Chapter 39:
Chapter 39
The disaster of Dunkirk had shattered the British army, both in quality and quantity. But that was not all.
The British military command had hastily conscripted a large number of men from all over the country to rebuild the army from the remnants.
And among them were many who, to borrow the expression of the higher-ups, were ‘unverified’.
“We are doing our best, Prime Minister. If you could just give us a little more time and manpower…”
The MI5 director clasped his hands together nervously.
The ministers watched him grovel with displeased expressions.
Stalin had openly recited the top secrets of Britain, such as Alan Turing and Bletchley Park.
The British intelligence agencies were shocked to find out that Soviet spies had infiltrated them so deeply, and now they were feverishly trying to weed out the spies in the military and the government.
There were three main types of ‘impure elements’, or spies, within Britain.
The first and most numerous were the pro-Nazi faction.
They were former members of the fascist party or admirers of Germany’s astonishing victories, who thought they could cooperate with them and carve up the world.
The British intelligence had only managed to arrest seven out of dozens of Nazi German spies they suspected.
The rest had… successfully connected with the pro-Nazi cells in the military.
They could not be sure of anything, though.
“It is impossible to catch all these organizations.”
“Why is that?”
“That is… because they are deeply entwined with the existing clubs…”
In fact, these pro-Nazi cells were hardly organized at all.
The British culture of local communities, or ‘clubs’, had contributed to the formation of various sub-organizations within the military.
For example, small groups such as the Royal Scottish Cavalry Regiment Veterans Association, the Manchester Fusiliers Officers Club, and the 3372 Artillery Battalion Sergeants Meeting were widespread throughout the British army, and the intelligence could not keep track of, manage, or restrain them.
Besides, they were grassroots organizations that supported Churchill’s Conservative regime, so Churchill could not destroy them with his own hands.
And the pro-Nazis were not the only ones in these groups.
A single pro-Nazi could join a club and collect information from careless attendees and bring it to his superiors.
Those damn mouths! Mouths! Churchill slammed his desk.
“Why can’t you catch those damn traitors!”
Churchill was ranting and raving again.
Attlee was so fed up with his words that he felt his stomach swell.
‘Honestly, isn’t it all your fault?’
In France, in Dunkirk, in the Atlantic, in Norway, Gibraltar and Alexandria!
Even without bringing up old things like Gallipoli, Churchill’s strategic choices were full of mistakes.
How could the people not be disappointed?
They might think it would be better to negotiate with Germany, the ‘brother nation’. But Attlee had the wisdom to know that saying that would not benefit Britain, and the patience to keep it to himself.
He sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead, while the intelligence director looked sheepish.
“We can’t tell where they start and where they end, who are traitors and who are just careless fools. And there are other traitors too…”
Churchill slammed his desk again.
“I know one person who is a careless fool! There’s one right in front of me!”
‘And there are two in front of me.’
Attlee thought to himself sarcastically. He tried to calm Churchill down, and the intelligence director resumed his report.
“The situation is… too much to describe as fifth column, sixth column, or seventh column.”
Some of the ministers sighed and rubbed their foreheads or necks like Attlee.
Some rubbed their temples.
Churchill’s face was changing color so fast that it was amazing.
Red, black, yellow, all kinds of colors!
“First of all, the most dangerous ones are the pro-Nazi traitors I mentioned… but there are also Irish rebel nationalists and communists who are lurking in the military. They are sometimes hostile to each other, but they also cooperate and exchange information based on their anti-national ideology.”
Now all the ministers looked dead-faced.
They had already confirmed Soviet’s intelligence capabilities, and if they cooperated with other organizations, there would be no secrets in Britain.
“Irish rebels are not a homogeneous group, but organizations with different interests and ideologies. Some have a strong pro-Nazi tendency and collaborate with the Nazis to achieve Ireland’s unification and independence. The Sinn Fein reds often cooperate with Soviet. The radical faction within the autonomous government is mainly composed of those who are united by anti-British sentiment.”
“Can’t we use them somehow?”
Foreign Minister Eden sighed heavily and asked the intelligence director.
He had to think about cooperating with – or rather exploiting – spies who had sneaked into the military.
What a state this country was in!
“It’s difficult. Pro-Nazis are ideologues, so it’s hard to capture, persuade, or convert them. If we identify them, we can arrest them or use them as double agents to leak false information. That is, assuming that the information they take is worthless.
Among the Irish rebels, the pro-Soviet or Soviet-aligned spies are not leaking information to the ‘enemy’ right now, and the intelligence is not very clear about their situation.”
And he didn’t dare say it, but the third, the Soviet-aligned spies.
They too had penetrated the intelligence widely.
The intelligence was not stupid, so they had tried to exclude those with ‘red’ records from military or counterintelligence duties.
But even so, if Soviet’s intelligence knew every detail of scientists like Bletchley Park and Alan Turing…
In fact, the intelligence also knew well that Marxists were rampant in prestigious universities like Oxford and Cambridge.
And due to the lack of talent caused by the war, they had either enlisted or started working for the country – whichever country that might be – and information had started to leak out to Soviet.
“There are a few agencies that have confirmed the existence of Soviet-aligned spies. MI5, MI6, Bletchley Park code department, Foreign Office French mission division…”
There were sighs and groans.
“What else is there? Why don’t you just say it’s all a Soviet spy den?”
“No, it’s not just that… We have identified how they are connected. Now we have to…”
“Hey! You’re not catching any of them right now, and they’re making and infiltrating networks of their own. Are you saying that the intelligence is just sucking their fingers? What the hell are you doing!”
“Sorry… sorry…”
The problem was serious.
Was there no one who loved this country and was loyal to it?
What was wrong with this country?
Why couldn’t they defend this great empire… Churchill shouted like that.
‘Don’t you know that’s why this happened, Prime Minister?’
Churchill, the victor of Gallipoli and the conqueror of Arabia?
Shooting and killing colonials in India and Africa, and telling them to kill Kurds with gas in Iraq.
And in the meantime, the ones who died were the children of the workers.
The bigwigs who shouted war until the end were sitting comfortably in their chairs, saying “Oh… sorry…” even when the operation was a huge failure!
You ordered to steal or sink the French fleet, but they all turned against us.
That fleet destroyed our fleet and sent it to the bottom of the Mediterranean!
Attlee had a lot to say.
He had made it to this position, but he could not love Churchill and his government.
The Soviet Union, which he had hated so much in the past, had sent both of the secretary-general’s sons to the front line.
The children of the high-ranking members of the Soviet Communist Party had to serve on the front line, and they died accordingly.
The privileged members of the party contributed as much as they could to the Soviet army’s victory or defeat.
What about Churchill’s thirty-year-old son?
He was a Conservative MP.
He was living comfortably in the rear, making a fuss about being a nobleman.
“America, is there any more support from America?”
Churchill hated the Soviet Union, and he depended more on the other ally, America.
Roosevelt insisted on supporting Britain and the Soviet Union until the end, despite the pro-German sentiment in the US Congress and among the people.
He was making it happen. That was what kept Britain alive.
“President Roosevelt has decided to divert the battleship power of the Pacific fleet to the Atlantic side and support the defense near Britain Island. There was some controversy in the US House of Representatives, but…”
Whew. Everyone sighed with relief.
The massive gap in battleship power that could not be replaced immediately brought about a situation that Britain had never experienced before.
Historically, Britain had been an unrivaled first place in naval power for centuries, and based on that, it maintained the British Empire across five oceans and six continents.
But now, the fleets that protected the colonies or carried supplies had to tremble at the Nazi U-boats or Kriegsmarine surface fleets that started to roam around the Atlantic.
The ‘terror of the seven seas’ Bismarck now hunted down transport fleets in the Atlantic without fear of the Royal Navy’s battleship fleet.
The British home fleet was afraid of nothing more than being lured away by Bismarck and having a large-scale landing on Britain Island by the Axis forces.
The only thing that could fight against a battleship was a battleship, and Britain needed more battleships than anything else.
“USS Nevada, USS Tennessee, USS Maryland are coming this way. But America also has to take away some of the aircraft carrier power from the Atlantic for defense in the Pacific.”
“Well, what can we do about it when our situation is like this?”
Most of the home fleet’s battleships were sunk, but there were a few aircraft carriers left alive.
Most of them were avoiding direct confrontation with Kriegsmarine battleships in the Atlantic and focusing on hunting U-boats…
If America supported us with three battleships, we could at least breathe for a moment.
Two old battleships built during World War I and one new one.
If we pulled out some power from the Eastern Fleet… We could at least prevent the worst.
“How is the situation in India?”
“Nehru and Gandhi finally refused to cooperate. But I think we avoided ‘the worst’.”
The viceroy of India tried to negotiate with Nehru and Gandhi, leaders of the Indian independence movement. But that attempt only ran parallel lines.
Nehru wanted an assembly elected by Indians themselves to exercise sovereignty.
As soon as the war ended.
Britain could never tolerate that.
Especially now that they had lost Suez.
They had to make sacrifices to protect India, but they wanted us to spit it out?
Nehru and Gandhi adamantly opposed Britain’s suzerainty over India.
But there was one fortunate thing: Gandhi was a follower of non-violence and opposed Indians’ participation in war, and Nehru was a staunch democrat – also a socialist – who would not cooperate with totalitarianism of Axis countries such as Nazi Germany.
Maybe he would cooperate with Soviet Union?
“Maybe… it would be better to give up India.”
When Attlee said that, Conservative ministers frowned.
Churchill clenched his jaw and blood rose to his neck, but he said nothing as he saw Labour MPs glaring at him.
Nazi Germany had a card that could influence India – Chandra Bose.
Now that Suez was open – and closed for Britain – even if Chandra Bose went to India and started an armed rebellion, Britain had very limited ways to intervene.
They could only hope that people like Nehru or Gandhi or a handful of British troops could stop him.
“Why are you doing this? This time India is a huge Gallipoli…”
“Attlee! Damn you!”
Churchill turned red as Attlee mentioned his biggest weakness, Gallipoli landing operation.
He shouted angrily.
The ministers were surprised to see Attlee, who was usually a model student, openly mocking Gallipoli.
“I was there in that bloody landing operation. And since then, our Prime Minister Churchill has been obsessed with Norway and lost the fleet, pushed troops into France and lost them… What are you thinking of holding on to India?”
“Shut up! Britain without India can no longer be an empire! I can’t stand by and watch Britain’s downfall even if dirt gets in my eyes!”
“Whether you like it or not, it’s going to fall. Why don’t you just give up being an empire?”
Only the foreign minister, Anthony Eden, who was still sane between the two, could pull Attlee and Churchill apart.
“First, we need more support from America…”
A huge explosion was heard outside. Followed by bursts of gunfire and a few more explosions.
The chief of security opened the door with a bang.
“Everyone, please evacuate this way! There seems to be a bomb attack outside!”
“What… what is this!”
“Prime Minister! This way!”
The ministers all started to scramble to escape.
Attlee was farthest from the door and pushed the fat and slow old Churchill in front of him.
Outside, there were sirens and bugle sounds from the police, and sporadic gunfire.
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