The Franco-British Union: It's birth and growth in the Second World War

This is my first big Alternate History Project. I made this over on reddit and I was encouraged to post it here. Please excuse the amateur writing. Also note that it is not complete, but I shall complete it soon. Enjoy!

I admit inspiration from the excellent 'Sword of Freedom: A Franco-British Union TL'

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=3387825

Chapter 1

Up until the months between the invasion and annexation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and the charge through the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and finally France, almost all involved on the Allied side believed the war would either end within a year or once again stall into the horrific bloodshed of the trenches. None could’ve believed the total occupation of France, one of the mightiest nations on Earth, would be achieved by Hitler’s Empire, or so rapidly.

In one world, this was a rout of the forces of democracy, that would see France made a puppet and Britain made an exile, and even in victory their close alliance would be discarded for new ties with other nations.
In this world, things went differently.

In February of 1934, King Albert I of the Belgians, arguably the most beloved monarch in Belgium's history, went on a mountaineering trip to the Roche du Vieux Bon Dieu. At 58 years of age, the King was convinced to spend his trip with a guide. This would prove to be his salvation, as he suffered a 20 metre drop when his rope snapped. Though bound to a wheelchair, the King returned to lead his country against the growing threat in the East.

His powerful character did have an influence on his allies. Once war had been declared between Germany and the Allied Powers, Britain, France, Poland and Belgium, Belgian intelligence warned the Allies that the German plan was to cross the Ardennes area of Belgium, race towards the sea and trap the British and Belgian forces in a pocket. Taking the intelligence seriously, the Allies move their reserves South to meet the Germans.

The German offensive through the Ardennes, though covering more ground than either the French and British military establishment could've ever believed, had stalled before reaching Saint-Quentin, allowing several commanders, notably Colonel de Gaulle, to stage counterattacks on German spearhead units, encircling exposed portions of the Heer, delaying the Germans and allowing the French and Belgian Armies and the BEF to reorganise and stiffen resistance. The British and Belgian forces maintained their land connection with the French, and hurriedly rushed through the corridor to reform a coherent front. The Germans were only 5 miles from the town of Abbeville, artery of the corridor, when the last units drove through. The speedy recovery of the defense became known as the 'Miracle of Abbeville'.

Regaining some of the gusto that saw France through the Great War, and not wanting to let France fall to the same Nazism that betrayed Norway just a few months ago, the French cleaned house, removing likely allies of Hitler from positions of political power, like Pétain and Lavel. While suffering a minor 'brain-drain', the government is able to resist calls for surrender, but sees that the situation in mainland France is untenable.

June drags on, and the German offensive picks up again, but surviving French, British and Belgian (at least, those that had rejected the surrender of the 'new' Belgian government, numbering over 400,000) troops have learned from the carnage of May, and, reorganised and resupplied, are now able to partially anticipate the German attacks. The Allies fight not to destroy or encircle, but to delay, restricting German advances as much as they could to evacuate people and destroy factories before either can be captured. As the centre of the French road and rail network, Paris is too valuable to give up without a fight. Forcing German tanks to try to roll through rubble-filled Parisian Boulevards, the Germans take 100,000 casualties over three weeks before raising the Swastika on a partly-collapsed Eiffel Tower, used as a stronghold by French Snipers and Machinegunners. France loses 160,000 of her sons in arms, along with 20,000 Parisians that choose to stay, but she gains time for what evacuation that could be done.

Once Paris fell, the battle had split in half, with most of the British and Belgian forces, along with some of the French, fighting to slow down the conquest of the North Coast, and the remainder of the British and French slowing the drive South. Putting up stubborn resistance, the Allies in the North are eventually forced to cede Caen, Cherbourg and finally Nantes, cutting them off from the rest of the Allied forces, now stuck in the ‘Brittany Pocket’. The 200 km between the cities of Rennes and Brest exhausted Army Group B so much it was unable to assist the charge to the South Coast once finished, calling it ‘The Bloody March’. While 90,000 Belgians would stay behind, a third of the population of Brittany, along with the rest of the military survivors and the Belgian royal family, would arrive in Cornwall and Devon.

The French Government, by this point rebased in Marseille with Northern France under German control, weighs its options. The Wehrmacht was exhausted and undersupplied after three months of fighting, depending on roads and rail links blown apart by at first Allied armies, then French partisans, mostly decimated but still equipped units left behind to slow and undermine the enemy. As the Germans make their way down south, their problems only continue to worsen, major roads in the rural south being few and far between. However, they would take France eventually, and Italy was poised to enter the war when the Allied position is destroyed. All could see that France would fall, the fight having to be continued from the Empire. By this point, the only major Allied nation with its homeland free was Britain, who would no doubt be leading the cause once France is taken. Despite the purge of German sympathizers, some claim that defeat is inevitable, yet most see the Germans for what they are, strong but not invincible.

Politicians in both France and Britain, most notably Paul Reynaud, Jean Monnet and Robert Vansittart, discuss the possibility of uniting the holdings of Britain, France and their Empires into one entity, at least for the duration of the war. By this point, both Governments see no harm in trying, the British alone if France surrenders, and the French already feeling invested towards the fight. Signed by Prime Ministers Churchill and Reynaud, the Deceleration of 'One Nation, One Army, One Cause' is met with surprise by both peoples, who nonetheless agree with it and are both glad to see the other ready for the long haul.

Practically speaking, the Union can't take hold until the Allied position is consolidated, eyes turning to French Algeria. Using Corsica as a staging base, Allied units are gradually shuttled across the Mediterranean, keeping a wary eye on still-neutral Italy. Desperately requisitioning every ship it could, the French packed as many civilians as they could onto journeys to either Britain, Algeria or Canada. Hitler, furious at the creation of the Union and Frances continued resistance, orders the destruction of as much civilian shipping as possible. The order to attack strictly civilian-packed liners proved to be extremely unpopular with U-boat crews, many falsifying reports and deliberately missing targets, but causalities still mount high, totaling 100,000 dead, more than would be killed in the entire Blitz. Although a huge loss, it is a significant propaganda victory for the newly minted Franco-British Union, French vowing to avenge the deaths however they can, and British welcoming their now-fellow citizens into their own homes.

In France, the battle continues. Allied armies ditch the single defensive line for multiple lines around key objectives, using manpower spared to maintain a reserve for where the Germans chose to strike. Even so, brigades exist where divisions are needed, and the pressing need for fuel is the main thing slowing the Panzers down. Frustrated German tankists overextend in their advances, running out of fuel, breaking down or being intercepted before encirclements could be secured. British and French capture more and more Panzer Is and IIs, a few even left intact and abandoned from lack of petrol. Though inferior 1-to-1 to Allied tanks, they make a welcome addition when they can be assimilated, and are often stripped of radios to be installed into Allied formations. Already, lessons are being learned for the French and British to reestablish the lead in armoured warfare they enjoyed in the last war.
The war in the south is in its final moments. A strip of land around the south coast, on average 250 km wide, is all that remains of Free France. Mussolini makes plans of joining the war with Hitler once the city of Lyon is captured by the Germans, and the position of the French troops on the border with Italy is compromised. With the Fall of Toulouse and the Heer reaching the border with Spain, a small section of the BEF, the 20,000 surviving men of I Corps assigned to hold the West coast, was trapped inside the Bayonne Pocket.
Almost all shipping was in the Mediterranean, and U-boats now based in the north guaranteed a turkey shoot if they tried to run anyway. Lieutenant General Michael Barker quipped 'The Frogs are destroying their country, just so Jerry can't have it. What is a single corps?'. He ordered the destruction of all heavy equipment about to fall into enemy hands, and that all men able to fight were to continue to fight. Over a week, 12,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded, the rest marched to POW camps. It was the biggest British loss of strength in the war so far. What few ships were left was used to send civilians classified as 'undesirable' by the Nazis to Canada, with I Corps left behind as a rearguard. The population evacuated includes 1,500 French Jews. The community that eventually settled in Quebec honour the 27th of August, the date the last ship left the Bayonne Pocket, and thanks the sacrifice of I Corps.

After bitter resistance from the French, Lyons falls after nearly a month. With the Maginot Line bypassed and the French garrison on the border nearly surrounded, Mussolini declares war on the Franco-British Union, aiming to snatch the South Coast from Hitler. Despite having to withdraw to avoid encirclement by the Germans up North, the French Alpine Divisions hold on fiercely, glad to finally do their part in the battle. The port of Nice is targeted by the Italians, but the French, using it to ferry troops to North Africa, refuse to let the Italians anywhere near it. Of the near 150 Allied divisions at the start of the Battle for France, only 40 were still on Metropolitan French Territory, the rest either evacuated or captured/destroyed.

Dive-bombers, a continuous hassle for the Allies, have their 'happy-time', the densely-packed pocket around the major ports full of targets to destroy. The French Air Force was nearly grinded down into oblivion, but a few squadrons of crack-pilots were still clinging on, based at Corsica and presenting a constant terror for the Luftwaffe bombers. The RAF by this point was dealing with the Battle of Britain, and needed every fighter it could get. However, thanks to the bulk of Luftwaffe planes being directed towards the south, the RAF is able to beef up its numbers before the battle proper began in late September.

In what became known as 'Toulon Spirit', 10 of the remaining 40 Allied divisions held several defense lines around the eponymous port, the last piece of Mainland France of fall. Having to hold for three days as all the rest of the force boarded their ships, the ruined remains of Fifth Army was left with as much ammunition as they be given, along with luxury rations donated by the 30 divisions that would escape. With constant attacks keeping them awake for the entire time,the defenders refused to move, only surrendering once the rest of the Army Group had left. It was said the commander of the Rearguard, one General Victor Bourret, collapsed in fatigue before he could formally surrender.

With his surrender on the 4th of September, 1940, one year and one day after France and Britain entered the war, all of mainland France was now under the control of the Axis. 1,000,000 Allied casualties, 150,000 of those civilian, made for a heavy pill to swallow. Only 16% of France's population (70% civilians, the other 30% military) could be evacuated in time, the rest now hostage to an angry Third Reich. However, the Germans too paid dearly for victory, 600,000 soldiers killed or wounded, with much of the Luftwaffe and the Panzerarmees now scrap metal.

The Fifth Army, carrying on the tradition of steadfastness which its predecessor used to save Paris in the First Battle of the Marne, another Allied victory in the opening stages of a world war, guaranteed the French and the British, now tired, scratched, battered and bruised, but united and firmly in the fight, would go past this defeat and march to victory.

Chapter 2

By September of 1940, both Axis and Allies had a feel for each other, and both sides took stock after the Battle for France. The French Government had found its way to Westminster, to collaborate with the British on how to continue the war effort. Both sides began to find and forge links with each other, eager to get used to one another. After all, they had a lot of work to do.

1,500,000 French soldiers, 200,000 British and 220,000 Belgians escaped the German Army. While 150,000 French troops landed in England from the Brittany Pocket, the remainder was either holding the island of Corsica or in North Africa, having launched from the South Coast. By contrast, the largest Axis force in Africa to face the Allies was the army of variable quality at best in Italian Libya. However, although this force would be no serious bother to defeat, the now joint Army was experiencing a minor crisis. Although the campaign in France could've gone down far worse than it did, it still left Britain nearly a country without an army, and France an army without a country. Units had to be disbanded, split apart and fused together to consolidate the exhausted divisions into a force once again ready for a serious fight.

Equipment and supplies was a serious issue. For one thing, the force in North Africa, aside from the preexisting garrisons at Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, weren't equipped for the desert, but the French in particular were suffering. For one thing, French firearms used 7.5 x 54 mm rounds, while most munitions factories in Britain made the .303 (7.7 x 56 mm). These soldiers needed new firearms, along with new uniforms, tanks, planes, support vehicles, everything. Training would have to be reevaluated, too. Both countries expected something akin to the Great War, not the maneuver warfare demonstrated by the Germans. Some tanks like the French S-35 showed promise, but had to be improved upon, the use of said tanks most of all, while German superiority in the air had to be challenged, then destroyed.

The Germans were hurting, too. While losing far less than what Hitler predicted it would, the Heers reserves of Panzer Is and IIs were decimated, and it would take a while for IIIs and IVs to replace them for the war in the East. The Luftwaffe lost nearly a thousand aircraft, most dive-bombers and interceptors. Everyone knew that Operation Sealion was a pipe dream, Hitler instead ordering attacks on port cities, to 'starve and terrify the English into peace with the Reich'. The Luftwaffe would soon be distracted by this objective by the RAF, and then be ordered to destroy RAF bases, followed soon by orders to destroy aircraft factories. By December, the preparations in the East and Campaigns in the Balkans needed planes, so the Luftwaffe mission in Britain was restricted to night-raids on major cities every other day.

The war in the Atlantic marked steady gains by the united navies of the British and French Empires. The German Surface Fleet was far smaller than the combined allied force, but could on the whole depend on land-based air cover more than they, and any threat from the Germans had to be dealt with before the Navies were swamped by priorities, the biggest of which was now the Italian Navy. The in-service Bismarck and the under-construction Tirpitz were the biggest targets, Home Fleet, having just welcomed the battleships Dunkerque, the Strasbourg, and the Richelieu, as well as the aircraft carrier Bearn into it's ranks, constantly on the hunt.

The submarine war, however, is much harder on the Union. Unlike the last war, Germany had access to ports in France, there wasn't to be a British blockade, no bottleneck to trap the U-boats. The Kriegsmarine set to work sinking as many convoys as they could, in the attempt to starve the British Isles. However, looming disaster is averted, as naval bombers from Britain, North Africa, the Caribbean and Canada patrol daily for submarines. Developing new techniques to combat the U-boat, losses in civilian shipping would, over the war, stabilize and decrease.

The addition of nearly 70 French destroyers to the Royal Navy's reserves makes the Union reject the initial Destroyers for Bases deal, instead bargaining the 40-year lease on British naval bases in the West Atlantic to the United States in exchange for equipment and small arms for the infantry in North Africa along with orders for tens of thousands of fast utility vehicles. Initially used by the Union forces in North Africa, a small truck resulting from this deal would one day be nicknamed the 'Sandrover'. Its more common name is after its manufacturer, the 'Willy'.

It is said that the Union was born in the Blitz. Around 3,100,000 french civilians had made it out of France before the German conquest, and they needed homes. Posters, such a one showing a French peasant-woman and her children, beside a mob of German SS men, with the subtitle 'Guests in your home: Better the French today, than the Germans tomorrow!' encouraged the British public to offer their homes to shelter French families. Within a month, all French civilians had a permanent place to stay. French and British worked and lived together, learning a little of each others languages and ways of life. Aside from fringe groups, such as the British Union of Fascists, both peoples warmed to the other, both having suffered much.

Both continued to suffer much. Despite the Bf 109 finding its match in both the Supermarine Spitfire and the Dewoitine D.520, both crewed by a corps of pilots slowly broken in by the gradually building Luftwaffe offensive, Germany ruled the night skies of Britain, sending bomber raids to the capital of London at least twice a week, with many attacks on other cities. The attempts to break the will of the Union backfired, however, both cultures amused by the other's reaction to the carnage, loud French vengeance and subtle British bloodthirst.

The Franco-British invasion of Italian Libya began in late July, to consolidate control of Africa and the Mediterranean, aiming to make the route to India and Indochina safe as soon as shipping passed Gibraltar. Testing the German tactics used so effectively in France, Union tanks were organised into large groups, forming a spearhead. They are not able to fully implement doctrine changes, however, as Italian units quickly surrender in the face of overwhelming numbers. French units from the West and British units from the East advance on Tripoli and Benghazi, respectfully. With major Italian formation crumbling against Union aircraft and armour, the governor of Libya, Italo Balbo, asks Mussolini for the permission to evacuate, being refused. While the British from Egypt stop at and encircle Benghazi, beginning a siege in the middle of August, the main French thrust from Tunisia continue past Tripoli and meet with the British there. In less than a month after the beginning of the operation, after intense fighting from the garrisons of both ports, the Italians surrender, a near quarter-million becoming Prisoners-Of-War.

Giving the Franco-British victory in Libya, a deal was reached with the Viceroy of Italian East Africa, Prince Amedeo. Accepting his surrender, on the condition that he and the men under his control would be kept out of the war, the Franco-British move in to return Emperor Haile Selassie to the throne of Ethiopia. The Union, winning its first true victories, small as they are, brings the war to the End of its Beginning.

Chapter 3

As French and British celebrate their first Christmas as one nation, 1940, as turbulent and world-changing as it was, ends in a big victory. The German Battleship Bismarck, trying to rebase to a port in Northern France, is intercepted by aircraft of HMS Ark Royal. A Swordfish torpedo-bomber manages to strike the Bismarck on his propeller, immobilizing him. With the pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, damaged but under repairs in Britain, a taskforce led by the Richelieu, moved in to deliver the killing blow to Bismarck. Anglo-Francs to this day argue over who deserves more credit for sinking the Bismarck.

Yet more success was to be had at sea. The Union Mediterranean Fleet, charged with the destruction of the Italian Navy, had launched an unprecedented form of attack. Launching an air attack from two Aircraft Carriers, the Fleet was able to strike the major Italian port of Taranto, inside of which was six of Italy’s Battleships. The attack sunk three, and damaged the rest. In one night, the Italian Navy was reduced to a Fleet in Being, the Mediterranean becoming very much a Franco-British Lake.

In January, the strategic situation for the Union was steadily improving. Prospecting in Libya was increasing production in North Africa, while railway lines from Casablanca to Cairo were under construction. The Union was hungry for allies, British diplomats going to Greece and French diplomats to Romania and Yugoslavia, unknowingly interrupting German plans to secure the Balkans in preparation for Barbarossa. The Union is unable to sway the Romanians, feeling more intimidated by the Soviet Union than the German Reich, and the Yugoslavs were frozen in indecision, impressed by Union performance but was itself surrounded by potential enemies, but Greece is more pliable, confident in the Union capacity to support them, and angry at Italy for attempting to invade it last October.

On the 17th January, Yugoslavia declares its neutrality in the war, refusing access to both sides. On the 26th, Greece begins to receive a Union Expeditionary Force from North Africa. The eventual size of the force reaches 200,000, forming with the 430,000-strong Greek Army the Aliakmon line, ready for an attack on the slowly expanding Axis Powers. The Union submarine force focuses on Italian shipping in the Adriatic, choking the army in Albania.
The German Army maintains that it only has the strength to invade either Greece or Yugoslavia at once, not both. Deciding to leave Yugoslavia to his Italian ally, Hitler issues Führer Directive 20, the total occupation of Greece. The Wehrmacht responds by beginning to send troops to Bulgaria, on the assumption that significant Greek forces were stationed on the Metaxas line to the East, hoping to cut those forces off by thrusting towards Salonika. This thrust would be led by a Panzerkorps commanded by General Erwin Rommel. On the 2nd February, the Germans attack.

What the Wehrmacht didn’t expect was that the Metaxas line was manned by a skeleton crew, the Union having convinced the Greeks that the East wasn’t worth holding via static defence. What the Germans had to face instead was British 3rd Army, commanded by General Bernard Montgomery. Although composed of mismatched formations and equipment (the Army’s tanks and tank crews being, in fact, French), ‘Monty’ was able to organise a thrust from his base at the port of Thrace at the side of the Germans bottlenecked by mountains. Although Rommel reaches his objective, he and his ‘Griechischen Korps’ is cut off from the main body in Hungary. The leader of the infamous ‘Ghost Division’ was now trapped. After attempting a breakout, which falters due to lack of supplies, a critical downside of Rommels aggressiveness in battle, he is forced to surrender after running out of fuel. The leader of the French armoured forces within 3rd Army, General Philippe de Hauteclocque, better known as ‘Leclerc’, is named the ‘Mountain Lion’ and Montgomery becomes the face of a British military reinventing itself with its French counterparts, one with the logistical backbone and methodical initiative needed to defeat the German Army.

Although a great victory for the Allies, it was only to be a delaying action. German forces eventually overran the minimal garrison holding the Metaxas line, capturing the East of Mainland Greece, giving it to Bulgaria. However, the objective of the operation, the subjugation of Greece, had failed, the Greek defenses was just too much for the Germans to handle on top of Barbarossa, and the Wehrmacht pulled out to move its units to the border of the Soviet Union, building its own fortifications to deter the Union from invading from Greece.

The gamble, risking almost all of the Unions armour, had paid off brilliantly. The citizens of Athens cheered their heroes of Greek, British and French blood, forgetting the war for a night as crowds cheered the first true victory over the Germans. While the rest of Mainland Europe was under the yoke of Hitler and Mussolini, the Allies had finally drew the line in the sand.

The Union Army was victorious, but needed a rebirth. Back in Britain, entire French companies, from executives to factory workers, had fused with their British colleagues to design and build the next generation of equipment and vehicles. While many in the British contingent still wanted to keep the idea of slow, heavy infantry-support tanks, the success of faster French and British ‘Cruiser’ tanks pointed out the need to consolidate to one class. The S-35, while a good tank for the Battles of France and Greece, the machinery in Britain was not tooled to build it, and it was being or was soon to be outclassed by German tanks anyway, so a bigger, more powerful vehicle was needed. Using British equipment when possible, such as the Rolls-Royce Meteor modified as a tank engine, and a QF 6-pounder gun as armament (to begin with), but with French design input and taking lessons from warfare with the Germans, boasting ingenious innovations including sloped armour to deflect shells, the Templar would come to be one of the best all-round tanks of the war, the equal to the T-34 and the Panzer IV. Even as Germany built ever larger and more powerful Panzers, the Templar would come to dominate through numbers and reliability.

While priority was given to the forces in Greece and North Africa, new units were being built in Britain. Numbers in the British faction of the Union Army swelled into the millions, reliance on Great War-era weapons replaced by new firearms, such as the Sten and the Bren, as the War Machine cranked into life. Troops also began to receive new uniforms, the French more than a little displeased with the similarities to the old British sets. To alleviate this, the Brodie helmet, modelled after the helmets worn by English archers at Agincourt, was modified to be more rounded, similar to the Adrian helmet worn by the French since 1916, also improving protection to the sides of the head.

They also include patches of the new Franco-British Flag. Although a few still considered the joint status of the two countries as temporary, the morale of both peoples were at an all-time high after the saving of Greece, soldiers regarding the ‘Frogs and Rosbifs’ as Brothers in Arms, and the civilians back in Britain treating their shared households as practically family. The French uprooted and rushed across the Channel had found a new home in the cities and hills of England, while the British came to view suffering France as their own land to be left free of the Nazis alongside Britain.

With the Italians having annexed the South Coast into their empire, and Germany maintaining a military occupation of the rest of the country, those left behind endured harsh treatment by their conquerors, listening in on the reports from the Allies over the Channel, and waited for the moment to rise up. The French Government-in-Exile urged its citizens to avoid violent uprisings, knowing that could only attracted vengeance and harder restrictions. Instead, it encouraged quiet resistance, sabotage of infrastructure and the sheltering of Jews and other ‘undesirables’. The French Resistance movement, of which other occupied countries took inspiration from, tied down precious German troops and prepared the way for the eventual liberation of France.

To both Hitler and the High Command of the Wehrmacht, the situation was clear. With the Allies slowly re-equipping their armies, the Axis Surface Navies unable to match the Union fleets, and Greece divided by a heavily fortified front, neither side could bring serious damage to bare on the other. Germany would need time for it’s industry to produce a force capable of destroying the Allied presence in Europe and North Africa. Hitler increasingly turned his focus towards the East, its farmland, oil and potential slave-labor capable of elevating his ‘thousand-year Reich’ to superpower-status.

Chapter 4

Despite the costly victories and significant distractions throughout occupied Europe, the Wehrmacht was understandably doubtful of the abilities of the Red Army, which had suffered dearly against a far lesser enemy in the Winter War against Finland in 1940. Estimates put the capture of Kiev, Minsk, Smolensk, Leningrad and Moscow by the end of 1941, before the infamous Russian Winter. On the 13th July, 1941, Operation Barbarossa, the invasion and destruction of the Soviet Union, began.

Over the next 5 months, the Red Army was in a state of barely-organised chaos. The Heer once again enjoyed the easy victories it had against Poland in 1939, but to the Luftwaffe, it was a slightly different story. With significant numbers of planes held back in Romania to safeguard the critical oil-fields from Union air-attack, the Airplane-Armour-Infantry team of Blitzkrieg was held back from making several huge encirclements. Attempts to capture the Southwestern Front in an unparalleled encirclement during the Battle of Kiev by Army Group South failed, ending in the two German pincers stalling before meeting, with 80% of the surviving Front escaping. Army Group North also made significant headway without achieving operational objectives, failing to reach Lake Ladoga and cut off the city of Leningrad. The bulk of German firepower was given to Army Group Centre, with the ultimate goal of capturing the Soviet capital of Moscow, dealing a crushing propaganda victory and cutting Soviet infrastructure in two. The Wehrmacht got to within 70 miles of the city outskirts on the 28th of November, before the Soviets launched a counter-offensive which pushed them back beyond any chance of seizing the city before winter. In more ways than one, the line froze.

Much happened in the world of politics during Barbarossa. Soon after the Operation began, Stalin went into contact with his opposites in the Franco-British Union, Premier Churchill and Deputy-Premier Reynaud (with Clement Attlee and Paul Ramadier serving as Prime Ministers of their respective nations). They and US president Franklin Roosevelt came to an agreement regarding the increasingly hated Nazi Germany. Though the United States would not go to war unless attacked, it did support both the Franco-British and the Soviet Union, now allies against the Axis Powers. Persia was ‘pressured’ to allow access to allied troops and freight, creating a land route from Casablanca to Moscow, an artery for equipment and supplies from Britain and America to reach the Soviets easily.

Half a world away, the Japanese Empire was ready to split itself apart. The Japanese Home Islands were poor in resources, and it was only the resources of Korea and Manchuria, along with significant imports, mostly from the United States, that was keeping the Empire afloat. Japan wanted to boast total self-reliance, and that necessitated the building of the so-called ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’. The next piece to be added to Japanese sovereignty was French Indochina.

Much of the Japanese government, however, was troubled by the strength of the French Government-in-Exile, backed by its partner in the Union. It was hoped that Germany would install a loyal government in France with control over Indochina, who would hand it over to Japan after a show of strength.
With Indochina still loyal to the original French Government, there were worries that a demand for Indochina would provoke a hostile response from France, and by extension Britain, possibly the United States. On the other side, most notably the Japanese military, especially the Navy, believed that Union holdings in the East were stripped bare of troops and ships, and Japan needed their resources to ensure control of its own destiny. While it was believed a simultaneous attack on French, British, Dutch and American holdings was best, to give nobody a chance to prepare their own defences, the IJN harbored few illusions on the industrial might facing them. It was believed a strike on the American naval base in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor, would cripple the Pacific Fleet for precious months, possibly a year, and allow for the Japanese to fight the Franco-British out of East Asia before meeting the US Navy under favourable conditions.

On the 31st of October, 1941, a massive Japanese Armada led by six Aircraft Carriers struck Pearl Harbor. It was a stunning success for the Japanese, targeting and scrapping the three Carriers of the US Pacific Fleet, USS Lexington, USS Enterprise and USS Saratoga, along with two Battleships. The Pacific Fleet had been beheaded in mere hours.

That was not all the action seen that day. At the same time, invasions of French Indochina, the Philippines, Hong Kong and the East Indies began. The under-garrisoned colonies were caught totally by surprise. By December, most of the Philippines and Northern Indochina was under Japanese control.
An outraged America ended it’s decades-old policy of non-interventionism and declared war on the Japanese Empire, alongside the Franco-British Union. Germany declared war on the United States soon after, still confident of victory against the Soviets. For the second time in the century, the entire world was at war. This time, however, instead of the world coming to a conflict in Europe, a conflict in Europe came to the world.

Once again, the French and British were alone against a powerful enemy. The Soviet Union was hanging by a thread, and the American offensive capability in the Pacific was put out of action, at least for several months. Time was on the side of the Franco-British, but had little else to count on. The Army of India was transferred to Indochina, in an attempt to halt the invasion, but the Union Armed Forces knew it didn’t have the strength in East Asia to cut off the Japanese in the North, drive them back and destroy or capture the Japanese there. Ships had to be transferred from the Mediterranean to counter the Japanese, but the Union Navy had yet to achieve total domination over the Italians.

Two things were organised by the Franco-British Union, to meet the challenges before it. One was the ordering of a large extension to the Carrier Fleet, experience showing the Battleship was a dying breed. Named for the island that sheltered so many French and British people on their way to North Africa, one that King George symbolically awarded the George Cross, the Corsica-class would be larger than anything either navy had yet put to sea, carrying about 100 aircraft each. And the Navy would have six of them. These were planned to meet the Japanese within two years, along with the repaired US Pacific Fleet.

The second was the total consolidation over the Mediterranean Sea, the invasion of both Sardinia and Sicily. This was hoped to force the Italians to call back their troops from the Eastern Front and free up ships for the Pacific Theatre. Given the lack in amphibious equipment at the time, it was decided the first target would be the weaker, Sardinia.

‘Operation Mincemeat’ was the first large Union offensive of 1942, the Mediterranean Fleet firing the first shots on the 4th of January. 50,000 Union troops were on 4 separate beachheads by the end of the first day, but they had ran into constant problems. It was one thing to land in a friendly port, but the vast majority of transports belonging to the Union were ill-equipped for taking a hostile beach. However, the marines were not the only way the Union intended to put soldiers on Sardinia. The ‘Air Service’, a new branch of the Union Army, and the first truly Anglo-French formation, taking from the best soldiers of both nations, the Air Service was a parachute division, with the objective of seizing the airbase on Sardinia for Union transport planes to land troops and light vehicles to hasten the completion of the operation. Despite taking heavy losses, the Air Service is able to capture the runway intact, with mechanized infantry rolling out of the bases hours later. The various beachheads link up and force the Italian garrison of 30,000 to lay down their arms on the 17th of January.

With the success of the Sardinia campaign, and the Marine element of the Union Armed Forces having gained more experience and slightly better equipment, Operation Bonaparte, the invasion of Sicily, was given the go. The size of this campaign would totally eclipse that of Mincemeat, and would set the Allies for the eventual invasion of mainland Italy itself, so it was decided to establish the long-term chain-of-command in the Italian Theatre. Archibald Wavell would be Supreme Commander of the Land, Naval and Air Forces for the foreseeable future, with Generals Montgomery and de Gaulle commanding British Eighth and French Fourth Armies respectively. The Union Mediterranean Fleet would provide support, along with British, French and now American air squadrons based at Sardinia, Malta and Tunisia. The US Army would not be ready to make significant impact in the European Theatre until a few months later.

Chapter 5

Bonaparte also saw the first major Allied operation in which Britain and France called upon a significant number of troops of their empire. Although Australia, New Zealand, the Raj and French Indochina was occupied with fighting the Japanese, French Africa, South Africa and Canada fielded brigades and divisions. In total, initial Allied land forces stood at 180,000 men. By the end of the campaign, it would increase to over half a million.

The Italians, by contrast, had greater numbers, but were void of hope. All Italian operations in the war so far had ended in disappointment and disaster, and several members of government were desperately trying to find a way of leaving the war and kicking out Mussolini. Hitler, though growing wary of his liability of an ally, still sent Wehrmacht forces to prop up the Fascist government. About 60,000 German troops joined the Italian garrison in Sicily, putting the total number of Axis troops to nearly 300,000. However, their control of the sky was fading, losing to battle-hardened Union pilots flying good planes, and control of the sea was next to non-existent.

The plan was for the British Eastern Taskforce to land Montgomery’s Army near to the port of Catania, drawing away Axis troops from French Western Taskforce’s goal, the Sicilian capital, Palermo. De Gaulle would break out, drive Eastward and meet up with Monty, dividing up the Axis garrison and taking total control of the island.

Step one of the plan went smoothly, with the Eighth Army landing on the 25th February, securing the port and a sizable beachhead. De Gaulle, however, found trouble at his landing point. The German portion of the garrison was held back to protect the capital. Portions of the Air Service, now at this point expanded to corps-size, assigned to the Fourth Army landed on German troops heavily dug in and in large numbers. De Gaulle had his beachhead, but was unable to break out.

Montgomery, however, was growing restless with the lack of progress. Building up his reserve, he deviated from the plan and made a beeline northwards to Messina. Inexperienced and demoralised Italian troops put up little resistance, with Eighth Army rolling into Messina on the 9th of March.

While furious at his British counterpart making what he believed was a ‘glory-grab’, de Gaulle found himself against weaker German opposition, much of the Axis troops in front of him turning around to try and force the British out and re-establish supply routes with mainland Europe. Relishing the reversal in fortunes from the defeats of May-September of 1940, with the Germans on the run and the French in command of the air and the ground, the Fourth drove East in pursuit of the Germans, securing the North Coast of Sicily and pinning the Germans while an armoured ‘thrust’ raced down to the city of Enna and back Northwards to hit the Germans from the side, dividing them into two pockets, both of which were quickly forced to surrender, with French to the West, British to the East, tanks to the South and Union Navy ships to the North.

By the end of March, Sicily, the last Italian island left, was completely in Allied hands. Almost all of the 300,000 Axis soldiers had either been killed, wounded or captured. Both Italy and Germany saw the dangers facing them. The Wehrmacht was building up an operation to take control of the Caucasus, thus starving the Soviet Union of it's oil. Though hopes of victory were high, it was telling how the offensive capabilities of the Ostheer had shrunk from the advancing of all three Army Groups to only one. The last thing it needed was trouble in Europe.

Though Mincemeat and Bonaparte’s short-term goals were to minimise naval and air forces needed in the European Theatre and to improve supply routes to East Asia, and not prepare for an Allied invasion of Mainland Italy, the Fascist Grand Council saw the writing on the wall, and began secret talks with the Allies regarding an armistice. Hitler, however, was ready to bail out his ally and take over the country if need be. What worried him, however, was the potential opening of a Western Front, stretching Germany to it’s breaking point. The Allies could be contained in Greece, but Italy might be another story.

With the containment of Italy, the Union Navy was free to send ships to reinforce the East Asian Theatre. The front line had settled on the Mekong River, the British and French in the West, along with the Siamese, pressured into joining the Allies, and the Japanese in the East. The East Indies, devoid of naval support, had fallen to the Imperial Japanese Navy. Singapore was suffering daily bombing raids from Sumatra, but still held out as a vital Union port. The Fleet in East Asia were, on the most part, restricted to friendly coastline, the old Battleships unable to beat the Japanese air power. In March, at the cost of just four planes, the Japanese sunk HMS Repulse and put HMS Prince of Wales out of action for six months. This left no Allied capital ships left in East Asia, albeit only for a few days, as HMS Warspite, four of the Revenge-class Battleships, HMS Ark Royal, three of the Illustrious-class Aircraft Carriers, the two Richelieu-class Battleships, the Béarn and the completed Joffre, along with considerable numbers of Destroyers, Cruisers and Submarines, all arrived in East Asia by the end of March.

While this was not enough to destroy the IJN on it’s own, this considerable addition of firepower ended the period of unchecked Japanese expansion and gave the Allies an offensive capability. Crack marine troops also arrived, ready to play their part in driving the Japanese out of Indochina.

Chapter 6

Against the Japanese Empire in April 1942 stood the Franco-British Union, the United States of America, the Republic of China, the Exiles of the Dutch East Indies, the Kingdom of Thailand, Free French Indochina and the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand. The Japanese had conquered the Korean Empire, Manchuria, the Chinese Coast, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Eastern French Indochina and Northern New Guinea, along with many smaller islands to form a network of bases for its proud, although stretched, fleet.

A meeting between Heads of State involved with the fight against Japan was held in Rangoon, Burma on the 7th of April. Leaders conclude that Japan is the lesser target to Germany, and less resources will be sent to combat it. Chinese, Dutch, Thai and Australasian forces, however, would focus their entirety on the Japanese, the Netherlands being liberated by another Allied Power.

There was disagreements, however, on how to actuality defeat the Japanese. The Americans wanted to focus on ‘Island-hopping’, taking over strategic bases in the East Pacific up to the Philippines, liberate it and use it as a base to build up for an invasion of the Home Islands and to blockade and bomb the Japanese into submission.

The British, Australasians and Dutch preferred a liberation of the ‘East Indies Line’, the islands of Sumatra, Java, Timor, New Guinea and their satellite islands, followed by a push Northwards to Borneo, Celebes and the Philippines, starving the Japanese war machine of resources and giving a commanding position of the Indies for future operations.

The French, Thai and Chinese favoured keeping the fight on Mainland Asia, flanking and destroying the Japanese presence in first Indochina, then China proper, Manchuria and Korea. That puts the Allies just on the other sea of the Sea of Japan, poised for an amphibious assault from the North.

The three groups argued and bargained for three days before coming to an agreement. American troops and surface ships would only fight in the Island-hopping strategy, but the US would send planes, submarines and economic aid to support the other two. ANZAC and Free Dutch troops would liberate New Guinea, while Union forces concentrate on the Western East Indies and Indochina, wiping out Japanese presence there and improving the Union position in the area for future operations.
The Chinese received the worst deal, with no promise of Allied troops within its territory. However, Chiang Kai-shek, nominal leader of the Republic of China, was pleased with the supply chains set up between China and Burma, the promised removal of Japanese from his southern border and the much larger supply route to the Allied world via Indochina, and the influx of Lend-Lease and money for his government to reform and recentralise after five years of bitter war. Much of the British contribution to this aid, however, comes from bargaining with Premier Churchill, who demands an exchange of the 99-year lease on the Hong Kong New Territories for an outright annexation. Knowing he needs the money more than he needs Hong Kong, still under the occupation of the Japanese, Chiang accepts.

(Authors note: Yes, this is swerving into ‘Brit-wank’ territory here, but I’m guessing this was the sort of stuff Churchill would try anyway, so go with me.)

To facilitate the coordination between these campaigns, FABDACT-COM (French-American-British-Dutch-Australasian-Chinese-Taiwanese Command), or simply ‘Fabdact’, was founded, overseeing progress of Allied Forces in the entire Pacific Theatre. Lord Louis Mountbatten assumed the position of Supreme Commander, with Admiral Cunningham commanding the Union Pacific Fleet and the Indochina front, General Thomas Blamely commanding ANZAC/Dutch forces in the New Guinea Front and Chiang Kai-shek remaining in command of the Chinese front. Admiral Chester Nimitz headed the American Campaign to the East, building up his offensive capabilities before beginning the long grind to the Indies. While his command of the Pacific Ocean Areas shared intelligence with Fabdact, the bulk of American forces were not in the position to coordinate with the rest of the allies.

Under Cunningham, who focused his energies on the Union’s naval presence, was Generals William Slim and Maxime Weygand, of the British Fourteenth and French Fifteenth Armies respectively, at a total of 200,000 men. Archibald Wavell commanded the Indian Army, which was able to bring an additional 120,000 troops to the front line. Facing them in Indochina was the Japanese Thirty-Third, Thirty-Eighth and Thirty-Ninth Armies (actually corps in western military terminology), totalling 150,000 troops.

Although they outnumbered the Japanese by nearly 3-to-1, none of the four felt confident of decisive victory in a broad-front attack. The Japanese held entrenched positions across a large river, a situation Union offensive doctrine called for at least a 5-to-1 effective numerical advantage. Between the Japanese-held city of Phom Penh and the obvious operational objective of the city and port of Saigon was over 200km of thick jungle, terrain ill-suited to the superior Union tanks. Japanese naval supremacy also allowed for reinforcements to be called in quickly, negating any Union advantage in numbers.

In short, a frontal assault was a bloody victory as best and a crushing defeat at worst. However, events would soon align to allow an ambitious offensive to force a much shorter, and decisive victory in Indochina.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, beaten back by the attempted Invasion of Midway by the American garrison there, had took solace in that American Naval power was checked at least for now. He turned his eyes, and his massive fleet, west to the port of Singapore. This port was the heart of the Union defense of their Pacific holdings, and if it fell, Yamamoto believed, the Union position would collapse, and they too would be held back, possibly forced to sign a cease-fire.

His plan involved splitting his fleet into two, the Battleship component heading towards Bangkok to lure out the remainder of the Union Pacific Fleet, while the Aircraft Carrier component, spearheaded by his four Carriers, with their near 250 aircraft, would launch a strike on the underdefended Singapore. Marines would then storm the city with air and naval support, capturing it and key logistical facilities.

His plan, however, failed to account for two things. Firstly, the Japanese codes had been broken by the Americans months earlier, and his plan of attack had been intercepted almost as soon as they were sent to his officers. Secondly, the Union Pacific Fleet he was to go up against was not the smattering of Destroyers and Cruisers he thought they were, but was instead a force equal to or greater than his own, lead by six Fleet Carriers, four Escort Carriers and seven Battleships. The total complement of the Navy Air Arm amounted to 380 aircraft. An elaborate ruse involving civilian ships modified to appear like Union capital ships, based across the North African coastline, along with the disposing of a dead tramp dressed as a Union officer with false documents detailing an invasion of Italy onto a beach in Spain, led the Axis to believe the Pacific was barely defended, with most Union naval assets based on the other side of the world.

The entirety of the battle lasted between 5:35 am and 3:04 pm (local time) on the 4th of May 1942. Cunningham sent a small taskforce led by Indomitable, Victorious, Warspite and Richelieu to match the Battleship component heading to Bangkok, with the remainder kept to intercept the Carriers, led by Admiral Chūichi Nagumo. Boldly, Nagumo defied Japanese doctrine, and Yamamoto’s orders, by arming all of his ground-attack aircraft with general-purpose bombs for striking land targets, as opposed to keeping some armed with anti-ship bombs and torpedoes. His thinking was to launch a devastating second strike on Singapore after the first wave eliminated UAF Singapore.

Into the early minutes of the sixth hour of the day, the first wave reached Singapore. Meeting them were veterans of the Battles of France and Britain, although outmatched by 2-to-1 had the benefit of advanced planes, AA guns and barrage balloons, plus advance warning the Japanese were coming. The ensuing dogfight lasts for nearly an hour, with 30 Union planes lost to the Japanese 40 casualties. Aside from the failure to decisively destroy the defenses of Singapore, more bad news was in store for the Japanese.

At 6:38 am, Cunningham ordered a strike on the Carrier component, now aware that some Japanese aircraft were pinned in the skies over Singapore. 117 aircraft left the Union fleet strike the Carriers. However, they too met heavy resistance, extensive AA fire and experienced Zero pilots. For every 3 Union planes sent on the attack, 2 were shot down, and not a single Japanese Carrier had been sunk.

This attack stunned Nagumo, however, not expecting the Union to even have any Carriers in the Pacific. The second strike on Singapore was cancelled, the first strike recalled to defend the fleet, and his reserve aircraft were to rearm for anti-ship combat. By 8:00 am, the reserve aircraft were ready to launch, in good timing too, as the aircraft of the Singapore strike were running dangerously low on fuel. Nagumo now faced a dilemma, whether to focus on refueling and rearming his fighters to protect the Carriers, or focus on the bombers and reinforce the hunt for the Union Carriers. Not confident the shorter-range fighters could stay in the air for much longer, he ordered for the former. Not wishing to waste anymore time, fuel and weapons for the bombers were wheeled out onto the flight decks along with ammunition and fuel for the fighters.

At 8:12 am, the Union fleet had been spotted, with all four ships packed with planes, and the attack was launched. Over 100 Japanese aircraft make it to the Carriers at 8:53, with only a lesser-experienced compliment of fighters to match them. Although Japanese casualties mount, at 9:17 am, the Ark Royal bursts into flames, a lucky hit destroying the boilers. Although the crew combat the fire, the ships soon becomes unsalvageable, and is abandoned to her fate.

That was to be the only Japanese success of the battle. After the spotter plane had been chased off, and before the attack force intercepted the Union fleet, Cunningham ordered another attack on the Japanese. A total of 170 planes would be launched on an L-shaped course to the Japanese, to avoid interception from the strike Cunningham anticipated and overwhelm whatever aircraft had been left behind. The aircraft launched at 8:23 am, and arrived to their targets at 8:57 am.
What those British and French pilots saw was effectively the ideal targets to any navy bomber. All four Carriers were packed, with their wooden decks filled with planes, bombs, bullets and fuel, and the only Japanese planes in the air were bombers, ill-suited to air-to-air combat.

Within 20 minutes, the Sōryū, Kaga and Akagi were ablaze, with the Hiryū on the receiving end of a bombing run. By noon, all four would be at the bottom of the ocean. The last orders from the Carriers were to the airwings attacking the Union fleet - To disengage and head for the nearest friendly airbase. Despite that, more Japanese aircraft would be lost from ditching than by enemy fire. The rest of the battle was between the Battleship component and the taskforce, sinking three Japanese Battleships for the cost of 20 aircraft and a Light Cruiser, the Fiji.

In a single day, the Imperial Japanese Navy had been checked. It no longer had the power to support amphibious invasions, having lost most of its best Carriers and experienced pilots. For the rest of the war, the Allies were to have the upper hand.

Chapter 7

After the destruction of the Japanese Fleet at the Battle of Singapore, the IJN was forced to go on the defensive, giving the Allies greater freedom of movement.
While the Union Army in Indochina still faced the problem of stiff Japanese resistance, they now had the opportunity to outflank the line almost altogether. Operation Épée was devised to cut down the Japanese presence in the East Indies, advance the Union into the South China Sea and prepare for a surprise landing on Saigon. Weygand’s Fifteenth Army was to redeploy to Bangkok, liberate the island of Sumatra, then turn eastwards to take the Riau and Southern Spratly Islands. The final step would be the capturing of Saigon, which would force the Japanese to strip the front of troops to meet the French, and cripple their logistics. With the line stretched thin, The British and Indian forces would advance to capture Da Nang, cutting Japanese Indochina in two. This would be followed by advancement on the Japanese positions, driving them towards the sea and the guns of the Union Pacific Fleet.

Marines and Air Service paratroopers first landed on Sumatra on the 16th of June 1942. The Japanese, occupied by actions from the Australians and Americans in New Guinea, could only afford to station a single corps-worth of second-rate soldiers. Nevertheless, fighting on Sumatra was to prove to be a brutal experience for both Frenchman and Japanese alike. The fighting concentrated on the city of Medan, which commanded access to the port of Belawan, crucial to the Union logistics chain, and the city of Bandar Lampung, via which the Japanese could bring in reinforcements from Java. French, used to the plains of France, desert of Algeria and islands of the Mediterranean, were forced to adapt quickly to the thick jungle which rotted clothes and spread disease. They were also ill-prepared for the Japanese, whose unimaginable determination and refusal to accept defeat or surrender was a shock to those used to battling Italian conscripts. However, the Japanese too were taken by surprise. Told by their superiors and by their government that the Westerners had no stomach for such war, the Japanese rank-and-file grew frustrated by the French batting off every attack they launched. With everything between Gibraltar and now Medan now firmly under Union control, supplies made it to the French while supply lines for the Japanese stayed contested by Allied air-power and submarines. By the end of May, as the Monsoon took hold, French landings in the North and South linked up, and it became clear to everyone that the island was now in Allied hands.

On last chilling difference from the early years of the war was made clear to the French troops. Instead of finding platoons of soldiers, hands up and ready to go to the POW camps, the French advanced to find dead Japanese in their foxholes and bunkers, having killed themselves instead of surrendering. Over the next few months, as the staging grounds for the climax of Épée were slowly taken, such sights were to be uncovered time and time again.

The operation was ceased for a month, to let the monsoon travel north towards China and to secure control over Sumera. In high winds and rain, the Pacific Fleet engaged the IJN to fend off attempts to reinvade the island and distract the Japanese from other fronts. The USN was receiving the first Carriers built by the United States since Pearl Harbor, and the island hopping campaign was beginning in earnest. To facilitate trans-Pacific shipping, the Solomon Islands were also to be secured, with assistance from the Australians, who had stabilised the front in New Guinea. The Chinese were beginning to make improvements, even being able to demobilise a few militias and return them to farm and factory work. A propaganda campaign from Kai-shek regime for “The Chinese to take back their land from the Japanese invaders” was begun, encouraging action from the Kuomintang to eventually go on the offensive, most likely recapture portions of the Yangtze river basin. Kai-shek believed that this ‘big win’ would inspire confidence in his government from the Chinese people, undermining his Communist ‘allies’. But, for now, his army was to remain on the defensive, until Indochina was cleared and supplies could be received in full from the West.

In July stage 2 of Épée, capture of the Riau and Southern Spratly Islands, was began. Marines with experience fighting in the Dodecanese felt deja vu on the tiny islands, up until first encounter with the Japanese garrisons. With the Spraty Islands acting as a base for the Japanese submarine fleet, supplies were always an issue, some French troops having to go a few days with no bullets at all, action often descending to katanas against trench knives. Despite this, however, Union Air-Support gave the French the advantage, slowly clearing their targets over the month. By the end of stage 2, the Gulf of Thailand was undoubtedly safe, the South China sea contested, and the Island of Borneo and the Southern Coast of Indochina was under threat of invasion.

Every effort was made to ensure the Japanese believed Borneo was the target of invasion. Dutch resistance was stepped up, maps detailing the ‘invasion’ were distributed and intentionally lost, and landing craft were disguised as merchant ships, noting the general failure of the IJN to focus their submarines on economic targets. August came, and the force, beginning to be stretched thin but desperate to not lose the element of surprise, was ready to go.

During the night of the 18th of August, 40,000 French troops landed in the port of Vũng Tàu. Against them stood 20,000 Japanese of the Saigon garrison, taken completely by surprise but determined to keep hold of the city until reinforcements could arrive. With their limited supplies, the French were tasked with dashing Northand taking the South of the city, to allow the remainder of Fifteenth Army to flood in and overrun the rest of the Japanese. They had a deadline of three days. To assist them were landings by the Air Service to hold key bridges and beachheads across the Nha Be river, partially reinforced by boats motoring up the river from Vũng Tàu with some of the French landed there. By the end of the first day, the main body from Vũng Tàu reached the river and began to ferry or drive across. By the end of the second day, the French had occupied all objectives East of the Saigon river. By the end of the third day, all portions of the city connected to water was under Union control, with over 90% of shipping facilities intact.

Roughly a third of the Japanese force at the front line and the entire reserve were turned around and sent to retake the city. They had much success, in that they had undone much of the progress made on the third day, the French confined to within 1000 metres of the Saigon river. However, their choice to pin so many troops to recapturing the city tipped the balance at the front on the Mekong. Now it was the turn of the British and Indians.

On the 22nd of August, the town of Savannakhet was surrounded by troops of the Indian Expeditionary Army, assisted by Union Engineers who manage to eventually assemble premanufactured bridges across the Mekong. It was from this town that the British intended to push Eastwards to the coast, cutting Japanese Indochina in two. Over a week, the reserves of the IEA and Fourteenth Army pushed 300 kilometres, eventually reaching Quảng Trị. The ground gained by the Indians and British were tiny, a strip of land barely 40 kilometres wide at most. However, the existence of the ‘Little Red Line’ completely tore apart the Japanese situation in Indochina. Japanese ground was now in two pockets, one of which had just lost its most significant city and largest port. The front was now 730 kilometres longer, which the Allied reserves could accommodate while the Japanese couldn’t. IJN presence in South Indochina was reduced to impotence. No matter what the Japanese tried to do on a tactical level, the chance of strategic success was low.

The main choice facing the Japanese was to either press on the recapture of Saigon or send the reserves up North to try and break the Little Red Line. Unable to come to a conclusion, the attack on the city is maintained, while a portion of the force, along with more troops holding the Mekong, was sent to try and beat the British/Indians. Failure to focus on one resulted in the failure of both. The rest of the Fifteenth landed in Saigon to push the Japanese back West, the Mekong river delta coming under French control, while the Red Line, lead by William Slim, repulses the attack and even advances as far South as Da Nang.

The Japanese see that regaining its position from just a few weeks ago is now completely untenable, and all plans for offensive action ceases. They adopt in South Indochina what the Union adopted in France back in 1940, delaying actions as soldiers and useful resources were evacuated. A key difference here is that while the Union was able to contest Germany for control of the Channel, Japan could not do the same, the IJN stretched across too many theatres to give sufficient cover. Union land forces beeline to take control of as many ports in South Indochina as soon as possible, the window of escape narrowing with every week. Though Japanese prisoners weren’t high, by the total liberation of South Indochina with the capture of Quy Nhon by the 28th of October, some 60,000 Japanese troops had been reported killed or sunk.

Chapter 8

The Japanese, now more than ever, were in a precarious situation. With South Indochina gone and the North surrounded, islands in the Pacific falling one by one, the United States beginning to reach full mobilisation, the Navy’s ships being sunk faster than they can be replaced, and their presence in New Guinea losing ground, a growing number of figures in government were seeing the chances of forcing the Allies to the table was slipping away. But still, even more were convinced the will to fight could be sapped from the Allies, all they needed was to focus their strengths, hold out for long enough, until they can score that ‘decisive victory’...

Back in Britain, the success of Épée, the first instance of the Union taking back French soil it had lost to the Axis, was cheered by French and British alike. The wins had been getting greater and greater since those long past days in North Africa. Massive victories from toe-to-toe combat with two of the three Axis Powers had been realised, and approval soared.

Despite the attempts of the puppet government in France to mute the Indochina Campaign, the newly-formed UBC France was able to broadcast the news to anyone with a radio. In Occupied France, and indeed throughout Nazi-controlled Europe, there was a subtly-growing consensus that the Germans were to rule for good. That idea plummeted in popularity with the completion of actions in Sicily, Singapore and Indochina. As 1940 came to an end, few could say that the Allies were in a good shape. Even at the end of 1941, The German and Japanese Empires were larger than ever. But now, as 1942 was nearing its end, the message spreading across the Allied Powers was not ‘We will win’, it was ‘We are winning’.

The last big grab of territory the Third Reich would ever made was the action during the summer, autumn and winter of 1942-1943. Ever since the end of Barbarossa, the German Army believed itself capable of sustaining an advance from one Army Group, not all three. Arguments raged on which section of the front line, the largest front line in the history of warfare, should receive the reserves. OKH was split between continuing the advance on Moscow, or devote the reserves to Army Group South, which would make a break to capture the Caucasus region, and its rich supply of oil. Hitler ended the arguments with the decision to invade the South, ever-aware of the constant attacks of the Romanian oilfields he relied on from Allied Greece. The end product was Operation Case Blue.

Army Group South was to be split into two parts, Army Group A going South to take the region itself, and Army Group B seizing the city of Stalingrad in the East, protecting A’s flank. Leading the charge was Sixth Army, led by General Paulus. At the start of the operation on the 3rd of August, it was expected they would have completed their goals within two months.

Of course, that was not to be. Underestimating the strength of the Red Army, Sixth Army would eventually be consumed by the city’s garrison, a long battle over months coming to an end only with their entrapment by the Soviet Operation Uranus. Though a shocking blow to the morale and strength of the Wehrmacht, it was not to be end of the Soviet advance.

With Paulus and his Army trapped in the Stalingrad Pocket, plans were being made to do the same to the rest of the German Army in the Caucasus Region. The target of Operation Saturn was the crumbling of the Axis Line of Defense in the South and the liberation of the city of Rostov. That would cut off the Germans in the South from the rest of German-controlled Eurasia, leading to a total capture of nearly a million men.

Although Erich von Manstein would lead the Army Group South during this campaign, he was facing an impossible task. With the Germans having to reinforce so many fronts, from Norway and France to Italy, Leningrad, Greece and Byelorussia, the number of troops, planes and tanks he had to spare was too little, and the Red Army to too big and too well-armed. While able to deal a stunning tactical blow to the Soviets via an act of elastic defense, he is unable to stop the capture of Rostov on the 14th of January, 1943, with only 28% of his initial strength surviving to make it to the North. Of the men trapped in the South, roughly a fifth would cross the Black and Azov Seas. The rest would either die or go into captivity, which was a significant danger in and of itself.

Most people point to this as the moment the German Army in the East had definitely lost the war. This is disputed, however, as the German Army would later demonstrate its abilities in defense. The Wehrmacht still contained a huge military capability, and was a long way away from surrender. One such case was Italy.

This is good. Do you have maps, or flags?

Historyman 14 said:

This is good. Do you have maps, or flags?

Click to expand...

Nope. My artistic abilities are strictly limited to writing, although I would appreciate any links to map-editing programs to help visualise the 'present' situation.

I am looking forward to more.

very good story

Looks good!

Enjoying this so far.

Mix british red and french blue and you get imperial purple.

I'm not sure evacuating 16% of the population of France *anywhere* is plausible (I don't think the shipping is there for it, though I could be wrong), but interesting otherwise.

iddt3 said:

I'm not sure evacuating 16% of the population of France *anywhere* is plausible (I don't think the shipping is there for it, though I could be wrong), but interesting otherwise.

Click to expand...

I'd guess it would be possible if all shipping was requsitioned, as many people were packed on as possible, and the reletivly short journeys were almost non-stop, over the period of half a year. There must be no shortage of ships, what with the marchent navy of Britain, France and Norway on the side of the Allies.

Here's a possible flag for you.

The Professor said:

Here's a possible flag for you.

Click to expand...

Hot-damn, that is a beautiful fleg! Thank you for putting in the effort to do that!

Although, I think it departs quite a bit from both designs, and some French might get a little upset from the possible comparisons to South Africa. :/

At the very least, I see it as a basis for military ensigns, with an anchor in the background for the Navy, crossed swords (an English broadsword and a French sabre, maybe?) for the army, and bird wings for the air force.

Both designs (Union Flag and the Tricolour), while excellent on their own, don't lend themselves much for fusion. Again, thanks for the art!

And France might object to the use of royal symbol.