14th February – 4th April 1942 – French North Africa and the Fall of Vichy
Garrison
Donor
14th February – 4th April 1942 – French North Africa and the Fall of Vichy
The political situation in French North Africa had steadily deteriorated ever since the self-destruction of so much of the Marine Nationale at Mers-el-Kebir and Toulon. Not only had the fate of the French fleet undermined the credibility of Vichy in many people’s eyes, there was also a practical impact in that there was now a severe shortage of vessels to escort convoys heading for North African ports, made worse by the fact that the sailors and officers of the Marine Nationale who remained with Vichy were viewed with deep suspicion by Germany and even by the Vichy government they served, and this constant scrutiny of their loyalty only grew worse after Admiral Darlan’s defection to the Free French. This further undermined the already low morale of the crews of the ships the Marine Nationale could muster, compounded by increasing issues with fuel and supplies. Given the state of the Vichy fleet he British were no longer concerned about the possibility of provoking Vichy into hostile action, and after Syria having acted as a staging post for Axis aircraft, in clear violation of Vichy’s supposed neutrality, they were unwilling to accept assurances that no materiel intended for Axis forces in Libya were being shipped on French flagged vessels. As a result the British took to intercepting Vichy shipping in the Mediterranean, with ships that had defected to the Free French being attached to the patrol groups where possible [1].
This increased British belligerence was also fuelled by ULTRA decrypts and spies in France that meant they were well aware that as the situation deteriorated in Libya there had been considerable pressure on Vichy to allow its North African ports to be used for supplies intended for the Axis forces, though given the available transportation and road network between Tunisia it is dubious as to how much of a contribution this could have made to the defence of Tripoli even if it Vichy had acquiesced to the demands. Once Libya fell a certain panic set in with Mussolini and he was now talking in terms of a counteroffensive being launched, using Tunisia as the springboard. He even went so far as to suggest that with the British on the border of its North African colonies it was time for Vichy to join the war on the Axis side. These ideas met with a mixed reception in Berlin, where von Kleist and the General Staff wanted to simply write off North Africa as an exercise in futility and focus all their efforts on renewing the offensive on the Eastern Front. Hitler however seems to have been at least willing to contemplate the idea, mostly because he was concerned that the British might turn their attention to the Balkans and the vital Ploesti oilfields if their position in North Africa was secured, and of course this would also free the British to reinforce their position against the Japanese, though again some in Berlin believed this outcome would actually be a net benefit to the Reich [2].
The British were in fact already preparing to dispatch Australian New Zealand and Indian forces from North Africa to Malaya and Burma even before Tripoli finally fell, while still retaining forces in the Mediterranean theatre for further operations against Italy. Many of these troops had fought during Operation Yari whilst others would see service in the South East Asian theatre when Montgomery went on the offensive. These changes had reduced the overall forces available in North Africa during the spring of 1942, but this did not deter the British from preparing operations against French North Africa, with the whole hearted support of de Gaulle and the Free French, who had been agitating for the swift overthrow of the local Vichy regimes as a next step in North Africa even before the battle of Sirte., The British were willing to accommodate in the interests of removing any possibility of French North Africa becoming an assembly area for fresh Axis attacks and to bolster the legitimacy of the Free French.
Even as the Free French were pressing for military action they were also reaching out to administrations of the North African colonies, emphasizing that their only hope to avoid the humiliation of foreign occupation and prevent the unnecessary deaths of French soldiers was to declare themselves for Free France and allow Free French forces to enter their territory as liberators. It was emphasized that there might be unfortunate consequences for those officers and officials who chose to make a stand in the name of the Vichy regime. These exhortations resonated in Tunisia especially, where it was no secret that they might find themselves dragged into the front line of the war as Vichy tried to curry favour with Berlin by allowing German and Italian troops to establish forward bases for a fresh offensive against the British. Ironically By April 1942 even Hitler had cooled on the idea of assembling a new army in Tunisia and in Rome the General Staff was now more concerned about the possibility of an invasion of Sicily than trying to chase a lost cause in Libya. The sole exception was the plan for an airborne assault on Malta, which continued to grind forward despite much dismay among the General Staff [3].
These conditions largely explain why the British and Free French forces were able to cross into Tunisia on the 24th of February with little opposition and rapidly advance on Tunis, which surrendered with almost indecent haste on the 6th of March in the face of what was little more than a few companies of Allied troops with a modest contingent of tanks leading the way. This led to a further decline in the morale of troops in Algeria and Morocco, with some local garrisons choosing to go over to the Free French, some of whom had cause to regret as it took time for the Allies to regroup and launch a fresh advance from Tunisia and many troops remained loyal to Vichy, out of sense of duty as much as any love for Vichy. The Allies faced an especially hostile reception in Algeria as many there had blamed the British for the fate of the French Fleet. The Royal Navy itself helped undercut this resistance by staging amphibious landings at Oran and Algiers itself on the 17th of March, while large parts of the available Vichy forces had been moved to the Tunisian border to defend from what seemed an inevitable attack there. The British and Free French troops suffered some significant casualties, in no small part owing to the deficiencies in the coordination of the landings between the Royal Navy and the RAF. These failing allowed Italian aircraft operating out of Sicily to attack the naval convoys, though fortunately the Regia Aeronautica attacks were also poorly organized and failed to seriously disrupt the landings. Attacks from Tunisia launched on the 18th combined with the fall of Algiers led to the formal surrender of Algeria on the 21st of March after face saving negotiations with the political and military leadership [4].
In the aftermath of the rapid collapse of Tunisia and Algeria the Vichy French government began to panic. The leadership in Rabat assured Vichy that Morocco would not capitulate without a fight, but inevitably there were rumours circulating that they were in fact in negotiations with the Free French or the Americans about declaring for the Allies and these provoked the Vichy government into ordering the removal of senior officials and military officers allegedly involved in the negotiations, regardless of the paucity of evidence against them. This effort was poorly executed and led to serious unrest in Morocco, destroying whatever loyalty to Vichy those officials might have retained. The unfortunate army units trying to carry out the orders from Vichy had either been defeated or switched sides by the 27th of March and a Free French delegation flew into negotiate terms, alongside several representatives from the US Army and Department of State, who were regarded as guarantors for whatever terms were agreed by the officials in Rabat, much to the chagrin of de Gaulle. This diplomatic action constituted the only direct US involvement in North Africa, though the supply of material from America had played an important part in the campaign. Morocco formally surrendered on April 2nd, 1942, leaving the Allies, or more accurately the British, in undisputed control of North Africa and the Middle East, and the Royal Navy dominating the Mediterranean. The Germans and the Italians were still not quite willing to admit defeat and under Goering’s insistence the last desperate throw of the dice in Malta remained [5].
By the time Morocco surrendered the fate of Vichy had already been sealed. Hitler had been dubious about the regime ever since Mers-el-Kebir and all the French efforts to appease the Germans since had only served to convince the likes of Fritz Todt that so much more could be obtained if French industry were placed under ‘efficient’ German management. The obviously token resistance in Tunisia finally made-up Hitler’s mind and he ordered that the Vichy zone in France be occupied by the Wehrmacht. This operation was contingency the Wehrmacht had been preparing for almost since the Armistice was signed in 1940. The plan, codenamed Case Anton had been refined ever since and the occupation forces in France had little difficulty carrying it out even at short notice. Case Anton was launched on the 28th of March and concluded by the 4th of April, encountering little resistance from Vichy French forces who were swiftly disarmed and interned. Although Vichy continued to exist as political entity in theory, in practice they were now little more than administrators for German policy in France, which became increasingly harsh as the Germans grew concerned about the prospect of an Allied attack on France.
With the thin veneer of legitimacy Vichy had maintained taken away there was a steady uptick in resistance activity and many of the last colonial holdouts in Africa and Asia defected to the Free French, though even at this point some refused to countenance co-operating with ‘traitors’. Despite Todt’s assurances French industry fared no better under German control than it had prior to the 4th of April. Indeed, without Vichy as a conduit through which some raw materials could be purchased production fell. The full occupation of France was yet another burden for the Wehrmacht, with the number of potential targets for Allied assaults now stretching from Norway to Greece.
For the Allies the fall of Vichy simplified the strategic options available to them, which did not mean that there weren’t heated discussions over the future direction of the war [6].
[1] OTL the British remained circumspect about getting into confrontations with Vichy French warships so the convoys to North Africa went unmolested, not so ITTL.
[2] The General Staff in Berlin are already seeing Case Blue as their last real chance to win the war outright.
[3] The Malta plan has taken on a life of its own at this point, moving forward even as the strategic logic crumbles.
[4] There is no Afrika Korps to keep the Vichy regimes in line, and less hostility to the British overall.
[5] Basically trying to stop Algeria defecting.
[6] Vichy has fallen 6 months sooner, meaning a faster build up of the resistance and another headache for the Wehrmacht as they prepare for Case Blue. On the Allied side the Americans are even less keen on the ‘soft underbelly’ than OTL and they are eyeing up a landing in France quite intently…
(I mean in eastern theater).