Could France fight on from North Africa?

Fairly simple question here.

Shortly after the Italian declaration of war Reynaud and his Cabinet flee to French North Africa in order to continue the war. Was it even possible around that date for the French Navy to enough ferry retreating soldiers across the Mediterranean from France itself in large enough numbers to fight on? Would the Regia Marina be able to effectivly contest any evacuation? Would Corsica attempt to be held?
 

Archibald

Banned
Have a look at this
https://www.google.fr/search?q="fra...ts+on"archibald+site:www.alternatehistory.com
http://1940lafrancecontinue.org/forum/

Yes they can. Battle of France lasts until August 15, 1940.
First immediate casualty is North African campaign. IOTL it lasted until May 1943. With France helping the British, it is over by October 1940 (OTL the British by themselves very nearly bet the Italian late January 1941, but the Afrika Korps turned the tide)
Per lack of North African campain main fights turns to the Balkans. Bir Hakeim become Kummanovo, and the Afrika Korps should have been the Albania Korps, except nobody cares about Albania, so Rommel decides for Skanderberg (= Alexander the great)
 
I am not sure here. Wouldn't this rather butterfly BoB and lead Hitler to persue a destruction of the French in North Africa and the British helping them there?
Maybe even drawing in the Spanish?
ITTL they could be offerred parts of southern France and French north Africa.
 
Fairly simple question here.

Shortly after the Italian declaration of war Reynaud and his Cabinet flee to French North Africa in order to continue the war. Was it even possible around that date for the French Navy to ferry enough retreating soldiers across the Mediterranean from France itself in large enough numbers to fight on? Would the Regia Marina be able to effectivly contest any evacuation? Would Corsica attempt to be held?
Off the top of my head about half a million Allied military personnel were evacuated from France to the British Isles IOTL of whom about 300,000 were British, 50,000 Polish and 150,000 French plus the French troops evacuated from Norway. However, all but about 10,000 of the French troops that were evacuated asked to be repatriated to France.

The French naval forces in the western Mediterranean reinforced by Force H were more than strong enough to cope with the Regia Marina. IMHO the problem would be at the evacuation ports IIRC the Luftwaffe sank 6 British and 3 French destroyers at Dunkirk and my guess is that it would be a similar story at Marsailles and Toulon.

IMHO there would be no attempt to hold Corsica.
 
This is an extract from an article in the Air University Review, September-October 1985 called the The French Air Force In 1940, Was It Defeated by the Luftwaffe or by Politics? by Lieutenant Colonel Faris R. Kirkland, USAF (Ret.)
Could the French Air Force Have
Seized Command of the Air?

On 10 May 1940, the operational units of the French Air Force committed to the Western Front were heavily outnumbered. The low rate of operations in the French Air Force compared to that of the Germans increased by a factor of four the French inferiority in the air during the first month of the battle. By mid-June, however, the Luftwaffe was exhausted. It had lost 40 percent of its aircraft. Its flyers had been operating above hostile territory without navigational aids and with the certainty of capture in the event their aircraft were disabled. The air and ground crews were working from captured fields at the end of lengthening supply lines. The French, on the other hand, had conducted much less intensive flight operations, were able to recover the crews of disabled aircraft, were falling back on their logistical bases, and were bringing new units on line with brand new aircraft every day. By 15 June, the French and German air forces were at approximate parity with about 2400 aircraft each, but the French were operating from their own turf, and they had the support of the RAF. Mastery of the air was there for the seizing, but on 17 June the French air staff began to order its units to fly to North Africa. The justification put forth by the air staff was that the army was destroyed and could not protect the airfields.

An examination of which units were ordered to North Africa and which were left behind reveals much about the motivation behind the evacuation. The units flown to North Africa were those regular air force squadrons with the most modern and effective aircraft--all of the squadrons equipped with the Curtiss 75A (10), Dewoitine 520 (10), Amiot 354 (8), Bloch 174 (18), Farman 222 (4), Douglas DB-7 (8), and Martin 167 (10), plus most of those with the Lioré et Olivier 451 (12 of 18). Those left behind included all of the air force reserve units--47 observation squadrons and 12 fighter squadrons--and all of the units closely connected with the army (the observation squadrons, the 10 assault bomber squadrons, and 7 night fighter squadrons converted to the ground assault role).31
 
In the short term, yes. Africa will be secure before spring 1941 at the latest.
It's the aftermath of the Africa Campaigns where things get tricky.

In Imperialist nations most of the industry in the colonies was Primary (resourse excraction)
with the secondary industries being concentrated in the home countries.

This means that France's existing equipment will need replacing from abroad once it wears out.
Britain will be too busy meeting its own and commonwealth needs to have much capacity to spare,
which means that they will be even more dependent on American supplies than OTL's Britain.

Developing a manufacturing base in the colonies is politically and practically nigh impossible, however
early purchases could be used to develop and expand resource extraction efforts. This could mean that France
could pay for materiel with its Gold Reserves for longer than Britain IOTL, or that France grants huge concessions
to American companies.

France had already ordered a great deal of US equipment before the fall of the mainland and will probably continue
to do so, meaning that they might even receive the lion's share of finished goods under cash and carry/lend lease.

Britain on the other hand would now have an alternative source of supply of raw materials, meaning that its dollar
and gold reserves are depleted less rapidly. However, this would mean two distinct convoy routes, which would be
partly alleviated by the French Navy but not entirely.

How this affects Lend Lease is difficult to say other than it wil be different from OTL,
and the French Economy will be very different from OTL.
 

Archibald

Banned
I am not sure here. Wouldn't this rather butterfly BoB and lead Hitler to persue a destruction of the French in North Africa and the British helping them there?
Maybe even drawing in the Spanish?
ITTL they could be offerred parts of southern France and French north Africa.

We discussed the spanish option at length. The consensus we reached is that Franco was an extremely cautious guy not willing to get its thoroughly ruined country into the world war. IOTL Hitler himself met Franco in October 1940 in Hendaye (Basque country) and got very pissed off at him. Franco presented Hitler with an extensive list of raw resources he needed before agreeing to join the Axis. It was kind of deliberate to keep Hitler away from Spain.
 

Archibald

Banned
Some bloke: you have a lot of good points. Rebuilding an aircraft / tank industry in North Africa is not possible, even with the plants tooling evacuated there. So France will instead burn its currency and gold reserves to buy American until that country enter the war.

IMHO there would be no attempt to hold Corsica.

Corsica: it will be invaded in a OTL-Crete-like large paratrooper operation (called operation Herkules). It happens in February-March 1941. Why no earlier ? because Germany is exhausted fighting in France until august 15, 1940, which makes for a worse Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe suffers a lot more than OTL.
By the way, german paratroopers are decimated in Corsica, making Crete invasion impossible.

The French Air force will start with slightly upgraded D-520Ms until 1941, after they worn out they will go for more Curtiss H-75s, that is, P-40 Hawk 81s and 87s, before stumbling on the NA-73X prototype and loving it and helping to get the Mustang off the ground earlier than OTL.
 
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Archibald

Banned
In a much discussed move France fights on decided to stay with OTL Pearl Harbor (and I do know French Indochina invasion OTL played a large role in oil embargo, which led to PH)
Barbarossa by contrast was pushed from June 22, 1941 to May 17, 1942. Why ? because of the Balkans quagmire (that replaced North Africa).

also, the Richelieu battleship and Algerie heavy cruiser are send to Scapa Flow and helps sinking Bismarck and P.E after the unfortunate Hood kick the bucket as per OTL.

The Tarento raid is moved from November to August 1940 and includes the plain old Bearn with Curtiss SB-4C dive bombing biplanes.

Bearn itself is sunk out of Corsica by Stukas is February 1941.
 

Archibald

Banned
I can tell you that extensive simulations / wargames were done of what is called "Le grand déménagement" "the great move". It could be done. One of the key is that France is a pretty big country (nearly 600 miles from North to South) and at some point both Luftwaffe and Wermacht forces will become over-stretched. Once the great move decided mid June, an extensive scorched earth policy will happen north of the Loire. Retreat will be gone, replaced by heavy fighting to delay German advance everywhere, scrapping any armement from the bottom of the barrel (canons de 75 and FT-17 tanks, MS-406 and Caudron 714, and the like).
Basically the French army is split into two halves, the modern part goes to north africa, the obsolete hardware is used to delay the German onslaught.
 
We discussed the spanish option at length. The consensus we reached is that Franco was an extremely cautious guy not willing to get its thoroughly ruined country into the world war. IOTL Hitler himself met Franco in October 1940 in Hendaye (Basque country) and got very pissed off at him. Franco presented Hitler with an extensive list of raw resources he needed before agreeing to join the Axis. It was kind of deliberate to keep Hitler away from Spain.
I know the OTL situation, its just ITTL the priority for Germany is so much higher and the available bribes as well. Certainly, german priority Will ve to eliminate this threat in the South and it Will appear much more doable than Sea lion.
 
But in this situation, Spain is more not less vulnerable. Spanish Morocco is liable to be invaded, and even more likely are Spanish Island territories. Her only potential gain is Gib., but while Gib. is put under siege, Barcelona, is shelled by Allied warships off the coast. So, joining the Axis would not be a smart move.
 

Archibald

Banned
As for invading Spain, it would be a logistical nightmare (just ask Napoleon :p ) Spain is as big as France (500 000 square kilometers) but is far more montainous, all the way from Pyrénées to Sierra Nevada...
 
Some bloke: you have a lot of good points. Rebuilding an aircraft / tank industry in North Africa is not possible, even with the plants tooling evacuated there. So France will instead burn its currency and gold reserves to buy American until that country enter the war.

Yes & no. Oran had been long a full naval base for the French navy. /everything but a large dry dock. Martin Aircraft had a assembly plant & maintenance facility operating in Morroco for the M-167 bomber. This did final assembly and modification on the parts made in Maryland. A training school for the ground techs and a flight school of air crew was collocated with this plant. A similar facility was near completion in Algeria for Douglass products, specifically the DB-7 IIRC. Like the Navy the French Air Force had a upper echelon maintiance capability for its own models in North Africa as prewa it had a permanent war plane population of several hundred machines operating there.

...
Developing a manufacturing base in the colonies is politically and practically nigh impossible, however
early purchases could be used to develop and expand resource extraction efforts. This could mean that France
could pay for materiel with its Gold Reserves for longer than Britain IOTL, or that France grants huge concessions
to American companies.

France had already ordered a great deal of US equipment before the fall of the mainland and will probably continue
to do so, meaning that they might even receive the lion's share of finished goods under cash and carry/lend lease.
...

This both accelerates the mobilization of US war industry, and alters the direction portions of it develop towards.

This is an extract from an article in the Air University Review, September-October 1985 called the The French Air Force In 1940, Was It Defeated by the Luftwaffe or by Politics? by Lieutenant Colonel Faris R. Kirkland, USAF (Ret.)

The Kirkland essay is useful, but I'd not cite from it. Have discussed it with a couple of experts on the French AF & there are some core factual errors they identified, which undercut his conclusions. The most important point in it concerns the high portion of the AF that was stood down for aircraft replacement in April-May 1940. Kirkland is on track in identifying that as a critical weakness in May.

We discussed the spanish option at length. The consensus we reached is that Franco was an extremely cautious guy not willing to get its thoroughly ruined country into the world war. IOTL Hitler himself met Franco in October 1940 in Hendaye (Basque country) and got very pissed off at him. Franco presented Hitler with an extensive list of raw resources he needed before agreeing to join the Axis. It was kind of deliberate to keep Hitler away from Spain.

One of those raw materials was grain from the Americas. Spain had a net food shortage, which Germany could not make up in 1940-41. If Franco chose war the Allied blockade would instantly cause a food shortage in Spain, reverting conditions to those of the civil war less than two years earlier. Spains government & remaining business were also dependent on loans from London and New York banks, & a DoW crushes further business development in Spain in both the short and long term. In the longer run Germany loses a conduit for critical raw materials trickling past the blockade via neutral Spain.

Have a look at this
https://www.google.fr/search?q="france+fights+on"archibald+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=ODMpWY-4H8zHXuWhurgK#q="france+fights+on"archibald+site:www.alternatehistory.com
http://1940lafrancecontinue.org/forum/

Yes they can. Battle of France lasts until August 15, 1940.
First immediate casualty is North African campaign. IOTL it lasted until May 1943. With France helping the British, it is over by October 1940 (OTL the British by themselves very nearly bet the Italian late January 1941, but the Afrika Korps turned the tide)
Per lack of North African campain main fights turns to the Balkans. Bir Hakeim become Kummanovo, and the Afrika Korps should have been the Albania Korps, except nobody cares about Albania, so Rommel decides for Skanderberg (= Alexander the great)

There may be no Mediterranean campaign as we know it. Mussolinis DoW on France was a ad hoc & spurious thing. He had not seriously considered it previous to May 1940, tho he had used the threat as a bargaining tool with the Brits in previous months. The Italians were angry over the Allied blockade requirements. The decision to attack France was in part from the expectation France would surrender very soon. If there is a resolute French government relocating to Africa Mussolini may waver in the other direction & remain neutral for a indefinite period, perhaps for the war. If I were gaming this I'd place the dice roll at 1/3 or 1/2 in favor of continued neutrality. It really depends on how soon and firmly Reynauds government makes its plans known.
 

Archibald

Banned
France fights on POD is June 15 1940 so Mussolini already sealed his country fate. But of course FFO is not the ultimate TL, earlier or later PODs are possible, from the end of Dunkirk on June 4 to Mers El Kebir or Dakar.
FFO POD is that defeatist Reynaud mistress Helene Des Portes accidents that killed her late June 1940 IOTL happens ITTL three weeks earlier. Once his mistress is removed, Reynault grows back a spine and the Algiers faction flattens the defeatists led by Pétain (which has an heart attack as result and dies later in the year 1940, leaving a rump France led by Quisling-Laval, the NEF Nouvel Etat Français).
 

Archibald

Banned
As for the Med, it indeed becomes an allied lake earlier than OTL but at a very high cost. While Regia Marina suffers accordingly, it doesn't die without a bang, plus the Luftwaffe X fliegerkorps (of OTL Illustrious fame). The fight for Corsica is a butchering of warships.

The official history of the Mediterranean campaign, published ITTL in 1955 is called "Un grand cimetière bleu" "the great blue naval boneyeard".
don't forget that Richelieu is stuck in Scappa Flow leaving the Mediterranean sea to Dunkerque and Strasbourg plus the older Provence-class dreads. Both can't face a Littorio class italian battleship.

In fact it takes all three Provence to kill the Litorio at Cape Matapan, except that Provence itself explodes (just like it did OTL, except that was in Mers El Kebir)

as for Jean Bart, it becomes an aircraft carrier later in the war.
 
But in this situation, Spain is more not less vulnerable. Spanish Morocco is liable to be invaded, and even more likely are Spanish Island territories. Her only potential gain is Gib., but while Gib. is put under siege, Barcelona, is shelled by Allied warships off the coast. So, joining the Axis would not be a smart move.

As for invading Spain, it would be a logistical nightmare (just ask Napoleon :p ) Spain is as big as France (500 000 square kilometers) but is far more montainous, all the way from Pyrénées to Sierra Nevada...
Excuse me for entering a voice of dissent here. Why turn across the Channel when there are much more accesible foes with a much less solid support. When France proper falls this would be the new theater and France would/could have to supply the wheat that Spain dependent on (a light hunger plan, part necessity, part revenge). Lets say the Germans supply 0.5 million tons of fuel (OTL demands 1 million) and Spain is in the war.
Luftwaffe relocates to the med and the French med fleet with no support is in a very tight spot. Not going to Shell Barcelona or it would be sunk by air power in the attempt.
The effect for the med IMHO would be the opposite. It would receive full axis focus and at this point in time it means it becomes an axis Lake.
However, there is a problem. The axis spend fuel on Spain and they dont capture 5 million tons of French reserves and thousand of trucks.
Its a Big question if even Hitler is crazy enough to attempt Barcelona anyway, but if he does they'll be on trouble already in 1941 and we might see a red central Europe in 1943/4.
In any case its a great pod and either Way it leaves Germany with 5 million tons of captured fuel less.
 
France fights on POD is June 15 1940 so Mussolini already sealed his country fate. But of course FFO is not the ultimate TL, earlier or later PODs are possible, from the end of Dunkirk on June 4 to Mers El Kebir or Dakar.
FFO POD is that defeatist Reynaud mistress Helene Des Portes accidents that killed her late June 1940 IOTL happens ITTL three weeks earlier. Once his mistress is removed, Reynault grows back a spine and the Algiers faction flattens the defeatists led by Pétain (which has an heart attack as result and dies later in the year 1940, leaving a rump France led by Quisling-Laval, the NEF Nouvel Etat Français).

The critical factor was not Portes but the Chamber of Deputies. Less than 100 out over 500 were firmly supporting the continuation of the war. This caused half of Reynauds cabinet to waver. Had Reynaud persisted the Deputies would have pushed through a last minute vote and removed Reynaud. Perhaps doing so after he & his supporters were aboard ship. OTL about eighty Deputies had gone to the ports seeking transportation to Algeria. Post surrender they were informally censured by the Chamber accused of cowardice & desertion by other members.

Had the government relocated my guess is a portion of the Deputies would have formed a rival government to negotiate a cease fire/armistice thus throwing the colonial governors into a tough choice of which government was legitimate.
 
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