"La France Continue" (LFC) a different destiny for France. (France continues to fight in 1940 by Emi

[ukron]

Chapter 3: While France burns...

"I then noted with disdain that, despite the bellicose remarks he had made less than an hour before, the President of the Chamber of Deputies had remained no less than a simple politician, firmly attached to his own re-election.
Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre - Le Sursaut : 1940-1941 (tome I)

Thus, the government of the Republic, now headed by Georges Mandel, had decided to continue the struggle from North Africa.

But it was still necessary to decide how to proceed...

To fight all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, as the General wanted? A sublime idea on paper, but one that would undoubtedly have caused the government to explode.

To capitulate immediately? An economy of suffering for the people of France in the immediate future, but which would certainly prolong the pain linked to the German occupation. Indeed, it would mean the loss of all the resources, still abundant, present in Metropolitan France.

Alas, the dramatic situation on the front forced Mandel to follow the majority of ministers and to opt for this second option, even though he had considered prolonging the fight in Metropolitan France by a few weeks, the time to evacuate a maximum of resources to Africa and England, and then to capitulate only once a line running from Valence to Bordeaux was crossed by the Nazi armies.

Given the failure of the retreat on the Loire, already crossed at Orleans by the German forces, a total collapse was only a matter of days.

It was therefore necessary to deal with the most urgent situation...

The ministers unanimously agreed that priority should be given to the evacuation of the Austro-German anti-Nazi refugees in France.

Concerning the means vital to the continuation of the fight that were to be evacuated, it was decided to give priority to the transfer to AFN of engineers specializing in armaments and their prototypes.

Indeed, it is not with the few days left in France that many men can be evacuated.

Fortunately, Africa does not lack potential soldiers. And soldiers devoted to France.

General Spears, the representative of his Majesty's government to that of the Republic, announced that the Royal Navy would participate to the maximum of its capacities in this operation called "Anabase".

Like the heroic Greek retreat through a hostile Persian Empire...

The difficult task of signing the act of surrender of the Metropole, an arduous task for a soldier, was entrusted to Weygand's successor at the head of the French armies, Charles Huntziger.

Huntziger, the defeated man of Sedan...

But as de Gaulle points out, he had his own upsurge afterwards[6].

Léon Blum, vice-president of the council, then asked

"So be it. But who will succeed him?"

De Gaulle then replied.

"What France needs is a high-ranking officer whose reputation in the military field is beyond reproach and whose determination to continue the struggle has never wavered. Yes, the one I am talking about is General Charles Noguès, commander of the North African theater, whose cables calling on us, the government of the Republic, to continue the struggle could easily cover the table around which we are debating. This very valuable officer is already actively preparing North Africa to continue the fight.

But France must also promote another officer alongside our future generalissimo. Indeed, in this war, in which the valour of our men was defeated by the mechanical superiority of the enemy, the man who must take the lead of our future armoured forces must be a soldier who has shown his aptitude for mastering this weapon. This man is General Charles Delestraint, who admirably covered the retreat of our armies from the Somme front to the Loire front with his tanks!

Moreover, many officers, from lieutenants to major generals, proved their ability in spite of the immense difficulties imposed by the enemy. Unfortunately, Africa, although entirely on our side, if it is able to provide valuable infantrymen, will not be able to provide in the medium term the field officers accompanying our skirmishers. We owe it to ourselves to evacuate as many of these brilliant men as possible with a view to placing them at the head of our units.[7]
Finally, we must take the heavy decision to recall General Catroux from Indochina.

Yes, I can see from your faces that you fear for our sovereignty over this Union. Sovereignty seriously threatened by Japan. But if Catroux would be perfectly capable of facing Tokyo's pretensions, the urgency is to regroup the valiant French officers. But France did not lack colonial officers who could stand up to Hiro Hito and his ambitions. The Republic also has a man of value who can take over the civil management of the colony to relieve the officer designated by the President of the Council.

The men I am proposing to appoint to the management of the Indochinese Union are Vincent Auriol, for the civil side, and Raoul Salan, for the military side. Yes, you do not yet know the latter, but he is a close friend of the Head of Government, a veteran of the colonies and he knows Indochina and its people well.

But the most important thing is that his unit, the 44th Senegalese mixed colonial infantry regiment, is performing admirably on the Loire front.

Here is the military man fit to replace Catroux in Saigon!" Concluded the General.

This choice was immediately approved by the other ministers. All had seen the telegrams from General Noguès. Here was the man who could not only prepare the African army for the immense task of defending AFN against a possible Reich assault, but who could also lead the reform of the French army in order to make it a formidable tool for the future reconquest. The ministers also heard about General Delestraint's excellent record, which contrasted with the pessimistic cables of an officer like Alphonse Georges. Anxious to avoid being captured in the chaos of defeat, he was immediately ordered to leave his unit and return to Bordeaux as quickly as possible. The same thing happened to Salan. Of course, the vast majority of the government did not yet know him, but they all trusted de Gaulle's instincts in choosing the officers to be evacuated. As for Catroux, he was given command of the North African theater, replacing Noguès.

Given the speed of the German advance, Bordeaux was no longer safe. The government decided to evacuate the next day with the parliamentarians on the liner Massilia.

De Gaulle and the vice-president of the council, Marin, volunteered to evacuate Bordeaux by seaplane only once the military surrender had been confirmed. The goal was to maintain a government presence in France as long as possible.

In the meantime, the government will use the Bordeaux communication means to transmit its decisions and words of hope (General de Gaulle proving to be particularly gifted in this domain) to the rest of the country.

It is worth noting that, in order to avoid it falling into the hands of the Germans, the remains of Marshal Pétain were also transported by liner to North Africa.

At the end of the council meeting, Edouard Herriot approached Mandel and asked him to declare Lyon an "open city" as Paris had been.

Indeed, Guderian quickly approached the capital of Gaul. The discussion became more heated and Herriot finally threatened the president of the council to withdraw his support if Lyon was defended!

Mandel, with rage in his heart, gave in, but still imposed the destruction of the bridges, in order not to facilitate the advance of the Wehrmacht to the extreme. Herriot accepted, especially as the General was not far away.

Thus, we will fight, as for the capital, in front of and behind the city, but not within it...

Huntziger is informed in a hurry of this provision. Analyzing the situation, he ruled out the idea of making Lyon a defensive base and was already preparing the retreat of his forces to the south of the city as soon as it became impossible to hold the northern part of the city.

Mandel, wishing to show that he had not given in to Herriot but rather wished to spare the major French cities, declared "Cities Open", in addition to Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Marseille. In any case, all of them, apart from Lyon, are located very far from the front and will not be occupied anyway when the fighting ends...

Herriot thus shows the dark side of his political struggle, that of a vulgar politician already concerned about his future re-election after the victory.

However, maintaining the Common Front, the Sacred Union of 1940, unfortunately forced him to make certain bargains...

In London, Churchill, terrified of the idea that France might conclude an armistice, took up the cause. "These are men worthy of Clemenceau," he thought.

His position solidified by the "French surge", Churchill dismissed the appeaser[8] Lord Halifax, a supporter of compromise with the Reich, from his post as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in favour of the combative Anthony Eden, who had been Minister of War until then[9].

Anxious to support his French ally in its plan to withdraw to North Africa, he was ready to involve the Royal Navy to the maximum of its capacity in Operation Anabase, as Spears had already announced.


More unmentionable is the idea that the longer the battle continued in France, the more time the United Kingdom would have to prepare for the future Nazi assault on Great Britain, with France in exile at its side...

As soon as the French "rebound" was announced, Churchill, considerably strengthened by the French decision, informed the new leaders of the Republic of his desire to meet with them.

The new inter-allied conference would be held in Quimper the next day, June 18.

Another personality who was in a cold sweat because of the French military and political situation and who now had only to think about how he would support France in exile in its continuing fight against Hitler, was Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt, the Democratic President of the United States of America.

The American president decided, secretly, to do everything possible to ensure that as many weapons as possible were delivered to French North Africa, with shipments already on their way.

Similarly, he agreed to immediately deliver 200,000 rifles to an England that had been disarmed since Dunkirk.

Moreover, Roosevelt, anxious to strengthen his cabinet, included two prominent Republicans. Henry Stimson became Secretary of War while Frank Knox became Secretary of the Navy. Stimson, an opponent of isolationism, was a champion of the Lend-Lease to nations at war with the fascist powers.

At the same time, the French tragedy pushed the American population, initially isolationist, more and more towards interventionism in the conflict against Hitler. For if France fell so quickly, what proof is there that America is not itself in danger?

Moreover, the panache shown by the French leaders in deciding, in defiance of the military situation, to hold on and continue the fight against the enemy, was enough to impress the Americans.

Darlan, who was now Minister of the Navy, set himself an immense task.


Indeed, the bases of Bizerte and Mers-El-Kébir were not really able to accommodate the large units of the "Royale"in the long term[10], while the almost non-existent industry of French Africa was slow to provide the ammunition necessary for the Fleet to continue the fight.

Of course, American support could be counted on to make up for this shortcoming (as it was for the equipment of the Army), but it would also take some time for US industry to be able to effectively support the French Navy. Moreover, British assistance could not be counted on, as the types of ammunition were incompatible.

The Minister therefore decided to evacuate the French Navy's ammunition stocks stored in Toulon to AFN, even if it meant overloading the ships evacuating to AFN.

Mandel was quickly convinced by his minister's arguments and gave him carte blanche to take action.

On the evening of June 17, Mandel boarded the aviso Chevreuil and headed for Quimper to meet Churchill.




KIA for France (Source Le Printemps Tragique
May-June 1940 : Re-reading the "Great Defeat" leprintempstragique.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/recueil-de-citations-1939-1940/)


6] One thinks of the battle of Stonne.
[7] De Gaulle thinks, among others, of Generals De Lattre de Tassigny and Fagalde.
[8] The British equivalent of a Munich man.
[9] Eden quickly became Churchill's "unofficial" successor.
[10] Nickname of the French Navy, whose ministry is located in Rue Royale in Paris!

[ukron]

Sept 12, 2022 14:55:33 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 11, 2022 17:50:40 GMT ukron said:

Chapter 2: Alea Jacta Est

- Ministers:

◦ Minister of the Navy: François Darlan

First, i could not think of a other person to hold this position, secondly Darlan and Gaulle in the same government, do we need to be worried.

Yeah but don't want to spoil  

[lordroel]

Sept 12, 2022 15:00:07 GMT ukron said:

Chapter 3: While France burns...

"I then noted with disdain that, despite the bellicose remarks he had made less than an hour before, the President of the Chamber of Deputies had remained no less than a simple politician, firmly attached to his own re-election.
Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre - Le Sursaut : 1940-1941 (tome I)

Thus, the government of the Republic, now headed by Georges Mandel, had decided to continue the struggle from North Africa.

But it was still necessary to decide how to proceed...

To fight all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, as the General wanted? A sublime idea on paper, but one that would undoubtedly have caused the government to explode.

To capitulate immediately? An economy of suffering for the people of France in the immediate future, but which would certainly prolong the pain linked to the German occupation. Indeed, it would mean the loss of all the resources, still abundant, present in Metropolitan France.

Alas, the dramatic situation on the front forced Mandel to follow the majority of ministers and to opt for this second option, even though he had considered prolonging the fight in Metropolitan France by a few weeks, the time to evacuate a maximum of resources to Africa and England, and then to capitulate only once a line running from Valence to Bordeaux was crossed by the Nazi armies.

Given the failure of the retreat on the Loire, already crossed at Orleans by the German forces, a total collapse was only a matter of days.

It was therefore necessary to deal with the most urgent situation...

The ministers unanimously agreed that priority should be given to the evacuation of the Austro-German anti-Nazi refugees in France.

Concerning the means vital to the continuation of the fight that were to be evacuated, it was decided to give priority to the transfer to AFN of engineers specializing in armaments and their prototypes.

Indeed, it is not with the few days left in France that many men can be evacuated.

Fortunately, Africa does not lack potential soldiers. And soldiers devoted to France.

General Spears, the representative of his Majesty's government to that of the Republic, announced that the Royal Navy would participate to the maximum of its capacities in this operation called "Anabase".

Like the heroic Greek retreat through a hostile Persian Empire...

The difficult task of signing the act of surrender of the Metropole, an arduous task for a soldier, was entrusted to Weygand's successor at the head of the French armies, Charles Huntziger.

Huntziger, the defeated man of Sedan...

But as de Gaulle points out, he had his own upsurge afterwards[6].

Léon Blum, vice-president of the council, then asked

"So be it. But who will succeed him?"

De Gaulle then replied.

"What France needs is a high-ranking officer whose reputation in the military field is beyond reproach and whose determination to continue the struggle has never wavered. Yes, the one I am talking about is General Charles Noguès, commander of the North African theater, whose cables calling on us, the government of the Republic, to continue the struggle could easily cover the table around which we are debating. This very valuable officer is already actively preparing North Africa to continue the fight.

But France must also promote another officer alongside our future generalissimo. Indeed, in this war, in which the valour of our men was defeated by the mechanical superiority of the enemy, the man who must take the lead of our future armoured forces must be a soldier who has shown his aptitude for mastering this weapon. This man is General Charles Delestraint, who admirably covered the retreat of our armies from the Somme front to the Loire front with his tanks!

Moreover, many officers, from lieutenants to major generals, proved their ability in spite of the immense difficulties imposed by the enemy. Unfortunately, Africa, although entirely on our side, if it is able to provide valuable infantrymen, will not be able to provide in the medium term the field officers accompanying our skirmishers. We owe it to ourselves to evacuate as many of these brilliant men as possible with a view to placing them at the head of our units.[7]
Finally, we must take the heavy decision to recall General Catroux from Indochina.

Yes, I can see from your faces that you fear for our sovereignty over this Union. Sovereignty seriously threatened by Japan. But if Catroux would be perfectly capable of facing Tokyo's pretensions, the urgency is to regroup the valiant French officers. But France did not lack colonial officers who could stand up to Hiro Hito and his ambitions. The Republic also has a man of value who can take over the civil management of the colony to relieve the officer designated by the President of the Council.

The men I am proposing to appoint to the management of the Indochinese Union are Vincent Auriol, for the civil side, and Raoul Salan, for the military side. Yes, you do not yet know the latter, but he is a close friend of the Head of Government, a veteran of the colonies and he knows Indochina and its people well.

But the most important thing is that his unit, the 44th Senegalese mixed colonial infantry regiment, is performing admirably on the Loire front.

Here is the military man fit to replace Catroux in Saigon!" Concluded the General.

This choice was immediately approved by the other ministers. All had seen the telegrams from General Noguès. Here was the man who could not only prepare the African army for the immense task of defending AFN against a possible Reich assault, but who could also lead the reform of the French army in order to make it a formidable tool for the future reconquest. The ministers also heard about General Delestraint's excellent record, which contrasted with the pessimistic cables of an officer like Alphonse Georges. Anxious to avoid being captured in the chaos of defeat, he was immediately ordered to leave his unit and return to Bordeaux as quickly as possible. The same thing happened to Salan. Of course, the vast majority of the government did not yet know him, but they all trusted de Gaulle's instincts in choosing the officers to be evacuated. As for Catroux, he was given command of the North African theater, replacing Noguès.

Given the speed of the German advance, Bordeaux was no longer safe. The government decided to evacuate the next day with the parliamentarians on the liner Massilia.

De Gaulle and the vice-president of the council, Marin, volunteered to evacuate Bordeaux by seaplane only once the military surrender had been confirmed. The goal was to maintain a government presence in France as long as possible.

In the meantime, the government will use the Bordeaux communication means to transmit its decisions and words of hope (General de Gaulle proving to be particularly gifted in this domain) to the rest of the country.

It is worth noting that, in order to avoid it falling into the hands of the Germans, the remains of Marshal Pétain were also transported by liner to North Africa.

At the end of the council meeting, Edouard Herriot approached Mandel and asked him to declare Lyon an "open city" as Paris had been.

Indeed, Guderian quickly approached the capital of Gaul. The discussion became more heated and Herriot finally threatened the president of the council to withdraw his support if Lyon was defended!

Mandel, with rage in his heart, gave in, but still imposed the destruction of the bridges, in order not to facilitate the advance of the Wehrmacht to the extreme. Herriot accepted, especially as the General was not far away.

Thus, we will fight, as for the capital, in front of and behind the city, but not within it...

Huntziger is informed in a hurry of this provision. Analyzing the situation, he ruled out the idea of making Lyon a defensive base and was already preparing the retreat of his forces to the south of the city as soon as it became impossible to hold the northern part of the city.

Mandel, wishing to show that he had not given in to Herriot but rather wished to spare the major French cities, declared "Cities Open", in addition to Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Marseille. In any case, all of them, apart from Lyon, are located very far from the front and will not be occupied anyway when the fighting ends...

Herriot thus shows the dark side of his political struggle, that of a vulgar politician already concerned about his future re-election after the victory.

However, maintaining the Common Front, the Sacred Union of 1940, unfortunately forced him to make certain bargains...

In London, Churchill, terrified of the idea that France might conclude an armistice, took up the cause. "These are men worthy of Clemenceau," he thought.

His position solidified by the "French surge", Churchill dismissed the appeaser[8] Lord Halifax, a supporter of compromise with the Reich, from his post as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in favour of the combative Anthony Eden, who had been Minister of War until then[9].

Anxious to support his French ally in its plan to withdraw to North Africa, he was ready to involve the Royal Navy to the maximum of its capacity in Operation Anabase, as Spears had already announced.


More unmentionable is the idea that the longer the battle continued in France, the more time the United Kingdom would have to prepare for the future Nazi assault on Great Britain, with France in exile at its side...

As soon as the French "rebound" was announced, Churchill, considerably strengthened by the French decision, informed the new leaders of the Republic of his desire to meet with them.

The new inter-allied conference would be held in Quimper the next day, June 18.

Another personality who was in a cold sweat because of the French military and political situation and who now had only to think about how he would support France in exile in its continuing fight against Hitler, was Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt, the Democratic President of the United States of America.

The American president decided, secretly, to do everything possible to ensure that as many weapons as possible were delivered to French North Africa, with shipments already on their way.

Similarly, he agreed to immediately deliver 200,000 rifles to an England that had been disarmed since Dunkirk.

Moreover, Roosevelt, anxious to strengthen his cabinet, included two prominent Republicans. Henry Stimson became Secretary of War while Frank Knox became Secretary of the Navy. Stimson, an opponent of isolationism, was a champion of the Lend-Lease to nations at war with the fascist powers.

At the same time, the French tragedy pushed the American population, initially isolationist, more and more towards interventionism in the conflict against Hitler. For if France fell so quickly, what proof is there that America is not itself in danger?

Moreover, the panache shown by the French leaders in deciding, in defiance of the military situation, to hold on and continue the fight against the enemy, was enough to impress the Americans.

Darlan, who was now Minister of the Navy, set himself an immense task.


Indeed, the bases of Bizerte and Mers-El-Kébir were not really able to accommodate the large units of the "Royale"in the long term[10], while the almost non-existent industry of French Africa was slow to provide the ammunition necessary for the Fleet to continue the fight.

Of course, American support could be counted on to make up for this shortcoming (as it was for the equipment of the Army), but it would also take some time for US industry to be able to effectively support the French Navy. Moreover, British assistance could not be counted on, as the types of ammunition were incompatible.

The Minister therefore decided to evacuate the French Navy's ammunition stocks stored in Toulon to AFN, even if it meant overloading the ships evacuating to AFN.

Mandel was quickly convinced by his minister's arguments and gave him carte blanche to take action.

On the evening of June 17, Mandel boarded the aviso Chevreuil and headed for Quimper to meet Churchill.




KIA for France (Source Le Printemps Tragique
May-June 1940 : Re-reading the "Great Defeat" leprintempstragique.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/recueil-de-citations-1939-1940/)


6] One thinks of the battle of Stonne.
[7] De Gaulle thinks, among others, of Generals De Lattre de Tassigny and Fagalde.
[8] The British equivalent of a Munich man.
[9] Eden quickly became Churchill's "unofficial" successor.
[10] Nickname of the French Navy, whose ministry is located in Rue Royale in Paris!

Will we get to know if French North Africa has any capacity to produce stuff ore is this going to be part of the evacuation as well.

[ukron]

Chapter 4: Reich's fury. French panache.

"Hitler, on hearing the news that Paul Reynaud had been replaced by Georges Mandel, remained for a time without reaction. Then, emerging from his torpor, he shouted: "You see, gentlemen, this is the proof of what I announced in Mein Kampf. Namely, that France is the friend of the Negroes and serves the Jewish purpose of world domination. This sub-nation has put down the masks. So be it, we will crush it definitively! Beyond the ideological, Hitler understood that he could not rely on a French government in his pay. At least a legal government. Where he could have had a Chautemps, he only had a Laval.

John Keegan, The Second World War

The news of the arrival in power of Georges Mandel, a Jew, and his call to continue the fight, spread like wildfire within the German army. For these soldiers, who were victorious but still faced sporadic heavy fighting, this meant that the war was not about to end and that the French army might have to be pursued to the Spanish border. As for the religion of the new head of the French government, it was a pretext for venting their own frustration under racist and hateful motives.

The most famous victim was the Prefect of Eure-et-Loire, Jean Moulin. He refused to sign an infamous document falsely accusing the Senegalese Tirailleurs of crimes against civilians and was shot by the Germans who had accused him of being "in the pay of the Jew Mandel" to which he proudly replied "not in the pay, in the service".

The German soldiers, already brutal, behaved from then on like their fathers in 1914. Destruction of villages, massacres of civilians, became the sad lot of invaded France to such an extent that the OKW had to produce in the following days a directive calling its men to restraint while one preferred not to post the placards announcing "Abandoned populations, trust the German army" and showing an Aryan soldier smiling at the side of French children...

"Destroy Bordeaux!" Hitler orders his lackey, Goering.

In the meantime, Hitler's anger did not prevent him from meeting, as planned, with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass, on the Austrian-Italian border. After a violent anti-Semitic diatribe, to which the Italian was less and less insensitive, the Führer told the Duce to speed up the preparations for his own general offensive, while the Italian army was being pushed back by the brave "Chasseurs Alpins".

But the "Chasseurs Alpins" were not the only ones to carry the French military value high. Against all odds, the young cavalrymen of the Saumur school decided to hold, as planned, the 40 km portion of the Loire front that had been assigned to them, despite an order to withdraw to Montauban dated June 15.

At least they now had a reason other than honor to fight for...

De Gaulle would like to count on these brave boys to place them at the head of the units of the future French army but, indeed, these devils of Germans are likely to take advantage of the breach thus opened to surge towards the south!

The General personally telephoned Colonel Michon to order him to be ready to withdraw to Montauban with his students, as originally planned.


The front was already broken and the capitulation was imminent, so much the worse for the fact that a new gap of 40 km was opening on the front of the Loire...

The generals of the German mechanical divisions already had a wide-open road ahead of them. Thus, further north, Rommel, the butcher of Airaines, always in the vanguard and disregarding danger, conquered Normandy and rushed towards Cherbourg at the head of his 7th Panzer Division, while his sister division, the 5th, aimed at Brittany. In the east of France, Heinz Guderian took Pontarlier in the evening of 17 June, definitively isolating Army Group 2, which was defending eastern France.

This last Nazi commander was indeed well helped in this by the strict application of the instruction "NI 1444/3 FT" by the one who should have faced him.

The commander of the second army, General Henry Freydenberg, who abandoned his troops and his staff...

His HQ was thus more than 160 km from the front during the surge. The new French leaders, eager to make an example of him, dismissed him on the spot, stripped him of his rank and kicked him out of the army without any pension rights.

"He is lucky, under Clemenceau it would have been minimum 12 bullets in the skin!" One whispers.

Freydenberg may have been lucky that the government did not really have the means to organize a trial...

At the opposite end of the military spectrum, we find General Jean Flavigny, at the head of the XXIst Corps, which had distinguished itself at Stonne and was about to defend the Vosges, isolated from the rest of the French army.

But it was a fate other than captivity that awaited him.

He was placed on the list of officers to be evacuated to AFN.

It was only at the cost of a fantastic exit from the pocket, by plane and at night, that he reached Africa on board the Farman F.222 Jules Verne, commanded by Henri Daillière.

This was the same aircraft that bombed Berlin on June 7 in response to Operation Paula, the Luftwaffe bombing of the Paris region!

The unfortunate GA2 stopped all attempts to escape the trap and became a hedgehog to resist the German assaults, in accordance with the orders of the GQG and Huntziger.

The call of June 16 did not only raise the morale of the soldiers, it also touched the sailors of the island of Sein. After consultation and under the impetus of the priest, the mayor and also the women of the island, 128 of them left for England, which was within reach of their boats, unlike Africa.

The "Night of the Patriots" was not, however, a checkmate for the Treason. Realizing that, despite the order to embark for Africa, some of the members of parliament had not shown up, the police were ordered to search for them, but the main one who had not shown up had disappeared.

Pierre Laval...

If the others were quickly found and taken aboard the liner (before being stripped of their mandate by decree), an arrest warrant was issued against Laval, who managed, thanks to chaos and complicity, to cross the Spanish border disguised as a nun (at the cost of his mustache and his dignity).

At the same time, the "Anabasis" did not only concern the Allied troops. Indeed, Churchill reiterated his request to transfer to Great Britain or to AFN the hundred or so German pilots captured by the French army. Aware of the importance of depriving the Reich of experienced pilots, they were evacuated across the sea and placed in camps, out of Hitler's reach.

Moreover, meeting in Quimper, the Prime Minister and the President of the Council agreed on the methods of execution of the Anabase operation, while any idea of setting up a Breton reduction force was definitively abandoned, as the deadline for its implementation was now much too short, following its sabotage by Weygand.

But the Anabasis was only one of the subjects of discussion between the two allied heads of government.

Both men were indeed worried by the prospect of a second "stab in the back".

Franco's Spain's entry into the war!

The entry into the war would bring a double threat.

A threat to French Morocco, which particularly worried General Noguès.

But above all, more worrying, a direct threat on Gibraltar, whose loss would allow the Axis to close the Strait of Gibraltar to the Allies!

But the old English lion has more than one trick up his sleeve.

A 5 year old plan, an attack plan on Taranto, the large Italian naval base!

Churchill wanted nothing less than to destroy the Italian fleet by attacking it directly in its bases!

Mandel was seduced. Already, this raid was likely to discourage Franco from entering the war. But also, it was not only going to be a hard blow to Italy but also to allow the Franco-British to see the future more serenely, knowing that the French fleet would have to withdraw for some time from the front line to reconstitute its stocks of ammunition, almost entirely abandoned in the arsenals of Brittany and Toulon, in spite of the exceptional efforts made by Admiral Darlan to evacuate as many as possible.

Operation Catapult was scheduled for the beginning of July.

The British, while congratulating his French counterpart for his determination, predicted that once France was fully occupied, Hitler would not launch an assault on North Africa, with the Italian fleet lying at the bottom of its ports, but would attack England directly.

Indeed, "Hitler wanted to kill two birds with one stone," as Winston Churchill put it in French, because for him, if England fell, France in exile would not be able to continue the struggle, or would at least be neutralized.

Thus, he asked for nothing less than the majority of the excellent French Dewoitine 520 fighters to counter the very probable Nazi air offensive against England. To counter a possible opposition from the French leader, Churchill explained that the Morane-Saulnier 406 fighters, as well as the American Curtiss H-75 fighters, would be sufficient to defend Tunisia against the Italian air force, the Regia Aeronautica.

Especially since the British aircraft based in Malta would also participate in this battle, as the Prime Minister explained.

Mandel hesitated. The British arguments were certainly relevant, but he was still afraid of a sudden assault on French North Africa by the Nazis allied with the Italians.

This war had indeed proven that Hitler was not far from a daring offensive.

Moreover, Churchill refused to send his RAF to defend dying France, while British ground forces very often stalled and abandoned the French units they were fighting alongside.

But Mandel, as he would explain in his memoirs, accepted for strategic reasons first, but also for reasons of honor, by demonstrating the greatness of France in not abandoning its allies.

Didn't he already order to do everything to clear and evacuate the Polish forces fighting in France?

Moreover, concerning the Allied governments that had originally taken refuge in France, the Mandel government gave orders to organize their withdrawal to Algeria. Thus, the Sikorski (Poland) and Pierlot (Belgium) governments[12] settled alongside France in exile. Republican France was just as anxious to offer refuge to its friends as it was to secure a clientele for the future... A subtle mixture of sincerity and interest, all in all very French...

At the end of the conference, the two leaders launched a joint appeal to continue the fraternal struggle.

Churchill made a point of addressing the French in their own language:

"French, it is I, Churchill, who speak to you.

For more than 30 years, in peace and in war, I have walked with you and I walk with you today on the old road.

Today I speak to you in all your homes, wherever fate has led you.

And I repeat the prayer that surrounded your golden Louis: "God protect France".

We, the English, never forget what bond and what attachment unites us to France.

We shall continue to fight beside you with firm feet and strong hearts that liberty may be restored in Europe, that the good people of all countries may be treated decently, and thus bring about the triumph of the cause which made us draw our swords together.

It is here, in this beautiful Brittany, land of brave French sailors, that I met your leaders.

We agreed to continue the war together.

Herr Hitler, with his tanks and other mechanical weapons, and his little accomplice Mussolini will soon have to behave themselves, for all their plots are bringing upon their heads and their regimes a punishment that many of us will see in our lifetime.

There will not be so long to wait.

The adventure follows its course. We are on his trail; and so are our friends on the other side of the Atlantic; and so are your friends on the other side of the Atlantic.

If he can't destroy us, we are sure to destroy him and all his clique and all their works.

So have hope and confidence. He who laughs last will laugh.

Well, good night. Sleep well, gather your strength for the dawn, for the dawn will come; it will rise bright for the brave, gentle for the faithful who have suffered, glorious over the tombs of the heroes.

Long live France!"

History will reveal that Churchill was helped in the writing of this speech by Michel Saint-Denis, a French man of the theater based in London, and was deliberately designed to express the Churchillian straight talk while not being in impeccable French.

Saint-Denis was to head the French section of the BBC or Radio-London, whose broadcasts (notably the famous "Les Français parlent aux Français") were intended for the captive populations of northern France, beyond the reach of Radio-Alger.

The next day, June 19, 1940, in Saint-Nazaire, the crew of the battleship Jean-Bart, whose morale had never wavered and which had reached new heights since the call of the 17th, was about to perform a feat worthy of the eponymous privateer. Indeed, he was going to flee from the port to Casablanca in Morocco in order not only to continue the war, as Darlan wanted, but also... to complete his construction! Indeed, the ship was not yet finished...

At La Charité-sur-Loire, Nazi soldiers discovered a burnt-out train. It contained the archives of the GQG of the French army. Blocked there by the destruction of the tracks by the Luftwaffe, the French preferred to set it on fire rather than risk that this vital information[13] would fall into enemy hands.

In the east, Guderian began to attack the French troops north of Lyon, but they held out, as did the Senegalese Tirailleurs, who fiercely defended Chasselay. Nevertheless, Huntziger, with foresight, already had the explosive charges placed on the bridges of Lyon...

The German barbarism reached its peak against these courageous fighters.

The last defenders of the ruins of Chasselay, soon surrounded and short of ammunition, ended up surrendering to the German forces, clearly superior in numbers. This heroic resistance was admired by the world, while this one, as well as Lille, Dunkirk and the Somme, gave back to the army of the Republic its letters of nobility.

Roosevelt, who followed with passion the story of the fighting in France, knew now, after the episodes of the already heroic fighting on the Somme, that it was possible to fight Hitler and his bloodthirsty hordes.

As for Churchill, he multiplied his glorious panegyrics on "the worthy sons of the victors of Verdun".

The Germans had lost many veterans of Poland and of the battles in the north and took revenge for these losses by massacring the Senegalese riflemen who had taken part in the defense of the little town and sometimes metropolitan soldiers who had defended their African comrades.

Black Africa, already fully mobilized against Nazism, was horrified and supported Georges Mandel's combat government and France with even more fervor.

Despite the Nazi ban on burying Senegalese riflemen, many inhabitants of the city went beyond the ban and provided them with an improvised burial [14].

In general, German savagery knew no bounds. Indeed, the Nazis reduced to ashes the monument in honor of the Senegalese Riflemen located in Reims...

Exasperated by the French resistance, and infuriated by the fact that Mandel was now in charge of France, the leaflets calling for surrender dropped on the French lines took on a distinctly anti-Semitic tone.

Among other things, they called on French soldiers not to die "for the cosmopolitan Mandel and international Jewry" and declared that "England is ready to sacrifice you to the last man in this war that is alien to the true interests of your country"...

Nevertheless, the fall of Chasselay revealed the crumbling of the French lines north of Lyon. Huntziger then ordered the withdrawal to the south of the city to fight the last battle.

On June 19, upon his return from the Quimper conference, Churchill addressed the British House of Commons in these terms.

"The House can only rejoice at the decision of the great nation and people of France with whom we have so long been associated in war and peace and whom we regard as equal to ourselves as the repositories of a liberal culture and tolerant civilization in Europe.

While Churchill paid tribute to France, Rommel and his 7th Panzer Division rushed to Cherbourg.
Cherbourg was commanded by Admiral Jules Le Bigot, who was ordered to hold until the last cartridge was used or, if possible, until the last French soldier had left.

The French Navy provided several ships[15] to provide artillery support, while in the air, on the express orders of Churchill, who put his money where his mouth was, the RAF kept watch. At the same time, the transports that had evacuated the British soldiers some time earlier returned, this time to evacuate the French soldiers.

At first, Rommel seemed to be on the verge of shattering the French government's hopes of repeating the Dunkirk exploit. Hundreds of soldiers were captured in the open country on the roads of the Cotentin peninsula as they retreated to Cherbourg and deliverance.

But things changed when the Germans reached the outskirts of the city. As in Warsaw, the sudden assault of German tanks was stopped, sometimes with simple grenades, by the solidly entrenched defenders, who were generally members of the 208th Infantry Regiment.

Blocked at the gates of the city by the action of the defenders, he also suffered the bombardment of the French naval artillery, against which his modest artillery could do nothing.

It was full of rage that he witnessed the reembarkation of the French soldiers, in relative good order, a reembarkation against which he could do nothing, due to the heroism of the defenders of the port, who certainly retreated this time in the face of the German infantry, which had arrived in front of the city in a forced march, but did not break.

The Luftwaffe, which was now fighting far from its bases, could not do much either, because of the RAF's determination to repeat the feat of Dunkirk.

Churchill had the right choice. Not only did he shatter the myth of the Luftwaffe's invincibility once again, but he also strengthened the ties with France.

In Free France, people followed the reembarkation with attention, hour by hour, thanks to the reports transmitted by Admiral Le Bigot and found there a reason to hope. We could fight against the German tanks and even inflict a slap in the face!

As for Mandel and de Gaulle, in perfect harmony with Huntziger (and Noguès), they counted the number of soldiers saved, who would be able to bear arms for France in future battles.

For example, in the future offensive against Italian Libya, demanded by Noguès, and whose principle did not please the members of the government. Indeed, this attack was vital to prevent Hitler from having a bridgehead ready to invade North Africa!

In the end, the fierce resistance of the French defenders allowed the evacuation of most of the 30,000 men who had taken refuge in the city on the evening of June 20. Under the nose of an ulcerated Rommel.

However, the fall of the city allowed the dreaded 7th Panzer Division to be "liberated". On the orders of its commander, it immediately headed south. Towards the Loire...

Manfred Rommel, his son, in his book Rommel, My Father, had this to say.

"I was delighted to see my father again, admittedly for a short leave, after this victorious campaign in the west, and I kept asking him questions about Arras, Saint Valery en Caux, Dunkirk, Lille and the Somme, to which he replied emphatically, praising his exploits at the front. But the tone changed when I asked him to tell me about the battle of Cherbourg. He answered in a cold tone of voice, which I did not know him for, at least in his family, that "unfortunately, the Allies had held out long enough to escape". From that moment on, I knew that this failure tormented my father. Indeed, it was the first one he had encountered in his career... ".

In Brittany, the withdrawal of British and Polish troops to England continued while the evacuation of naval units to England or the Empire also began. The gold of the Bank of France was also evacuated to Casablanca by the aircraft carrier Béarn and 5 liners, Ville d'Oran, El Mansour, El Kantara, El Djezaïr and Ville d'Alger so that it would not fall into the hands of the invader. Similarly, the French heavy water stock was evacuated to AFN by the destroyer Milan[17].

In the midst of the chaos, one soldier stood out even more than the others. He was Vincent Doblin. He knows what awaits him if or when the Nazis capture him. Indeed, he is not only a Jew, but also an anti-Nazi German! Caught in a trap, he had no hope of escaping the clutches of Hitler's armies. So if he had to die, he might as well take with him a maximum of his former compatriots who were now bitter enemies. Born German, Doblin died on June 23 in French. 18]

Another anti-Nazi German, General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, had this to say in his post-war book, Officers Against Hitler: A History of German Resistance to Nazism (1933-1945):

"The fall of France was for us a real tragedy.

But we saw in the courage displayed by the French leaders who rejected the defeat a reason for hope and an inspiration for ourselves, old Prussian officers blocked by our oath of loyalty to the person of Adolf Hitler.

One day, armies would emerge from Africa to crush the Führer!

At the same time, we were aware that this would only happen at the cost of the destruction of Germany if we did not take a clear stand against the Nazis in time.





Vincent Doblin (1915-1940) Died for France (Source Wikipedia)

[11] Franco had already occupied Tangier, an international city, on June 14 and had ended his status as a neutral state in favor of that of a "non-belligerent"...
[12] With the notable exception of King Leopold III, a prisoner of the Germans.
[13] List of agents abroad, military convention with neutral Switzerland in case of invasion of the country by the Third Reich.
[14] After the war, thanks to the clandestine census carried out in 1940 following the action of Jean Marchiani, Secretary General of the Provincial Office for the Disabled, Veterans and Victims of War, the bodies of 196 Tirailleurs were found. The remains were then buried in a necropolis created in their honor and located in the immediate vicinity of the place of their sacrifice, the Tata, "sacred ground enclosure" in Wolof, the place where the warriors who died in combat were buried.
[15] Notably the battleship Courbet
[16] Let us note that the Italian Libya has just lost its governor, Italo Balbo, shot down by its own flak! The same Balbo had expressed doubts about his country's entry into the war...
[17] As well as the family of General Charles de Gaulle!
[18] As his regiment was about to surrender to the enemy following the announcement of the military surrender, Doblin left his comrades. He committed suicide with his last bullet in a barn in the village of Housseras. Buried as an anonymous soldier, his body was not identified until 1944. Doblin, beyond his heroism as a soldier, was also a brilliant mathematician who solved the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation as it was discovered by his biographer in... 1958! Indeed, it was only at this date that the envelope containing the solution was discovered in the archives of the Academy of Sciences, to which he had sent it in February 1940.

[ukron]

Chapter 5: Endgame in France

"The news of the appointment of Mandel, who was a Jew, an unforgivable crime in the eyes of my convictions at the time, appalled me. "But no! He's a Jew, he's not capable of fighting, of making war, but we, we're French, we'll show him what we're capable of!" I exclaimed, shocking my mother.
Of course, the content of the appeal of June 16, which closely followed this announcement from Radio-Bordeaux, marked the end of my youthful anti-Semitism. "Here is the man who will lead France to victory! I said to myself. I then took the firm decision to join North Africa and to take with me the maximum of my companions.
Daniel Cordier, Alias Caracalla: memoirs, 1940-1943



June 20, 1940: Bordeaux is on fire. Goering had just launched a raid of 200 bombers on the temporary capital of the French Republic. Despite the efforts of the air force, only 17 attackers were shot down.

Hundreds of civilians perished, with casualties compounded by the fact that the city was crowded with refugees as chaos ensued in the "capital of defeat."

Fortunately, Massilia is intact. The government and parliament were ready to go into exile to continue the fight against the "barbarians and lackeys" who, unlike in 1916, had passed. [19]

As he was about to leave the city hall, Mandel received a surprise visit from the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes.
The latter explains that after several nights of reflection punctuated by prayers, he has decided to support the refugees fleeing Nazism by granting them visas for Portugal. This will partly relieve the Franco-British, who will therefore be able to prioritize the evacuation of their soldiers within the framework of Anabase. Mandel, surprised, could only thank the consul, who hurried back to his consulate to continue granting the maximum number of visas to the refugees.

While France seemed to be recovering, a childish accident, hidden at the time, took place in Châteauroux. Louis Deschizeaux, the city's deputy mayor, tried to have Huntziger's soldiers disarm the city. The officers rejected the mayor's plea with haughtiness and condescension and immediately informed Mandel via the GQG. Mandel immediately dismissed the deputy mayor Deschizeaux from all his offices by decree. Moreover, while the majority of the parliamentarians were on the Massilia, what was he still doing in his constituency?

On the Atlantic front, the German battle cruiser Gneisenau was hit by a torpedo from the British submarine Clyde off Trondheim.

Concerning American power, the French leaders, aware that they would soon be totally deprived of the industrial potential of the Metropole, instructed Paul Reynaud to negotiate with Roosevelt the purchase of American arms in order to equip the armies that would soon be formed en masse in Africa. More discreetly, he also had to discreetly buy factories in order to provide the Republic with non-lethal equipment that was just as necessary for the future victory.
Reynaud will be helped in his mission by the fact that France has, as the General says, "a lot of gold".

Moreover, the General, who combined the art of the word with clear-sightedness, pronounced, on this June 21, a new call to resistance.

"The French government decided, once the Metropolis was fully occupied, to continue the struggle from the Empire, in order not to fall under the dependence of Germany and Italy.

Indeed, to negotiate with the enemy would not be a simple capitulation, but a complete subjugation of our country.

Aware of this, the French do not accept capitulation or servitude, for reasons that are called honor, common sense, the superior interest of the Fatherland.

I say honor! For France has undertaken to lay down her arms only in agreement with her allies. As long as her allies continue the war, her government has no right to surrender to the enemy. The Polish Government, the Norwegian Government, the Dutch Government, the Belgian Government, the Luxembourg Government, although driven from their territory, have also understood their duty in this way.

I say common sense! For it is absurd to consider the struggle as lost. Yes, we are suffering a great defeat. A bad military system, the mistakes made in the conduct of operations, the spirit of abandonment of certain members of the previous Government during these last battles, have made us lose the battle of France. But we still have a vast Empire, an intact fleet, a lot of gold. We still have allies, whose resources are immense and who dominate the seas. We still have the gigantic possibilities of American industry. The same conditions of war which made us beaten by 5,000 planes and 6,000 tanks can give us, tomorrow, victory by 20,000 tanks and 20,000 planes.

I say the best interest of the Fatherland! For this war is not a Franco-German war that a battle can decide. This war is a world war. No one can foresee whether the peoples who are neutral today will remain so tomorrow, even Germany's allies, will they always remain her allies? When the forces of freedom finally triumph over those of servitude, what would have been the fate of a France that had submitted to the enemy?

Honor, common sense, the superior interest of the Fatherland, command all Frenchmen to continue the fight, wherever they are and however they can.

Long live France in honor and independence!"

The Capital of the Gauls was occupied on the evening of the 21st. Fortunately, General Orly was able to withdraw some units of the army of the Alps from the Italian front and send them to the north to reinforce the Germans.

They faced a German army so arrogant that it rushed to Grenoble to overtake its Italian ally!

The Nazi columns were stopped at Voreppe. It was indeed Italy that occupied Grenoble.

To the great joy of the future resistance...

The occupation of Lyon and the upcoming isolation of the Confederation worried the Swiss authorities about the future of their country. Hans Hausamann, captain of the Swiss intelligence services, sent his predictions to his government in an attempt to reassure them and give them faith in the future.

"France and Great Britain would not give in, no matter what. Even if the Germans seized North Africa and Great Britain, the French and British fleets and empires would continue to fight.

Germany would attack the USSR and the United States would enter the war alongside the French and British.

The French, British and Americans will support the Soviets in their resistance to Hitler.

The war will be long. It will end with the total defeat of Germany, a small country with limited industry and a lack of intelligence. The best proof of this is that Germany accepted Italy's entry into the war, which would lead the Axis to disaster.

Pro-allied, Captain Hausamann transmitted information to the Western and then Soviet secret services throughout the war thanks to a spy network created by him, whose branches reached the highest levels of the German high command.

June 22, 1940: The fateful day had arrived.

Contact had been made with the enemy through Spain (for Germany) and the Vatican (for Italy) to organize the signing of the act of surrender marking the end of the fighting in France.

However, an order stipulating that they should prioritize clandestinity over surrender had been discreetly given to the troops. At the same time, secret arms depots had been set up as a matter of urgency in France, which was still free, in order to equip the "soldiers of the interior" when the day came. These hidden depots had been made up of the equipment that could not be evacuated within the framework of the Anabasis.

Huntziger, after bidding farewell to his officers, went to Tours to meet the Germans.

They took him to a place that they kept secret from the French until his arrival.

It was with amazement that, shortly before his arrival, the French commander-in-chief understood where the Germans were taking him.

Rethondes, the very place where the criminal pride of the German Empire succumbed...[20]

The Nazis added symbolism to humiliation!

When he arrived at Rethondes, the French officer had to endure the reading by Keitel of a long plea that accused France of being responsible for the war.

Once this indigestible gruel had been swallowed with difficulty by the French, the Germans dictated their conditions.

In their image. Infamous...

Indeed, the invaders demanded that France deliver to Germany the German and Austrian Jewish and anti-Nazi refugees.

Disgusted, Huntziger and his delegation got up and left the car to go to the tent set up for them by the Germans.

A few hours later, the "negotiations" resumed. The Germans held their ground, but Huntziger and his delegation held firm even when they threatened to escalate the conflict with the remaining French army.

Finally, the Germans, who had been instructed to sign fairly quickly, contacted Hitler, who agreed to withdraw this demand as a prerequisite to signing.

Indeed, he was initially eager to save his army for other campaigns...

As for the administration and plundering of France, he could well find a clique of French collaborators in the style of the Norwegian Quisling[21] to obtain everything he wanted from the French Metropole, especially the German refugees who had been unable to embark for North Africa or to pass abroad.

It was through the mouth of Huntziger, who was soon to leave for an Oflag, that the French government learned of the conclusion of the surrender and the end of the fighting in Metropolitan France by midnight on June 23. In fact, the vast majority of the fighting ceased with the announcement of the signing of the capitulation on the evening of June 22. It should be noted that Italy was represented by Marshal Badoglio. The fighting therefore officially ceased between the Alpine Army and the Italian Army at midnight on June 23.

In London, Churchill made a memorable speech in the Commons on June 23 in which he announced to his fellow citizens that "the battle of France is over, but the battle of Britain is about to begin. "22] In his warlike speech, Churchill expressed his confidence in the final victory over Nazism, confident of French support in the face of totalitarianism, reiterated his calls for American intervention and for the Dominions of the British Empire, and concluded, "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasted for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

It is time to take stock. 60,000 French soldiers lost their lives during the Battle of France against 35,000 Germans in one and a half months of fighting. This exceeds the worst months of the previous conflict for both sides, in terms of daily losses.

As for the Maginot Line, most of its works were still standing on June 22! It was therefore with a certain relief that the German besiegers learned that this hard fight was over. As in Lille, they agreed to pay military honors to the garrisons who had finally laid down their arms.

Hitler, however, was less sympathetic. He immediately ordered to blow up the works of the line! A "now useless separation between Alsace-Lorraine and the rest of the Reich", in his own words.

A new annexation is on the way for the unfortunate French Alsatians and Moselle ... [23]

As for Mussolini, he organized on the 24th a gigantic military parade that he personally presided over in Nice, barely secured by his forces, and proclaimed the return to Italy of the "irredent lands" that are Nice precisely but also Savoy!

It was a minority populace that had bought into the fascist ideas and was handpicked to attend the Italian parade, as the majority of Nice's patriotic population was confined to their homes by the occupying forces.

This could not erase the simple fact that, after the fighting in France, and except for a few Alpine passes and valleys, Italy had only conquered Menton. Nevertheless, Mussolini ordered to take prisoners the "Chasseurs Alpins" who had humiliated his army and proclaimed from Nice the annexation, or rather, the "return" of the irredent lands of Savoy and Nice!

He also received from the Führer a zone of occupation extending to the Rhône.

Certainly, thousands of "Chasseurs Alpins" were seized by the Italians, but some, in accordance with Mandel's instructions, refused to surrender and hid in the mountains.

As for the troops who were facing the Germans further north, that is to say 2 million prisoners, almost a quarter of them tried to escape and 100,000 soldiers managed to do so, because the Germans had difficulty in managing these long columns of men, many of whom suspected that they would not be returning home any time soon...

France was filled with fleeing soldiers who were soon taken in by the nascent resistance. Many of them will be heralds of the resistance.

"Chasseurs Alpins" who refused to surrender and escaped soldiers hid in the countryside and soon formed small mobile groups that quickly joined the Resistance.

They and the "Chasseurs Alpins" who refused to surrender became the first maquisards.

On the other hand, in the chaos of the defeat, some officers destined to continue the fight from exile were seized by the Germans.

This was the case of Bertrand Fagalde, the defender of Dunkirk, captured on the 18th on the Loire.

Knowing that the war was over for him, he told his captors about his deep Anglophobic feelings, judging "perfidious Albion" to be responsible for France's current misfortunes...

The enemy didn't miss a beat and the information quickly reached Berlin...

Georges Mandel and his government were greeted by a frenzied crowd when they arrived in Casablanca.

Indeed, the people of the Empire were perhaps the most ardent supporters of the continuation of the struggle, starting with their press, which was not sparing in its calls for resistance.

While the guns fell silent in France, British commandos launched a raid on Le Touquet, in occupied France. Indeed, Churchill wanted to hit the Nazis "everywhere, all the time" at all costs.

This raid/coup de main has the gift of restoring the morale of the British people and it is planned to repeat this kind of action in the future.

If the French agreed in principle, they would soon insist on having their own raiding force called "Corps Francs", although of course the latter would work in perfect harmony with its British counterpart.

The first members of the French "Corps Francs" were taken from the French troops who had participated in the Norwegian campaign and had withdrawn to Great Britain.

In the Pyrenees-Atlantiques, still beyond the reach of Hitler's Reich for a few more days, Danier Cordier embarked with about twenty companions on the steamer Leopold II bound for Morocco. He became a hero of the famous "Corps Francs" and was the terror of Hitler's soldiers.

While Mussolini's army was humiliated in the Alps by the epic resistance of General Olry's heroic soldiers, some Italian high ranking officers nevertheless showed initiative, for the Allies' relative misfortune.

Thus, in Italian East Africa, although he was isolated from his metropolis by the Allied colonies, the Duke of Aosta, commander-in-chief of the Italian armies in this region, did not intend to remain inactive on this front and prepared an offensive against French and British Somalia as well as against Sudan and Kenya, British colonies.

Moreover, on the colonial front, the British had already gained a psychological advantage by seizing Forte Capuzzo on the border between Libya and Egypt.[24]

From the international and diplomatic point of view, noting France's military defeat in Europe, the Kingdom of Romania radically changed its foreign policy in order to ensure its survival. From being a pro-allied power, it turned to Berlin in order, as King Carol II himself said, "not to suffer the same fate as Poland.

Thus, in exchange for political and economic concessions,[25] the Kingdom hoped to ensure the maintenance of the borders of "Greater Romania.

However, Stalin began to mass his troops on the border with Bessarabia...

All this made Gheorghe Tatarascu, the Romanian Prime Minister, say to Adrien Thierry, French ambassador in Bucharest, on June 18, 1940.

"The Russians and Hungarians, in this part of Europe, have become the Reich's gendarmes and (they) will not be long in asking for their wages at our expense.

Indeed, the head of the Romanian government spoke in these terms because for him, the defeat of France was also that of his country.

Just as he had already invaded the three Baltic nations on June 14, when the eyes of the world were focused on the fall of Paris, the Red Tyrant was preparing this time to claim Bessarabia, a former province of the Tsars' Russia that Romania had recovered at the end of the First World War.

While France was being consumed, Molotov sent a note on June 24 demanding the return of this province to the bosom of Russia, which was now Soviet.

Although Ambassador Thierry urged Romania to resist, as Finland had done, Carol II's soul was not worth that of Marshal Mannerheim...

Thus, the Romanian monarch turned first to Berlin[26], which enjoined him to yield to Soviet demands. The only concession made to the Romanians was that southern Bukovina, initially demanded by Stalin, would remain Romanian...

Despite the withdrawal of the Romanian army, Stalin decided to "test" his new toy on the retreating army. Thus, he launched paratroopers units of the Red Army on the cities of Bolgrad, Cahul and Ismail, which they easily seized[27].

Worse, a battle broke out in Hertsa between the 2 armies, because of the thickness of a badly sharpened red pencil...

Indeed, although not part of the territory ceded by the Romanians, the city was accidentally included in Soviet territory because of the thickness of the pencil that had drawn the new border on the Soviet staff maps.

After this diplomatic debacle, Carol II hoped to get into the good graces of the Reich against Hungarian irredentism by replacing Tartarescu with the Germanophile Ion Gigurtu.



Huntziger signs the act of surrender.


[19] No passing!
[20] In the words of Binet-Valmer, inscribed on a monumental slab in the clearing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918.
[21] And he was soon to find it in the person of Laval
[22] While the Battle of France is over but, the battle of Britain is about to begin.
[23] This did not prevent the Moselle inhabitants from demonstrating against the Nazi presence on the following July 14!
[24] Less well known is the destruction of an Italian border post west of Pisida by a French detachment on June 19.
[25] Oil deliveries in particular
[27] In particular via the redoubtable ambassador Killinger
[28] As well as an important railway junction

[ukron]

Chapter 6: Threat on Indochina

"When we arrived in Saigon, after a journey worthy of the Anabasis of the Greeks, which took us through Fort Lamy, Djibouti, Muscat, Bombay and Singapore, we discovered a situation much more terrible than we had imagined, when we read the first reports of Governor Catroux. The position of France was not only threatened, it was also shaken on its very foundations!
But that was not the point. Governor Auriol and I were going to consolidate it.
Raoul Salan, Mémoires Pour l'Empire : Le sens d'un engagement (Volume I)

Imperial Japan, eager to take advantage of the dramatic military situation in France, sent an ultimatum on June 17, 1940 to General Catroux, who was still Governor of Indochina pending the arrival of the Auriol-Salan duo. In this document, Tokyo enjoined the French representative to stop supplying the Chinese army from the colony and asked him to accept the presence of a Japanese commission in Tonkin to verify that the cessation of arms deliveries to China was effective. In order to put pressure on the isolated colony, the Japanese government began to mass its troops on the Sino-Tonkin border the day after the fall of Paris, on June 15.

General Catroux, in the name of the French government, rejected this ultimatum, informed as he was of the new turn of events in France and the arrival in power of men of value, ready to continue the fight against Nazism.

A few days later, the Japanese XXIInd Army sent important reinforcements to the northern border of Tonkin, while the Imperial fleet showed itself to be a threat off the coast of Haïphong.

Obviously, the Japanese, haughty and proud, did not take kindly to the Frenchman's scathing refusal... Especially since for them, military defeat in Metropolitan France was equivalent to the end of France...

In the meantime, Catroux sought support among France's allies and friends. While the neutral United States was content to place the Asian fleet[28] on alert, the British sent a fighter squadron and the Commonwealth several warships to... Saigon, at the southern end of the colony! This showed the Japanese that the British Empire would intervene if they launched a full-scale invasion of the colony, but not if the situation was limited to border incidents... Churchill did not want a Pacific war while the Battle of Britain was being prepared.

Moreover, it is pushing the Dutch government to station its ships in the same place.

The Japanese were preparing a border incident. A famous and bloody one. A massive assault on the Lang-Son border post, to "punish" the French for their arrogance.

On July 1, 25,000 Japanese soldiers launched their attack on this position, defended by only 5,000 French soldiers. The latter resisted for 6 days during desperate battles that ended with the surrender of the post. It was in vain that Governor General Catroux asked for reinforcements from Algiers. Indochina was alone...

Once Lang Son was conquered, the Japanese stopped their attack. Hiro Hito sent an emissary to apologize (!) to Catroux. The latter explained in return to the envoy from Tokyo that France would continue to help the Chinese government in its fight against the Japanese invasion.

The Japanese, in their bestial fury, beheaded some of the French prisoners! The Annamite riflemen[29], on the other hand, were released on parole...

Thailand followed the Lang Son battle with interest. Immediately after the end of hostilities, it spoke with the imperial government in Tokyo.

The Mandel government was deeply shocked by this real act of aggression, but it could do nothing for the moment, except to demand compensation from the Japanese, which would take a long time to come.

The Japanese exactions were hidden from public opinion in the Empire for fear of its reaction.

A few days later, Auriol and Salan arrived in Saigon after an epic journey and Catroux could only tell them that, first of all, the French equipment was not at all up to par with the Japanese weaponry. But there is also much worse for the place of France in the Far East... Indeed, part of the riflemen deserted during the fighting, sign of a very precarious colonial situation.

Catroux made the same observation to Mandel and the General upon his arrival in Africa and transmitted a report in which he strongly demanded major reforms for the colony.

Mandel, former Minister of the Colonies and now head of the government of a power in exile that could only rely on them, was not insensitive to the soldier's words. He instructed his Minister of the Colonies, Marius Moutet, to set up a plan to reform the administration of the Indochinese Union.

However, from the genesis of this plan, the Cochinchina question was born...




French Indochina (Source Wikipedia)

[28] Stationed in Manila, Philippines.
[29] Name given at the time to the Vietnamese

[ukron]

Chapter 7: Piracy

"Like the Panzers in the French campaign, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group had a way of popping up where they were not expected. Evading the surveillance of Italian patrols by taking roads thought to be impassable, their commanders also showed daring in the art of combat."
Henri Michel, The Second World War


While the Metropole had just surrendered, Noguès, who was not only seeking at all costs to avoid a Spanish intervention in the conflict, but for whom a purely defensive strategy was not in his nature, decided to strike a blow against the advanced Italian positions along the border.

Of course, it was not yet time for a general offensive, as the French and British were not yet ready, but the aggressive action of the Commonwealth against Forte Capuzzo, as well as the first Franco-Italian engagements, showed that the Duce's army in Africa was not as formidable as might have been feared, even though it had nine divisions facing Tunisia.

But what to do?

The solution came from the British and, more specifically, from Ralph A. Bagnold, who proposed to Archibald Wavell that he form a "raiding" force that would harass the Italian rear by crossing the vastness of the Sahara desert.

Bagnold had convinced his compatriot by threatening to break communications between Egypt and Sudan via an assault from Kufra by an Italian column.

"What will you do if the Italians do not move south?

To this last reticence, Bagnold retorted.

"Piracy! We will attack their convoys, we will harass their posts, we will burn their depots, we will spy and report on their every move and manpower, we will destroy their planes... We will make their lives impossible."

These words won Wavell's decision and he passed the innovative idea on to Noguès, who was immediately won over.

The name of the officer to whom to entrust the unit was quickly found. Indeed, France has a good number of desert baroudeurs and the most famous of them is Georges Estienne. A recognized Saharan. This one has, moreover, also the immense merit of being the son of General Estienne, the "father" of the French armoured weapon during the previous war...


Georges Estienne (Source Wikipedia)

While the British unit was called the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), the French unit was called the "Unité transsaharienne autoportée".

To this pompous name, the Allied press, and soon history, will prefer that of "Lords of the Desert", in homage to Estienne's nickname.

Although Operation Compass/Compas was scheduled for 13 September, it took only five weeks to form the two units, starting with the formation order of 24 June 1940. On 28 July, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group, in perfect harmony, were ready to strike.

Their targets? The powerful bases in the far south of Libya, Mourzouk and Koufra. The objective of these coups? To show the Italians that they would not be safe anywhere, even in the heart of the Sahara!

If the French column started from Largeau, in French Chad, its British counterpart had Aswan as its point of departure.

The motivation of the soldiers, already very high, was further reinforced by the disaster suffered by the Italian navy in Taranto.

For the assault, the British had two aircraft carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious, heavily escorted by the French and British navies.

Alarmed by the Allied manoeuvre, the Italians reacted by... regrouping the bulk of their fleet in Taranto!

"All the birds were in the nest", as Admiral Cunningham said.

If the barrage balloons constituted a major nuisance, the Italian Admiral Campioni had ordered to leave the protection nets at a distance to allow a rapid departure.

Fatal mistake...

It was on July 3, around 10 pm that the planes took off towards their prey.

The Swordfishs arrived on target 2h30 later.

In spite of the strategic importance of the base, its anti-aircraft defenses were not up to the task and the biplanes succeeded in passing relatively easily the fire of the flak.

Illuminated by 4 bengal fires, the preys were ready for their execution...

The first kill was that of the Giulio Cesare. Hit by 3 torpedoes, the monster sank in less than 12 minutes.

The next victim was the Caio Duilio, hit by 2 torpedoes, as was the Conte di Cavour a few minutes later.

The cruiser Fiume was also destroyed during the coup de main.

Several other units were damaged to varying degrees during the attack, while the fuel depots were in flames.

The key pieces of the Italian fleet, its battleships, now lie mostly at the bottom of the harbor!

This was a huge success for the Allies, who could calmly prepare the withdrawal of the Royal from the front lines, while this new disaster shook the opinion of Mussolini's high Italian dignitaries, and especially the monarchists, a little more.

The British alone could ensure the blockade of the Libyan coast, while the Japanese, via their military attaché in Berlin, Takeshi Naito, would soon take a close interest in the Franco-British attack...

This success was all the more important as the bombs were about to hit England...

Moreover, he pushed Franco to be reluctant to enter the war, whereas negotiations on his intervention with the Nazis had been going well since the capitulation. Indeed, the prospect of a rapid Axis victory was becoming more remote, while Franco had in mind the fact that the Allies would seize all of Spain's colonies within a few weeks...

Moreover, the Allies promised him a secret agreement by which they would give him the agricultural products that Spain so badly needed, as well as the machine tools necessary for the industrialization of the country, in exchange for his non-intervention.

In Africa, we should note that one of Estienne's seconds was Lieutenant Louis Blanchard. Although he was originally a legionnaire, the General immediately sensed that Private Blanchard would make an excellent leader for this operation and placed him in the Trans-Saharan Self-Propelled Unit, rather than maintaining him in a legionnaire unit in the order of battle for Operation Compass/Compas.

Everything happened very quickly for Private Blanchard. During the review of his unit, de Gaulle spent more time on him than on the others.

"Private, what is your name?" the Minister of War asked him after observing him in detail for about twenty seconds.

After the legionnaire introduced himself, de Gaulle simply replied.

"Hmm I see." Then he tugged on his ear, which made his comrades smile.

Calling his officer, he announced his future transfer to the Trans-Saharan Unit and his appointment to the rank of lieutenant.

De Gaulle had perfectly recognized in "Louis Blanchard" Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince Napoleon.

Having volunteered in the Foreign Legion at the declaration of war, he had, in fact, in spite of the law of exile, decided to defend his true homeland.

France...[30]

A perfect connoisseur of the desert, Captain Estienne led his column to Mourzouk at the cost of a single vehicle lost due to an engine failure.

Estienne also relied on his perfect knowledge of Arabic and on a message from the highest Muslim religious authorities of the Empire, which explained the motivations of the French Republic, to obtain important information from the natives about the habits of the garrison. Such as the fact that the Italian soldiers locked themselves in the fort every night.

Estienne decided to take advantage of this to launch a devastating night raid on the Mourzouk runway to deprive the Italians of their air force. This raid was a great success and ended with the destruction of the Italian aircraft.

Mourzouk was isolated from the rest of Libya!

Equipped as a light force, Estienne's soldiers nevertheless appeared to be quite helpless in the face of the enormous firepower deployed by Mussolini's soldiers. Indeed, if the secondary objectives were immediately fulfilled in the first assault, the Italian garrison was still resisting.

Lieutenant "Blanchard" then advised Estienne to use the mobility of the only artillery piece carried by the troop, and to fire a few salvos at the fort before moving it a good hundred meters away and repeating the maneuver, and so on.

The aim was to make the Italians believe that the French had a large artillery.

The Italians, totally caught off guard, and believing they were facing a deluge of artillery, decided to send an emissary to Estienne to negotiate their surrender!

The Napoleonic maneuver had succeeded perfectly!

The Italian commander was surprised to discover that the French had only one gun.

Too late, the fort and its garrison had surrendered.

Graziani and the Italian command were appalled by this rout[31] while reports of the concentration of Allied troops on the colony's borders multiplied.

The Fascist marshal asked Rome for reinforcements, but most of the simple supplies that were destined for him had already been sunk by the Royal Navy[32] and ended up at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Compass was already well underway before it was even launched...

All the more so since, to the great astonishment of the British army commanders, Adolf Hitler's designated victim, Winston Churchill, ordered the last remaining armored vehicles in Great Britain to be sent to Egypt to take part in the great attack planned against this same Italian Libya.

Moreover, this decision left the generals Wavell and O'Connor who were in command in the Middle East stunned, while obviously satisfying them, despite their fears for their motherland, while John Dill, the imperial chief of staff, commented.
"The Prime Minister was always preparing ambitious offensive plans. And not only in connection with the offensive against Libya. While the time was ripe for the Battle of Britain, his eyes were fixed on the Dodecanese, whose conquest he was preparing, while it took all our powers of persuasion to prevent him from rushing back to Norway."

But the Prime Minister was confident in the Royal Navy and, above all, in the RAF, which had to protect it from the Nazi Luftwaffe, despite the shameful surrender of the Channel Islands to a German reconnaissance plane! It is true that the islands had been evacuated by the British army and were not supposed to be defended.

But already, since July 10th, the Battle of Britain had begun.



British Swordfish flying over the HMS Ark Royal, 1939 (Source Wikipedia)

[30] Just like his cousin, Joachim Murat, who was involved in the Internal Resistance.
[31] Especially since Kouffra had also fallen.
[32] The French Navy remained in its bases until it received the first ammunition delivered by the American arsenals.

[ukron]

Chapter 8: Submission

"Under a veneer of legality, Laval shot down the law"
Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre – Le Sursaut : 1940-1941 (tome I)

"The moment had come", thought Pierre Laval when, on June 25, 1940, the first German columns from Rommel's "phantom division" reached Hendaye and the Spanish border.

The traitor had prepared his return to France, which was now occupied. Indeed, through the intermediary of the Spanish authorities, who not only served as intermediaries between the Republic and Hitler, he made contact with the Nazis and declared himself willing to head a new government, friendly to the Reich.

His certificate of Nazi-compatibility was confirmed by his friend, the felonious mayor of Bordeaux, Adrien Marquet, who had welcomed the Germans with open arms a few days earlier. Here was the man the German authorities were looking for to serve as their French Quisling!

Quickly transported to Paris, he made contact with the French fascistoid clique in order to build a "New Order" in France, working hand in hand with the Hitler Reich.

This would involve the abolition of the Republic and the formation of a new government...

Laval, cautious, was content to proclaim himself "Head of the Provisional Government".

Indeed, as a true dictator according to the Voltairean definition, he intended to use the laws before better destroying them. It is by an extraordinary congress, that he intends to gather in Versailles, under the golds of the Monarchy and the IIIth Republic that he intends to destroy the latter!

The Auvergnat was also, in a less avowed way, anxious to legitimize his power, conscious that he was of the relative weakness of his position (who knows, the Germans could always find another traitor to serve them if they felt like it...).

Laval did not only rely on Fascists like Déat or Doriot, he also promoted his friend Marquet and "Flanchards" like Jean Ybarnégaray.

But the worst is not there.

In line with the statements he made to his jailers, Bertrand Fagalde, the officer who heroically defended the Dunkirk pocket and who should have been evacuated to AFN to lead part of the Republic's forces if he had not been captured on his way to Bordeaux and a transport ship, joined the Laval clique! Hating England more than anything else, which he accused of having abandoned France during the tragic month of May 1940, he never stopped denouncing the "Perfidious Albion" on the airwaves of Radio-Paris and consequently became an ardent supporter of Hitler's Germany and its "New Europe"!

This extraordinary congress was scheduled for August 4, the day of the abolition of privileges... Laval thus added an additional symbolism to his congress...

The deputies and senators who were unable or unwilling to go to North Africa or England were rounded up by the Germans (and the deputies and senators who had been taken prisoner were released) and sent to Versailles to participate.

In order to have a relatively credible number of participants in the congress and also to show the corporatist character that he wanted to give to the "new France", Pierre Laval also summoned to Versailles the main representatives of the different trades. They were referred to as "Delegates".

It was Laval, a member of parliament himself, who led the operations that took place in the famous Salle du Congrès.

He proposed several motions to be "voted on" by the parliamentarians and delegates.

The first one recognized the vacancy of power after the "flight" of the Mandel government and of President Albert Lebrun.

The second one proposes to the vote of the Congressmen the new constitution scribbled by Laval and his friends as we have seen. This new constitution abolished the Republic in favor of a "French national state". The constitution of the national state abolishes the distinction between the head of state and the head of government.

Finally, the third one proposes the election of this same "Head of State" by the members of the Congress in accordance with the provisions of the constitution of the "French National State" that the Congressmen have just voted.

The German bayonets having force of argument, the vote was a success. Only a few deputies [34], who would quickly pay the price, dared to stand up to the dictator. It should be noted that no delegate dared to vote no...

Pierre Laval was thus designated "Head of State" of the French national state, whereas the Republic elected its President...

This democratic fiction lasted only as long as the congress. The first dictatorial measures, especially anti-Semitic ones,[35] were not long in coming.

The Republic was abolished under the rule of the absolute monarchy...

Let us note that if the Germans hoped to count on collaborators to administer the defeated France, the Nazis were astonished by their zeal to copy their own regime!

The national state chose as its insignia the gamma, sign of Aries, symbol of "renewal and energy".




Flag of the French national state (By Thomas Diana and Paul62)


For the record, Pierre Laval not only became "Head of the French National State" but also... Co-Prince of Andorra! He thus succeeded Albert Lebrun, who had ceased to be recognized as such by the small country, but only after the arrival of the first German soldiers at the northern border of the Pyrenean territory. Moreover, the Andorrans hastened to justify this conduct to Mandel, and this, a priori, before the departure for Africa of the government of the Republic.

The legal government of France, despite official protests, unofficially accepted this situation. The Principality, protected from the German invasion, will be a rear base for the Resistance to come...

As for the other micro-nation bordering invaded France, the Principality of Monaco, whose Prince Louis II feared annexation by fascist Italy, it turned to the Reich to safeguard its independence.

Hitler pressured his Italian ally to settle for the status that preceded that of 1860, namely that the King of Italy would only be "protector" of the Monegasque principality.

Indeed, the Nazis were quite happy to use Monaco for multiple financial transactions...

Worse, Monaco copied the anti-Semitic legislation of the Nazis or the French national state without any pressure from them!

Furious, the French government declared war on the principality at the end of the year.

Immediately, the traitors set about transforming occupied France into a fascist branch of Hitler's Germany while having, so to speak, very few resources. For example, to compensate for the low number of civil servants who had remained in their posts following the German occupation, Laval took up an old theme of the Far Right, the abolition of the départements in favor of the return of the historical provinces.

In order to have fewer positions to fill...



The "provinces" of the French national state

But redrawing the administrative boundaries of the captive and mutilated France of 1940[36] was not all. Laval reappointed the "provisional government," which thus became that of the French national state.

Head of the French National State, head of the government: Pierre Laval

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Fernand de Brinon

Minister of War: Bertrand Fagalde

Minister of the Interior: Adrien Marquet
(Including Secretary of State for Jewish Affairs : Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (from the promulgation of the status of the Jews))

Minister of Information and Communications : Philippe Henriot

Minister of Labor, Finance, National Economy and Industrial Production: René Belin

Minister of Justice: Raphaël Alibert

Minister of the Navy and the Colonies : Charles Platon

Minister of the Air Force : René Fonck[37]

Minister of National Education : Abel Bonnard

Minister of Agriculture and Supply : François Chasseigne

Minister of Veterans, French Family and Health: Jean Ybarnégaray

Minister of State : Jacques Doriot

Minister of State : Marcel Déat

Minister of State : Eugène Deloncle

Anxious to win them over, aware of their rivalries but also of their incompetence, Laval appointed Doriot and Déat, respectively a communist and a socialist, as Ministers of State.

He did the same with Eugène Deloncle, co-founder of the Cagoule.

As for Admiral Platon, he directed a "phantom" ministry, as the national state had no navy and even less colonies...

The felon Ybarnégaray, whom De la Rocque, who had gone underground, had just excluded from the PSF, became Minister of Veterans. Ironic for a supporter of the defeat...

René Fonck, not content with no longer shooting Fokkers, now bows to the Krauts...

The "cabinet of shame" is represented by "French" in his image ...

On the side of the Communists, far from immediately resisting the invader, as they will boast after the war, they even try, through the intermediary of the number two of the Party, Jacques Duclos, to obtain from the German authorities the republication of their newspaper, L'Humanité.

They were told that they would not be accepted and the Party remained underground without joining the Resistance.

However, the French left is not represented only by the Communist Party. The socialist left, although deeply shocked by the defeat, had also experienced an upsurge since June 16, 1940 and the arrival in power of Mandel.

The latter, anxious to continue the struggle, the clandestine SFIO[38] founded the "Liberté" movement.

Liberté was certainly open to all those of good will, but its base was indeed socialist.

At the same time, the right-wing also began to organize itself in the person of Henri Frenay, who founded the "National Liberation Movement".

A soldier who had escaped capture during the May-June disaster, Frenay was forced into hiding because the Germans were tracking down French soldiers who had escaped captivity because they were likely to want to go to England or North Africa.

Frenay was not satisfied with hiding and decided to resist the invader and even Laval's regime, because although Frenay was politically close to the ideas of the French hard right, he was disgusted by his obvious collaboration with the enemy.

Thus, in this month of August 1940, one cannot limit the resistance/collaboration confrontation to a left/right duel, since some former communists, having broken ranks,[39] also rallied the French National State, as did a small number of socialists.

The continuation of the French resistance did not prevent the Führer from making a triumphant return to Berlin, which acclaimed the man who had crushed France...

On August 5, Mandel was determined to respond to this proclamation and received Rudolf Hilferding, leader of the Sopade, the SPD[40] in exile. He and Mandel agreed to set up a "Free Germany Committee", a sort of government in exile of the Weimar Republic, discreetly described as a "farce" by nothing less than certain members of the cabinet!

Nevertheless, despite the contempt shown by some towards the German, he nonetheless led a network of informers spread throughout the Hitler Reich.

In spite of Laval's obvious subservience, who constantly went along with the Nazis' wishes, Hitler wanted to personally ensure Laval's loyalty and that of his regime, while maintaining pressure on the Franco-British at a lower cost. To do this, he decided to meet him in Hendaye. Showing his contempt for the regime of the national state, it was thus on French territory that he summoned the French leader recognized by the Reich!

Hendaye, a town on the French-Spanish border, was chosen because the Führer also wanted to meet Franco, the Spanish dictator, to push him to enter the war and ask him what the price would be.

However, the meeting with the latter did not succeed. Franco asked for massive German aid, both military and economic, in exchange for his intervention alongside the Axis.

Some will see that the Spanish dictator wanted to raise the stakes too high so that Germany could not accept his alliance, frightened as he was by the notorious failures suffered not only by Italy (destruction of its battleships in Taranto, the desert blitzkrieg) but also by Germany in the battle of Britain...

But on Laval's side, the meeting was, on the contrary, a success.

The French dictator agreed to strengthen collaboration, particularly economic collaboration, by providing the Reich with resources from the Metropole for its war economy.

Of course, the Germans were already plundering France, but if the French could also help them...

But despite this, Pierre Laval was refused the creation of an army for his French national state, as Hitler suspected that French soldiers would desert at the first opportunity to fight alongside the Allies.

The Führer did not want to give Laval's France a bargaining chip for future negotiations. On the contrary, he wished to bring France down to earth and giving it back its army was not in his plans at all.

Nevertheless, Laval, the lackey of the Germans, obtained from his master the formation of a "Legionary National Guard"[41] of 100,000 men to compensate for the lack of loyalty of the gendarmes and police officers to his regime...

This force, soon to be known simply as "The Legion,"[42] would quickly become known to all for its various kinds of abuses.

This paramilitary force, a sort of hybrid between a police force and an army, was commanded by Joseph Darnand, who had been paroled by the Nazis from his Stalag because he was considered "politically secure"...


Laval, an admirer of fascist regimes, and of Mussolini's Italy in particular, wanted above all to found a single party in France, a single party that would serve the "National Revolution" launched by him in the aftermath of the Versailles Congress.

This "Revolution" was praised by the French Fascists in the style of Déat[43] or Doriot[44].

In "remembrance" of the 1936 elections, this gathering was called the "Freedom Front", although the 1936 election was a bitter setback for the extreme right.

However, the height of ridicule among scoundrels, Jacques Doriot refused to join this front because he did not wish to see his movement, over which he was all-powerful, be melted into the mass of the "Front"! Moreover, his worst enemy and his movement, which are none other than Marcel Déat and his Rassemblement national populaire, have immediately integrated the single party. All the more reason for Jacques Doriot not to want to be confused with his rival...

Laval composed and accepted the maintenance of Doriot's PPF as an autonomous entity within the "Freedom Front.

Thus, the criminal farce that was the French national state became the only pseudo-state entity with a single party authorizing several political parties!


[34] Such as the socialist Jean Bouhey, who had already voted no to the Munich agreements, just like de Kérilis. His presence at the Laval Congress is explained by his capture at the front, having volunteered for the army in September 1939. He was immediately sent back to a stalag from which he escaped in 1942. But that is another story...
[35] And the infamous "Statute of the Jews" promulgated in the days that followed.
[36] Hitler, who had just directly annexed Alsace-Moselle, expelled the French civil servants.
[37] The aviator hero of the previous world conflict.
[38] Laval immediately banned the left-wing political parties without, for the moment, pursuing an equivalent policy with those on the right, anxious to rally them to the national state.
[39] And who would soon pay the price...
[40] German Social Democratic Party.
[41] Just like the citizens' militia of the 19th century.
[42] Not to be confused with the Foreign Legion, which continues the fight against the enemy.
[43] Former member of the SFIO.
[44] Former communist.

[stevep]

Sept 13, 2022 4:36:18 GMT ukron said:

Chapter 7: Piracy

"Like the Panzers in the French campaign, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group had a way of popping up where they were not expected. Evading the surveillance of Italian patrols by taking roads thought to be impassable, their commanders also showed daring in the art of combat."
Henri Michel, The Second World War


While the Metropole had just surrendered, Noguès, who was not only seeking at all costs to avoid a Spanish intervention in the conflict, but for whom a purely defensive strategy was not in his nature, decided to strike a blow against the advanced Italian positions along the border.

Of course, it was not yet time for a general offensive, as the French and British were not yet ready, but the aggressive action of the Commonwealth against Forte Capuzzo, as well as the first Franco-Italian engagements, showed that the Duce's army in Africa was not as formidable as might have been feared, even though it had nine divisions facing Tunisia.

But what to do?

The solution came from the British and, more specifically, from Ralph A. Bagnold, who proposed to Archibald Wavell that he form a "raiding" force that would harass the Italian rear by crossing the vastness of the Sahara desert.

Bagnold had convinced his compatriot by threatening to break communications between Egypt and Sudan via an assault from Kufra by an Italian column.

"What will you do if the Italians do not move south?

To this last reticence, Bagnold retorted.

"Piracy! We will attack their convoys, we will harass their posts, we will burn their depots, we will spy and report on their every move and manpower, we will destroy their planes... We will make their lives impossible."

These words won Wavell's decision and he passed the innovative idea on to Noguès, who was immediately won over.

The name of the officer to whom to entrust the unit was quickly found. Indeed, France has a good number of desert baroudeurs and the most famous of them is Georges Estienne. A recognized Saharan. This one has, moreover, also the immense merit of being the son of General Estienne, the "father" of the French armoured weapon during the previous war...


Georges Estienne (Source Wikipedia)

While the British unit was called the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), the French unit was called the "Unité transsaharienne autoportée".

To this pompous name, the Allied press, and soon history, will prefer that of "Lords of the Desert", in homage to Estienne's nickname.

Although Operation Compass/Compas was scheduled for 13 September, it took only five weeks to form the two units, starting with the formation order of 24 June 1940. On 28 July, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group, in perfect harmony, were ready to strike.

Their targets? The powerful bases in the far south of Libya, Mourzouk and Koufra. The objective of these coups? To show the Italians that they would not be safe anywhere, even in the heart of the Sahara!

If the French column started from Largeau, in French Chad, its British counterpart had Aswan as its point of departure.

The motivation of the soldiers, already very high, was further reinforced by the disaster suffered by the Italian navy in Taranto.

For the assault, the British had two aircraft carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious, heavily escorted by the French and British navies.

Alarmed by the Allied manoeuvre, the Italians reacted by... regrouping the bulk of their fleet in Taranto!

"All the birds were in the nest", as Admiral Cunningham said.

If the barrage balloons constituted a major nuisance, the Italian Admiral Campioni had ordered to leave the protection nets at a distance to allow a rapid departure.

Fatal mistake...

It was on July 3, around 10 pm that the planes took off towards their prey.

The Swordfishs arrived on target 2h30 later.

In spite of the strategic importance of the base, its anti-aircraft defenses were not up to the task and the biplanes succeeded in passing relatively easily the fire of the flak.

Illuminated by 4 bengal fires, the preys were ready for their execution...

The first kill was that of the Giulio Cesare. Hit by 3 torpedoes, the monster sank in less than 12 minutes.

The next victim was the Caio Duilio, hit by 2 torpedoes, as was the Conte di Cavour a few minutes later.

The cruiser Fiume was also destroyed during the coup de main.

Several other units were damaged to varying degrees during the attack, while the fuel depots were in flames.

The key pieces of the Italian fleet, its battleships, now lie mostly at the bottom of the harbor!

This was a huge success for the Allies, who could calmly prepare the withdrawal of the Royal from the front lines, while this new disaster shook the opinion of Mussolini's high Italian dignitaries, and especially the monarchists, a little more.

The British alone could ensure the blockade of the Libyan coast, while the Japanese, via their military attaché in Berlin, Takeshi Naito, would soon take a close interest in the Franco-British attack...

This success was all the more important as the bombs were about to hit England...

Moreover, he pushed Franco to be reluctant to enter the war, whereas negotiations on his intervention with the Nazis had been going well since the capitulation. Indeed, the prospect of a rapid Axis victory was becoming more remote, while Franco had in mind the fact that the Allies would seize all of Spain's colonies within a few weeks...

Moreover, the Allies promised him a secret agreement by which they would give him the agricultural products that Spain so badly needed, as well as the machine tools necessary for the industrialization of the country, in exchange for his non-intervention.

In Africa, we should note that one of Estienne's seconds was Lieutenant Louis Blanchard. Although he was originally a legionnaire, the General immediately sensed that Private Blanchard would make an excellent leader for this operation and placed him in the Trans-Saharan Self-Propelled Unit, rather than maintaining him in a legionnaire unit in the order of battle for Operation Compass/Compas.

Everything happened very quickly for Private Blanchard. During the review of his unit, de Gaulle spent more time on him than on the others.

"Private, what is your name?" the Minister of War asked him after observing him in detail for about twenty seconds.

After the legionnaire introduced himself, de Gaulle simply replied.

"Hmm I see." Then he tugged on his ear, which made his comrades smile.

Calling his officer, he announced his future transfer to the Trans-Saharan Unit and his appointment to the rank of lieutenant.

De Gaulle had perfectly recognized in "Louis Blanchard" Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince Napoleon.

Having volunteered in the Foreign Legion at the declaration of war, he had, in fact, in spite of the law of exile, decided to defend his true homeland.

France...[30]

A perfect connoisseur of the desert, Captain Estienne led his column to Mourzouk at the cost of a single vehicle lost due to an engine failure.

Estienne also relied on his perfect knowledge of Arabic and on a message from the highest Muslim religious authorities of the Empire, which explained the motivations of the French Republic, to obtain important information from the natives about the habits of the garrison. Such as the fact that the Italian soldiers locked themselves in the fort every night.

Estienne decided to take advantage of this to launch a devastating night raid on the Mourzouk runway to deprive the Italians of their air force. This raid was a great success and ended with the destruction of the Italian aircraft.

Mourzouk was isolated from the rest of Libya!

Equipped as a light force, Estienne's soldiers nevertheless appeared to be quite helpless in the face of the enormous firepower deployed by Mussolini's soldiers. Indeed, if the secondary objectives were immediately fulfilled in the first assault, the Italian garrison was still resisting.

Lieutenant "Blanchard" then advised Estienne to use the mobility of the only artillery piece carried by the troop, and to fire a few salvos at the fort before moving it a good hundred meters away and repeating the maneuver, and so on.

The aim was to make the Italians believe that the French had a large artillery.

The Italians, totally caught off guard, and believing they were facing a deluge of artillery, decided to send an emissary to Estienne to negotiate their surrender!

The Napoleonic maneuver had succeeded perfectly!

The Italian commander was surprised to discover that the French had only one gun.

Too late, the fort and its garrison had surrendered.

Graziani and the Italian command were appalled by this rout[31] while reports of the concentration of Allied troops on the colony's borders multiplied.

The Fascist marshal asked Rome for reinforcements, but most of the simple supplies that were destined for him had already been sunk by the Royal Navy[32] and ended up at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Compass was already well underway before it was even launched...

All the more so since, to the great astonishment of the British army commanders, Adolf Hitler's designated victim, Winston Churchill, ordered the last remaining armored vehicles in Great Britain to be sent to Egypt to take part in the great attack planned against this same Italian Libya.

Moreover, this decision left the generals Wavell and O'Connor who were in command in the Middle East stunned, while obviously satisfying them, despite their fears for their motherland, while John Dill, the imperial chief of staff, commented.
"The Prime Minister was always preparing ambitious offensive plans. And not only in connection with the offensive against Libya. While the time was ripe for the Battle of Britain, his eyes were fixed on the Dodecanese, whose conquest he was preparing, while it took all our powers of persuasion to prevent him from rushing back to Norway."

But the Prime Minister was confident in the Royal Navy and, above all, in the RAF, which had to protect it from the Nazi Luftwaffe, despite the shameful surrender of the Channel Islands to a German reconnaissance plane! It is true that the islands had been evacuated by the British army and were not supposed to be defended.

But already, since July 10th, the Battle of Britain had begun.



British Swordfish flying over the HMS Ark Royal, 1939 (Source Wikipedia)

[30] Just like his cousin, Joachim Murat, who was involved in the Internal Resistance.
[31] Especially since Kouffra had also fallen.
[32] The French Navy remained in its bases until it received the first ammunition delivered by the American arsenals.

  Didn't have time yesterday but try and give some feedback on this excellent TL.

  Interesting with a French equivalent to the LRDG/SAS the Italians and possibly later the Germans are going to have some problems with their supply lines.

  A more powerful attack against Taranto but we don't appear to have hit either of the two new BBs which could be a pain. Although with Tunisia providing extra basing/observation options as you say the RN can attempt a blockade of Libya and that could force them out to give battle.

  So we have a Napoleon in play.  I wonder if that will have potential impacts post-war assuming he survives?

  Guessing that the allies who would be supplying Spain with food and machine tools aren't yet formal allies as the UK is in desperate need of both itself?

  Not sure that Britain would strip the UK of armour that early given the uncertainty although if a lot of French fighters have joined the defence of the UK and they can be supported there things could get bloodier for the LW faster.  However an earlier Compass which quickly develops into a broader campaign could change a lot.

  The big problem with Churchill is you really have to sit on him pretty much full time to prevent him overreaching as he was so prone to. Its going to be defending and picking away at vulnerable spots for at least a couple of years, especially if Japan joins the war as OTL.  Although seizing the Dodecanese prior to an Italian attack on Greece, which may not come TTL could be a practical idea.  However not before the liberation of Tripoli.

[lordroel]

Sept 13, 2022 4:46:57 GMT ukron said:

Chapter 8: Submission


Head of the French National State, head of the government: Pierre Laval

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Fernand de Brinon

Minister of War: Bertrand Fagalde

Minister of the Interior: Adrien Marquet
(Including Secretary of State for Jewish Affairs : Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (from the promulgation of the status of the Jews))

Minister of Information and Communications : Philippe Henriot

Minister of Labor, Finance, National Economy and Industrial Production: René Belin

Minister of Justice: Raphaël Alibert

Minister of the Navy and the Colonies : Charles Platon

Minister of the Air Force : René Fonck[37]

Minister of National Education : Abel Bonnard

Minister of Agriculture and Supply : François Chasseigne

Minister of Veterans, French Family and Health: Jean Ybarnégaray

Minister of State : Jacques Doriot

Minister of State : Marcel Déat

Minister of State : Eugène Deloncle

At least Pétain is not the head of this German puppet government, as far as i can read it.

[stevep]

Sept 13, 2022 14:21:11 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 13, 2022 4:46:57 GMT ukron said:

Chapter 8: Submission


Head of the French National State, head of the government: Pierre Laval

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Fernand de Brinon

Minister of War: Bertrand Fagalde

Minister of the Interior: Adrien Marquet
(Including Secretary of State for Jewish Affairs : Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (from the promulgation of the status of the Jews))

Minister of Information and Communications : Philippe Henriot

Minister of Labor, Finance, National Economy and Industrial Production: René Belin

Minister of Justice: Raphaël Alibert

Minister of the Navy and the Colonies : Charles Platon

Minister of the Air Force : René Fonck[37]

Minister of National Education : Abel Bonnard

Minister of Agriculture and Supply : François Chasseigne

Minister of Veterans, French Family and Health: Jean Ybarnégaray

Minister of State : Jacques Doriot

Minister of State : Marcel Déat

Minister of State : Eugène Deloncle

At least Pétain is not the head of this German puppet government, as far as i can read it.

  I think that's one of the initial PODs in that he dies in a traffic accident and hence isn't about to push for an armistice.  Which is good for him as he still stays a national hero.

[ukron]

Sept 13, 2022 13:13:41 GMT stevep said:

Sept 13, 2022 4:36:18 GMT ukron said:

Chapter 7: Piracy

"Like the Panzers in the French campaign, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group had a way of popping up where they were not expected. Evading the surveillance of Italian patrols by taking roads thought to be impassable, their commanders also showed daring in the art of combat."
Henri Michel, The Second World War


While the Metropole had just surrendered, Noguès, who was not only seeking at all costs to avoid a Spanish intervention in the conflict, but for whom a purely defensive strategy was not in his nature, decided to strike a blow against the advanced Italian positions along the border.

Of course, it was not yet time for a general offensive, as the French and British were not yet ready, but the aggressive action of the Commonwealth against Forte Capuzzo, as well as the first Franco-Italian engagements, showed that the Duce's army in Africa was not as formidable as might have been feared, even though it had nine divisions facing Tunisia.

But what to do?

The solution came from the British and, more specifically, from Ralph A. Bagnold, who proposed to Archibald Wavell that he form a "raiding" force that would harass the Italian rear by crossing the vastness of the Sahara desert.

Bagnold had convinced his compatriot by threatening to break communications between Egypt and Sudan via an assault from Kufra by an Italian column.

"What will you do if the Italians do not move south?

To this last reticence, Bagnold retorted.

"Piracy! We will attack their convoys, we will harass their posts, we will burn their depots, we will spy and report on their every move and manpower, we will destroy their planes... We will make their lives impossible."

These words won Wavell's decision and he passed the innovative idea on to Noguès, who was immediately won over.

The name of the officer to whom to entrust the unit was quickly found. Indeed, France has a good number of desert baroudeurs and the most famous of them is Georges Estienne. A recognized Saharan. This one has, moreover, also the immense merit of being the son of General Estienne, the "father" of the French armoured weapon during the previous war...


Georges Estienne (Source Wikipedia)

While the British unit was called the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), the French unit was called the "Unité transsaharienne autoportée".

To this pompous name, the Allied press, and soon history, will prefer that of "Lords of the Desert", in homage to Estienne's nickname.

Although Operation Compass/Compas was scheduled for 13 September, it took only five weeks to form the two units, starting with the formation order of 24 June 1940. On 28 July, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group, in perfect harmony, were ready to strike.

Their targets? The powerful bases in the far south of Libya, Mourzouk and Koufra. The objective of these coups? To show the Italians that they would not be safe anywhere, even in the heart of the Sahara!

If the French column started from Largeau, in French Chad, its British counterpart had Aswan as its point of departure.

The motivation of the soldiers, already very high, was further reinforced by the disaster suffered by the Italian navy in Taranto.

For the assault, the British had two aircraft carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious, heavily escorted by the French and British navies.

Alarmed by the Allied manoeuvre, the Italians reacted by... regrouping the bulk of their fleet in Taranto!

"All the birds were in the nest", as Admiral Cunningham said.

If the barrage balloons constituted a major nuisance, the Italian Admiral Campioni had ordered to leave the protection nets at a distance to allow a rapid departure.

Fatal mistake...

It was on July 3, around 10 pm that the planes took off towards their prey.

The Swordfishs arrived on target 2h30 later.

In spite of the strategic importance of the base, its anti-aircraft defenses were not up to the task and the biplanes succeeded in passing relatively easily the fire of the flak.

Illuminated by 4 bengal fires, the preys were ready for their execution...

The first kill was that of the Giulio Cesare. Hit by 3 torpedoes, the monster sank in less than 12 minutes.

The next victim was the Caio Duilio, hit by 2 torpedoes, as was the Conte di Cavour a few minutes later.

The cruiser Fiume was also destroyed during the coup de main.

Several other units were damaged to varying degrees during the attack, while the fuel depots were in flames.

The key pieces of the Italian fleet, its battleships, now lie mostly at the bottom of the harbor!

This was a huge success for the Allies, who could calmly prepare the withdrawal of the Royal from the front lines, while this new disaster shook the opinion of Mussolini's high Italian dignitaries, and especially the monarchists, a little more.

The British alone could ensure the blockade of the Libyan coast, while the Japanese, via their military attaché in Berlin, Takeshi Naito, would soon take a close interest in the Franco-British attack...

This success was all the more important as the bombs were about to hit England...

Moreover, he pushed Franco to be reluctant to enter the war, whereas negotiations on his intervention with the Nazis had been going well since the capitulation. Indeed, the prospect of a rapid Axis victory was becoming more remote, while Franco had in mind the fact that the Allies would seize all of Spain's colonies within a few weeks...

Moreover, the Allies promised him a secret agreement by which they would give him the agricultural products that Spain so badly needed, as well as the machine tools necessary for the industrialization of the country, in exchange for his non-intervention.

In Africa, we should note that one of Estienne's seconds was Lieutenant Louis Blanchard. Although he was originally a legionnaire, the General immediately sensed that Private Blanchard would make an excellent leader for this operation and placed him in the Trans-Saharan Self-Propelled Unit, rather than maintaining him in a legionnaire unit in the order of battle for Operation Compass/Compas.

Everything happened very quickly for Private Blanchard. During the review of his unit, de Gaulle spent more time on him than on the others.

"Private, what is your name?" the Minister of War asked him after observing him in detail for about twenty seconds.

After the legionnaire introduced himself, de Gaulle simply replied.

"Hmm I see." Then he tugged on his ear, which made his comrades smile.

Calling his officer, he announced his future transfer to the Trans-Saharan Unit and his appointment to the rank of lieutenant.

De Gaulle had perfectly recognized in "Louis Blanchard" Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince Napoleon.

Having volunteered in the Foreign Legion at the declaration of war, he had, in fact, in spite of the law of exile, decided to defend his true homeland.

France...[30]

A perfect connoisseur of the desert, Captain Estienne led his column to Mourzouk at the cost of a single vehicle lost due to an engine failure.

Estienne also relied on his perfect knowledge of Arabic and on a message from the highest Muslim religious authorities of the Empire, which explained the motivations of the French Republic, to obtain important information from the natives about the habits of the garrison. Such as the fact that the Italian soldiers locked themselves in the fort every night.

Estienne decided to take advantage of this to launch a devastating night raid on the Mourzouk runway to deprive the Italians of their air force. This raid was a great success and ended with the destruction of the Italian aircraft.

Mourzouk was isolated from the rest of Libya!

Equipped as a light force, Estienne's soldiers nevertheless appeared to be quite helpless in the face of the enormous firepower deployed by Mussolini's soldiers. Indeed, if the secondary objectives were immediately fulfilled in the first assault, the Italian garrison was still resisting.

Lieutenant "Blanchard" then advised Estienne to use the mobility of the only artillery piece carried by the troop, and to fire a few salvos at the fort before moving it a good hundred meters away and repeating the maneuver, and so on.

The aim was to make the Italians believe that the French had a large artillery.

The Italians, totally caught off guard, and believing they were facing a deluge of artillery, decided to send an emissary to Estienne to negotiate their surrender!

The Napoleonic maneuver had succeeded perfectly!

The Italian commander was surprised to discover that the French had only one gun.

Too late, the fort and its garrison had surrendered.

Graziani and the Italian command were appalled by this rout[31] while reports of the concentration of Allied troops on the colony's borders multiplied.

The Fascist marshal asked Rome for reinforcements, but most of the simple supplies that were destined for him had already been sunk by the Royal Navy[32] and ended up at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Compass was already well underway before it was even launched...

All the more so since, to the great astonishment of the British army commanders, Adolf Hitler's designated victim, Winston Churchill, ordered the last remaining armored vehicles in Great Britain to be sent to Egypt to take part in the great attack planned against this same Italian Libya.

Moreover, this decision left the generals Wavell and O'Connor who were in command in the Middle East stunned, while obviously satisfying them, despite their fears for their motherland, while John Dill, the imperial chief of staff, commented.
"The Prime Minister was always preparing ambitious offensive plans. And not only in connection with the offensive against Libya. While the time was ripe for the Battle of Britain, his eyes were fixed on the Dodecanese, whose conquest he was preparing, while it took all our powers of persuasion to prevent him from rushing back to Norway."

But the Prime Minister was confident in the Royal Navy and, above all, in the RAF, which had to protect it from the Nazi Luftwaffe, despite the shameful surrender of the Channel Islands to a German reconnaissance plane! It is true that the islands had been evacuated by the British army and were not supposed to be defended.

But already, since July 10th, the Battle of Britain had begun.



British Swordfish flying over the HMS Ark Royal, 1939 (Source Wikipedia)

[30] Just like his cousin, Joachim Murat, who was involved in the Internal Resistance.
[31] Especially since Kouffra had also fallen.
[32] The French Navy remained in its bases until it received the first ammunition delivered by the American arsenals.

  Didn't have time yesterday but try and give some feedback on this excellent TL.

  Interesting with a French equivalent to the LRDG/SAS the Italians and possibly later the Germans are going to have some problems with their supply lines.

  A more powerful attack against Taranto but we don't appear to have hit either of the two new BBs which could be a pain. Although with Tunisia providing extra basing/observation options as you say the RN can attempt a blockade of Libya and that could force them out to give battle.

  So we have a Napoleon in play.  I wonder if that will have potential impacts post-war assuming he survives?

  Guessing that the allies who would be supplying Spain with food and machine tools aren't yet formal allies as the UK is in desperate need of both itself?

  Not sure that Britain would strip the UK of armour that early given the uncertainty although if a lot of French fighters have joined the defence of the UK and they can be supported there things could get bloodier for the LW faster.  However an earlier Compass which quickly develops into a broader campaign could change a lot.

  The big problem with Churchill is you really have to sit on him pretty much full time to prevent him overreaching as he was so prone to. Its going to be defending and picking away at vulnerable spots for at least a couple of years, especially if Japan joins the war as OTL.  Although seizing the Dodecanese prior to an Italian attack on Greece, which may not come TTL could be a practical idea.  However not before the liberation of Tripoli.

Hi Stevep, excellent analysis.

Keeping France fighting in North Africa will have enormous repercussions on the Italian war effort, not to mention the addition to the British fleet in the Mediterranean of the finest units of the French Navy (as soon as their ammunition stocks are completed).
The nod to Napoleon is I believe a personal touch of the author (Emile Ollivier was also a remarkable republican politician under the Second Empire).

[ukron]

Chapter 9: The War Takes a New Course

"The Italian army, crushed by the repeated assaults of the air force and subjected to the incessant fire of the Allied artillery, could hardly hope to hold out for long. Isolated by land and sea, as the Duce's army was, its only hope was to surrender. It could not be a new Dunkirk. It would therefore be a new Sedan.
José Aboulker's war diary about the siege of Sirte, Libya, October 1940.

British intelligence was right to warn the Prime Minister that England would be Hitler's next target. It was time for the Luftwaffe to prepare itself and replenish its strength[45]. Concerning the strength of his RAF, Churchill did his accounts.

The contribution of 400 D-520s from the French Air Force (half of which were used as spare parts reserves due to the loss of the French aircraft factories) gave the Allies about 1,000 fighters to use against the enemy Luftwaffe. Thus, the French contribution was already decisive in allowing an Allied numerical superiority in terms of fighters at least.

Moreover, contrary to what Nazi propaganda would have us believe, the British aircraft factories were working at full capacity, and even faster than those of the Reich, as we would know after the war! The latter produced a little less than 560 additional fighters per month!

The German commanders planned, as an initial phase of the battle, to attack the British convoys in the Channel, in order to test the reaction time of the RAF and to know its doctrines of engagement.

The assault was scheduled for July 10th.

Why an assault on England and not on AFN?

First of all, Hitler was aware of the naval superiority of the Franco-British, as the first few weeks of the Regia Marina's unflattering engagement had proven.

To send an army to Africa was to risk seeing it end up at the bottom of the Mediterranean...

But the Führer's main argument was that if he invaded AFN, he might neutralize France, but England would remain at war.

"What we need is to bring Churchill down with a massive air campaign over Britain. Once he is overthrown, we will negotiate peace with the British. Then the Jew Mandel will have something to worry about," he explained to the OKW.

Just as Churchill had predicted...

Thus, it is indeed in England, or rather above it, that the fate of the conflict will be decided.

Luftflotte 2 and 3, stationed in the occupied countries opposite England (Holland, Belgium, Northern France), supported by the fifth, based in Norway, were preparing to attack.

Indeed, 2500 aircraft, of which a third were fighters[46], were preparing to strike at the Royal Air Force, which fortunately already had an equivalent number of fighters, including the very maneuverable and powerful Spitfire. In addition, England, the only country in 1940 to have an efficient radar network, had significant anti-aircraft resources.

The British forces were under the command of Air Marshal Hugh Dowding.

On 10 July 1940, the Kanalkampf, the first phase of the Battle of Britain, began.

The fighting was violent but reassured the British Prime Minister. On average, the Germans lost 3.5 aircraft for every Franco-British aircraft shot down.

It is also with an astonishment easy to guess that the Nazi aviators saw Dewoitine 520 with blue white and red cockade appearing from the clouds!

Churchill did not hesitate to express his confidence to his generals and to reiterate to them that he was right to send to Egypt the last tanks of the British army.

As for the Nazis, they saw their numbers melt away while Allied maritime traffic was not interrupted in the Channel.

On 1 August, Goering launched the second phase of the battle, a direct and massive assault on the British airfields and aeronautical factories.

And every day, the number of missing German aircraft continued to rise.

And what can we say about the catastrophic losses of the Stukas, which finally pushed the Nazis to withdraw them from the front lines!

Just like the French workers in June 1940, the British workers continued to work during the raids, but little by little, British production began to decline.

On August 15, Goering ordered Luftflotte 5, based in Norway, to attack Scotland and the north of England in order to "occupy" the British squadrons stationed there and prevent them from reinforcing their counterparts further south. The Air Marshal, Hitler's designated successor, rejected out of hand the objections of his subordinates, who argued that the operation was likely to be expensive.

German losses were very heavy, so much so that in the end the aircraft of Luftflotte 5 were transferred to Luftflotte 2 and 3 stationed in France.

Thursday 15 August 1940 was nicknamed "Black Thursday" by the German airmen.

In response, the Führer insisted that Mussolini launch his own attacks on Malta, Tunisia and above all Algiers, in order to force the French and British to withdraw their squadrons from the English front to defend the Mediterranean. However, Mussolini was already engaged in similar attacks, fights in which the RAF squadrons based in Malta and the Maurane-Saulnier 406, obsolete, which would have been overtaken by the German planes, largely hold up to the Mussolini squadrons!

As Churchill had predicted once again...
The Duce could only order the intensification of the raids, at the cost of heavy losses for the Regia Aeronautica[47].

On September 4, Hitler, appalled by the losses of his "invincible" Lutwaffe (nearly 900 aircraft compared to half that number for the Franco-British), ordered the cessation of daytime raids on military targets in favor of nighttime raids on London and the major English cities.

Indeed, despite the destruction of its factories and runways, the RAF still had resources, while Nazi losses remained high despite a semblance of rebalancing.

Churchill, enraged by the Nazi attack on his capital, ordered a retaliatory night raid on Berlin.

Goering could now be called Meier!

London burned but England, and the World, were saved.[49] 15,000 Britons, however, died under the bombs of the Nazi Blitz[50] on English cities.

Despite Hitler's hope that the attacks on the cities would break the morale of the British and push them to negotiate, the population rallied around Churchill, reassured by the Prime Minister's fiery speeches, the effective resistance of the RAF and the fact that England could also count on French help.

While the war in the air raged on, politics and planning for the future continued to be important.

First of all, in the field of eloquence, Mandel made this speech to the French, relayed by the BBC, on the airwaves of Radio-Alger.

"Today, September 17, 1940, the war has taken a new turn.

In the English skies, the enemy, frightened by his heavy losses, facing the unfailing determination of the allies and the value of their pilots, has given up daytime attacks on British industry in favor of terrorist and night attacks on English cities.

This battle of London was an admission of failure for the Führer and his death air force.

Indeed, far from making England bend, the fights over Great Britain have, on the contrary, considerably weakened the air force of our enemies, already reduced by 1000 aircraft, during the invasion.

Unable to force England, Hitler took his revenge, as usual, by massacring innocent civilians, disregarding human laws.

Warsaw, Rotterdam, Bordeaux and now London.

Thus, the air war has taken a new turn. And it is not favorable to Mr. Hitler.

On the maritime front, the Italian fleet, although regrouped in its bases, was nevertheless roughly hit by the combined forces of the French and British fleets, while every day, the desperate attempts of the Duce to supply his Mediterranean colonies with convoys, came up against our effective blockade.

But the Germans were not to be outdone. Faced with the superior power of the Allies' combined navies, any idea that the Reich's forces might be able to project themselves, whether to North Africa or to England, appears to be highly illusory. As proof of this, I would like to point out that in order to strike at our trade, Hitler has been reduced to the same lowly measures as the previous German Empire.

Submarine fleets, privateers hiding under a false allied or neutral flag and warships reduced to conducting a war of maritime coups de main.

Contracted to a war of harassment, the Reich demonstrated its inferiority on this second front, which was a drawback for it, given that it was facing the two largest empires in the world, both in terms of demographics but also in terms of surface area and various resources.

Soon, we will have reconstituted our forces and Mr. Hitler will not be able to do anything about it.
The naval war has taken the same turn as in the previous conflict.

Time is on our side.

On the land front, here in Africa, I can now confirm to you the crushing of the Italian lines, whose forces, in full rout, are retreating in disorder, whether in Cyrenaica or Tripolitania, under the combined and effective action of the forces of the French Empire, of the British Commonwealth, but also, let us not forget them, of our Polish, Czech and Belgian brothers-in-arms and of the other member nations of the great allied coalition, as well as of the multitude of foreign volunteers[51] fighting for the cause of freedom.

For the fascist criminals, who are leading Italy to its ruin, justice, too, will be done!

Here, too, the war has taken a new turn.

On the intelligence front, every day new Frenchmen, eager to save the fatherland, join the ranks of the army of the interior. Their information on enemy activities, accumulated little by little by the Allies, is vital in the preparation of the great reconquest.

As for the traitors in the service of the clique, they lost nothing to wait. Believing themselves to be on the side of the victors, they will see that it is their German masters who will be crushed in the end by the ever-growing forces of the Allies, while those of the Reich are gradually dwindling, as events on land, at sea and in the air simply show.

They will pay for their crimes when the tide turns definitively in favor of the camp of freedom.

French people, the hour of revenge will soon ring.

And on that day, justice will have the last word, even though, as you know, my friends, there will still be many trials to go through before the criminals receive their just punishment.

The day of glory will come, however.

"To arms, citizens!"

On the political level, on September 30, 1940, largely as a result of "forcing" by the French, the Franco-British made a joint declaration denouncing the nullity of the Munich agreements and announcing the return to Czechoslovakia of the Sudeten territories after the joint victory. This denunciation was the very continuation of the denunciation of the second Vienna arbitration, granting northern Romanian Transylvania to Hungary, as well as that of the Craiova agreements, by which the new Romanian dictator, Ion Antonescu, ceded southern Dubruja to Bulgaria.[52]

Georges Mandel, a former minister of the colonies, was well aware of the reforms necessary to maintain the unity of the "Empire" in the future.

He therefore decided to organize the election of a "Council of the Empire", an election in which not only French citizens but also the "Indigènes" could participate.

Aware that the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate would be hesitant in the face of such a bold reform, Mandel used the weapons provided by French law. In strict compliance with the rules that the Republic had given itself since its entry into the war.

Indeed, the first polls of deputies confirmed the virulent opposition of the right to the project. But also the more insidious opposition of the radical center-left.

Thus, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Édouard Herriot, who came from the ranks of this party, worked underhandedly to liquidate a project "that would make France a colony of its former colonies"!

Mandel therefore relied on the law of December 8, 1939, modifying article 36 of the law of July 11, 1938, on the organization of the nation in wartime, which authorized him to proceed with decree-laws to govern the country in war.

Léon Blum, head of French diplomacy, was fully satisfied. In 1936, he had been refused by the chambers to grant French citizenship to the Muslims of Algeria.

The election would take place within 6 months, the time to organize it. The "Council of the Empire" will have to debate and vote on reforms concerning the Empire and, in particular, on the status of its constituent territories and the future rights of its inhabitants.
It was the brand new press organ of France in exile, "La France combattante", which published the announcement in its columns.

"La France combattante" brought together in its teams volunteer journalists from various newspapers who wanted to speak out for the Republic against Laval and the collaborators.

As the spiritual son of Clemenceau, did Mandel not know the importance of the press?

The head of the government of France in exile was now a determined opponent of Herriot. After his opposition to the defense of Lyon, here they were again opposing him and his management of France!

But Mandel, with the help of the General and Louis Marin, was already preparing his response.

Indeed, he needed to have his hands free to lead France into exile...

A secret meeting took place in Gibraltar between Sir Andrew Duncan, the British Minister of Supply (who managed armaments) and Raoul Dautry.

The 2 men had a mandate from their respective governments to negotiate the pooling of resources of the 2 allies in the creation of a new weapon.

The atomic weapon.

From this meeting was born the Franco-British Nero/Neron project, which worked in perfect harmony with the American project called Manhattan, but which allowed the two European powers to obtain their own weapons, and thus strategic autonomy in the future.

Frédéric Joliot-Curie, son of Pierre and Marie Curie, was the leader of the French part of the Néron Project.

It was therefore in North Africa that the land war regained its rights with the launch of the joint Franco-British offensive against Italian Libya.

This was Operation Compass, launched on 13 September.

In order to equip the mounted infantry, the Bren Carriers graciously provided by the British were not enough. It was therefore necessary to requisition all the vehicles in North Africa that were suitable for the desert and not used for transporting logistics. So it was a whole host of disparate vehicles that were set in motion from 13 September 1940 onwards to transport infantry and logistics.

For once, it was the Allies who showed boldness and surprised the Italian forces by using their armoured force en masse and in precise locations.

The flagship of the French attack was the brand new 1st armored division, the product of the reorganization of the DCr and other DLMs that had been withdrawn from AFN under the leadership of General Delestraint and Charles de Gaulle. It was commanded by General Touzet du Vigier.

Already morally tested by the "Lords of the Desert" and considerably weakened by the Allied blockade, the Italian army quickly broke down.

The retreat quickly became a debacle, as it was unable to stop the Allied attack due to a lack of courage, equipment and, above all, of a competent leader.

Cut off by the 1st armoured division, the infantry divisions infiltrated in the breaches thus opened and rushed towards the east.

Tripoli fell on 19 September and the French flag was flown over the palace of Graziani, who had taken to the skies.

In the east, in Cyrenaica, the British Western Desert Force attacked from its advanced point of Forte Capuzzo and made a vast turning movement through the desert that led to Tobruk, which quickly fell. There too, the Italians were routed. The general offensive of the Allies was therefore a much greater success than they could have foreseen at the beginning, which gave a boost to their population, whether it was the unfortunate French population of the Metropole, which was under the enemy's yoke, or the British urban population, which was hit by the German bombardment.

The Italians, pursued relentlessly by the Allied soldiers, placed themselves as hedgehogs in the coastal towns, using the Libyan cities as a shield, which delayed the Allied rush and the Franco-British junction.

In the middle of this war, an officer of the 1st armoured division distinguished himself even more than the others. Coming from the infantry, veteran of the French campaign, he also has a great mastery of the fighting between infantrymen.

Arriving in the provisional capital of the French Republic after an epic journey through invaded France and then Franco's Spain, the officer discovered a city full of refugees from Metropolitan France. Deserving officers evacuated in priority, weapons engineers, political exiles whether Germans or Austrian Jews or anti-fascists or Spanish Republicans.

But he didn't really have time to discover Algiers because he was quickly summoned to the Ministry of War to meet the minister in person.

Charles de Gaulle, whose works he had read and whose theories he knew.

Although he was very busy with his task as Minister of War and the reorganization of the French army, General de Gaulle nevertheless took the time to meet with all the Frenchmen who had managed to escape, by their own means, from Metropolitan France to North Africa.

Although he had served in the infantry, de Gaulle saw in him an ideal officer for the brand new 1st armored division being formed by amalgamating the various Combat Tank Battalions present in North Africa or repatriated from the Levant[53]. The minister therefore placed him in this new unit with the rank of commander[54] because with the disaster in Metropolitan France, the capture of many officers and the crass incompetence shown by the others, the French army was sorely lacking in officers capable of leading it at its head.

He therefore joined his unit in southern Tunisia where it was already training to incorporate the new tactics advocated by the General.

These angry outbursts, but above all his ardor in communicating, which had the gift of motivating his men, quickly made the rounds of the army and had reached the ears of De Gaulle, who was very happy to have promoted the noble Picard.

He also knew how to use words to boost the morale of his troops, to whom he promised that they would participate in the future liberation of France. Troops made up of volunteer officers advocating new methods based on those used by the enemy against France, baroudeurs who had served in the colonies and were determined to "break the Boche", volunteers from North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa who wanted to defend their "mother country" against Nazi barbarism.

In Africa, he now had the capacity to prepare his unit for the new war thanks to the human pool of the Empire, the protection of the fleet and the Mediterranean, and the French army was now only facing an enemy that was much weaker than the Germans and had retreated behind its border.

Although it was preparing its forces for the offensive, the French army had not remained inactive as we have seen. In addition, mobile Corps Francs harassed the advanced positions and the Italian supply convoys.

Moreover, prisoners had been taken and interrogated.

The commander did not beat about the bush and declared the enemy "demoralized".
He was not far from reality because, in fact, most of the Italian soldiers, already stunned by the announcement that they had to go to war with France, were doubly demoralized by the "Sursaut" of the Republic, by the lack of supplies due to the blockade of the Libyan coasts by the combined force of the British and French navies, and above all, by the Taranto disaster. But this was only true for the basic Italian soldier, the elite divisions and the praetorian guard of Fascism represented by the Blackshirt Corps retained all their strength.

This man who was not afraid of danger and who knew how to motivate his troops was Philippe de Hauteclocque.

After a month of furious fighting, the French and the British joined forces in Syrte, where the routed Italian troops had regrouped. The Allies having cleared the coastal cities one by one of any Italian presence, the last remnants of the Italian troops in Libya were clustered there. They were pounded not only by the artillery of the French and British ground units, which surrounded them, but also by the guns of the ships stationed offshore.

A new Dunkirk unfolded before the eyes of Philippe de Hauteclocque, who witnessed the shelling of the unfortunate Libyan city and Mussolini's troops by Allied cannons. But this time, no evacuation was possible for the besieged, as the French Navy and the Royal Navy controlled the seas. Only a few privileged people were able to flee by plane, such as Rodolfo Graziani, the Italian commander-in-chief in Libya before the beginning of the assault and the Allied bombing raids which transformed the city's airfields into vast crater fields.

So it was a second-rate Italian general, who was made commander-in-chief of a dying army, who signed the surrender act of the encircled armies in Sirte.

One of his soldiers, Massimo Bara, a future great Italian author who survived the sinking of the Normandie in February 1942, will give a poignant account of the deep distress of Italian soldiers subjected to the Allied blockade that isolates them from their homeland and their families, and then the sudden and decisive assault of the Allies on the colony, all against the background of the questioning of his "faith" in the Duce in the young man of 20 that he was then in his famous novel Come scritto nella sabbia. [55]

As were Mussolini's dreams of glory...


De Hauteclocque, a history buff, quickly realized that he was not witnessing a new Dunkirk, but rather the Italian version of the defeat at Sedan, where an army isolated from its bases surrendered after a hellish bombardment.

Once the enemy surrendered, de Hautecloque climbed onto an abandoned Italian tank and harangued his soldiers.

"Soldiers! Swear to lay down your arms only when our colors, our beautiful colors, are flying over the cathedral of Strasbourg!

On this day in October 1940, de Hauteclocque had just pronounced what would later become known as the "Oath of Sirte".

The enthusiastic troop exclaimed in heart. "We swear it! All of them, "Senegalese", North Africans or Metropolitans, have now sworn to liberate the mother country, even if they have to die.

De Gaulle was now sure that he was dealing with one of the officers that France needed in order to recover and reconquer her homeland. De Hauteclocque, for his exploits, received the rank of colonel, still within the 1st Armored Division, which would soon be called upon for new battles.

It should be noted that recent events made De Hauteclocque reconsider his pre-war prejudices, particularly anti-Semitism. Indeed, seeing the Jews from North Africa and repatriated from Metropolitan France en masse and enthusiastically enlist in the French army, de Hauteclocque said to one of his men. "Before, I didn't know how to support these people. Today, I realize that they are proud Frenchmen and good patriots!"

Although politically opposed, the new colonel thus became close to José Aboulker, a young volunteer non-commissioned officer assigned to the new colonel's company.

But many other battles were to take place before de Hauteclocque's troop once again set foot on the soil of the Motherland.




Philippe de Hauteclocque

[45] Crushed by the battle of France and the transfer across the seas of hundreds of downed airmen, captured by the Allies, as we have seen.
[46] That is 850 aircraft.
[47] The Italian air force.
[48] In reference to the German expression "You can call me Meier" when one is certain that something will not happen. But Goering had promised that no bombs would fall on Berlin!
[49] This made Churchill say, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. Or in French, "Jamais dans l'histoire des conflits tant de gens n'ont dû autant à si peu.
[50] That Radio Algiers called "Battle of London".
[51] Mandel deliberately did not mention the Spanish Republicans directly, so as not to irritate Franco.
[52] As a result, the Allies broke off diplomatic relations with Hungary and Bulgaria.
[53] Where they were stationed in view of an operation in the Balkans that was, for the moment, irrelevant.
[54] He was a captain
[55] "As written in the sand" in French/English.

[ukron]

Chapter 10: The conflict spreads

"The Führer will learn in the press that I have occupied Greece!"
Mussolini, on the announcement of the entry of German troops in Romania.


The Romanian Fascist Regime ends up sinking in shame and treason towards the superior interests of its fatherland when it authorizes on October 8, 1940 the Wehrmacht to penetrate and to station on its territory. Wanting to get their hands on the Romanian oil, the Nazis discover upon their arrival in Ploiesti that agents of the French secret service have partially destroyed the oil installations!

Despite a severe hunt, Léon Wenger's agents managed to escape through Yugoslavia.

At the same time, Mussolini, who considered the Latin powers to be his own preserve, was furious and decided to "show his muscles" to Hitler. The designated target was Greece, which had already been the victim of Italian aggression[56] and was considered much weaker than Yugoslavia, which the Duce also had his eye on.

Moreover, this was not only to allow for much easier communication with the islands of the Italian Dodecanese, but also, in a less avowed manner, to make the Italian people forget the African disaster.

And while Libya was collapsing, Mussolini had already turned his eyes elsewhere...

On October 27, while thousands of Italian soldiers went into captivity in Africa, the Italian ambassador delivered an ultimatum to the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas, who rejected it with hauteur and in French to boot!

A few hours later, the Italian army crossed the border between Albania and Greece.

ortunately for the Duce, the Regia Marina and the Italian air force were still strong enough to maintain control of the Straits of Otranto, separating Italy from southern Albania, which allowed the invasion force to be sent in.

The Italian plan, Emergenza G[58], envisaged the occupation of the country in three phases. To begin with, Epirus and the Ionian Islands would be occupied.

In a second phase, the Italian army will make a breakthrough in Western Macedonia towards Thessalonica in order to control northern Greece.

Finally, Italy will invade the rest of the country.

The Italian troops were commanded by Sebastiano Visconti Prasca, a member of the famous Visconti noble family.

Although the poor performance of the Italian army since the beginning of the conflict[59] was obvious, no one expected that the Greek army would manage to stop the Mussolini war machine alone, even before the arrival of Franco-British reinforcements.

The offensive was halted on 9 November in the western part of the front, in Epirus, and was also halted in western Macedonia[60] on 13 November after the destruction of the Julia division, which was surrounded by the Evzones, the elite of the Greek army.

From then on, the Greek commander-in-chief, Alexandros Papagos, could launch a counter-attack in the direction of Korçë, in Albania, which was taken on 22 November!

Anxious to show that they were fighting not for territorial conquests but to liberate the victims of fascist dictatorships, the Franco-British convinced the Greeks and the former king of Albania, Zog I, to sign an agreement that stipulated that the territories of Albania from which the Italians had been driven would be run by a provisional Albanian administration.[61] However, this administration was entirely to be built by the Italians.

However, this administration is entirely to be constructed and, in the meantime, it is indeed the Greeks who rule the areas of Albania they have conquered, although this shows that Albania is now an allied government in exile in the same way as Czechoslovakia, for example.

This unexpected extension of the conflict requires both sides to take action.

In Alexandria, a meeting took place between Mandel, Churchill and their main ministers. On the agenda was the allied strategy in the Balkans in general and in continental Greece in particular, as well as the threat to Corsica since the establishment of a blockade by Germany, which had mobilized its air force in the south of France and in Italy. 62]

First of all, the two allies decided to accede to Greece's request for a reinforcement of nine divisions to participate in the defense against a German intervention, despite the fears of some allied officers, notably Wavell.

The Allied Expeditionary Force, nicknamed the "Army of the East"[64] by the French press in exile, was however essentially made up of British troops[65]. Its mission was twofold. To directly support the Greeks in their conquest of Albania, but also to secure the Bulgarian and Yugoslav borders[66].

All the allied troops in Greece were under a single British command. Their commander was the North African hero, Richard O'Connor.

At the same time, the Allies decided to launch the conquest of the Dodecanese islands, now made possible by their total maritime superiority in the region and the protective "screen" formed by Greece, now a member of the Allied coalition.

Deprived of supplies, the Italians put up little resistance to the Allied landings, which followed an intense bombardment by Franco-British battleships and aircraft. Only the fanatical Black Shirts put up a resistance that was as useless as it was desperate.

The 2 allies also decided to do everything to reconstitute a Balkan front by sending representatives to Ankara.

Concerning Corsica, the 2 navies[67] ensured the protection of the island against the probable assault of the Axis.

Indeed, Hitler planned an airborne assault on the French island, the last Republican stronghold in Metropolitan France, and therefore the preferred target of the Führer and Mussolini, who wanted to annex the island.

The Austrian also decided, despite the protests of the German navy commanders, who considered the means already available for the "Battle of the Atlantic" to be insufficient, to send 20 U-boats to the Mediterranean to attack the Allied convoys crossing the channel between Sicily and Tunisia, but above all to attack the convoys that were constantly pouring Allied reinforcements into Greece and to reinforce the blockade of Corsica.

If France sent divisions "liberated" by the Axis defeat in Libya[68] and the purchase of Spanish neutrality, Churchill sent a symbolic division to the island, having allocated most of its resources to the defense of Greece, in a sort of unacknowledged sharing of tasks between the allies.

The defence of Corsica was entrusted to General Mollard.

While Greece joined the Allies, against the wishes of its dictator, the majority of Eastern European countries joined the tripartite pact. This was the case for Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, while only an internal crisis prevented Bulgaria from doing the same, provoking the ire of Hitler, who was in a great hurry to get rid of Greece as the Italian debacle in Albania intensified.

In the Americas, the Franco-British could breathe easy. Their friend, Franklin Roosevelt, was re-elected against the Republican Willkie with 54.74% of the vote[70]. [70] They could therefore still count on American help in the fight against Germany and its allies.

While the Allies were gaining a foothold in Greece, Hitler received in Berlin Vyacheslav Molotov, the Stalinist foreign minister and, as is well known, negotiator of the pact that allowed the Führer to set fire to Europe...

Molotov was welcomed by Ribbentrop at the station, decorated with Soviet and Nazi flags above a large basket of flowers, with an orchestra playing the Internationale for the first time since 1933...

While Ribbentrop and then Hitler boasted about the forthcoming defeat of the Allies before offering the USSR access to the warm seas via the Arabian Gulf, Molotov, on Stalin's orders, demanded the extension of the Russian sphere of influence into Romania and Bulgaria.[72] The former was already in the war zone, but the latter was not.

However, the former was already in the Nazi sphere, while the latter was being seriously courted by the Third Reich...

Molotov also asked, in a peremptory manner, why German troops were positioned in Finland, which had been devolved to the USSR under the terms of the German-Soviet pact.

It is worth noting that some of the talks had to take place in an air raid shelter because of the RAF raids on Berlin!

The negotiations ended in failure. Hitler had these words.

"Molotov's intransigence is proof of what I have been saying all along. That the Soviets have made a pact with the Franco-British to destroy Germany! Only the hope of Russian intervention in the conflict pushed them to continue the struggle.

Never mind, we will destroy the USSR next year...".

Hitler then ordered to intensify preparations for Operation Barbarossa.

A few days later, the German dictator harshly criticized the Italian foreign minister, Ciano, for the policy conducted by Italy in Greece and enjoined him to at least bring the Francophile Yugoslavia into the Axis net by promising it Salonika if it went to war against Greece. More discreetly, Hitler promised the Italian minister important German means for the reconquest of Libya and the invasion of French North Africa and Egypt.

But not before 1942...

In mainland France, November 11 was celebrated by Parisian students, despite the prohibition imposed by the occupation authorities. Hundreds of arrests were made by the German forces in retaliation.



Ioannis Metaxas (Source Wikipédia)

[56] Let's mention the destruction of the Greek cruiser Elli in the bay of Tinos by the Delfino, an Italian submarine in August.
[57] In fact, the latter replied "So, it's war. Became "okhi", "no" in Greek for the good cause.
[58] Emergency Greece.
[59] Except in East Africa.
[60] The eastern sector of the front
[61] To the great displeasure of the Greeks who wanted to recover Albanian Northern Epirus. However, Greece was promised, as compensation, the Italian Dodecanese after the joint victory.
[62] This forced Hitler to put an end to the "Battle of London".
[63] This earned him Churchill's contempt.
[64] So called in memory of the first world conflict. But most of the resources defending the sector were British, as we shall see.
[65] The Allied Expeditionary Force had only one French division. The bulk of the army in Algiers had another mission as we shall see...
[66] The first one being on the point of signing the Tripartite pact and great enemy of Greece since the second Balkan war, the second one moving, via the regent Paul, to the great despair of the Serbian officers...
[67] The French Navy is now operational again.
[68] And in particular the formidable 1st French Armored Division
[69] Vlorë has just fallen.
[70] But 449 electors against 82 for his opponent.
[71] Although Willkie was far from being an isolationist.
[72] As well as the control of the Turkish Straits.

[simon darkshade]

The issue with both versions of the 'old' FFO - both the French one under Fantasque et al and the comparatively shorter lived APOD outgrowth - is that they were built upon story driven choices. If played right, France staying in the fight butterflies North Africa and thus largely butterflies the Mediterranean Campaign and changes the whole shape and course of the war, including in the Far East. Yet, in order to get French moments of glory (in one case) and to satisfy general reader expectations of similarity to @ (in the other), there was a great deal of historical mirroring.

It may well be that this is a radically different FFO from that being translated away on AH.com, which I believe is the Fantasque version, but I'll reserve judgment until it plays out.

Having said that, there is the other big issue for a France that carries on: there isn't a base in North Africa to support anything but the most broken backed of wars. There are issues of infranstructure, port capacity, resources, skilled technicians and workers and half a hundred other problems that face a French military force that ends up in North Africa. It may have gold and men, but modern war needs so much more than that. The British are flat out supplying their own forces and fronts, so there isn't much slack available and the US is not engaged sufficiently to change things for the French Forces Outremer for several years yet. Despite this, in every FFO variation, there are actual offensives, amphibious operations, daring fleet actions and bombing campaigns in a short time.

I would suggest that, with such a short warning time, it is very, very hard indeed to evacuate anything much to North Africa apart from men, smaller arms, planes and relatively small items.