France Fights On (English Translation) - Thread III - The lost files

[demolitiondan]

Anti-VHA reactions of the Luftwaffe
The VHA bombers can also pride themselves on having contributed to dispersing German aeronautical potential a little further, by forcing the Reich to replace the Ju 86P with the Do 217P and to develop, at great expense, specific anti-aircraft guns and fighter jets. very high altitude.
………
The Flak's anti-HAV response A 152 mm anti-HAV gun was developed, but on the day of the armistice, only 49 had been produced, of which about thirty had actually entered service. It was also considered to increase the production of the 128 mm AA, but as this increase would have been made at the expense of the production of the 88 guns, the only weapon able to stem the tide of the Soviet heavy tanks, the project was abandoned.
………
The Luftwaffe's VHA day fighters The Blohm & Voss 155 (ex Messerschmitt 155B) and the Ju 388 (stratospheric version of the Ju 288), both built in a few copies, were opposed to the Lincolns and Victorias flying by day, and especially the Ta 152H, undoubtedly the best very high altitude fighter of the Third Reich – but the latter was only operational from July 1944, and in very small numbers.
The famous Me 262 did not rise high enough. The Me 163 (version C) was used against the HAVs, but its range of around thirty km and the small number of aircraft manufactured only allowed it to score… two victories. The small number of daytime operations carried out by the VHA Bombers was perhaps not worth the debauchery of effort demanded of German aircraft manufacturers by a distraught Göring.
………
The Me 410 Uhu, the Luftwaffe's VHA night fighter After a calamitous development (accidents, fire at the Meudon wind tunnel, etc.), the Me 210 continued to be delayed. Worse: the aircraft had sometimes lower performance in the flight envelope than its predecessor, the Me 110, and it was even dangerous in certain situations, almost every completed example having to be rebuilt to be usable. Faced with this veritable industrial disaster, the Reich got rid of the painfully completed aircraft by generously offering them to Hungary – which, moreover, made good use of them and produced a small series of usable aircraft near Budapest.
However, Willy Messerschmitt refused to consider the 210 a total failure. Informed that the Americans and the English were preparing stratospheric bombers (B-29 and Victoria), he knew that it was only a matter of time before seeing aircraft operating above 10,000 arrive over the Reich. meters. He therefore needed a pressurized fighter and it was for this purpose that he had a new version of the poor Me 210 prepared. hampered by the existence of other more pressing needs. Thus, at the time of the Battle of the Ruhr, priority was given to single-engine fighters and the Me 262 program. At that time, information indicated that the Victoria was experiencing major development problems, the VI version of the Wellington – which had succeeded in the raid on Wilhelmshaven – was considered an industrial dead end and no information had leaked out about the Lancaster derivative, the Lincoln. This success of the English intoxication even resisted the Ruhr campaign, the German radar operators not detecting these first “VHA Bombers” in the Bomber Command stream, or believing in measurement errors of their devices.
When the Me 410 A and B finally came out, it was in a non-pressurized version, intended above all to deal with the most urgent: to shoot down the four-engined aircraft of the 8th AF which were carrying out raids on southern Germany from Italy. .
It was not until the fall of 1943 that the existence of operational VHA bombers was confirmed. With the French front which had just opened up and the uncertainties weighing on the Italian and Balkan fronts, the Reich favored to counter this new threat the adaptation of an existing apparatus rather than an original program.
Messerschmitt immediately brought out the original version of his Me 410, proposing a VHA adaptation called Me 410 C. To gain altitude, the wingspan was increased and the co-pilot and defensive armament were removed, for a gain of around 400 kg.
However, the program was once again delayed, Hitler having requested the manufacture of a very high altitude bomber version, in order to give back to the British - this version, called Me 410 D, was not to go beyond the of the prototype.
In addition, the hunting version had to be a night owl, hence the addition of a radar which erased part of the weight gain and whose antennas altered the aerodynamic performance. The first tests were disappointing, especially since the aircraft encountered engine problems.
We then choose to do without radar to arrive at the Me 410 E (labeled in memory of the Me 210 E): pressurized, without radar but equipped with the Schrage Musik system (two 20 mm guns pointing upwards installed on the back of the device). Thus equipped, the Me 410 E, baptized Uhu, brought Wild Sau tactics up to date. In the fall of 1944, the Uhu managed to shoot down a few VHA bombers.
The first British reaction was the transformation "in the field" of some Lincolns into hunting versions, like the famous Real Bastard, but it does not seem that any of these Lincolns ever faced a Uhu. In the last months of the war, the HAV pilots began to worry, especially since the evolution of their doctrine made them operate at lower altitudes. They were reassured by the posting of the pre-production Westland Welkin and the announcement of the mass production of this VHA fighter.
The Me 410 E Uhu was therefore to be part of the “miracle” weapons that appeared at the end of the conflict without being able to change anything. When the capitulation arrived, he already had a competitor: Heinkel was preparing a pressurized version of his He 219, capable of tracking HAV bombers into the stratosphere and equipped with radar. But he was barely beyond the drawing board: his cell was unfinished when the Allies discovered it.

That's all Folk. Will see what come next.

 

[demolitiondan]

Well, what's about a little détour by the first France campaign ? And one of my very first text ...

Good evening, fellow referees. Today, I'm handing in a little vacation homework, from a character who is hardly mentioned in the FTL, even if it is true that the latter has already left the story at the POD level. This is General Corap, who was recently the subject of a biography by Max Schiavon published by Editions Perrin.

The book, well documented and virtually unpublished on several aspects (because the author had access to family archives and diaries). emissary of the defeat of 1940". question does not deny moreover. Nevertheless, it seems to me enriching to share many anecdotes, including for some the tragic character confined to comedy, notwithstanding the consequences that we all know today And thereby to describe a general state of unpreparedness in the country, including the political class in particular, and also the fate of men who have only done their homework, only to find themselves smashed on the wall of the 'history.

All of the terms and facts reported are authentic, except of course for the staging and “FTL conversion” aspects, which are my own. The most cinephiles among you will also perhaps come across certain references here and there. I obviously tried to translate the thoughts that could cross the mind of a French officer at the time, and which can also explain certain OTL behaviors. But, enough exposition, on to the subject. Obviously, the sequel can come, if it suits you.

A general's honor

June 11, 1940, around Saint-Cyr-l'Ecole (78)

“Here is the disaster of the Corap army! (…) the incredible faults of the latter will be severely punished”. These words, Army General André Georges Corap still heard them, as if they were broadcast by Prime Minister Reynaud, during his hearing at the bar of the Senate, during his now too famous speech of May 21.

And through the window of his regular Peugeot, he gazed at another, even greater disaster, that of the entire French army, its people and its government, all of which were evacuating together and in great disorder. Infantrymen, civil servants, workers and equipment clogged the roads leaving the capital, not to mention all these poor refugees whom the gendarmerie tried to contain with great difficulty, and who would block almost everyone if they were allowed to do so. This even though less than 100 kilometers to the north, the remains of his troops and those of his colleagues, paid with their blood for a few precious hours on the Oise.

What disaster for what faults, especially coming from a man who had pursued a policy that had largely led to the result of that day? What need to throw his name to the hounds, when the enemy knocked with redoubled knocks at the door and no one had asked for a culprit, at least for the moment? Oh, for sure, Marshal Pétain had protested, at least on the form, if not on the bottom: one did not insult the army in time of war. The effect on morale and the confidence that each soldier has or should have in these leaders could only be disastrous. General Weygand, of whom Corap could rejoice to be a personal friend, had been much drier still. But none had publicly wanted the defense of his name. Too risky, for so little gain, especially in these times.

Even if he was to serve as a scapegoat, he was ready to accept it. It was kind of part of the job, and he had seen it as early as 1915 when he had served with Nivelle, when the latter was still only a colonel. But the opprobrium did not stop at his person, all the officers who had served under these orders felt insulted. He had been told that one of them had even committed suicide, after having written a letter to Reynaud (1).

It was so obvious that the rout was exclusively linked to his person. The proof, by dismissing him, we had added insult to injury by appointing Giraud in his place at the head of the 9th army. Giraud his former subordinate! Not that he had a grudge against him, on the contrary he kept all his esteem for him. He had been able to judge the man in Morocco in 1926, during the Rif war and in particular during the raid which had led to the surrender of Abd El Krim. Finally, it was still them who had put an end to this dirty war started by the Spaniards! Hence precisely the stripes of colonel for Giraud, and on his recommendation. It was a different time, when they had charged ahead of well-equipped and trained troops into the mountains, sabers drawn and under scorching heat. All without worrying too much about overly cautious orders from generals concerned about division alignment issues on the map.

In fact, one could ask a lot of Giraud. But neither was he a holy healer, and he had been roughly as useful as a doctor at the bedside of a dying man, only to be captured soon after his ex-boss was ousted. He only had to hope that the German food and the climate would be bearable for him.

Well here is something else, the car had been, so to speak, blocked for 30 minutes by a Panhard whose engine seemed to have failed, at least if we judged by the thick smoke coming out of the front radiator. The driver had got out to try to put it all out, and was taking up even more space on the road, which was already quite congested. Not to mention the smoke which succeeded in the double performance of both hindering the vision of the vehicles which overtook the wreckage, and of facilitating the location of the heavy column by our friends from the Luftwaffe.

We had to pass and quickly, you never know. Two gendarmes who arrived as reinforcements twisted their arms to order the vehicles to speed up. Five or six troopers, who must have come from the trucks next door, threw sand and earth to calm the flames in the greatest confusion, and thereby finished blocking the road. Corap got out of the car to watch their efforts, he saw them in the distance, four or five vehicles in front. Where were their leaders? Not an officer in sight! We weren't going to stay here for the night!

Without wasting time, he turned to his orderly and ordered him to go lend a hand to: 1) put out the fire with the vehicle's extinguisher 2) push it into the ditch. Which they quickly did, the general's character was only too legendary, and it was not the era that was sure to restore his mood. But, the general was certain, he knew how to make himself loved by his subordinates. And besides he would accompany them to speed up the maneuver, a three star couldn't hurt to shake it all up, could it?

The Chiefs ! This is another good food for thought. Contemplating the confusion which an unfortunate crashed transport caused, he could not help comparing these deputies with the officers under whom he had had the honor to serve in the first. Like Hely d'Oissel, his General of the Army, who never missed an opportunity to visit the troops, nothing better for morale and example than to get closer to the soldiers who risked their lives for France. He remembered the time when he had gone down on his knees in the mud, to pin his Croix de Guerre to a poor man who had lost an arm, or perhaps two...

All those had left, like Buat and Foch… What would he not have done with such leaders? Instead, he had inherited a whole collection of careerists and profiteers, such as Bézier-Lafosse. That one ! What an imbecile. Mobilized 6 months from retirement, he never hesitated to call him back, and seemed surprised that he was given an order or worse, that a report on his execution was demanded. A jean-foutre, employee of the PTT (French Public Transmission Service - notorious for careful application of shifts). The result of his performance was nothing short of amazing. (2)

Well here's the machine, what a sh...le around, no wonder the situation is not moving forward. Hey you there! The corporal turned around, looked surprised, then instantly stood to attention which, by a curious and rapid group effect, spread to everyone present.

"My apologies General, but the security equipment..."
"I'm not asking you to apologize or tell me about your life. I ask you a specific question: do you have what it takes to extinguish this? »
“No, General! »
"Then move on and let my prescription do its thing!" »

No sooner said than done... No supervision, no competent officer, no result! Only mildly surprising, the advancement and recruitment of executives had continued to be parasitized by purely political or relational considerations. He had also had to deal with the subject, when he was at the general staff of the armies. It was necessary to get rid of General Mattier, at the Direction of the Infantry, a Jew and a notorious Freemason. Either way, it wasn't a crime. On the other hand, determining the promotion tables according to the political allegiances or third parties of each was much more difficult. Couldn't remember how this story ended! (3)

“Fire extinguished my General! »
"Perfect, throw this in the ditch and distribute yourself in the transports around!" We're not going to spend the night there, unless you want to stay here to repair! (Then, turning to his orderly) "We're going back to the car"

Damn equipment, he hadn't fixed anything either. Not that the French mechanics were lacking, it was the production that posed a problem, in quality and especially in quantity. He knew the constraints of the equipment, even though he had once been called a "disciplined technician". But, with a good background of peasant wisdom, we could say “By giving a little, we are not sure to get what we want, but by giving nothing, we are sure to get nothing. »

In fact, nothing or very little had been given to the army. And it was already unacceptable to prepare for a short war and then find yourself caught off guard, like when he had to order shells to be saved in Champagne or Artois. But it was even worse at that time when he was still forbidden to exercise his artillery for lack of ammunition (4)! Well, we hadn't had the nerve to offer him captive balloons "as a replacement" (replacement of what by the way?), probably because there weren't any left.

The whole 1930s, and even the 1920s for a good part, had been a joke on that side, not only, but particularly. He was also in the right place to see it, from the 3rd office (5) of the general staff. He had calculated that, for the year 1931, the material budget was 20% of the necessary envelope, no less.

We were back in the car. Enough wasted time, he could hear the truck protesting as they finished pushing it into the drainage ditch. “Ride Lieutenant, let the gendarmes do their job”. The cap was about to unblock. Passing in front of this -now- heap of scrap metal, Corap felt an immense sense of waste.

Weygand and I wanted to rationalize all that, to make the system more efficient, to pool, in particular by creating ad-hoc organizations. Inspection Générale de l’Armement, Conseil Supérieur de l’Armement… All of this had been removed by Gamelin as soon as he took office! Not useful enough! And 14-month delays in the 1938 delivery schedule, surely that was helpful?

Gamelin had always been an opportunist, Weygand himself had said so. Always the word to please, always flat on his stomach in front of his political protectors, who were asking for more. Daladier himself had said it with a smile: “Gamelin always has a half-solution ready! ". And that's where the French army was, obeying this kind of character. Yet right-wing parliamentarians had not been the most destructive, far from it. We could talk about the socialists, it had been a pleasure to listen to their nonsense! Like Minister Joseph Paul Boncour, who led a policy of disarmament, and who proposed nothing less than a balance between all nations through the abolition of the professional army, the creation of national militias, and the setting up of An International Force to Settle Conflicts! Or the Communists, who just after Munich, still asked to reduce credits and began strikes against the restoration of military service. Some had even gone even further, “servitude is better than war” he had read one day in a union pamphlet (6).

All of this he had escaped in 1937, when he was appointed commander of the 2nd military region. But Weygand had to endure all the snubs. The only thing that had prevented him from resigning was the certainty that Gamelin would be appointed in his place in the event of his departure. Obviously, this eventuality had unfortunately ended up materializing, with the result that we know.

In fact, General Gamelin had no plan for the French army, and he had moreover almost recognized it during a meeting in August 1939, in front of all the army and corps generals. armies. On the other hand, he had very fixed ideas, as when he had published the brochure serving as a report on the operations in Poland, last winter. Corap had read it with great attention. A sentence caught his eye: “the combat methods employed by the German army in Poland respond to a particular situation”. And cannot therefore apply in France, except occasionally... Come on! Surprisingly, this point seemed to him subject to discussion, and in particular with the Germans, who did not seem to agree.

Perhaps also because he himself had experienced the war that is being waged against France today? Parachute assault? 1931 maneuvers with airborne commandos! Maneuvers of large armored units? Exercises of the Moroccan army in 1935. These had also been carried out under the watchful eye of German liaison officers, who seemed to be very interested. From memory ... the general ... let's see ... Kuhlenthal that's it ... had come to see him at the end of the maneuvers to express his "satisfaction"! Apparently, the conclusions had not been forgotten. This was unfortunately the case in France, where the DIM and DLM (7) still created by Weygand (8), had been removed later.

Corap was not sure that suffering, at least in part, these own processes would be a consolation to the misfortune of the current situation.

Corap snapped out of those dark thoughts. Alright, where were we? The car was going fast, at last as fast as the traffic allowed. After all, although now without assignment, he remained a French soldier in exercise, and had to follow his command to accomplish any tasks that we would like to entrust to him. It was his duty, and no matter the insults, he would carry it out.

And on these firm thoughts, General André Georges Corap continued on his way on the congested roads of Seine-et-Oise.

(1) The letter stated "I am killing myself to let you know, Mr. President (of the council), that all my men were brave, but we do not send people to fight with guns against tanks ". It is not certain that Reynaud ever received this letter.
(2) Major general under the orders of Corap, he distinguished himself by his inertia and his total lack of authority with his men. Unsurprisingly, his B-type division (reservists) will be cleanly disintegrated by the German attack. The post-war commission of inquiry will be particularly severe with him, and it must be said, rightly so.
(3) To get rid of him and release this highly strategic position, General Weygand (then Chief of Staff) will offer the person concerned a promotion to Lieutenant General... which the latter will refuse to retain his power. discretionary! He will therefore remain in place until his retirement in 1934. It is instructive to note that the character will be an integral part of the purification committees of the army during the Liberation.
(4) In fact, the artillery of the 7th Army will carry out only one practice firing during the Phoney War.
(5) Office of Operations.
(6) Tract of the Trade Union of Teachers (1938).
(7) Mechanized Infantry Division and Light Mechanized Division.
( 8 ) In 1932.

 

[demolitiondan]

June 13, around Langeais, towards Saint-Maure-de-Touraine

It was late in the evening when General Corap finally reached the Loire. Damn mess, the congestion had not eased before the exit of Châteaudun! And again, his driver had had the presence of mind to leave Orléans, Blois and even Tours to his left, otherwise we were not there.

In fact, at night helping, the traffic settled down somewhat and the bridge remained passable within a reasonable time for a vehicle of the size of his automobile. In addition, the work of art appeared to be of recent construction (1), and therefore had the double advantage of allowing the passage of more people, and of being significantly less known than the other crossing points. God thank this dear Maurice, assigned to his personal protection and native of the region!

And, at about 10:45 p.m., the Loire was crossed in the middle of a disparate group of refugees (a little), retreating military columns, and a group of fugitives and isolated soldiers. At the southern end of the bridge, a barrage had been erected by a military force that appeared to have been aggregated from elements of several units, at least considering the disparate uniforms of the soldiers guarding it. They seemed to arrest any isolated soldier, and stragglers found themselves systematically enlisted and assigned to guard the banks, without this order necessarily triggering overflowing enthusiasm for them.

All this under the supervision of a very young and brave-looking lieutenant, who kept his hand on the pistol holster, certainly to give himself insurance. He approached the car as it passed the south abutment.

“Halt – mission order? »
Corap's driver stopped immediately, and rolled down his window.
“Staff transport, we are joining the high command”.
What did not seem sufficient, the fatigue and especially the absence of any distinctive sign on the vehicle (Corap had had them removed, one is never too careful) made the lieutenant suspicious.
" Eh ? Yes, that's definitely it! I would be very surprised if one of these nice gentlemen from the staff would do us the honor of a visit, in my opinion they are all..."

And the general to open his driver's side door, get out of the vehicle and stand in front of the person concerned. It took a few moments before the latter realized the embarrassment he had put himself in, and as he stood to attention, he could only anticipate the huff he might encounter.

“Lieutenant, doing your duty is the least that is asked of you. To do it with zeal and conscience, as you seem to do, and especially these days, is even better" (the tone becomes firmer and rises in octaves) "Questioning the command with anyone what a pequin who passes by your house, it is unacceptable! Discipline in God's name! Where is your supérior ? »

“The… The captain's command post is 500 meters to the south, towards La-Chapelle-aux-Naux. There is a farmhouse at the intersection of the two departmental roads! »

Corap took his eyes off the poor man for a moment to take in the entire device. The roadblock consisted, of course, of Bric et de Broc: on the left a still operational Panhard armored car, on the right a Laffly V15 tractor which no one knows how it got there, and which in any case seemed to be broken down. In the middle, sandbags with a checkpoint and a venerable (but still effective) Hotchkiss machine gun seeming to sweep the deck but above all ideally placed to be swept away at the first cannon shot. His servant seemed drowsy on the lookout, my God these men were definitely exhausted! The night did not allow to judge if sentinels had been posted on the bank, one could doubt it. No trace either of sappers to undermine the work...

All of this was both unnecessary and dangerous. The dam had no military value, only very imperfectly controlled the bridge and would surely take a long time to sort out the flow of people and vehicles which would surely arrive again tomorrow. At best, it would be a bottleneck, at worst, a tragedy. A blocking point for ours, a crossing point for the enemy in short.

And yet, on too many faces whose features were also too drawn by sleepless nights and frantic walks, a flame seemed to hide deep in each pair of eyes. This flame was determination, the wish to do one's duty and stop the invader.

He couldn't leave it as it was. It would be a crime to let these men die like this for nothing.

“My apologies General, I didn’t mean…”
“Lieutenant, show the route to my driver, we are going to the PC”. And Corap to get back in the car.

After a few minutes on the road, and on the diligent and frightened advice of the poor officer, the General reached the building. The two sentries positioned on either side of the door seemed to come alive when the car stopped in the doorway, and quickly returned the honors as soon as the general stepped outside.

He entered the requisitioned farmhouse and emerged directly into the main building, converted into an Advanced Command Post. In the center, a table on which was spread a topographic map of the Geographical Service of the Armies. At least it wasn't a Michelin, it was already that! On the right, a field telephone installed on a rustically made chest, with the traditional symbols engraved on the four sides of the wooden cabinet. At the end of the handset of this same telephone, an Army captain, in deep conversation with his interlocutor on the other end of the line. Under the watchful eye of a sergeant and a private, who might have other tasks to carry out.

"And make it clear to your superior that it's not me who decides when the Germans will arrive! I'm still not going to saw this bridge! »

The receiver fell heavily into the suitcase, while the officer seemed to pinch the top of his nose.

“Captain, you should take care of this material, it is already too fragile. »

The captain in question turned towards the insolent with a broad gesture, to finally plant himself intensely at attention. The other two people in the room had already anticipated.

"My respects General"

“Rest gentlemen. General Corap, of the General Staff. I came to inspect your device. Because I suppose you haven't heard too much from your army staff? »

“General, I would be hard pressed to tell you what army we depend on. We report, or rather reported, to the 10th army of General Altmayer and we were separated from the rest of our unit during fights in the region of Alençon. I took it upon myself to withdraw all the men I could find towards the Loire, and to organize a point of resistance. »

“Good initiative, so what? »

“General, my men are exhausted and without equipment. We have about 150 men, plus any stragglers we have been able to catch. No more than 3 officers, myself included. Three machine guns, one armored car. No one has slept a full night for at least 2 days. »

“I can see it! Do you have any news from behind? »

“No way to reach the PC responsible for the region. I managed, by dint of insistence, to join the sub-prefecture of Châtellerault. To describe the situation and ask for reinforcements, even enough to blow up the bridge. As you can see, I just hung up. »

“Several large units are falling back towards the Loire, you should have people in no time. You will have to ask them for more. »

" Yes my general. »

“Describe the device to me. »

The Captain, with a double wave of his hands, invited Corap to the map and dismissed his 2 subordinates present in the room. They went to the kitchen to bring back, if not a hot drink, at least something to eat. The general asked them to kindly invite his orderly, his driver and his 2 protection soldiers to the kitchen. For them too, the days were long.

With a pencil stroke, the captain marked the main points of support: the dam to the south of the bridge of course, but also an advanced position to the east, where the river deviated to the south, which masked its course. from the road.

“Here, I positioned a machine gun with 20 men to prevent any attempted coup. Moreover, and as you have surely seen General, the course of the water splits at this point, which forms an island which obviously facilitates the crossing. »

“With the night and the world, I didn’t see much! You mentioned 3 machine guns, with the one on the bridge it makes two. Where is the third? »

“I positioned it at the crossroads of the RD 57 and the RD 16, where you had to go. »

“There too, I did not see anything. Either they're very well camouflaged, or there's something wrong with your captain device. Moreover, an automatic weapon in this location is useless. Once the Germans are on the ground, they will bypass your machine gun nest and it will be over. Look west, the map mentions sandbanks. They are at least as dangerous as your island to the east. This position must and will be urgently beaten by your automatic weapon. The experience of the Meuse proved to me that…”

An angel passes, the captain and all the people visible from the living room seem to have frozen in amazement, and then a thick embarrassment sets in. A veil darkened Corap's face for a few moments.

He would have stopped them, but with what? With what could he have stopped a perfectly equipped and trained infantry, young, and whose determination bordered on fanaticism? All this was the fruit of a long preparation for the conflict.

This preparation, the French army had never done it since 1918. Its poor 2nd army corps had never had real aviation, which however would have made it possible to quickly locate the attempts of crossing, and could have decimated the landsers in their rubber dinghies. During the first meeting with the liaison officer of the Air Force in 1938, the latter had only been able to apologize and admit to him that the aviation organically attached to the Army Corps was purely theoretical, in the absence of any squadron, staff, and even land. When war was declared, the same individual told him that, I quote, he only had one squadron of Potez 540s to make available, and that they were “good for nothing”! And finally in May 1940, there were, for the whole Army Corps, only 35 Potez 63 and 3 Mureaux 117 to help withstand the shock. Sure, it was worth it to create an independent weapon, they had been able to contribute to the effort! Their only success was to reject the single combined arms command in 1938!

Anyway, there had been no credit for anything… He would have liked to familiarize these units in combat with combat tanks, by adding a battalion of tanks to each of these IDs, at least temporarily! He would have liked to be allowed to fortify his positions as in Alsace, without going so far as to extend the Maginot line, we must not exaggerate either. We had spent a pittance on even more miserable works, the Barbeyrac casemates, a sort of wooden rat hole, positioned at the rate of one per kilometer and which had no other use than to serve as a fish pond. On this account, you might as well spend the money elsewhere and on something else.

Daladier had told him one day "the 2nd region is the poor relation, you are the proletarian of the front". And that had not changed with Munich, Gamelin had published a list of regions to be fortified: the Ardennes came last.

All the reports he had written, the requests for reinforcements, the exercises of 1938, the experiments he had carried out in 1939 (2), the simple evidence that the geography had not changed since 1914, or even 1870! Nothing had made the certainties up there move or waver. Gamelin had written it "The Meuse is only a security to cover the national territory, (...) not susceptible to attacks in order on the Line of the organized Meuse (...), the region has never been favorable to major operations. The mass was said! Stop bothering us with your writings, and above all don't bother going to Belgium to see how the terrain is (3).

Yet he had insisted, invited his friend Georges, who had agreed that “the land was very deforested”. To which Corap had replied that the position of the EM was an idiocy. He had even, against all his prejudices, solicited parliamentarians, to whom Huntziger had replied with soothing letters.

And by dint of effort, Gamelin had passed. During the winter of 1939-1940. Four hours in all and for everything “including coffee”. In vain Corap had demonstrated to him firsthand the weakness of the device, the lack of equipment (4), Gamelin had looked at him with a distracted and smug air, then had sighed "But Corap, the Meuse, that does not interest me ".

How could he make up for it all? He was a soldier, he only had to obey his commander. And it was not enough to pompously rename the units in garrison under the title of "Detachment of the Armies of the Ardennes", or to flatter one's ego by renaming the whole thing "9th army", so that its three stars finally serve a purpose (5 ). So much it is true that, according to the GQG, it is enough to make a paper on a question to solve it.

All this, he would have liked to tell the people in front of him, in order to do himself justice. He would like to prove that he had not been given a chance. And he would have liked to silence the infamous rumors that had been circulating about him since Daladier's speech: that he had committed suicide, fled, surrendered or even that he remained locked up in a castle with his mistress! Poor Cecile...

But he could have come out and yelled it in the face of the world that it wouldn't have made a difference. What's done was done, and revealing all this could only make our soldiers lose the little confidence they had in their hierarchies. The incident earlier with the Lieutenant was symptomatic of this point of view. We had to deal with it. He had had under his command five or six IDs, when he should have had at least 10 according to the Rules? What does it matter! He was not the only one to complain, and anyway, no army unit had its theoretical stock of equipment when war was declared.

Here at least we were preparing to fight, that was all that mattered.

"Come on Captain, we have work to do"

And he helped them get ready. For one or two hours, he held the ramp with the captain, and went over every detail of the device: position of the machine guns, duplication of the sentries, preparation for the mining of the bridge (which was bound to take place). Or if ever at least we find something to cut the shrouds, it would always prevent the passage of gear. The captain listened, suggested, agreed, gave orders to his 2 deputies who came and went in the PC.

Foch once said “in the last resort, to command is to be obeyed!” ". Corap agreed in principle, but he knew that for real results, discipline had to be based on trust. Trust, because the authority is legitimate and competent, and its firmness is based on experience. He had seen only too often, in his divisions of reservists (6), leaders overwhelmed by their bases and who found themselves negotiating orders with the troops. Without it being possible to change it, due to lack of staff. He had even seen, during the terrible days of May 1940, his General of the Army Martin break down physically and remain paralyzed by the reports that were made to him. But who can replace it?

He couldn't, France couldn't win the battle without a competent end-to-end chain of command. The result, the consequence of all this, of these failings, he knew only too well. The Belgians who fall back without a fight after having destroyed a few bridges (thank you Belgians, it's a pleasure to help you), the columns of refugees who delay the maneuver, the Panzer-divisions who jostle his horsemen, the bridges which jump, this bloody battalion of the 35 RI of the 18th ID which remains on the heights of the island of Houx and refuses to take refuge, and finally Bilotte which passes by declaring to the alleyways that "it is not you who interest me but the 2nd Army. By the time we realized the situation, it was too late. The reinforcements promised for May 15 will not arrive until May 16 for the first elements. You can't stop a rout with words, and the bans on withdrawal hadn't prevented the divisionnaires from fleeing the enemy advance (7).

He was no longer army chief, Bilotte had made him take the blame and he had been dismissed. But he could still serve his country. More than Brother who had replaced him during his second assignment in Belgium (8), much more than Gamelin who, at the latest news, had been sacked. What was only fair, he hadn't even known what to say to her when Corap had gone to GHQ on May 18. Except that his position was also precarious, and that he only had to go home, that he “should go to Fontainebleau”. Sacré Gamelin, even to dismiss someone, he did not know how to give an order!

Finally, at the end of the night, the device seemed to him to be in conformity, at least as much as it could be in such circumstances.

“Captain, we're done and it's late for both of us. Would you have a room to lend me? »

“General, I'm going to put you up in a house in the village, Sergeant Mureuil will guide you. »

They both stepped out onto the doorstep, and gazed out over the countryside, peaceful but only for now. A Hotchkiss 25 mm anti-aircraft gun was coming out of the hangar to be put into position.

“All is not lost Captain, look! You even have a real DCA! (9) »

“General, will you stay with us against the enemy? »

"I'm sorry captain, I have to move on. I know that you will do your duty for France. »

“Too bad, it was an honor General. »

“I only did my duty given the circumstances. One last advice Captain: stay close to your men. We can give orders from the rear, but we only command from the front. »

They parted after bowing. Corap had no doubt that they would do their homework, and then some. The brave people! He would have liked to order them on fire, like in 14! But his status would not allow it. Yet he or Weygand, he was sure, would have given up stars to stay here. (10) Because he was not sure that doing their duty would be enough in the face of the enemy.

The sergeant guided him to a garret not far from here, he would stay in order during the night to allow the General's companions to rest. After dismissing his orderly, and once alone in a humble peasant bedroom in the Pays de Loire, Corap sat down on the bed. Through the open window, he could feel the sweetness of a summer evening, and the beauty of the world. , if the latter was not at war.

He sighed, and took a thick document out of his satchel, which he began to read again, by the light of a kerosene lamp.

“Deficit in men and equipment of the 9th army: manpower 7% / transport 20% / anti-tank guns 50% / DCA 80% / mines 90%”

“Leave rate on 01/05/40: 15%”

It was a copy of the report he had given to General Duffreux during his hearing on June 5. He wanted to keep his numbers in mind, they could help clear his name. Besides, he had a tendency to lose his memories somewhat these days, nervous tension and fatigue no doubt…

Yes, that's for sure, it's this army that should have occupied the Meuse, within 5 days, without joint preparation with the Belgians and after prior validation of each move by General Bilotte! Given the lack of vehicles, his assistant had told him that it would not be a maneuver, but a simple move.

And the Belgians! They had not helped us any more than in 1914, when they had fallen back without a fight behind floods. A parody of an army, incapable of the slightest offensive.

Come on, there's no use being bitter, better sleep now. After all, (again) General Corap had done his duty today, it will be the same tomorrow.

Dedicated to the defenders of Nevers, 15 soldiers defending the bridge over the Loire alone and who died bravely for France on June 17, 1940, Armistice Day.

(1) Inaugurated in 1937.
(2) During the phoney war, Corap had sent 2 battalions of tanks through the forest of the Ardennes and ordered a full company to cross the Meuse in inflatable boats. These experiments, which demonstrated the ease of this type of operation in the field, did not lead to reactions from the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
(3) Against the order of HQ, Corap will send liaison officers in civilian clothes to survey the topography and the terrain on the Meuse on the Belgian side. It will be recalled that cover elements of the 9th Army had to, and did, enter Belgium on May 10 and 11 in an attempt to delay the German advance.
(4) The 9th Army will never receive its full uniform endowment!
(5) Although an army general in his own right, Corap had never commanded an army, but only military regions. Indeed, his presence in Morocco during the Rif War, facing a certain Colonel Franco, had made him undesirable for the politicians who kept control of the high command. It will take all the weight of Georges for Daladier to agree, after 15 days, to sign the official appointment letter. Moreover, the latter did not authorize Corap to sit on the Superior Council of War, in defiance of all customs and Gamelin's promises.
(6) So-called “category B” divisions.
(7) Corap à Buffet “I forbid any withdrawal, starting with yours”.
(8) After his dismissal from the 9th army, Corap was army commander in Belgium… for 2 days!
(9) Corap will claim in vain anti-aircraft or even anti-tank guns. He was told to use his machine guns or his 75 cannons. Not having enough of these, he will turn to the Army Group's stewardship... who will refuse them in the absence of gunners to serve them!!!
(10) We know how General Weygand FTL will perish.

 

[demolitiondan]

Center of Bordeaux (33), June 14, 1940 at the end of the afternoon

The car had taken nearly eight hours to travel the 350 kilometers that separated Corap from its destination. In fact, time was running out, no one was going to dispute it, and he had done violence to his companions, and in particular to his traveling companions, by leaving the banks of the Loire at 7:30 in the morning. Obviously, everyone was falling asleep and the drivers had taken turns throughout the day.

Thank God, we were now in a zone clearly controlled by the French army (at least for the moment), and the traffic flows were more organized, under the action of a gendarmerie which proved to be noticeably more effective as and as we descended in the South. It is true that the absence of the planes with black crosses, which were too far away to intervene, offered everyone a welcome respite to organize themselves. Corap had therefore put the flags and distinctive badges back on the cars, and the convoy enjoyed welcome priority at crossroads and crossing points.

Obviously, entering Bordeaux, and especially crossing the Gironde, had proven to be complicated. The bridges, which already naturally acted as bottlenecks, saw their surroundings overloaded with almost new anti-aircraft guns coming out of the depots, and fortified points intended to counter an improbable attack by saboteurs or paratroopers.

Arrived in town, it had only been necessary to follow the indications of the many orderlies arranged at each crossroads to find No. 35, place Pey-Berland which served, according to everyone's words, as temporary HQ at the ministry. of the war. Noting, however, the futility of his driver's efforts once past the Gironde quays, Corap had dismissed his subordinates at the Porte de Bourgogne, believing both that they would go faster on foot, and that walking would make him feel better. well after almost 3 days on the congested roads of the exodus.

In fact, the city was buzzing with activity, and not just military. The flood of refugees from the eastern provinces, now under the enemy's yoke, made any advance difficult as the density of cars, animal-drawn carts, and even hand carts (!) was dense. The whole, combined with the display of personal effects on the tracks and the sidewalk, would have given the whole an almost festive side, if we ignored the drawn faces and the crying children (1). The hunger tension was palpable. All under the watchful and powerless guard of Saint-André Cathedral. It was going to take more than prayers to get the country out of this mess, divine intervention at least!

Arrived in front of the building, clearly identifiable by the sentries and the many flags on the facades, Corap presented himself without difficulty to the duty officer on duty in the hall, to "ask to be received by the chief of staff or any representative, in order to take instructions”. His status at least still allowed him to request a direct interview with the decision-makers. The captain on duty therefore asked one of his soldiers that "we contact General Hutzinger's office to see if anyone was available".

Hutzinger, Chief of Staff? This is a bad and curious surprise! Him, who had failed at least as much as Corap on the Meuse? The third generalism in 2 months? Still passes for Gamelin, he had deserved his fate. But Weygand was cut out for this position, he knew it. Since the time of Foch, the latter had always brilliantly led the staff, the 3rd office with the late Buat, and had risen to the general staff of the armies. Finally ! If anyone was qualified, it was him! Certainly, he had paid for his outspokenness again, that had already been the case in 1929. But finally, a man like him, who had always encouraged reflection in the armed forces? This government was decidedly pathetic, it had to be criticized for having the good sense to recognize that it was screwed up.

Hutzinger was decidedly a bad companion, wasn't there someone friendlier around?

"Captain, I'm not going to disturb everyone, isn't there General Réquin around? »

“Not to my knowledge, General, but I can find out. »

On these bad thoughts, Corap found himself waiting lonely in this damn hallway. Which neither suited him nor pleased him, of course. Thank goodness a figure sliced through the mass of uniforms that passed from office to office and from floor to floor. He easily recognized this famous figure advancing with measured steps, his hands in the pockets of a jacket that he persisted in wearing despite the season: his old friend General Georges (2)!

“Alphonse? »
“Andre? The figure hugged his forearms friendly. “Finally some good news in this mer..er, I thought you were dead or captured! »
“I got out of Paris as long as it was still possible, after all no one held me back. What's up ? »
“Listen, you saw it on the way I think, we run in front of the Germans. Our troops are setting up on the Loire, but good white water has never stopped the Boches. »
“I saw that, good French people … that we send to the breaker in my opinion! What are they saying up there? Weygand was released? »
"That's true, but I don't know any more. Now Hutzinger takes the place. He's not here, you won't see him, he's still between Toulouse and Toulon. Meetings with the Navy, we talk about moving to AFN. »
"It's a joke, we're not going to do like the English! Another blow from the politicians (3), they want to run away, leaving us to manage the debacle. And what becomes of the Marshal? »
“Pétain … had a health problem the night before last. I do not know more. »
Corap took a slight step back. It was not an absolute surprise, the Marshal was obviously old. But damn it, the good news was obviously piling up this spring.
"Well, okay, you'll tell me all about it later... calm down." But in the meantime, you have to tell me what to do! And no way to be received in this hive! »
"I'll find out, I owe you that." After all, I have my starters and then I feel like the old crouton here (4). At least, I can pass in front of everyone, we will say that it is the privilege of age. »

And he burst into a somewhat sour laugh, which one might have thought forced. No, it was definitely not the time to party. And he disappeared down the hall, in the direction where the soldier sent by the captain had gone. Corap found himself alone again in the din and the tide of uniforms. An ocean, a bubbling activity.

Go to Algeria? And why do ? To insult the Germans from the other side of the Mediterranean? What government: after refusing to prepare for war, leading the country to defeat, we had courageously decided to flee instead of taking responsibility and looking misfortune in the eye?

Clearly, politicians could not be trusted. Well, almost, there was Alfred Margane, but it was not the same (5)… Always attributing the merits of others, and in particular the army, and blaming them for their own faults! He knew it, from Morocco, and that foul Steeg: a bureaucrat with no contact with the field, who had slowed down operations on the ground in the mad hope of negotiating directly with Abd El Krim for a surrender from which he would have reaped all the laurels. . A hat-trick who didn't ask anyone's opinion, didn't respect the uniform and was only interested in its status. To negotiate over the army in time of war with the enemy was treason! Caillaud had learned it the hard way! And besides, Steeg had spent the rest of his career putting obstacles in his way, out of pure revenge. Revenge for what anyway? He had only done his duty!

Too bad the Marshal isn't here. Really too bad, he would have put it all to rest. Honor, the interest of the country first! No more tricks with the assemblies, the deputies who were sent to pay for restaurants for the socialists (6)! These people understood only demonstrations of force, and he himself had not hesitated when it was necessary to send the troops to prevent strikes, in Morocco in 1936. And the radicals were no better... Daladier, this "painted reed iron", which wanted to reduce military service to 6 months (7)! And again, on only 10/12ths of the contingent, as if there were not enough hiding places. Always agree with everyone, where at least he wanted to make believe. In fact, mostly agree with the last speaker. Normal that Gamelin supported him. And it is the same one who, 2 years ago, spoke of putting France back to work!
Well, the national service had ended up being increased… theoretically and of course the application was postponed from one year to the next. We paid ourselves with words, and meanwhile, on the Meuse, he observed Germany, which worked 60 hours a week. The French had been weak, they had yielded to the deleterious influence of a government elected on a slogan in the form of a mirage. “Bread/Peace/Freedom”. And so the chief dared to say that “we are well beyond the manpower necessary for the defense of the country! ".

In short, we would see. Corap sat down on a bench that had the good taste to wait with him in the hall. Near him, courtesy of the captain, a radio spat out a stream of disasters that were camouflaged on the back, interspersed with trivia that we wanted to make decisive. What a hum! An anthill that this building! Junior officers paced back and forth across the hall, practically running past Corap and disappearing into some office. Everywhere, telephones ringing and conversations of which he caught only snatches: “Boats”, “trains”, “withdrawal” and especially one word “move”. A move yes, the French army was decidedly unable to maneuver. Where were the senior officers? Invisible, of course. Curiously, the indiscernible movement that seemed to guide everyone was self-sustaining, like the waves on the coast in the electric atmosphere of the storm accompanying the storm. Curious, such energy in times of defeat, the French were definitely a very curious race, quick to reveal themselves in the worst circumstances.

A change in the noise brought Corap's attention back to the radio: the voice of Maurice Schumann "Honneur et Patrie," he announced, "you will now hear General de Gaulle, Minister of War, in his speech on our airwaves this day at noon. De Gaulle, minister of war? That was new too! Why not, he was not unknown to her, and knew he was a good soldier, although willingly brash and loud-talking. This man obviously had a certain idea of France. He had not been unworthy, but not particularly shone, except against the reds in Poland. But it was the reds. He remembered … interesting ideas, a correct file, moreover he had hesitated between him and De Lattre as deputy to replace Molinier (8). Then the choice fell on De Lattre, he was less restless, and then he had come from the colonial period in Morocco, that counted…

Curious to bombard a Colonel Minister of War like that, he could only hope that we were not dealing with one more cronyism, it would be really pitiful in such circumstances!

He noticed that the people near the set seemed frozen, and were holding full attention on the loudspeaker. Some stopped their march and ran to listen, without anyone being moved by this culpable levity. What had he announced on the radio that was so important that it justified all these antics?

“Leaders placed for many years at the head of the French armies have given up the fight after being unable to prepare our forces for the current ordeals. It started well, so we put everything on the army. “However, faithful to the honor of France, to its international commitments, to the deepest interests of the nation and to the courage of the officers and soldiers who, on the whole front, do their duty heroically, the government of the Republic has decided to fight to the end. That's all well and good, but after what end exactly? Was he calling to fight to the last man? And for what purpose? Where was the honor in a suicide? “What some have undone, others can rebuild. Certainly, we run the risk of being overwhelmed by the mechanical, ground and air force of the enemy. Yes, yes, but rebuild on new foundations, and we are already overwhelmed. In the name of a dog! Facts, actions! “Infinitely more than their number, it is the tanks, the planes, the tactics of the Germans that have made us and are still making us retreat. It was the tanks, the planes and the tactics of the Germans that surprised those of our leaders who let themselves be abandoned, to the point of bringing them to where they are today. Yes, we agreed. And especially the laziness distilled by the Communists and the general carelessness… “But has the last word been said? Should hope disappear? Is the defeat final? "Yes I'm afraid...
No ! France lost a battle, but she did not lose the war. Corap raised his head and looked around him in the cantonnade, was that a joke? “Believe me, I who speak to you knowingly and tell you that nothing is lost for France. The same means that threaten to defeat us today will give us victory tomorrow. This war has only just begun. “She is beautiful that one! A minister who denies the obvious, that must be part of their paraphernalia! “Already, drawing lessons from past mistakes, our forces have been able to deliver significant blows to the enemy. We will continue wherever possible and one day these blows will destroy it. He didn't know where De Gaulle was, but he had certainly not gone where he, Corap had gone. “Because France is not alone! She is not alone ! She is not alone ! "We understood, it would be even better if it were true..." Immense forces in the universe have not yet given. " Who ? The Belgians, the Dutch? The English who fled? “France has a vast Empire behind it, from which it will continue the struggle no matter what. It now forms a bloc with the British Empire. Here we are, the AFN, the headlong rush with the English. What will become of France without its lands, at the mercy of the goodwill of foreign powers? “Our fleets, united and combined, hold the sea. Like England, France can use without limits the powerful industry of the United States. Hum, the latest news is that the Anglo-Saxons, like good Protestants, are not given to charity. We should explain to this dear colonel the concept of monetary reserve. “This war is not limited to the unfortunate territory of our country. This war is not decided by the Battle of France. This war is a World War. Yes, that's for sure, we just had to wait in Africa for the Germans to get tired! “The means exist that will allow us one day to crush the enemy. Devastated today by mechanical force, we will conquer in the future by superior mechanical force. » WITH WHAT MEANS? " The fate of the world is here. I, General de Gaulle, Minister of War, in the name of the government of the Republic, I order all officers and soldiers to unite and stand together. And here he is again taking on his grand airs, "standing up", we should have started there in 1939, that we admit today that this had not been the case does not seem to shock anyone here. “Every step the enemy takes on our territory, he must pay a heavy price of blood. Which one, his or ours? “I call on all engineers and workers working for national defense and all armaments specialists to immediately contact the authorities to join the Empire without delay in order to work there for our future victories. He's lost his mind, that's it. He has just called for disobedience, abandonment and flight. “I call on all French people to make an immense effort, thanks to which France will recover to be in the first rank, its own, when Victory Day comes! Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Long live the Republic ! Long live France ! Then came the Marseillaise.

Finally, that was enough! Do we not think of telling dangerous nonsense like the radio, under cover of an additional minister, and even a soldier! Around him, the auditors dispersed and resumed their tasks, without apparent shock. So was he the only one with a sense of reality here? All those should go where he come from. This war was lost, and in a short time Bordeaux would be besieged by the enemy. And French blood would be shed without any gain for the nation. No speech, no lyrical flight could prevent it. He was really looking forward to the Marshal coming back, he had to put everything in order. A real soldier, a fighter, had to take over this country, for France and only for her, with the help of the army. This De Gaulle was definitely not up to it, he too was paying for words. He hadn't achieved anything at Montcornet with his tanks, by what right did he claim to know anything about it? A writer, a talker, but really not a soldier.

Activity had picked up again around him. Well, he was not going to make a scandal here, everything would be settled later. We had to respect the hierarchy, and rely on it, especially in these times of misfortune. Here, Alphonse is coming back, he looks like he's had bad days. He too must have been outraged by what had just been broadcast.

"Well my dear, you shouldn't get into such moods, it's obviously not serious"

He handed her an unsealed envelope bearing the arms of the Ministry of War.

“I am afraid that it is very serious on the contrary. Georges remained hidden behind the visor of his kepi. Corap grabbed the letter, opened the envelope, and began to read the missive it contained.

Corap distinguished 2 paragraphs recently typed on the typewriter, the first very long, and the second very short. The first: gnagna, classic formulas of order of precedence, given the Military Code and the numbered articles… Decidedly, we spent far too much time dusting off the chandeliers in the offices! It is decided that... Ah

Second paragraph: “General André Georges Corap is placed in command reserve and demobilized. »

Staggering struck him full force, as if lightning had passed through the room. A stab would not have had more effect, one could have said that it would have had less.

"I'm sorry, it's my fault. I talked to Hutzinger's office about you, and they wrote this up," Georges tried awkwardly. "What should I have done, put you on a plane or a boat without telling anyone?"

Corap was barely listening to him, and he felt a retching, an urge to vomit go through his body. Sacked! Driven out of the army like a filth!

“…as long as you want, I can find accommodation for you. If you need me to advance you anything…”

Was that how we rewarded those years of loyal and dedicated service? A janitor would have had more respect § He really was the lamplighter, the bastards, they hadn't even given him a chance to defend himself. He would have said what should have been done, he would have demonstrated that the misfortune of France is linked to the rottenness of successive governments. And their obligated! Where were they, all those hidden away in 1939, those inspectors of the colonial troops, those senior commanders of the anti-aircraft forces, those inspectors of the landing troops or the cantonments? Not on the Meuse in any case!

Georges was silent and Corap looked him straight in the eye. Without a word, he corrected his position, saluted and left, leaving his former friend in the middle of the flood of those who went about their business and who were now strangers to him.

(1) "The whole center of the city was nothing but a fair in the open air" summed up Léon Blum in a book. Charles Tillon preferred to speak of "a human crowd of hundreds of thousands of confused migrants, looking for a baker".
(2) Georges and Corap had known each other since the First World War, when they had served together in Dijon and Nancy. A frank camaraderie seems to have been linked at the time between the 2 men, if we are to believe the close relations they maintained afterwards.
(3) Expression of Foch.
(4) Alphonse Georges was 65 in 1940. He was well above the age limit for active officers.
(5) Alfred Margane, radical socialist deputy of the Marne. He was Corap's step-uncle, and a valuable intermediary, although little sought after.
(6) De Lattre de Tassigny invited Leon Blum several times to the restaurant, at the instigation of Weygand and in order to convince him to moderate his criticisms of the action of the Chief of Staff, including in particular the extension of military service. This move paid off and Blum moderated his attacks.
(7) In 1933.
(8 ) At the general staff of course.

 

[demolitiondan]

October 15, 1940 – Algiers

It was really hot for October, thought Captain Moreille, dusting his forehead with his handkerchief. On reflection, it had been hot for 4 or 5 months, since May to be precise. He really didn't get used to the climate, he who had spent all his childhood in Oise, and who had only ever worked in the Paris region. Besides, lately had been hectic, and he'd had far more exercise this year than in his entire career, which he'd always hoped to spend holed up behind a desk.

Or maybe it was the starchy atmosphere of this meeting room, the atmosphere of which definitely did not favor serenity and concentration, at least for him. The regulation uniforms were really not adapted to the North African climate. Thank God the window was open, and from this third floor, gave a wide panorama of the Port of Algiers. But we weren't going to wear shorts like the English!

The captain could not repress a slight smile when he imagined his main interlocutor and superior dressed in the English style, that is to say in shirtsleeves and with trousers stopping at the knees. Smile that he hastened to erase as quickly as the atmosphere was not trivial. Indeed, he had beautiful linen in front of him, behind the Louis XV style desk (1) as far as he could tell, cluttered with various papers and files.

In front of him, and presenting as usual a haughty but severe air, "The General", Minister of War in title, Charles De Gaulle. On his right, among the righteous and slightly behind, Generalissimo Huntziger. The captain was not accustomed to interlocutors of this level, fortunately he had on his left, among the sinners, Colonel Groussard, with the curious title of "in charge of the replenishment of the strength of the armies of North Africa". A curious character, with whom he had previously had to send the list he had just presented to these gentlemen today. This irregularity, this cut to the elementary rules of discretion, in force in the personnel management services attached to the army, did not fail to challenge him.

Colonel Groussard considered his interlocutors with greater assurance, but also with vigilant attention. He watched his sidekick out of the corner of his eye: the poor guy didn't know what he was doing there. But hey, his job was to set up the networks and prepare for “certain” operations, the main one of which was being developed, and even partly already launched. If all went well, it would serve as a reference and demonstrate service know-how (2), and there would be others. If everything goes wrong on the other hand... But hey, let's stay optimistic, and let's plan for the future. And for that, targets had to be defined, which was the whole point of today's meeting.

“Gentlemen” began Generalism with a serious air “as you know, the complicated and tragic situation of the past few months has now stabilized, whether for our forces or for our English allies. We can therefore now launch, under the aegis of the government and the Minister of War (he glanced discreetly at the person concerned, who did not react) a vast program of replenishment and training of our troops. New materials are being delivered by our allies or friends, and new units are being formed. The purpose of today's meeting, Colonel Groussard, Captain Moreille, is therefore to identify on your joint proposals the frameworks and elements of values likely to justify a... repatriation from the Metropolis where they have unfortunately been forgotten. This point obviously concerns the executives and leaders of our armies, but also all important and/or specialized personnel, as defined by the rules of general mobilization which remain in force, I remind you. »

Huntziger let a few seconds of silence pass so that everyone assimilated the information he had just recalled, and especially the captain who was the only one to whom something had just been revealed.

"Captain, I would first suggest that you introduce us to the heads of tasks relating to the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and who were able to hold our attention. »

"My... My general, Mr. Minister," the captain said in a somewhat strained voice, "according to your instructions defined by the internal note dated September 12, 1940..." (better to abbreviate) "I proceeded to the census of all the people who have worked in the General Staff of the Armed Forces over the past 10 years, and who have not been transferred to the AFN in recent months. In accordance with the instructions, I then eliminated people whose age exceeded 65, as well as those whose state of health seemed incompatible with an active function. The remainder, thus sieved, was then classified according to the advancements and marks obtained during the evaluation reports. I will therefore briefly present each … let’s say applicant … starting from the best rated. »

The captain plunged back into the thick folder he was holding on his knees, and pulled out a first yellowed shirt. "At the top of the list, for the globality of these services with the General Staff of the Armed Forces, for his actions in AFN and Morocco, and by the duration of his assignment in the training of units of the Moroccan army and from the 2nd military region (3), I propose General André Georges Corap. »

A slight silence of amazement for some, of embarrassment for others, followed. The captain, however, saw fit to continue.

“He demonstrated great leadership and logistics organization skills. His record appears exemplary in terms of ratings … if we obviously except his last command”. De Gaulle interrupted the speech with a firm but courteous tone. “Your suggestion is impossible to implement, the file is closed, who is the next person? »

The captain thought it appropriate to specify "At your orders Minister, I must however point out that the people ranked behind are of a much lower rank and much less noted. »

"I told you it wasn't possible, so I'm not interested. Next person please. »

On this, Colonel Groussard, legitimately and above all concerned about the safety of his networks under construction, and thereby the lives of his men, saw fit to add:

"Mr. Minister, my General, whatever the other considerations, the individual is not subject to surveillance measures and is evolving without particular difficulty in France. If it had any use, then it would be easy to…”

The General/Minister of War slapped his hand on the table. “Gentlemen, enough is enough! Whatever the qualities or faults of Mr. Corap, his name is and remains associated with the disaster that our Nation has just suffered! In fact he is discredited, and I have already said it enough, you must not be defeated! »

He paused for a few moments to consider his two interlocutors, and continued, “What use are you talking about, Colonel? You want me to send him into the desert like others before him? It won't even make him a vacation, he already knows (4)! We're not going to bring him back so he can remember the good old days! And then, what do you want me to do, that I risk the lives of French soldiers to save the vanquished of the Meuse? (He returned to the captain, who seemed to be burying himself in his files) “Superb plan gentlemen! I see from here the reproaches that we will be made! And in particular the President of the Council, to whom you will explain that time and money are sacrificed to extract a man whom he has condemned to public obloquy! »

Without interrupting his speech, the general pretended to look for something in the right front pocket of his uniform. “Not to mention the cabbage leaves of the traitors on the other side of the sea, in five columns in “Le Temps”: Africans buy with the blood of patriots the person responsible for the ruin of France. »

Apparently, he had found what he was looking for, and pulled out a pack of Players cigarettes. Opening it with one hand in a quick and annoyed gesture, he grabbed his lighter which sat on the desk next to the bedside lamp. “We have already taken strong measures to rejuvenate the executives (5), and he is not even part of it anymore. So no need to look any further. He put his cigarette in his mouth, and lit it after several tries: the lighter wouldn't work, probably because of the wind coming from the Port... "Also, I advise you... no, I order you (a puff of smoke went office) to stop banging my ears with your retired generals. Place for young people is the meaning of history. And if we have to start from scratch, too bad, we have time now if I dare say. The results could not be worse than today! ".

And on this well-felt tirade, the minister rose from his chair and, turning his back on his interlocutors, began to consume his cigarette while observing the ships in the harbour. Less out of courtesy for her subordinates than to make it clear that the subject was closed and that it was better to leave it at that.

Huntziger had remained silent for the duration of the "blow of tobacco". Indeed, he knows only too well that, in the absence of Corap, it would be necessary to seek another culprit to deliver to the vengeance. For example, the general in charge of the 2nd army, located just to the east of the positions of the 9th army... De Gaulle would later write on this subject "By a cruel irony, and while his comrade and colleague would remain associated with the outburst , his name would remain associated with defeat. History can be unfair, we all knew it, and above all we all knew the truth. »

Captain Moreille, decidedly clumsy, wisely judged that it was better not to expose himself further and took it upon himself to change the subject. For example, he had some career summaries of certain executives of the SNCAN factory in Méaulte (formerly Potez). Surely there were valuable engineers there. Or maybe on the management side of the Port of Dunkirk, after all we badly needed logisticians here...


De Gaulle, at the window, was finishing his cigarette. Crushing it with a firm gesture of his right hand on the ledge, those present in the room distinctly heard him murmur "La Chienlit!" ".

(1) In reality Louis XVI, but the captain is not very fond of the arts.
(2) This is obviously the escape of General Giraud.
(3) Corap had trained some DIs in the 2nd military region, which were largely withdrawn from him in 1939.
(4) Corap had served for much of his career in Morocco.
(5) The famous “Waterloo of the stars”, which moreover will not sanction Corap, at the express request of De Gaulle and against Reynaud’s will.

 

[demolitiondan]

June 1942 – Fontainebleau

His back bent with exertion, the now ex-General Corap was busy digging furrows for his zucchini in the loose, clayey soil of his garden. This occupation, however necessary it was, especially in these times of scarcity, could only be desperately repetitive and hardly stimulated his mind, which therefore sought in its memories a means of wandering and escaping the mediocrity of the economy. instant.

There had been a long way to go in the last 2 years. After his ousting from the army, in shock and anger, Corap had felt the need for a moment of contemplation at Saint-André Cathedral. The latter, which served as a makeshift camp for too many people, was quite crowded and it had taken all the prestige of her outfit to gain access to the chapel of Saint-Simon Stock. Seated near a crowd which remained surprisingly discreet, because as if crushed by the Place, he had taken stock, under vigilant Gothic vaults which had witnessed many other invasions before that of today (1).

On leaving HQ, he had little but anger and resentment, in the face of an institution that rejected him when he had served it to the best of his ability during all his years in mainland France and in the colonies. For a moment he had caressed the mad pride of tearing up this letter, taking off his stripes and going to be killed somewhere for France, since he was refused the right to fight for her. But where ? And for what gain? At his age, he had feared that he would be more of a burden to his companions in misfortune, and on reflection a miserable end in a ditch did not suit him. It was suicide, and he was not one to commit suicide, or to let the Germans do it for him.

No, no, it was both cowardly and inappropriate. He had a loving wife and children, he owed himself to them. He had to take on the terrible ordeal that Heaven was sending him. After all, it was very derisory in the face of the misfortune of others, who surrounded it, or even the ordeal that the Nation was undergoing (2).

His thoughts in order again, it was with a serene gait that he returned to his old traveling companions, who were waiting along the quays of the Gironde. They had been surprised and shocked, almost as much as he, by the fate that had been meted out to him. His orderly had yelled at the cabal, even asked him to stay with them, and accompany them wherever the navy took them. And if necessary, we would hide it among the soldiers of other units, a uniform is easy to find. Words of youth! He could only ask them to go and take instructions as he had done, and he had no doubt that that is what they would do once their ex-general was gone. There remained the satisfaction of having been appreciated by his subordinates, which he had never doubted (3).

They had therefore turned a blind eye to the disappearance of his company car, with which he had left on his side after a last greeting, which had lasted a little longer than usual. It could even have been said that he had dragged on, but his eyes were wet at the time, so he was not sure anymore. They had then parted without a word, and so his military career had come to an end on this important, but somewhat derisory moment, in the middle of the crush of what was a great army.

The plan had the benefit of simplicity. Corap had a few families around the Loire Valley, near Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine, the same place where he had passed on the way there. The front had not yet been pierced, and this area remained French. He had only to hide there, and wait for the Germanic wave to pass...

On the way, he could only see that it rolled better in this direction, and he had so to speak suffered no control as he was going against the current. We had welcomed him without difficulty, and he had had room and board after having taken off his uniform and hidden the car (which remained a precious asset and a piece of equipment that could not be left behind!) in a nearby cottage. . From the window, he had observed the motorized columns which had passed on the national road, around June 22. He did not know what had happened to the captain with whom he had conferred on the night of June 13. Dead ? Prisoner ? Who knew.

Corap decided that this furrow was clean. He shifted about 1.5 meters and resumed work, spade in hand.

However, luck had changed when one of the Feldgendarmerie squadrons, which followed the combat units like shadows, had discovered the car. It was not necessary to draw attention to the owners, and Corap had preferred to put on his old soldier's uniform and go out to become a prisoner on the road. Even if he was no longer part of the army, it was not a question of being taken for a deserter, or worse a sniper! And he couldn't deny that he had had a burst of pride when he gave his name and rank to the Teutonic in front of him.

Sign of his status, he had been spared the classic prison camp, and he had spent a long time at the Château de Gizeux, north of the Loire (4). Faced with the sinister Abwehr interrogators, he could only repeat the same words over and over. Where were the units of the French Army? He didn't know. How many able-bodied units were left in mainland France? He didn't know, he was demobilized. How did the French government plan to continue the conflict? He didn't know anything about it, he was demobilized and no longer part of the army... He must have gotten tired of them, because he had been released after a few weeks (5). At least the food had been good, because he had always had a good appetite.

He had therefore been able to return to his home during December 1940, but on foot and by train… to find his house occupied and transformed into a mess for a section of an Infanterie-Ersatz-Bataillon. Thank God, his relatives had taken refuge with an aunt in the Paris region. Doubting nothing and in any case not having much to lose, Corap had gone “to the nerve” to find the head of the local Kommandatur, a certain Hauptmann Schmitt in order to claim his property. Against all expectations, the latter had received him well and courteously. No doubt he had the respect (Corap stopped and closed his eyes with a sigh), no doubt he had the respect of… veterans. (He went back to work with redoubled ardour). And two days later, he was able to go home and find that 2 feldgrau were even sweeping! Well, there were a few sheets, pieces of furniture or knick-knacks missing… you shouldn't be naive either (6). His relatives joined him later.

The ground seemed harder here, he was digging the wet ground hard.

And that's where he was now! And that's where France was now! He found himself cultivating his own garden, hoping to grow something to eat. Which was not dishonorable in itself, but he could only appreciate the irony of the situation, seeing all his opponents from yesterday pass, who were struggling like him to survive. It was worth making a show of, Mr. Doctor, refusing to send his son to do his duty as a reservist! It was worth it, Mr. Teacher, refusing to teach your students passive defense! An intolerable intrusion of the army into the space of Education, my eye! And now you live in modesty, as I knew it! (7)

He kept his health, that was already it, despite a mind that seemed to forget certain moments of his existence, and fortunately the most unpleasant ones. Because he had mourned, and no longer had the form to resume the fight. So he had failed. Not militarily, not by rejecting his duty, but by fulfilling it and participating in the greatest disaster in the history of the French army since Agincourt or Crécy at least. Not to mention Sedan… In command, he had no excuses, not even like that poor general who attended meetings to prepare for the counter-offensive, when his division had not even arrived yet (8) ! What should he have done in the end, resign, give up? Curious way in the end not to serve his country by doing his duty.

Good enough, he was going to run out. Mopping his brow with the back of his sleeve, he began the next furrow.

In any case, he at least had not betrayed, contrary to what had been said about him. And that was already it, because it was not the case for everyone here on earth. The new French state (9) … A bunch of traitors, from Caillaud! Under the direction of Laval, the worst of all, the gravedigger of the army in the 30s. Poor Marshal, if he saw that. He would never have teamed up with such felons, otherwise history might have misjudged him...

And the world in all this? The Minister of War's World War? From here, we couldn't see anything. So, we listened to … the radio of course. Paris, a little and more by obligation. London, from time to time, but it was the English. And Algiers when we captured it. And we must admit that it did not give anything brilliant, whether in the Balkans, in Greece or even in Asia. Where were the promised superior forces?

Corap was coming to the end of his furrow and stopped.

Well, as a soldier, he saw it well. The war was still going to last and be long. And even if the Germans trumpet their successes under all the roofs, the situation in Russia does not seem to go as well as they say. They should already be in Minsk and have surrounded the entire Red Army if we listened to them. And who was going to help them against the whole Earth, or almost? The Japaneses ? They're way off, and they haven't even managed to beat the Chinese. Great good for them to bury themselves in the jungle of Indonesia. The Italians ? (he lets out a sigh of amusement) No need to talk about it. Hungary, Bulgaria, the great losers of 1914? The Romanians, and their brilliant army which demonstrated all its competence in 1916?

Yes, the allies were far in ancient Greece. Yes, they were paying with their blood for a very exotic land for us, which they had previously abandoned. But that was before, and no offense to the Radio-Paris clampin, they had been pushed back and into the sea for a while now, but we were still talking about it. Which was obviously encouraging.

Maybe Albert was with them… The eldest son should have gone to military school, circumstances had prevented him from doing so. Seized with an ardent will to fight, he had gone to Spain and no one knew where he was now. It would be good to hear from him...

Corap clutches the handle of the spade in a gesture of anguish.

Well, at least he had something to do while he waited. The vegetable garden, the heating, it was not with the puppets in business that we were going to feed ourselves. These Germans were looting the country, how can you run out of wood in a forest country? We had, and we still had, too much confidence in the blockade. In the end, he especially annoys the French, these gentlemen of the occupation will always get out of it.

And he had visitors from time to time. Especially Germans, journalists, historians… Those wanted to write a story that was not finished. And even soldiers, including a certain general of tanks, a certain Guderian… (10) Oh, he received them courteously without more, and was willing to answer a few questions about the past. But for everything else nada, don't count on him to reveal anything, he was no traitor. Besides, he did not know much useful for these gentlemen.

Corap gazed at the vegetable patch. Yes, the furrows were made and he was going to sow the seeds. Afterwards, all that would remain was to hope and wait for the harvest.

(1) Historical reference to the presence of the Black Prince in 1373 in these places, even though Aquitaine was English at that time.
(2) Corap will be a devout Catholic all his life, which will be criticized by some politicians who feared a porosity between the Army and the Action Française. However, nothing will ever link Corap to this organization.
(3) Corap would remain a beloved leader throughout his career, and the expressions of affection would multiply during his OTL disgrace. This is evidenced by several letters from aides-de-camp, who took the time to write to him in June 1940 to indicate to him that they "were ready to collaborate in any project for which he would be in charge, to the extent of the attributions of [their] assignments. ".
(4) Which will become the Feldkommandantur of Blois. Due to electricity concerns, it will quickly be moved to the Palais de Justice, which remains in operation today.
(5) This position may seem generous, but in fact it is consistent with the legal status of Corap. He is demobilized and is no longer part of the army. His age makes him unfit for any harmful activity in the Reich, and the Geneva Convention forbids him to work! OTL, he will not be stopped when invading the free zone.
(6)OTL trivia.
(7)Born in a very modest home (tailor father/stay-at-home mother) Corap only owes his studies to the support of an outside family, the Corbeaux. He will always retain a certain reserve vis-à-vis the notables and the bourgeoisie.
(8) General Bruneau of 1st DCR. This unit assigned as reinforcement to the 9th army on May 14, but whose division will not be at work until May 15 for a counter-offensive supposedly planned for the same day.
(9) Thought deliberately in lower case.
(10)OTL.

 

[demolitiondan]

May 14, 1944 (1) – Fontainebleau

From the ledge of his dining room window, Corap watched the bustle and joy that emanated from the street. The noise was so loud that it became almost tangible, visible and it even seemed to swell and invade the heart of the house. And it wasn't just the noise. The motley and motley crowd had invaded the street, contrasting pleasantly with the green or khaki of the passing troops. As for the multiple flags that adorned each house, they completed the picture and thereby created an additional impression of spring. Fontainebleau was liberated. Fontainebleau was celebrating. Corap could only be satisfied.

Like everyone else, he was also pleased with the rout of the “New French State”, which had committed the feat of leaving the city even faster than the French army in 1940. But it at least had returned! For them, on the other hand, it was hardly a risk. Except perhaps on the road to Fort Montrouge, where it was a question of locking up all these traitors. Let justice, then the executioner, do his job!

The Germans had taken the time to clean up and take their belongings before leaving. Their withdrawal had been ordered, programmed, and in his humble opinion, planned since last year. The landing on the Normandy coast had only accelerated the movement. One morning, they had simply been seen loading their trucks, closing their barracks, getting in and leaving. No gunfire, no destruction... clean and neat, at least for him. (2)

The commotion had however come to his lodgings, but immediately after the departure of the occupants. A group of young activists, somewhat agitated and carrying the red flag on a par with the French flag, had rung his doorbell. To shove a German Mauser under his nose, and put him "under arrest for collaborating with the enemy". Curious accusation, especially from zazous who had surely remained hidden for at least 5 years. France had served him, could they say the same? Bah, his captivity had not lasted very long, one of the gendarmes was of his acquaintance, and had quickly restored Law and Equity. That same evening he was back home. He had nevertheless seen fit to report these actions to the public prosecutor.

This incident, however, had made him cautious. Who knows ? Perhaps we could be afraid of what he might say? Also, for his safety and tranquility, he had chosen to taste this particular spring from his home, as much as possible.

Anyway, the most important thing was accomplished: his name was washed, not by law, but by blood. His son Albert was alive, and he had come to show his family his officer's uniform! Lieutenant in the Second Armored Division! After his time in Spain, he had done well to reach the AFN, and had honored his commitment with valor, reaching an important rank for his young age. What a pity he couldn't do Saint-Cyr like his father, he would surely have climbed very high! Finally, the war was not over yet, there would surely be material for new promotions. And the distance had certainly not altered their ties, if we were to believe the name he had given to his vehicle: “La Bellifontaine (3)”, what a delicate attention! Everyone had thrown an unimaginable party at the ghost, starting with his dog Sloughi, very happy to see his master again.

The sun was already disappearing behind the trees, without the clamor taking it into account. The evening was beautiful, the red of the sky competing with the black of the earth, and the clouds, like two brushstrokes, lacerated the canvas of the horizon. He couldn't remember a better sight. The future promised to be bright!

 

[demolitiondan]

November 18, 1944 – Fontainebleau

The autumnal weather, gray and gloomy, was up to the mood of Corap, who lived a very painful day. These months were concluding a very sad year, he told himself, considering the two letterheads on his desk.

The first, adorned with a simple French flag and handwritten, came from Captain Jean Compagnon of the Second Division, who had wished to write in person. “General, it is with infinite sadness that I must inform you of the death of your son, Lieutenant Albert Corap, who fell on the field of honor on November 1 during the fighting our unit led in Moselle, during the capture of the village of Schalbach…” The poor man had apparently been hit by a sniper, while leading a motorized column into the forests, not far from his father's battlefields. Believing the locality evacuated by the enemy, on the basis of erroneous information, he had descended from his tank pistol in hand and Death had struck him in the heart.

The pain had been excruciating, unlike anything he had experienced before. And it was necessary to announce that to Cécile… He had nevertheless found the strength to write an answer to this officer “We are painfully struck by this mourning, but you, we consider that warrior sacrifices such as his, that we are numerous signals to the division, and in particular in your regiment, are well made to make our French troops take part in the final Victory, and to lead us as quickly as possible towards the restoration of a peace advantageous for our poor France which suffers so much from this long war" (4), while taking the opportunity to ask him where his son had been buried. Later, he would organize a trip to repatriate the body and bury it with his family.

That was two weeks ago already. And since misfortune never comes alone, fate added insult to injury. The second letter came from the Ministry of War, as demonstrated by the colorful banner at the top of the page. It was the response to the letter (in the file, he wanted to say) that Corap had sent in September to the Hôtel de Brienne, and in which he asked "without this step being of the slightest urgency, given the circumstances that our Nation is going through" a review of the decision that struck him in 1940 and an official denial of the comments that had been made against him. It was for him a simple question of justice, more than words.

The answer was as follows (5): “The Minister, concerned about fairness in the treatment of people who have served the Nation, has gone through your mail with an attention that you cannot doubt. He confirms to you now that the events to which you refer, and in which you took part during the year 1940, will be the subject of an in-depth parliamentary investigation before all the light is shed. Without prejudging any administrative or legal decisions that may be taken, the Minister urges you to please wait in silence for the requests and/or conclusions of the commission that will be set up. You will also want to abstain from any comments or declarations in the press, likely to reopen the wounds still alive in our country. Finally, and with regard to your personal situation, the absence of sanctions taken against you during the decree of August 8, 1940 (6) can give you an idea of the position that the government intends to take towards you. Then followed the classic forms of politeness, which we might as well have done without.

So that was it… We buried him in a mud that should not be stirred, and he had to be silent. To obey in silence, and to take on himself the faults of all. And especially that of his enemy, Reynaud, who was extolled despite all his wanderings, and passed for a hero because he had been shot (7). He too had been machine-gunned, even with 105mm guns! It did not give all the rights! If at least he had stopped talking about himself, pass again... (8).

No, really, he no longer felt in his place, and no longer had the strength to defend himself. His memory was playing tricks on him, and he wasn't quite sure what to say for his Defense. In the end, he told himself, oblivion might be the best he could hope for.

Epilogue

Suffering from increasingly intense memory loss, to the point of no longer being able to write or recognize his relatives, General André Georges Corap (1878-1953) was unable to testify at the call of the parliamentary commission set up at the Release. His name then sank into indifference and under the desire to cover this dark page in the history of France. We can therefore say that oblivion twice struck the unfortunate general.
During his funeral at Fontainebleau, however, the French army was particularly represented among the large crowd: his comrades-in-arms, including Generals Noiret, Lafontaine and Denain, but also Marshal Juin, whose presence eloquently demonstrated the discreet esteem of the "great mute".

It was then necessary to wait for the 70s or 80s before his name emerged from oblivion during the peaceful work carried out on the "strange victory" (in the words of Marc Bloch) of 1940. Unfortunately, today there is still a dark effigy of the mistakes of the army in this period, and a bogeyman for many career soldiers worried about budget cuts.

Personal comments – conclusion

This concludes the modest peregrinations of General André Georges Corap within the FTL. These few pages of fictionalized narrative come from the work mentioned in the opening, which constitutes a highly documented and interesting work, even if obviously it is not free from faults. In my opinion, it easily finds its place in a library dedicated to this period of our history.

It will be understood, my goal is not particularly to rehabilitate Corap, which would be presumptuous anyway. Each will judge the man, according to his failures and successes, and according to the information which I have furnished, which has the privilege of exactness as far as one knows. We must see in this little text a tribute, but without complacency, which perhaps repairs a small oversight in the FTL. My goal was to outline the portrait of a typical French officer in 1940, with his opinions and certainties. And thereby to qualify the easy-to-paint picture of an army sinking under the weight of old men clinging to their posts, and talented young officers stumbling in the face of their stupidity. I therefore place myself (modestly) under the aegis of the history of mental attitudes by the late Georges Duby.

OTL, Corap was a marshalist, like 95% of the army. He sincerely believed in the false promises of the French State, and refused all collaborations with the occupier. It is therefore an emblematic, and particularly eloquent and “visual” case of the Vichy of “good faith”.

Further on, and as I wrote above, I wonder about the reaction of this type of man, many in the army at that time, to the Sursaut. Perhaps the Army obeyed political power too well in June 1940, without surrender at La Bazaine, or disintegration as in the USSR. Finally, I notice that the story makes little mention of desertions and mass surrenders, inevitable in the chaos of withdrawal. However, is the FTL a "Best Case" on this side. Certainly not, one only has to see the sinister stories about the collaboration and “Fabrice at Waterloo” to be convinced of this. I just wanted, again, to qualify the portrait of an army that seems monolithic and standing as a single man. Anyway, the very optimistic progression hypotheses for the German army show the little influence of this parameter in the final story.

But back to Corap. So, scapegoat for the defeat of 1940? Yes, probably at least initially. For politicians in particular, and one can suspect that he paid for his absence of protectors. But also for the Vichy soldiers who will be careful not to rehabilitate him too strongly, the press of the time speaking deliberately of "acquittal" (which demonstrates an accusation). In the end, he will pay, but like everyone else, the dark sinister tartufferie of the French army of the 20s and 30s, and in particular under Gamelin. The thesis will then sink into relative oblivion, so ridiculous is it to attribute the defeat of 1940 to a single man, even Gamelin.

However, I wonder how his situation would have evolved if France had recovered as in 1914 on the Marne. In other circumstances, would it have been a new Lanzerac? Or a Castelnau? Anyway, the French army, which had not known or been able to evolve, did not have this possibility. She was struck down, and Corap with it.

I remain convinced of the fact that, with this army and this doctrine, no one would have stopped the Germans on the Meuse in May 1940. Starting from there and except to resign, the memory of Corap was damned long before May 10 or even the famous speech of May 21, which caused him so much harm, even more so than the defeat on the Meuse. In the end, however, he was not the worst, far from it, and History has been more tender with much more guilty. Which reminds me of other stories, for example about the French Navy in 1914 which paid for years of budget shortages and negligence. She did not have the opportunity to shine, but still carried out her mission, successfully for once. I have just finished reading a very interesting book on the subject, which I also recommend. The title is "When you've only done your duty". I think that's a good conclusion for this story.

(1) Date based on the armistice project set for the summer of 1944.
(2) Corap is obviously in the dark about the abuses of the Gestapo and certain retreating troops...
(3) The bellifontains and bellifontaines are of course the inhabitants of Fontainebleau.
(4) Authentic text.
(5) This is an "amended" version of the Vichy regime's OTL response to his request.
(6) The famous Waterloo des Etoiles.
(7) Reference to the customs attack in Oran.
(8) In his memoirs, Reynaud will maintain and amplify his accusations against Corap, without further supporting his statements.

 

[demolitiondan]

Main military aircraft orders placed by France from 1940 to 1944 (excluding transport aircraft)
Fighters
* Curtiss Hawk 75A-4 or H-751 [P-36] (Wright engine)
– Contracts n°37 of 05/10/39 and 53 of 15/11/39): 285 aircrafts.
– Contract dated 26/06/40: 160 aircrafts.
These aircraft are in addition to the 150 H-75 A-1/2/3, for a total of 554 aircraft. Surpluses in relation to needs will make it possible to donate 45 aircrafts to the South African Air Force and 60 to the Belgian Military Aeronautics.

* Curtiss Hawk 81 [P-40A/B/C, Tomahawk] (Allison engine)
– Contract n°37 of 05/10/39 and amendment of February 1940): 230 devices. Of these 230 H81s, the first 140 are H-810 [P-40A] without self-sealing fuel tanks, 90 of which have French equipment (Lemercier parachute, Baille-Lemaire collimator, Munerelle oxygen mask, Radio-Industrie radio set 537) and 50 with American equipment (SCR-283 radio set and others). The other 90 (H-811 [P40B]), equipped with American equipment, will receive self-sealing tanks.
– Contract of 26/06/40 (signed at the same time as a contract for the RAF): 600 H-811 (and 500 for the RAF). 200 will be delivered before the end of December and 400 before the end of March 1941.
Total: 830 aircrafts. A number of these H-81s will be donated to various Allied forces, including Poland and Belgium.
– September 1940 contract: 300 aircraft (for a total of 1,130 H-81s). These planes, to the American standard, will be armed with 4 x 12.7 mm (2 on the hood and 2 in the wings). They will be delivered from April to the beginning of July 1941 under the name of H-812 [P-40C].
Total: 930 aircrafts.

* Curtiss Hawk 87 [P-40D and sequel, Kittyhawk]
– Contract of June 26, 1940: 500 aircraft.
– 140 aircraft resulting from the transformation of the letter of intent for 140 Hawk 86. These aircraft will be delivered from August 1941. They will come at the end of October 1941 to replace the H-81 (H-811 and 812).
– Additional order placed under Lend-Lease in April 1941: 900 H87A3.
A total of 1,540 H-87s will have been ordered, including 640 under Cash and Carry conditions and 900 under Lend-Lease conditions. Some of these aircraft will be donated to the Polish Air Force, the Yugoslav Air Force or the Belgian Military Aeronautics.

* Bell Model 14 (P-39 Airacobra)
– September 1940 contract: 170 P-39D (1 x 20 mm, 2 x 12.7 mm, 4 x 7.62 mm). These planes (+30 for parts) will be delivered from August 1941.
– Lend-Lease contract of April 1941, relating to 200 P-39D-1 (with 37 mm gun replacing the 20 mm), delivered from the end of 1941 to April 1942 (+40 for parts).
– October 1941 Lend-Lease contract for 300 P-39F, delivered from May to September 1942 (+50 for parts).
Most of these 670 planes (+120) will be donated to the tactical support squadrons of the Yugoslav Air Force and the Belgian Military Aeronautics.

* Lockheed 322 (P-38 Lightning)
– 417 Lockheed 322-F [similar to the P-38E] ordered in 1940 and delivered from mid-September 1941, with 150 to be delivered before the end of 1941. Shortly after the United States entered the war, the USAAF will request to recover 150 of the P-38Es not yet delivered. These 150 aircraft will be compensated by 150 P-38F deliverable from April 1942.
– Contract for 500 aircraft [P-38F/G], signed under Lend-Lease in April 1941 and executed from August 1942, but subsequently reduced to 300 aircraft.
– Contract for 500 aircraft [P-38J/K], signed under Lend-Lease in March 1942 and executed from August 1943, but subsequently reduced to 250 aircraft.
The delivery figure for “Lockheed 322 Eclair” [for the French administration] will therefore be:
150 Lockheed 322-F (P-38E) delivered in 1941
117 Lockheed 322-F (P-38E) delivered in 1942 before March 15
150 Lockheed 322-G (P-38F) delivered from April to October 1942
200 Lockheed 322-G/H (P-38F/G) delivered from November 1942 to February 1943
150 Lockheed 322-J (P-38J) delivered in 1943
100 Lockheed 322-K (P-38K) delivered in early 1944
[the French administration belatedly adjusted its designation to that of the Americans, to avoid confusion].
Grand total: 967.
The French intervention (with its acceleration bonuses!) will have significantly increased the production of the P-38s. At the end of 1942, only the 13th EC flew on P-38. This squadron was able to grow to four groups in 1943. Thereafter, the rather numerous surpluses of P-38 were transferred to the FARY. At the end of the war, the Yugoslavs thus had a squadron of two groups on P38, the 82nd EC (Y).

* North American P-51 Mustang
I – Allison-powered variants (800 aircraft)
NA-73, Mustang I: 200 (to replace D-520), deliveries October 1941 to January 1942. 15 converted for photo reconnaissance (Mustang IP). In addition, of the 320 copies delivered to the RAF from August 1941, the British returned 100 to the Air Force as an emergency measure rather than using them for tactical support.
NA-83, Mustang IA: 200, deliveries February to May 1942. 30 converted for photo reconnaissance (Mustang IAP).
NA-92, Mustang IC: 300 (“tank destroyers”, intended for ground attack and tactical support), deliveries from August 1942 to February 1943.
………
II – Packard V-1650-1 engined variants (1,200 aircraft) NA-89, Mustang II: 800 (most Air Force GCs), deliveries April–November 1942. 50 converted for photo recognition (Mustang IIP).
NA-93, Mustang IIA: 400, deliveries from December 1942 to March 1943.
………
III – Packard V-1650-3 or 7 engine variants (2,495 aircraft) NA-102, Mustang III: 1,000 (for the final re-equipment of Air Force GCs during the war), deliveries from March 1943 to May 1944. 50 converted for photo reconnaissance (Mustang IIIP).
NA-105, Mustang IV: 400 (special order “interceptor”), deliveries from April to August 1944.
NA-111, Mustang IIIA: 1,000, of which only 795 actually delivered, from March 1944 to October 1944.
NA-126, Mustang V: 300 (for the Far East), deliveries taken from USAAF orders from November 1944 to March 1945.
– The Air Force used a total of 4,495 Mustangs of all types, nearly a quarter of total production.

* Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (see appendix)
P-47J (“Superbolt”) (50 aircraft)
This fighter replaced the Spitfire IX in the GC IV of the 1st CE.
P-47M (100 aircraft)
This heavily armed hunter made it possible to create the 51st E-ACcS at the end of 1944, sent to the Far East for the end of the war against Japan.

* Supermarine Spitfires
The first three groups of the 1st EC were equipped with Spitfires, on the initiative of Winston Churchill in person, by the care of the British government from 1941 to the end of the war. They thus passed from Spitfire V to Spitfire IX (GC I and II/1 received Spitfire XVI after the armistice).

* Brewster B-339 (F2A Buffalo)
50 aircraft, including 5 de-navalized, initially intended for Belgium.

* Grumman G-36 (F4F Wildcat)
– Contract n°113 of 05/01/40: 100 ordered, intended for the Naval Air Force (including 81 assembled and 19 for parts).
These G-36A are identical to the F4F-3 but with a Wright Cyclone. In the absence of Joffre and Painlevé, 46 of these aircraft (37 + 9) will be donated to the FAA (order delivered entirely on November 1, 1940).
– An order for 50 G-36B (equipped with folding wings) will be placed in January 1941.
They will be delivered from September to December 1941 and will equip the Bois-Belleau.
– An order for 100 F4F-4s (designated G-36B) will be placed under the Loan Lease on March 28, 1941. Of this total, 40 will be kept by the US Navy and the other 60 delivered from February to April 1942.
– In December 1941, new order for 60 F4F-4s under Lend-Lease. It will be delivered from October to December 1942.
– Finally, in June 1942, an order was placed for 70 F4F-4s produced by General Motors as FM-1s, but with only 4 machine guns (designated G-36C). This order will be reduced to 60 aircraft, delivered from February to May 1943.
The other 50 will ultimately be FM-2s, ie F4F-4s with an engine developing 150 hp more. They will equip the escort aircraft carriers.
Total: 244 aircraft.

* Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat
– 30 ordered at the end of 1942, to equip land-based formations, replacing the F4F-4.
– 20 of the F6F-3N variant ordered at the same time to equip Flotilla 19F.
– 15 of the F6F-5N variant will complete the previous purchase in 1944.

* Chance-Vought F4U (Corsair)
– The French Navy ordered 100 F4U-1s in May 1941, even before the US Navy (which placed an order in June 1941). The order was returned to the US Navy in January 1942 to be replaced by an identical order but under Lend-Lease at the end of January 1942. These aircraft were delivered from July 1943 to November 1943. They replaced the H-87s of the AC-20 as well as the G-36 of AC2 and AC3.
– A second order for 104 F4U-1(FN), placed under Lend-Lease in March 1942, will be carried out from the end of 1943 to the beginning of 1944 by Goodyear (FG-1A).
– Finally, an order for 200 F4U-4(FN), placed in January 1944, will be executed from December 1943 to February 1944, to replace both the F4U-1 and the SBD-5 of Jean-Bart, Joffre and Clemenceau for operations against Japan.

*Bristol Beaufighter
– A hundred copies will equip:
- on the one hand the Air Force, in night fighters (80 aircraft for the 8th EC).
- on the other hand the Naval Air Force, in land-based torpedo planes (25 aircraft for Flotilla 10F).

Bombers
* Glenn-Martin 167 (A-22 Maryland)
Contracts of January and March 1939, then contracts n° 35 of 04/10/39 and 35 Amd.3 of 07/06/40): 345 aircraft in version B3 (Glenn 167), including 49 converted to C2 (Glenn 167.2) , for the Aéronavale 1.
Contract of June 28, 1940: order of 150 Glenn 167.1 (Maryland II) in B3 version, of which 44 will be converted into C2 and known as Glenn 167.3.
Contract of September 15, 1940: 100 Glenn 167.1.
Of the total of 250 Glenn 167.1s, 30 will be transferred to the SAAF, 12 to the Belgian Military Aeronautics (which will also receive 15 Glenn 167s from the initial contracts), 30 to the Polish Air Force and 30, in the summer of 1941, to the Yugoslav Air Force.
Contract of September 1, 1940: 75 aircraft produced as C2 (fighters) from the outset (Glenn 167.4) and 100 “assault” aircraft, similar to fighters but with a bomb bay (Glenn 167.5).
Total: 770 aircraft.

* Glenn-Martin 187 (A-30 Baltimore)
May 1940: order for 200 aircraft, including 100 returned to the RAF (which has already ordered 200 on its side)).
June 1941: order under Lend-Lease of 500 aircraft, of which 400 will be returned to the RAF for the equipment of the Greek, Polish and SAAF aviation; the last 100 will equip the Yugoslavs as a priority (with a delay due to familiarization with the aircraft) as well as 1 or 2 French groups (either of “colonial police” or for maritime reconnaissance and attack).

* Douglas DB-7 and derivatives (A-20 Boston/Havoc)
Douglas DB-7 (or DB-70) with Pratt & Whitney SC3G engine (order dated 02/15/39, even before the USAAC contract): 100 aircraft.
Douglas DB-7 (or DB-71) with S3C4-G engines with two-speed compressor (contract n° 41 of 10/14/39): 170 aircraft.
Douglas DB-7A (or DB-72) with Wright R-2600 engine (contract n° 42 of 20/10/39):
200 aircraft (40 will be donated to the Belgian Military Aeronautics).
Douglas DB-73 with Wright engine also (contract n° AF-1 of 08/05/40 and AF-2 of 18/05/40): 480 aircraft, half of which to be built by Boeing.
October 1940: order for 300 additional aircraft.
Of the total of 780 DB-73s, which will in fact be manufactured to American standards (Boston), 96 will be converted into attack aircraft for the Navy, with 48 M1 (capable of launching a torpedo) and 48 M2 with an armament of 4 x 20mm, but retaining the ability to carry bombs or a torpedo.
Douglas A-20C: order for 600 aircraft similar to USAAF Havocs, placed in April 1941 under Lend-Lease and delivered during 1943.
Douglas A-20G: order for 600 aircraft placed in January 1942 and honored during the winter of 1943-44.
Totals: 430 DB-7s, 780 DB-73s, 1,200 A-20s, or 2,410 aircraft in all.

* North American NA-62 (B-25 Mitchell)
– Order for 500 B-25Bs placed in July 1940 (when it became clear that the construction of the LeO-451 or the Amiot 351/4 in the United States would take too long). This order, accompanied by the usual acceleration bonuses, will lead to deliveries from the end of 1941.
– Order for 300 B-25C placed in January 1941.
– Order for 300 B-25Ds placed under Lend-Lease in June 1941.
– Order for 50 PBPJ-1 Strafer placed under Lend-Lease in June 1942 for the French Navy.
– Order for 70 B-25G and 230 B-25J placed under Lend-Lease in June 1942 (this order will be modified during delivery to 230 B-25J and 70 B25H).
* Glenn-Martin 179 (B-26 Marauder)
– Order for 600 copies (B-26B) placed in October 1941, but the first planes will not re-equip the Bombardment Squadrons until the beginning of 1943.
– Order for 200 aircraft (B-26C) placed in June 1942.
A total of three Bombardment Escadres will fly on Marauder, the conversion of these 9 Groups being carried out in the summer of 1943.

* Vought 156F (contracts n° 184/9 of 02/02/39, 184/9 Amd.1 of 05/16/40 and 89 of 03/01/40): 90 aircraft.
Unable to take off from Béarn fully loaded, it was exchanged by the French Navy for Air Force SBC-4s, which could be used without restriction on Béarn.

* Northrop A-17A (or Douglas DB-8A since the takeover of the Northrop factory by Douglas)
93 aircraft ceded by the US Army and transferred to Canada (contract no. 143 of 06/15/40), 30 of which will be donated to Belgium in exchange for part of the B-339s.

* Vultee V-72 (Vengeance)
– In September 1940, the Air Force places an order for 200 aircraft manufactured by Vultee, together with an identical order from the RAF, manufactured by Northrop. These aircraft will be delivered from January to July 1942.
– A second order, placed under Lend-Lease, will supply 80 planes to France.

* Curtiss SBC-4 (Helldiver) and CW-77
50 biplane dive bombers were transferred by the US Navy to the Air Force (contract n°132 of 08/06/40), which will donate them to the French Navy to equip Béarn.
France also acquired 90 new Curtiss CW-77s (export version of the SBC-4); 50 of them will go to the US Navy to replace the SBC-4s, the other 40 to be delivered at the end of 1940.

* Douglas SBD Dauntless
The Dauntless was quickly identified by the French Navy as the logical replacement for the SBC-4.
– First order from French funds in September 1940 to compensate for the cancellation of the Brewster Bermuda, with substantial acceleration bonuses: 50 aircraft identical to the US Navy's SBD-2/3 and delivered in two batches, in June 1941 ( 15 SBD-2) and from September to November 1941 (35 SBD-3). In fact, 30 SBD-1s from the re-equipment of the Marines in SBD-2/3, hastily navalized by Grumman, were delivered as early as March 1941 to deal with the emergency. The second batch was delivered as planned.
– New order placed in 1941 as soon as the Lend-Lease law came into effect (in September), for 100 SBD-3. The first 30 aircraft were delivered in March 1942; the rest of the order was then modified to 80 SBD-5s, delivered from January to April 1943.
– Having tried the SB2C Helldiver, the French Navy decided to remain faithful to the Douglas SBD and ordered in September 1942, still under Lend-Lease, 100 SBD-5s, which were delivered from January to March 1944. However, most of these were returned at the end of the year to the United States, to be replaced by F4U-4s.
Total (SBD-1, 3 and 5): 200 devices.

* Fairey Swordfish
The “Stringbag” played a relatively important role in Naval Aviation. From the decision taken on June 20, 1940 to re-arm Béarn, the problem of its attack flotillas arose. If, for the bombardment, the question was (provisionally) settled by the SBC-4, it was not the same for the torpedo boats.
– An urgent order for 30 Swordfish was placed with Great Britain. Drawing on its stocks, the FAA was able to honor it between July 10 and August 10, 1940.
– To account for losses and normal attrition, a second order for 30 aircraft was placed in September 1940 and fulfilled in December 1940 and January 1941.
This command should have ended the Swordfish episode. But the destruction of the Béarn off Corsica and then the cancellation by the United States of the delivery of the two oil tankers converted into light aircraft carriers and their replacement by four escort aircraft carriers (CVE) would change the situation. At the same time, the effectiveness of the Swordfish as an ASM combat aircraft was confirmed (it was only in this role that it had been used, in very small numbers, by Béarn, most of the aircraft remaining land-based).
– A third order was placed in July 1941, for 100 aircraft delivered in two batches of 50 Swordfish I, one delivered in January and February, the other from May to July 1942. Some of these aircraft were upgraded to Swordfish standard II at the Mers-el-Kébir Arsenal by adding rocket launchers under the lower planes. The French Navy also bought 15 pairs of floats to, if necessary, transform 15 aircraft into seaplanes.
– A final order was placed in June 1942 for 30 Swordfish Mk.III (with an ASM radar) and delivered in the spring of 1943 by Blackburn.
These aircraft ensured the interim until the delivery of the TBF/TBM which gradually replaced them in the flotillas embarked from 1943. They remained however in service in units based on land until the end of the fighting in Europe.
A number of these ancient machines were equipped with a canopy protecting the three crew members (as on the Albacore). Finally, two cases of transformation of these aircraft with HS 12Y-21 engines are known. We lose track of one, the other was transformed back into a standard Swordfish at the beginning of 1944.
Total: 190 aircraft.

* Grumman TBF/TBM Avenger
– First order for 120 aircraft placed in January 1941, from the first flight of the TBF-1. This order was canceled (and the money returned!) to be replaced by another, for the same amount but under Lend-Lease, in July 1941. Order fulfilled by Eastern Aircraft (a division of General Motors) , composed of 150 TBM-1 (identical to the TBF-1), delivered from July 1943.
– Second order for 100 TBM-1C (TBF-1C equivalents), placed in July 1942. These planes will be delivered from January to May 1944 and will be used mainly in the Pacific.
* Consolidated 32 LB-30MF (B-24 Liberator)
– Contracts n° AF-7 of 06/04/40 and 141 of 06/15/40: 165 aircraft, including 30 specially adapted for maritime reconnaissance.
– January 1941 order: 120 B-24C aircraft. These planes will be delivered from March 1942. The order will be accompanied by the usual acceleration bonuses and will promote the rise of the San Diego chain (-CO) and the Douglas chain in Tulsa (-DT). It will however be reduced by half, being interrupted from the start of the delivery of the following order.
– June 1941 order: 200 Lend-Lease aircraft (delivered from September 1942), divided into 120 B-24Ds and 80 GR standard aircraft, similar to the British Liberator GR Vs. This order will also be halved, with the last devices being delivered in February.
– Order of January 1942: 200 B-24H, delivered from July 1943. The delivery of these aircraft will be spread over one year.
Note – After trials, aircraft intended for maritime reconnaissance (70 in all) will be exchanged for British Sunderland aircraft, considered better suited (more rustic and not requiring a long hard runway) to Naval Air bases on the Atlantic.

* Lockheed 414 (Hudson)
– Order for 100 aircraft powered by P&W SC3Gs, placed at the end of August 1940. These aircraft, similar to the Australian Hudsons (Mk. I and II), will be delivered from January 1941 to June 1941.
– Order for 100 aircraft placed under Lend-Lease in April 1941. These aircraft will be used for anti-submarine warfare and maritime reconnaissance.
– They will be replaced by the Lockheed 37 Hudson V, obtained under Lend-Lease: 120 PBO-2s with P&W R-2800-31 engines (Lockheed 37-27), ordered from the beginning of April 1941, will be obtained from September 1942.

Seaplanes of various types (intended for Naval Aviation)
* Consolidated 28-5MF Catalina
(contracts n° 62 of 12/12/39 and 62 Amd.1 of 05/10/40): 40 aircraft delivered from January to June 1941.
Given the importance of convoy protection, 30 other 28-5MFs were ordered from November 1940 and delivered from July 1941 to December 1941.
As part of the Lend-Lease, a third order for 30 PBY-54 (type 28-5AMF) will be placed in July 1941. These aircraft will be delivered from March to June 1942.
In December 1941 (after Japan entered the war), 50 Catalina 28-5BMFs were ordered with American funds from Canadian Vickers (Cartierville); their deliveries will be spread out from June to December 1942, at the same time as those of the 30 aircraft of the same type obtained in exchange for the Martin Mariners (see below).
Some of these aircraft will be converted into transports, these conversions starting at the end of 1941 with two seaplanes from the first batch. A total of 23 seaplanes will be transformed in this way until the end of 1944, then bearing the type name 28-5MFT.

* Curtiss SC-1 Seahawk
These 40 single-engine, more modern than the Grumman Ducks, replaced them in the front line at the end of 1944.

* Northrop N-3PB
Single-engine seaplane ordered in 50 copies at the beginning of September 1940. Although considered as torpedo boats, these aircraft will operate more often in ASM reconnaissance and as bombers.

* Martin 162 Mariner (PBM)
France, very happy with its “Glenn”, ordered 30 model-162 from Martin in January 1941, in theory to replace the PBY-5. This order, financed by French funds, was placed in sequestration by the US Navy on December 8, 1941 (these planes were transformed into PBM-3R transport).
In exchange, the French Navy obtained on Lend-Lease funds 30 PBY-5A, delivered at the end of 1942.

*Sikorsky S-43 (JRS-1)
Ten of these excellent amphibious seaplanes were ordered on French funds in October 1940 to carry out liaison and reconnaissance tasks. Delivered in November and December 1941, they operated alongside Air-Union S-43s from Dakar as well as in the Pacific. They will be gradually replaced by the 28-5MFT.

* Grumman G-15 Duck (J2F-1)
Ordered at the same time as the G-21s, the 50 G-15s were intended in particular for schooling and liaison and replaced the CAO-30 advantageously.

* Grumman G-21 Goose (JRF-5)
As part of France's purchase of the G-36 (Wildcat), 50 G-21 amphibians were ordered in July 1940 to carry out liaison and reconnaissance tasks from North Africa and Africa from West. They were delivered from May to October 1941.
A second contract for 30 of these small but very useful seaplanes was placed under Lend-Lease in May 1941, but they were not delivered until May 1942. They gradually replaced the Loire-130 and other CAMS 37 and 55. They contributed to anti-submarine protection in the West Indies and Guyana.

* Chance-Vought V-149 (OS2U Kingfisher)
This small catapultable seaplane was ordered from September 1940 to 40 copies to assist the Loire-130. These aircraft were delivered from July to October 1941. A second order, for 20 seaplanes for training, was placed under Lend-Lease in June 1941 and executed in June-July 1942.

* Short Sunderland
At the beginning of 1941, France ordered 10 Sunderland from Great Britain, which delivered these seaplanes from the end of 1941 to March 1942. A second order, for 20 Sunderland III, was placed at the end of 1941 for delivery from September 1942. they operated from Dakar, providing cover for convoys going up from South Africa and coming from Latin America.

* Supermarine Walrus
An order for 15 Walrus was placed with Great Britain to support the Loire-130 in September 1940. These seaplanes were delivered from November to December 1940, but they never operated from modern battleships as had been planned. They were assigned to an Air Force rescue squadron.

*Saro Lerwick
In May 1941, the RAF offered 8 Saro Lerwick to the Aéronavale, which accepted them with gratitude before realizing that it was a failed model that the RAF no longer wanted. After a difficult commissioning (two seaplanes were lost in 3 weeks), the six remaining aircraft operated off the Moroccan coast until November 1941, when they were withdrawn from service.

Training and liaison aircraft
* North American NA-57 (BT-9B): 230 ordered, all delivered in June 1940.
* North American NA-64 (BT-14) (contracts n° 38 of 10/10/39 and 85 of 03/28/40): 250 aircraft, including 50 in SNJ-3 version for Naval Aeronautics.
* Stinson 105 Sentinel: 38 second-hand training and liaison aircraft sold by the United States.
* North American NA-68: about twenty ordered in July 1940 in order to deprive Siam of them.
* North American NA-76 (contract n° 127 of 05/28/40): 450 aircraft ordered on May 28, 1940, other orders placed thereafter throughout the war.
* Stearman N2S-2 Kaydet: 30 aircraft ordered for the EIP (School of Initiation to Piloting) of Naval Aeronautics.

Appendix
Michel Wibault and the “Superbolt”
After spending the winter of 1940/1941 at Bristol, a company with which he had been in contact since the 1930s, Michel Wibault also settled in the United States, where he began to collaborate with the Republic company on the development of the P -47. With the help of Pierre-Etienne Mercier, the engine cover specialist, he thus accelerated the development of the P-47J.
This was a P-47 whose engine cowling separated the cooling air intake (with a front fan similar to that of the BMW 801 of the Fw 190A) from the turbocharger air intake. The first drawings were presented in May 1942 and the prototype, the XP-47J, flew on March 3, 43 with a P&W R2800-57 and a CH-5 turbo from General Electric, reaching 504 mph at 34,500 feet.
Since the R-4360 engine, of which much was expected, had not yet been certified, it was decided to move forward as quickly as possible by combining the engine, cowling and turbocharger of the XP-47J with the preproduction YP-47J. a P-47D-25-RE fuselage, with a teardrop cockpit.
Equipped with 6 machine guns instead of 8 and magnesium parts to save weight, the P-47J was a “sprint” version of the Thunderbolt, quickly nicknamed “Superbolt”. This entered service in Europe in the spring of 1944, in time to counter the Fw 190 D9/D12 and the Ta 151/2. The Air Force acquired fifty copies (some said it was mainly to please Wibault and Mercier). They equipped the GC IV of the 1st Wing, created in 1944 during the redeployment of this squadron in France. The end of the war came before GC III/1 was converted.
With 8 machine guns and reinforced wings, Republic obtained the P-47M, which was only put in line in the Pacific, for tactical support, by the USAAF and the Air Force. A hundred copies of this model indeed made it possible to create the 51st EACCS, with volunteer pilots from demobilized NA-93 squadrons. This squadron brought to five the number of squadrons aligned in the Far East in 1945.

 

[demolitiondan]

The ordeal of Italian submarines in the Red Sea
(From I poveri pescicani del Mar Rosso, in Le Forze subacquee italiane nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale, by Francesco Folcini, Rome, 1962 – Revised edition by Lorenzo Campo, Rome, 1994)
From the start of the war, the Italian Red Sea flotilla suffered significant losses. In two weeks, she lost four of her eight submarines (the Macallè, Galilei, Torricelli and Galvani), in very varied circumstances.
………
Four submarines were released on June 10, 1940: the Macallè for Port-Sudan, the Galvani for Oman, the Ferraris for Djibouti and the Galilei for Aden.
– The Ferrari was the first hors de combat. On the night of June 12-13, she was surprised on the surface by at least one British destroyer. During the rapid dive, a maneuver caused seawater to enter the battery compartment, seriously damaging the batteries. The boat was however able to return to Massaoua, where it remained unavailable for nearly two months, revealing the length of the repairs with local means.
– The Macallè experienced an even more disastrous fate: following a navigation error favored by a still cloudy sky and by the fumes of methyl chloride (noted as of June 12 and causing in two days the intoxication of the whole crew), the submarine got lost on the rocks in front of the islet of Bar Moussa Kebir. The crew took refuge on the islet and three volunteers went to look for help on a lifeboat equipped with a small sail. They reached Italian soil on June 20.
– The Galilei arrived safely in front of Aden. In the early hours of June 16, the Norwegian tanker James Stove sank south of this port, which sank after being the victim of a violent fire. On the 18th, he boarded, firing a few cannon shots, the Yugoslav steamer Drava, which he allowed to set out again as neutral, after inspection. The tanker's fire and the sound of the warning shots seem to have caused it to be spotted by a 94 Sqn Gladiator on patrol. The latter issued the alert by radio; a Vincent and a Blenheim quickly took off from Aden and attacked the submarine, without success. Its commander nevertheless decides to remain in the area designated by his instructions. During the night, when the submarine emerged to recharge its batteries, it even made the mistake of breaking the radio silence. He was then identified by the destroyer Kandahar and the trawler ASM Shoreham, launched in search of him. Having had to dive again, he was vigorously pursued, without however suffering any damage. On June 19 in the morning, methyl chloride fumes appeared, severely hampering the dive. The submarine was soon after identified by the trawler ASM Moonstone. The commander of the Galilei decided not to take the risk of diving and fighting on the surface, but ended up winning by his adversary, aided by the Kandahar. He arrived in Aden the next day, the British having in the meantime got their hands on secret documents describing the patrol areas assigned to the Italian submarines.
This discovery probably played a role in the destruction of the Galvani. The submersible, renamed X2 then P711 in June 1942, was used for training within the Royal Navy.
– The Galvani arrived on the evening of June 23 in its patrol area (the furthest), off Oman. It seems that he torpedoed the patrol vessel HMIS Pathan the same evening, which sank the following day [Note of the revised edition: this victory is confirmed today, whereas the official thesis which prevailed was that of an internal explosion] . A few hours later (around 2 a.m. on June 24), he was spotted by the British sloop Falmouth, accompanied by the destroyer Kimberley. While diving, the submarine was hit by a shell from the Falmouth in the stern, in the torpedo tube room. The second torpedo master Pietro Venuti sacrificed himself to close the watertight door of the room and give the building a chance of survival (an act which will earn him the gold medal of military valor posthumously). Despite this sacrifice, the submarine could not be stabilized in the dive and the commander had to resolve to hunt everywhere, to return to face the enemy on the surface. But the cannon and the machine guns were unusable and the captain gave the order to abandon the boat, which quickly sank, by the stern, before all the crew could evacuate. The Falmouth recovered 31 men (out of 56).
– The decommissioning of the Ferraris led to its replacement by the Torricelli, which left Massaouah on June 14 and arrived in front of Djibouti on the morning of the 19th. area further south. Arrived at its destination on June 21, it was spotted and pursued by English destroyers which inflicted such damage on it that Commander Pelosi had to resolve to return to Massawa. In the early hours of June 23, while crossing the surface of the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Torricelli was spotted by the sloop Shoreham. Having dived, he was chased for some time and then the sloop appeared to be heading towards Perim. Commander Pelosi wanted to try again to go to the surface and then found himself facing not only the sloop, but also the three destroyers Kandahar, Kingston and Khartoum. Torricelli, unable to dive, damaged Shoreham on the cannon before succumbing after an epic battle, while Khartoum was destroyed by the explosion of one of her own torpedoes (it was long mistakenly thought that the explosion was due to an Italian torpedo). Unlike the Galvani, the Torricelli was not listed in the documents discovered on board the Galilei. Also the Italians thought that the English had an effective source in Massawa and did not consider that the new order received on June 19 could have been intercepted and deciphered by the enemy.
………
There remained in Massaoua three submarines, two of which went out in turn on a war mission on June 19, the Archimedes and Perla, still according to the offensive action plan of September 1939.
– The Archimede (LV Signorini), sent to patrol south-west of Aden, could not continue its mission beyond June 26. That day, he had to return not to Massaoua, but to Assab, because of the ravages caused by the fumes of methyl chloride: about thirty sailors had been affected, four of whom died before arriving in Assab and two after. . The submarine was only able to return to sea on August 31, after the air conditioning system was repaired, where the methyl chloride was replaced by freon.
– The Perla (LV Mario Pouchain) was sent to the Gulf of Tadjoura. With the air conditioning system not working, the crew began to suffer from heatstroke. Commander Pouchain ordered the overhaul of the installation, which caused Charybde's boat to fall into Scylla, because the operation was accompanied by strong releases of methyl chloride. When the submarine reached the Gulf of Tadjoura on the morning of June 22, many of the men were already sick and the situation only got worse during the day. He nevertheless joined his watch zone on the 23rd, before… being recalled by the general staff (Marisupao). The Perla therefore recrossed the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb.
On June 26, having had to emerge before nightfall to get his bearings and renew the air, he was spotted and chased by the sloop Shoreham, from which he only escaped to run aground 12 nautical miles south of the Sciab Sciach lighthouse . The next day, the 27th, a relief expedition which left Massaoua (destroyers Leone and Pantera and torpedo boat Giovanni Acerbi) was recalled, due to the presence of a British squadron (CL HMNZS Leander, DD HMS Kandahar and Kingston). The destroyer Kingston tried in vain to finish off the submarine, which was finally saved by the intervention of eight Italian SM-81 bombers. The crew was recovered twice, on June 28 and 30, but the toxic fumes and the English shells had killed sixteen men, including the second (LV Renzo Simoncini). As for the boat, it ended up being grounded and towed to Massawa, where it arrived on July 20, 1940. It remained unavailable until the end of the East African campaign approached.
………
The eighth and last submarine, the Guglielmotti (CC Carlo Tucci), left on June 21, not for a war mission, but to save the castaways of the Macallè, whom he found on June 22 and brought back to Massaoua.
At the end of June, the toll was therefore four submarines lost (3 sunk, 1 taken), one badly damaged (the Perla) and two damaged, in exchange for the destruction of an oil tanker, a destroyer and, perhaps, be, of one aviso [Revised edition note: this third victory is proven]. In all and for all, Guglielmotti remained at this time, which was to join successively Ferraris (early August) and Archimede (end of August).
………
These three units had the greatest difficulty in ensuring an Italian submarine presence in the Red Sea. Until January 1941, they won only two successes! The Italian air force had even less success against the Allied convoys, despite several attempts. On September 20, the freighter Bhima (5,280 GRT), part of convoy BN.5, was damaged by a near-miss and towed to Aden to be beached. On October 15, two merchant ships, Ranee (5,060 GRT) and Pundit (5,305 GRT), sailing in convoy BS.6A, received shrapnel from bombs. On August 15, the Ferraris unsuccessfully chased the battleship Royal Sovereign, in transit from Alexandria to Durban. On September 6, the Guglielmotti sank the old Greek freighter Atlas (4,008 GRT), which was trailing convoy BN.4. In October, the Archimede reported the passage of convoy BN.7 – a report which was to lead to the Battle of the Farasan Islands. And in December, the Guglielmotti succeeded in torpedoing the old light cruiser HMS Capetown, which did not sink, but was badly damaged. The Ferraris met a humiliating end on September 7, 1940 (…).
………
On February 6, 1941, understanding that after the fall of Keren, that of Massaoua was only a matter of days, Admiral Balsamo decided to order his last two operational submersibles to return to Europe bypassing the 'Africa. The two submarines were to reach Bordeaux after being refueled at sea by German ships.
At the last moment, it was decided that the Perla (LV Bruno Napp), at the request of its crew, would also leave, although it was half the size of the other two, that it would need two supplies at the instead of one and that the reliability of the repairs was uncertain.
The Guglielmotti set out under the command of CF Gino Spagnone, leader of the 8th Submarine Group, with Carlo Tucci as second. Its refueling went without incident, thanks to the tanker Eurofeld.
The Archimede was to be refueled by the tanker Nordmark, but the latter did not arrive – the Kriegsmarine staff had only thought very late of notifying the Regia Marina of the loss of the ship. CC Marino Salvatori, commander of the Archimede, then decided to go and be interned in Buenos Aires. His ship was well received by the Argentinians and the conditions of internment of the crew proved to be so lax that the sailors could board a Japanese freighter without being worried, which went to drop them off in Bordeaux. Since then, the opening of the diplomatic archives has made it possible to learn that Supermarina had offered the Argentines to offer them the submarine in exchange for passive complicity in the pseudo-escape of their submariners and that this exchange had been accepted. . The Argentinians did not even change the name of the building!
As for little Perla, he disappeared body and belongings. He should have resupplied east of Madagascar with the Atlantis – but the German privateer had been intercepted by the Allies and the Kriegsmarine could not find a replacement for him. Were the messages from Supermarina ordering the small submarine to be interned in Mozambique received? We ignore it. The fate of the Perla remains a mystery to this day.
………
Meanwhile, the Guglielmotti, in rather poor condition after two months at sea, had managed to reach Europe on April 12, 1941 (which earned CF Gino Spagone a knighthood of the Military Order of Savoy , while CC Carlo Tucci received a silver and a bronze medal for Military Valor for his successes at the Red Sea and this happy return). With such a tired boat, entering the Mediterranean via Gibraltar was very risky. Supermarina then decided to repair the submarine in Bordeaux. In a port devastated by the destruction carried out by the French the previous year and with a moderately cooperative Kriegsmarine, the repairs, carried out by the mechanics in charge of the maintenance of the Italian ocean-going submarines based there, advanced slowly.
In September 1941 it was considered to be sent to the Taranto shipyard for major refitting and modernization, but Gibraltar had become a well-guarded place and Supermarina hesitated to force the chance of this unit which had become a symbol of Italian determination. Admiral Parona, commander of Betasom, managed, with the support of Dönitz, to obtain that the Guglielmotti be accommodated in a Kriegsmarine shipyard – in exchange for good practices: she would then remain in the Atlantic.
Commanded again by the CC Tucci, the boat left in early October from Bordeaux for Lorient, where it was joined by a small team of Italian Naval Engineers responsible for supervising the work. From November 1941 to February 1942, the submarine was therefore refitted and modernized. On March 15, 1942, commanded by the LV Federico Tamburini (the CC Tucci having returned to Italy by land), the Guglielmotti left Lorient for a first patrol in the Atlantic, after which it reached Bordeaux on April 26. Over the next nine months, he made three more offensive cruises in the North Atlantic, during which he listed several Allied freighters of different nationalities on his list, but it is now difficult to know how many and of what tonnage.
Indeed, at the end of 1942, the announcement of the Italian armistice surprised the submarine in the open sea. The LV Tamburini did not hesitate long before heading for Iceland. He wanted to escape imprisonment in a German camp and judged (probably rightly) that near Reikjavik, the risk of encountering trigger-sensitive Allied ASM units was lower than near Liverpool or New York. . On its way to… an Icelandic cod boat, the LV Tamburini thought of destroying the pages of the logbooks describing its victories in the Atlantic, fearing that they would anger the American sailors who would soon come on board.
The Guglielmotti was at first considered captured and taken to Norfolk under guard, but it was said that she was neither done with the war nor with the warm seas. Indeed, in 1943, the government of "co-belligerent" Italy remembered him and sent him to the Pacific, under the authority of its former commander, Carlo Tucci, who in the meantime had become frigate captain and who had rallied to the Badoglio government. The ship was supposed to serve only as a training chest for American ASM groups, but in 1944, after several months of good and loyal service, it received authorization to carry out a war mission against the Japanese.
His lucky star did not abandon him and he was able to add two Japanese freighters to his astonishing record.
In 1945, he finally returned to Italy via the Suez Canal, that is to say by the Red Sea. Arriving off Massaoua, from where the Guglielmotti, her captain and part of her crew had left more than four years earlier, the CF Tucci ordered the firing of twenty-one guns, "in honor of the Perla and of all the submariners, our brothers in arms or our adversaries, who will never return home”

 

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Ten years ago
The crazy improvisations of the terrible summer of 40
By Chief Armaments Engineer Joseph Molinié, Director of AMX
Article published in the July/August 1950 issue of the monthly magazine Techniques de l’Ingénieur
In the first half of June 1940, when the destiny of France was being played out both on the battlefields and in the shadow of ministerial cabinets, the army had already lost almost all of its modern equipment in Dunkirk. . The factories in the North were occupied and those in the Paris region are about to be. The machine tools and the workers withdrew as best they could on the routes of exodus; some workers even left at the controls of the last machines produced in working order to reach the south.
When, in this atmosphere of collapse and the end of the world, we learned of the government's decision to continue the struggle to the end, including in North Africa, a burst of organizing energy led those in charge at all levels to resume the shots of production and to recreate factories in makeshift premises to relaunch production of the smallest materials likely to slow down the German advance. This start made oil stain.
All public or private, industrial or artisanal means, capable of cutting, welding, grinding, drilling, milling and riveting existing in France not yet occupied and which were not being evacuated were called upon to armor and arm all which was roadworthy and sent to the front.
Since the end of May, the lessons of the campaign have begun to bear fruit.
A single watchword summed up what would later be called "the spirit of June-July 1940": to slow down the German advance and allow the Great Relocation which could save the country, it was necessary costs to break panzer by all means, even the most technically incredible, the most industrially unexpected or even the most baroque.
This is how the roads of France saw going into battle new tanks still covered with their orange minium primer paint, armored vehicles without turrets, modern American trucks carrying antique weapons religiously stored in depots or foreign equipment : “borrowed” from the Spanish Republicans - NDA – Some of this material, much appreciated, will later be taken up and produced in series in AFN. The prolific family of Chevrolet armored vehicles (the beginnings of the AMX 13 family now being developed under our direction) is the best example of this - recovered after the evacuation of the English or even captured from the Germans during delaying actions.
The army first carried out a large destocking: the prototypes or the vehicles of the schools had already joined the marching companies and more and more were needed; it was therefore to the stocks and reserves of the First World War that we had to turn. Then it was necessary to fire any wood, invent, study, adapt and realize – always in a hurry. Anti-tank casemates were produced based on discarded tank turrets, simplified armored car turrets, various gun mountings on equally varied truck chassis, self-propelled guns, assault guns and even tank destroyers. high-performance (NDA – These include various machines inspired by the Laffly studied in October 1939 under the impetus of General Keller, then Inspector General of Tanks).
In the midst of the catastrophe, imagination and initiative returned to power in France. From this intellectual and mechanical bubbling came many products that were sometimes only made in single copies. Ten years have passed since those tragic events and so good number of plans and documents defining these materials have followed us in AFN and have for some given rise to mass production in Algiers or in the United States, there remain many gray areas on the variety and quality of the weapons which fired the last shots of the Battle of France. Never in our technical history has such a short period concealed so many mysteries and surprises. It is therefore to these inventors of the eleventh hour, to these engineers who worked with the energy of despair and to these specialist workers who placed their skills at the service of French inventive genius, to all these champions of the famous "system D" in the workshops of the troop corps, in the garages of the cities and the forges of the countryside, that I dedicate this article which unfortunately tries to make a very incomplete point on the productions of this time.
To facilitate the task of the reader, these materials are grouped into five main families.

 

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I – Old equipment from the depots

The trucks
Many 14-18 vehicles were carefully stored and maintained in the depots. In 1939, a number had been assigned to series B units. Others were destocked in June and July 1940 to reform units that had lost their equipment at Dunkirk. This is how the venerable and indestructible Pierce-Arrow, Jefferey quad or Berliet CBA were able to return to service, "modernized" by the installation on a crinoline carriage of a 75 cannon (which they were once supposed to tow or carry ), thus becoming occasional mobile anti-tanks. Similarly, the De Dion-Bouton anti-aircraft guns, unable to oppose the Messerschmitts, chased the panzer around a crossroads on the banks of the Saône.
It should be noted in this regard that the famous 75 model 1897 gun, the pride of the artillery in 1914, still cut a good figure against the majority of the panzers in service at the time, thanks to an armor-piercing shell which allowed it to pierce 50 mm of armor at one thousand meters.

The heavy tanks
In 1918, France had bought some Mk V tanks from England to complete its heavy tank battalion planned on FCM-2C. All these machines did not end their career as a “flower pot” at the entrance to the barracks. Some served as stoppers or barricades on the Loire or elsewhere – we must of course recall here the famous and heroic story of the FCM-2Cs of Chaumont.

Schneider tanks
Long since converted into recovery tanks or tractors, a good number valiantly resumed service alongside the battalions of FT tanks launched into the furnace.

Renault FT tanks
In 1939, there were still 1,700 FT light tanks in inventories. While some of them were still in service with a 7.5 mm Reibel Châtellerault MAC31 machine gun in place of the original armament, more than a thousand were unarmed following the removal of their 37 guns. SA-18, recovered to equip the next generation light tanks, the R-35, H-35 and FCM-36.
Among these materials, those that were definitely out of use served as blockhouses at crossroads or provided armor plates for other makeshift arrangements. Those still in working order were rearmed with what the regional workshops could provide or salvage from destroyed equipment.
Many configurations have existed. From the simple passage of an FM 24/29 or a carabiner through a riveted plate in place of the original mask to the adaptation of a 13.2mm or a 25 SA-34 after cutting from the turret, these rearmed materials went to fight within the regional sections or marching companies.

II – Equipment of the cavalry corps
As soon as the survivors of the DLM were repatriated from England, the problem of the reconstitution of these primordial units in the pursuit of the struggle arose bitterly. For lack of new equipment in sufficient quantity, this reconstruction was partial and above all heterogeneous, associating most of the time old equipment and incomplete new equipment. Absolute priority finally being given to the horsemen, the latter benefited from a certain administrative immunity to supplement their needs at the expense of other troop corps, which had proved ineffective and rigid in the first days of the campaign. The cavalrymen aimed in priority at the anti-tank means entrusted to the hands of the infantry (25 mm SA-34) and the artillery (47 mm SA-37).
The epic of these squadrons in the last days of the battle is revealing both of the material deprivation which struck the French army and of the sense of duty of the men who continued to accomplish their missions without fail until the end and what whatever the conditions.

AMD (discovery armored cars)
At that time, the lack of turrets was chronic, whether for the AMs or for the tanks. Also the 52 AMD 35 chassis (the famous “Pan-Pan”), available at the beginning of June, were delivered as is to the units. The latter adapted makeshift shields there to install machine guns, generally 7.5 mm Reibels, available in sufficient quantity, but we could also see antique and asthmatic Hotchkiss “recovered” from the infantry or Saint-Etienne 1907 “borrowed” from the artillery.
Some of these remarkable machines (as proof, the Germans reused all those they could get their hands on) benefited from a brand new turret studied by Renault, armed with a 47 SA-35, designed for very simple manufacture in workshops poorly equipped with machine tools. The first copy is famous for having wreaked havoc in the German ranks before succumbing to Cosne-sur-Loire.
Another variant of the AMD 35 will give birth to a tank destroyer (see below). Alongside these new materials, old White-Laffly 50s and 80s as well as Kégresse P16s and foreign materials (see below) were returned to service to complete the squadrons.

AMR (reconnaissance armored cars)
Here again, it was due to a lack of turrets that 47 new Renault ZT 4s, ordered by the Ministry of the Colonies, were still stored in the depots at the beginning of June. Some were equipped with a simple FM support and the others with a makeshift armored steel sheet casemate housing a 25 SA-34, thus transforming them into very mobile tank destroyers and perfectly effective against Panzer I and II.
To play the role of AMR, a good number of Renault UE tankettes “taken” from the infantry were equipped with a simple casemate (housing a machine gun or an FM), directly inspired by the tankettes delivered to China.

III – Tanks
Still suffering from the lack of turrets, the last available tanks were generally sent into battle almost as is.

The B1 bis
With their short 75 gun, they were used as assault guns. At least one specimen was transformed with the FCM with the 75 dismounted from the mild steel prototype of the ARL V39 (the other known specimen of this gun will make the shot mounted on the prototype of the Somua SAu 40) itself integrated into a marching unit composed of the last S-35 produced., and another received the prototype of the ARL 2C turret (This turret, with an enlarged track, will serve as the basis for that of the SAV-41). Testimonials also
state of the realization of a B1 bis without turret equipped with a flamethrower system instead of the 75 short - An adaptation that the Germans will continue with success.
.
The Somua
The last S-35 left Saint-Ouen without their turret, transporting the workers on their superstructure. A few were completed by salvaging intact turrets from destroyed or damaged tanks; the others served as transport for carried dragoons (3 or 4 men) with an FM.

The Hotchkiss
Many H-39s were entered incomplete, without exhaust, without cut tail or fender and without other markings or paint than chalk inscriptions on the minium protection.

The AMXs
The R-40s replaced the R-35s on the production lines in June. The last copies will be produced in the fallback factory in Saint-Etienne.
At least one of these chassis will be modified into a self-propelled 75 in Saint-Chamond according to an idea developed in the 1920s from an FT tank chassis.

The AMC-35 (or Renault ACG1)
Despite more than mediocre mechanical qualities, these "cars" equipped with a 47 gun proved the validity of the two-man turret and distinguished themselves on the Loire with the Groupe Franc de Cavalerie Neuchèze. A chassis was converted into a 75 self-propelled gun under the designation ACGK, but the project remained unfulfilled.

IV – Small series and improvisations
This catch-all category contains interesting ideas, which will later be exploited in various forms.

The tank destroyers
Apart from the very famous and very effective Laffly W15 TCC, other achievements could have, if they had been produced early enough and in number, reversed the course of history.
This is particularly the case of the Lorraine TRC 37L with a 47 SA-37 gun firing under armored pillboxes, of which a dozen examples distinguished themselves in the battles at Brive and Sarlat. The Germans were so impressed by these formidable machines which caused them extraordinary losses that they were inspired by them to create the machines generally known under the generic term of “Marder”.
Another version based on the VBCP 39L was studied but never made. It provided for a 47 SA-39 TAZ mounted in the transport compartment of the mounted fighters and firing from the rear, as on the Lafflys.
Still in the same vein, another prototype was built with an AMD-35 chassis without turret on which was grafted a 47 SA-37 gun firing behind a protective armor plate identical to the Laffly. We do not know the fate of this unique machine, but the Germans made several copies of an equivalent model with a 50 mm PAK gun.
Finally, some ubiquitous UE-31 tankettes were equipped with a 25 SA-34 firing under makeshift armor plates. This adaptation, as well as that of the British Bren Carriers (see below), was largely taken up and improved in AFN from the end of 1940.

Cars of carried dragons (VDP)
An interesting proposal was made by Citroën to produce a simple, easy to build and inexpensive VDP to replace the complex and expensive Laffly S20 TL of the dragoons. It was a question, thanks to the establishment of a Marmont collection, of transforming the
van type 23 in all-road vehicle with 10 men. At least five demonstration and validation examples were produced and tested at the front during the fighting on the Saône.
This simple idea is now taken up by Renault with its R2087, which supplies inexpensive tactical vans to the army en masse.

Anti-tank and anti-aircraft trucks
This category is certainly the most prolific. We have already spoken of the old 14-18 trucks armed with a 75 on crinoline carriage. This idea was to spread wherever drivable heavyweights and cannons capable of hurting panzers or stukas were available.
This is how anti-tank improvisations were to flourish based on French or foreign trucks, new or requisitioned, on which were mounted 47 and 65 naval guns, 75 mod. 97, but also 47 SA-35s, 37 SA-18s or 37 SA-39s dismantled from destroyed tanks and 25 SA-34s recovered from infantry units which were retreating in disorder, abandoning their heavy equipment.
The same approach was launched to face the stukas by mounting on available frames the 13.2 mm of protection of the airfields evacuated and the last 25 single and twin-tube CA new out of the factory.

V – Foreign materials
American deliveries
By September 1939, 2,000 GMC all-road 4-wheel drive tarpaulin trucks and 5,000 Indian motorcycles had been ordered from the United States for the needs of the cavalry. In June 1940, this equipment being delivered was used to re-equip the units being reconstituted after Dunkirk. In early June, 4,000 new 4WD and 6WD off-road trucks were ordered from GMC, Dodge and Chevrolet. These vehicles of course did not reach the Metropolis, but were used to re-equip the units evacuated in AFN, where soon other chassis provided by the Americans were used for the first achievements of the arsenal of Algiers.

Spanish ex-republican materials
The best-known materials of this family are of course the AM Chevrolet, whose construction in improved form was taken up in AFN under the name AMD-37 and gave birth to a complete tactical family.
We must also mention the 4-wheeled AMs, the UNL 35 on Ford chassis, similar in appearance but with a turret resembling that of the Panzer I, as well as the Autocar tank trucks of American origin, which were assigned to different tank battalion.
Even more surprisingly, some isolated testimonies mention the return to line of Soviet-made tanks, probably T-26 light tanks or BT-5 fast tanks. We do not know today in which units and under what conditions they were used, but it is likely that these machines had to undergo a minimum of adaptations, affecting at least their armament (installation of French machine guns, even replacement of the barrel).

The materials left during the British re-embarkation
Unable to hope to evacuate all their equipment through the Atlantic ports, the British entrusted us with some of their vehicles to continue the fight.
They were mainly Morris or Austin vans equipped with a “range”, like the S 20 TL of the dragoons, with a 25 SA-34 capable of hunting. These materials will prove so effective that the British will generalize this type of assembly from the campaign of Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941.
The French were also able to recover a few Vickers light tanks and above all a significant number of Bren carriers, which could be armed with a 25 SA-34 on a makeshift assembly, in imitation of the UE 31 tankettes transformed by us. An improved version of this model was taken over later in AFN from new vehicles provided by the English.

Reused captured gear
If it is common in the iconography of the Battle of France to see French armored vehicles and vehicles in the hands of the Germans, the reverse is extremely rare to say the least. However, many testimonies report devices captured during courageous delaying actions, then slightly transformed and reused immediately against their former owners.
These are mainly light reconnaissance armored vehicles that have ventured a little too far in the delay plugs, but a few examples of Bison self-propelled guns have also been reused, with a 75 model 97 in place of the original 150 howitzer .

For the Liberation
To conclude this inventory, we must not forget that the design offices continued to work hard during this tragic period when everyone had to take a position in the face of this unthinkable collapse. Engineers and technicians persevered in their drawings and calculations with the hope of one day returning to liberate the country with the materials that we had so lacking.
This is how the Somua S-40 became the SAV-41 tank, the SAu 40 and ARL V39 assault guns metamorphosed into the SAV Au 41 then 42, and finally the very promising Renault G1 tank returned as a liberator under the traits of Bélier then Taureau, whose creators he had inspired.

 

[demolitiondan]

Inner Mongolia
The Last Khan

December 17, 1943
In the heart of the city of Kalgan, swept by the wind of the steppes, Prince Demchugdongrub observed, with dark eyes, the inner courtyard of his palace. The season, the climate, the general atmosphere engendered a gloom that he understood but deeply regretted.
After all, this city* was still the capital of Mengjiang, the Mongol territories. It was his most precious child, the work of his life: for many years he had worked to build it. How would his creation be judged in the future? How would his name fit into the glorious pantheon of his ancestors of the imperial Borjigin clan, that of Genghis Khan himself, who had conquered and ruled China long before the last Qing dynasty? These questions tormented him as he walked through the corridors of the building to return to his office. It would be better there to meditate, because his black dress with ideograms and his traditional headgear hardly protected him from the cold, which he felt unpleasantly despite the solid constitution he owed to his ancestors.
As the prince passed, the guards – his guards! – presented arms. He walked slowly, lost in his memories. His youth in a China indifferent to its people. His education in the worship of the glory of the great Mongol Khans who had conquered the world, or almost... The oppression of his people by the Han. The progressive aggravation of the conflicts between the oppressors, occupied for almost thirty years to dispute the spoils of an empire which was not even theirs. And, in the face of this pitiful spectacle, the almost natural birth of an ethnically based political movement: Pan-Mongolism. Everything, according to the doctrine, had to return to its place. Thus, the Mongols would regain control of their lands, their immense and majestic steppes that the dazzled Marco Polo had described to Westerners in his stories.
Already in September 1933, the autonomist princes and lords had rallied to him at the temple of Bailingmiao (north of the city of Baotou). This historic council had lasted until mid-October. Time to iron out differences and overcome resentments and suspicions. Once the principle of a confederation had been decided upon, they had logically relied on him, the legitimate heir of the former khans, to bring to Nanjing their just demands for independence. Ugh! These Chinese runts, busy fighting like dogs, had not seen fit to respond other than by sending an emissary, the name of Huang Shaohong, responsible for negotiating the creation of a “Mongol Autonomous Local Committee for political affairs” – obviously a cheap maneuver to save time. Never mind, they had been warned! As early as 1935, the Manchus, or rather their Japanese godfathers, had responded positively. Together, Mongols, Japanese and Manchus would bring down the Han Chinese!
Thus, with the support of the Kwantung army and in particular of General Jirō Minami, with whom he communicated through Colonel Seishiro Itagaki, an independent state had appeared in the steppes of Chahar and Suiyan. And on December 24, 1935, two battalions of Manchurian cavalry commanded by Colonel Li Shouxin, a squadron of planes and even a few tanks came to support the Mongolian forces. By March 1936, its invincible cavalry had quickly overwhelmed the whole of northern Chahar and crushed its pitiful defenders – a few thousand poorly armed soldiers, lost children of the nationalist government who languished in the region.
After a founding conference held from April 21 to 26, May 12, 1936 saw the formation of the Mengjiang Joint Committee (Mengjiang Lianhe Weiyuanhui), placed under his direction. According to constant logic, it was he, Prince Demchugdongrub, who had been chosen to administer the reclaimed lands on behalf of the Mongol military government, but above all - above all - to "incarnate the illustrious spirit of Genghis Khan and reconquer the territories which belong to Mongolia, thus accomplishing the immense task of rekindling the flame of its people. He was barely 34 years old!
One could doubtless question his methods. Not too hard however, because the size of the task justified the expedients and in particular the alliance with the Japanese, concretized in the first times by the presence of a Japanese adviser, named Toyonori Yamauchi. This rapprochement was not self-evident for the clan leaders. He had to silence the moderates and convince them that he was following an opportunist policy, yes, but that he was not slavishly aligning himself with the Imperials. The first contacts had moreover been made at the initiative of the islanders and had initially led to nothing. The Japanese envoy, Major Tanaka, had been too demanding. Then the prince had dealt with the Japanese, it is true. But as equals, and in the presence of clan leaders. Which had previously ticked on his project of monarchy, which had led him to structure his government in Joint Committee. He had tried to marginalize the members of the said Committee, but the transformation of the assembly of clan leaders into a Mongolian congress, where the clans would have been diluted, had not materialized… Well, we would revisit the question later.
Above all, it was necessary to organize this conglomeration of tribes and form the coherent army which would be the instrument of the next victories. By dint of negotiations, we had collected enough to put eight cavalry divisions in line. Alas, Colonel Tanaka, the expert who came from Tokyo to set up a modern army, despised the fragile tribal balances with which Prince Demchugdongrub had to deal. And he had recruited a bunch of economically equipped bandits and deserters outside the traditional structures (one gun for two!). He had even added an army of Chinese collaborators, pompously dubbed “the great virtuous Han army”… Why did his allies always have to neglect his advice? This was the cause of his first setbacks, the arrogance of the foreigner!
The mediocre Shanxi warlord, Yan Xishan, after yielding to his forces, had gone to beg Nanjing for help. The KMT sent in troops which halted the reconquest. The conflict then gained in intensity, to the advantage of the clans as the mercenaries of Colonel Tanaka were replaced by the proud horsemen of the steppes.
But in November 1936, 15,000 men equipped by Tokyo, supported by Kwantung Air Force and partly commanded by Japanese officers, were defeated in Suiyuan by regular Kuo-Min-Tang troops, commanded by Fu Zuozi. These had at that time strong generals, such as Zhao Chengshou and Wang Jingguo, as well as relatively abundant material, despite Japanese sabotage (see the explosion of the Datong depot). The Chinese gave no quarter, treating the Mongols as partisans. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Divisions were crushed! To the great shame of the prince, only the threat of intervention by the Kwantung Army prevented the Nationalist government from annihilating Mengjiang.
The island allies had generously maintained their contributions after these unfortunate events, making it possible to rally the troops and reconstitute the dispersed army. However, we had returned to harassing actions, on the basis of information provided by the Japanese. Despite the setbacks, these actions never ceased for a moment, since those Han fools had the arrogance to reject his generous ultimatum. Fu Zuozi accused him of being “the puppet of certain powers” and ordered him to “recognize the central government of Chiang”!
By July 1937, he and his Japanese allies had finally triumphed side by side. Inner Mongolia was in his hands – well, in the hands of the Committee. Eight Mongol cavalry divisions, 20,000 strong, had fought bravely. Mengjiang's contribution to the victory was indisputable.
It remained to formalize once and for all the creation of the Mongolian State: official declaration of independence (December 8, 1937), treaty of friendship with Japan and Manchukuo, installation of the capital at Chan Pei, in the suburbs of Kalgan (it will be reinstalled later in the center of the city), transformation of the Mixed Committee into the United Autonomous Government of Mengjiang (Mengjiang lianhe zizhi zhengfu), of which the prince was vice-president...
Finally Demchugdongrub was in place, enjoying the recognition of his people! But also that of his Japanese ally and even that of his alleged emperor of Manchukuo, Pu-Yi, who had seen fit to confer on him the title of Jinong of Wude in an attempt to mark his entirely theoretical sovereignty. Did Emperor Kang-te believe he was putting him to sleep with court honors? The prince didn't care about the intrigues of Changchun Palace! All that counted for him was the title of President of the Government of Mengjiang, which he had obtained in 1941.
………
He finally arrived in front of his office and yanked open the sliding wooden door, revealing a dark room decorated with a statue of Confucius. He went to sit behind his lacquered wooden cabinet, in a yak leather armchair.
In truth, his rise to the top had been irresistible. How could it have been otherwise? Demchugdongrub was the heir of the Sonid Banner clan, of which his father had been the leader, as well as the president of the Xilingol League (an administrative gathering of clans). Admittedly, the line had, in distant times, been associated with a branch of the Tibetan nobility, but the prince had himself married a taiji (traditional title of Quing nobility) of the clan and he had become, after his father, leader of the League of Xilingol in 1931. Legitimized by his blood and by his matrimonial alliance, he had returned to the land of his ancestors, like Erlang returning to his country to drive out the monkey king Sun Wukong. He also remained a high-ranking imperial official, as according to Quing tradition, offices were hereditary.
Nothing should therefore prevent his destiny from being fulfilled and his seizure of power was a simple return to the order of things, very Confucian in short, the prince said to himself as he considered a representation of the philosopher, who was observing him with a impassive look. A servant brought him tea served in a fine piece of porcelain and its delicate scent led him to more personal considerations. The succession was already ready, he had many children. Dolgorsuren, his eldest son, but also his four younger brothers and the daughter his second wife (from the Abaga clan) had given him. Everything would therefore be fine for his country, his clan and his family… if the fate of arms remained favorable to Mengjiang and his allies.
At this thought, Prince Demchugdongrub made a slightly tense face. Indeed, and whatever the order of things, it was useless to lie to one another about the situation of one's allies. He only had the bits of information passed to him by the Japanese and the gossip reported by his networks, but it was clear that the world war was taking a turn that was not favorable to Tokyo. Serious failures in the Pacific, first serious defeats in mainland China, open insurrection in Indochina, British and Indian armies at the gates of Malaysia, European fleets landing in Indonesia... And it was not Japan's German partners who could pull the Japanese of embarrassment. It even seemed obvious that once the Germans were defeated, the Europeans, the Americans and surely the Bolsheviks would not fail to turn back towards Asia, therefore towards China, like dragons that have been inadvertently awakened.
What means did the prince have today to defend his dream, achieved through hard struggle, and at the cost of so many compromises? He grabs the reports arranged in a thick pile on the right side of the desk. Arranging them in a fan, he began to quickly review them. Not that he discovered their contents, but he wanted everything to be clear in his mind. Pushing away the cup of tea, he became absorbed in thought.
His army was now organized into "divisions" of about 1,500 men, consisting of three regiments of 500 men. Obviously, the actual numbers, loyal or not, should not exceed 60% of these figures. The deficit was even more serious with regard to the management, and in particular the non-commissioned officers. He had tried to absorb it by creating a school of cadets, with annual promotions of 500 students, but the desertion rate reached almost 40%. The Japanese instructors were probably very learned, but not very popular, he sighed.
However, his forces were organized into three Armies.
– The Army of Inner Mongolia, General Li Shouxin: five cavalry divisions (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th DC), i.e.… 4,400 men (900 per division) instead of the theoretical 7,500.
– The Army of the Autonomous Government of Mongolia of the Pin Banner (Pinwangfu), General Pao Shan: 3,000 men.
– The Army of the Autonomous Government of Mongolia of the Po Banner (Pinwangfu), General Han Se-wang: 3,000 men. The combativeness of the latter was doubtful, not to mention her loyalty...
Now, the material – finally, that declared by the officers, because arms trafficking was not reserved for KMT officers (who seemed, moreover, for a few months, to practice it much less intensively). Prince Demchugdongrub had favored regular divisions, partly equipped with Mauser 13s purchased at his own expense from the Manchukuo arsenals. They also used the best of the ten thousand capture rifles recovered from the troops of “Marshal” Zhang Xueliang (not all of them were in good condition, far from it). For the armies in banners, it was more variegated, with a clear predominance of Soviet contraband material.
The cavalry divisions had also received a small endowment of automatic weapons: Sig submachine guns. Model 1930, Swiss weapons arrived in Mongolia without anyone knowing how, intended for officers' bodyguards. Each of these units also included a company of Czechoslovakian machine guns, which probably arrived by the Trans-Siberian in 1938 (and had recently been recovered from Zhang Xueliang's army): ZB-26s, a barbaric and meaningless name, but a deadly tool!
The Mongol forces also included about 70 artillery pieces of various models, gathered according to purchases or war prizes, and finally three or four armored cars or (very) light tanks lent... or forgotten... by the Japanese.
The prince crossed his fingers as he considered Confucius who seemed to raise his eyebrows warily.
Indeed, it was little against the American bombers, the Soviet tanks or the Chinese hordes. One could be a Mongol prince and have a sense of reality. His army didn't stand a chance in a pitched battle. Its little gray soldiers** would be incapable of defending Mengjiang against the major players in the World War. And no need to ask for help from his most precious Japanese allies!
Mengjiang had entered the war against the “Western colonizers” by decree signed in December 1941 on the orders… er, on the fraternal advice of the Kwantung army. But the main consequence of this participation in the war led by Japan had been repeated requests by the Japanese for troops intended for operations of "securing the rear", exchanged against vague promises of territories belonging mainly to the People's Republic of Mongolia. …against which Mengjiang was not at war!
A servant interrupted the prince's gloomy reflections, with a contrite expression and a rigorous gaze directed to the ground: "Your Majesty, a Quing embassy from Changchun is requesting the favor of being received. »
The prince put on an impassive face for the occasion and made the visitors wait long enough to assemble his staff and the members of the court with him in the reception hall. The yellow-blue-white-red four-color banner of Mengjiang was unfurled in the background, strictly on par with the red dragon on a blue background of the Nara clan. It was necessary to recall the family and egalitarian ties between Manchukuo and Mengjiang and to give a little prestige to the whole! Nevertheless, it would be necessary, on occasion, to think of removing the yellow of the Quing from the flag...
Once the college was assembled, with a gesture, Prince Demchugdongrub ordered his servants to open the heavy wooden doors leading to the courtyard. Half a dozen people in Imperial Palace regalia strode forward with ceremonial steps, their eyes fixed on the impeccably polished floorboards.
Arrived at a respectful distance, the ambassadors knelt before the Prince, who enjoyed a moment of majesty always welcome in these difficult times. The yellow attire of these visitors, embroidered with a fine blue dragon pattern, clearly revealed their allegiance. Envoys from Pu-Yi. What did his very distant cousin want from him? After a certain hesitation, which he allowed to continue a little longer to demonstrate his authority, Demchugdongrub authorized the envoys to speak with an imperious gesture.
– Honor and bliss for thousands of years, great Khan Demchugdongrub. Emperor Kang-te sends his greetings to the brave and loyal servants of the Empire.
The tribute was clearly off to a pleasant start. Nevertheless, the proprieties had to be observed. His aide-de-camp carried out the chore, Prince Demchugdongrub maintaining his imperial and sovereign air without saying a word.
– Peace and prosperity for centuries and centuries on the Emperor of Changchun. We are honored by your presence, which gladdens our souls and warms our hearts, replied the officer with a theatrical and affable air at the same time. Demchugdongrub smiled inwardly. He was truly worthy of his place, fat enough for flattery, but subtle enough to send a message affirming the weakness of Pu-Yi's authority over Mengjiang.
We congratulated each other for a few more minutes, with poems and subtle effusions that reminded us that the most beautiful flowers can be poisoned. While serving the tea, of course, which remained safe to eat. At least a priori.
Then we finally got to the heart of the matter and the reason for the presence of the Manchus.
The ambassador, still seated in front of his kneeling hosts, assumed a formal air bordering on despair: “The Emperor of Manchukuo is terribly saddened that you were unable to attend the conference last month. His heart regrets the absence of his best supporters to accompany him as the future of Asia takes shape with the full support of our common allies. »
Tragedian, thought the prince.
“However, the Emperor understands the risks of such a trip for a person of your quality, surrounded by his court and through regions made so dangerous by war. His Majesty has, however, made every effort to iron out your difficulties and regrets that you were unable to overcome them.
Comedian, corrected the Prince. Everyone knew that Pu-Yi had conditioned his own presence, if he had the freedom to do so, on Demchugdongrub's absence. Pure feudal reflex, so as not to appear at the same rank as his vassal in the eyes of the world. And, more importantly, in the eyes of the Manchus. His annoyance had to be conveyed, so he spoke personally.
“Rest assured, Mr. Representative of the Administration of Manchukuo, that we share the sadness of His Imperial Majesty. I have no doubt that She will have other occasions to show me the affection that everyone knows that She grants me.
There you have it, a warning coupled with a call from the foot.
"Your sagacity is a credit to your illustrious lineage, Great Khan," the ambassador said immediately, his voice trembling as it should. “Our venerated emperor indeed sends us to you to send you concrete testimonies of his attachment, because all his subjects form a single family which he leads for the common good. »
The ambassador made a sign to his assistants, who in turn gave the agreed signal to their suite. A dozen soldiers in mustard uniforms (disarmed beforehand by the prince's guards) entered the reception room, carrying six obviously very heavy boxes.
"Here," the prince thought, "he's still trying to buy my loyalty with money that isn't even his..."
The ambassador had the cases opened one after the other, commenting on the wonders they contained. Jewels, ingots, vases... Unfortunately, no weapons, the prince would have preferred! Essentially precious trinkets. But on second thought, he liked trinkets like that, they were useful for buying weapons, even for securing loyalties, he thought, stroking his chin smugly.
We arrived at the last checkout. It looked different from the others, with openings on the sides, from which a bit of straw was sticking out.
– Finally, in testimony of his unfailing esteem, the immense Emperor Kang-te wishes to entrust you with a sacred treasure brought at great expense from the most beautiful temples of Xizang***: a couple of xiaoxiongmao****. »
The red pandas, terrified and exhausted from the trip, risked a snout out of the crate. Huo-hu*****! They sent him animals now? Sacred perhaps, but animals nonetheless! Was Pu-Yi suggesting trying to appease the Soviets with these balls of red fur? Prince Demchugdongrub nevertheless contained his disappointment. The rest of the ceremony continued with cordial congratulations and reciprocal declarations of love, before ending with an oath of eternal friendship and assistance.
The visitors finally gone, the prince considered the gifts that had been offered to him. What to do with fire foxes? By devotion if not by affection, one could not get rid of it. A servant installed them in a wooded and well enclosed garden, where they would perhaps delight the princely children. And then, this type of animal invited to meditation. Curious gift all the same from the last Emperor Quing! Returning to his office, the prince thought that the dynasty was in a strange situation...
………
Prince Demchugdongrub fell heavily back into his chair. Which emperor were we talking about, on second thought? What power did the Son of Heaven still have when his own Imperial Guard was being beaten by the Kempetai******? That his own country was overflowing with brothels, gambling houses and opium dens, run by the most motley of organized crime? Russian clans, Korean gangs, Chinese triads, Japanese yakuza… Gangsters of all kinds were well established, to the point of provoking international incidents, such as the anti-Semitic murder of Frenchman Simon Kaspé by Russian fascists, who were moreover granted amnesty by Manchu justice! These practices could only offend foreign devils, without bringing any benefit.
Even the Japanese intelligence agencies that raised their funds through these illegal activities. Didn't General Kenji Doihara say: "Manchuria pays to be exploited"?
Manchukuo's propaganda said that criminality was a legacy of Chinese warlords, that respect for the law was the hallmark of imperial civilization in the face of nationalist chaos… Everyone laughed about it. Ninety percent of the world's opium production passed through Manchoukouo! And Pu-Yi didn't even get a dime...
Smart dogs know when to stop barking, his father used to say. Demchugdongrub had hoped to set up an informal, two-way or even three-way cooperation with Wang Jigwei in Beijing. Finally, before he had his little accident… Together, they could have weighed against Japan, which after all needed them more every day. When a servant becomes indispensable in the house, he is the master. Or else, they could have considered a way out of the conflict: Chiang certainly did not have the means to refuse such an offer, and he would have been obliged to offer them positions and places in the government of reunified China… But no, that stubborn head of Kang-te continued to play the Son of Heaven of yesteryear on his cardboard throne. He made laws that punished harmful thoughts and all... What was the term used again? Any alteration of the kokutai!
The term kokutai, moreover Japanese, roughly meant “national identity”. But in Manchukuo, this kokutai was in very poor condition. In Mongolia, Prince Demchugdongrub was at least master at home. He was offered with hypocritical generosity lands populated by Han? Never mind ! It prohibited any migration of Chinese or foreign population to Chahar. The Han would go first… The terms of its cooperation with Japan were concrete: money and land in exchange for its military aid. He had not signed an expropriation of peasants to install Japanese settlers! While in Manchukuo, twenty thousand families were expelled each year by the force of the bayonets of the Kwantung army to make way for the Japanese. Not to mention the million forced laborers sent to exhaust themselves in the mines for the sole benefit of the men of Tokyo.
As for the pro-Japanese Chinese government of the late Jingwei, its authority was at least as theoretical as that of Pu-Yi. Either way, the Tokyo lieman was dead before the Sino-Japanese alliance was signed. He was not unhappy about it on reflection, there had been talk of definitely subordinating his Mongolian backyard to Peking.
These dark thoughts, along with his administrative work, kept Demchugdongrub busy until dinner time. After the meal, which had made it possible to discuss the distribution of the present Manchurians, he went out to breathe in the garden where the animals offered that day had already taken up residence in the trees. It was grotesque! But the traditions… We had planted bamboo plants nearby to feed the small animals with red coats and curious white faces outlined in black. While watching the peaceful plantigrades busy decorticating the plants, the prince began to think about politics again.
All in all and for the moment, his own situation was not yet dramatic. Already, he did not have to suffer the permanent presence of a pseudo-military attaché responsible for spying on him and... correcting him. Pu-Yi was constantly followed by a Kwantung Army officer named Yoshioka Yasunori, who reported his every move, threatened him, and even gave him orders. Nor did he have to put up with drunken Japanese in his own palace, like that infamous Colonel Itagaki, who behaved so badly with women*******.
Moreover, the prince had sufficient lucidity to analyze the situation, and would not be surprised by the first American bombardments. Was there nothing he could attempt to avoid a pathetic fate? He was the lord of Mengjiang, by his ancestors! Was he condemned in advance to be hanged by Chiang's soldiers if the Allies won, as Pu-Yi surely would be, or obliged to beg a title of valet from Hiro-Hito if Japan had its way?
If he could remain in power without recognizing the supremacy of a foreign government, he would be delighted. But if the miracle did not happen, he would rather leave the place than be reduced to the rank of puppet of a colonial resident like Pu-Yi, who was denied the title of "Great Emperor Quing" by the Japanese and who had to be satisfied with being "Emperor of Manchuria under the authority of Emperor Showa". He first had to think about saving what he had built. And the most important thing remained to maintain a more or less autonomous Mongolian state, and above all culturally intact******** and preserved from massive colonization, whether Han or Japanese.
Ideally, the conflict should have settled into some sort of balance that allowed his people to hold their own. The looming Allied victory would upset his plans.
Demchugdongrub grabbed a bamboo stalk and proceeded to feed the animals. For fun and to encourage his reflection, but this one definitely led to nothing other than to rehash legitimate anxieties.
How would he be judged by his descendants? A traitor or a founder? A visionary or a madman? Better or worse than Pu-Yi? Better, he hoped. Pu-Yi, poor madman busy managing the neuroses of his concubines, preventing his empress from fleeing her country and starving his servants. Even worse, if we listened to the rumor*********.
The Manchurian Emperor was just a sad, lonely little man in the dark...a far cry from a benevolent, equanimous Son of Heaven. Very far, too, from illustrating the benefits of pan-Asianism and its new civilization... And to think that they were now of the same family, according to the title of nobility he had accepted: Wudé Qinwang - first rank prince in martial virtue. Imitation is the most sincere of flattery, said his father. But Pu-Yi did not deserve to be imitated. A fool who naively thought of taking back the Dragon Throne, even his son Prince Chun said so! In the past, he would have been executed a long time ago, and certainly not by burying him honorably in a bag, but by slitting his throat and spilling his blood on the ground, as for a dog… or a coward.
The prince sighed. What could he not have done with the Japanese money invested in pure loss in the Manchurian princes? Why Pu-Yi and not Demchugdongrub? Certainly because the position of his country was less strategic in the eyes of the islanders... But perhaps because he was not considered conciliatory enough? he wondered with a touch of pride.
But today, what did Japan have to offer to the Autonomous Federation of Mongolia (the name that Tokyo decided to give to its country on August 4, 1941)? The Japanese were no longer going to risk waging war on the USSR and the People's Republic of Mongolia to offer it to the prince. And they obviously preferred the Han Chinese to the Mongols. The question was therefore no longer whether to change the alliance. The question now was where Demchugdongrub and his people would go. For the prince, it would be like before, when he navigated the middle of the struggles of devices and disputes between clans… only more delicate of course. But the rock was still big enough, if placed correctly, to withstand the approaching storm. And his forces, though few in number, still had some value. So, which new allegiance to choose?
The answer was obvious: Nationalist China, so unlikely was it that Westerners would want to deal directly with it. With hope alive, poor Pu-Yi had hired an American to coax the United States into his favour**********… A bit late though! So, Nanjing – well, Chongquing… because the People's Republic of China had a good dose of lead in the wing! He smiled evilly. He had done well to wait before throwing himself into the arms of the Communists as General Ma of the hilarious Pu-Yi had done ***********.
But how to fix this shift? He continued without paying attention to the teeth of the animal, which gradually approached his fingers while nibbling the bamboo. He wasn't going to send a letter to Chiang anyway. Moreover, he knew that the Kuomintang would not follow up on a too visible step, which would be insulting because it would imply that we needed him. He needed a contact, a friend who would plead his case, make his repentance seem natural and his actions pardonable. Perhaps its neighbours, the Muslims of the Three Northwestern Ma, near Xinquiang? Or…
Demchugdongrub let out a piercing cry: the charming little fire fox had just sunk his teeth into his index finger. Frightened, the animal immediately retreated into its tree. “Stupid critter! he blurted in the direction of the white muzzle protruding from the foliage, while sucking on his injured finger. Should I have you put in a burlap sack and sent back to…to the Himalayas? A ray of sunshine (not a rising sun of course) lit up the prince's face despite the falling night.
By the ancestors, yes! The Himalayas! So Tibetans, Buddhists and Lamas! And Goshima Tokushiro, a Japanese, of course, but above all the head of the “Buddhist Office” of the lands administered (really or not) by Manchukuo! Indeed, Tokushiro was an ally and secret friend of the Dalai Lama, who was in contact with Long Yu, warlord of Yumming… and general of Tchang! By this circuit, and by soliciting the oracles of the great monk, he could therefore reach the Generalissimo and President of the Nationalists, or at least his cabinet. And good old Tokushiro couldn't betray him or refuse him to mediate - he owed him many services, including his place as ruler of the official religion of Mengjiang, not to mention his contacts in China on behalf of the 'Kwantung Army, which had brought him much fame and… currency************. The approach simply had to remain discreet and coated with devotion: thus one would believe, or pretend to believe, in a religious rapprochement.
The prince ran to his office to write a very cordial invitation to his dear friend, so urgent was it to tighten their yet unalterable ties.
Two hours later, the missive was written. Of the most beautiful curves that his brush could produce, his ideograms warmly requested the coming to the palace of the eminent Tokushiro. A courier on horseback chosen from among the most faithful received the letter on his knees in the prince's study. He would take it to its recipient as soon as possible and deliver it in person, without anyone having opened it, of course – his life depended on it. The rider bowed his head ceremoniously to his lord and rode off into the night.
Demchugdongrub was satisfied. He uncorked a bottle of excellent sake, though offered by those bastard islanders. Bringing the cup to his lips, he clicked his tongue before toasting the moon, whose glow cut out the silhouette of a red panda sitting on its branch, as well as his ancestors. The most discreet doors definitely gave access to the heart of the house! And to the master of this house, he could sell his support to reconquer the lands of the North, eliminate the remnants of collectivism in the region and prevent harm to the Red refugees abroad. And of course, to destabilize the Japanese, when their Mongol ally disappears at the worst moment in the steppe! All arranged by the secret services of the Japanese occupants themselves.
The prince smiled and took another sip of sake. His religious friends would know how to convince their interlocutors of the sincerity of his feelings. They had every interest in keeping one of their co-religionists in place. Obviously, we would have to haggle, let go of ballast, everything would not be perfect. But the essential would be safe: its fragile state construction would not be destroyed. One would not have considered Prince Demchugdongrub twice as a negligible quantity. On the contrary, he would be remembered as a clever politician, and not as a von Ungern bittern, this completely mad Russian who thought only of his bloody crusade and not of his people and whose ambitions had been shattered on the wall of reality*************.

Epilogue
At the end of 1944, the Japanese defensive system facing the Chinese offensives, already dangerously stretched, was further destabilized by the disappearance of part of its Mongolian auxiliary troops, as well as by a series of attacks carried out by irregular troops in its rear, and in particular in supposedly secret supply depots. Faced with the demands of his allies and their thinly veiled criticisms (the looting irregulars were very similar to the deserting auxiliaries), Prince Demchugdongrub replied that the poverty of the subsidies granted to him by Tokyo did not allow him to raise more troops, nor even to maintain the auxiliaries which had evaporated in nature. Then he disappeared himself in November 1944, the Japanese not having the means to hunt him down.
The Mongol “ghost divisions” were reported again in the spring of 1945, as the Red Army pushed deeper into Manchuria to “drive out the Japanese fascists” from Manchukuo, whose people had called for help from the proletarian Motherland. On the border between Manchuria and Mongolia appeared four “divisions” of cavalry and two of infantry, whose manpower was (surprisingly) nominal (1,500 men per division) and whose armament was good American material that its first users, the Chinese nationalists, had hardly damaged. Their knowledge of the terrain enabled them to dodge direct clashes with Soviet armored vehicles, which were few in number on this front, and to avoid too deep a penetration by the Red forces into Inner Mongolia. These forces suffered significant losses, but what importance for soldiers whose allegiance no one recognized?
These same troops were found in the years 1946-1948 throughout Inner Mongolia, where they were responsible for various raids against various imperial remnants or Chinese small groups that did not recognize Chiang's authority. The integration into Nationalist China of territories which had not been Chinese for decades thus went smoothly, despite the fact that they were located in a highly disputed territory rich in nationalities, namely between the People's Republic of Mongolia (external) and the Democratic Republic of Manchuria (formerly Manchukuo). It is rumored that eventually the warriors of the steppes were assigned to guard the border between China and the PR of Mongolia, on lands that were theirs, after all, within living memory.
Prince Demchugdongrub joined Nanjing, where a post of provincial governor awaited him. The chaos reigning in the nationalist administration, perhaps deliberately aggravated by certain high-placed powers, engendered numerous official steps which kept him away from his homeland for a long time. However, he did not abandon his Mongolian dream: by dint of shenanigans, he obtained from President Chiang in August 1949 a status of autonomy for Inner Mongolia. Finally returning to the land of his ancestors, covered with honors and recognized by all the clans, he ruled the province until his death in 1966. Historians specializing in China are still debating the possibility of an autonomous Inner Mongolia in when the communists had taken power instead of the KMT. The prince is seen today as a historical figure of Mongolian nationalism and pan-Mongolism, and his descendants still plead for a reunification of their province with the country of Sukhe Bator (the so-called Outer Mongolia, former People's Republic).
In Asia, everything depends on subtle balances of power, the most visible not necessarily being the most significant. Thus a supposed rustic of the Mongolian plains like Prince Demchugdongrub was to prove shrewder (or more in tune with reality) than the Son of Heaven himself, whose sad end surprised only the naive.
Saint Goshima Tokushiro, although of Japanese origin, took advantage of the rediscovered favor of his Mongolian friend to escape the vengeance of his former adversaries, before finally obtaining a high post of religious leader during the annexation of Tibet to China in the 50s. However, he deemed it preferable to sinicize his surname, becoming the venerable lama Hsin mén (the one who opens the door), a surprising name but full of meaning for those who knew his tormented origins.
Nowadays, and although remaining ignored by a large part of the world, Inner Mongolia remains a surprising point of friction between China and Russia, as it retains a strong strategic interest due to its position between Mongolia and Manchuria, all two torn between Chinese and Russian influences. It has been forgotten that one of Japan's demands, in the negotiations with the United States carried out before the outbreak of the Pacific War, was "recognition of the unique character of Mengjiang and the inalienable right of Japan to station troops there. for the next twenty-five years to ensure its safety. It is not surprising that the local populations make regular demands in defense of their particular status, which they consider threatened by the centralizing tendencies of Nanjing. However, the Mongolian ethnic group remains today the best treated minority in the Republic of China, particularly in comparison to the fate of the Uyghurs.

* Become today, and for a Han Chinese, Zhangjiakou, Hebei province.
** The color of the Mongol uniforms was quite similar to that of Nationalist China uniforms, with an Imperial Russian type gray cape. Some units, however, had mustard uniforms, similar in color to Japanese uniforms, with a national insignia on the sleeve.
*** Tibet. But the gift is probably from Nepal.
**** Literally “little bear-cat”.
***** Literally “fire fox” – firefox, the browser of course ...
****** In June 1937, members of the Imperial Guard of Manchukuo, although not on duty, had opposed Japanese settlers who were harassing the Chinese population. The Kempetai seized the opportunity to arrest the guards, charge them with "anti-imperial activities" and beat them naked in public. She then used the affair as a pretext to justify disarming the Imperial Guard, which only kept pistols.
******* On the night of February 24, 1932, Colonel Itagaki (the officer with whom Demchugdongrub had negotiated the support of the Kwantung Army), completely drunk on sake, was guilty before Emperor Pu-Yi of several sexual assaults against geishas. Pu-Yi was outraged, but because the women in question didn't know who he was.
******** In Changchun, the Manchu schoolchildren had to salute in the direction of Tokyo and then in the direction of Pu-Yi's portrait; altars of Amaterasu were built even in the imperial palace, materializing the primacy of Shintoism over the worship of the emperor; finally, at the imperial military academy, cadets were taught to serve “the two emperors: the great and the small.”
********* Emperor Kang-te had a stubborn reputation as a rapist of his servants. And the beatings against his staff are documented, increasing as his frustrations grow. The sentence "Let him be taken down to the basement" was particularly feared, and all the servants had been flogged at least once.
********** George Bronson Rea had tried in vain until 1941 to have Manchukuo recognized by the United States. He had written a book, The Case for Manchukuo, in which he contrasted the inveterate and supposedly natural corruption of the Kuomintang with the “wise government” (sic!) of Pu-Yi.
*********** In 1935, having received a considerable bribe, the Uyghur warlord Ma Zhanshan placed his troops at the disposal of the Emperor of Manchukuo to drive out the partisans who plagued the country. As an additional reward, he had been appointed Minister of Defence. A few months later, he joined the USSR with arms and luggage!
************ Through the intervention of the prince, Goshima Tokushiro, who ran a more or less effective spy network, had been able to have it abundantly financed by the Kwantung Army. In particular, he had created a dormant cell in Tibet, in order to ensure the reconstitution of the post of Jebtsundamba, the Grand Lama of Mongolia, and then the choice of its occupant.
************* During the Russian Civil War, Baron von Ungern had waged war until 1925 in Siberia with his army, baptized the Asian Legion, on behalf of the White Russians and then against them, in his own name. Convinced that he was the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, this Baltic German wanted to establish a great shamanic empire from the Urals to Vladivostok and initiated the restoration of the khans to the Mongolian throne.

 

[demolitiondan]

Le Morane-Saulnier 410
New out of old !
The delivery by Saurer of the HS Y51 engine during the winter of 1940-1941 made it possible not only to develop the D-523 but also to apply a certain number of modifications to the numerous – but outdated – MS-406s available to the French Army. 'Air in exile, as the Y45 engines of the D-520s were replaced by Y51s.
A modification chain was installed in Algiers, where the modifications planned for the MS-410 project (in its February 1940 definition) were introduced, plus a few others.

1. Replaced the Y31 engine with a 930 hp Y45 engine and replaced the semi-retractable radiator with a fixed assembly (tested on the MS-411 prototype).
2. Modification of the oil cooling circuit.
3. Installation of exhaust pipes with propelling effect.
4. Installation of a heating system for weapons and the pilot by hot air from a heat exchanger on the radiator.
5. Replaced the 20mm cannon (HS-9 or HS-404) with a .50 Browning machine gun (this modification saved a lot of the weight lost when replacing the Y31 with the heavier Y45).
6. Mountings of the wings planned for the MS-410, with 4 MAC machine guns (instead of 2) fed by strips (and no longer by drums). 150 wing sets had been produced in Bourges before the Big Move. These wings also allowed the carriage of drop tanks, but it does not seem that this option was used by the Air Force.
7. Replacement of the external aiming grid by an OPL RX 39 collimator (known as “Greek Temple”).
8. Replacing the stand with a small diameter tire.
9. Systematization of the Ratier Series 1607 propeller.
10. Installation of a back armor for the pilot.

In this definition, the device was capable of reaching 517 km/h at 5,200 m and climbing to 6,000 m in 7’11”. A very clear improvement over the standard MS-406, which reached 490 km/h at 4,500 m and climbed to 6,000 in 9’3”.
It is estimated that around fifty MS-406s were transformed in this way between December 1940 and the end of February 1941, but some inaccuracy exists on the exact figures (46 for some, 51 for others).
These planes were used in the General Reserve until December 1941. A certain number were sent to Syria at the beginning of 1941 (from 10 to 12 depending on the sources) and 20 were sent to Indochina in October 1941.
In the Near East, these devices easily dominated the motley collection of devices brought online by Iraqi forces. They held off the Bf 110s of the small German expeditionary force sent to support Rachid Ali al-Gaylani.
Against the Nakajima Ki-27 [Nate] piloted by the Thais, they were able to take the best when their pilots had given up trying to turn tighter than the small Japanese fighter.
On the other hand, they were completely overwhelmed against the Japanese A6M2 Zero. In September-October 1941, however, a new series was launched for the benefit of the Turkish Air Force. The Turks had noted the good performance of the MS-410s over Iraq and wanted to inexpensively modernize their air fleet which already included MS406s. Turkey bought directly from Switzerland Saurer HS-Y51 engines, more powerful than the Y45s used on the French MS-410.
The Algiers AIA refurbished 19 cells of MS-406 and modified 6 MS-410 (mainly by replacing the French radio and inhalers with American equipment).
The cells were transported to Turkey, where they received the Saurer engines and were reassembled by a team of 30 people specially sent from Algiers. The Turkish MS-410s, known as “MS-410 Series 2”, with identical armament to the French 410s, reached 535 km/h at 5,000 m and climbed to 6,000 m in 6’40”. They entered service in February 1942 and demonstrated excellent air superiority capabilities, although limited in interceptor function by their sheer lack of speed. These aircraft remained in service until 1948.

Note – The aircraft presented as an MS-410 at the Aeronautics Museum in Le Bourget is actually a Swiss D-3801, very similar to the MS-410 Series 2.

 

[demolitiondan]

“My name is Legion, because we are many. »
Gospel according to Saint Mark, V, 9.


Foreign volunteers in German uniforms
(Excerpt from the collective work Les armées d'Hitler, ed. Tallandier, 2010)

History, a moving subject, even the facts of which it presents are sometimes subject to debate, still too often fuels today's disputes with yesterday's events. And while Europe, gripped by doubt, now seems again tormented by the demons of nationalism, it is too easy for some to reshape the past as they please, so that it can serve as their demonstration of the moment to an opinion much quicker to passion than to reflection. In this vast theater of shadows, the Second World War is of course a subject of choice – a fortiori for the multitude of countries which had one day or another to undergo the Nazi occupation, and still keep a burning memory of it. Too many, alas, are those who now use these dark episodes to stage a "purely German" oppression of their country "united in struggle and resistance" - while others will affirm the "active complicity" of their neighbors with Nazi regime forces to enslave their nation. All of this obviously in a chauvinistic policy supporting territorial ‘reparations’, even compensation for past damages in contemporary currency!
Leaving aside these painful political maneuvers, what can we say today about the reality of the foreign support from which the Third Reich benefited in Europe during the five years of the conflict? A vast subject, which concerns all sections of society! From “oriented neutrality” to political collaboration, passing through economic exchanges or even intelligence work, thousands of pages would not be enough to exhaust the subject. However, as we now piously celebrate the memory of the combatants - that is to say those who fought and gave their blood against Nazism - we have chosen to evoke in these lines the most visible, the most sinister and above all the most definitive of all the arrangements that some made with the devil: enlistment in German uniform, sometimes to fight against one's own country.
Who were they, these dark volunteers whom History has since rightly condemned? Opportunistic traitors? Exalted fanatics? mere mercenaries? Even poor wretches candidly hoping to survive? A little of all of this at the same time, even if they all keep in common the fact of having joined the ranks of the SS or (later) of the Wehrmacht. This work will endeavor to outline their diverse history in broad strokes – without complacency but also without darkening an already very gloomy picture. And thus to sketch, through them, the place that the Reich planned to reserve for “non-Germans”, then the place that it had to attribute to them when the conflict took the turn we know.

 

[demolitiondan]

The ambitions of the Schutzstaffel

By one of those incredible inconsistencies which were one of the main characteristics of Hitler's regime, the recruitment of foreign soldiers was - at least in the early days of the conflict - the exclusive privilege of Himmler's Schutzstaffel. The regular German army was to remain the army of the Reich and was therefore strictly prohibited from engaging “non-Aryans”. Total inconsistency certainly, according to Nazi logic itself! The SS had indeed been built exclusively on an ideology of racial purity, exclusion, anti-Semitism and absolute loyalty to the person of Adolf Hitler. Its members, reputed heralds of the “race of Lords”, were naturally supposed to illustrate the superiority of their blood over all the others, thus justifying the domination that the Reich promised to the whole earth once the war was won. At first glance, it is therefore very difficult to understand how, in less than five years, the SS was able to go from one extreme to the other in its "policy" of recruitment. And yet, on closer inspection, the recruitment of foreign personnel was only the logical outcome of a long process put in place since the beginning of the 1930s.
Indeed, and as soon as its place was assured by Hitler's seizure of power in 1933, the Black Order had considered itself an elite troop - and this all the more so since the Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler was in a hurry to make people forget the parenthesis of Ernst Röhm's Sturmabteilungen to better impose his future Waffen-SS as the only organization of “ideological fighters” in Germany.
The Nazi ideal not suffering any compromise - to the point that it often transformed the reality of the facts to make them correspond to its dogmas - the recruitment criteria were thus initially of a draconian elitism: one expected from the committed an irreproachable physical condition (including for the teeth, which had to be without fillings), a height of at least 1m74, youth (obviously), as well as a total absence of addiction (alcoholism was frequent in the ranks of the Nazi Party). Of course, political interviews were required before hiring, but curiously, there is no trace of a systematic intelligence test – this point was certainly not critical… And to flatter his recruits as to create a base “ culture" to his weapon, Himmler willingly invoked the fantasized imagination of the Teutonic knights valiantly fighting alone along the Baltic against the Slavic hordes of Ivan the Terrible - which (apart from a dubious historicity) is not lacking in irony biting for who wants to remember that the SS was openly anti-Christian…
As expected, however, these great ambitions quickly came up against a problem of breeding ground. The profile of the early Nazi was not as sporty and fanatical as it should have been, if the individual was of sufficient "Aryanity" - the volunteers had to prove their ancestry by going back to in 1800 (1750 for the officers!), obviously without any trace of mental or hereditary illnesses! Non-Germans (such as the Czechs, after the annexation of the Sudetenland) were obviously excluded from the outset. In addition, ego incompatibilities and other personal reasons caused the subsequent eviction of many employees – who however did not really jostle each other. It is estimated that in 1937-1938, no less than 12,000 people left the Schutzstaffel more or less of their own free will, most often openly questioning the “absolute loyalty” demanded of them. A thousand more were expelled for various reasons – generally for “apathy or laziness”: a catch-all term that sometimes covered far more sordid reasons. As a result, the SS had to struggle to find the manpower necessary for the constitution of its first division - its first formations, grouped together in the SS-Verfügungstruppe, represented less than 15,000 men!
At first, however, this problem of recruitment did not yet worry the Waffen-SS – a new entity finally created after the transfer of 50,000 paramilitaries from the Allgemeine SS into the SS-VT. It was indeed fully assumed by its leader Himmler – who had little military culture and had little understanding of the coming conflict – who saw in these obviously temporary difficulties the simple proof of the value of his weapon. On November 8, 1937, he paraded in front of his generals: “Let us never succumb to the madness of numbers. If we maintain our current requirements – we will maintain them and make them even stricter – we will be able to use at most 10% of Germany's youth. Please never waver in the admission requirements or the admission itself, even if sometimes you don't have as many applicants and aspirants as you would like. »
However, in fact, from mid-1938 and notwithstanding the absolute elitism still displayed, the Waffen-SS had to change its tune and reduce its ambitions as well as its physical criteria. To a core of fanatical members, it was finally forced to bring together "politically compatible" sportsmen and early Nazis "of a good physical level", all in a spirit of emulation intended to allow everyone to express its full potential. This choice resulting from the will of the ideologue Gottlob Berger allowed the incorporation of approximately 32,000 volunteers per year. The recruits – often lured by the promise of an exemption from compulsory labor service – were entrusted to the good care of Generals Felix Steiner and Paul Hausser: professionals who were to bring the chosen ones to the top of the military art, and even to attract new recruits. other career soldiers eager for promotion. Under their aegis, the soldiers of the SS received extensive training – although strongly spiced with ideological courses, moreover against the advice of the two generals.
Logically, at the beginning of the conflict, the Waffen-SS was more or less as Himmler had wished: a politically irreproachable formation, the majority of whose members possessed great physical abilities. Grouped into two so-called elite units, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and the SS-Verfügungsdivision (Das Reich), they only represented around 30,000 men – very few compared to the 4,700,000 engaged in the Wehrmacht!
During the campaign of Poland, these two formations behaved militarily in a correct way. However, they were already distinguished by a propensity for insubordination and a very clear inclination to commit war crimes, including, for example, the Blonie massacre (execution of fifty Polish Jewish civilians by the men of the AHL). The Black Order therefore did not shine bright enough for its master's liking – it needed to grow in size to fulfill its ambitions. This is how, against the advice of the OKW and without any real support from Hitler – who no doubt shared the ultra-elitist desire expressed at the start by Himmler – the Waffen-SS chose in a certain haste (and at the help, in part, of Czechoslovak material!) to create two additional divisions and to engage them in the spring campaign of 1940. These were the Totenkopf and the SS-Polizei - respectively made up of concentration camp guards and para-police soldiers of the Ordnungspolizei (who were not even all members of the SS and were training for military tasks between their missions of maintaining order!).
These last units were not as successful in France as hoped. While the first two formed continued to trace a bloody road against the Allies (but without being at the origin of spectacular victories), the Polizei had to be content to play the barrier guards on the Rhine against the Maginot line, then to participate in actions to reduce GA2 in the Aisne and in the Argonne forest. As for the Totenkopf, despite a promising start (although marked by numerous summary executions of non-European prisoners...), it fell on a bone – a Belgian bone, in this case – and found itself severely bled at Pont-Saint -Spirit against the Ardennes hunters. Obviously, simple fanaticism already had its limits, especially when it came up against the professionalism of the best Allied units. The Wehrmacht was finally forced to withdraw these two formations from the front line, to complete the French campaign, occupy the whole metropolis and finally triumph ostensibly single-handedly, almost never really needing Himmler's soldiers.
As a result, faced with such passable performances, and when the war already seemed to be won, it is understandable that there were disgruntled minds in Berlin to wonder about the interest there was in continuing the development of this weapon so elitist that there was no one to be able to join it – and whose rare members ultimately brought very little to the undeniable professionalism of the traditional German army. This point of view, evidently stemming from the fierce struggle for influence that Heer and the SS waged each day, only gained in importance over the next two years, as the conflict dragged on against all odds and the Wehrmacht demanded that he be given the means for final victory – that is to say, all the means, notably in terms of men.
We will not discuss here in detail the multiple episodes of the summit clashes between the two rival armed forces of the Nazi regime – let us simply specify that this conflict affected all aspects of the war apparatus, from intelligence to equipment through the special forces, and that he did a certain damage to the German war effort. Nevertheless, one fact remains: in the summer of 1940, the Wehrmacht was at the height of its glory and in a position to block the Waffen-SS's desire for expansion. The latter would therefore have to fight to bring the LSSAH and Das Reich to the format of a division - something which would not be done before the beginning of 1942, and past a certain number of unpleasant difficulties directly resulting from the inability to access the entire pool of German conscripts.
Perfectly aware of this fact, Gottlob Berger had undertaken in April 1940 to form a regiment made up of Nordic volunteers: the Nordland. In his mind, it seems that it was only a temporary stopgap perfectly reconcilable with the racial criteria of the SS: the Scandinavians were reputed to be Aryans, their recruitment made it possible to reinforce the Nazi presence in Scandinavia, and the Denmark like Norway were supposed to have many sympathizers! Indeed, the government of Denmark - a unique circumstance in the whole conflict - had surrendered without a fight and was collaborating civilly with the Reich (which it will be forgiven, given the disproportion of forces, the rallying of its navy to the Allies and its behavior ulterior). As for Norway, it was governed by the first truly collaborative government, headed by Quisling and on which Berlin pinned the greatest hopes for the future. It therefore seemed possible to call on a foreign, albeit militant, soldiery, at least for a time, while waiting for better days – its diversity, moreover, could only serve the regime in terms of propaganda or even integration of the occupied within the New Europe.
In fact, the majority of recruits (6,000) were Danish: for the most part, pan-German sympathizers and other pro-Nazis of the Danmarks Nationalsocialistiske Arbejderparti created in 1930. The Kingdom, initially reluctant, had to accept their commitment to the Waffen -SS, constrained and forced by circumstances... Grouped around Captain Von Schalburg (the former leader of the Danish Nazi Youth), they were later reinforced by 4,500 Norwegians under Captain Finn Hannibal Kjelstrup (himself a member of the Nasjonal Samling ) and by about 1,500 Swedish volunteers. The participation of Finnish nationals remains to this day subject to discussion – in view of the neutrality chosen in extremis by their country, its geographical location as well as the war incidents that followed with Germany. However, we can estimate that if there were a few, they were not more than 500, and some of which should also be counted as Swedish volunteers. It should be noted here that the figures given above are for the entire conflict – in fact, in 1940, Nordland never exceeded 4,000 men at full strength. This was obviously insufficient to form a division.
This is why Berger decided in the fall of 1940, taking advantage of the fall of Western Europe, to form a second foreign SS regiment, baptized Westland and recruiting in the Netherlands as in Belgium. It seems that the Waffen-SS had nourished the strongest hopes in these two countries, thinking of taking advantage of the pro-German sympathies of part of the Dutch population as well as the well-known tensions between Flemings and Walloons. However, these ambitions were to prove very quickly disappointed: the firm attitude of Queen Wilhelmina and the evacuation by Belgian forces of most of the far-right political leaders ruined the Germans' plans by preventing them from s rely on solid parties and organizations that could have acted as relays. Admittedly, the Schutzstaffel easily found some 5,000 volunteers who enabled it to set up the regiment (and as many were to be added from Barbarossa) – but in Berlin, we hoped for much better...
To form the 5. SS-Panzergrenadier Wiking, it was therefore necessary to recruit in Germany a third regiment baptized Germania. The ambition was to reinforce Nordland with volunteers from the Baltic countries, once Barbarossa had driven the Soviets out of its brand new 'Sister Republics'... In fact, this division will remain the main formation made up of citizens of the Scandinavian countries with the Reich - apart from the cases of the Frikorps Danmark and the Freiwilligen-Legion Norwegen, of limited importance and limited life. Declared operational on May 1, 1941, the Wiking division was to be in all the fights on the Eastern Front until the last day. She was undoubtedly one of the best examples of what Reichsführer-SS Himmler hoped for from the European crusade against Bolshevism.
Indeed, between the fall of France and the invasion of the USSR, the Waffen-SS - more determined than ever to play a major role in the coming fight against communism - had definitely changed its strategy to constitute a armed to match his ambitions. Temporarily renouncing its desire to draw heavily on the breeding ground of the German Race and opportunely forgetting the rule of the strict Aryanity of its members, it embarked on a vast recruitment campaign aimed at the entire population of the occupied territories, in order to to enroll a mass of volunteers that a German framework would not fail to fanaticize! Himmler probably did not imagine that the response to his appeal would be so moderate, no doubt because of the continuation of the struggle by the French Republic and the United Kingdom as well as the unbearable pressure that the Reich was inflicting on the territories it occupied. Unable to form the divisions expected to contribute to the confrontation, brigades were therefore planned, then “legions” – which were most often the size of a regiment, if not a battalion. It was also hoped that the inevitable coming triumph against the USSR would encourage further vocations among civilians and prisoners alike... But before that, other campaigns still had to be waged.

 

[demolitiondan]

Yugoslavia: making good use of inter-ethnic rivalries

In May 1941, and after having vainly hoped to put up with the kingdom of Karađorđević so as not to have to come and put right order to the setbacks of fascist Italy in the Balkans, the Reich invaded – with its Hungarian, Bulgarian and of course Italian – Yugoslavia then Greece in order to definitively secure its southern flank in the Eastern Mediterranean. This campaign, neither planned nor desired by Germany, however ended with a new and resounding victory for the Axis, which drove the Allies from the continent in two months, without however managing to prevent the evacuation of a significant part of their forces towards Crete and the Aegean islands – which soon proved to be mostly beyond the reach of the Nazi armies.
The Axis therefore found itself, suddenly and almost involuntarily, having to manage a territory of 385,000 km², often mountainous, sometimes difficult to access and in any case inhabited by a population as restless as hostile towards foreigners. In view of the coming confrontation with Moscow, when the Italian armed forces had shown only very limited effectiveness and the Hungarians and Bulgarians had neither the means nor the desire to replace them, Berlin quite logically began to make calculations…
To keep mainland France on a leash – which was undoubtedly the Reich's best hold, if not the most peaceful in the absence of a fully recognized collaborationist government – a minimum of 400,000 men were needed. It should be noted that this was an already very insufficient total, which required resorting to many expedients and hardly prevented intelligence or sabotage. According to this proven base, it therefore took at least 240,000 men to pretend to control the Balkans – not to mention making them safe for potential travelers, or even exploiting them. This figure represented 12 divisions, i.e. four army corps or two complete armies – and in fact, due to the action of particularly numerous and organized resistance groups, the Axis should quickly consider doubling these numbers in order to claim to maintain a mere semblance of armed peace.
It will be understood that Germany could not afford the luxury of maintaining 24 divisions garrisoned in the Balkans. Horthy's Hungary had already made it clear that it would go no further than the Danube – as for Bulgaria, if it wanted to occupy Macedonia, as a precondition for a future annexation, it never deployed its troops by- beyond the said province. For its part, the Croatian state newly created by Ante Pavelic asked nothing better than to help the Reich to control Yugoslavia (or at least the part of Yugoslavia that he considered rightfully his), but nevertheless, he undeniably had the will, he certainly did not have the means – moreover, his barely concealed genocidal intentions quickly unleashed the scepticism, even hostility, of a good part of the officials concerned. For want of an effective Italian army – and even for lack of an Italian army after the turnaround of Christmas 1942 – Berlin very quickly began to consider the massive recruitment of native auxiliaries, all the more easily because the latter spontaneously presented themselves to the German authorities to seek their arbitration or their support in their own internal quarrels!
Indeed, the defeat had allowed the emergence, in the kingdoms of Greece and Yugoslavia (excluding Croatia), of a whole collection of movements with various goals and political orientations, but all of them determined to impose their ideas by force. We will still spare the reader – out of pure charity – the details of the upheavals of the defunct kingdom of Albania: they are out of the subject, as are the multitude of alliances and ceasefires (often precarious) concluded between militias of all allegiances and occupation authorities, Italian then German. Let us simply note that, faced with such a picture, Germany very quickly endeavored to aggravate these internal conflicts, considering with reason that as long as the Occupied devoted their energy to fighting among themselves, they did not spend it against their troops...
However, such maneuvers alone were not enough. Especially from mid-1942, when the armed struggle – regular this time, against the Franco-British troops – again monopolized the weak German troops present in this theatre. For its part, the Schutzstaffel, willingly quick to denounce the inadequacies of the Heer, but at that time of still a minor size within the German army (eight divisions, two of which were still in formation), quickly began to consider the Balkans as a secondary theater of operations where it would be possible for it to wage “its” war, racial of course (as often in the region) and ferociously anti-communist, but above all with elbow room all the more frank as it knew that she would hardly be watched there and that her rival herself was hardly interested in the sector. Also, by dint of shenanigans, but also relying on two characters with profiles that are atypical to say the least although ready to do anything to satisfy their ambitions, the Waffen-SS therefore undertook to transform the occupied territories of south-eastern Europe in a large experimental laboratory. It thus formed there during the year 1942 two divisions, which remained at least as sadly famous as their commanders.
………
• The 7. SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgsdivision Prinz Eugen was officially created on April 20, 1942, around a hard core of Transylvanians of German origin, themselves agglomerated with the future SS-Obergruppenführer Artur Martin Phleps. The latter, a Transylvanian Saxon and career soldier, had served in almost all the armies of the region since Austria-Hungary before finally enlisting in Wiking. Having succeeded in these ranks to convince Gottlob Berger to entrust him with the establishment of an SS formation, he very quickly gathered around him soldiers from families of former German settlers in his region, which perfectly corresponded to the racial criteria. of the Schutzstaffel. As the conflict progressed, other representatives of the ancient Germanic branches present throughout Central Europe, fearing the communist advance, came to join him. The Prinz Eugen thus retained a form of ethnic coherence until its disappearance.
• The 11. Waffen-Gebirgsdivision der SS Handschar was raised in December 1942 after a long period of hesitation and intrigue arising from the struggle between Ribbentrop and Himmler over the future of the Independent State of Croatia. The “Scimitar” division was initially made up exclusively of Bosnian or Croat Muslims – the Reich, once again playing one ethnicity against the other to better maintain its domination, was careful not to choose a champion in the intra-Yugoslavian conflict. However, we cannot rule out here the wish to also please the most radical Muslim fringe, represented by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and still very heated against the Allied cause - although somewhat doubting the effective support of Berlin after the disastrous affair from Iraq.
Entrusted to General Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig – yet a pure product of the Prussian aristocracy! – this unit departed somewhat from the theoretical racial standards of SS recruitment to integrate very non-Aryan members! Indeed, the muddy arguments trying to relate the Bosnians to ancient Goths who had meanwhile converted to Islam never convinced many people... But at that time, the conflict against the Soviets had already begun and the time was over. to pseudo-scientific quibbles. Moreover, the composition of this formation evolved regularly throughout the conflict, integrating many recruits of various persuasions, including Albanians from former collaborating militias. Here, only one common denominator seems to have really counted: the Muslim religion!
………
These two formations were quickly deployed in the rear of HeeresGruppe E, where they engaged in a long series of atrocities that it would be useless to enumerate here, but which made them two of the most feared troops of assassins among all the German forces. Perfectly operational and suitable for combat on the front as well as for so-called "anti-terrorist" tasks, these units of 20,000 men each, equipped with heavy weapons and armored support, certainly represented an encouraging first step in the recruitment policy implemented in place according to Himmler's instructions. In fact, they fought until the end of the war, and took part in the whole painful campaign of the Balkans, which knew a terrible litany of horrors.
They were also reinforced during the conflict by three other formations of uncertain value, formed to flesh out what would become the III. SS-GebirgArmeeKorps and more generally to try to defend most of occupied Yugoslavia alongside the Ustashi while the Heer was occupied further north.
………
• The SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Brigade Skanderbeg was extremely short-lived. Perhaps the result of a desire to compete with the Heer's Kampfgruppe Albanian (which was then the main Albanian brigade formation), this unit hardly went beyond the stage of pious hope. Its creation was undoubtedly supposed to crown the (aborted) formation of the national-collaborator “Council of High Regency” of Cafo Beg Ulqini and favor the subsequent annexation of this mediocre organism by the SS. The some 3,000 volunteers, painfully assembled, poorly equipped and not really trained, dispersed spontaneously during the Allied offensive of September 1943. The few convinced – no more than 250 according to the archives – managed to reach Montenegro, to be later integrated at the Handschar.
• The SS Gebirgs-Brigade Karstjäger was created in March 1944, as part of the SS takeover of the Zagreb government. Its formation was to reinforce the already existing SS Gebirgs-Rgt Karstjäger, made up of Slovenes from the north (considered related to the Austrians, therefore to the Germans), by integrating other collaborating Slovenes within an extended unit intended to defend the north of Yugoslavia in the face of Communist agitation or the Allied uprising. Although the training was too brief, it was of an acceptable consistency, in particular thanks to a competent supervision commanded by SS-Standartenführer Hans Brandt.
The Karstjäger mainly fought against the Titoite forces of the AVNOJ, then against their Western and Soviet allies, but without ever going as far as Bosnia – apparently for fear of desertions, the Slovenes having at heart to defend their country but only this one . It disappeared, like many collaborating forces, at the end of the Yugoslav campaign, in circumstances that still unleash controversy today.
• The SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Brigade Kama was also created to reinforce the SS Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Rgt Kama, in the context of an ambitious attempt to recruit all the citizens of the NDH under the banner of the Reich – and not more from Pavelic's government. This purely Croatian unit in theory never exceeded 3,000 men – and even then, only by integrating a good thousand Bosnian or Hungarian volunteers from Vojvodina! Engaged in the Sava valley after a hasty training period, under the authority of SS-Standartenführer Helmuth Raithel, the Kama never had the opportunity to shine: victim of the deterioration of the Axis military situation in the Balkans as the collapse of the NDH, it was to dissolve in the summer of 1944.

 

[demolitiondan]

The (rare) Balkan soldiers of the Wehrmacht

If the picture we have just described seems a posteriori not very brilliant, it should however be noted that the ethnic calculations and the recruitments of circumstances were by no means the prerogative of the SS alone. Faced with the manpower crisis mentioned above, and faced with a succession of strong Allied offensives, the Heer also endeavored (but later) to find auxiliaries - without however managing to completely circumvent the obligation to " German blood” present in its statutes, and by endeavoring above all to maintain the cohesion of its own units. In fact, unlike the leaders of the Schutzstaffel, the Wehrmacht seems never to have believed in the possible integration of local populations into its own system of repression, focusing instead on creating partner organizations operating under its command – there were some a myriad, including the Serbian Volunteer Corps and even, for a time, General Mihailovic's Chetnik formations. But these fall outside the scope of our text, as do the forces of the Croatian state (NDH). Indeed, these formations never really fought 'within' the Heer but rather under their own colours, even if the German army for a time framed - until February 1944, after training by its care - the three divisions of the Croatian Legion, and assigned to them the numbers of German infantry divisions. In this regard, it should also be noted that one of their regiments temporarily operated within the 100. Jäger Division, as part of a kind of “cultural” exchange.
This rule of non-mixedness, however, had two exceptions.
– The first was in Greece, where the SS could never really extend its influence – as much because of the actions of the Heer as because of the rapid resumption of fighting in the Peloponnese. As the Allied forces quickly succeeded in uniting (at least temporarily!) the various Greek Resistance forces into a fragile alliance, the Axis also never had a real partner to rely on, nor the time to identify truly effective employees. For lack of anything better, the Wehrmacht therefore contented itself with integrating various volunteers in the course of 1943 into the ranks of a unit which was more like a gang of roughnecks than a real military force: the Kampfgruppe Müller, of very grim memory.
This formation never did anything other than spread terror in its path before finally disappearing during the fall of Salonika. It seems that the 500 Greeks compromised in this unit (whose uniform bore a specific insignia, the Red Phoenix of the Rallis collaborating government) were the only Greek fighters enlisted in the German army. If Greece can be ashamed of their behavior, it can nevertheless be pleased that they were so few.
– Second exception: the “Albanian” Kampfgruppe. This veritable collection of militias without a well-defined leader (and which did not even belong to the various political factions which were then disputing Albania) was approximately 3,500 strong. Also formed at the beginning of 1943, it seems to have been initially intended to be integrated into the 162. ID – a German division of a very particular kind resulting from an attempt by General Oskar von Niedermayer and which we will talk about later far. The command of the 12. Armee seems to have lost interest in it quite quickly, for lack of resources – and when it finally needed it, the SS had already obtained its attachment to the Handschar, in order of course to ensure security on the rear of the Heer.
As we can see, apart from the Prinz Eugen and Hansdchar divisions – arising from particular geopolitical contexts and reinforced by the charisma of their leaders – there emerges from the creation and use of “ethnic” German formations on the Balkan front an impression of failed improvisation that the study of the facts does not deny. Tossed about from one political interest to another, obliged to spare the goat and the cabbage, the Heer never had a clear strategy to mobilize the forces which could have been favorable to it - which were certainly numerous, but all claimed a form of exclusivity. For its part, the SS endeavored above all to carve out a stronghold in the sector, by all means – including by bringing the Croats to heel, who could have become their main partners. Prisoners of pro-Muslim considerations and the urgency of the situation, the Axis could therefore never develop the “indigenous” track to extricate itself from the quagmire of the Balkans.
However, while the Schutzstaffel had formed three new divisions before Barbarossa (the Nord, Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg), the turn of events in the East, like the performance of some of these units, would give new impetus to the 'internationalist' will of the Waffen SS.

 

[demolitiondan]

The crusade against Bolshevism: improvisations and opportunism

On May 17, 1942, Germany invaded the USSR to wage the war of extermination that Hitler had long called for in his book Mein Kampf. While it was above all a question of seizing a "living space" supposedly necessary for the German people, the Reich nevertheless wanted to give this war the appearance of an international conflict: the crusade against Bolshevism and crushing of communism, which were to enable him to rally around his troops all the other Europeans, Aryans or not.
During the two years preceding Barbarossa, the Schutzstaffel therefore attempted to form as many divisions as possible – as much to serve its ambitions as to attenuate the obvious demographic imbalance between the two belligerents. Still constrained by the fact that the Heer had priority over it in recruiting from the German population, it endeavored to cast its net widely outside the Reich. However, contrary to what Himmler had hoped, the Waffen-SS very quickly found it difficult to form large units of foreign volunteers ready to fight against communism, for Nazism and in German uniform. The hoped-for ground swell was a ripple – although most of the entrants were indeed convinced! Finally, from mid-1941 to mid-1942, only three “Brigades” could be formed – and without being operational before Barbarossa, due to a lack of recruits and resources. These units must all have pathetically tormented histories.
………
• The SS-Sturmbrigade Langemark was among the first units considered, with the obvious aim of preparing for the partition of the kingdom of Belgium. Its formation was naturally based on the pan-Dutch party Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV) of Staf De Clercq and on its sympathizers recruited among the Flemish prisoners of war of the campaign of 1940 – remember that the latter were released on June 5, 1940 , unlike the Walloons, by a Hitler already cynically striving to stir up tensions between Belgian communities.
The creation of the Langemark was made official in June 1941 – despite, it seems, the prejudices of the VNV, which preferred to work instead to train its Dutch-Flemish militia, the “legion” of SS-Freiwilligen Nordwest volunteers (800 men who were assigned to tasks of suppressing Resistance movements in Europe). Finally, under the pressure of his Germanic godfathers and fearing to see the Flemish dissolved 'by force' in the cauldron of the Wiking, De Clercq chose to consider the Langemark as the beginnings of the army of the future Flemish nation - which would inevitably see the day after the Reich's victory.
The collaborating party thus found one thousand to fifteen hundred volunteers, who were initially grouped under the banner of a “Flemish legion” abundantly sung by Nazi propaganda. The latter, although overseen by the SS, was theoretically to remain independent and under purely Flemish command, without any question of the slightest oath – the Germans should devote a certain energy to breaking all these promises little by little .... Soon sent for training in Debica, in Poland, the recruits were indeed surprised to see themselves adding Dutch elements of the SS Westland regiment, members of the Wiking! If by chance the Germans had hoped to promote fraternity in arms and emulation between Dutch speakers, it was clear that it had failed: the majority of the recruits immediately asked to return to Belgium, refusing to see their identity disappear in a mixed with the hated Dutch!
In the end, the Langemark therefore remained – by force of circumstance – of a very limited size. Integrated into the 4. Regiment of the Totenkopf, the “Brigade” was severely engaged in the battle of Ostrov. The unit appeared to be capable and motivated, if at times tactically messy. After an honorable campaign, it was withdrawn from the front in November 1942 and then sent back to Debica to reorganize and complete its forces.
The second of these points proved problematic – the Flemings had been burned by the losses suffered as well as by the heavy tutelage of the German masters (whom it was rumored that they preferred the Dutch, supposed to be less difficult to handle) and the echoes of the exploits of the Belgian forces within the Allied troops reached as far as Flanders… Moreover, tensions between veterans and new recruits quickly burst into the open! No less than 200 former “volunteers” refused to take the oath to the Führer they were now asked to – they were transferred to penal units. The very title of Langemark raised questions: why did the Reich consider it relevant to name the formation after a battle once fought by the Germans to seize Belgium (and named by the Allies First Battle of Ypres)? ? No doubt the Waffen-SS wanted to celebrate German-Flemish fraternity, by evoking a battle where Germans had fallen on Flemish soil… But the Walloons had a formation called Wallonie ! Conflicts between Belgians once again took precedence over the fight against communism.
Between purge, calls for new volunteers, training and political education, it was therefore necessary to wait until August 1943 for the SS-Sturmbrigade Langemark (now completely assimilated by the Schutzstaffel) to finally return to the front... to be immediately engaged in the ride of death of the I. SS-PzK in the direction of Kiev! Reduced to less than 300 able-bodied men after Zitadelle, Langemark then returned to Bohemia for reconstitution, before being administratively attached to the “Division” Karl der Grosse – Charlemagne. In practice, she went to reinforce the Wiking, whose fate she shared. In the last weeks of the war, she also integrated into these ranks a certain number of collaborators who had fled their country before the arrival of the Allies – they were killed there along with the others. In total, it is estimated that 5,000 Flemings actually served under the banner of the Reich in this unit, of which less than 350 were to return to the flat country.
…
• The formation of the SS-Sturmbrigade Wallonie was decided in the greatest improvisation in 1942, shortly after the start of Barbarossa, by the remnant of the Rexist Party and above all in response to the creation of Flemish formations by the VNV. In the absence of Léon Degrelle, who was rotting far away in a Congolese prison, she never benefited from the recruitment hoped for by the Germans.
For lack of anything better, the Reich therefore tried to play on the chauvinism of the French-speaking people, by claiming that the Flemings were committing themselves “en masse” to “defend the new Europe”! Pricked in their pride, the Rexists took up the gauntlet and announced the formation of the “Legion Wallonie”. This formation was the victim, not only of an obvious lack of volunteers, but also of a loss of recruits: indeed, a certain number were apparently "sucked" into the Heer, which did not hesitate to replenish its workforce thanks to Walloons considered sufficiently Germanic for her while being too French-speaking for the SS! Himmler had to get involved personally, by decreeing that the Walloons were a Germanic race, for us to finally get out of the imbroglio.
Finally, Rex managed with difficulty to bring together 650 individuals, who fell to 400 between refusal of oath, desertions and medical incapacities. On the other hand, the remainder seems to have been particularly motivated. Engaged in the summer of 1943 within the Wiking (very far from the Langemark!) in the face of the succession of Soviet offensives on Riga, it suffered in the three months which followed losses reaching 60% – the price of all this blood, the defense victory in the Latvian capital allowed him to make the front page of Signal, as the banner of the victorious struggle of New Europe against communism. The survivors returned to Belgium for a propaganda tour – carried out in loaner half-tracks, which it was hoped would attract recruits more than walking. In the spring of 1944, Wallonia was also administratively attached to Charlemagne. In November, hardly reinvigorated, she was finally sent to defend Berlin, alongside other foreigners. Less than 150 Walloons returned to their homeland, and it was to face Belgian justice...
…
• The SS-Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland was undoubtedly the most numerous of the non-German 'European' units recruited by the Waffen-SS. Beyond the early experimentation of the Westland Regiment (which we will not return to), Himmler had hoped very early on to recruit a mass of Dutch people - individuals considered racially and culturally so close to the Germans that it seemed obvious to Hitler that the Netherlands would be doomed to merge into the Greater Reich after the war, with some cultural corrections and some bloodshed side by side...
To carry out this project, Germany was unfortunately able to rely on a misguided Dutch officer: Lieutenant-General Hendrik Seyffardt – the son of former Minister of War August Lodewijk Willem Seyffardt, Chief of the General Staff retired and former active member of the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (the NSB, Dutch equivalent of the NSDAP). Immediately after the capitulation of May 1940, and notwithstanding the flight of the legal government abroad, Seyffardt was quick to manifest his sympathies, attending pro-Nazi meetings as early as October 1940 and finally accepting in the summer of 1941 the proposal of the National Front of Arnold Meyer to direct – under the aegis of the Reich – a “Dutch legion”. However, this approach had nothing to do with a “national” formation: sponsored by Reichkommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the new Vrijwilligers Legioen Nederland was to have only a German command.
Hendrik Seyffardt was unfortunately a very good recruiting sergeant for this training, during numerous meetings and conferences organized in the presence of Nazi dignitaries. He actively lent his support to enlistment – including by planning social support for families (!). The Major-General no doubt already saw himself at the head of a new Dutch army! He must have quickly become disenchanted when he was appointed SS-Standartenführer Otto Reich as Chief of Staff, who took malicious pleasure in never following up on his “suggestions”. Frustrated at being a figurehead, Seyffardt had to submit his resignation in Berlin at the beginning of 1943, before returning home… and being assassinated by a group of Resistance fighters.
However, with or without native command, the SS-Legion Niederlande was set up with two regiments, for a strength of 7,500 men. In May 1942, it became the SS-Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland, and was engaged in the rear of HG Nord during the conquest of Latvia, then in defense of this area until September 1943. Then sent to Germany to be reconstituted there, it remained unavailable until March 1944, due to recruitment and supply difficulties, aggravated by various disagreements with the Germans.
Perhaps to cut short any tension, the Waffen-SS finally decided to assign him in April 1944 to Yugoslavia, to reinforce the III. SS-GAK. The two Panzergrenadier regiments (which at that time totaled only 6,000 men) suffered very heavy losses during the summer of 1944, which did not prevent them from “distinguishing themselves” – just like the other formations of their corps of armed – by a strong propensity to carry out indiscriminate reprisals against civilians. When it retreated to Germany, Nederland had only 2,000 able-bodied men left. It was destroyed in the last battles in Austria. The prisoners faced several trials in the Netherlands and in the Federal Kingdom of Yugoslavia – which managed to negotiate the extradition of SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Wagner, the unit's ultimate commander, who was hanged in Belgrade on April 27, 1947.
………
But the European mobilization against the Red Peril was not the work of the SS alone. In order to engage other countries on the side of the Reich, the German diplomatic services tried on many occasions to obtain the creation of volunteer units intended to carry iron in the USSR, under the pretext of anti-communism. The only one of all these chimeras that had a real existence was the Azul “division”.
Formed on May 18, 1942 at the instigation of German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and his Spanish counterpart Ramon Serrano Suñer, this formation did not come under the SS, but rather under the Heer. Thus, its existence bears witness once again to the fierce struggle between Wilhelmstraße and Niederkirchnerstraße to please the Führer... And in the premises of the former, it was hoped that Spain, a country among the most sympathetic towards the Axis but whose leader had little taste for Himmler's fanaticism, would know how to play his role on the front as well as in Berlin.
The Spanish formation was therefore initially to be a complete division. However, faced with little effective support from the government of General Franco – who refused members of his army the right to enlist, except for a few particularly enraged Phalangists – it did not exceed the strength of a brigade, i.e. 8,000. men approx. Designated 250. ID in the German army order of battle and commanded by General Muñoz-Grande, the Azul “division” saw fire in early September 1942 in the Gomel region. It then experienced such terrifying losses at Pyryatyne that by January 1, 1943, it was reduced to the size of a battalion. Although it undeniably impressed the German command with its courage, the Azul “division” no longer represented anything operationally. She was therefore repatriated by the Spanish government in March 1943, thus allowing Franco to discreetly manifest an increasingly comprehensive policy towards the Allied cause.
A few volunteer veterans, grouped around General Esteban-Infantes, however returned a little later to the Front as part of an engagement in the Waffen-SS, to form what would become the SS-Sturmbrigade Azul. There were less than a thousand of them – so much so that it was considered for a time to regroup it with the SS-Sturmbrigade Wallonie, both for propaganda purposes (the so-called “Charles-Quint division”) and to give a certain operational importance to the resulting unity. Eventually, like Wallonie and Langemark, Azul was simply attached administratively to Charlemagne and then hastily thrown into the furnace of the Russian Front in 1944.
Grouped into two companies (the Spanische-Freiwilligen-Kompanie der SS 101 and 102), almost all of the Spanish volunteers were to disappear in the final battles in Germany. It is believed today that this whole affair was above all a godsend for General Franco, allowing him to get rid of certain troublesome elements among the most ardent Phalangists and likely to threaten his power.
………
All these formations were not the only ones to welcome non-Germans into their ranks. Driven by their convictions as well as by the promise of an attractive salary paid by the Waffen-SS – which never stopped relaxing its very selective criteria (to the point that it tried in 1940 to recruit… Poles of theoretical origin Prussian!) - a number of volunteers enlisted individually in the Black Order between 1940 and 1942. The manning tables give the following figures, for those worth mentioning:
– Hungarian: 16,000,
– Swiss: 4,000 (almost all German-speaking),
– French: 2,500 (excluding Alsatians mobilized volens nolens).

However, and whatever the figures announced as the good (or bad) intentions of each, one reality remained for the services of the Reich at the end of 1942: foreign volunteers in the German armies did not represent more than a few dozen thousands of fighters. This may seem like a lot in absolute terms – in the reality of the fight that was being played out, it was just paltry.

 

[demolitiondan]

Malgré nous, LVF and Charlemagne: not enough, and yet far too much

From the launch of Barbarossa to the summer of 1943, the Reich chained disillusions with the Red Army: the latter retreated (undeniably), suffered considerable losses (obviously), always seemed a little closer to the breaking point (it was certain)… And yet, the “rotten house” so obligingly described by Goebbels was still standing, refusing to crumble under the battering of the Axis. And yet the Reds managed to counter-attack, with the help of their old ally General Winter...
Failing to have won a decisive victory, and while the Allies had regained the initiative in the Mediterranean to the point of tipping Italy into their camp, Germany now saw its nightmare materialize: a prolonged war on two fronts. . An unwinnable war, indeed.
To cope, the German authorities therefore gradually had to fire all the woods at the nationals of friendly or even occupied countries to reinforce the units presented above, to create others and finally to replace the Germans with forced laborers who could be forced to work at will. gone to the front. With this in mind, the Reich, which had annexed de facto and completely illegally the three departments of Alsace-Moselle, therefore began to carry out conscription among the French in this region. Previously, he had been content to simply appeal to volunteers. As its propaganda trumpeted: “We do not need the Alsatians to win the war, but we want to have you in our ranks for the honor of your region. »
From August 25, 1942, abruptly passing from this policy (which had yielded absolutely no results, supposedly due to 'family pressure') to compulsory military service, the services of Gauleiter Josef Bürckel issued two ordinances establishing naturalization and then the conscription of Alsatians-Mosellens – the rebellious ones who did not feel German enough for that could always ask to be expelled! But if the fact of evoking this possibility was, in Bürckel's mind, a joke, the requests were so numerous that the Nazis had to specify later that the interested parties would be deported, not to France, but to a concentration camp. work in Germany or Poland - and that, moreover, their families would suffer the consequences.
130,000 French were thus effectively incorporated into the German forces - a good part of them in the Waffen-SS, to replace the staggering losses suffered between 1942 and 1943. In view of the circumstances which saw their engagement, we cannot decently qualify these 'Malgré nous' (NOT : In spite of us) of volunteers. As a result, they are outside the scope of this dossier and are only mentioned for the record, in order to illustrate the staffing crisis that Germany was going through. Similarly, in early 1944, the beleaguered Reich went so far as to attempt to incorporate French reserve officers from Alsace-Moselle (demobilized or prisoners of war) into the Waffen-SS! The forty summoned had a unanimous attitude: complete refusal to collaborate and even to communicate his curriculum vitae, in spite of the threats and the promises of numerous advantages. All were deported...
Alas, not all the French who donned the German uniform did so under duress: a certain number, those of the Sturmbrigade Charlemagne, would even fight against the forces of the United Nations until the last spasms of agony of the Reich, in the ruins of Berlin. Too well known in France, this formation was created to satisfy both the manpower needs of the Waffen-SS and the frenzied desire of the Nouvel Etat Français to initiate high-level (if not equal) governmental cooperation with his friendly German protector, after the lamentable failure of the Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme – which was in a way his predecessor.
The LVF was therefore born on August 27, 1942, on the initiative of Eugène Deloncle (close to Darnand, head of the Organisation d'Action Nationale [the external intelligence service of the NEF] and former founder of La Cagoule (Ndt : fascist underground organisation). This decision was supported by the most radical elements of the NEF, including Marcel Déat and Jacques Doriot – the latter went so far as to serve in its ranks. Counting no more than 5,000 men, but nevertheless presenting itself as the vanguard of a new French army, the LVF was baptized 638. IR by the Germans and came under the command of the Heer (the SS refusing for the time to compromise with 'negrified French people'). Commanded by Colonel de Planard, she saw fire in March 1943 in the Kyryivka region (Ukraine), after a long period of training which should have drawn the attention of her sponsors to the extent of her qualities. Having shown a variable range (although certain for some elements), it lost 40% of its workforce in less than a week of combat - to which it was necessary to add 10% of strikes for "insufficient combativeness".
Hastily withdrawn from the front lines, the LVF was then quartered in Slovakia and reorganized under the authority of Lieutenant-Colonel Henri Lacroix. It was reinforced there (so to speak) from June 1943 by a certain number of volunteers (or supposed volunteers) from various collaborating organizations, but disgraced when Doriot took power. At the end of August 1943, this bastard assembly resulting from circumstances was finally attached to a security division to operate in the rear of Army Group Center, in order to ensure law enforcement tasks. At the beginning of 1944, there was talk of repatriating her in order (proclaimed Doriot) to "throw her on the Anglo-American invaders". But when boarding to return to France, she was sent in disaster to oppose the red tide of Operation Bagration. The few survivors only returned to France after a prolonged stay in Siberia...
However, it did not matter to its former promoters. In Paris, the Doriot government had meanwhile imagined a new unity – this time worthy of the rank it wanted France to occupy within the New Europe. Indeed, under the impetus of the new French authorities as well as German necessities, the Waffen-SS - which now aspired to place the NEF under its thumb and more generally all foreign volunteers in German uniform - had launched on July 22, 1943 the training of the 33. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS Charlemagne (sometimes designated Karl der Grosse), in order to regroup all the good Frenchmen wishing to fight against the Reds with the Reich.
In theory, this division should have included 15,000 men from very diverse backgrounds: 6,000 individual volunteers, 3,000 disappointed with the LVF and a thousand veterans of the latter, 600 militants from the Jeunesse Patriotique (related to the Italian fascists), 500 followers of Joseph Darnand's Corps-francs (including Darnand himself, who had left the LVF just in time), about 3,000 members of the FSTs and finally a remnant of opportunists, even lost ones. In fact, the recruitment criteria of Charlemagne were very different from those of the SS of yesteryear: an “oath of absence of Jewish blood” was enough to be hired, on the sole condition of being old enough to bear arms. Despite this, in reality, the 15,000 men planned ended up being less than four thousand, between incapacities, desertions and losses in training (even Allied bombing!). In charge of setting it up, Colonel Puaud was appointed Standartenführer, but this rank did not console him for having to cede the command on the ground of “his” Charlemagne to a duo composed of Oberführer Gustav Krukenberg and Obersturmbannführer Joseph Darnand…
Ultimately representing no more than 3,500 French at the same time – i.e. two large battalions, partly flanked by Romanian Volkdeutsches – the unit was renamed more realistically Sturmbrigade der Waffen-SS Charlemagne / Karl der Grosse (Französische Nr. 1 ). She had the sad privilege of fighting on the Eastern Front from April 1944, even though France was already partly liberated. Clinging tenaciously to Polish soil, then to German soil, it suffered appalling losses. Reduced to 350 men, it ended up being one of the last defenders of the Chancellery Bunker in Berlin. These few Frenchmen fought to the end, certain that the guillotine was waiting for them in France. In this last hour, it seems that Joseph Darnand had already fallen during the fighting in Pomerania, thus saving France the price of his trial.
Thirty survivors were eventually captured by the Red Army and 15 by the British. The latter entrusted their prisoners to the Republic, which sentenced them to heavy terms of forced labor. An isolated section of 12 men captured by the US Army was also transferred to the French army shortly after the German capitulation. She was summarily shot - an understandable act, but one that does not make those who committed it wholesome. Thus ends the best known, and most shameful, of all French military units in Nazi uniform. However, it was not the only trace of true military collaboration.
………
Indeed, the archives mention that around 6,000 volunteers joined corps as diverse as the Luftwaffe, the Todt organization and even the Kriegsmarine. However, these are individual destinies, if not anecdotal, and describing them is beyond the scope of this work, especially since their motivations were rarely political.
Note however, for the record, the case of the Bretonische Waffenverband der SS, or Bezen Perrot (Perrot Unit), a purely Breton unit created in September 1943 by Célestin Lainé, Breton separatist from Lu Brezhon and notorious neopagan terrorist linked to the Flemish nationalists . With his 80 men, this reserve artillery officer took part in a few anti-partisan struggle operations before disappearing, as the saying goes, into the dustbins of history, only being remembered for his extreme brutality against the civilians… Alas, having succeeded in reaching Ireland, he found asylum there in the name of Gaelic solidarity and died there in 1983 without ever having been worried. It seems today that he benefited there from a demonstration of bad humor from the Irish, who reproached France for having obtained by trickery the return of Pierre Laval, a refugee on their soil and who was to know the just fate that the 'we know.