If France stays in, What happens to Indo China?

The French government and military evacuates to Algeria and continues the war. What does Japan do about French Indo China? When would they be ready to go to war with France and the UK? Would there be an earlier Pacific War? Would they have left Indo China alone and not faced the sanctions from the US? Might there be no Pacific War?
 
France will resist. It almost has to for the exiled regime to save face and status. If Japan backs off, China is in much better shape due to ease of supply from IndoChina (and Japan is worse off). Japan wasn't able to close the Chinese side of the border militarily.

I suspect Japan might just demand France close the border and I suspect France will do just that for a while (Britain had to close Burma road in same summer 40 time period). Eventually though like Britain France will open the border, if only to please the USA.

An outright Japanese invasion of IndoChina would almost have to trigger a British response, probably Britain had to promise and make show of all their were one country now solidarity stuff to get the French to stay in so Britain would declare war too.

In this scenario the Japanese are much further away from Singapore and France/Britain probably have cleared Africa so this could be a tough fight even with out the USA. Free France/Britain/Australia/China is still a handful for Japan.
 
If France decides to fight, they'll get destroyed, simple enough. They don't have enough men, are barely motorised and can't trust their auxiliaries.

Say Catroux, the Gouverneur Générale, decides to not accept the Japanese ultimatum of June 1940, he only has two European régiment and four of auxiliaries. He has no modern planes, no tanks and basically no artillery. Also he relies heavily on French supplies. The only possibility would be to go full blown guerrilla with support from the Montagnards but even then, that's not guaranteed. That would also mean abandonning the cities and leaving the Viets to be independants when the war is over, which the French wanted to avoid
 
If France continues to fight from Algeria, that means:

1) The French Navy is able to contain the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean. British are able to send their fleets elsewhere if needed.

2) The French Air Force is preserved as are hundreds of thousands of evacuated troops.

3) Chances of a realistic invasion of Britain is much reduced. The British will not be anywhere near as panicky or stressed.

4) Allies clear out North Africa by Spring 1941 at latest, perhaps even before end of 1940. This will free up a lot of forces if needed to defend Asia.

The Japanese were able to strongarm the Vichy French because they were utterly dependent on Germany and could not resist. Japan will not have that leverage when France fights on. Furthermore, the British and French could divert a decent fleet to Southeast Asia to protect French Indo-China. Certainly that combined with the possibility the US could get involved would make the Japanese very cautious.

I could see France agreeing to shut down the railroad from Haiphong to Kunming temporarily to assuage the Japanese, but not agreeing to an occupation.

Japan risks a lot by declaring war in 1940 to occupy Indochina. It can't take out the Allied fleet like they could America's at Pearl Harbor because there simply isn't one there. They can't win a quick, decisive victory. It forces the Allies to directly assist China. It risks bringing the US into the war with their bases in the Philippines. All for limited benefit - the main reason is to cut off the rail supply from Haiphong to Kunming. At least temporarily, they can achieve that without war.
 
If France decides to fight, they'll get destroyed, simple enough. They don't have enough men, are barely motorised and can't trust their auxiliaries.

Say Catroux, the Gouverneur Générale, decides to not accept the Japanese ultimatum of June 1940, he only has two European régiment and four of auxiliaries. He has no modern planes, no tanks and basically no artillery. Also he relies heavily on French supplies. The only possibility would be to go full blown guerrilla with support from the Montagnards but even then, that's not guaranteed. That would also mean abandonning the cities and leaving the Viets to be independants when the war is over, which the French wanted to avoid
The French were in that situation because the Germans vetoed Vichy's plans to reinforce Indochina (as the terms of the armistice required permission for significant Vichy redeployments like that). If France fights on, then that obviously isn't a problem; the French would have plenty of troops elsewhere they could send in (and a Japanese ultimatum in this case would be guaranteed to bring in the UK at the same time, who obviously also have plenty of free troops).
 
... the exiled regime...
Minor nit-pick but Algeria, at least the coastal regions, was legally and administratively an integral part of France so they wouldn't be a government-in-exile since they would still be based there.
 

Archibald

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France Fights on the japanese in Indochina, notably around a mostly unknown place called Dien Bien Phu. :p Dien Bien Phu becomes a meat grinder for the Japanese with the French and Vietnamese resisting with solid air support
 
Sardinia's in danger too, what with Corsica so close. Okay, maybe not really, but it's not a possibility Italy can ignore.
 
The French were in that situation because the Germans vetoed Vichy's plans to reinforce Indochina (as the terms of the armistice required permission for significant Vichy redeployments like that). If France fights on, then that obviously isn't a problem; the French would have plenty of troops elsewhere they could send in (and a Japanese ultimatum in this case would be guaranteed to bring in the UK at the same time, who obviously also have plenty of free troops).
Given the ultimatum happened on 19/06/1940 I doubt the Germans had time to veto much.
And the French wouldn't have that many troups elsewhere to send if the Japanese really want to invade, the home front would be way more important. Also, you wouldn't be able to count on the Americans to make it French again as per the events post-war OTL, nor the brits
 
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