Driftless
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Who's up first? The Bearn and some of the older Battleships? Finishing the Jean Bart might be number 12 of a list of 10 priorities, but the discussion would be made.
WI: France really fights on from 1940?
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Who's up first? The Bearn and some of the older Battleships? Finishing the Jean Bart might be number 12 of a list of 10 priorities, but the discussion would be made.
Driftless
Donor
The Italians would need to divide forces to face two antagonists, instead of one and functional neutral as historically. Even if both the British and French offensives were slow to start and less than full force, the Italians would need to honor both threats, making their situation even more difficult
Usual estimates are mid July to mid August. Thats how long it takes the German ground forces to break down the last French defenses in the south. Since the evacuation had already started before the Armistice we can say the priority was going to skilled technicians & the best trained officers. The Army was less interested in evacuating combat formations that the ability to properly support them. The men already evacuated to Britain might constitute the formations kept intact if any were. The air force & navy were much the same tho it was easier for both to retain some unit integrity among part of the evacuees. Some modern tanks, trucks, and artillery were embarked. The shortages among the ground forces in Africa were understood & any deck space available was used for this.
At the high end 500,000 soldiers might be evacuated, tho the navy would carry a great deal of its own as well.
I expect there would be a initial window for the Italians. Perhaps lasting to July, of easy transit to Tripoli. From then on it would battles over convoys and blockade runners, until effective deliveries cease.
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Deliveries of aircraft, arms, and other material were already underway. The Neutrality Acts of US law were effectively abrogated in October 1939 & from then on French and British purchasing gets were running amuck, signing contracts whenever possible. The sudden infusion of cash and credit into the US economy turned the not yet started 1940 from another Depression year into skyrocketing recovery. The US aircraft industry went from a few hundred orders a year in the 1930s to near 2000 to the French in 1940 & a similar number contracted for the Brits. US industry was still only running at 70% of its 1920s capacity in 1938. There was a huge pool of idle factory floor and skilled labor to serve Allied war orders. In March 1940 France sent two shipments of gold bullion to North America depositories as security against money owed and collateral for future credit. Sandbagged Dollars were steadily flowing from French to US banks covering current payments.
A passing thought. Bennie thinks sh*t they were meant to give in. He can see that Libya would be an ironic reversal of the Ottomans position in 1912 in that the Italian forces would be cut off by having no land access and being unable to pass shipping across in the face of a superior pair of navies. However. He has part of France. He offers to relinquish Libya without a fight in exchange for the restoration of the borders of the old Kingdom of Sardinia
To extend the possibilities. Cpl Carpetchewer is not be impressed and decides that a German Italy is better than an Italian Libya so invades Italy. The Balkan countries see that they will be in the firing line so invite the Franco-British forces to aid them. This moves the active front to the Balkans. Cpl Carpetchewer is too busy for Barbarossa (and certainly no USM). The Franco-British diplomatic arms persuade Curvi-Tache stay away from the game. Now the Balkans have a Franco-British-uncle Tom Cobley and all army and both Britian and France will be spending money like water in the USA to equip all of this. By 1943 France will be wanting a second front in France.
To extend the possibilities. Cpl Carpetchewer is not be impressed and decides that a German Italy is better than an Italian Libya so invades Italy. The Balkan countries see that they will be in the firing line so invite the Franco-British forces to aid them. This moves the active front to the Balkans. Cpl Carpetchewer is too busy for Barbarossa (and certainly no USM). The Franco-British diplomatic arms persuade Curvi-Tache stay away from the game. Now the Balkans have a Franco-British-uncle Tom Cobley and all army and both Britian and France will be spending money like water in the USA to equip all of this. By 1943 France will be wanting a second front in France.
Trading territory the French can't get to for Lybia and peace sounds squirrly. Peace is tempting, but Mussolini had discarded the previous Allied offers to prevent his DoW. Getting peace with Italy is almost rational, but Mussolini foreign policy by ego and impulse is a showstopper.
Question, when Italy declared war on June 10th, she must have had a pretty good idea that France was going to make peace, if you have scenarios where France is inclined to fight on, where people like Wegand and Petain aren't involved in the decision making priorities, would Italy have just declined to get involved or waited some more. France inclined to fight on isn't just going to abandon Paris. OTL Paris was declared an open city on the 10th, Italy declared war in the evening of the 10th.
Could we have a scenario where France fights on and Italy is still neutral, perhaps using the situation to get peacefully some stuff out of France and Britain by negotiation.
Could we have a scenario where France fights on and Italy is still neutral, perhaps using the situation to get peacefully some stuff out of France and Britain by negotiation.
Mussolini made a good guess. The French government did not take a serious look at armistice until a few days later. On the 10th evacuation to Algeria was coming to the table in the cabinet meetings. The decision for surrender was not forced until after the 15th when the opposite to Renauds government got a commitment from the Deputies. when it came down to a vote only 80 of over 500 Deputies were willing to fight on. At that point the Cabinet split & Renaud resigned. None of that was apparent on the 10th of June. It was not even clear then if the Germans had the strength to press on & finish off the French Army.
We could. Mussolini was running foreign policy virtually alone at this point. His foreign minister had become a messenger you, and the rest of the cabinet was cut out of it as well. Basically it boiled down to his ego and whim. Its believable the Allied diplomats might have made some offer, or even a remark that causes Il Duce to "spare the Italian people the horrors of war". His fellow Facists, and Marshals would have not protested, they'd been happy at all odds with their PoV of Italys readiness for war.
Fairly obvious point: Noguès would not make the decision. GQG and the civilian government would be in North Africa. They would decide on anything as major as committing France's last remaining military assets to a risky campaign.
As to why not:
The French Army had just suffered the most crushing defeat in its history - worse than 1415, worse than 1814, worse than 1870. Its whole strength was smashed, with stunning ease.
After such a disaster, an army doesn't go rushing out to embark on new campaigns. They have no confidence. Obviously, there is something very wrong with their fighting ability. If the French government decided to fight on, its first priority would be reorganizing its surviving forces in North Africa for defense against imminent Axis attack. That would involve sorting out all the evacuated troops from mainland France into an organized force, and replacing missing equipment, then deploying for defense.
The second priority would be trying to figure out what went wrong, and fix it. Fire a lot of generals? Different equipment, different organization? Until that was accomplished, France could not rely on its army to accomplish anything except defend in place, maybe.
I have not suggested, and certainly don't believe, that the Italian colonial forces in Libya could occupy French North Africa.
If you have fuel, if you have pilots, if you have flight plans, if you have runways without German tanks driving onto them. Most of the strength of the Armée de L'Aire was scattered at lots of local commands, because every local commander wanted some fighters to protect against bombers. Adel'A HQ was on the move or had just moved to avoid being overrun.
Colonial exports could bring in a trickle of revenue (in 1940, iron sold for about $25/ton). Even penny would be needed just to keep the French government running, and bring in enough food and fuel to provide for the masses of refugees in North Africa.
Wrong. No US firm ever extended credit to the French government. The US government provided Lend-Lease aid, which included credit for military purchases in the US. That happened in 1941, and was a major political decision. Lend-Lease or anything like was impossible in 1940.
And as you noted, US law in 1940 allowed "cash-and-carry" procurement - but only "cash-and-carry". That is, US companies were prohibited from extending credit to any belligerent government. That was because many Americans believed that if such sales on credit were allowed, the creditor companies would become a powerful lobby for the US to take sides in the war on behalf of their customers. It was widely believed that that was how the US was drawn into WW I.
The Army cared a great deal about exports of weapons they needed to equip US forces. US production was very limited in 1939-1941; insufficient for US needs. Anything exported was not available to the US Army, which had units "training" with wooden mock-ups. Furthermore, some argued that equipment shipped to France or even Britain would just be captured by the Axis, and be used against the US. Given the enormous amounts of equipment the Germans captured in 1940 and subsequently used, this wasn't a ridiculous idea.
In any case, the US Army wasn't selling anything to foreign buyers, nor did the Army need such sales to raise money.
Vichy North Africa was neutral, not Axis-allied. Fighting-on-French North Africa can't do very much to interdict Axis shipping to North Africa. Malta won't be much use; the forces there had been far removed from any fighting and were unprepared for any active role.
Wasn't there a mighty French army there in 1940? What happened to it?
"At least twice as long"? The Germans attacked on 10 May. Pétain asked for an armistice on 17 June. By that time, the French Army was broken, and German forces were near the Loire, advancing 40 km per day against minimal resistance. In another week, the Germans would have been at the Spanish border.
Incidentally, if France-in-North-Africa is at war with Germany, why will Germany refrain from deploying any troops to North Africa for seven months?
As to Bir Hakeim, it seems to have escaped your notice that 1st Free French Brigade was part of Eighth Army, drawing equipment and supply from British sources, which by that time were augmented by Lend-Lease. Bir Hakeim was a remarkable defensive stand, though in the end the 1st FF Brigade had to retreat. But that performance should be no surprise, as 1st FF Brigade were all volunteers determined to continue the war. As of summer 1940, most of the French Army were Axis prisoners or disbanded. Few of the survivors were enthusiastic about taking on the seemingly unstoppable Wehrmacht. (It was those men who formed the FF forces.)
Risky ? Against forces inferior in number, equipement and fighting spirit ?
Bullshit. The Soviet Army suffered a worse defeat in 1941 and became one of the finest fighting machine of the 20th ccnetury in 3 years. Evacuated in North Africa, the governement can't let an enemy just sit right next door doing nothing. Also, they wouldn't be fighting the Germans, they would be fighting the Italians. You know those who backstabbed France at it's worse and think it can win while being a shitty army and everyone seeing how bad it was during the battle of the Alps.
As for the doctrine it is already there and the dude who wrote it just happen to also be a de-facto minister of war.
Good, at least you are not completely delusionnal.
Explain how german tanks would drive on the Tunisian airfields please.
France had pilots, fuel and plane already in North Africa. And also more and better airfields in Tunisia than the Italians had in Tripolitania.
North Africa was a net exporter of food. It even exported wine that was produced in prime cereal area because wine was more worth it. And please ignore the fact that France had the second largest gold reserve which would be enough to continue until the US would enact Lend-Lease. Also they are not fighting this war alone, theye were fighting along the largest empire in history, which had also the largest gold reserve in the world.
Also what masses of refugees ? The french government would probalby manage to evacuate half a million person not more. That is not massive and certainly not difficult to feed after the first winter.
Lend Lease was more efficient than any credit could be and the US government would still enact it. The French defeat was what enabled lend lease. So it wouldn't change here. Also the US governement is in the US (obviously) so your statement that no one in the US would extend credit to them was just utterly wrong.
Funny that they still sold things to the French government, namely 1000 75mm guns with their ammunition. Before the surrender, the French already bought several hundred aircrafts (more than the USAAC air corps could buy anyway and had bought 30 M2A4 (with an option to buy 300 more). Anyway the decision to sell things to the French do not rest on the US Army, but on the US Government, which would be very keen on the French continuing fighting.
Vichy France neutral ? That's good revisionist stuff dude.
Yeah sure, the 4th naval fleet in the world couln't stop axis shipping. I thought we were on an History not in a wehraboo asylum.
Ever heard of a small thing named the Commision d'armistice ? You know the thing were the Germans and Italians forced the French to dissolve units and give them the best equipement ?
The army was borken because the government was broken. In the first part of June, french resistance was already stiffening and german units were starting to need operational pauses. This is not Hearts of Iron. Armies need supplies and the Germans were at a logistical breaking point at the end of the campaign. During the end of June they would need a week at least of operational pause due to their crappy logistic and to redeploy the Luftwaffe to airports closer to the front. That week would be used by the French to prepare their defense. Also given that you seem to have no knowledge of the geography of France, southern France would be far less adequate for german tactics.
1/ Mussolini : he thing he doesn't need help (just like OTL), and would only call the German to the rescue after getting it's ass kicked (just like OTL) but here, losing the opening battle mean losing Libya (because without Tripoli he can't hold it).
2/ Hitler : His Alpha and Omega are the coming war with the USSR. The French government holding North Africa would beneath his notice.
3/ The Royal Nay and the Marine Nationale : With the forces based in the mediterannean, they could double team every Battleship and still have spare change to take care of the cruisers. The Regia Marina would be reduced to be a fleet in beeing and i don't see a reason why the raid on Taranto wouldn't be done TTL except with one or two additional aircraft carriers, maybe the Eagle as there is a chance that it is damaged as the need for an aircraft carrier is less important if French planes from North Africa can escort convoys on a large part of the trip and the Béarn as while it was too slow to accompany a fleet, it could easily do this mission.
The 1st French Brigade had French and British equipement, no Lead-Lease there. As for the motivation, most colonial troops had this motivation and those who would have been evacuated would have it too (Just like for example, the poles had).
Also yes the 1st French Brigade had to retreat, but that was the point since the beginning. To gain time, not to stop the Germans. Also, the reason they retreated because the postion became useless at that point. But they could have probably held it longer if they had more ammunition and water (both of which ran out the day after the order of evacuation.
The main problem I've always read about with this scenario is a general lack of fuel and vehicles with this theoretical French army in NA. Is there a way to overcome it enough to allow them to take the offensive? If not, then it seems that they would be a static defense force...
Where did you read about the fuel? Any reliable information on French logistics would be interesting.
The 400+ kilometers from the Tunisian railhead to Tripoli is not trivial & any effort to capture Triploi requires a automotive link covering that between the railhead & the battlefront.
Over the long haul France would get its petrol fuels where it had been getting them. Mostly from North America. Between the US, Mexico, & Venzualia more than half the global oil production was accounted for in 1940 & large chunk of that was exported to Europe into 1939.
[QUOTE="Imladrik]
Funny that they still sold things to the French government, namely 1000 75mm guns with their ammunition. Before the surrender, the French already bought several hundred aircrafts (more than the USAAC air corps could buy anyway and had bought 30 M2A4 (with an option to buy 300 more). Anyway the decision to sell things to the French do not rest on the US Army, but on the US Government, which would be very keen on the French continuing fighting.[/quote]
To that add 1800+ aircraft to be delivered in 1940 & 3000+ ordered for 1941. US policy was any nation could purchase any aircraft production not contracted by the War Dept (Army Air Corps in practical terms) or the Dept of the Navy. Neither Dept. was funded for unlimited purchases in 1940 & there was considerable unused and potential production capacity for France, Britain, or whoever to contract for.
no real statistics, just a general note in "What If" that the army, navy, and air force was short on vehicles of all kinds and would be short on fuel, and going on the offensive would be hard. Could the French Army in NA afford to pay for oil imports?
23.5% of the Iraq Oil Company through the Compagnie Française des Petroles
France did not get is oil from Metropolitan France. The Axis cut nothing off in that respect. I don't have data at hand for what portion of French petroleum consumption originated in the western hemisphere or the US, but in 1941 the US accounted for 63% of global production. https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/Oil-Oil-and-world-power.html. French business also had shares in assorted other out companies outside the US. ie:
As for the ability to pays, that been addressed at least three times in this thread. Maybe for or five. When the war started the French government laid on a war budget that in simplistic terms envisioned paying cash for the war for 2-3 years.
1. Considerable currency reserves had been accumulated. France started the war paying for imports from the US with dollars.
2. France had a very large gold reserve, One of the largest. Part had been shipped to North American depositories in March 1945 in anticipation of payments through 1940. The bulk was evacuated in June 1940. A portion of that was aboard the Bearn, anchored in Martinique in late June 1940. (Lovingly attended to by a USN cruiser.)
3. The French colonial empire was intact and was export oriented, the North African colonies were a food exporter, had iron ore mines, and phosphate mines to name a few items. French Indochina had the largest and most productive latex rubber plantations globally, and exported rice to the rest of Asia.
Bottom line is France had considerable resources after June 1940. In some respects it would have been better off than Britain. Having a far smaller military to pay for in 1940-41 eased the requirements on economic reserves
Compare this with anziGermany which was rapidly running though the Czech gold and currency reserve seized sixteen months earlier, and had already damaged its financial credit during its military expansion.Here is a secondary source on the French gold reserves. Note how at the end it mentions the bulk of this gold reserve was intact at the end of the war. Rearming the Free French 1943-45 (twenty ground combat divisions, a small air force, and sustaining the navy) did not draw down the gold reserves substantially.
https://www.quora.com/What-happened...eserve-of-France-during-the-German-occupation
https://www.quora.com/What-happened...eserve-of-France-during-the-German-occupation
And if the evacuation goes well the Belgian would still have their gold reserve (3rd or fourth in the World iirc) and 200000 men available. Men to men they would probably be some of the best equipped army in ww2. And iirc the polish gold reserve was also given to the nazis by Vichy. Here it would be available to the poles.
All this combined means far stronger allies and far weaker Germany.
The French dragged out returning the Belgian gold to Belgium/Germany. The last shipment was in 1942. The Polish gold ended part under Brit/Polish control. Most had been prepared for evacuation before the war started. Much like the Enigma machines the Poles gifted the French and Brits.