Fox On The Rhine by Douglas Niles & Michael Dobson

Author:Douglas Niles & Michael Dobson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Alternate history
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Western Germany, 12 September 1944, 1350 hours GMT

Rommel’s car trip from Herrlingen to Ulm was an uncomfortable affair, but nothing compared to the train ride from Ulm to Aachen. The journey was a nightmare of blinding headaches, throbbing pain in his left leg, and--most unsettling of all--deep-seated fear.

Would he be physically capable of handling a military command? Was his mind as clear as it needed to be, or would he show fatal hesitation at the moment of decision? Such flaws, he knew, would inevitably cost the lives of German soldiers, the very lives he was setting out to save.

The company of the SS general, Bücher, who looked so coldly at the world from his scarred face, was another unsettling aspect of the trip.

Of course, Rommel understood that, on some level, he owed this new appointment as western front commander to Bücher--the SS man’s visit to the hospital had been some kind of test, and the Desert Fox had apparently passed. And he could take some comfort from the fact that two of his decisions had already borne fruit in lives saved and Germany’s defensive position improved. Nineteenth Army had escaped from Southern France virtually intact, despite the Allied landings that had come only a few days after Rommel’s withdrawal orders. And the counterattack at Abbeville had been a brutal setback to the American advance, buying enough time for the remnants of the Seventh and Fifteenth Armies to get across the Somme and continue their withdrawal to the German border.

There had been some suggestions, strong indications from Berlin that the retreating troops should try to form a line at one of the great French rivers, but Rommel had been adamant. He knew that the fortifications of the Westwall were empty, but they existed at least in part. They would give his men a place to stand, to defend, and--perhaps most importantly--to have some shelter from the deadly presence of the enemy air force. So he had defied the “suggestions,” informing OKW and, indirectly, Himmler himself, that if the Desert Fox was to command, it would be under his own terms. Surprisingly enough, he had heard no more about making a stand in France.

They crossed the Rhine at Karlsruhe, traveling by day as much as possible. That industrial city had been smashed in many places by Allied bombers. Residences and factories had been reduced to ruins, and even a park had been smashed, a playground rendered into craters, a grove of trees reduced to skeletal sticks and splintered trunks. Traveling to Aachen first, they found another German city displaying many of the ravages of war. Here Rommel spoke to several division commanders, learned that the American First Army was drawing close.

“I need men, Herr Feldmarschall--and if you give them to me, I can hold here for a very long time!” reported the corps commander who was entrusted with the city’s defense.

“I will do what I can,” Rommel promised, before getting back on the train and for another night of traveling.

The field marshal

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