On March 2, 1943, Field Marshal Rommel led the main force of the German Middle East Army Group, which consisted of elite troops such as the Greater German Division, the Viking Division, and the Prince Eugen Mountain Infantry Division, and two Iranian infantry divisions to a short distance from Tabriz, where in front of them was the Persian Army Group of the Red Army led by Lieutenant General Mezzov. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 More than half a month ago, he rushed from Isfahan to Tehran at lightning speed, successfully devouring the inadequately reckless Red Army units, capturing a great victory and prompting Iran to join the Axis camp.

In the face of the aggressive posture of the German army, Zhukov and Vasilevsky transferred the 11th Guards Heavy Tank Brigade from the base camp reserve, all equipped with the latest KV-3 tanks, and Tyulenev drew reinforcements from 3 divisions and 2 brigades from the Caucasian Front to help Mezov re-increase the strength of the Persian Army Group to more than 130,000 people.

Just when everyone thought that Rommel would march vigorously and continue to attack, he slowed down and slowly led troops from Tehran to Tabriz, an important town in northwestern Iran, and the more than 300-kilometer journey from Isfahan to Tehran took him only one day and one night, while the more than 400 kilometers from Tehran to Tabriz took him more than half a month. Mezzov breathed a sigh of relief at this speed, and he was busy using the time to straighten out the defensive line, sort out the troops, and replenish supplies.

Although Rommel repeatedly advised Pahlavi to stay in Tehran and listen to the good news, the stubborn emperor insisted on following him to recover Iran. Many people, including him, believed that the Germans could have advanced a little faster, not only because there were no enemy troops on the road, but also because the supply and supply lines were very open.

With the Axis controlling the Indian Ocean, there are currently a large number of ships plying between Alexandria and the port of Abadan, and then supplying the Middle East Army Group through the rail system in Iran. For Rommel, the speed and capacity of this transport line is much greater than it was when he was struggling in the deserts of North Africa. Under the mobilization and call of the Iranian government, the Iranian people used donkeys, horses and other livestock carts to help the German army carry supplies from the railway station to the front line. Mechanized modern transport is mixed with traditional animal transport on all roads, and although it is crowded, the whole is busy but not chaotic.

Thanks to the capture of the port of Abadan, both Rommel's Middle East Army and Guderian's African Army were supplied with sufficient fuel, and Speer urgently dispatched competent engineers and workers from home to the Abadan refinery to restore the damage caused by the British retreat, and production was expected to resume in April - before the captured fuel ran out. According to optimistic estimates, with the gradual progress of the rehabilitation work, the capacity of the Abadan refinery will gradually recover from 1 million tons to its heyday, and not only will the combat units in the Middle East not have to worry about fuel supply, but even the troops in the eastern Mediterranean will be able to enjoy this advantage.

After losing sea supremacy in the Indian Ocean, British and US submarines tried to break up diplomatic relations based on the west coast of India and the relevant ports in South Africa, but the Axis cargo ships basically traveled along the coastline, and in addition to the coastal anti-submarine patrol planes and the anti-submarine forces on Socotra Island, the probability of submarine exposure was much greater than that in the Atlantic. The cost of breaking diplomatic relations was very large, but the results were very small, and in the face of the result of paying for only one cargo ship of more than 7,000 tons after the sinking of 9 submarines, the Allies had no choice but to give up.

Therefore, Pahlavi wanted to ask Rommel why he walked so slowly - this question had been held in his mind for a long time, and he felt that he would be bored if he held it any longer, and he believed that Rommel must not have walked so slowly because he was afraid of war, there must be other reasons that he did not grasp, but what it was, not only could he not think of it, but the staff officers and generals around him also did not know the essentials.

"This is the question that has plagued Your Majesty for a long time?" After listening to Pahlavi's question, Rommel suddenly laughed.

"Yes, yes......," Pahlavi complimented, "the marshal has a unique style of using troops, and we really can't figure it out, we can't figure it out, this ...... If it's not confidential, can you reveal it? ”

"If it had been two days ago, I might have refused to answer, but today it's fine." Rommel asked the adjutant to bring the map and patiently explained to Pahlavi, "Your Majesty, please see, this is Batumi, here is Tbilisi, here is Baku......"

"Wait......" Pahlavi always felt that something was wrong, "I asked Tabriz." ”

Gauss next to him also smiled, took out a pencil and drew three arrows on the map, pointing to the three places that Rommel had just mentioned.

Pahlavi looked at the starting point of the arrows, which were all behind the Turkish border, and finally reacted, jumped up and asked in surprise: "Is Turkey ready to enter the war?" ”

"Turkey has been secretly mobilizing for 10 days, and the decision to join the war will be announced either tonight or early tomorrow morning." Rommel laughed, "The reason why I led the troops slowly forward was to put pressure on the opponent and give them enough time to move their forces around Tabriz, so that the follow-up forces in depth would not be enough......"

"I understand, I understand, as long as Turkey sends troops to cut off the enemy's retreat, these troops will be surrounded by you and the Turkish troops, and none of them will want to run."

Gauss smiled and nodded: "Your Majesty, you can recover all of Iran this month." ”

At 4 a.m. on March 3, the Turkish Foreign Minister suddenly broke into the residence of the Soviet ambassador in disregard of diplomatic etiquette, read a declaration of war to the sleepy-eyed ambassador, who had no idea what was happening, and announced that the diplomats in question would be expelled as persona non grata.......

At 4:15, before Moscow, which had received the warning telegram, could transmit the warning to the front line, more than 500,000 prepared Turkish troops rushed out of the border, including an armored division and an infantry division led by Major General Walter Wink drawn from the German Kleist cluster on the southern front, who had deceived the Russians on the opposite side by changing into Turkish uniforms during the secret mobilization a few days earlier, and were now the spearhead of the whole army's attack.

Soon after the army offensive, when the sky was bright, the German bomber group, which had been dormant for a long time, took off from Mosul and Turkey, and bombed the Soviet military targets in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to a mess, and what was particularly interesting was that there were a large number of SM-79 bombers in the bomber group, and after Mussolini said that he would "contribute" more forces, the Italian Air Force not only transferred more than 200 planes in the direction of Gibraltar, but also sent more than 300 planes in the direction of the Middle East and Turkey. The main force was all BF-109 fighters and SM-79 bombers.

For understandable reasons, the German fleet spared the Baku oil field area.

At 9 o'clock, the Turkish troops occupied the first target: Batumi on the Black Sea coast, and at 5 o'clock in the evening, the Turks rushed to a place less than 50 kilometers from Tbilisi, where the Red Army had only 3 incomplete divisions, all capable of no more than 20 tanks, and they faced at least 120,000 Turkish troops, led by German infantry divisions; At 11 o'clock in the evening, Turkish units, led by German armored divisions, quickly cut off the road for the retreat of the Red Army in Tabriz to Armenia, more than 300 kilometers from the Baku oil fields.

Mezzov, who was attacked by a surprise attack and had his back road cut off, was in a state of confusion and hurriedly asked Tyulenev for help, but he did not expect that the latter was also in a mess, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan were in chaos, communications were interrupted, and the organization was chaotic, and the superiors did not know where the subordinate troops were, and the subordinates did not know how many enemies they were facing. All of them were at a loss as to what to do, and the troops who had been forcibly conscripted last summer were in disarray before they even had to start fighting, and the officers and men of the three ethnic minorities, who had always been alienated from the Russians, either took the opportunity to launch a rebellion or fired black guns at officers who did not like the eyes of the Russians, and there was no organized resistance at all.

The overall situation was very good, and after the Turkish officers and men, who were usually terrified of the Red Army, discovered that the enemy was so vulnerable, their courage and ambition began to swell, and they actually changed their battle plans on the fly, from a slow advance to a large-scale interlude. They didn't expect that the reason why they could fight so smoothly was because of the surprise attack; second, because the assault group led by Wink played a pivotal role in defeating the most resistant units of the Red Army; Thirdly, because all the troops with strong combat effectiveness were transferred to the direction of Tabriz by Mezov, and the Turks were faced with only third-rate or even non-influent troops.

Lieutenant General Mezov was horrified to find that more than 100,000 troops on the Tabriz front line were already in the middle of the Turkish army and the German army, and if they did not seize the opportunity to withdraw to Azerbaijan and Baku in time, they would probably be completely surrounded, but this was not a good choice, as long as the 100,000 people showed the slightest panic, the Germans on the opposite side would immediately pounce fiercely and bite themselves to death - he was now completely in a state of involuntariness.

The Turkish President Inonu ordered the dispatch of troops and declared war on the Soviet Union completely out of his own volition: stimulated by Germany's repeated victories and deliberate co-optation, the "patriotic fervor" of the Turkish officer corps had already been aroused, and when Germany won the North Sea campaign and occupied the Azores with a thunderous victory, the British side had no room for resistance, and the desire of the officer corps to send troops finally could not be suppressed.

The intelligence system told Inonu that the officer corps believed that the civilian system around the president was obstructing the war, and that there were already people organizing military advice and preparing to "clear the king's side", and even many people in the presidential guard were involved in the tandem, which made Inonu, who started with the army, feel frightened, and after racking his brains, he took this step from which there was no turning back...... (To be continued.) )