1940 Anglo-French Union

OTL : 16 June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill proposed the creation of a full Anglo-French Union. The French government under Philippe Petain did not respond and signed the armistice with Germany the following day.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1940/400616a.html

What if the offer had been taken seriously by the French and accepted. This gives the new Union the assets of the French fleet and empire to carry on the fight. France is still occupied, and there is very likely a Vichy state trying to preserve what they can from the Germans.

But in North Africa there is a ready made force to flank the Italians, and the naval forces to help in the Mediterranean. An immediate consequnce is no attack on Mers-el-Kébir by the Royal Navy, giving better Anglo French relations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir

What happens now, does this put off the Japanese assault in mainland SE Asia as the French fleet is available to reinforce the Royal Navy ? It's possible that the now much stronger Royal Navy and French fleet can be a strong counter in the Pacific.

Does the USA hold back on lend lease supplies, or is it keener to help out seeing the Union as a more viable proposition ?

Thoughts ?
 
I can't answer your main questions, but I always found this a very intriguing idea.

Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France.

Far greater resistance on the part of the French. It would however change the post war climate quite a lot...
 
If memory serves there were around about 200,000 french colonial troops in French North West Africa. Add to this troops evacuated from Metropolitan France. I suspect that their quality would be quite variable, but enough quality troops could probably be found to attack into western Libya. So I suspect that the Italian african empire would be history by mid 1941 at the latest. Adding the French fleet into the mix would take some of the pressure of the RN.

With such a crushing defeat in Libya Muss might think twice about getting involved in Greece. If he did, a much larger BEF/FEF could be sent over. Their ability to seriously threaten Hitler's southern flank would be debatable, but it would almost certainly lead to significant German forces being stationed more or less indefinitly in the region because of Ploesti.

Churchill gets his wet dream of being able to hatch endless daft Balkan schemes. This might actually keep him distracted enough that he won't interfere in too many other areas, thus enabling the British army to fight a more efficient war.

In the far east, the japs wouldnt get basing rights in French Indo China, but would probably still invade anyway. Immediate effect, the British and Commonwealth defeats would occur here rather than in Burma and Malaya. At sea the japs would still sweep all before them, but would face a greater threat from land based aircraft.
 

Redbeard

Banned
The French staying in the war on allied/British side, union or not, will have tremendous importance.

First, hundreds of thousands of trained personel will be available to the allies (incl. pilots) and also a large amount of materiel, not at least the French navy and a number of planes flown to GB or overseas French possessions. The pilots alone will mean a boost of the RAF in 1940 and until the Imperial training programme gained momentum.

The French forces in the Med. will make any Italian hopes of glory and loot in North Africa futile - if just a little wise they stay put in June 40.

No matter what the Med will be firmly controlled by the allies, and the addition of the French navy will also significantly reduce any allied anxiousness over Germans let loose in the Atlantic.

Most important will however be the influence in the Far East. The Japanese can't bully their way to bases in Indochina, and without those an attack on Malaya, Singapore and DEI is nigh on impossible. They might ofcourse tart thye greater campaign in Indochina, but that will allow the allies to reinforce their defences in Malaya and DEI to a degree making Japanese conquest impossible.

The allied practical options for reinforcing the Far East are anyway greatly improved. Not only due to the greater resources available, but also because Nort Africa now is on allied hands and that makes it possible to establish a continious string of airbases making it possible to fly planes from USA to the Far East in a few days. In OTL you needed to put them in wooden crates and send by ship around the Cape until 1943/44. The shorther route by ship through the Med. will anyway greatly reduce the strain on allied shipping (shortage of shipping being the main constraint on allied strategic initiative).

The greatest allied risk would be Churchill wasting the added resources on some silly scheme "to gain the initiative" - like a large scale invasion of Norway or the Balkans. The critical time will be until late 1941, when Brooke takes over as CIGS - and put a strong leash on Winnie.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
I'd like to hear a French view on this. I know the French were pretty anti-British anyway, even before the attacks on their ships. The Brits were thought to have opened the Northern flank of the French armies by shooting through to Dunkirk.

(Some truth to that too imo, Gort's actions and decisions seem questionable in hindsight....different to Haig in similar circumstances in 1918).
 

Redbeard

Banned
I'd like to hear a French view on this. I know the French were pretty anti-British anyway, even before the attacks on their ships. The Brits were thought to have opened the Northern flank of the French armies by shooting through to Dunkirk.

(Some truth to that too imo, Gort's actions and decisions seem questionable in hindsight....different to Haig in similar circumstances in 1918).

The French felt let down by the British when they evacuated at Dunkirk and refused to send more figthers for the final phases of Battle of France. That didn't give the best fertile soil for Churchill's proposal, but most decisive was that the French were convinced that GB would seek an armistuce very soon too, and as the German armistice proposal appeared much milder than anticipated, the majority in the government swung towards a peace with Germany while there still were French troops under command of the government. The French leaders probably feared, that a total collapse would mean internal anarchy and communist attempts.

IMHO we only need minor PoDs at the decisive government meeting in mid June 40 to have the French continue.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
Redbeard, milder than appeared is indeed the operative phrase.

If the French had realized sooner that the actual terms were far harsher than what was put on paper, starting with Hitler simply annexing the Alsace-Lorraine without even bothering to mention the loss to the French...
 
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