"La France Continue" (LFC) a different destiny for France. (France continues to fight in 1940 by Emi
Sept 15, 2022 18:11:23 GMT
gillan1220 likes this
Post by stevep on Sept 15, 2022 18:11:23 GMT
"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.
Well that is an extremely bold move, effectively giving up most of the empire - or making it a France that is overwhelmingly non-European. Of course it also puts the British and arguably as well the Dutch, Belgians and possibly also Danes in the spotlight. I can't see Churchill being that happy with this decision given his own views.
Interesting for-telling that there will be a joint Anglo-French nuclear project and it will leave both of them better positioned after the end of the war.
The additional strength of the French fighters and probably as importantly the pilots would really swing the battle heavily in Britain's favour, especially once the French pilots are integrated into the RAF system. [Which by providing an example should also mean that Czech, Polish and other foreign pilots would be allowed to fight earlier. Given the change in the balance it should take less time to overwhelm the B-109 escorts so can see the day battle ending a good bit earlier. One other bonus is that once its clear the LW has lost then any invasion can be ruled out so some of the RN ships held back can be used for other duties, most importantly convoy escort. Coupled with the availability of the French fleet I wonder if this might mean that PoW and DoY are decently worked up in time for Denmark Strait or its equivalent. Assuming that you get a basic division of labour and have the RN concentrated in the N Atlantic and the French more in the Med. [Although if one of the new French BBs can be completed they could well be sent that way].
The crushing of the Italians in Libya so quickly would boost the allied morale and also remove any threat to Africa while would make mopping up in Italian east Africa a lot easier. It does raise the question of whether Mussolini tries for Greece here? It would be a stupid move given the defeat he's just suffered and the example it gives of how unprepared Italy is for the war but we're talking about a not particularly bright dictator here so the need to 'restore Italian honour' could be a big issue for him. If he doesn't and the Balkans stay relatively peaceful then that might change the timing and operation of Barbarossa.
I wonder if that comment about the looting of Romania by Hungary and Bulgaria could make Romania more willing to consider switching sides, although that's only likely I suspect if the western allies are the ones their likely to be able to join rather than the Soviets.
