Syria, June 27th, 1941
The 6th Australian division joined the fighting to the west of Aleppo. The Turkish-German advance had already slowed to a crawl but had not quite been stopped yet.
Parliament building, Athens, June 28th, 1941
Demetrios Glinos was hardly the usual run of the mill communist. A professor in the university of Athens, early correspondent of Dragoumis, architect of the educational reforms of the Liberal government in 1917, turned communist by 1930, Glinos was well respected and well connected. He had been elected in the senate in 1936, one of the 6 communists in the upper house. Now he concluded his speech to the general applause of both houses in the joint session. "This "new world order" is the order that the barbarians of Asia wanted to bring to this country, the Persians, the Huns, the Mongols of Tamerlane and Chengis Khan, the Turks of Mehmet. The some difference is that this time this "order" comes in conjunction with scientifically organized theft. The Greek people know this "new order" by its true name slavery. Blackest slavery, an pillage and barbarism and bashi-bazoukism. Forward! Every man and woman of Greece, steel your hands and your souls for the paramount struggle!"
"An excellent speech. Eight months too late." George Papandreou would only comment, to the snickers of the members of parliament that could here him but they still applauded. Three days ago the 6th plenary session of the Communist party had called for Greeks to fight with all means against the fascists in both occupied and free Greece.
Near Batman, Turkey, June 28th, 1941
A handful of parachutes opened into the night. Once on the ground the handful of SOE agents were quickly ushered away by Kurdish guerillas. So far the Kurdish rebellion had been negligible. Colonel T.E. Lawrence had had every intention of changing that...
Thessaloniki, June 29th, 1941
The Bulgarian tricolour was raised over the
White Tower. Bulgaria had refused to join Barbarossa citing problems at home and the continuing threat from Greece. Germany and Italy had proven sympathetic but had demanded that if this was the case then the Bulgarian army should be committed to the Thessalian front. The Bulgarians had agreed, after all they could claim with a straight face that the majority of their army was tied down in occupation duties but had a price of their own...
Gorky, Soviet Union, June 30th, 1941
Polikarpov I-180s start rising to the air as two hundred Do-19s hit the city at dawn. With the Soviet air force having suffered grievously over the last week someone in the Luftwaffe had thought a day raid was relatively safe. The Do-19s had indeed caused quite a bit of damage but without escort over two dozen had been shot down by the defending Soviet fighters. Wever and Goring were quick to conclude that all future raids would be at night at least till the newer He-177 replaced the Dornier machine. With its four Jumo 211 engines the Heinkel was expected to be much faster.
Kars, Soviet Union, June 30th, 1941
Back in December 1937 Vladimir Triandafillov had been thrown into prison, supposedly as a Greek agent, more plausibly because he had claimed cavalry to be obsolete so was supposed to be on the side of marshal Tukhachevsky thus guilty by association. He had been ushered out of prison without explanation in the spring of 1940 and placed in command of the 45th Army in the Caucasus, a demotion compared to his former position but still much better than prison. He had spent the intervening 15 months thoroughly training his divisions. His fellow commanders of the 44th, 46th and 47th armies had not be as thorough but with nearly 900 tanks and over 1400 guns the Transcaucasus Front was nevertheless a fearsome war machine as it charged forward against the Turkish army.
Syria, July 3rd, 1941
The Turkish offensive in Syria came to a halt. The 2nd army had failed to take Aleppo but it had secured the entire length of the Baghdad railroad and captured, or liberated as far as the Turks were concerned, Antep, Urfa and Mardin. If reinforcements could be made available the offensive might resume. But at the moment every single unit that could be spared was being shipped east to hold back the Soviets. For now the gains made, particularly the railroad line should suffice, as soon as the railroad was repaired it would allow supplying the Iraqi front where the Germans, Turks and Iraqis had been able to stop the British advance from the south but had been themselves stopped right to the west of Habbaniya.
Madrid, July 6th, 1941
Since the start of the war with the Soviet Union, general Ochoa's regime had fallen to three mortal sins. First it had refused to declare war against the Soviet Union, then had refused the proposal to create volunteer units to fight the Soviets and last had even tried to crack down on Phalagists taking matters on their hands against obvious pro-Bolsheviks in the last couple of weeks and any opponent of the Phalange including Carlists was obviously pro-Bolshevik. This on top of Ochoa betraying the nationalist revolution for the past two years. Manuel Hedilla the head of the Phalange had made a last attempt to pressure Ochoa to declare war against the Soviet Union a few days ago only to fall flat. If Ochoa could not be persuaded by words, other means were necessary. Madrid woke up once more to the sound of gunfire as army units loyal to Emilio Mola and Juan Yague and Phalangist militias rose up in revolt...
