Pazarcik, Turkey, October 29th, 1942
The attempt of the Turkish 53rd Infantry Division to break out of encirclement ended in ruin as the 1er Regiment de tirailleurs Senegalais held its positions. Tens of thousands of Turkish and German soldiers, perhaps more had been encircled when the French and British armies had linked up with each other to the north of Antep. The pocket had been shrinking since then but Turkish and German attempts to breakout had not ceased so far. Further east Turkish troops had escaped encirclement but were in full retreat towards Adiyaman and the Karacadag mountains to the west of Diyarbakir while being harassed by Kurdish guerrillas.
Kokkina, Cyprus, October 31st, 1942
TDK submarine Cerbe, surfaced in the middle of the night. It's boats start unloading MAH agents, Brandenburgers, gold and arms to the island. The Turkish army had been suffering from Lawrence shenanigans for two wars. But this had been a game two could play. If Churchill wanted the SOE to set Europe and Turkey ablaze it was only fair that Turks returned the favour in the British and French colonies.
Damascus, November 3rd, 1942
Shukri al-Quwatli, was incredulous. "So now that there is little chance of the Turkish army taking Syria, you remembered the Syrian nationalists and you want us to take on the French? I wasn't idiotic enough to do so last year, unlike I note that idiot king Ghazi, in Iraq. Why should we do it now?"
The German? Turkish? both? agent that had managed to meet him gave a shrug that might had made a Frenchman proud. "Are you happy with your options here? The French have ensured the Alewis and the Lebanese stay aloof of Syria and they are arming both unlike Syrians proper. The Jews have gotten their own army courtesy of the British. The Kurds are being propped by both the French and the British. And king Abdullah has gotten the throne in Baghdad and would love to get the throne in Damascus as well. Which you don't want."
"I'm an Arab patriot who wants the Arab lands united. You understand that the way you present things I should just back Abdullah. Even if he is a British puppet. Now get out of here before the Surete comes after you... and thus after me as well.
Malaga, November 5th, 1942
Neither the Axis nor the Allies had been in position to provide any notable quantities of arms to their own sides so far. But the Germans and Italians had short of solved that problem for the British the previous month, 150,000 men had been lost with the fall of Tunis and the Allies had captured large quantities of German and Italian arms that were useless for their own forces. But the same arms could be readily be used by the Spanish who were already using large quantities of German and Italian arms since the 1st civil war. Some enterprising fellow that would remain obscure had noticed the opportunity and war material captured in North Africa had start being to the provisional government. It had start to have an effect, the army of the Provisional government was up to 328,000 men at the start of November with the Falangists fielding only 249,000 men. There was a saying about god and big battalions...
Washington DC, November 7th, 1942
"That's intolerable!"
George Marshall barely contained a sigh. "What is intolerable Mr Mossadegh?"
"43,000 tons of war supplies have been moved to the Soviet Union last month through Iran and the amount is increasing with every passing month, I'm told your engineers hope to expand this to over 100,000 tons a month over the next 6 months. Our oil is fuelling allied armies, our soldiers are dying for the Allied cause ans our territory has been invaded. And yet our army has received not a single modern gun, not a singe tank, not a single aircraft. Only German and Turkish cast-offs captured in Iraq and Syria and this at the initiative of general Slim!"
Mossadegh gave a smile before continuing. "Of course there is no reason for the captured Turkish and German weaponry to go to waste. I understand our Soviet allies are already using considerable quantities of it and have thus the necessary logistics to use it, unlike my poor country. How difficult it would be to ship it to the Soviet Union while equivelant amounts of American and British weaponry is given to Iran? For a start?"
Marshall now turned aghast. If the Iranian was telling the truth, he had reason to complain. And worse yet Iran was too strategically important for the British to find the moment to play imperialist games. What would happen if they closed the Persian corridor till their requests were met?
"Rest assured I shall personally check into the matter your excellency and I will also inform president Roosevelt. But your army will not be left without tools."
Spercheios river, Greece, November 11th, 1942
1,500 guns start raining fire on the Italian and Bulgarian positions as 20 Greek, British, French, Yugoslav, Polish and American divisions, including 4 armoured ones supported by 622 aircraft sprang to the attack. The Italian and Bulgarian defenders on paper counted also 20 divisions, 12 of them Italian the rest Bulgarian with about 451,000 men facing 523,000 allied soldiers and in the air thanks to Italian series 5 fighters they could at least hold on their own despite allied air superiority. On the ground, on the ground the allies had over 1,200 tanks a third of them with general Patton's US 2nd corps facing just a handful of old Czech made machines...
