France becomes willing member of Axis pre-fall

From the Panay War timeline:

The French want a very large AngloSaxon force sent to help hold the Somme. The Brits have no army to send as the BEF has come out but the equipment is still piled up in Antwerp and Amsterdam awaiting shipment. Ditto for the two French armies. There are large depots of American equipment in Eire but America has no alliance with France. America feels no gratitude for the French leaving them to fight Japan for two years and then basically surrendering Indochina without a fight. America remembers all too well how the French repudiated their WWI debt. America wants solid collateral before bailing France out again. France notes that no such collateral was asked of Britain, Scandinavia or Belgium (actually untrue but as its all being done very quietly it does appear that way). US is simply more simpatico to its English cousins and little countries they can dominate. Basically while the Battle of Belgium rages the French and AngloSaxons have another cat fight. Net effect is that the French ask Hitler for an armistice BEFORE the breach of the Somme line and the fall of Paris, while they still have a functional army.

Hitler says yes. Will not advance further but French army to retire below the Loire – large war indemnity, surrender of war material, transit rights through French ports, etc. AngloSaxons enraged. French equally so but in reverse.

...

Provocations between Anglos and French escalate in same period. French impede Brit withdrawl from now neutral France. British impede French transit through UK. Anglos ignore French civil administration in occupied NE France. Brits try to seize French ships in Alexandria and UK. France and the AngloSaxons are at war. French attack Nigeria, Gold Coast. Seize Gambia. Sierre Leone only held with American support from Liberia. Dutchess of Windsor’s Own West Indian Home Guard airlifted in – island militia with shotguns and ‘privately donated’ US deer rifles led by multiracial West Indian notables and US bluebloods with their retinues of loyal retainers…

Basic African stalemate: French have numbers and quality on the ground but no easy way to reinforce. From Algiers to the front is 1000+ miles of nothing. Brits and Americans have little on the ground but have the ports, airfields and US baby carriers. Anything within air range of the coast is a walkover.

Vichy joins Pact of Steel. Brit Mid East endangered by French in Syria, Italians in Libya.

http://www.changingthetimes.net/samples/darkvalley/panay_war.htm

Granted, the Panay War is a wildly implausible dystopia. However, I do find the concept somewhat interesting- was there any chance France would have switched sides earlier on?
 
No.

While there were certainly those in France who saw a role for themselves (and France) in a Nazi run Europe, I think most Frenchmen would have been opposed to it. Petain might have the votes to sign an armistice with Germany, but not the votes to join the Axis and declare war on Britain.

In fact, France could very well have continued fighting if Hitler had asked for harsher armistice terms. If France knew that Britain would be continuing to fight anyway, they would not have signed it to begin with (because one of the conditions in the armistice was that no French POW would be returned until Britain made peace, something the French balked at but Hitler wouldn't change; they accepted only because they didn't think the war would continue much longer)

France agreed to an armistice IOTL because they thought the war was over, and that Britain was going to make peace. They didn't want to have more Frenchmen die for a lost cause, and they wanted to keep as much of their army, air force, and plans intact, and their overseas empire protected. Going to war with Britain gives them nothing. Their navy and air force now risk being destroyed; they risk losing parts of their empire to Britain; and completely lose any vestigal prestige by being such obvious German puppets. France is now in the worst of both worlds - they are still in a war fighting, but with no obvious benefit.

Such a decision by the French government might even provoke a civil war with parts of the French military and overseas empire defecting to the Free French. Many members of the French government would seek to flee to Britain or to a safe overseas location.
 

Cook

Banned
Going to war with Britain gives them nothing.
Laval proposed to the Germans that France join the Axis alliance and declare war on Britain, this was rejected by the Germans because it would require a finalised peace agreement between France and Germany first. It hardly mattered, France fought against the British Empire of two and a half years.

Colin Smith’s England’s last war against France: Fighting Vichy 1940 -42 covers the subject in great detail.
 
So, um, maybe this isn't as ASB? Actually I don't think it would make Vichy France more willing, just maybe they'd have more men/equipment to throw at the British.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Thing is, Hitler didn't want to fight Britain, but he certainly did want to fight France.

Now a France that falls to fascism in, say, February of 1934, might propose a Great Crusade Against Bolshevism that catches Ade's ear.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Thing is, Hitler didn't want to fight Britain, but he certainly did want to fight France.

Now a France that falls to fascism in, say, February of 1934, might propose a Great Crusade Against Bolshevism that catches Ade's ear.
Probably not, Fascist regimes are pretty ultra-nationalistic and might be directed against Germany.
 
Laval proposed to the Germans that France join the Axis alliance and declare war on Britain, this was rejected by the Germans because it would require a finalised peace agreement between France and Germany first. It hardly mattered, France fought against the British Empire of two and a half years.

Colin Smith’s England’s last war against France: Fighting Vichy 1940 -42 covers the subject in great detail.

You bring up an interesting point, but this doesn't change my answer.

Laval was a strange duck, and his actions were often at odds with Petain and the Vichy government. Laval did not have the authority or influence to get France into a war on his own. Petain appointed Laval as Foreign Minister in opposition to his own cabinet, and later ended up sacking him because he was too pro-German. Laval was simply not capable of getting France to ally with Germany. He had neither the authority to do it on his own, nor the influence to convince others to do it.

By the time he did return to power, he was viewed as a complete German puppet. After Operation Torch and the occupation of the Germans of the Vichy territory, it was meaningless as to what Vichy would do.

Now the Vichy French did fight Allied soldiers when those soldiers attempted to land on French territory, but that is not the same as France waging an aggressive war against Britain or the Allies.
 
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