Chapter 19

SEP 1940 AXIS FORMED GERMANY, ITALY, JAPAN

“World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.”

Ken Follett

As the year of 1940 was drawing to a close, the core leadership of the enemy was defined to be Germany, Italy and Japan.

Later in this Book Three, we will discuss the other countries that joined the axis and the reasons why they elected to throw in on the side of Hitler in his egotistical pursuit of total world domination. The Fuhrer saw his role as the “leader” of the all-powerful Third Reich and he considered his partners as necessary tools to be tolerated as a means to an end. Just like his plans for Stalin and their worthless agreement on paper, he most likely planned to destroy his partners one at a time at some later date when they least expected it.

Mussolini with his theatrical posturing was not amusing to Hitler because his entire strategy was to “act first” and talk about it later after the objective had been taken. El Duce was the sort of political figurehead that liked to discuss and study options leaving a decision until the last minute. The lack of cohesive military planning for any operation undertaken by the Italian military often led to disaster causing the Fuhrer to go into fits of rage harmful to his health and mental state of mind. It was not at all surprising that the Italian part of the Axis “Troika” fell apart before the end of hostilities in 1945. At one point the Italians were being taken as POWs by both the Allies and the Nazis at the same time and they generally were treated as jokes by both sides in the sense of an effective fighting force.

The crumbling of his southern flank in Europe added to his own disaster on the Eastern Front convinced Hitler that his only chance was to field some scientific miracle of a powerful weapon to change the course of the war. He was no longer concerned with the loss of a battle or even the loss of military manpower and equipment in his desperate attempt to win the war with some new sort of strategy that would defeat the forces surrounding him on all sides. His fanatical expenditure of national treasure in concluding the genocidal elimination of all Jews and other undesirables from Europe dismayed his senior military advisors more concerned with fighting a holding action against the enemy slowing squeezing them into certain unconditional surrender and an end to the Third Reich.

With the fast approaching advent of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Hitler found that his kick-off of Operation Barbarossa with a determined attack into the heart of the unprepared Soviet Union was initially successful but his group of key advisors told him that with the introduction of the United States into war with the Axis, he would soon be faced with an enemy of unknown potential in terms of fighting spirit and the ability to produce vast quantities of the tools of war and the determination to use it.

He expected the Americans to concentrate on their heavily damaged Pacific Fleet and to take revenge on the Japanese Imperial Navy because that is what he would have done in the same circumstances. Unfortunately for him, the American war planners determined that it would take a long time to build up the Navy and Marine manpower to turn the tide of battle in the Pacific and they decided to turn their attention to intervening in the war in Europe as a first priority for their immediate attention.

The introduction of American Air Power into the equation in Europe quickly changed the fortunes of war on the European battlefield because the hordes of fighter airplanes and long-range bombers into the war soon gave the Allies “Air Superiority” in every sector of the European theater of war. Despite the initial successes of the Wehrmacht in ground combat against the Allies with American troops carrying the brunt of the conflict, eventually the sheer numbers and enthusiasm of the newly arrived fighting force to the fighting fields of the war in Europe. The American troops learned valuable lessons in North Africa and then built their confidence on the battlegrounds of Italy slowing pushing the Germans north back to their own country.

Vichy France was swift to understand the way the scene was changing and they started to question their decision to throw in with the Nazis because they seemed to be the sure winners in the European conflict. Now that the Germans were so heavily involved in confronting the Russian Army on the Eastern Front, large sectors of Vichy France began to sprout new cells of resistance making the German occupiers vulnerable to sabotage from within and not being able to do much about it because they were faced with sure invasion from across the English Channel and they would be fighting on two fronts without the air superiority they enjoyed in the early stages of the war.

It didn’t take the advantage of “look back” time travel to appreciate the fact that Hitler was in a far better position with Japan as his Axis partner than the blustering Mussolini with his flowery speech and pretensions to glory. The deluded dictator had visions of a re-born Roman Empire like the one of Julius Caesar or Mark Anthony. He thought that he could ride the winning horse of Hitler as a partner in world domination and that it would restore Italy to the forefront of global politics. It was lunacy from the very beginning and sad for the Italian people unhappy with the association with their new friends, the Gestapo and brutality of Nazi bullies intent on ridding Europe of Jews once and for all.