Thanks very much to all who commented- you've given me some ideas as to how I can take the TL forward. If any of you disagree with my military actions here, please say so and I'll retcon if need be!
The cold mountain winter brought a temporary halt to both sides. The Soviets needed to ship in reinforcements from the Motherland as well as to garrison their new Pashtun subjects efficiently. Throughout the last month and a half of 1939, Red Army engineers were hard at work constructing a rail line to connect Kabul with Rawalpindi. The task was hard owing both to the terrain and lack of resources, which ironically enough had to be brought in by rail to Kabul and could go no further. However, the one silver lining in the project was that it provided good employment for the locals, and in the postwar years would benefit Afghanistan and British Sindh Punjab considerably. Of course, this being the Soviet Union, darker events were also occurring- the NKVD was having a field day rounding up prominent leaders in Rawalpindi and giving them a 7-mm present or free package holiday in Siberia. Events similar to the Katyn massacre occurred, with Islamic religious leaders a particular target. Rationing and requisitioning, those twin burdens of having an occupying army on one’s land, were imposed. Few Soviet soldiers spoke Urdu, and Afghan interpreters- whom themselves had a less than secure grasp of the tongue- were essential to the occupiers. The Sixth Rifle Corps was transferred from its position in Poland, bringing the total Soviet strength in Sindh Punjab to slightly over 100,000. Meanwhile, a new kind of Indian unit was raised- the Imperial Guard. This system consisted of those 16-18 and 35-60 years of age, who would be trained to resist the incoming Soviets should they be called up. At present, the British administration in India lacked the resources to establish a large number of organised brigades, but there was hope that that would change at some point. The decision to establish an Imperial Guard was, however, taken with a degree of caution by the British. Chamberlain was concerned that teaching Indians how to fight in defence of their homeland would fan the flames of Indian nationalism to such an extent that the people could one day turn violently against the British. However, given a choice between that possibility and losing India to the Soviets within a few months, arming the people was the lesser of two evils. Additionally, several French units of varying size arrived from Indochina. From the British perspective, the territorial losses of 1939 had been more or less anticipated. However, going into 1940, territory could no longer be viewed as expendable, as the Red Army would soon leave the relatively desolate mountains of Sindh Punjab behind and enter the heartland of India.
On Christmas Day 1939, Secretary of War Lord Leslie Hore-Belisha arrived in Calcutta to discuss the situation with General Sir Robert Cassels, Commander-in-Chief of all British forces in India and thus Apanasenko’s main enemy. The decision was taken to concentrate the limited defences around two points: Karachi and New Delhi. If the historical actions of Tsarist Russia were any guide, then the Soviets would seek to retain the city as their long-coveted warm water port once the fighting was over, and thus denying them Karachi at any cost was essential. Furthermore, although New Delhi was over six hundred kilometres away from the front lines, it was one of the largest cities in India, and its fall would have tremendous implications. As the colonial capital, it housed a large number of offices and bureaucrats who couldn’t be replaced easily or necessarily evacuated in a proper and timely fashion once the Red Army showed up. Furthermore, if the city’s large native population realised that the British couldn’t defend them, well, that would set a bad propaganda precedent and would no doubt inspire numerous mutinies.
Additionally, Lord Hore-Belisha agreed to send more equipment and supplies to General Sir Cassels, so that more units could be raised to combat the Soviets. While the need to protect the Mediterranean and Africa against possible Italian aggression meant that many units would be unavailable, he did promise to reinforce India with whatever was available. There was also the issue of the garrisons in Hong Kong, Singapore, and North Borneo. If these areas were to be stripped of their garrisons, then the defences of India would be given a substantial boost. However, in light of Japan’s history of aggressive actions disturbingly nearby, leaving the valuable British Far East undefended didn’t seem like the wisest course of action, to say the least. Additionally, the issue of increased conscription of the native population was discussed. While it was inevitable that there would have to be at least local conscription in areas close to the front, the fear that mass conscription would create social unrest, plus the relative lack of supplies for trebling the size of the British forces in India, meant that mass conscription was impossible. However, several old Indian formations which had fought in the First World War were reactivated, including the Bannu and Kohat Brigades, both of which were stationed in Karachi.
From the Soviet perspective, the efforts of 1939 had been good and all, but more would be needed in the coming year. Stalin was determined that India had to be conquered fairly quickly, otherwise the British would be able to mobilise more and more of the colony’s massive population to use against the Soviets. Thus, on December 10, he summoned Apanasenko back to Moscow for a tete-a-tete. The Soviet general was presented with a set of plans and orders for his campaign the next year, and given little say in how they should be executed. Stalin called for an offensive to capture Faisalabad and Multan and ordered that Karachi be taken by the start of March. Given the sluggish pace of the Soviet advance thus far, it was a rather tall order, and Apanasenko knew as much. Nonetheless, he was also aware that his command and life hung in the balance and spent the last weeks of 1939 holed up in his office at the Red Army headquarters in Rawalpindi, deducing a plan for his campaign. Operation Medved would involve all the forces the Soviets had put into their 1939 campaign, less two brigades which were to be kept behind for garrison purposes. However, Apanasenko’s task was made considerably easier by the arrival of the 25th Rifle Division and 15th Motorised Division, both of which had arrived from Ukraine. The plan was to advance down the right bank of the Indus River on an axis of advance towards Multan with the cavalry, motorised and armoured forces, while the remainder of the infantry launched diversionary assaults towards Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Lahore.
The operation commenced on January 5, 1940, with the Red Air Force’s Ilyushin DB-3 bombers taking off from the captured airbases in Rawalpindi and pounding British targets within a roughly 1250-kilometre radius (1) as Red Army artillery opened up on British positions. The Soviets climbed out of their mountain trenches and began the advance. Once again, the Red Army’s crushing numerical superiority meant that the Russians were able to achieve all of their objectives… with one exception. At the mountain town of Kalabagh, which fell under the scope of the 53rd Tank Division, wily British defenders planted dynamite charges in the narrow gorge through which the Soviet tanks had to pass. Three massive, clunky T-35 tanks were lost in this manner, and the division commander very nearly lost his job. The area through which the Soviet armoured, motorised, and cavalry column had to pass had some extremely difficult terrain, as the Indus River divides the land and tall mountains cut it even further, forcing the Soviets to take circuitous, zigzag routes through the terrain over the next week of fighting. Although traditional British defences were, as ever, rather thinly spread out, local snipers were able to give the Soviets hell, shooting at men as their lorries rolled slowly past and killing horses from under Red Army cavalrymen, before unobtrusively dropping back into terrain which they knew like the back of their hand. The number of small tributaries of the Indus which the Soviets had to cross using a limited supply of pontoons- as the bridges set up by the locals weren’t designed to accommodate anything nearly as heavy as a lorry full of soldiers, to say nothing of a tank- slowed the advance down considerably, and it was not until the ninth that the Red Army reached the small town of Wandha Kajjar.
Here at Wandha Kajjar, a prime example of the inefficient manner in which the Soviets were to conduct the war was demonstrated. (2) The orders given to Apanasenko by Stalin called for the Red Army to cross the Indus River and make for Karachi, a distance of over nine hundred kilometres as the crow flies. Given the torturously slow way in which the small tributaries had been crossed, Apanasenko was loath to manoeuvre his whole force across almost four kilometres of river. Doing so could take days and would give the British ample time to spring upon his force and catch it in a position of considerable weakness. Instead, as Apanasenko told his political commissar in Rawalpindi on the evening of January 11, he wanted to turn his army to the south and advance on a southwestern axis in between two mountain ranges past Paniala, and to move from there. The political commissar contacted Stalin about this change of plans, who reacted characteristically- he screamed at the commissar over the phone and threatened to have both Apanasenko and him “replaced” if the offensive did not go the way he had ordered. Thus, shortly after dawn on January 12, the Red Army began to cross the Indus River.
British intelligence was not blind to what was going on and had deduced that the Red Army was planning to cross the Indus (3). Accordingly, shortly before dawn on the 11th, two squadrons of Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers pounded Apanasenko’s men and tanks as they slowly crossed the river, wreaking havoc. There were no Red Air Force units in the sky to intercept the bombers, and as such, the only limiting factor for the British was their lack of bombs. Soviet casualties numbered approximately 200 killed or injured and fifteen tanks destroyed, most of them while trapped in the middle of the river on pontoon bridges. For Soviet soldiers, few of who had ever been under aerial bombardment before and who had seen little of the British during the whole campaign, the experience was terrifying.
Despite their heavy losses, the Soviets were able to limp into the town of Mianwali by sunset, severely behind schedule. When news reached Apanasenko, he got into a furious row with the Red Air Force commander accompanying his men into Sindh Punjab and demanded to know why his troops had had no air cover. The latter man replied that it wasn’t his fault that Apanasenko’s men hadn’t brought anti-aircraft weapons along with them (most of the Central Asian Front’s AA guns were located in the cities to dissuade British bombers), and also pointed to the need for fighters to protect the occupied cities. Stalin, meanwhile, heard the news from the political commissar at eight AM Moscow time, and immediately telephoned Apanasenko to congratulate him on following a “politically sound strategy.” This left the Soviet commander not knowing whether to laugh or cry, given that his political reliability- always a key trait in Stalin’s lieutenants- had just increased immensely, but at the cost of seriously weakening his new campaign. Such was emblematic of the sloppy state of the post-purge Soviet Union army, a prime example of how politics and military tactics dictated thousands of miles away shouldn’t mix.
While Apanasenko’s armour, cavalry, and motorised infantry had slowly advanced, the remainder of the Central Asian Front- the bulk of the 58th Rifle Corps, 25th Rifle Division, 15th Motorised Division, and the Sixth Rifle Corps (some 67,000 men) were advancing southeastward, starting on January 5. Given that they were walking instead of riding, their pace was somewhat slower, yet they still enjoyed a crushing numerical advantage over the British. Talagang and Chakwal fell on January 8 and 10, respectively, after the local Imperial Guardsmen were wiped out. However, the British were, as usual, trading space for time, and had decided upon a final defensive line past which the Soviets must not be allowed to pass.
If one looks at a map of northern Pakistan, running through the towns of Kallar Kahar, Pail, and Katas, one can see a line of mountains- by no means an uncommon sight. Just to the east of these mountains runs the Jhelum River. As General Cassels looked at his map with his subordinates, his pen ran along a line based around these two landforms. It was imperative that the Soviets not be allowed to advance past that line, and he issued orders to that effect. As such, all bridges over the Jhelum River in the sector were destroyed, and mines were laid in the mountains. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Brigades were transferred to the Jhelum sector, and in combination with the Imperial Guardsmen, the British strength in the sector swelled to some 20,000- which still gave the Soviets a 3:1 numerical advantage. Trenches were dug in the Jhelum-New Mirpur City area, and the defenders prepared to give Apanasenko everything they had. The relatively slow Soviet advance, hampered as always by the long supply lines, finally arrived at Jhelum on January 17, the same day that the town of Mangla fell. Here, the clumsiness of the Soviet advance proved itself once more. Orders were given by officers from Rawalpindi by telephone, which might often be out of date by the time they arrived. More often than not, in the absence of clear-cut orders, Soviet commanders (fearful of crossing their superiors and suffering consequences) simply threw their men forward in human wave attacks. The result was what postwar historians would call the “Miracle of Jhelum''. Despite the long odds and being viciously outnumbered, Jhelum held. Meanwhile, several kilometres to the north, the Soviet attempt to capture New Mirpur City (which began on the 17th) moved very slowly. The fall of the town of Khaliqabad on the 20th left New Mirpur City cut off from the rest of the British, and it would manage to hold out for a further ten days, tying down several thousand Soviet troops.
Meanwhile, the Soviet attempts to capture Jhelum were succeeding in the same way every Soviet success in the war thus far had been attained- through sheer weight of numbers. Although the Soviets enjoyed massive numerical superiority, their tactical clumsiness meant that by the time Jhelum was declared secure on the 19th, they were in no state to continue the offensive southeastward and the British could focus on strengthening their defences on the southeastern bank of the Jhelum River. The fighting in this theatre now cooled down as both sides licked their wounds.
From the Soviet perspective, Operation Medved had been a failure. Karachi was still a very long way away from the Red Army’s tentacles, and the people of India had yet to be incited into revolt. Following this failure, Apanasenko was recalled to Moscow, where he was informed that his “political reliability was being called into question”, and that only “his previous demonstrations of loyalty to the military line of the Centre” were saving him- ie, he was on very thin ice, and had he not crossed the Indus River as dictated by Stalin, he would be in prison by now. Nonetheless, the first few months of the Indian campaign were proof that the Soviet combination of politics and military tactics was not a good one.
Next update will be Finland!
Comments?
(1) These planes have a roughly 3800-km range, of which half is 1900km. The need to fly high in the mountains substantially decreases their effective operational range
(2) ITTL, without Operation Barbarossa, the Soviets will take far longer to reorganise their army from the sloppy state the Great Purge has left it in.
(3) Even this early in the war, there are a few Pashtuns who, operating by the maxim “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t”, are willing to act as spies in the occupied areas.
