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With the new capabilities I had with an artificial intelligence named Letra, I could quickly provide the Soviet military industry with technology that would enable it to begin producing weapons far superior in its tactical and technical characteristics to all that other earthly nations had at their disposal. However, the question immediately arose: was it worth it? Do I want to end up with a world communist dictatorship led by Comrade Stalin and his loyal associates in the Party? I knew the answer to that question. I didn't. On the other hand, every day of the war cost the country enormous casualties, and I was not prepared to look dispassionately on the deaths of thousands – I was not yet so callous as to consider soldiers and civilians expendable.
What options are left then? Under the current circumstances, my career is almost exhausted. Yes, I was made a hero, known to the whole country, but this fame in itself does not give me much. A man can be a famous polar hero, a popular actor, a fighter pilot or a sniper whose combat score is known to every child, but he won't get any closer to power. Perhaps someday after the war he would be made a deputy – to do what? – to read aloud texts, agreed upon in advance and polished by his senior comrades in a huge conference hall, to become a stuffed shirt… So? Do I need this?
To really change things in this country, one has to become part of its ruling elite, and it is not customary to take outsiders into this closed caste, which is, in general, quite understandable.
Any dictatorship is always built on unconditional loyalty to the leader. This is what is valued in the first place, and only then the professional and personal qualities, organizational abilities and other talents of the applicant for a high public office are evaluated. The Soviet Union, of course, has its own peculiarities – it is very much imbued with Marxist-Leninist ideology, which in many ways replaced the recently lost religion to the citizens of the USSR, but the essence of the totalitarian state, quite recognizable, has not changed much.
Devotion and loyalty! Loyalty and devotion! And no one believes in my loyalty, that's obvious. In my usefulness, yes. But not in loyalty and certainly not in personal loyalty to Comrade Stalin.
Do I really need power over this country? What will I do with it? To conquer the world by force of arms and drag it violently toward a bright future, of which I myself have only a vague idea? Why go to war, though? After all, one can conquer the world economically. This way is harder and longer, but I have time. Stalin is undoubtedly a strong leader, but totalitarian regimes have a very serious flaw: the lack of a clear method of transferring power when the ruler passes away. As a rule, a wild fight for the main seat begins, and often it brings to the top such freaks, that then the whole country shudders in convulsions from their decisions and actions.
“Letra!”
“I'm on the line.”
“Can you prepare the USSR development forecast over the next ten years?”
“I do not know your plans to interfere in the development of Earth's civilization, and without this information, the forecast makes no sense.”
“Let's say I don't interfere at all.”
“Copy. It will take a few minutes. I have to adjust the base model to account for the changes resulting from your emergence on Earth. Basically, you haven't done anything that would make the estimation algorithm inapplicable, so you can count on the standard accuracy of the prediction.”
“Waiting.”
“In what form do you want the result? ”
“A brief voice report. Only key points and major branches without delving into unlikely derivations.”
I picked up the terminology from the real Letra. After meeting her, I was surprised to discover my interest in historical modeling, and we often discussed the development of different human civilizations, trying to find ways to delay their demise.
“Done. May I begin?”
“Go ahead.”
“The first key point is the end of 1942. The dominant branch is the death of Adolf Hitler in an assassination attempt. The consequence is an attempt by the new German government to make peace with England. The expected result is success. In this case, the war of Germany against the Soviet Union will be continued. Background events – the turning point in the war with Japan in favor of the United States and England. The explosive growth of the United States military industry. Death of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in an assassination attempt.
The second key point is 1943. The dominant branch is the complete liberation of Soviet territory by the Red Army and the beginning of its march into Europe. The consequences – the entry into the war of England and the United States on the side of Germany. The expected result is the military defeat of the USSR in 1944. The third key point…”
“That's enough. Everything else is clear enough. Are there any alternative scenarios?”
“Of course there are. Hitler's death is almost inevitable, but Roosevelt's death and the United States' entry into the war against the USSR may not be, but the probability is low and the war in Europe will continue anyway under very difficult conditions for the Soviet Union. True, in this case it is possible to conclude peace without serious territorial losses for the USSR.”
“Japan will lose either way?”
“Yes, there is no choice. Only the timing can vary, and that to a small extent. In any case, the U.S. and England have enough forces to fight jointly with Germany against the Soviet Union.”
“Are there any options for a Soviet victory?”
“That was the case before you interfered with the course of history. The USSR could become an ally of Great Britain and the United States in the war with Germany and its allied countries. At the cost of losing a quarter of the population, the Soviet Union had a chance to win this war. With some probability, immediately after the defeat of Germany and Japan, a new war for the division of Europe between the former allies would have begun, but it is likely that a tense and unstable peace would nevertheless have taken place.”
“For how long?”
“For ten to fifteen years, and then there are almost equally likely forks, and the first of them contains the option of nuclear war, but the local civilization still had a fairly high chance of choosing the right path, at least at this key point.”
“So I only made things worse by showing up?”
“Worse for whom? For the USSR, no doubt. If you quit right now, the Soviet Union will be defeated in a war with the Western world united against it, but the chance of World War III for Earth's civilization as a whole will be significantly reduced within the next 30–40 years. There will simply be no power left in the world that can stand up to the United States.”
“But I'm not going to get out of the game, Lethra.”
“I know. You're the one who said it was a condition for making a prediction, so I'm working on it.”
“How to avoid a war of the USSR against the whole world?”
“I have no algorithm for developing a strategy for influencing the civilizations I study. You know as well as I do about the ban on interference. Such programs have never been created, so I'm not your adviser here.”
“But can you at least assess the possible consequences of my planned actions?”
“Only very roughly. This accuracy of prediction would never have suited the Letra whose name I now bear.”
“All right. Then let's play by your rules. Take the following setup: all attempts on Roosevelt's life are prevented. What is the likelihood of the United States going to war against the USSR?”
“60 percent. The president is not omnipotent in this country, and anti-communist forces are very influential. The media is quite capable of setting public opinion in the right way, and Roosevelt may simply have no choice.”
“So we need something to make it impossible for the United States to go to war against the Soviet Union. What could this be?”
“Don't forget, I'm not a human being. I can only make creative decisions when I have a clear algorithm for doing so. In this case, there is no such algorithm. I can only list the precedents from the history I know. A non-aggression pact may prevent entry into war, although such pacts are often violated. U.S. military or economic unpreparedness for war may be an obstacle, but by my calculations, they will have no problem with either in a year or a year and a half. There is also such a variant as the well-established opinion of the population of a country about another state as a reliable ally, thanks to whose help the the victory in a difficult war has recently been won. The U.S. is a democracy, and the government cannot ignore the opinion of its citizens at all. It can manipulate that opinion, but it just can't give a damn about it. And the citizens would probably not like an attack on a staunch ally. In our case, however, this does not apply – the U.S. is not at war with Germany and is not an ally of the USSR. Also, the attack could be stopped by the obvious military-technical superiority of the Soviet Union, but the level of its industrial development would not allow… ”
“Stop. Let me think about it.”
The artificial intelligence was obediently silent, and I was deep in thought, trying to catch the elusive thought. Something flashed through Letra's words that my brain tried to latch on to, but the idea slipped away before it could form.
“Again, slowly repeat the answer to my last question.”
“Don't… forget… that… I… am… not… a… human… being… I… can… only…”
I listened to the above in silence one more time and tried to remember what had made me stop Letra, and at some point the missing element took its place in the shaky construction of the forming idea with an almost tangible click.
“That's enough. Now I need a detailed and persuasive report from you to convince the leaders of the USSR that war with the West is inevitable. Use only those arguments that rely on data available to me officially. I will go to Stalin with this, and I don't want to be asked how I know, how many M3 tanks the Chrysler plant in Warren, near Detroit, will be able to produce next month to within a few pieces.”
* * *
Marshal Shaposhnikov rarely visited Lubyanka, but this time he could not avoid a visit to the Commissar of Internal Affairs. The document, received late at night, literally burned his hands. Boris Mikhailovich was deservedly considered a qualified military analyst and an experienced general staff officer, but the folder clutched in his hand contained materials that went far beyond the purely military sphere, and the decisions that should have been made on their basis were capable of changing the fate of the Soviet Union in the most unpredictable way.
Shaposhnikov did not dare to give these documents to Stalin at once – too much in them required verification, and the Marshal could not conduct such a verification by the General Staff alone. The night spent reading the analyses contained in the folder deprived the Marshal of peace. The course of the war, which seemed very successful to the Chief of Staff, and not only to him alone, suddenly appeared in a completely different light, drawing grave and gloomy prospects. For many hours Shaposhnikov tried to find an error in the inhumanly flawless logic of the report, and found none.
“Hello, Boris Mikhailovich,” Beria stood up to meet the Marshal, who entered his office, with a slight smile, “It's been a while since you visited me. We see each other more at meetings of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command or in the Kremlin with Comrade Stalin. What was so unusual and urgent that made you come to Lubyanka?”
“Good afternoon, Lavrenty Pavlovich,” unlike the Commissar of Internal Affairs, Shaposhnikov kept a serious expression on his face. “You're right, something happened. Something urgent, and unusual, and, I think, top secret.”
“Let me guess,” Beria stopped smiling too. “Has your restless subordinate given us all a new surprise? What is it this time? Helsinki? Sevastopol? Ploiești? Berlin?”
“You'd better familiarize yourself with it,” Shaposhnikov carefully put the folder on the Commissar's desk. “I can hardly tell you any better or more convincingly than what is written here.”
Beria nodded silently, adjusted his pince-nez and leisurely opened the folder. Marshall waited patiently, rehearsing in his head all the things he had already thought about repeatedly during the night. Could it be that his own knowledge was not enough, because he was only a military man, and he simply could not find the logical inconsistencies in economic, political, and international relations? Now Beria will sarcastically chuckle, shake his head, and easily shatter all these arguments that seemed so impeccable to him.
But he did not grin.
Having read the report through, the Commissar of Internal Affairs looked up and stared at the Chief of the General Staff for a minute, and then he picked up the first page again and began to read the document from the beginning, making some notes in the margins.
The secretary peeked into the office, silently approached the table, and placed glasses of tea and a vase of cookies in front of the master of the office and his guest. Beria didn't even seem to notice his appearance, and Shaposhnikov nodded and moved his glass to his side.
“Everything here is too serious to give a go at this document without a comprehensive review,” Beria finally said, leaning back in his chair. “I know that Comrade Nagulin is very rarely wrong in his conclusions, but this is not an analysis of the situation on the fronts nor is it a forecast of enemy actions. A broader range of issues is addressed here. The Major-General's logic is undeniable, but I am afraid that even our experience is insufficient to judge the constructiveness of his suggestions.”
“The United States, President Roosevelt – that's probably the last of what I would consider important for us in the current situation,” Shaposhnikov shook his head doubtfully.
“It's not about the present moment here,” Beria tapped his index finger on the stack of sheets on his desk, “We have almost a year to make a decision and prepare, but then it could really be too late.”
“But what about the Neutrality Pact? We do not want the whole world to regard the Soviet Union as a treacherous power like Hitler's Germany, which attacked the USSR without declaring war, despite the non-aggression pact in force between our countries, do we?”
“And here I think I agree with Comrade Nagulin,” a faint grin appeared on Beria's face. “Do you remember well the second clause of our agreement with Japan?”
“I can't reproduce it verbatim.”
“It goes like this: "in the event of one of the contracting parties being the object of military action by one or more third powers, the other contracting party shall maintain neutrality throughout the conflict." If we read this clause literally, it means that we undertake not to attack each other in the event of military aggression by third countries, directed at one of our states. But neither the U.S. nor Britain attacked Japan. Japan ITSELF carried out military aggression, and this completely unleashes our hands. It is possible, and even certain, that the Japanese will disagree with such an interpretation, but who will care about their opinion in the current balance of power?”
“To be honest, all my experience resists the idea of a war on two fronts. I read Nagulin's arguments and realize that there is probably no other way out, but as soon as I look away from these lines, and my doubts return. How will the USSR be able to withstand this?”
“I'm afraid, Boris Mikhailovich, that you and I alone will not solve anything and we will not find an answer to your question. I suggest inviting Comrades Molotov, Ustinov, and Zverev to discuss this document. We certainly can't do without the Commissars of Foreign Affairs, Arms, and Finance appreciating the arguments presented here.”
“By widening the circle of those aware of the Nagulin report, we make it inevitable that this issue will be brought to the top,” said the Marshal, hesitating a little.
“Did you have any doubts that this document would end up on Comrade Stalin's desk?” Beria seemed genuinely surprised. “In any case, it is impossible not to show such information to the Commander-in-Chief, even if we come to the conclusion that it is all nonsense, and that we are deeply indifferent to the fate of President Roosevelt and the outcome of the US war with Japan.”
* * *
“Here you are, comrade Nagulin, saying that citizen Korolev is not guilty of sabotaging the development of the Project 212 rocket,” Stalin looked at me carefully from under his bushy eyebrows. “But during combat tests of this product in the breakthrough of the front on the Volkhov River, none of his six missiles hit the exact target. The damage to the German columns was done, but it was rather the merit of the warhead of the missile, and Korolev had nothing to do with its development. ”
“Comrade Stalin, I chose the targets, not Korolev. And these targets were extremely uncomfortable for cruise missiles. Basically, they couldn't be used at all against moving enemy troops, but I just didn't have any other options. I needed to distract the Germans for at least a minute so that Colonel Kudryavtsev's bombers could attack the columns without interference. And even in such unfavorable conditions, the task set before the missile launchers was accomplished. I believe that the "product K-212" showed its best side.”
“Not everyone agrees with you, Comrade Nagulin, but I won't argue about it now. We will continue the cruise missile development project, but the status of designer Korolev will remain unchanged for now. Let him prove by deeds that his missiles are worth the resources spent on them, and then we'll get back to this conversation, especially since both he and you will soon have that chance,” Stalin grinned.
I didn't ask any follow-up questions. It was my first one-on-one meeting with Stalin, and I did not consider it possible to rush the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, preferring to wait patiently for him to elaborate his thoughts himself. Stalin, taking his time, held out his hand and pulled up a thick folder that had been lying on the edge of the table. It seemed that the Chief was about to move on to a discussion of the main issue for which I had been summoned to his Kremlin office.
“I have carefully read your report, Comrade Nagulin, and the comments of other comrades who have also been introduced to this case. Believe me, the most highly qualified specialists were involved, but their conclusions were very ambiguous. You base your prediction on the fact that attempts on Hitler and Roosevelt will be organized in the near future, with every chance of success. This is a very bold statement, Comrade Nagulin. They had tried to kill Hitler more than once before, but nothing came of it, and the American president's guards don't eat their bread for nothing. This is the weakest point in your analysis. All of the subsequent events that you write about are indeed very well justified, almost all the comrades who have read your report agree with this. But what you propose requires a serious change in the foreign policy of the USSR and in the strategy of war with Germany. You were not the first to think of the fear of possible opposition from England and the United States to our march into Europe, which, as the course of the war shows, is becoming almost inevitable. Nevertheless, I must give you credit, since you were the first to be able to piece together all the facts and, supported by calculations and analyses, to show in a reasoned way how great is the probability of a direct military conflict with the West. There is an opinion that your idea of "lazy war" is worthy of careful consideration. Combined with a strategy of rapprochement with the United States, it could really lull our opponents' vigilance and knock very serious arguments for entering the war on Germany's side out of their hands.”
Stalin paused for a moment, leafing through several documents in the folder.
“All the comrades who have read your report agree that it is of a very high level, but for such an important decision to be made is not enough. If the postulate of Hitler's imminent death proves wrong, following your plan will lead the USSR to disaster or, at the very least, to enormous and totally unjustified losses in manpower and material resources.”
The Commander-in-Chief was silent again, and now his gaze was clearly demanding a reaction from me.
“Nowhere in my report does it say that a decision needs to be made right now,” I tried to answer as neutrally as possible. “On the contrary. Haste in this case is extremely detrimental. A month and a half has passed since the blockade of Leningrad was broken, and our army is still not ready for strategic offensive operations, and it is unlikely to be ready for them before mid-spring. Accordingly, the arrival of our troops to the state border of the USSR along its entire length, even in the best of circumstances, will not take place until the end of this year or even the middle of next year, and until then neither England nor the U.S. would see any serious cause for concern, especially if we carry out the measures provided for in my report, which are designed to give the Western powers the impression that the Soviet Union is liberating its territory out of its last strength and is unable to make a quick dash westward.”
“I remember your suggestion,” Stalin nodded, looking thoughtfully at the map, “Smolensk, Kiev, Minsk, the Baltics, Odessa… We still have a lot of work to do, Comrade Nagulin, you're right. If we manage it by the end of the year, it will really be a great success. Good. Consider that the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command have heard your point of view and taken it more than seriously, but we will take a decision on your report a little later, when the situation is more certain. And now I have a more concrete matter for you, which cannot wait.”
The Chief gave me a sharp look in the eye, and I didn't want to disappoint him.
“I'm ready, Comrade Stalin, give the order.”
“In the operation to break the blockade of Leningrad you, Comrade Nagulin, showed yourself a competent commander, capable of organizing a breakthrough of the enemy's defense and ensuring the unimpeded entry of the shock army into it. Of course, the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts did not achieve everything that was planned, but it is still a very great victory. Your success has been noted by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, and now it's time to repeat it under different conditions and on a somewhat larger scale. You're right, we're not ready for a really big offensive, but we have another enemy besieged city. It is an important city that must not be given to the Germans under any circumstances. The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command give you three days to complete your current business in Moscow. We know that you are supervising the work on a new turbojet engine for our aviation, and this work should by no means stop after you leave. But only three days! And then you're flying to the Crimean front as a representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command[2 - In real history, Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis was appointed as the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command 's representative on the Crimean Front; he was not actually a military man, but informally subordinated the front's command.General Kozlov was unable or unwilling to resist the onslaught of the representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and, in fact, withdrew from his duties. Л. Z. Mekhlis wasted frontline forces in frontal offensives, unprepared and badly organized. The result was the depletion of the front and a heavy defeat during the German counteroffensive, which ended with the Red Army abandoning the Kerch Peninsula and, consequently, the fall of Sevastopol.]. Sevastopol needed to be unblocked, and Lieutenant-General Kozlov was never able to build on the initial success of the Kerch-Feodosiya landing. Manstein is outplaying him on all directions, and this situation must be fundamentally changed. If necessary, you can remove Kozlov from the command of the front – you will have the appropriate authority, but to do it or not, you will decide on the spot.”
Chapter 3
Erich von Manstein was well aware that together with his 11th Army he found himself on the periphery of the maelstrom of events that in a matter of months changed the entire course of military action on the Eastern Front. He began the war against the Soviet Union as part of Army Group North, commanding the 56th Motorized Corps, which invaded the Baltics. In the first week of fighting his corps crossed more than 200 kilometers and came to the Western Dvina, where it successfully repulsed a tank counterstrike by Soviet troops.
It seemed that the war was developing quite favorably, and Manstein even had the thought that Hitler was right, and before winter Red Army would be completely defeated, but already at the beginning of July his corps suffered a serious defeat at the hands of Lieutenant-General Morozov's army near Soltsy. Two groups of Soviet troops, supported by more than two hundred planes, encircled the Wehrmacht's 8th Panzer Division from the north and south, and it had to fight for some time in an encirclement. The Third Panzer Division was also in danger of having its communications intercepted.
That time Manstein managed to avoid a defeat. The SS Division "Dead Head" was given to him to restore the situation, and at the cost of heavy losses the 8th Panzer Division was unblocked, after which it had to be sent to the rear to be re-formed. The German troops were pushed back 40 kilometers, and the offensive of the Army Group North in Leningrad stalled for almost a month. It was then, at Soltsy, that Manstein first began to think seriously about the fact that things might not be as simple with this war as many German generals and politicians would have liked.
Then there were battles at Demiansk, and finally, in September 1941, Manstein was given command of the 11th Army, which by early November seized almost the entire Crimea and besieged Sevastopol.
While dealing with the problems of his own army, Manstein nevertheless closely monitored the situation on other fronts. The alarm bells started ringing as early as September, but they were barely audible then behind the roar of victory fanfares.
The Russians suffered a spectacular defeat at Kiev. Bryansk and Vyazma were next, but then something went wrong in the Wehrmacht machine, which was moving steadily eastward, to the point that it began to have a direct effect on the 11th Army, which did not seem to have directly related to the battle for Moscow.
At first the November attempt to capture Sevastopol failed. Manstein underestimated the power of the coastal batteries covering the city, and when a hundred and fifty heavy guns of the Sevastopol forts were joined by the volleys of the main guns of two cruisers and the battleship Paris Commune, which had come to the aid of the besieged city, he gave the order to stop the assault because of its obvious futility.
Manstein was deservedly considered one of the best strategists of the Wehrmacht. It was he who in 1940 proposed the plan to invade France with a tank strike through the Ardennes Mountains. Having crossed the Ardennes, the tanks were to cross the Meuse and, without waiting for infantry, reach the English Channel coast in a wide arc, cutting off the enemy's northern grouping. The German military command considered Manstein's plan too risky, but it was unexpectedly supported by Hitler, who categorically did not like the fact that the generals were offering him, in fact, to repeat Alfred von Schlieffen's plan, which the Germans had implemented at the beginning of World War I. Hitler, quite rightly, believed that the French and the British were expecting just that, and that the Wehrmacht would not be able to achieve any surprise. Manstein's proposal came just in time, and the Führer insisted on adopting his plan, which eventually led the Wehrmacht to such an impressive victory.
However, the talent of a strategist was not Manstein's only advantage. He was also a consummate specialist in squeezing reserves out of the command. No one else could so convincingly and persuasively explain to his superiors that he was the one who needed tanks, planes, infantry, and artillery more than anyone else now, and that if he was not given them, then, depending on the particular circumstances, either there will be a universal catastrophe or the Wehrmacht will miss the great victory, which he, Erich von Manstein, almost already has in his hands.
And now this tried and tested mechanism has begun to malfunction. The commander of Army Group South, Gerd von Runstedt, flatly refused to reinforce the 11th Army with tanks and aircraft, citing the fact that the grand battle for Moscow sucked out all the reserves, and he had already been stripped of too many divisions. The only thing Manstein was not denied was artillery. 200 batteries of heavy guns were placed at the disposal of the 11th Army. For the most part these were conventional large-caliber field howitzers, including 210-millimeter ones, but heavier artillery systems surviving from World War I came from Germany as well. Against their background, the Karl-Gerät self-propelled mortars with their caliber of 600 millimeters and the unique 800-millimeter railroad gun Dora, with its 7-ton shells, 32-meter barrel, and 250-man crew were perceived as real miracle weapons.
And still the assault failed. At the most crucial moment the Russians landed sea-borne troops in the rear of the 11th Army, they brazenly stormed the port of Feodosiya and landed the troops from the warships directly onto the piers. The 46th Infantry Division and the Romanian Mountain Rifle Regiment tried to halt the advance of the landing troops, but they were cut off at the Kerch Peninsula and almost completely destroyed.
The assault on Sevastopol had to be stopped in order to rush infantry and artillery to Feodosia. It proved extremely difficult to do this on icy roads, but the Russian forces were not limitless, and by mid-January the situation had stabilized. The Red Army continued to hold Feodosia, but was unable to move further west.
When the news came in early December that Army Group Center had been encircled near Moscow that shook everyone, Manstein realized that he would not wait for any more reserves. Nevertheless, the order to take Sevastopol by storm was still in force, and Manstein had to make do with the available resources in a rapidly deteriorating situation.
Manstein understood that there was no point in resuming an assault on the city while a strong group of Soviet troops was in his rear. He left a covering force at Sevastopol and concentrated his main forces against the Russian armies, which were entrenched on the Kerch Peninsula and constantly tried to break through from there into the interior of Crimea.
The Führer's order to begin using chemical weapons against the Red Army did not please Manstein. As a military strategist, he understood Hitler's motives – the Army Group Center, sitting in the Moscow Pocket, had to be saved by any means. Nevertheless, he did not expect a long-term effect from the use of chemical warfare agents. The civilian populations of Russian cities could indeed become very unhappy, but Manstein strongly doubted that chemical munitions would be more effective at the front than conventional shells and bombs.
Near Moscow, mustard gas was already flowing and clouds of phosgene and cyanogen chloride were swirling over Russian positions, while in the Crimea, both sides were in no hurry to throw chemical shells at each other.
Manstein had had his fill of this stuff during World War I, and did not seek to repeat that unpleasant experience, and the Soviets, who were not subjected to chemical attacks, were not the first to use poisonous substances either.
