DBWI: France doesn't fall to Fascism

As we all know, the French Third Republic fell to a Fascist coup on February 6, 1934 when the Croix-de-Feu stormed the major government buildings in Paris with the support of a group of young military officers led by Charles de Gaulle, so, what if France didn't fall to Fascism? Do we still see the anti-communist "Grand Alliance" form where the major fascist regimes of Europe set aside their differences to fight the "Bolshevik" menace (and keep the British and Americans out after the Second Great War)? What would that world's analogue to the Second Great War look like? Would it still have been an anti-Soviet conflict?
 
Maybe Lyautey, the French Regent, wouldn't have died in late 1935 then. He barely had the time to swoop in and restore a figurehead king before he died...

Everyone said that at least he was a stabilising figure, better than that hothead de Gaulle who he managed to co-opt!
 

Archibald

Banned
The Lyautey - De Gaulle - De La Rocque triumvirat was pretty unexpected in the first place, and it is no surprise that, after Lyautey death, the two hot heads clashed.
 
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The Lyautey - De Gaulle - De La Rcoque triumvirat was pretty unexpected in the first place, and it is no surprise that, after Lyautey death, the two hot heads clashed.
And it's not like the King was able to do much, spending most of his time touring the colonies to showcase how great the country was.
Could it really be called a triumvirate? de Gaulle was way too young to do that much at the time, a lowly colonel compared to de Rocque. I can never remember what happened to that upstart in the end...


OOC: Lyautey fanboy to the core :D
 

Archibald

Banned
De la Rocque was born in 1885 and De Gaulle in 1890, so he was not that older. The two had many things in common, but also irreparable differences. Mind you, De La Rocque initially hesitated whether or not allowing his Croix de Feu storming the Assemblée Nationale. It was De Gaulle that forced the decision - and utimately benefited from it, after De La rocque death in a mysterious aircraft accident in Spain.
In fact De la Rocque barely escaped death in the crash that killed his friend Jose Sanjurjo (20 July 1936) only to died on Emilio Mola very own aircraft accident, 3 June 1937.


OOC: I see De la Rocque as kind of failed, pre-De Gaulle. There was a great TL a looong time ago, called "Crossfires" by French forum member Atlantic Friend.

Also, the OP mentions the Croix de feu but not De La Rocque, so I had to explain how did the movement lost their creator and highly respected chief. De Gaulle was nobody before 1940.
 
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Without a fascist government, would Petain become so horrified and disillusioned with the right when he witnessed the brutality of the regime first hand? Whilst he wasn't the only Frenchman to defect to the Soviets, the number of men under his command and his position made him an excellent figurehead for the Free French Forces. He is basically the archetypical figure of the defector from decadence trope.
 

Archibald

Banned
Without a fascist government, would Petain become so horrified and disillusioned with the right when he witnessed the brutality of the regime first hand? Whilst he wasn't the only Frenchman to defect to the Soviets, the number of men under his command and his position made him an excellent figurehead for the Free French Forces. He is basically the archetypical figure of the defector from decadence trope.

OOC: Alexander: I saw what you did here.
 
Without a fascist government, would Petain become so horrified and disillusioned with the right when he witnessed the brutality of the regime first hand? Whilst he wasn't the only Frenchman to defect to the Soviets, the number of men under his command and his position made him an excellent figurehead for the Free French Forces. He is basically the archetypical figure of the defector from decadence trope.
Wasn't his family sent to the bagne before? I thought it was when a militia burst into his home at a family dinner, when some thug trying to "impress" him accidentally killed his grand daughter than he had to leave.

Didn't help that Lyautey could not stand him since he replaced him in Morocco in 1925
 

Deleted member 97083

I don't think you could prevent France from falling to fascism. Especially after that infamous Marxist-Leninist, Adolf Hitler, took over Germany in 1932.
 

Archibald

Banned
Think it was De Gaulle that coined the domino theory and hyper*inflated the threat. A lot of terrible mistakes were made to prevent the dominos from falling, and millions of people died in vain.
 

Deleted member 97083

Think it was De Gaulle that coined the domino theory and hyper*inflated the threat. A lot of terrible mistakes were made to prevent the dominos from falling, and millions of people died in vain.
While many people blame De Gaulle, he actually didn't mention the "domino theory" until 1939. In fact President Huey Long of the United States was the first to mention the "domino effect" in a speech during his 1937 inauguration.
 

Deleted member 97083

Though ironically he was referring to Fascism.
Well, fascism and communism alike. His exact words were, "the falling domino of totalitarianism". His alliance with the Soviets was more out of convenience and geopolitics, than any sort of ideological basis. Long was opposed to all authoritarians... except himself.

Maybe have Germany be led by a extreme batshit fascist rather than the pragmatists we got with the Schleicher junta. I don't know who could be a replacement through, maybe Drexler or Goering(ooc: Hitler died in WWI)?

Alternatively prevent the US-USSR alliance
OOC: Hitler was already mentioned in this timeline to be a communist
 
Well, fascism and communism alike. His exact words were, "the falling domino of totalitarianism". His alliance with the Soviets was more out of convenience and geopolitics, than any sort of ideological basis. Long was opposed to all authoritarians... except himself.

Long was an isolationist in the early 30s, a bitter anti-Communist during the election, and a friend to the proletariat when war broke out. It's fun to compare his America First speech of 1934 to his 1948 speech after reaffirming the US-USSR treaty of friendship and their "noble alliance against the sordid pact of bankers and imperialists".
 

Deleted member 97083

Long was an isolationist in the early 30s, a bitter anti-Communist during the election, and a friend to the proletariat when war broke out. It's fun to compare his America First speech of 1934 to his 1948 speech after reaffirming the US-USSR treaty of friendship and their "noble alliance against the sordid pact of bankers and imperialists".
Well, Huey Long definitely played up different parts of his views when necessary, but President Long seemed to always have his central goal in mind, which was to "share the wealth" while also preserving the capitalist system. By 1948, it made sense for a social democrat USA led by Long to ally with the democratic socialist USSR led by Zhukov.

It's unfortunate that relations broke down only weeks after President Patton's inauguration in 1949. George Patton was always more of a communist hardliner AFAIK, and accused people like Long of being "Bonapartists". Patton seemed to admire the Marxism-Leninism that he encountered in Germany. "We have defeated the wrong enemy" George Patton said in 1946, and considered the Soviets to be both overly democratic (in his opinion, that made them weak), and overly "Mongolian".
 
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