Challenge-Fascist France wins WWII

Jake Vektor

Banned
Here's a twist on the whole Central Powers-victory premise.
Start off as usual-have the British ally with Germany sometime before 1900. It doesn't matter how-you can have Friedrich III survive, or you can have Wilhelm II not listening to the German imperialists.
When WWI rolls around, have Britain joining the Central Powers alongside Germany against France and Russia. France loses of course, and is heavily penalized by the victorious Central Powers.
Angered at its defeat, France goes fascist and starts WWII.
Now here's the twist. Have the fascist French defeat the Germans and the British and bring the other European nations under their heel. Now France is the master of Europe. You can throw Russia in as an ally, or have France defeat them too. You must include Japan as a French ally, and you must have it conquer eastern Asia.
Now how does the world look? Is the US affected? How would the French rule Europe? It's all up to you.
 
I'm sorry if this is off topic but I feel this scenario is ASB. A Germany that gets Britain on it's side means less troops for France. And don't forget that during the first world war Germany nearly knocked the French out of the war several times while also dealing with several other problems. And remember that even after being defeated by the Entente Germany was still more powerful then France. I know this goes against the topic but it's going to be really hard to get a France to win WW2 if it lost the first one let alone even start it.
 

Jake Vektor

Banned
I'm sorry if this is off topic but I feel this scenario is ASB. A Germany that gets Britain on it's side means less troops for France. And don't forget that during the first world war Germany nearly knocked the French out of the war several times while also dealing with several other problems. And remember that even after being defeated by the Entente Germany was still more powerful then France. I know this goes against the topic but it's going to be really hard to get a France to win WW2 if it lost the first one let alone even start it.
You see, this is based off James Jonhson's "Grossdeutschland" scenario, where Germany doesn't alienate Britain and fights France in two world wars. In WW2, France comes under the control of a fascist regime and fights Germany, Britain, and the US. My goal was to take the typical premise of Nazi Germany winning WW2 and apply it to Grossdeutschland's fascist France.
 
You see, this is based off James Jonhson's "Grossdeutschland" scenario, where Germany doesn't alienate Britain and fights France in two world wars. In WW2, France comes under the control of a fascist regime and fights Germany, Britain, and the US. My goal was to take the typical premise of Nazi Germany winning WW2 and apply it to Grossdeutschland's fascist France.

Ah, well I'm afraid I haven't read much of it so I can't really offer anything useful. Thought like I said, You are going to need to find some way of helping France overcome the huge population disparity. Actually I think I may be able to come up with a scenario. The HoI2 Kaiserreich mod "In defense of freedom AAR" Has a powerful syndie France that manages to get really far against Germany by using tanks and other armored vehicles. Thought currently they on the verge of being crushed. So you could have a France that uses it's own version of Blitzkrieg.
 
Problems:

1) The French aren't stupid. They went to war in 1914 because for the first time in a long time they felt able to without being flattened. With Britain hostile, they won't. To say nothing of butterflies: Frriedrich survives... and diplomacy is just the same except that us Brits love the Germans now. If Friedrich III was never influenced by the advocates of the New Course, you'd think Russia and Germany would remain on much better terms.

2) France is waysmaller, industrially and in population, than Germany. In 1939, with Alsace, it was already a weaker country. In 1914, without Alsace, it was in some ways weakerer, although admittedly warfare wasn;t yet quyite so industrial. After losing WW1? Never fighting Germany again, most likely.

Russia? Pffft. Germany tried that one, and look where that got them.

See, under Napoleon and his predeccesors, France was Europe's biggest and strongest country. In the 19th C, Germany reached the same level of urbanisation and cultivation as its western neighbours, and also turned out to be sitting on an arseload of steel and coal. The balance was changed forever. The delusion that France could still be top was never one shared by the leaders and people of France, except perhaps briefly in the 1920s.

3) Fascist France is a very tired cliche in any case. If you really want a CP victory WW2, I would recomend an alliance between still-strong Russia and Britain. This is a natural reaction for both of us when somebody takes over Europe (1812, 1941, and the implied threat in 1907), and unlike France, we have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Germany.

4) "French blitzkrieg": you need a big industrial capacity for Blitzkrieg, for one thing. Fo another thing, a glance at a map of Battle of France (or Frontiers) shows that France has minimal strategic depth. Paris and the main industrial region is right there. as far as Germany is concerned. Wham-bang and it's all over. Whereas for France, getting to the Ruhr is an arse on a job.. and Germany still had plenty of industry, population, and rugged country behind the Ruhr.
 
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As stated above, the power gap between Germany which won WW1 and France which lost it would be substantial. Therefore France coudln't hope to beat Germany - on its own at least. However, France could be a minor power on the winning side of WWII.

One thing which I found in pretty much all CP-win-scenarios (and I like that, I have to say) is that Germany suddenly becomes reasonable and skillful in diplomacy. Which is quite a sudden change to what we saw before WWI. Let's assume that Germany wins with Wilhelm II. as emperor. And good old Willie now thinks in terms of manifest destiny, god's chosen people and god's chosen emperor, alienating the other central powers after the war.

How about that:
- Cliché 1: Austria-Hungary falls apart, Italy wants some, but Germany takes Istria, Triest and Southern Tyrol for itself, making Italy an enemy and loosing Austria-Hungary as an ally at the same time. This triggers a Balkan crisis, which results in some unhappy Balkan states ready to join a war against Germany. Now for whatever reason Russia and UK make an alliance and war erupts between Germany and its allies on one side and Britain plus Russia on the other. France and Italy will fight against Germany. Some Balkan states will do this as well. Neither Japan nor China will fight against both Russia and Britain. And the US won't join the Germans either. I'd say Germany will loose, and France happens to be a minor ally of the winning side.
 
If you want a Fascist France to win, you need to create a Fascist Britain, and have the two create an "Entente Occidentale" of a Franco-British alliance. If the Kaiser has Eastern Europe and its resources, plus Britain, it would be near impossible for any power to conquer them.

If their is a Fascist Entente, Italy may or may not join, depending if Mussolini was in power. Russia is iffy if they are not Czarist or Fascist. The Communists (if in power) would probably just remain neutral. The Ottoman Empire would side with its previous victor, but it most likely would no longer include its Arab Territories (even without a British invasion from Mesopotamia and Gaza, the tide of Arab Nationalism was turning against the Turk.) If Japan is in the Entente to make it a Triple, expect whatever Chinese government is in power to ask the Germans (or the Russians, depending on what government they have) for help.

So my answer to your challenge is:

Fascist France, whatever-Spain, Fascist Portugal, Fascist Italy, Low Countries, Fascist Britain, Romania, and Greece to be on the Entente side. Add to that their colonies and dominions (Germany would not and could not have created a massive viable "Mittleafrika", and might have demanded no colonial expansion in the peace), the Japanese Empire, the Japanese-puppet Chinese government, and maybe some nations in Latin America.

On the "German" side, you have the German Empire, Bulgaria, the Hungarian Empire, the Polish Territory, the Baltic Republic, and the Ukraine. Add to that maybe some nations in Latin America, plus the Chinese who are fighting the Japanese (Chang-Kai Shek?)

The major difference in the East Asian theatre would be that Japan would focus more on the total conquest of China, rather than moving into SE Asia (the domain of its Allies.) Realistically, if they were allies, then the Entente could just ship them material and fuel from the DEI and Indochina.

Russia may or may not join (if the Central Powers won, then they probably would have tried a quick strike to get rid of the Bolshevik cancer that they planted in 1917. Either they reach Moscow and kill the Bolsheviks, or they fail and now have a massive hostile Soviet Union on their eastern flank.)

America would not join Germany (they're the Huns, remember), and would more likely sell things to Britain and France, considering that they combined are far more powefully in maritime trade and international naval action that the isolated Kreigsmarine.
 
Not sure. FDR wasn't a rabid Anglophile like Wilson, so he'd probably support the more democratic and less aggressive side (i.e. not the French). If he's president when alternate WW2 starts, and Japan still attacks the USA (a couple of the CP's probably got colonies, so the Japanese can attack those), the USA can anticipate a few new states to its north when the dust settles, if you know what I mean.;) (I mean we're annexing Canada)

Anyway, if France plays its cards right it might do well, maybe even almost winning and conquering several other countries, but it won't win and it won't blitz into Berlin.

My idea is:

Axis Powers:


  • UK/Commonwealth

  • France

  • Japan

  • Japanese puppet states

Central Powers:


  • USA

  • Germany

  • Austria-Hungary (if it's still around, alternatively Hungary as a German satellite)

  • Italy (I assume they join the CP's in exchange for a couple slices of Austria, and they get more if A-H collapses)

  • Turkey (The Arab rebellion was actually more or less invented by the British during WWI so it would look more like liberation and less like blatant imperialism)
  • China
  • German satellites in Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, etc)
  • Probably a bunch of other countries as well.

Russia likely remains neutral.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
A bit off topic, but a fascist state has never been able to win a war with a nation that is on the same level as itself. The only time we have seen fascist "victories" is when they were fighting colonial wars with natives who had far, far less materiel than the fascists did.

And before anybody starts, let me clarify something: I do not consider Nazism fascist except for its manifestations in Bavaria and Austria. Of course there are great similarities between Nazism and fascism (as there are in all totalitarian systems), but there are some core tenets on which they differ that are rather important.
 
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