Garrison
Donor
I haven't got any in the plan, but if there are any potential ones that might have taken part under different circumstances I'd be interested to know.
Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
With the speed of things, I can't see anyone training and equipping up to standards within a useful time frame.
Garrison
Donor
That's my thought as well, on the other had I guess someone who was sufficiently enthusiastic could stand up a formation, even if it is only used for second line duties.
What we are likely to see is English speaking volunteers in the US and UK/Commonwealth forces?
Garrison
Donor
That seems the most likely outcome, there might be companies or composite regiments operating inside the Allied forces.
Although I would think individuals volunteering as pilots, as occurred in OTL, might be more likely.
There were 'named Squadrons' in the RAF - often in name only but while the RAF tried to maintain a national aspect it rarely reached 50% even for the named RAAF and RNZAF Squadrons (both nations providing a staggering number of brave men to the RAF despite their smaller population) due to the natural (training and rotation) and wartime casualties and in practice the balance of personnel remained 'British'
Still no problem with their being a <Enter south American nation here> Squadron even if in name only in the same fashion!
The Condor Squadrons from Chile, and Argentina? That could provide some interesting butterflies...
6th May – 1st July 1943 – Germany – Targeting Hitler
Garrison
Donor
6th May – 1st July 1943 – Germany – Targeting Hitler
Hitler and the Wehrmacht had always had something of an ambivalent relationship. Hitler’s willingness to pour almost unlimited resources into rearmament had certainly won him support from the military professionals, however many continued to regard him as a ‘jumped up little Corporal’ and felt that he should leave strategic matters in their hands, which Hitler never had any intention of doing. The situation escalated to a point where the Heer actively considered his overthrow in 1938, Ludwig von Beck went so far as the resign his post as Chief of staff and was involved in the plot but abandoned it when it seemed that Hitler might suspect the Heer was planning to move against him and the momentum for action completely dissipated in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement. A year later and the Wehrmacht raised only muted objections to Hitler’s renewed plans to go to war, the only meaningful attempt to remove Hitler from power at this time was the bomb planted by Georg Elser in November 1939, an attempt thwarted only by Hitler’s decision to depart the Bürgerbräukeller where it was planted far earlier than anticipated. From 1940 through 1942 the Wehrmacht was remarkably supine. Some outside the regime certainly did attempt to stir opposition, such as the White Rose group, and all too often paid with their lives. Such principled opposition remained rare in Germany, and even more so within the ranks of the Wehrmacht. The idea that the officers Heer in particular were somehow a group of apolitical soldiers who simply did their duty and obeyed their oaths was one that those officers certainly did their best to promote after the war but the death of millions of Soviet POWs and the organized looting of food under the Hunger Plan were actions in which the Heer was directly complicit and to which few if any objections were raised. Only when it became clear that Germany was losing the war and that their own personal survival and the survival of the nation was at stake did some among the ranks of the Wehrmacht decide to finally take concrete action and even then, much of their preparation was marked by hesitation and a reluctance to translate planning into action. Even in 1943 there were still some who entertained the idea it might be possible to retain Hitler as a figurehead stripped of his power, or even that if only the inner circle of cronies around him could be removed, especially the quack doctors who plied the Fuhrer with all manner of dubious concoctions, he could be restored to his old self and put the conduct of the war back on a sensible footing. A few were clearer sighted and realized that only the death of Hitler could save Germany, and some chose to take matters into their own hands without worrying about what might come after the death of Hitler [1].
The early months of 1943 saw multiple independent schemes hatched to kill Hitler, and yet the same perverse luck that had saved him at the Bürgerbräukeller still seemed to be with him, ‘The devil protects his own’ as one exasperated would-be assassin commented. A disillusioned army officer Henning von Tresckow tried to place a bomb aboard Hitler’s personal aircraft during a visit to Smolensk. The bomb was in a package supposedly containing two bottles of brandy and von Tresckow gave it to a member of Hitler’s staff as supposed gift for the Fuhrer. The staffer accepted it and thirty minutes later the bomb went off, in a deserted corner of a hanger on the airfield. The staffer later profusely apologized to von Tresckow for being in a hurry and forgetting to load the package aboard, promising to ensure the delivery of the brandy if von Tresckow sent it on. As tempting as it may have been to try again von Tresckow chose to send the brandy on this occasion [2].
Rudolf von Gertsdorff was another army officer, and one willing to sacrifice his own life to end Hitler’s. Only days after the failure of the von Tresckow attempt von Gertsdorff also planned to kill Hitler with a bomb, this time intended to be planted at an exhibition of captured Soviet battle flags that the Fuhrer was scheduled to attend. Discovering that security at the exhibit was too tight to plant the bomb on the premises von Gertsdorff chose to secret the bomb on his person and get close to Hitler before it went off and killed both of them. What thwarted the plan was the fact that the bomb had a time fuse and despite von Gertsdorff’s best efforts Hitler chose to leave before the fuse reached ran down its ten-minute delay. This left von Gertsdorff to hastily find a quiet bathroom and disarm the device [3].
There may have been an element of black comedy in these accounts, but both had come remarkably close to killing Hitler and demonstrated that the security around the Fuhrer was anything but airtight. Both attempts contained the obvious flaw already mentioned that even if they had succeeded in eliminating Hitler neither von Tresckow nor von Gertsdorff had any plans for securing the transition of power after Hitler’s demise. Without such a plan for the more ‘rational’ elements of the Heer to swiftly fill the power vacuum it was more than likely that Goering or Himmler would seize control, outcomes which were unlikely to improve Germany’s situation, especially as both of them would inevitably unleash a deadly and wide-reaching vengeance on anyone even suspected of colluding in the death of Hitler [4].
Such considerations explain why some of those conspiring to kill Hitler were hoping the Allies might be persuaded to do the deed and allow them to maintain a certain plausible deniability, especially if yet another attempt were to fail and the Fuhrer was looking for a culprit to punish. The idea of killing Hitler had certainly been considered by the Allies, with MI6, SOE, the OSS, and even the Free French all having devised plans of varying complexity. The circuitous approaches to the Allies from inside Germany led to some of these ideas being re-examined but they were soon quashed at the very highest level. Churchill vetoed the idea after some discussions with Roosevelt and his reasoning for opposing an assassination was sound. Firstly, there was the question of how reliable these contacts in Germany were, there had after all been multiple occasions when the Wehrmacht appeared on the brink of turning on Hitler only to baulk at the last minute. There was no reason to suppose this time would be any different, and if the Allies were to target Hitler why risk trusting a group of Heer officers who might be acting as agent provocateurs, seeking to expose Allied intelligence assets in Western Europe? More fundamentally there was the question of whether killing Hitler would be a net benefit to the Allies. It might, only might, have slowed the dreadful toll of the death camps, if the plotters could take power and kept their promises to put an end to the Judaeocide, something that no one in Whitehall was willing to place much faith in. On the other hand, without Hitler’s interference the German ability to prosecute the war might well be considerably enhanced, which was indeed something the plotters were hoping for, and an assassinated Hitler might well become a martyr and create a legend akin to the ‘stabbed in the back’ mythos that had helped the rise of the Nazis. Since no one in the Allied High Command had any interest in drawing out the war, or fighting Germany again in another twenty years, the Allies decided that whatever the moral issues they were better off with Hitler in charge of Germany [5].
After his failure in March von Tresckow soon became involved in a new and far more elaborate plan to not only kill Hitler but to take control of Germany away from the Nazi regime altogether, with Himmler, Goering, Speer, and others in the inner circle taking the fall for the assassination and leaving the plotters clear to take control of Germany and seek some reasonable terms from the Allies, meaning the Western Allies. This was Operation Valhalla and ironically it had not originally been created to overthrow the Nazi regime, but to preserve it if some disaster befell the Fuhrer. Valhalla was a piece of contingency planning on the part of Hitler and his inner circle that recognized that in the eventuality of Hitler’s death it would be vital for the Wehrmacht to move to ensure stability and continuity, especially if the Fuhrer’s death was the result of hostile action. The importance of the plan for Hitler and his inner circle was emphasized by the assassination of Mussolini and the cracks that had opened in the Fascist government in the aftermath of his death, such disorder in the Reich was simply unthinkable. The framework of Valhalla allowed those plotting Hitler’s downfall to layout their plans for the aftermath of his assassination almost in plain sight. There were even areas where the conspirators agreed with Hitler’s strategic plans, for example they had no intention of budging one inch in the east and were instead committed to withdrawing troops from places such as Denmark and Norway and shipping them to the USSR to shore up the defence against the Red Army, and it would be a defence, the Valhalla plotters diverged from Hitler’s vision in their recognition that further conquest in the East were impossible, better to stand on their gains and force the Soviets into bloody and exhausting offensive action [6].
Such ambitions for the future of the Reich of course required that the plotters have a workable plan to kill Hitler in the first instance and despite the previous failures the Valhalla conspirators once again chose planting a bomb as the best option. Using a knife or gun to assassinate the Fuhrer, assuming that one was allowed to carry such a weapon in Hitler’s presence after the fate of Mussolini, carried too much uncertainty, and it would be completely impossible to hide the identity of the perpetrator in such a personal attack, making it difficult to pin the blame for the Fuhrer’s death on one of the other parties the conspirators wished to be rid of. Poison would allow the murder to be carried out from a distance, but von Trescow’s prior experience persuaded the plotters that anything that had to pass through multiple hands outside of the circles of Valhalla was too haphazard, and what if some other party sampled the poisoned food or drink before Hitler? So, a bomb planted in a location Hitler would be visiting was still the best option in spite of all prior experience. Translating this basic idea into a detailed plan proved a fraught business. Finding a suitable opportunity, and someone reliable willing to carry the bomb into Hitler’s presence was no easy feat. The issues were compounded by the skittishness of some of those involved, any hint that Hitler, the SS, or the Gestapo might suspect something was afoot was enough to induce paralysis that saw weeks go by as the plotters sought to lay low. There were, even after having apparently deciding that Hitler must go, those who questioned whether they should rush to carry out the plan. After all, if Operation Citadel succeeded and/or the Allied landing, wherever and whenever it took place, failed as Dieppe had the previous year then Germany’s strategic situation would be radically changed regardless of who was in charge and events in the Mediterranean did nothing to encourage their plans [7]. This was wishful thinking but given that hesitation had carried the planning for Valhalla into June there was a very real fear that if the Allies landed while the conspirators were still trying to secure their hold over Germany, or Berlin at least, then it would all too easy for others to brand them as turncoats. There was also the problem that if the Wehrmacht were caught up in the chaos of a coup when the Allies landed, then they might well achieve their objectives in Western Europe without the need to deal with the new leadership in Berlin. All this handwringing meant that the days continued to tick down to the launch of Operation Citadel and Operation Millennium with Hitler still firmly in charge. Only after the disastrous outcomes for Germany of the renewed fighting in the east and the west would the Valhalla plan finally be put into effect [8].
Even if Valhalla had been put into effect in May, or if any of the earlier attempts of 1943 had succeeded there was little chance of the death of Hitler achieving any of the would-be assassin’s goals beyond his death. The Allies hadn’t rejected plans to kill Hitler simply because they saw him as impeding the German war effort. They had also concluded that to ensure the peace of Europe in the future Germany would have to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch, and there were those arguing against any rebuilding, preferring to ‘salt the earth’ and destroy Germany as an industrial nation. A successful Valhalla would have been met with the same simple, stark response to any request for terms from the Allies, the only acceptable terms were the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany [9].
[1] I don’t have a very high opinion of the OTL Valkyrie plot, half-assed and largely carried out to try and save Germany from the consequences of its actions.
[2] The plan here is authentic, just a slightly different failure mode.
[3] This one however is precisely as per OTL, Hitler’s randomness seems to account for most of his luck in avoiding assassination attempts.
[4] Both plans seem to have been fuelled by personal animosity towards Hitler rather than any larger political objective.
[5] It’s cold-blooded logic, but it’s sound logic.
[6] Fundamental problem for the plotters is how to create a situation where someone will be willing to make peace.
[7] What events? That will be revealed shortly.
[8] So no assassination attempt yet by the Valhalla plotters and other things will get in the way too.
[9] The Allies might not have formalized everything yet, but unconditional surrender is pretty much all they will offer.
Garrison
Donor
The plotters didn't seem to understand that offering to replace the Nazis with old fashioned German nationalists wasn't much of a bargain.
The Schwarz Kapelle was very much concerned by "what might come after the death of Hitler". One reason they did not move against Hitler in 1939-1942 was that throughout this period, Hitler was almost continually successful, and for that reason supported by the German people in general. Striking him down then would immediately be judged as treason; the SK would be repudiated, and the Nazi regime would be reinforced by the image of Hitler the martyr.
Hitler never drank hard liquor, and by 1943 had even given up beer.
Obviously not a True German then which heads off into all sorts of awkward "No True Scotsman" directions.
Garrison
Donor
And yet that was the plan that von Tresckow tried. It's possible the reason the Brandy wasn't loaded OTL was that Hitler's staff knew he wouldn't appreciate it.
Not OTL. The package was described as a gift from Tresckow to General Stieff at OKH. And it would make no sense for him to try it ITTL - Hitler's abstinence from alcohol was well known.
The parcel being left behind is an interesting variant - though OTL, because of the tight timing allowed by the detonator, Tresckow's collaborator von Schlabrendorff armed the bomb just before he handed the parcel to LtCol Brandt of Hitler's staff as Brandt boarded the plane. The detonator was a captured British "delaying pencil" with a time of 30 minutes. However, there were "pencils" with various shorter and longer delays, from 10 minutes up to 24 hours. If a 2-hour pencil was used, then the package could be placed in luggage, and possibly left behind. The actual delay could be up to 8% longer or shorter than the spec.
Or the incident could go like this...
The bomb is made up with a 6-hour pencil. Hitler is to arrive at AGC HQ around 10 AM, meet with AGC commander von Kluge and his staff, have lunch in the HQ officer's mess, and take off for Berlin at 3 PM, arriving in Berlin four hours later.
Schlabrendorff arms the bomb at 12 noon, and hands it off to Brandt a few minutes later. Brandt has an orderly take it to the airplane. It should go off three hours into the flight. But some remark at lunch sets off Hitler; he decides he must return to Berlin ASAP. He gets up immediately and goes straight to the air field, taking off at 1 PM.
When the plane lands at Schönefeld, the bomb is about an hour from detonating. Hitler immediately drives to OKW, about 20 minutes away in Zossen, accompanied by his staff including Brandt. Stieff is at OKH, which is next door. (OKW and OKH were in adjacent but separate bunker complexes.) Brandt decides he will walk the parcel over to give to Stieff personally.
While he's en route, the bomb goes off. He's killed; no one else is injured. Brandt never mentioned the parcel to anyone nor where he was going when he left Hitler's entourage. It's all very mysterious - except to the SK, who have been sweating bullets since the plane landed.
OK, I'm trampling all over the OP's TL (apologies for the impudence), but I can't help running with something like this when it gets in my head.
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And the USSR. Olga Chekhova was a Russian actress (niece by marriage of the playwright Anton Chekhov). She fled to Germany after the Revolution, and became a star in German cinema. After the Nazi takeover, Goebbels had control, and he enjoyed socializing with glamorous stars like Chekhova. Other Nazi bigwigs participated, and Chekhova was photographed with Hitler. Her brother, Lev Knipper, had an odd career: by the 1940s, he was a noted composer; at the same time he'd been an NKVD agent since about 1920. Soviet spooks floated a plan for Knipper to be infiltrated into Germany, contact his sister, and and exploit her high-level connections (which they greatly overestimated) to get to Hitler. Nothing came of it, but the idea was out there.
(BTW: after the war, Chekhova lived in West Germany and started a successful cosmetics company. Her granddaughter became an actress, and in the late 1950s dated an American soldier stationed in Germany: a nice young fellow from Tupelo, Mississippi.)
Garrison
Donor
Interesting, of course I suspect the Soviets would also have realised that Hitler was more use alive than dead.
Sounds like one of those quiz questions "What are the minimum no. of separations between Hitler and Elvis?"
😋
June 12th – June 28th 1943 – Greece - Operation Jasper - Part I – Reclaiming the Dodecanese
Garrison
Donor
June 12th – June 28th 1943 – Greece - Operation Jasper - Part I – Reclaiming the Dodecanese
Operation Jasper has almost inevitably been overshadowed in histories of World War II by the preparations for D-Day and of course the Normandy landings themselves. It is sometimes dismissed as little more than an overly elaborate diversionary tactic, or as merely a politically motivated stunt that drew resources away from other theatres of operation. Certainly, there were political motivations involved in planning Operation Jasper, but the same could be said of many of the other offensives mounted by the Allies in the latter half of the war and it didn’t mean that this renewed action in the Aegean was misguided or without practical benefits. The Greek government in exile had been agitating for an effort to liberate their country practically since the day they were forced to evacuate, and they used every means at their disposal to obtain support from the British in particular. The government in exile pressed the dubious idea that Greece had been abandoned or betrayed by the British in 1941, provoking exasperation and anxiety in equal measures in Whitehall, which created the opposite effect to that the Greeks had hoped for, making the British less inclined to assist. With other strategic priorities taking precedence the Greeks had been forced to settle for an effort to create a Free Greek army, which eventually mustered four full divisions, primarily tasked with taking over the defence of Crete during 1942 and providing garrison forces in Palestine and the Levant. In the aftermath of the invasion of Sicily and the German occupation of Italy there was a greater willingness to support the Greeks in reclaiming at least part of their homeland, partly it must be admitted because it would play into the Allies deception plans. One other matter of concern for the Greek government in exile as the war went was the nature of the resistance groups that had sprung up on the Greek mainland, with an alarming number of them being Communist affiliated, alarming at least to the government exile and certain politicians in London and Washington. The government in exile raised the spectre of a communist takeover of Greece if the forces of the legitimate regime continued to do nothing in the eyes of Greek people while the communists fought the invader, and these communists might even take over if the Axis position in Greece collapsed in the aftermath of a successful invasion of continental Europe [1].
How realistic such fears were, or indeed how genuine they were remains uncertain and how much of an impression this argument made in London and Washington is equally unclear. What is certain is that the Allies saw an opportunity to enhance their efforts to persuade the Germans that a more general offensive aimed at the Balkans was still being prepared and continue to pin down Wehrmacht forces in the region. From the practical perspective taking Rhodes would potentially unhinge the Axis defence of the whole of the Dodecanese Islands. There was also certainly a sense that by the spring of 1943 Rhodes constituted ‘low hanging fruit’ when it came to liberating Axis held territory, meaning that it wouldn’t be necessary to commit massive resources to carry out an effective invasion.
The garrison on Rhodes was composed entirely of Italian troops and it had steadily deteriorated in both numbers and quality over the years of the occupation. After the fall of Greece Rhodes had swiftly become a backwater as far as military importance went and the threat from aircraft and submarines operating from Crete and Egypt made it increasingly difficult to supply. The garrison’s overall strength peaked at around four thousand troops, and this had decreased to less than three thousand by 1943, owing mostly to what was referred to as natural wastage, troops who had to be repatriated to Italy because of injury, illness and disciplinary offences, simply not being replaced. Even maintaining this number had required the withdrawal of units from several of the smaller islands of the Dodecanese, and as a result many of these had been quietly picked off by British and Greek forces operating out of Crete, in or two cases these actions amounted to little more than Allied troops simply coming ashore and accepting the surrender of the occupying forces.
As pleasant a place as Rhodes might have been for a holiday conditions for the locals and the occupying forces became increasingly grim and with the German intervention in Italy the already shaky morale of the troops had plummeted, with a noticeable uptick in accidents and disciplinary infractions, to the point where the order came down from Rome that soldiers would only be repatriated for the most serious of disciplinary violations and criminal acts. Any soldier suffering a self-inflicted wound would automatically be charged with desertion and cowardice, both of which carried the threat of the death penalty being imposed if found guilty and with the Germans looking over their shoulder it was all but guaranteed that the Italian High Command would impose and carry through such sentences. Desertion was in way a better option as fleeing into the countryside simply left Italians soldiers exposed to the vengeance of the embittered and angry locals.
The constant looting and criminal acts carried out against the Greeks, which notably rarely attracted punishment, simply made matters worse, as did the fact that the Italians could not prevent the populace from learning of the seemingly endless setbacks the Italians had suffered in the war. When small teams of Free Greek troops were landed to prepare the way for the liberation, they had little difficulty securing aid from disgruntled Rhodians, though the risk of betrayal remained omnipresent and one team was caught by the Italians, who executed them alongside half a dozen locals who had been aiding them. This incident did nothing to raise an alarm on Rhodes about a possible attack, such operations were taking place along the coasts of mainland Greece and Yugoslavia and there was nothing to set the missions on Rhodes apart from the others. The thin supply lines connecting Rhodes to Italy meant that little had been done to build up any sort of defences that might have impeded an attempt at an airborne or amphibious assault, with few artillery pieces or anti-aircraft guns being supplied and those that were on Rhodes were old, poorly maintained, short on ammunition. A few tankettes had been provided to the garrison for security purposes. These would have been all but useless in combat even if a lack of maintenance and spare parts hadn’t meant all of them were immobilized by April of 1943 with the same being true for what little motorized transport the Italians had available [2].
Arguably by this point in the war these furthest surviving outposts of the Italian empire should have been abandoned. The provided no sort of defence perimeter for either the Greek mainland or Italy given Allied dominance on the sea and in the air. In the aftermath of Mussolini’s death and the occupation of Sicily there were plenty of people in Rome who would have supported such a move, except that the Ciano regime had little choice except to fall in line with Hitler’s mantra of not one step back and hold fast even in places where there was no longer any strategic logic to remaining. The Nazis might have been concerned about an Allied landing in the Balkans, but this simply served to pin down the Wehrmacht already in the region, it did not result in the dispatch of any fresh troops and if it had they certainly would not have been wasted on the defence of Rhodes [3].
The troops who would face the dispirited Italian defenders had suffered their own dark days during the fall of Greece, stripped of weapons and equipment and forced to abandon their homes and family as they were evacuated to Crete. However, by the time of Operation Jasper the available Greek troops had been reorganized and re-equipped as part of the reconstituted 6th, 7th and 10th Infantry Divisions to the same standard as their British and American counterparts. While the troops of the 6th Infantry Division had been denied a major role in any of the Allied operations in the Mediterranean, mostly owing the government in exile not wanting to squander its limited resources detachments up to the regimental level had served with British forces during the North African campaign and contingents had seen combat in Syria, Lebanon, and Libya. In August of 1942 the 10th had taken over garrison duties on Crete, releasing a British division for service elsewhere. This transfer was only temporary as they were soon tapped to join the invasion of Rhodes alongside the 6th, indeed they would make up the bulk of the Allied forces involved as one of the limitations on Operation Jasper was that it could not draw any resources away from Operation Millennium [4].
Despite the demands of other forces, the Greeks had also formed an armoured regiment, though its total strength was well below the establishment of any British equivalent. The 4th Independent (Greek) Armoured Regiment (the number was chosen to conceal the actual strength of Greek forces) consisted of only three companies of tanks. Alpha Company deployed 3 platoons (the Greeks had eschewed the use of terminology such as Troop or Squadron) of M3 Stuart while Beta and Gamma Companies had one platoon of Stuarts and two of Crusaders. There was also an attached company containing Dingoes and some Universal Carrier to tow light anti-tank guns. 4th Independent could perhaps deploy seventy tanks at best, but this was still a formidable force when one compared it to the support available to the Italians on Rhodes. The initial landing force would consist of about four thousand men of the 6th Infantry Division going ashore near Ialysos with a small force of tanks being deployed by landing craft, the rest of the armour would have to await the seizure of port facilities, with the plan calling for the Greeks to capture facilities in Ialysos itself within seventy-two hours of the landing. Given previous experience in amphibious assaults this might have seemed an ambitious goal but on Rhodes it proved to be rather conservative [5].
Naval fire support would come from a contingent of eight Royal Navy ships and one Free French destroyer, the MN Léopard. The force was led by the light cruisers HMS Ajax and HMS Edinburgh and had single escort carrier attached, HMS Stalker, with a complement of twenty-two aircraft, eight Seafires and fourteen Barracudas. In addition to providing fire support the naval force was also tasked with guarding against any attacks by the Regia Marina. There were several Italian patrol boats in the area, but the real concern was submarine attacks, though in reality the remaining submarines of the Regia Marina were afflicted by the same fuel shortages that crippled the remaining surface warships and the Regia Marina was in an even worse position to defend Rhodes than the troops deployed on Rhodes [6].
[1] So this a fairly massive butterfly, more of a Kaiju really, that has come about because of the radically different course of the war.
[2] Rhodes is the end of a very long supply line for a country that’s more worried about the Allies landing in Italy itself or the Germans completely taking over the country.
[3] The Italians weren’t crazy, they knew Rhodes was untenable, but they were no longer masters in their own house.
[4] These seemed like the most logical choices for rebuilt divisions and there are rather more weapons and equipment available than there would have been IOTL.
[5] It’s not the most powerful invasion force ever assembled, but then it doesn’t really need to be very powerful to overmatch the Italians.
[6] And we will see how the Greek and Italian forces perform in the next update.
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