De La Rcoque decision on February 6th 1934 - how it might have been. He send the Action Française go fuck themselves, then he took 50 men from his Croix de Feu, the cooler heads. Then he entered Le Palais Bourbon, and gently explained the deputies they could a) either surrender peacefully to his small group of men or b) be stormed by a furious mob, Action Française and Croix de Feu altogether. He bluffed, yet he seemed to have won. That is, until a communist put a bullet through his head three days later and claimed a Democratic Republic of France, barricading themselves in the center of Paris, making it their stronghold.
Then the pissed-off but orphans Croix de feu took too long to react and were overtaken by l'Action Française, which dragged part of the Army with them in the reconquest of Paris, and all the horrors that went with it.
The Navy and Armée de l'air were split and mostly neutral, but later on they had to pick one side, either Croix de Feu or Action Française. By the way you don't conquest Paris with a Navy, while it was better for the poor city not to be bombed from the air, considering how much damage it took from the vicious fighting on the ground.
Then the vicious and horrific murders of Leon Blum and George Mandel by fanatical Action Française antisemists, however, stopped dead the army following of the Action Française, actually splitting it with Les Croix de Feu, who decided to pactize with the moderate left and socialists AGAINST both Coomunists and Action Française.
So it was a kind of three way civil war
- Communists and anarchists milicias (who later slaughtered themselves, thanks to Moscow putting oil on the fire)
- Action Française and part of the Armies having followed them - Catholics, Monarchists...
- Croix de feu, moderate left, and a bulk of the French armies that supported them (Potez and Bloch being radical socialists, sold aircrafts to them, an help that proved decisive)
From there, it was the march into the abyss, 1793 style, with 200 000 dead in two years.
After seizing Paris the communists very much repeated the errors made in the 1870 commune and were crushed after six months of a vicious street battle. Unfortunately by then the French Armies had split between the Action Française fanatics and the more moderate Croix de feu... and they viciously fought each others, notably in Western France which was traditionally more catholic and was overtaken by l'Action Française, who claimed a new Kingdom stretching from Lourdes, in the Pyrénées to Brittany - Ploermel.
It took two years for the Croix de feu and the bulk of the French Armies to crush that insurgency of deadly fanatics, including Bretagne and Courbet -class battleships pounding the French coastal cities like Bordeaux, Nantes, Brest, hotbeds of l'Action Française.
"Pour Dieu, le roi et la patrie" - Charles Maurras last words after he was eviscerated by an anarchist grenade, become L'Action Française motto.
On top of that was Basque Country claiming independance from everybody else, closely followed by Corsica, before the island was invaded by Mussolini, always the opportunist.
Jesus, what a mess that was. France was lucky enough that the Ligne Maginot was advanced enough in construction, that Hitler pathetic army shitted their pants and fled in panic after the fortress troops there fired their guns. That was bluff, since there was not enough infantry or tanks left to repel a possible invasion.
French also own a big debt to King Albert I of Belgium (who in February 1934 cancelled a mountain trip because of the French crisis) who made pretty clear they would not let any german soldier cross their territory to invade France - and that bluff also worked well, since at this point (1934) Belgium army was still strong enough to kick Hitler arse.