Could France fighting on in WWII (from Algeria) lead to no US entry, and more dominant USSR postwar?

Why would the Japanese care to declare war against the allies like in OTL at the end of 1941 ? The powerful french eastern fleet ? (one light cruiser, 4 avisos) The powerfull armies there ? (50k men). Not having Indochina would modifiy their operational plans, but Strategically it wouldn't change much as sooner or later, Roosevelt would block them from getting oil and would probably force the dutch to do to.

I think you are addressing the wrong post. I've never been of the opinion that if the French fight on that the Japanese would invade French indochina. I was noting that in OTL they did so when the opportunity allowed for it but that this would be absent in TTL
 
I think you are addressing the wrong post. I've never been of the opinion that if the French fight on that the Japanese would invade French indochina. I was noting that in OTL they did so when the opportunity allowed for it but that this would be absent in TTL

shit, typo, sorry, i meant wouldn't.
 
shit, typo, sorry, i meant wouldn't.

Oh okay. I see what you mean now.

I also never said that the Japanese wouldn't go to war with the Allies in 1941 if France fights on. Like you I suspect how they might conquer southeast Asia would change. I was figuring that fr Indochina would be off the cards in 1940 because the opportunity wouldn't be there and they wouldn't likely want to go to war with the Allies yet. Earlier I reckoned they might try to focus in 1940 on bringing Thailand onto their side or maybe even invading it if they can do so without sparking the wider war with the European powers before they were more ready (after 1940)
 

raharris1973

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if the US doesn't enter the war and bomb Germany's infrastructure into Oblivion I don't know if the Soviet Union would have enough soldiers to make it through Poland.

That's what the British, Canadian and French Air Forces are for.

Why wouldn't the Japanese declare war against the allies like in OTL at the end of 1941 ? The powerful french eastern fleet ? (one light cruiser, 4 avisos) The powerfull armies there ? (50k men). Not having Indochina would modifiy their operational plans, but strategically it wouldn't change much as sooner or later, Roosevelt would block them from getting oil and would probably force the dutch to do to.

As you suggest, they might. Roosevelt could embargo them, probably only later than OTL. And that might be at a time (say pre-Stalingrad) where the Germans still look to be winning, the Japanese may go for it.

The modification of operational plans would be interesting.

I suspect the Japanese would use their Navy planners scheme of a clockwise series of leaps first to the Philippines, then the DEI, then back up north to Malaya and mainland Southeast Asia. This could make it more likely Malaya Singapore survives, and almost certainly prevents Japanese seizure of Burma, because the British would have more time to prepare for the Japanese coming.

The Indochina coast is pretty vulnerable in an all out campaign, but if the Japanese are spreading themselves thin then there are more prospects for more French to resist and/or escape. Depending on the axes of attack, some French could go guerrilla for awhile in Laos and Montagnard territory, and others could fall back into China and regroup reenter the territory near the end of the war.
 
No, the lack of American forces, as both a real or perceived threat, would've been decisive on the Eastern Front from 1942 onwards.
 
If the Allies defeated Italy in North Africa in 1940 and threatened Italy proper, wouldn't Hitler go for Spain and North Africa to make sure Italy was able to stay in? Barbarossa probably would go on the backburner due to having to deal with the Mediterranean.

But the changes don't materially affect the reasons for the German attack on the Soviet Union though. Hitler still wants his lebensraum and the high command still wants to strike while the Soviets are vulnerable and fight a land war which they believe to be their strength rather than a naval or amphibious one, which they believe to be their weakness. The need to garrison southern France and the Med coast will suck off forces, of course, but then the Germans brash arrogance in planning for attacking the USSR indicates that they are liable to believe they can do it on the reduced resources anyways..

Sure, the French leadership and army hasn't surrendered, but it has retreated across a large body of water protected by a far stronger navy where the Germans can no longer get at it. Its essentially the same situation as with Britain. Germany will want to take the Soviets off the board, and then turn around and deal with the British (and now French) afterwards.

Delaying does nothing for the Germans. They have even less ability to strike at the Allies overseas possessions in a FFO scenario than they did historically, and every year they spend twiddling their thumbs in Europe and glaring impotently across the Channel and the Med is another year for their enemies to grow stronger. It lets the Soviets finish re-organizing and expanding their military, while also allowing the western allies to recover, while all it gets Germany is a continued depletion of finite strategic reserves.

Also with the French gold reserves still available LL probably doesn't happen as the US requires the Allies to spend their foreign exchange down to bankruptcy before offering any aid.

At which point, LL happens anyways.

The French would not get a chance to evacuate that many men,

Depends on when the French decide to evacuate. If the decision was made in late-May when it was clear that the German encirclement had succeeded then the French very much could evacuate a force of hundreds of thousands of men and would have the forces to spare to seize Spanish Morocco.

No, the lack of American forces, as both a real or perceived threat, would've been decisive on the Eastern Front from 1942 onwards.

Given how much of a shoe-string the Germans achieved their historical successes in Barbarossa on, the threat of Anglo-French forces making a landing on the Med periphery, whether real or perceived, requiring the Germans to garrison even larger forces down there is liable to have a decisive effect in 1941. The scale of the German victories in August-October of '41 tend to hide how threadbare the resources they were conducted on were and consequently how narrowly they were achieved.
 
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Hitler didn't give a hoot about the mediterannean theater OTL, he won't give one in a FFO like TL, especialy because it won't have any foothold in Africa by the time he finish the campaign of France
IOTL France had surrendered and Vichy was cooperating. Why do you assume he wouldn't care a lot more if France has decided to fight on from North Africa with their fleet relatively intact? There is a foothold in North Africa as of June 1940...Italian Libya.

(in mid August at the earliest as CALCULATED by logisticians and people with a military background).
Source with the calculations please.

Garrison for what ? Invasion by tuaregs ? There was plenty of sovereignty forces as well as french Gendarmerie and Police to maintain order. Large military units were for defense of the territories against potential enemis, namely Italy and Spain.
Holding down the colonized peoples and against potential moves by the Italians as well as Germans who might move through Spain or Italy. Why was it garrisoned so heavily during the Battle of France and in peacetime? Do you have numbers of all these forces and calculations of what the French actually need to hold their colonies? From what I've been able to find in another discussion of this topic most of the forces in North Africa were either for training, maintaining order, or guarding it from invasion. It was not made up of the best men France had.

How ? IOTL Mussolini didn't send reinforcement before 8 July 1940.
Why didn't Italy send reinforcements before then? There wasn't really any specific need given that France was defeated and surrendered and British forces were weak in Egypt. The forces he did send were to build up for the invasion of Egypt, which wasn't until September.

And yeah i'm sure that the French could organise something in the 6 days between the Italian DoW and the fall of Reynaud government.
Organize what? Offensives take a LOT longer to organize especially given that the forces in North Africa were not offensive ones and weren't even organized into combat divisions. If you genuinely think the French could invade Italian Libya with 6 days preparation there really isn't any point arguing this further until you do a lot of reading on what it actually takes to prepare for a major offensive.

Yeah we will just pretend the 10 divisions and various other units didn't exist in NA.
List them so we can look up and see what their status was in June 1940.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_divisions_in_World_War_II#Colonial_Forces_1940
Looks like the colonial divisions were fighting in France.

Even if 2 divisions were removed from Algeria and Morocco to support the divisions in Tunisia (FFO scenario) it leave two division in Algeria and 23 infantry batallions, 2 artillery regiments, 10 "regiments" of Goums and 3 regiment of cavalr in Morocco.
How many were combat ready, had full TOE of equipment, and had sufficient combat supplies for months of operations?

How are they going to be moved around, why weren't they mobilized to attack Italy IOTL, and why weren't they sent to France where they were most needed?

The French had an expeditionnary corps of 3 divison, one mountain brigade, one heavy artillery regiment and 2 tank batallions in Syria that was placed there to support the Romanian if they had to. I'm pretty sure that some of these units could be moved to help out the british earlier. Also the 30000 british destroyed 4 italian divisions barely breaking a sweat OTL, i don't see how this would change.
Seems like a ridiculous place to have them in May-June 1940. How combat ready were they? Besides how are they leaving Syria for anywhere else given that transport was tied up evacuating from France after the military fell apart. They were pretty much stuck in place. Do you have any information about these forces in Syria, all I've been able to find so far is about the garrison of Syria, which was needed to keep them a colony after they failed to implement the independence agreement of 1936.

Also the British only attacked the Italians after they were at the end of their supply line for months and they had amassed a fully mechanized attack force. The Italians were defending on their own turf next to their own supply hubs and air fields. It was a vastly different situation in December 1940 in Egypt than it would have been in Summer 1940.

I get the feeling you know nothing about FFO. FFO is a timeline made with the help of people with actual diploma (in economy, history), helped by actual logisticians and the scenarios were wargamed several time by people from the French war school (with the worse result from the French usualy taken). I would take their informed opinion above your feelings any day of the week.
And? Doesn't mean it is realistic, just not completely ASB.
http://forum.sealionpress.co.uk/ind...-fights-on-a-k-a-the-fantasque-time-line.450/
The authors are indeed quite explicit in their intention of writing an alternate history of WW2 France as it ought to have been. They're very careful to avoid best-case scenarios (for example it takes the Wehrmacht less than two months after the POD to reach the Mediterranean), but there's a cathartic aspect to depicting France continuing the fight instead of cravenly resigning itself to defeat. And of course there's a lot of admiration for De Gaulle.
Sounds like a lot of wishful thinking went into the project.

The italian divisions were understrength, without reliable AT, with few artillery rounds and almost no aviation (and no they can't bring more, because they only had one and a half decent aerodrome.
Source on that? In June 1940 had 3 corps of 8 divisions put in place to defend against French invasion from Tunisia before they were siphoned off to reinforce the invasion of Egypt. Without France exiting the war they are going to be in place in their defensive positions and close to their primary supply source, Tripoli.

With France still in, Africa is lost to the axis earlier, Mussolini fleet is broken earlier and Mussolini would need a win to stay in power. Attacking Greece would probably look to be a good idea to this fool.
That's a lot of assumptions that sound like wishful thinking. IOTL Mussolini attacked everywhere because he was convinced a peace conference was around the corner and having fingers in as many pies a possible would mean he could get more to have his forces leave.

They just had their 3rd largest naval base in Oran. Nothing that would help i suppose.
What sort of maintenance facilities did they have? What sort of supply stockpiles? Was it set up to handle all the French fleet from the mainland? 3rd largest is a meaningless term if it was only hosting a limited force at any one time and the 2 largest bases were the primary ones that handled much larger contingents.

Evacuating i'm pretty sure the french would load their stock of naval ammunition onto the ships leaving... But i think for you lead paint was the favorite beverage of the french fleet instead of wine. For latter i'm sure that the industrial powerhouse that is the USA wouldn't mind producing new ammunition given that the French probably had their characteristics somewhere and money to buy them.
Are you evacuating equipment and supplies or men? For all that heavy weight of supply you're not taking manpower with you. What do you think is going to be French priority in the event of a bug out? Sourcing from the US of course was possible...in time. And assuming no effort is made to cut shipments across the Atlantic going into the Mediterranean off.

The problem with people assuming that Hitler would want to take out France in a TL like this is that they don't even take Hitler fucked up mind into consideration : the dude alpha and omega was destroying the USSR. IOTL he left a major enemy 22 miles of his coast to go to war with the USSR. So yeah sure he is going to ignore that his army won what looked like a massive victory against a peer opponent while the USSR humiliated itself against a minor country which made is goal of destroying judeo bolshevism once and for all to conquer North Africa for the Spanish and the Italians... It's basically like people arguing the notzis would have won a war that they wouldn't have started in the first place.
You really need to read more about the decision was made IOTL. Hitler thought he had a free had with the defeat and cooperation of France (which provided a lot of the material to enable Barbarossa IOTL, but may well not be available ITTL) to turn on the USSR, which would also convince the British there was no hope in continuing the war. France fighting on entirely changes the strategic picture, especially if they enable the fall of Libya before German forces can get there. IOTL too he couldn't invade Britain directly, they had tried that in 1940 when the RAF was at it's weakest and they couldn't pull that off then, so in 1941 it was even less likely, so other means of victory were needed. IOTL there were two option, the Mediterranean one, which wasn't coming together because Spain demanded French territory that Hitler didn't want to give due to it pissing off Vichy and undermining the sweet situation he had with occupied France, and the land based invasion of the USSR to seize the resources they were already paying for. IOTL it looked as if the invasion of the USSR was the easier option of the two; ITTL though the strategic situation is very different and the French forces in the Mediterranean need to be dealt with at very least to keep Italy in the war. Vichy isn't an obstacle to giving Spain what it demanded and without Barbarossa it was possible to supply Spain with what it asked for to get the access they needed to cut off access to the Mediterranean at Gibraltar and get a toe hold in North Africa to deal with the French while taking pressure off of Italy and hurting the British all at the same time. This isn't a 'notzi' scenario, it is having historical actors presented with a different strategic situation behaving differently because they had different incentives/demands on them.

If anything presuming 'France Fights On' because of the PM's mistress dying is the French version of 'notzis' because it ignores the incredible structural forces against France actually fighting on and is based on a lot of wishful thinking by modern Frenchmen who would like to imagine what would happen if they hadn't surrendered and helped Hitler.
 
I'm curious as to how the Italians are going to reinforce Libya when the French fleet remaining on the WAllies side gives them naval dominance of the Med.

If anything presuming 'France Fights On' because of the PM's mistress dying is the French version of 'notzis' because it ignores the incredible structural forces against France actually fighting on and is based on a lot of wishful thinking by modern Frenchmen who would like to imagine what would happen if they hadn't surrendered and helped Hitler.

This is nonsense. The reason France didn't fight on pretty much boils down to Weygand stabbing Reynaud in the back and convincing the rest of the government to overrule him. Without Weygand, there was enough support in the high leadership for it to be a credible option and the lower-levels would have followed along with whatever the leadership decided. France choosing not to fight on was a much narrower event then Hitler's decision for Barbarossa.
 

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But the changes don't materially affect the reasons for the German attack on the Soviet Union though.
Actually they do. Without Vichy cooperating it is unlikely the Germans get all the material they received from France IOTL to prepare for Barbarossa. Part of the reasoning was the ability to invade, which very well may not be the case ITTL if the French retreat with more stuff, Vichy isn't around to produce things for the Nazis, and there is enormous strategic reason to try and finish off the French before they can knock the Italians out of the war or build up with American material.

Hitler still wants his lebensraum and the high command still wants to strike while the Soviets are vulnerable and fight a land war which they believe to be their strength rather than a naval or amphibious one, which they believe to be their weakness. The need to garrison southern France and the Med coast will suck off forces, of course, but then the Germans brash arrogance in planning for attacking the USSR indicates that they are liable to believe they can do it on the reduced resources anyways..
IOTL he had the strategic freedom to do so, not ITTL. Want it or not the strategic picture is different and the French have to be dealt with sooner rather than later because of the very immediate threat they posed to Italy and the critical bases they gave to the British (not to mention the threat of the French fleet to German positions in Southern France). Hitler's high command wanted to fight the USSR because they had the strategic freedom to do so and Hitler wanted it. They followed his lead on that and were fine with it when ordered to start preparing for it. With France in the fight and the material yield from occupied, potentially restive France without a Vichy quasi-ally means there isn't the means to invade the USSR as IOTL nor the strategic freedom to spare all the necessary men, supplies, and weapons even if the Balkan situation isn't as bad due to Mussolini not leaping into Greece or Egypt.

Sure France hasn't surrendered, but it has retreated across a large body of water where the Germans can no longer get at it. Its essentially the same situation as with Britain. Germany will want to take the Soviets off the board, and then turn around and deal with the British (and now French) afterwards.
Not really, Spain is an option ITTL unlike OTL because the major obstacle of promising French territory is there. IOTL Hitler didn't want to piss off Vichy by giving it away and thought Vichy could deter British action in North Africa better than Spain alone, so didn't want to promise it. Unlike OTL ITTL removing the USSR doesn't actually present the British with a dire strategic situation of the continent cleared of potential anti-German allies, it gives the French and British free reign to focus on Italy and drive her from the war as well as build up with American help to potentially reinvade the continent when Germany is locked down in the East. Plus again without Vichy cooperating and the French evacuating men and material, probably also sabotaging a lot as they left, the material means to build up the force used IOTL isn't there. France probably enabled Barbarossa and the war in the East given its contributions to the German war effort.

Delaying does nothing for the Germans. They have even less ability to strike at the Allies overseas possessions in a FFO scenario than they did historically, and every year they spend twiddling their thumbs in Europe and glaring impotently across the Channel and the Med is another year for their enemies to grow stronger. It lets the Soviets finish re-organizing and expanding their military, while also allowing the western allies to recover, while all it gets Germany is a continued depletion of finite strategic reserves.
Are we disagreeing? Waiting to deal with the French is the worst situation. Cutting a deal with the Soviets to enter the Axis does mean attacking them is off the table, but it removes them as a threat for a long time and instead secures them as a supplier of critical resources as they move via Spain and potentially Italy on North Africa.

At which point, LL happens anyways.
Much delayed and preventing the Allies from getting nearly as much as they as early. If limited to what they could pay in cash for, they would ration what they had for longer and avoid going broke, as LL wouldn't have been on the table. So at least the Brits are limited in what they could get in 1941 and maybe 1942 if they are just using French financing to keep going.

Depends on when the French decide to evacuate. If the decision was made in late-May when it was clear that the German encirclement had succeeded then the French very much could evacuate a force of hundreds of thousands of men and would have the forces to spare to seize Spanish Morocco.
They wouldn't do that until June, because the POD is the French Fights On one, which is that the PM's mistress dies in June and isn't around to demoralize Reynaud into not evacuating. So the French are only getting started once the Germans had already broken out from Case Red around June 12th.
Given how much of a shoe-string the Germans achieved their historical successes in Barbarossa on, the threat of Anglo-French forces making a landing on the Med periphery, whether real or perceived, requiring the Germans to garrison even larger forces down there is liable to have a decisive effect in 1941. The scale of the German victories in August-October of '41 tend to hide how threadbare the resources they were conducted on were and consequently how narrowly they were achieved.
Which means the Germans don't launch Barbarossa, because they lack the resources to do so and win at the border. Even with their OTL flawed planning they recognized they were dependent on winning in the first two months at the border and if they don't have the resources in men and material to do so then they couldn't invade.
 

Deleted member 1487

I'm curious as to how the Italians are going to reinforce Libya when the French fleet remaining on the WAllies side gives them naval dominance of the Med.
How long do you think it would take the French fleet to move from evacuating as much as possible from France to switch to offensive operations in the Central Mediterranean? Oran was not exactly close to Malta and may well not be able to handle the French fleet, which would force it to disperse. Then there is the question of supplies, fuel, planning etc. As I said earlier the French will eventually be able to go on the offensive and cut off Italian Libya, but we're looking at a situation in either late 1940 or early 1941 and then there is the problem of Germany moving through Spain to cut off shipping via Gibraltar.

This is nonsense. The reason France didn't fight on pretty much boils down to Weygand stabbing Reynaud in the back and convincing the rest of the government to overrule him. Without Weygand, there was enough support in the high leadership for it to be a credible option and the lower-levels would have followed along with whatever the leadership decided. France choosing not to fight on was a much narrower event then Hitler's decision for Barbarossa.
The mistress dying is the France Fights On scenario POD. Weygand is a pretty important structural factor, as was the demoralization of the leadership. Petain also being around to support Weygand was important. But even they were only part of the pressure:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Reynaud#Support_for_an_armistice;_Reynaud's_resignation
Edward Spears recorded that Reynaud was, from the evening of 13 June, under great stress. Paul Baudouin and Marie-Joseph Paul de Villelume had been leaning on Reynaud to seek an armistice with Germany, as had his mistress, the Comtesse Hélène de Portes, a Fascist sympathizer[7]:138–142[9] On 14 June Villelume and de Portes called on the American diplomat Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr. and stated that France had no alternative but to seek an armistice and that they were speaking on behalf of Reynaud, although Biddle did not believe them.[7] :138–142

At Cabinet on 15 June, Reynaud urged the Cabinet to adopt the Dutch example, that the Army should lay down its arms so that the fight could be continued from abroad; Pétain was sympathetic.[10]:82–86 Pétain was sent to speak to General Weygand (who was waiting outside, as he was not a member of the Cabinet).[11]:325–327Weygand persuaded him that this would be a shameful surrender. Chautemps then suggested a fudge proposal, an inquiry about terms.[10]:82–86 The Cabinet voted 13-6 for the Chautemps proposal. Reynaud tried to resign on the spot but Lebrun shouted at him. Admiral Darlan, who had been opposed to an armistice until 15 June, now agreed, provided the French fleet was kept out of German hands.[11]:325–327 On 15 June, Reynaud threw two glasses of water over de Portes at dinner; a key telegram had been found in her bed after it went missing.[7]:138–142

Darlan flipping wasn't really to do with Weygand either, though Petain might have been an influence.

On 16 June de Portes kept putting her head around the door during a meeting and US diplomats testified that she was constantly coming and going from Reynaud’s office.[7] :138–142 President Roosevelt's reply to Reynaud's inquiry, stating that he could do little to help without Congressional approval, was then received on the morning of Sunday 16 June.[10]:82–86 Churchill’s telegram also arrived that morning, agreeing to an armistice provided the French fleet was moved to British ports, a proposal unacceptable to Darlan, who argued that it would leave France defenceless.[10]:82–86 De Gaulle was in London for talks about the planned Franco-British Union that afternoon. He telephoned Reynaud to inform him the British Cabinet had agreed.[8]:203–204 The French Cabinet then met in Bordeaux. Reynaud wanted to fight on; he and Georges Mandel were among the few in the cabinet to support the proposal.[12] Contrary to Lebrun’s mistaken recollection, no formal vote appears to have been taken at Cabinet on Sunday 16 June.[8]:204–205 The outcome of the meeting is unclear.[10]:82–86 Ten ministers wanted to fight on while seven favoured an armistice, though these included the two Deputy Prime Ministers: Pétain and Chautemps. An armistice was also favoured by Weygand. Another eight ministers were undecided, but ultimately swung towards an armistice. This time, Lebrun reluctantly accepted Reynaud’s resignation. De Gaulle later wrote that Reynaud was “a man of great worth unjustly crushed by events beyond measure”.[8]:204–205
FDR's telegram certainly didn't help either, nor did Churchill's suggestions. I don't see how you could really put that all on Weygand. He was just one factor among many that influenced the cabinet.
 
Actually they do. Without Vichy cooperating it is unlikely the Germans get all the material they received from France IOTL to prepare for Barbarossa. Part of the reasoning was the ability to invade, which very well may not be the case ITTL if the French retreat with more stuff, Vichy isn't around to produce things for the Nazis, and there is enormous strategic reason to try and finish off the French before they can knock the Italians out of the war or build up with American material.

While the French retreat would deny Germany a bunch of resources, they'd also still pick up plenty of loot since the French aren't gonna be able to get everything out. And Germany lacks the means to finish off the French that rapidly like they lack the means to finish off the British. All of this reasoning about the Anglo-French being a long-term threat to Germany's periphery applied to the British OTL, but that wasn't enough to convince the Germans to do a Med first strategy.

IOTL he had the strategic freedom to do so, not ITTL.

Why not? Even with France intransigent, the Germans still have all of Europe under their control and the Anglo-French represent a longer-term threat rather then a immediate-term one, as the British did OTL, which (by the Germans reasoning) can still be neutralized by knocking out the USSR. Not to mention he just can't get at them because he doesn't have the navy for it. While he won't have the resources to fight a sustained campaign in the USSR, the Germans didn't anticipate having to actually fight a sustained campaign beyond the border so it didn't factor into their decision. The fact remains that the Germans still believed a massive but short land war was easier for them then a naval conflict against Britain and making the naval balance of power even more lopsided in the WAllies favor is only going to reinforce that perception.

Not really, Spain is an option ITTL unlike OTL because the major obstacle of promising French territory is there.

Not with the Anglo-French navy in the way, it isn't.

Are we disagreeing? Waiting to deal with the French is the worst situation. Cutting a deal with the Soviets to enter the Axis does mean attacking them is off the table, but it removes them as a threat for a long time and instead secures them as a supplier of critical resources as they move via Spain and potentially Italy on North Africa.

So was waiting to deal with the British in favor of knocking out the Soviets, but the Germans still decided that was the better option.

Except France can't be dealt with and if the Soviets are knocked out, their as superfluous as the British.
Much delayed and preventing the Allies from getting nearly as much as they as early. If limited to what they could pay in cash for, they would ration what they had for longer and avoid going broke, as LL wouldn't have been on the table. So at least the Brits are limited in what they could get in 1941 and maybe 1942 if they are just using French financing to keep going.

Not really. When you boil it down to it's essentials, "Lend-Lease" is just the point at which the British ran out of money to pay for their purchases, and the Americans started providing weapons to them based on "consideration." If the Allies get what they did from L-L with cash payment, then the only thing that really changes is the point at which the WAllies start getting that quantity on credit instead of on payment.

They wouldn't do that until June, because the POD is the French Fights On one, which is that the PM's mistress dies in June and isn't around to demoralize Reynaud into not evacuating. So the French are only getting started once the Germans had already broken out from Case Red around June 12th.

Ah, that is a trickier one. Yeah, June's probably too late. Then again, once the French knock Italy out of North Africa, they could turn some of those forces around to handle Spanish Morrocco. I'll admit that's a "maybe" though.

Which means the Germans don't launch Barbarossa, because they lack the resources to do so and win at the border. Even with their OTL flawed planning they recognized they were dependent on winning in the first two months at the border and if they don't have the resources in men and material to do so then they couldn't invade.

Except they do? There's a reason I specified "July-August" in my post. The Germans won at the border handily, roughly twice as fast as they expected too, and still would have the resources to do so IATL. Those weren't the victories which were narrow. It was when the Germans advanced to the D'niepr and discovered Soviet armies that weren't supposed to exist according to the plan that they started having to run on improvisation and shoe-strings. IATL, the Germans do still have the resources to win at the border at the border, what they don't have are the resources to win at Smolensk and Kiev. But as OTL shows, they didn't know they'd have to fight at Smolensk and Kiev anyways.

How long do you think it would take the French fleet to move from evacuating as much as possible from France to switch to offensive operations in the Central Mediterranean? Oran was not exactly close to Malta and may well not be able to handle the French fleet, which would force it to disperse. Then there is the question of supplies, fuel, planning etc. As I said earlier the French will eventually be able to go on the offensive and cut off Italian Libya, but we're looking at a situation in either late 1940 or early 1941 and then there is the problem of Germany moving through Spain to cut off shipping via Gibraltar.

Pretty quickly. I don't know what this talk about Oran is all about, given that Tunis is a major French port and naval base which is right there and with Libya blockaded, it'll fall pretty quickly making Gibraltar superfluous.

The mistress dying is the France Fights On scenario POD.

Yeah, I missed that initially. Would be rather late then. And probably inadequate. Weygand was the main driver, not Reynaud's mistress.

Petain also being around to support Weygand was important. But even they were only part of the pressure:

Did you even read what you quoted? According to it, Petain initially supported Reynaud but Weygand convinced him otherwise, which further influenced the rest of the cabinet. That rather reinforces that it was his influence which persuaded much of the French council to reject Reynaud.

Weygand is a pretty important structural factor, as was the demoralization of the leadership.

Those two factors are not independent of each other. Weygand's pessimism heavily influenced the demoralization of the leadership.

Darlan flipping wasn't really to do with Weygand either, though Petain might have been an influence.

Weygand brought in Petain, so yeah it had to do with Weygand.
 
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raharris1973

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The Germans could also reason themselves into thinking that occupying Russia is the only way to get to the British and French, by invading the Middle East through the Caucasus and strong-arming passage through Turkey. After defeating the USSR, so they would think, they could leisurely advance their land forc s and ground-based AirPower through the Middle East and then North Africa, while building up their fleet for the long term.
 
Franco was going to declare war on GB about the same time as German tanks were 10 minutes drive from Buckingham Palace. Absent food and petroleum from the Western Hemisphere, simply feeding and housing Spain, let alone any sort of rebuilding of the shattered mess, was simply impossible. In October, 1940, when Hitler and Franco met, the USSR was still shipping all sorts of goodies (including food and petroleum) to Germany and Hitler was still in no position to give Franco the sorts of supplies he needed if Spain lost those imports. The territorial goodies Franco wanted were somewhat irrelevant - the French cessions he wanted (after final victory) would mean nothing if Spain starved and wheels did not turn. In fact, if France is still fighting, which means North Africa is mostly under Allied control immediately and the Italians will be ejected or reduced to impotence, the value of Spain is decreased as seizing Gibraltar really doesn't help much (assuming this can be done).

Assuming the British and French manage to occupy all of Libya before Barbarossa kicks off (ignoring butterfly effects that change Yugoslavia and Greece), why would Hitler divert major forces to Italy. If Italy loses quickly in North Africa, then forces that would have been lost there are still in Italy available to fight if there is an invasion. There is no way Britain and France can pull off an invasion of Sicily/Sardinia/Corsica any time in 1941even with the extra forces that escaped France and the French fleet. Absent a realistic threat of invasion, Germany has no reason to send significant forces to Italy, in fact in this scenario with no losses in North Africa or forces deployed there they are somewhat better off for Barbarossa. In this scenario the Mediterranean theater in spring 1941 is a standoff, the Germans hold the north shore, and the Aegean Islands as well as Sicily/Sardinia/Corsica, the Allies hold the south shore and Malta and for the moment except for raids, air attacks, naval clashes, neither side can really get at the other.
 

Deleted member 1487

While the French retreat would deny Germany a bunch of resources, they'd also still pick up plenty of loot since the French aren't gonna be able to get everything out.
Sure, but the point is that without Vichy organizing the hand over of anything the Germans wanted they'd have less than IOTL and would require more of their own resources to finish off France; occupy, restore and administer the population and economy; and defend it all.

And Germany lacks the means to finish off the French that rapidly like they lack the means to finish off the British. All of this reasoning about the Anglo-French being a long-term threat to Germany's periphery applied to the British OTL, but that wasn't enough to convince the Germans to do a Med first strategy.
In terms of what was in North Africa or what was in France outside of what they conquered IOTL?
Why do you assume a very different political/strategic situation wouldn't change the strategy Hitler followed?

Why not? Even with France intransigent, the Germans still have all of Europe under their control and the Anglo-French represent a longer-term threat rather then a immediate-term one, as the British did OTL, which (by the Germans reasoning) can still be neutralized by knocking out the USSR. Not to mention he just can't get at them because he doesn't have the navy for it. While he won't have the resources to fight a sustained campaign in the USSR, the Germans didn't anticipate having to actually fight a sustained campaign beyond the border so it didn't factor into their decision. The fact remains that the Germans still believed a massive but short land war was easier for them then a naval conflict against Britain and making the naval balance of power even more lopsided in the WAllies favor is only going to reinforce that perception.
I told you why not: lack of OTL resources, extra resources being spent in conquering all of France, administering it, getting it running again, and having to deal with the continued French threat in the Mediterranean and against Italy. IOTL a lot of German resources were spent propping up Italy to keep them in the war and with the threat of the French against them keeping Italy in the war means going after the French government in exile in North Africa. Plus the Mediterranean strategy then also takes the fight to the French empire. Whether or not this still means the Battle of Britain happens or not is debatable, but those resources might well go into making sure the French can't continue the fight from North Africa instead.

The navy isn't required if they have Spain as a base to deploy land and air forces to North Africa and the periphery, especially as it cuts the easiest supply route to French North Africa, while allowing Uboats to forward deploy in Spain (potentially Portugal too if they either one join the Axis for fear of invasion or side with the Allies and get invaded) and really make supply of Africa difficult, while putting Uboats out of RAF bombing range.

The point about no Barbarossa due to material deficits isn't fighting a sustained campaign, it's about lacking the resources to pull off the short victorious campaign they were planning on fighting. Their entire plan was predicated on crushing Soviet armies at the border so effectively that they couldn't withdraw and continue the fight deeper in the USSR and that that would leave Stalin without forces to continue fighting. If they don't have the necessary material to win the huge border battles they planned and know it, then even Hitler has to acknowledge that they can't get a short victory, removing the entire rationale behind the invasion.

The Mediterranean strategy ITTL isn't about a naval battle, it's about using land and air units to close the Mediterranean via the Straits of Gibraltar and force French forces in North Africa to capitulate. At the same time that then opens up North Africa to further operations against Egypt and the Middle East and with it the heart of the British empire.

Not with the Anglo-French navy in the way, it isn't.
How are they going to actually stop it? The French navy, that is whatever survived, is disordered and without their primary bases and supply source. The British navy is mostly defending it's shipping lanes and Home Isles. The Straits are so narrow that besides land based artillery air units have a nice concentrated hunting ground to cut any traffic. Neither the British or French are ready in Summer 1940 to launch a ground campaign against Spain and the Allied blockade has been blown open for some time until it can adjust to losing France and adapt to the new strategic situation.

So was waiting to deal with the British in favor of knocking out the Soviets, but the Germans still decided that was the better option.
There was more a logic there when it was just a weakened Britain to deal with who had lost all of her allies and was being interdicted by Uboats. France still in the fight with their navy and threatening Italy is a very different strategic situation.

Except France can't be dealt with and if the Soviets are knocked out, their as superfluous as the British.
How can't France be dealt with? Paying Spain's price for entry is very doable without Barbarossa and from there exists the means to deploy to Northwest Africa and cut off the supply lines the French have from North Africa and Britain. The British had enough trouble supplying themselves in the Mediterranean IOTL even with Gibraltar open, but having to supply the French as well with the Gibraltar route cut is going to be insurmountable.

Not really. When you boil it down to it's essentials, "Lend-Lease" is just the point at which the British ran out of money to pay for their purchases, and the Americans started providing weapons to them based on "consideration." If the Allies get what they did from L-L with cash payment, then the only thing that really changes is the point at which the WAllies start getting that quantity on credit instead of on payment.
LL provided vastly greater supplies than what the British were able to buy with cash and carry. The point is they won't be able to get what they got IOTL with just cash, even spending all out. Britain alone got something like $34 Billion in LL, but spent only a fraction of that in cash before they went broke; France had $3 billion in gold (part of it was still in France IOTL so not even available to the Allies) and without LL even on the table (only offered after it was clear the Allies were nearly broke, not before so the Allies couldn't plan on it coming about) they could only afford a limited amount of US Cash and Carry. Remember too that LL included US shipping help, Cash and Carry was limited to what the Allies could actually carry themselves on their own shipping (or what they could hire with cash from US companies). That is it's own throttle as well.

Ah, that is a trickier one. Yeah, June's probably too late. Then again, once the French knock Italy out of North Africa, they could turn some of those forces around to handle Spanish Morrocco. I'll admit that's a "maybe" though.
The question is how long that would take. They could do it eventually and the French navy would be critical to that...but given the late bug out it would probably take a while to get organized to deal with the Italians, who are preparing for what is coming, and hope in the meantime the Germans aren't in Spain and cutting their supply lines from the Atlantic.

Except they do? There's a reason I specified "July-August" in my post. The Germans won at the border handily, roughly twice as fast as they expected too, and still would have the resources to do so IATL. Those weren't the victories which were narrow. It was when the Germans advanced to the D'niepr and discovered Soviet armies that weren't supposed to exist according to the plan that they started having to run on improvisation and shoe-strings. IATL, the Germans do still have the resources to win at the border at the border, what they don't have are the resources to win at Smolensk and Kiev. But as OTL shows, they didn't know they'd have to fight at Smolensk and Kiev anyways.
IOTL yes, because they had the resources for it. Lacking those resources they can't and since you yourself have just said they weren't even expecting to win that fast if they are already assuming worse than what they were actually capable of having even less resources only increases that pessimism for being able to win quickly enough to make the operation viable.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth now; you're pointing out how costly the situation in France would be to resources for Barbarossa, but then claiming that doesn't matter, it's only a long term issue. Having having all the material and manpower they had IOTL is already going to impact the early operations. The Germans were never as strong as they were on June 22nd after the campaign commenced, so lacking resources up front means they are already having to factor in to their plan their lessened capabilities. Considering how much of a drain full occupation and administration of France would be while the French government in exile is less than a day's sail away in Algeria and what would have to be done to bolster the Italians (who now can't send help to Russia) there are going to be critical deficits that planners would have to factor in to the operation. Since they were already more pessimistic about the time frame required to get a border victory and chance at preventing the Soviets from withdrawing and extending the campaign, missing all those resources puts the kibosh on the vital planning assumption that it was possible to actually win the campaign quickly and at the border; without doing that invading the USSR isn't viable because an extended campaign is too draining and opens the deadly possibility of an extended two (or rather 3 in this case) war.

Whether or not they could win the border battles quickly is immaterial, it's a question of whether or not the Germans think they can. As you already noted they were assuming things would be worse at the border than it actually was, so its hard to argue then that ITTL with less resources to launch the initial invasion that they'd assume they could even do as well as they thought they were going to IOTL.

Pretty quickly. I don't know what this talk about Oran is all about, given that Tunis is a major French port and naval base which is right there and with Libya blockaded, it'll fall pretty quickly making Gibraltar superfluous.
I'm going off of what the other poster said. Tunis is a major port, not a naval base AFAIK. The French fleet was never based in Tunisia. The question is what sort of capacity that port would have for sustaining military vessels and what sorts of supplies exist in North Africa and what facilities existed for moving them from Algeria into Tunis, where they could be stored, and how quickly it could all be organized.

How would Libya falling make Gibraltar superfluous? That was the route to actually get supplies to French North Africa. Libya makes no difference to that other than removing vital French forces to resist an Axis push against Gibraltar and then out of Spain into Morocco. At that point the French can have fun rotting on the vine in Libya.

Yeah, I missed that initially. Would be rather late then. And probably inadequate. Weygand was the main driver, not Reynaud's mistress.
He was a factor, but so were Petain and Darlan among others.

Did you even read what you quoted? According to it, Petain initially supported Reynaud but Weygand convinced him otherwise, which further influenced the rest of the cabinet. That rather reinforces that it was his influence which persuaded much of the French council to reject Reynaud.
You don't think the worsening situation would have convinced Petain on his own? By all accounts Petain came into the situation with little faith in continued resistance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pétain#Fall_of_France
Petain was pushing for an armistice before the 15th when the quote state Petain was sympathetic to Reynaud's call for continued resistance. That's am ambiguous phrase and based on what was being said before the 15th it seems more likely that Petain was making sympathetic noises to Reynaud before continuing the push for an armistice:
Churchill then said the French should consider "guerrilla warfare". Pétain then replied that it would mean the destruction of the country. Churchill then said the French should defend Paris and reminded Petain of how he had come to the aid of the British with forty divisions in March 1918, and repeating Clemenceau's words "I will fight in front of Paris, in Paris, and behind Paris". To this, Churchill subsequently reported, Pétain replied quietly and with dignity that he had in those days a strategic reserve of sixty divisions; now, there were none, and the British ought to be providing divisions to aid France. Making Paris into a ruin would not affect the final event. At the conference Pétain met de Gaulle for the first time in two years. Pétain noted his recent promotion to general, adding that he did not congratulate him, as ranks were of no use in defeat. When de Gaulle protested that Pétain himself had been promoted to brigadier-general and division commander at the Battle of the Marne in 1914, he replied that there was "no comparison" with the present situation. De Gaulle later conceded that Pétain was right about that much at least.[32]

On 12 June, after a second session of the conference, the cabinet met and Weygand again called for an armistice. He referred to the danger of military and civil disorder and the possibility of a Communist uprising in Paris. Pétain and Minister of Information Prouvost urged the cabinet to hear Weygand out because "he was the only one really to know what was happening".

Churchill returned to France on the 13th for another conference at Tours. Paul Baudouin met his plane and immediately spoke to him of the hopelessness of further French resistance. Reynaud then put the cabinet's armistice proposals to Churchill, who replied that "whatever happened, we would level no reproaches against France". At that day's cabinet meeting, Pétain strongly supported Weygand’s demand for an armistice and read out a draft proposal to the cabinet where he spoke of "the need to stay in France, to prepare a national revival, and to share the sufferings of our people. It is impossible for the government to abandon French soil without emigrating, without deserting. The duty of the government is, come what may, to remain in the country, or it could not longer be regarded as the government". Several ministers were still opposed to an armistice, and Weygand immediately lashed out at them for even leaving Paris. Like Pétain, he said he would never leave France.[33]

The government moved to Bordeaux, where French governments had fled German invasions in 1870 and 1914, on 14 June. By coincidence, on the evening of 14 June in Bordeaux de Gaulle dined in the same restaurant as Pétain; he came over to shake his hand in silence, and they never met again.[34]

Parliament, both senate and chamber, were also at Bordeaux and immersed themselves in the armistice debate. At cabinet on 15 June Reynaud urged that France follow the Dutch example, that the Army should lay down its arms so that the fight could be continued from abroad. Pétain was sympathetic.[35] Pétain was sent to speak to Weygand (who was waiting outside, as he was not a member of the cabinet) for around fifteen minutes.[36] Weygand persuaded him that Reynaud's suggestion would be a shameful surrender. Chautemps then proposed a fudge proposal, an inquiry about terms.[37] The Cabinet voted 13-6 for the Chautemps proposal. Admiral Darlan, who had been opposed to an armistice until 15 June, now became a key player, agreeing provided the French fleet was kept out of German hands.[38]

Darlan seems to have been the decisive voice, not Petain. All Weygand did with Petain was convince him that fleeing would be more of a surrender than an armistice, as prior to this conversation Petain had been urging a deal already and that continued resistance would just mean more unnecessary bloodshed. And that was before they had fled to Bordeaux. Days before Petain already said he'd never leave France and it was Weygand that stepped up to support him.

Those two factors are not independent of each other. Weygand's pessimism heavily influenced the demoralization of the leadership.
Read the above, they were already demoralized before Weygand talked to Petain on the 15th. Darlan's shifting position had a greater influence on the cabinet than Weygand and Petain.

Weygand brought in Petain, so yeah it had to do with Weygand.
What? Petain was brought in by Reynaud:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pétain#Return_into_government
When World War II began in September, Pétain turned down Daladier's offer of a position in his government. However on 18 May 1940, after Germany invaded France; Pétain joined the new government of Paul Reynaud. Reynaud hoped that the hero of Verdun might instill a renewed spirit of resistance and patriotism in the French Army.[26]

Petain already came in demoralized:
On 24 May, the invading Germans pushed back the French Army. General Maxime Weygand expressed his fury at British retreats and the unfulfilled promise of British fighter aircraft. He and Pétain regarded the military situation as hopeless. Reynaud subsequently stated before a parliamentary commission of inquiry in December 1940 that he said, as Premier of France to Pétain on that day that they must seek an armistice.

Petain was already talking about cutting a deal on May 24th per Reynaud.

On 8 June, Paul Baudouin dined with Chautemps, and both declared that the war must end. Paris was now threatened, and the government was preparing to depart, although Pétain was opposed to such a move. During a cabinet meeting that day, Reynaud argued that before asking for an armistice, France would have to get Britain's permission to be relieved from their accord of March 1940 not to sign a separate cease fire. Pétain replied that "the interests of France come before those of Britain. Britain got us into this position, let us now try to get out of it".
 

Deleted member 1487

Franco was going to declare war on GB about the same time as German tanks were 10 minutes drive from Buckingham Palace. Absent food and petroleum from the Western Hemisphere, simply feeding and housing Spain, let alone any sort of rebuilding of the shattered mess, was simply impossible. In October, 1940, when Hitler and Franco met, the USSR was still shipping all sorts of goodies (including food and petroleum) to Germany and Hitler was still in no position to give Franco the sorts of supplies he needed if Spain lost those imports. The territorial goodies Franco wanted were somewhat irrelevant - the French cessions he wanted (after final victory) would mean nothing if Spain starved and wheels did not turn. In fact, if France is still fighting, which means North Africa is mostly under Allied control immediately and the Italians will be ejected or reduced to impotence, the value of Spain is decreased as seizing Gibraltar really doesn't help much (assuming this can be done).
Per Spanish sources Franco was very serious about entering the war at Heyada and thought Hitler would give him what he wanted. They still did reach and agreement, but without the supplies he wasn't going to join in. The problem of supply was one of Hitler already planning for Barbarossa and needing those supplies for the invasion; they were certainly there already, it was just a matter of what to spend them on, IOTL for Hitler it was Barbarossa. However we are talking about TTL, where France is fighting on and there is a much greater strategic need and ability to pay Franco's price, though this would come at the expense of Barbarossa. Spain of course had it's own challenges and wouldn't be contributing that much in terms of economic power, but it still had divisions to contribute and of course basing and means of projecting into North Africa. Rebuilding Spanish infrastructure would have been a lot cheaper than invading the USSR and having to rebuild their rail system and yielded quite a bit more strategic benefits.

A French government and whatever forces they could pull out of France (I've seen some claims that the French government assumed at most 200,000 men) would be in chaos trying to reorder itself and what was left of it's forces and unable to go on the offensive any time soon, especially without significant industry in North Africa to supply and sustain it's forces. Britain is pulling back to defend the Home Isles after France was occupied and of little assistance in the immediate future. Even if Italy is defeated in Libya closing Gibraltar cuts the Atlantic highway of shipments of supplies from the US and Britain, which not only hurts the British (they sent a number of convoys to Egypt and Malta through Gibraltar throughout the 1940-42 period of crisis), but especially the French who depend on external supplies to keep their forces going. The forces there IOTL 1942 at least were getting shipments from Vichy from 1940-42. Losing their American and British shipments means the end of French resistance even if it is sitting in Libya. Having to ship supplies around Africa through the Suez wasn't even enough for the British IOTL when they didn't even have the French to worry about, having to supply both the government in exile in North Africa and the Middle East would be beyond what the convoys could actually pull off especially relying on Cash and Carry supplies and their own shattered merchant shipping in 1940-41.

Assuming the British and French manage to occupy all of Libya before Barbarossa kicks off (ignoring butterfly effects that change Yugoslavia and Greece), why would Hitler divert major forces to Italy. If Italy loses quickly in North Africa, then forces that would have been lost there are still in Italy available to fight if there is an invasion. There is no way Britain and France can pull off an invasion of Sicily/Sardinia/Corsica any time in 1941even with the extra forces that escaped France and the French fleet. Absent a realistic threat of invasion, Germany has no reason to send significant forces to Italy, in fact in this scenario with no losses in North Africa or forces deployed there they are somewhat better off for Barbarossa. In this scenario the Mediterranean theater in spring 1941 is a standoff, the Germans hold the north shore, and the Aegean Islands as well as Sicily/Sardinia/Corsica, the Allies hold the south shore and Malta and for the moment except for raids, air attacks, naval clashes, neither side can really get at the other.
Why do you assume Barbarossa would even happen given Hitler's insistence IOTL on keeping Italy in the war? With the direct threat of the French fleet and evacuated forces to North Africa Italy is in imminent danger of being severely defeated and potentially driven from the war. Given the disproportionate forces and supplies sent to Rommel IOTL Hitler really was serious about Italy being sustained and was very fearful of what would happen if they were driven out of the war, he didn't and couldn't allow that to happen, which means taking care of the immediate threat. Plus as of Summer 1940 Hitler wasn't even settled on invading the USSR, that was a decision made in late December 1940 when Vichy was well established and the British not yet pushing into Libya. When the threat mounted against Italy Hitler diverted pretty critical forces, mobile units and a lot of trucks and aircraft, to keep Italy in North Africa and stop the British from getting a foothold in the region or in Greece. IOTL it was safe to launch Barbarossa in the minds of Hitler and his staff because the Brits were checked in Libya by Rommel, Malta was suppressed, Greece was about to be dealt with and forces would be back in place in time for the invasion of Russia. None of that is true ITTL. IOTL it was possible to keep only about 100,000 men in France in 1940 thanks to Vichy, which is not the case ITTL. Strategically and politically Hitler has to deal with the French before being safe to deal with the USSR, because otherwise there is no way to safely assemble the necessary men and material to pull it off and a situation like what you describe, ceding the Mediterranean to the Allies, is unacceptable to Hitler, as it makes them too strong and gives them a strong base from which to eventually invade the continent, especially Italy.
 
Sure, but the point is that without Vichy organizing the hand over of anything the Germans wanted they'd have less than IOTL and would require more of their own resources to finish off France; occupy, restore and administer the population and economy; and defend it all.

Sure, but not to the point that the Germans won't feel that they won't be able to defeat the USSR.

In terms of what was in North Africa or what was in France outside of what they conquered IOTL?
Why do you assume a very different political/strategic situation wouldn't change the strategy Hitler followed?

Because your claim that the political/strategic situation is that different simply doesn't hold water. It's fundamentally still the same as OTL late-1940/early-1941 except less favorable to the Germans. Germany still lacks the means to prosecute a naval expeditionary war in the Med, except even more so with the French navy opposing them and the lack of French resources, and the German high command know it. Their comfort zone remains in massive land war. Hitler still has his ideological preference for achieving lebensraum. The French, like the British pose a long-term threat as they reorganize and get American aid and, from the German perspective, can be rendered an irrelevancy by a defeat and conquest of the USSR which, the Germans believe, should only take a couple of months maximum as opposed to the sort of multi-year long campaign the Mediterranean campaign calls for.

I told you why not: lack of OTL resources, extra resources being spent in conquering all of France, administering it, getting it running again, and having to deal with the continued French threat in the Mediterranean and against Italy. IOTL a lot of German resources were spent propping up Italy to keep them in the war and with the threat of the French against them keeping Italy in the war means going after the French government in exile in North Africa. Plus the Mediterranean strategy then also takes the fight to the French empire. Whether or not this still means the Battle of Britain happens or not is debatable, but those resources might well go into making sure the French can't continue the fight from North Africa instead.

The resources spent propping up Italy in 1941-42 were a drop in the bucket compared to the Eastern Front and a increased, while a drag, isn't going to be much of a decisive finish. Meanwhile, a Med strategy is rendered more infeasible, not less, by the French still being in due to the naval balance of power being even more egregiously against the Germans.

The navy isn't required if they have Spain as a base to deploy land and air forces to North Africa and the periphery, especially as it cuts the easiest supply route to French North Africa, while allowing Uboats to forward deploy in Spain (potentially Portugal too if they either one join the Axis for fear of invasion or side with the Allies and get invaded) and really make supply of Africa difficult, while putting Uboats out of RAF bombing range.

Yes it is. Leaving aside that the price of getting Spain in is liable to go up as Franco, on top of his historical reluctance to join, is now faced with the very real prospect of losing his overseas colonies to a Anglo-French counter-invasion without Vichy France and Italian colonies acting as a buffer, Anglo-French naval superiority means that French North Africa can be supplied through the Suez on the one hand and the Atlantic coast on the other even if Gibraltar falls.

The point about no Barbarossa due to material deficits isn't fighting a sustained campaign, it's about lacking the resources to pull off the short victorious campaign they were planning on fighting. Their entire plan was predicated on crushing Soviet armies at the border so effectively that they couldn't withdraw and continue the fight deeper in the USSR and that that would leave Stalin without forces to continue fighting. If they don't have the necessary material to win the huge border battles they planned and know it, then even Hitler has to acknowledge that they can't get a short victory, removing the entire rationale behind the invasion.

Except they do still have the necessary material to win the huge border battles, which disintegrates your entire point.

The Mediterranean strategy ITTL isn't about a naval battle, it's about using land and air units to close the Mediterranean via the Straits of Gibraltar and force French forces in North Africa to capitulate. At the same time that then opens up North Africa to further operations against Egypt and the Middle East and with it the heart of the British empire.

Which is wishful thinking. Libya will be secured before the Germans could possibly make their move and that leaves the supply routes open with or without Gibraltar.

How are they going to actually stop it? The French navy, that is whatever survived, is disordered and without their primary bases and supply source. The British navy is mostly defending it's shipping lanes and Home Isles. The Straits are so narrow that besides land based artillery air units have a nice concentrated hunting ground to cut any traffic. Neither the British or French are ready in Summer 1940 to launch a ground campaign against Spain and the Allied blockade has been blown open for some time until it can adjust to losing France and adapt to the new strategic situation.

As it was historically, the overwhelming bulk of the French Navy survived the fall of France quite well intact and in order. The British too were able to maintain a force equal to the Italians in the Med IOTL 1940-41, add the French to that and it becomes overwhelmingly against the Italians such that they can't really operate surface forces south of Malta.

How can't France be dealt with? Paying Spain's price for entry is very doable without Barbarossa and from there exists the means to deploy to Northwest Africa and cut off the supply lines the French have from North Africa and Britain. The British had enough trouble supplying themselves in the Mediterranean IOTL even with Gibraltar open, but having to supply the French as well with the Gibraltar route cut is going to be insurmountable.

. The claim that the British have more trouble supplying themselves with greater naval dominance of the Med and Libya secured is so ludicrous as to not be worth addressing.

LL provided vastly greater supplies than what the British were able to buy with cash and carry. The point is they won't be able to get what they got IOTL with just cash, even spending all out. Britain alone got something like $34 Billion in LL, but spent only a fraction of that in cash before they went broke; France had $3 billion in gold (part of it was still in France IOTL so not even available to the Allies) and without LL even on the table (only offered after it was clear the Allies were nearly broke, not before so the Allies couldn't plan on it coming about) they could only afford a limited amount of US Cash and Carry. Remember too that LL included US shipping help, Cash and Carry was limited to what the Allies could actually carry themselves on their own shipping (or what they could hire with cash from US companies). That is it's own throttle as well.

So basically the only difference I'm hearing is that the Anglo-French get 31 billion in L-L instead of 34 billion, with the 3 billion dollar difference being made out of French gold. Again, Lend-Lease is only the point that the US started taking stuff on credit instead of on payment. It isn't even the point when the US began provisioning military aid for the WAllies, that pre-dates L-L by quite a bit.

The question is how long that would take. They could do it eventually and the French navy would be critical to that...but given the late bug out it would probably take a while to get organized to deal with the Italians, who are preparing for what is coming, and hope in the meantime the Germans aren't in Spain and cutting their supply lines from the Atlantic.

Pretty quickly. As it is, the French Navy survived and withdrew to the colonies in a quite organized fashion even before the armistice and was quite capable of operations from a very early stage, which is what prompted the British to attack them at Mers-El-Kebir after their surrender. The late bugout would mainly affect land forces available: air and naval withdrawals happened independently of the armistice decision as a precaution. The claim that the Italians are prepared IATL flies in the face of the historical evidence where the Italians showed themselves quite unprepared for what was coming OTL despite it being a much more favorable situation for the Italians to prepare.

IOTL yes, because they had the resources for it. Lacking those resources they can't and since you yourself have just said they weren't even expecting to win that fast if they are already assuming worse than what they were actually capable of having even less resources only increases that pessimism for being able to win quickly enough to make the operation viable.

The Germans had the resources to win at the border and still will IATL. They don't have the resources for prosecuting the war deep into the USSR, but then they ultimately didn't have that OTL and didn't care since their assumption was entirely that the border battles would decide the war. Given that they'll have that same assumption, Barbarossa is liable to still go forward.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth now; you're pointing out how costly the situation in France would be to resources for Barbarossa, but then claiming that doesn't matter, it's only a long term issue.

Because most of the losses would be logistical in nature and attacking into the depths of the USSR would be logistically demanding whereas fighting a quick border battle followed by a glorified motorized version of the 1918 railway occupation wouldn't be, which is why the Germans were counting on it. However, if we want to talk about talking about out of both sides of our mouths, I should point out that if your argument is that, then the Germans not having the French surrender leaves them so depleted that they can't win the 1941 June-July border battles then that also means the Germans are so depleted that they lack the resources to assault all the way across French North Africa, Libya, and finally Egypt. The logistical tail required, particularly with sea routes closed off to them, would easily be on a similar scale to Russia's. If Germany lacks the resources for a short campaign in Russia, then it certainly lacks the resources for a long one in the Med. Especially from the German perspective, who believed that knocking out Russia was the easier of the two tasks.

How would Libya falling make Gibraltar superfluous? That was the route to actually get supplies to French North Africa. Libya makes no difference to that other than removing vital French forces to resist an Axis push against Gibraltar and then out of Spain into Morocco. At that point the French can have fun rotting on the vine in Libya.

Because British and French merchant ships are free to sail across the southern med and port in Tunis whereas OTL, the British couldn't enter. The Atlantic coast would also still be open to resupply, although how well the French could move those supplies across Morocco and into Algieria is still a open question. Nonetheless, it would be adequate to support a swift occupation of Spanish Morocco, which is very small, poorly defended, and very nearby. And the addition of French destroyers to the Battle of the Atlantic would also be helpful for the British.

He was a factor, but so were Petain and Darlan among others.

He was pretty much the tipping factor.

You don't think the worsening situation would have convinced Petain on his own? By all accounts Petain came into the situation with little faith in continued resistance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pétain#Fall_of_France
Petain was pushing for an armistice before the 15th when the quote state Petain was sympathetic to Reynaud's call for continued resistance. That's am ambiguous phrase and based on what was being said before the 15th it seems more likely that Petain was making sympathetic noises to Reynaud before continuing the push for an armistice:

Your own quote shows that Petain was supportive of Reynaud's idea.

Darlan seems to have been the decisive voice, not Petain. All Weygand did with Petain was convince him that fleeing would be more of a surrender than an armistice, as prior to this conversation Petain had been urging a deal already and that continued resistance would just mean more unnecessary bloodshed. And that was before they had fled to Bordeaux. Days before Petain already said he'd never leave France and it was Weygand that stepped up to support him.

Darlan only came out after Weynaud talked Petain into opposing a retreat, so the casual link there is pretty obvious.

Read the above, they were already demoralized before Weygand talked to Petain on the 15th. Darlan's shifting position had a greater influence on the cabinet than Weygand and Petain.

And they were demoralized because Weygand had been talking about how hopeless fighting on would be since he was appointed Supreme Commander's position in late-May. He demoralized the cabinet.


Petain was brought around to a anti-evacuation stance by Weygand.

Petain already came in demoralized:

Petain was already talking about cutting a deal on May 24th per Reynaud.

And yet, as your earlier quote showed, he supported Reynaud's June 12th proposal to fight on until Weygand talked him out of it.
 
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raharris1973

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I wonder what positive effect, if any, the persistence of the French fleet in the allied service would have for Allied antisubmarine warfare?

If the submarine war is weakened earlier it makes ultimate US entry into the ground and air war in Europe all the less likely, no matter how pro-Allied the US is.
 

raharris1973

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Earlier in in 1941 he had been pondering when, not if, to initiate full on war with the US. He considered the US to be waging war in Germany with out the formalities. The routine reports from the AT-3 communications link between London and Washington irritated him to no end, the US occupation of Iceland in the summer of 1941 was another irritant. If he'd not been completely wrapped up in initiating Operation BARBAROSSA the landing of US Marines on Iceland very possibly could have initiated a DoW.

Hey Wiking, if your thinking is that FFO means an involuntary postponement of Barbarossa, does that rule out a DoW on the USA, who by 1941 will be a huge arsenal for British and French Empires? Carl Schwamberger offered the logic before that if not for Barbarossa, Hitler would have DoW'ed the US in retaliation for its aid to Britain and the US forward policy in the Atlantic.
 

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Hey Wiking, if your thinking is that FFO means an involuntary postponement of Barbarossa, does that rule out a DoW on the USA, who by 1941 will be a huge arsenal for British and French Empires? Carl Schwamberger offered the logic before that if not for Barbarossa, Hitler would have DoW'ed the US in retaliation for its aid to Britain and the US forward policy in the Atlantic.
I didn't see this, make sure next time to at the 'at' symbol.
That's actually a really interesting question I hadn't though of or necessarily have a good answer to.
I'm not sure that Hitler would have DoWed the US for it's policy, he was trying to keep them out of the war and if pursuing a Mediterranean strategy it would be counter productive to bring the US into the war in 1940-41 if the goal was to defeat the Allies.

Now we also need to look at the situation of US politics with the French fighting on, no LL due to French gold stocks being available, no invasion of the USSR meaning the US communists/left don't turn on Hitler and start beating the war drum (the USSR was doing a lot to fund the anti-war movement in the US in favor of Germany prior to Barbarossa), and so on. Of course if Hitler does get the Spanish into the war then things might get interesting in terms of US politics, especially if it means the Allies suffer badly as a result. There could well end up being more incidents in the Atlantic as a result of Hitler not turning East and focusing on defeating the Allies completely.

A lot depends on what plan Hitler does take and what the results in 1940 are. If the Allies are really on the ropes as of 1941, then Roosevelt might get more aggressive than IOTL in 1941, but aside from that I'm not sure what it would actually take to provoke Hitler to DoW the US early ITTL.

Sure, but not to the point that the Germans won't feel that they won't be able to defeat the USSR.
Based on?

Because your claim that the political/strategic situation is that different simply doesn't hold water. It's fundamentally still the same as OTL late-1940/early-1941 except less favorable to the Germans. Germany still lacks the means to prosecute a naval expeditionary war in the Med, except even more so with the French navy opposing them and the lack of French resources, and the German high command know it. Their comfort zone remains in massive land war. Hitler still has his ideological preference for achieving lebensraum. The French, like the British pose a long-term threat as they reorganize and get American aid and, from the German perspective, can be rendered an irrelevancy by a defeat and conquest of the USSR which, the Germans believe, should only take a couple of months maximum as opposed to the sort of multi-year long campaign the Mediterranean campaign calls for.
How isn't the situation completely different? Vichy was a game changer IOTL, as it neutralized the French fleet and forces abroad, set up a vassal system of economic tribute by French authorities, ceded to Germany huge amounts of equipment, and even got the British to attack the French.
The fact that things are so much less favorable means that Barbarossa remains a pipedream that was only possible IOTL by Britain being so alone and weak after France was effectively turned into a near German ally.

The strategic situation being what it was meant that Germany has to find a way to neutralize the French fleet and go after North Africa, which means the land route via Spain. From Spain they can fly to Morocco and use their captured fleet of merchant ships and whatever the Spanish have to essentially coastal ship across the Strait of Gibraltar, while the Allied fleets couldn't risk running the gauntlet to interdict. Beyond that the various landing/shipping vessels the Germans were working on IOTL for Sealion (like the MFPs), which IOTL were used for supply shipping runs in the Mediterranean, were more than useful for supply shipping from Spain to Morocco.

The land route is there and needed in fact. The French aren't a long term threat, they are an immediate and pressing one due to the threat of the fleet, which would in combination with the British threaten to knock Italy out of the war.

IOTL Hitler's Lebensraum fantasy fueled invasion of the USSR was only be possible given the existence of Vichy and the resources it provided, while neutralizing the threat of the French fleet and colonies. That's why the decision to invade the USSR was only made in December 1940 after all other options were looked and Vichy was firmly set up and in power. Given the massive butterflies unleashed by this POD there is no way you can say with any degree of certainty that Hitler would make exactly the same decisions as IOTL.

The resources spent propping up Italy in 1941-42 were a drop in the bucket compared to the Eastern Front and a increased, while a drag, isn't going to be much of a decisive finish. Meanwhile, a Med strategy is rendered more infeasible, not less, by the French still being in due to the naval balance of power being even more egregiously against the Germans.
More than a drop considering 30% of the Luftwaffe was deployed to the Mediterranean and there was a large investment of forces to deal with Greece, which resulted in the 2nd Panzer division losing it's equipment and both it and the 5th Panzer being unavailable until Typhoon. That's on top of the divisions kept out of the East occupying Greece or rendered combat ineffective as a result of the fighting in Greece-Crete, plus of course the hundreds of aircraft lost/damaged in the operation. The Afrika Korps also consumed seriously disproportionate and increasing resources, including over 1000 tanks by the end of the commitment. The operations in the Balkans actually caused significant changes to Barbarossa, as major forces weren't available as a result. The double panzer pincer planned out of Romania and Galicia had to be cancelled for instance.

Add in the increased forced needed to hold down France plus all the additional forces that would be needed to help Italy either take Tunisia or hold it's own in the Central Mediterranean and Germany simply cannot afford Barbarossa.

The naval issue is mooted by Spain and air power. The Mediterranean option was always feasible and would be feasible ITTL too, it just required Hitler to realize that Barbarossa was not viable given all the extra problems/forces unavailable caused ITTL leaving the Mediterranean the only option on the table.

Yes it is. Leaving aside that the price of getting Spain in is liable to go up as Franco, on top of his historical reluctance to join, is now faced with the very real prospect of losing his overseas colonies to a Anglo-French counter-invasion without Vichy France and Italian colonies acting as a buffer, Anglo-French naval superiority means that French North Africa can be supplied through the Suez on the one hand and the Atlantic coast on the other even if Gibraltar falls.
You really should read up on the modern research on Franco, he wanted to enter it was actually Hitler who was reluctant given that Franco's demands would mean disrupting the deal with Vichy. That is not an obstacle ITTL.
Here is a link on another thread I posted:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...hts-on-from-1940.464004/page-12#post-18722818
Later, when in June 1940 Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, at the urging of Mussolini, Franco changed his declaration of neutrality to non-belligerency. 294 Taking advantage of the situation, on June 14, 1940, Spain occupied Tangier . 295

Later, on the occasion of the fall of France, Franco congratulated Hitler:

296
At first Hitler dismissed Franco's offer, but the difficulties he encountered in his war against England made him think about the convenience of Spain's incorporation into the conflict. On August 8, 1940, Berlin produced a report on the costs and benefits of Spain's entry into the war. Spain, without the help of Germany, would hardly endure the war effort. With this forecast, the advantage centered on the suppression of Spanish exports of minerals to England, the access of Germany to English-owned iron and copper mines in Spain and the control of the Strait of Gibraltar.. The drawbacks would be: a foreseeable British occupation of the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, the expansion of Gibraltar, the possible connection of the British forces with the French forces in Morocco and the need to supply Spain with essential products and fuel (since Spain these materials were supplied in third countries); also, the need to rearm it, adding the difficulties that the narrow roads and the different gauge would mean for the transport of war material. 298 A second detailed study of the assistance that Spain would need to enter the war discouraged the Germans. That summer there were numerous contacts between Spain and Germany. On September 13, 1940, Serrano SuñerHe made a trip to Nazi Germany as Franco's special envoy. Serrano informed the Germans that Spain would enter the war on the German side in exchange for aid, arms and territories of North Africa, where Spain could re-establish an empire. 299

In this meeting Serrano would leave a message for Hitler and recorded on video by the Germans, in which he said:

299
According to Reinhard Spitzy, who was secretary and advisor to Joachim von Ribbentrop (German Minister of Foreign Affairs), Minister Ribbentrop was not surprised by Serrano Suñer's offer to enter the war and suggested to the Spanish envoy that " After all, Spain was no more than a puppet of Germany "and that" Hitler was not very interested in what Spain needed to take part in the war. " 299 The enthusiasm shown by Franco before the entry of Spain into the war, which with the subsequent distribution of Africa would fulfill his imperialist ambitions, contrasted with the skepticism shown by Germany. 300Franco's ambitions regarding his gains in the war were French Morocco, a part of Algeria and the expansion of the Spanish Sahara and the territory of Equatorial Guinea . 301 There was also talk in Hendaya of handing over to Spain the French Catalonia . 302There were also voices in the hard wing of the Falange asking for the annexation of Portugal . 303 However, these ambitions clashed with the Germans, who, in exchange for their military aid, demanded the surrender of one of the Canary Islands , Fernando Poo and Annobón , in exchange for French Morocco.304 Despite these disagreements, in a letter from Franco to Serrano Súñer in September 1940 he expressed that "he believed blindly in the victory of the Axis and was fully determined to enter the war." 305 On October 16, 1940, Franco appointed his third government, in which Serrano Súñer replaced Beigbeder in Foreign Affairs, considered an allyophile. 306

On October 23, 1940, Franco left, together with Serrano Suñer, from San Sebastián to France, where the Hendaye Interview took place between Hitler and Franco. Although Franco left with a lot of time in advance, he arrived five minutes late to the appointment, which caused him great displeasure. 299 According to Preston, «Franco went to the historic meeting with Hitler in Hendaye in the hope of obtaining an adequate reward for his repeated offers to join the Axis. Later his propagandists would affirm that Franco brilliantly contained the Nazi hordes in Hendaya holding off a threatening Hitler. In fact, the examination of the meeting does not indicate an excessive pressure on the part of Hitler in favor of the Spanish belligerence ». 308According to Reinhard Spitzy, Hitler went to the meeting thinking that Franco had a duty to enter the war on the German side and for all the favors that Germany did to Franco during the Spanish Civil War. 299 This also affirmed that Hitler, during the conversation, succeeded in persuading Franco to enter the war as an ally of Germany. 299 Serrano Suñer would affirm that Franco accepted Hitler's proposal to enter the war and, in return, wanted some African territories and protectorates. 299 Serrano would also affirm that, for an hour and a half, Franco was explaining to Hitler his ambitions and that the German only yawned again and again during all that time. 299Serrano also commented that, given the expectations of being able to annex Morocco , Franco was like "an excited child, fond of what had been his desire to always: the world that had formed as a great military leader." 309The meeting lasted for several hours. Franco's colonial demands, which clashed with Hitler's other interests, were not addressed by him; and Hitler did not get flexibility on the part of Franco in his pretensions. Both would comment on the meeting in a dismissive tone. Hitler would say "these guys there is nothing to do" and would prefer that you bring forth three or four wheels before returning to talk with Franco, whom he dubbed "Latin charlatan." Later he would comment to Mussolini that Franco "had arrived at Generalissimo and head of the Spanish State only by accident. He was not a man who was up to the problems of political and material development of his country. 310 Goebbelshe noted in his diary that "the Führer does not have a good opinion of Spain and Franco. [...] They are not at all ready for war, they are hidalgos of an empire that no longer exists ». 311 For his part, Franco would comment to Serrano Suñer that: "These people are intolerable; They want us to go to war in exchange for nothing. " 312Nevertheless, a protocol was established that "constituted a formal commitment on the part of Spain to enter the war on the side of the Axis." 313 According to Preston, in November 1940 Franco "took several dangerous and unnecessary initiatives, which can only be interpreted as indicating his willingness to enter the war on the side of the Axis." 311

The Atlantic coast means nothing as a port, because of the low capacity of the rail lines from Morocco to Algeria. The Suez route is too far to supply the French, as not only would it be 400% as far as going via Gibraltar, something the British could barely afford for just themselves IOTL in 1940-41, it would then have to double back across the Central Mediterranean through Italian sea-space and air, naval, and mine threats. Cutting Gibraltar strangles the supplies to France and renders them impotent.

Except they do still have the necessary material to win the huge border battles, which disintegrates your entire point.
Depending on what and how many forces are diverted ITTL away from Barbarossa. Then as you pointed out the Germans of the time did not know that and thought the border battles would be twice as hard as IOTL. Using your hindsight to try and think about what the people of the time without it thought is silly. Remove hundreds of thousands of additional men with their equipment and TTL's planners can't guarantee that they could pull off the border battles. Of course all that is mooted by the need to do something against the French in exile before they can rally and knock Italy out of the war. That and assuming with all the butterflies unleashed ITTL Hitler still thinks Barbarossa is the only option to knock Britain out of the war.

Which is wishful thinking. Libya will be secured before the Germans could possibly make their move and that leaves the supply routes open with or without Gibraltar.
Speaking in absolutes in terms of this what if while ignoring all the disruption the French faced? Don't be silly. The French couldn't move for months, perhaps as much as half a year given the vast disruptions they faced and how the evacuation wouldn't leave them with much in the way of supplies or organization to go on the offensive. North Africa was stripped of it's combat ready units to fight in Europe and wasn't left with much other than defense forces other than what could be evacuated to North Africa in late June to early July. Those forces wouldn't be combat ready for quite some time, especially with the equipment and supply losses; US material help would take time in materializing and then organizing once it showed up in enough quantity. France has a lot of rebuilding to do before it could do anything other than defend and even that only badly.

As it was historically, the overwhelming bulk of the French Navy survived the fall of France quite well intact and in order. The British too were able to maintain a force equal to the Italians in the Med IOTL 1940-41, add the French to that and it becomes overwhelmingly against the Italians such that they can't really operate surface forces south of Malta.
Surviving intact doesn't mean that they were organized for combat operations or that the necessary bases were prepared to support them. Oran and Bizerte didn't handle the majority of the French fleet ever and now have to handle something like 80% of the pre-war force, plus maintain it in fighting trim all without the facilities or supplies for it. Plus there is a bunch of planning that needs to go into whatever they decide to do next once they actually reorder themselves. In the long run they would be able to outgun the Italians, but likely for most of the rest of 1940 they're stuck trying to unfuck themselves after their massive defeat and evacuation to a province not set up to handle them and an order schedule with the US that does not match their new reality.

Also the British Mediterranean fleet did not match the Italians in power, they were outgunned and it was only the Taranto Raid and lack of fuel for the Italians that evened the odds...at the end of 1940. Of course that was before the successful Italian raid on Alexandria.

The claim that the British have more trouble supplying themselves with greater naval dominance of the Med and Libya secured is so ludicrous as to not be worth addressing.
I get it, you don't a cogent response. The material superiority the Allies have doesn't really happen until the French actually get reorganized and resupplied to fight, which would probably take through most of 1940 and perhaps into 1941. That gives the Axis a ton of breathing room to move, especially if the BoB is not launched ITTL. Securing Libya certainly is not going to happen until 1941 and assumes the Axis does absolutely nothing in 1940-41 to counter them.

So basically the only difference I'm hearing is that the Anglo-French get 31 billion in L-L instead of 34 billion, with the 3 billion dollar difference being made out of French gold. Again, Lend-Lease is only the point that the US started taking stuff on credit instead of on payment. It isn't even the point when the US began provisioning military aid for the WAllies, that pre-dates L-L by quite a bit.
You have a habit of only hearing what you want it seems. LL is delayed and in the critical 1941 and perhaps 1942 period means the Allies only get a fraction of what they got via LL in the same time frame. LL only kicks in once they are proveably broke, but they didn't know that IOTL, they just hoped the US would pass a law to help them. So while the flood would be there eventually, it is delayed until the Allies get the nerve to buy themselves broke and then hope for the best. Which leaves them in a tight spot until probably 1942 given the money the French had and the spending rate they were going through it IOTL.

Pretty quickly. As it is, the French Navy survived and withdrew to the colonies in a quite organized fashion even before the armistice and was quite capable of operations from a very early stage, which is what prompted the British to attack them at Mers-El-Kebir after their surrender. The late bugout would mainly affect land forces available: air and naval withdrawals happened independently of the armistice decision as a precaution. The claim that the Italians are prepared IATL flies in the face of the historical evidence where the Italians showed themselves quite unprepared for what was coming OTL despite it being a much more favorable situation for the Italians to prepare.
The Mers el Kebir situation wasn't really about capabilities at the time, but potential threat they would be down the road if the Germans got the ships. Do you have a source about their combat readiness as of June 1940 after the evacuation?

The Italians of the 5th Army were prepared to fight the French, but IOTL were stripped out and sent to the other side of Libya under a different command and sent to fight before the 10th Army could finish preparations. OTL's situation in Egypt was quite different than moving on Tunisia; 5th Army was larger than the 10th Army in the East by a large margin and then all that was disrupted to rapidly switch to an invasion of Egypt on the fly. Of course things turned out badly, because Mussolini wasn't expecting a fight, rather just wanted a finger in the pie so that the British gave them a slice when the peace deal happened, which he thought was right around the corner. Understanding that will make his move on Greece make sense as well, same with his decisions to move before preparations were complete. This of course is quite different than TTL when there is no reason to assume the Allies would quit any time soon.

The Germans had the resources to win at the border and still will IATL. They don't have the resources for prosecuting the war deep into the USSR, but then they ultimately didn't have that OTL and didn't care since their assumption was entirely that the border battles would decide the war. Given that they'll have that same assumption, Barbarossa is liable to still go forward.
That's irrelevant, what matters is the belief of the planners that they have the resources to do so, which isn't necessarily there ITTL, nor is it guaranteed that with all the butterflies unleashed that Hitler would still pursue the planning for an invasion of the USSR given all the strategic options/problems opened up by TTL. And contrary to what you may think, you still haven't proved that the strategic considerations exist ITTL to get the same course of action as ITTL.


Because British and French merchant ships are free to sail across the southern med and port in Tunis whereas OTL, the British couldn't enter. The Atlantic coast would also still be open to resupply, although how well the French could move those supplies across Morocco and into Algieria is still a open question. Nonetheless, it would be adequate to support a swift occupation of Spanish Morocco, which is very small, poorly defended, and very nearby. And the addition of French destroyers to the Battle of the Atlantic would also be helpful for the British.
I don't think you understand what 'freely allowed to' means in a scenario where they'd have to cross the Italian held central Mediterranean.

What ground forces does France have ready to occupy Spanish Morocco ITTL? They will need months to unfuck their surviving ground forces evacuated from France, while what was left behind in North Africa was not combat material, as what could be used in Europe was. They were there to make sure the natives stayed in line, train reservists, and put up enough of a front to potentially deter and Italian surprise invasion.

He was pretty much the tipping factor.
If Weygand was dead and there was another general in charge, you think he wouldn't be asking for an armistice? The military guys were, it was the politicians in the cabinet who considered fighting on.

Your own quote shows that Petain was supportive of Reynaud's idea.
He made positive noises in one meeting, while in previous meetings he was pushing for an armistice. For all we know he was buttering up Reynaud to get him to listen to reason.

Darlan only came out after Weynaud talked Petain into opposing a retreat, so the casual link there is pretty obvious.
Petain was pro-surrender before Weygand talked to him. Weygand didn't convince him of anything on the 15th. You're purposely ignoring all the other parts about Petain's position to focus on two lines that you think backs your point. Darlan turned as a result of the promise not to surrender the fleet and Churchill's bloviations, with the vote to ask for terms before making a decision and the worsening war situation as of the 15th changing his mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Darlan#Armistice
Even on 15 June he was still talking of a potential armistice with indignation.[7] Darlan appears to have retreated from his position on 15 June, when the Cabinet voted 13–6 for Camille Chautemps' compromise proposal to inquire about possible terms. He was willing to accept an armistice provided the French fleet was kept out of German hands.[8]

On 16 June Churchill's telegram arrived agreeing to an armistice (France and Britain were bound by treaty not to seek a separate peace) provided the French fleet was moved to British ports. This was not acceptable to Darlan, who argued that it would leave France defenceless.[9] That day, according to Jules Moch, he declared that Britain was finished so there was no point in continuing to fight, and he was concerned that if there was no armistice Hitler would invade French North Africa via Franco's Spain.[5] That evening Paul Reynaud, feeling he lacked sufficient cabinet support for continuing the war, resigned as Prime Minister, and Philippe Pétain formed a new government with a view to seeking an armistice with Germany.[9]

Darlan's flip convinced Reynaud enough was enough as was the worsening war situation. Interestingly Darlan was explicitly afraid of exactly the course of action I'm arguing the Germans pretty much had to take to deal with the French. If the French admiral was terrified into armistice from that potential course of action, there wasn't really a way for the French to stop that move.

And they were demoralized because Weygand had been talking about how hopeless fighting on would be since he was appointed Supreme Commander's position in late-May. He demoralized the cabinet.
I think the fact that Paris fell and they evacuated convinced them of that more than Weygand. Everyone knew that France was going to be occupied at the rate things were going in June, they just didn't think it was worth fighting on after that.

Petain was brought around to a anti-evacuation stance by Weygand.
Petain was already set to quit before Paris fell.

And yet, as your earlier quote showed, he supported Reynaud's June 12th proposal to fight on until Weygand talked him out of it.
Weygand didn't talk Petain out of anything on the 12th. Petain urged the cabinet to listen to Weygand:
On 12 June, after a second session of the conference, the cabinet met and Weygand again called for an armistice. He referred to the danger of military and civil disorder and the possibility of a Communist uprising in Paris. Pétain and Minister of Information Prouvost urged the cabinet to hear Weygand out because "he was the only one really to know what was happening".

Before that Petain was giving every signal that the fight was hopeless when talking to de Gaulle and Churchill. That was before Paris fell.
 
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