free france

Henri d'Orléans was the Orleanist pretender when WW2 broke out and he largely tried not to take a side between the Vichy and Exiled governments. De Gaulle did make overtures and there was still some monarchist sentiment among the French at this point so it wouldn't have been out of the question...

Philippe Petain is ill-regarded in France today, for his role in the pro-nazi Vichy Regime. Prior to that he was a fierce French patriot and nationalist- the Lion of Verdun. So, what if, after the capitulation of the 3rd Republic, he made his way to Algiers with Charles De Gaulle, the up and...

As we all know the rise of the Third French Empire was one of the biggest surprises of the mid 20th century. After France was overrun and occupied by the Germans, Emperor Napoleon VI emerged as the face of France where he coordinated the continued resistance against the Nazis with the...

THE IRON CURTAIN Speaking before Petrograd University in 1946, Winston Churchill first used the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe what at that time was already becoming readily apparent: the division of Europe following the conflagration of the Second World War into an communist-dominated West...

It is generally agreed that Vichy France was a puppet state of Germany but here is also little doubt that free France had a substantial dependence on Britain. Rarely in my experience are the Free French thought of as a British puppet state, though that was definitely the Axis view and especially...

OTL, after the fall of Paris Philippe Petain (as he confessed in his Autobiography - The Lion of Africa) briefly considered joining the Vichy collaborators in the hope that it would minimize suffering on part of the French populace. But as we all know, Marshal Petain decided that he would rather...

On Christmas 1942 the admiral Darlan, previously PM of Pétain and designated succesor, and who had in the previous weeks rallied the Allies, and with him the French West Africa and French Algeria, was murdered by Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle. Darlan was pretty impopular with some sections of...