Churchill's Darkest Decision

I think you could probably say it's Churchill's Freakishly Stupid Decision rather than "Darkest".

He should have negotiated with the French to induce them to move the fleet. If they refused, then it should have been clear that they would also refuse to hand over the fleet to the Germans.

To have alienated French opinion that drastically for no reason was really foolish. Even if the Germans had somehow managed to take control of the fleet, it would take them so long to get it operational that the British could easily dispose of it.

There probably would have been a much stronger move to the Free French without this foolish and wasteful attack, not to mention the likely availability of the fleet for Allied use.

So it was Churchills fault one of the French admirals dealt in bad faith, lied about the terms to his superiors, and basically forced a fight?
 
He should have negotiated with the French to induce them to move the fleet. If they refused, then it should have been clear that they would also refuse to hand over the fleet to the Germans.

The French Admiral initially refused the Brit negotiation party sent to deliver Churchill's ultimatum because of the officer's lowly rank. When they finally persisted and boarded the Admiral's ship the Brits were shown Darlan's orders to scuttle their ships if the Nazis tried to seize them.

Initially the Brit negotiators thought this enough to consider leaving the fleet in French hands. However it turned out the French had been buying time in order to let other ships intercept the Brits.

When Churchill discovered this he prompted HMS Hood's commander to decide quickly on his response. He elected to attack.

Thus real attempts had been made to negotiate but unfortunately it appears the French underestimated the Brit's resolve.

As a footnote, other stuff I've read indicates that Hitler was initially reluctant to seize the fleet so as not to provoked the French back into the war.
 
The analysis of what I agree was Chruchill's darkest and most contentious decision isn't really AH although what would happen if it hadn't happened is.

One point missed was that a similar confrontation loomed in Alexandria but was resolved without shooting by Admiral Cunningham only the French were more heavily outgunned inside a British Naval base. Their ships could have been blown up blocking the entrance and Cunnigham broke the rules and obtained the demilitarisation of the ships. A few other ships were siezed in UK ports and a handful of ships railled to support De Gualle largely small ships from the Atlantic fleet manned by Breton crews

As events turned out Admiral Darlan ordred the French fleet to be scuttled at Toulon in 1942 when the German invaded Vichy. That was however after the Americans had landed in French North Africa and he knew which way the war was going. It does suggest that the ships were unlikely to have been handed over to the Germans.

Somerville carried out his orders under protest and was out of Churchill's favour. The action did however impress the Americans with Britain resolve and also resulted in for the first time Tory backbenchers cheering Churchill so the action was probably carried out for political rather than military reasons which makes it more objectionable. The Coventry decision was about not revealing we were breaking German codes and was more an act of ommission rather than commission
 

Graehame

Banned
French Fleet

MARKUS
"Even if the French had voluntarily given the ships to the Germans, the Germans didn´t have the men to crew them."
That's because of the German recruit allocation formula, which gave 25% to the LW but only 9% to the KM. This was an artifact of Goering's political connections & Raeder's lack thereof, but replace Goering with someone like Kesselring & you could get a much more reasonable percentage for the KM. Make it something like 12 to 16% & the manning problem disappears,
WITHOUT crippling the LW.
ASTRODRAGON
"...the Germans would have had to find and train crews, so its unlikely they would have been ready before 1941."
A better option would be for Germany to insist that France use its entire military strength to defend Syria & Lebanon from Brit invasion in '41, including the committment of the French Fleet vs the Brits in the Med. This would have pitted the Richelieu, Dunkerque, Strasbourg, & a couple of CLs, possibly with the Italian Vittorio Veneto, Littorio, & Gorizia, against 3 QE-class BBs based at Alex. 3 new, fast BBs, 2 CBs, & a CA vs 3 old, slow BBs & a few CAs. Should have crippled the Brit fleet. This, of course, would involve the use of existing French crews. Once France was officially at war with Britain they could join the Axis, commit their ships in the N Atlantic, etc.
THEMANN
"I can't imagine the French fleet would willingly take an order to hand their fleet over to the Nazis..."
Right after the armistice, probably not. But after Mers-el-Khebir, Dakar, Casablanca, Alexandria, Syria, & Lebanon, Vichy France was in more of a mood to cooperate w/Germany, had the Germans insisted. Unfortunately for the future of Naziism, they didn't. Remember, the French air force bombed Gibraltar TWICE in retaliation for attacks on their fleet, & the French army fought the Brits for a month in Syria & Lebanon. The trouble was, Vichy ordered their army in Syria & Lebanon to fight, but gave it little support from home.
 
One could argue that the British should have continued the negotations a few hours more, but they were probably afraid that German subs were homing in. And I for one, do not feel sorry for the French. Their failure to fight on from North Africa and to sail their fleet to merge with the British fleet against the Italians and the German u-boats, represents the greatest and most loathsome betrayal of one ally by another in modern times.

The fact is that the Vichy regime was a fascist regime kept in power by secret police, torturers and executions. And Admiral Darlan was both sympathetic to Hitler and hated the Brits, even before they sunk those ships. The only reason Vichy didn't join the German side was because of pressure from the United States--and the knowledge that if they dared to join the Axis they would lose all their colonial empire, forever, in the event Germany lost the war. In Syria the Vichy governor functioned as an Axis ally in all but name--and it took bloody fighting by Allied forces to prevent him from turning Syria into a German military staging area. Also French betrayal in Indochina paved the way for the Japanese conquest of Singapore. And the British had to expend vital resources in 1942 overthrowing the Vichy governor of Madagascar to prevent the Japanese from being able to do on that island what they did in Indochina. (Then the French went back to the island after the war and massacred tens of thousands of the local people to show how tough they were.)

The Vichy military leaders claimed that they must continue to obey the Vichy government as a matter of "honor." And then they get PRAISED for sinking the fleet in 1942 at Toulon? Ships that could have useful to the Allies in winning the battle of the Atlantic--if they had sailed to join the Allies months earlier?

The "honor" of the Vichy navy and army brass can be summed up in one word: merdre.
 

Graehame

Banned
ALIEN
"Their failure to fight on from North Africa and to sail their fleet to merge with the British fleet against the Italians and the German u-boats, represents the greatest and most loathsome betrayal of one ally by another in modern times."
You're being a bit hard there on the French. It's difficult to continue to fight when your country has been overrun by a totalitarian dictatorship that now dominates the Continent & your faithful ally has abandoned you, evacuating from Dunkirk. For all the French knew at the time the Brits would lose the Battle of Britain & make peace soon afterward. In July of 1940 it certainly looked like the Reich was unstoppable.
Your post does raise 1 interesting point, though. In July 1940 Churchill proposed a merger of France & Britain into a single country to continue to oppose the Reich. Anyone for a TL in which the French accept?
 
ALIEN
"Their failure to fight on from North Africa and to sail their fleet to merge with the British fleet against the Italians and the German u-boats, represents the greatest and most loathsome betrayal of one ally by another in modern times."
You're being a bit hard there on the French. It's difficult to continue to fight when your country has been overrun by a totalitarian dictatorship that now dominates the Continent & your faithful ally has abandoned you, evacuating from Dunkirk. For all the French knew at the time the Brits would lose the Battle of Britain & make peace soon afterward. In July of 1940 it certainly looked like the Reich was unstoppable.
Your post does raise 1 interesting point, though. In July 1940 Churchill proposed a merger of France & Britain into a single country to continue to oppose the Reich. Anyone for a TL in which the French accept?

Its a fair;y accurate statement, the petain regime ignored the binding agreements of no separate peace agreed between the UK and FRance.

And there is already a timeline under construction about the merger - try using search
 
Your post does raise 1 interesting point, though. In July 1940 Churchill proposed a merger of France & Britain into a single country to continue to oppose the Reich. Anyone for a TL in which the French accept?

The military implications might not be very different from the "France Fights On" scenario (or the "Sea Lion Fails" scenario) in which the French carry on from North Africa. However...let's suppose Britain and France continue their merger AFTER the war and thus have a stronger position vis a vis their mutual colonies, and the Brits don't screw up so badly in Southeast Asia and thus are not discredited in the eyes of their dominions and most important colonies. Would you therefore have a third superpower--or, really, a half of a third superpower, which could defy the U.S. regarding the 1956 Suez invasion? (Comparison: U.S. pop. in 1939 was around 131 M; Soviet pop around 190 M; combined British and French pop around 85 M.) Given the touchy nationalism of both colonial powers such a scenario would probably require an Alien Space Bat's magical intervention, however.
 
And there was another that used that as its starting point, though the Union was dissolved after the War and the TL appears dead.

The problem was that I didn't have a destination in mind, and I was overcome by the cascade of impacts when I tried to do the research to have it evolve naturally. I do intend to get back to it one day.
 
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