As October ended, the Allied battle lines in the Caucasus were in a shambles. Though XLIV Corps was stalled in front of Baku, dangling at the end of a tenuous line of supply, lead elements of Army Group A had approached the city from the north along the Caspian coast, and the 1st Panzer Army was transferring responsibility for the Baku front to the 17th Army in order to prepare to carry its attacks north from Makhachkala. Desperate to forestall the next Axis assault and regain some ground before winter put an end to major operations, the XXI Corps staff was pleasantly surprised when their Russian liaison officer suggested a renewed attack to throw back the XLIV Corps and the Turks. The joint Russo-British operation was christened “Pluto” and, though the British did not know it at the time, the Red Army intended it to be a small prelude to “Uranus,” a great offensive to encircle the Germans at Stalingrad. Lt. Gen. E. P. Quinan, commanding the 10th Army, recommended that the 9th Army undertake a simultaneous attack to distract the Axis and draw off Turkish reserves.
It happened that the 9th Army’s operation, code-named “Grenadier,” suffered repeated delays and did not begin until Pluto was well under way. Nonetheless, when it finally began on November 1, Grenadier was initially successful. While the reinforced III Corps (2nd British Division, 31st Indian Armored Division) occupied the Turkish 5th Army, XXV Corps cracked the seam between the two Turkish armies and raced north, breaking one Turkish division and capturing another almost intact. Demoralized by British air superiority, the 5th Army fell back hastily, forcing the 4th Army to abandon its gains as well. Resistance solidified as the advancing British and Indian columns came up against the mountains of Turkey proper, but the success of Grenadier precluded any effective reinforcement of the Turkish forces in Russia and absorbed fuel and munitions earmarked for the 2nd and 3rd Armies. Combined with the British 8th Army’s victory at El Alamein, Grenadier thus staved off the Axis threat to the Suez Canal for the immediate future.
By the time Grenadier was launched, however, Pluto was already losing steam. To the south, a pincer attack by the 72nd and 73rd Armies did inflict heavy losses on the Turkish XII Corps, but came to a halt in the face of a desperate rearguard action fought by the 4th Cavalry Division. Near Baku, XLIV Corps was the principal target of Pluto. Weakened by weeks of unremitting combat, and low on food and ammunition after RAF bombers repeatedly interdicted the frail Turkish rail system, de Angelis, expecting an attack, skillfully positioned the 97th and 101st Divisions along with two attached Turkish divisions to counter the anticipated Allied advance.
The wisdom of his dispositions was soon evident. Although the effort cost heavily in casualties and severely depleted the limited Axis ammunition reserves, the Germans and Turks repulsed the Allied attacks with considerable loss. After three days of bitter fighting, de Angelis still held most of his ground, seeming to vindicate Hitler’s insistence on standing fast. Over the next several days, his corps was reinforced by four Turkish regiments arriving from the central reserve in Ankara, and ammunition stocks were replenished by redistributing supplies from the 17th Army. The British and Indian XXI Corps, on the other hand, though able to retain some of its gains, was temporarily spent as an offensive force. Its mission thus ended in failure, despite great exertions and high casualties, when the weather finally brought major operations to an end in mid-November.
Taking stock in the second week of November 1942, the Allied leaders faced a grim situation of desperate choices. The view from the Kremlin was deeply gloomy. The disaster in the Caucasus had wounded the Red Army badly, shaking its psychological foundations as well as consuming thousands of men and large quantities of material. Though Baku remained in Allied hands, the oil situation was growing critical and German forces were realigning themselves to threaten the lower reaches of the Volga. If the Luftwaffe could make enough aircraft available, Soviet shipping across the Caspian Sea could face prohibitive losses, endangering the slender link to their remaining sources of oil as well as to the huge range of supplies arriving from the West via Iran.
Furthermore, the involvement of Turkey in the Axis cause, and the apparent “liberation” of millions of Turkic peoples in the Caucasus raised the terrifying specter of ethnic unrest for the Soviet regime in the vast stretches of Central Asia. If Berlin could handle them adroitly, the populations of the Caucasus might develop into an enormous asset for the Axis powers and a dangerous rear area foe for Moscow.
While Beria clamped a tighter hold on Central Asia, the Stavka grappled with more immediate operational questions. A Soviet counterattack was imperative, but the physical and psychological damage of the Caucasus defeat, especially the reduction in oil supplies, meant that offensive operations would be limited, if possible at all. Prior to the catastrophe in the south, two great counteroffensives had been in planning for November: one called Uranus, to cut off the German thrust toward Stalingrad; and another, Mars, designed to eradicate a massive German salient west of Moscow. Clearly, one of these at least would now have to be cancelled, and whichever one was undertaken would be both more doubtful and more dangerous. What Stalin and his generals had previously approached with confidence now became a desperate last throw of the dice.
The politicians and generals in Washington and London were equally worried. There were several important and encouraging developments: Operation Torch was proceeding well, the British 8th Army was pursuing Rommel out of Egypt and Operation Grenadier had at least removed any Turkish threat to the Suez Canal until the spring of 1943. The debit side of the ledger, however, was dark indeed. Turkey’s accession to the Axis meant that there was no longer a neutral obstacle to a German thrust toward the Suez Canal from the north. Even worse, the Axis triumph in the Caucasus placed potentially powerful German forces in a position to sever the Iran corridor to Russia and, in the spring, to seize Baku in preparation for a strike south toward the vital Persian Gulf oil fields. Looming ominously over these threats, of course, was the terrifying possibility that Russia might come to some accommodation with Hitler and drop out of the war entirely.
These imminent threats to vital Allied interests imposed daunting operational and logistical requirements. The 9th and 10th Armies, with their supporting air components, would have to be reinforced to preclude any further Axis progress toward Baku, the Persian Gulf, or Suez. This would divert at least one American armored division, a large number of scarce fighter and bomber squadrons, and significant logistical assets away from the anticipated struggle in Tunisia and southern Europe.
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The constriction of the Iran corridor to Russia also meant that Britain and the U.S. would have to resume the vulnerable Murmansk convoys at the earliest feasible date in order to demonstrate support for their Soviet ally. The urgent need to relieve pressure on the USSR also led to renewed strains on the alliance as both the Americans and Russians increased their calls for a Second Front in Western Europe early in 1943.
The Germans also faced crucial strategic decisions in mid-November, 1942. The most important issue was the future employment of Army Group A. It was clear to everyone in Hitler’s headquarters that the drive to conquer Stalingrad would continue. Yet, with every available unit needed to reinforce Tunisia, maintain the Reich’s defences in Western Europe, and repress the growing insurgency in Yugoslavia, a significant number of German formations would have to be maintained to bolster the Turks in the Transcaucasus, keep pressure on the Allies, and prepare for an offensive to Baku and points south in the spring. Several divisions at least would be required to pursue the retreating Russians to the lower Volga, and several might be sent to Stalingrad once they had refitted, but would they be enough to tip the scales in the Wehrmacht’s favor? Luftwaffe assets were even more scarce than ground troops. Stretched to its limits to prosecute the fighting at Stalingrad and in North Africa while supporting land operations and defending the Reich against the Anglo-American bombers, the German air arm could barely maintain a token presence in Turkey. Would those few squadrons be adequate to counter the growing Allied air strength? None of these questions had easy answers, but Hitler, the dull rumble of battle from Stalingrad notwithstanding, took satisfaction in his success in the Caucasus and looked forward to 1943 with great anticipation.
Our scenario examines the serious German efforts to enlist Turkey in the Axis cause from 1940 through 1942 and the actual inducements and threats presented to Ankara during that time. Germany’s strategic situation in the spring and summer of 1942, the state of Turkey’s military preparedness, Allied plans and the basic Allied forces available, are also factual. Proceeding from this factual foundation, we can use the scenario as a historical laboratory to consider two questions. What would have had to change to allow such a significant alteration of Turkey’s actual behavior? And if the Turks did join Hitler, what would have had to happen to ensure success?
For the first question, the key factor for Turkey’s participation in the war was its leadership. Inönü, Saracoglu, Menemencioglu, and Cakmak, though divided in other ways, were all united in their desire to keep Turkey out of the war. They certainly feared the Soviet Union, but were equally wary of becoming another of Hitler’s puppets. For them, the best outcome was one in which Berlin and Moscow held one another in check and thus created international space in which Turkey could pursue its own interests unencumbered. At the same time, Turkey’s leaders held German military power in high regard and exhibited an especially deep alarm at the prospect of air attack on their cities. They thus resisted London’s approaches and carefully steered a course between both sides to avoid what they were sure could only be ruinous involvement in the conflict raging all around them.
To make this scenario work in our narrative, therefore, differences among the Turkish leaders were exaggerated to permit a coup and the rise of a fictional pro-German clique. In fact, although these men might have had leanings one way or another, they remained Turks first and foremost, keeping their own national interests firmly in view at all times. It was also necessary for our purposes here to ignore President Inönü’s tight control of the country. As Saracoglu and others discovered, they all served at the president’s pleasure and found themselves dismissed if their views or activities strayed too far from his intentions.
The second question this scenario illuminates concerns the requirements for military success against the USSR, assuming that Germany had coaxed Turkey into joining the Axis. The answer is deceptively simple: more German ground and air forces. It is unlikely that the Turks, given the state of their army and air force, could have prevailed alone in an attack into the Transcaucasus. The Soviets did send six divisions and four brigades north from the Turkish frontier in August as Army Group A drove south from Rostov, but they always kept a close watch on Turkey and did not denude the border.
In addition there were Red Army troops available in Iran and in the Stavka Reserve that could have been used (albeit at a cost in transportation and logistic assets) had Turkey shown signs of tying its fate to Germany’s. Depletion of the Stavka Reserve might have had an effect on the abortive Operation Mars, the counterpart offensive to Uranus in central Russia during November 1942, but it is highly unlikely that Stalin would have allowed any diminution of the forces committed to the key struggle at Stalingrad.
We must not underestimate the severe pressure Operation Blue exerted on the Soviets, but a real prospect of victory in the Transcaucasus could only have come with the insertion of German troops. Burdened, however, with Rommel’s expeditionary corps, counterinsurgency requirements in the Balkans, and the need to guard against Allied adventures in Western Europe (made most vivid to Hitler by the Dieppe raid in August 1942), on top of the truly staggering commitment in the East, there were simply not enough German forces on hand to conduct Operation Blue properly, never mind provide an additional expeditionary command in Turkey, without giving up some other cherished commitment. Any diversion to Turkey could only have come at the expense of Army Groups A and B.
This piece has focused on ground troops, but the provision of adequate air support would have proven much more problematic. Even Army Group A found itself nearly stripped of Luftwaffe assets by late summer as the fight for Stalingrad intensified. The Turks probably could have held off the limited British and Commonwealth assets in the Middle East and Iran/Iraq as portrayed here, but barring astoundingly good Axis luck or abysmally poor Russian performance, significant achievements in the Transcaucasus were unlikely without a substantial German presence beyond the lone corps in this scenario.
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