202 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
about the terms of agreement that the Soviet Union might arrange
with Germany and Italy: Germany would be given a free hand on the
Continent, minus the Balkans; Italy would have preeminence in the
Mediterranean region; and the Russian sphere of in flu ence would in-
clude the Balkans and the Middle East.^1 Though this was an accurate
assessment of what the Russians and even the German military brass
might find acceptable, Bose miscalculated on the predilections of the
German Führer. Hitler was not prepared to cede the Balkans to the
Russian sphere of in flu ence.
During the first six months of 1940 the chief of the German High
Command, General Alfred Jodl, had drawn up plans for coordinated
German and Soviet action in Afghanistan and India. The Germans
were already funding the Faqir of Ipi and inciting his tribal followers
on India’s northwest frontier to harass the British in Waziristan. When
Germany, Japan, and Italy signed a tripartite pact on September 27,
1940, India was deemed to be within the Russian zone of in flu ence.
The Soviet Union, however, was less interested in India and more con-
cerned about retaining its traditional upper hand in Eastern Europe
and the Balkans. Molotov may have signed the German- Soviet pact
with Ribbentrop in 1939, but on a November 1940 visit to Berlin the
Soviet foreign minister refused to yield on Europe. Faced with Mo-
lotov’s determined effort to undermine his designs, Hitler made up
his mind to invade the Soviet Union. By contrast, Japan’s relations
with Russia improved as the “strike north” strand in Japanese strategic
thinking lost out to the advocates of striking south against Britain in
Southeast Asia and the United States in the Pacific.
By the time Bose escaped from India, in January 1941, the German
war machine might have seemed unstoppable in Western Europe, but
he did not know that the German- Soviet pact was hanging by the most
tenuous thread. In addition to wanting to get first- hand information
on the course of the war and mobilizing Indian soldiers and civilians
abroad for a final assault on the British raj, Bose gave one other reason
to his followers for coming to Germany: in the event Germany signed a
separate peace with a battered but undefeated Britain, he wanted a
strong Indian voice to defend India’s interests at the negotiating table.
Otherwise, he feared that India would become a mere pawn in the