suspected of being responsible for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SSK, the RSHA and one of the main masterminds behind the infamous Holocaust. But even before that, the Germans began to apply pressure for the Syrians to strike Israel, as Hess claimed that the United States would not be able to intervene while preocupied with Russia. This message was sent in January of 1959 following the Russian counter offensive and shortly before Wegener's downfall. Messages were being sent back and forth between the Syrian government and the German embassy, with a mobilization being partially started as thousands of troops began to move to Southern Lebanon and the Golan heights. In Cairo, Nasser saw this mobilization of Syrian troops on the Israeli border and answered in return by mobilizing his own forces near the border of Israel, he would not have the Syrians conquer the Jewish state when they had heavy stakes in making sure Palestine was under their own control. Furthermore, to strangle Israel and prevent the arrival of a weapons shipment, the UAR closed the Tiran Straits, placing the entire State of Israel under complete siege.
The Second Levantine War had begun.
It is ironic that the nation which launched the most perfect "Bewegungskrieg", a fast war, was the one which was most persecuted by it's creator. The IPF counted with a force far smaller than the combined UAR and Syrian forces but held certain advantages: In the previous years, the IPF has been given some of the best armaments available in terms of technology and reliability by the United States and the United Kingdom, while the Egyptians and Syrians many times were given more outdated equipment from their benefactors who did not wish to create a potential rival in the area. The Jews were fighting a war for sake of their survival as a people against an enemy determined to exterminate them, most of the soldiers were people who lost close family members in the previous wars or in the Holocaust, and they knew defeat would mean certain death, this was a motivator even stronger than the hatred propagandized by the Reich. In fact, the German propaganda undermined the Syrians, the Israelis were considered a weaker and completely subhuman species who would break at the first sign of heavy fighting and could only fight when they were propped up by their puppets, especially the British who were considered Germanic by Rudolf Hess. The Syrian general staff, which had increasingly brought into the Wehr's propaganda, underestimated their foes and did not expect them to strike first in Southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights. Furthermore, in the case of the UAR, their main army was split into two between Egypt and Jordan, with Nuwar being commander of the Arab forces in Jordan as part of a political compromise while Hakim commanded the Egyptian part of the army in the Sinai. The two had grown to be personal rivals in time and even Nasser began to see Nuwar with distrust as the latter complained on the far greater privileges the Egyptian part of the UAR received in investments compared to Jordan.
To the North, the IPF planned to strike towards Beirut and Damascus, while launching paratroopers to sabotage the Homs Industrial Park with the support of a few heavy bombers purchased from Canada. They believed that if a decisive blow could be made, securing the high grown in Lebanon and the Golan Heights, the Syrians would be forced to retreat and spend their forces in a counter attack, after such attack was beaten, the IPF would capture the two most important cities of Syria, their capital and their main Mediterranean harbor, with that it would force them into a Ceasefire. As for Egypt, the plan was to hold the Jordanians across the Jordan River valley and strike the Sinai to capture the Suez Canal and the Port City of Sharm El-Sheik, which would cut off the two halves of the UAR. Once a defensive position was achieved in the Suez and the Syrians were knocked out, the IPF would divert it's effort to crush the Jordanian part of the UAR. As part of the attack, rebel cells backed by the Mossad would strike the Syrians in Iraq and force them to keep their eastern forces pinned down to keep control of the region. Iran was the wildcard, Begin knew that if the Iranian Army was able to mobilize and send forces to the West at large enough numbers, the Syrians would continue in the War and the IPF would lose momentum. In that case, the priority would be to keep the defensive high ground in the north and focus on eliminating the UAR from the war. There was also the question of Turkey, considering how Saadeh's greater Syria included not only Alexandretta but much of Little Armenia which belonged to the Turks, Ankara has been appeasing the German Reich for two decades, but the Syrian rhetoric only became more aggressive in time after the Iraq War. But they had to be prepared for the worst scenario, that they were truly alone.
In preparation for their attack, the Syrians had removed their defensive minefields and barriers in the border with Israel, which worked against then as the Israeli forces, equipped with night-time vision equipment, launched the first attack using commandos, targetting Syrian supply depots. Paratroopers landed behind the enemy lines and Syrian soldiers awakened to complete confusion and Chaos. From Kyriat Shmona, the IPF was able to divide the Syrian forces into two by striking North with a pincer movement, using the high volcanic mountains of Lebanon to isolate the region while the Air Force struck the Railway lines North of Beirut, essentially isolating Lebanon for the first strike into the South. General Ariel Sharon, commander of the Northern Front, commanded a force of 50 thousand men, as well as the majority of the IPF's anti-tank artillery, facing a force of around 90 thousand led by Syrian General Shishakli, who true to his doctrine ordered an immediate offensive into Israel once he was awakened. Hours took before his orders were transmitted due to the sabotage, crucial hours on the 11th of April that by the end were impossible to keep as chaos led to commanders taking their own intiative in attacking or retreating at will. At Mansouri, around 4 thousand Syrians were encircled and pushed to the sea before being forced to surrender. When orders were changed to defend the border, IPF troops had already captured Katzrin and the Syrian coast of the Sea of Galilee.
Arab troops launched their own assault on the south to capture the city of Eilat, the Egyptian part of the army under General Hakim launched the assault, however there was a crucial lack of communication between him and Nuwar, which might have been the case even without the Mossad's interference. One ended up accusing the other for not backing the assault on the city as Hakim gave the order of retreat two days later to avoid an encirclement on the Sinai. IPF troops captured the City of Aqaba, encircling the Jordanian force sent by Nuwar who blamed all of the failure into Hakim's cowardice. Israeli armored forces further North attacked the North of the Sinai and attacks by paratroopers and commandos led to General Hakim to order a full retreat back to the Suez on the 13th of April, he had believed the Northern attack to be a diversion to take Arab troops from Eilat, but as he realized it was the main assault, his fear of an encirclement led to panic and a disorganized retreat which shattered the Egyptian morale. Arab troops in the Sinai were harrassed on the retreat and by the 15th, Sharm Al-Shaik was captured alongside the entire Sinai Peninsula. Even Begin did not expect the Egyptian portion of the UAR's army to collapse so quickly, the Aerial supremacy of the IPF was only confirmed in the next days as Cairo was attacked by Heavy Bombers. For now one of the fronts was finished, but if the initiative was not seized, the entire effort would collapse.
The Shah of Iran received the news in surprise, he did not expect to be involved in the Syrian conflict with Israel, their agreement was made specially to deal with the Iraqi Partition. His country had been caught in the Ural War, refusing to intervene, even to allow German forces to cross the coast of the Caspian Sea. After all, Mohammad Reza was enjoying a period of growth, he was more concerned over the status of Herat, which the Iranian government began to claim, and his dispute with India than with a war that could jeopardize his Central Asian gains. General Zahedi agreed to send an expeditionary force of around 7 thousand soldiers and to lend planes to the Syrian Air Force, but the Shah refused to declare War on Israel, arguing that Israel did not declare war officially against Syria, a minor loophole that led to Saadeh to break a vase out of anger in his office when hearing the News. The Shah offered to send troops to relieve the Syrian Garrisons in Iraq but the Al-Zaim refused the offer, suspicious the Iranians would seize the opportunity to claim Iraq and it's oilfields for themselves.
Menachem Begin was concerned with the Syrian counter-offensive plans, discovered by an interception by the IPF, however the war was going well in other fronts. The Jordanian attacks on the Negev region were repelled, the Egyptians still were broken behind the Suez and Israeli troops had taken Tiro in Lebanon, the largest settlement on the south of the Province. With the control of the heights, Dayam had two options, either to strike Damascus and hopefully divert the Syrians before their attack or to set a trap, he preferred to do the latter. On the 19th of April, one day after the scheduled date for attack, the Syrians launched the counter-offensive, named "Operation Saadeh's Spear", striking from Irbid and crossing the Jordan river with a force of around 50,000 troops and over 400 Tanks, backed up by around 80 planes leased by the Iranians. The attack faced a defense force of only 300 Israelites who, nonetheless, held for long enough for reinforcements to arrive, increasing their numbers to 12 thousand, on the 20th, renewed attacks by the Syrians broke the Israeli line as they retreated westwards. The Syrian army captured Beit Shean only to discover that the settlement had long been abandoned, the retreat was not a disorganised route, but an orderly and planned move. Only too late did Saadeh realize that it was a trap as on the night of the 20th to the 21st, the IPF struck from the North, cutting off the Syrian Army from their supply route in Irbid as the Air Force fought a vicious air battle against the Iranian planes. General Nuwar on the south asked permission from Nasser to strike north against the Syrians, an opportunity to retake Irbid while also defeating the IPF's force. The Arab President refused, he knew the Syrians still had a substantial force in reserve that could strike Jordan from the East, he preferred to cut his losses and sign a ceasefire with Begin's government on the 20th, losing the Sinai Peninsula and the city of Aqaba, leaving the Jordanians only with the port of Al-Dorra by the Saudi border.
Between the 21st and the 23rd of April, Saadeh's government was out of options. Shishakli was ordered to retreat, but the order took too long to arrive and by the time he did so, over 30 thousand Syrians, the cream of their army, was encircled alongside over 300 tanks and most of the artillery pieces allocated to the campaign. Attempts to break out of the encirclement were frustrated on the 22nd by Yadin's counter attack with 15 thousand troops from the West, many of them coming from the Sinai and Jordanian borders. The Iranian expeditionary Force was one of the few intact divisions left standing between the IPF and Damascus which started to get bombed by the Israelis. Antoun was forced to make the impossible and called for a Ceasefire on the 23rd after 12 days of war, giving the Golan Heights, part of Southern Lebanon and the Eastern part of the Jordan river, placing the City of Irdib dangerously close to the Israeli border, although the city remained Syrian. In return the encircled troops and Prisoners of War were allowed to return as long as they were disarmed.
In only Twelve days, the State of Israel defeated the United Arab Republic and the State of Greater Syria in a decisive confrontation, using of intelligence, air superiority, rapid attacks, deception and technological superiority to overwhelm their enemies despite being under a disadvantage of at least 4:1 in numbers. The shock of the defeat to the losers would teach them harsh lessons, while in Syria, the government and the military were at odds over who to blame, the Syrio-Iranian axis was more fragile than ever, and the UAR was not only discredited but it's two halves were now cut off and isolated from each other, making an eventual division almost inevitable. The hostility between Syrians and Pan-Arabists prevented any close cooperation between both sides which could have salvaged the war, in fact many military observers claim that if Nasser agreed with Nuwar's offer to strike the Israeli forces and break the encirclement of the Syrians, it is likely the war would have lasted longer and the Iranian army would be able to properly mobilize and march to the west. A longer conflict that devolves into an attrition war was the greatest nightmare of the Israeli leadership, however this impressive military victory was not the case, it was a triumph beyond every possibility that many claimed to have been a Divine Intervention. As the Germans fought in the Urals, their most despised enemy survived yet another test and emerged stronger, but every victory is succeptible to the hubris and pride of it's own victory. Time would tell if the Israelis would suffer that hubris and if they could truly afford to have it with such powerful foes on all sides.
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Well this one was far longer than I expected, but this is pretty much the Middle East in the 50s, what an interesting time.
Amazing chapter, just a little error:
You repeated a whole paragraph twice