Vichy France helps the Allies?

Phosphorus

Banned
POD: the French fleet sails to America to be interned, and Operation Catapult never happens. There is therefore much less souring of relations between Britain and France. How well could Vichy France collaborate with Britain against the Nazis? The general idea is, even though France is supposedly out of the war, it continues assisting the Allies as much as it can. Could the French government offer bases in Africa to the British? What else could they do? You may have to have someone other than Petain to make this work, suggestions?
 
POD: the French fleet sails to America to be interned, and Operation Catapult never happens. There is therefore much less souring of relations between Britain and France. How well could Vichy France collaborate with Britain against the Nazis? The general idea is, even though France is supposedly out of the war, it continues assisting the Allies as much as it can. Could the French government offer bases in Africa to the British? What else could they do? You may have to have someone other than Petain to make this work, suggestions?

Funny - I was thinking along the same lines. But what would happen if Hitler allowed France to keep its territorial integrity in Europe but lose some of it colonies (Dijbouti, Tunisa, Morroco) and pay enormous reparations and still have the Versailles style treaty limits

How neutral could France be? How many troops could Germany "save" from occupation duties. How would it affect the mediterranean theatre and would it lead to a focus on Egypt and the Western Desert instead of SeaLion
 
You could well wind up in a very dangerous situation where Francois Darlan, not Charles De Gaulle, winds up as the face of a new France. This is literally a "For All Time" situation, as Darlan is probably not interested in sharing power nor really much care for a return to democracy.


The implications of Darlan rebuilding the French State post-WWII as he desires is likely to go down badly. But imagining France as a right-wing dictatorship Post-WWII could get potentially nasty.


How one intends to get Vichy to support the Allies and then get rid of people like Darlan is a strong question.
 
POD: the French fleet sails to America to be interned, and Operation Catapult never happens. There is therefore much less souring of relations between Britain and France. How well could Vichy France collaborate with Britain against the Nazis? The general idea is, even though France is supposedly out of the war, it continues assisting the Allies as much as it can. Could the French government offer bases in Africa to the British? What else could they do? You may have to have someone other than Petain to make this work, suggestions?


this is utterly nonsense... vichy ends in the second the navy escapes...

Vichy-france wasn´t free to do anything... :rolleyes:
 
How one intends to get Vichy to support the Allies and then get rid of people like Darlan is a strong question.

well, maybe you answer the question how Vichy should "work" with the brits?
if they do so they violate the treaty, germany will take over everything (the main point for the french was to avid this - here it is given up for what? helping the ally that betrayed the french people? (at last most of them thought so in 1940))

maybe you can give some facts?
 
well, maybe you answer the question how Vichy should "work" with the brits?
if they do so they violate the treaty, germany will take over everything (the main point for the french was to avid this - here it is given up for what? helping the ally that betrayed the french people? (at last most of them thought so in 1940))

maybe you can give some facts?


I don't see Vichy helping the UK after Operation Catapult. They may help the USA and defect en masse to the Free French. Another possibility is a Vichy refusal to allow Japan into French Indochina and turning that transfer into an outright war.


It might also be possible for Henri Dentz to avoid getting Syria invaded by the UK.


I don't see a lot working until the USA gets into the war. A few extra pieces are possible, I suppose.
 

Phosphorus

Banned
You could well wind up in a very dangerous situation where Francois Darlan, not Charles De Gaulle, winds up as the face of a new France. This is literally a "For All Time" situation, as Darlan is probably not interested in sharing power nor really much care for a return to democracy.


The implications of Darlan rebuilding the French State post-WWII as he desires is likely to go down badly. But imagining France as a right-wing dictatorship Post-WWII could get potentially nasty.


How one intends to get Vichy to support the Allies and then get rid of people like Darlan is a strong question.

Maybe we can combine this thread with this one: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=204063 :p
 
I don't see Vichy helping the UK after Operation Catapult. They may help the USA and defect en masse to the Free French. Another possibility is a Vichy refusal to allow Japan into French Indochina and turning that transfer into an outright war.


It might also be possible for Henri Dentz to avoid getting Syria invaded by the UK.


I don't see a lot working until the USA gets into the war. A few extra pieces are possible, I suppose.

Blue Max

I think the POD is that the Vichy commanders send the fleet to the US meaning that Catapult doesn't need to go to the shooting stage. Possibly the POD is that the French naval commander gives full and accurate details of the proposals Somerville presents to him rather than the grossly inaccurate terms he passes to Darlan.

In that case a lot of the tension would be avoided and the fleet would be able for when Vichy is occupied by Germany or the fleet commander decides to join the allies.

Steve
 

Phosphorus

Banned
Blue Max

I think the POD is that the Vichy commanders send the fleet to the US meaning that Catapult doesn't need to go to the shooting stage. Possibly the POD is that the French naval commander gives full and accurate details of the proposals Somerville presents to him rather than the grossly inaccurate terms he passes to Darlan.

In that case a lot of the tension would be avoided and the fleet would be able for when Vichy is occupied by Germany or the fleet commander decides to join the allies.

Steve

I didn't have a set POD in mind. It could be Churchill deciding the whole thing is a bad idea and canceling the operation. But Darlan accepting the terms and sailing the fleet to America works just as well, if not better.
 
I don't see Vichy helping the UK after Operation Catapult. They may help the USA and defect en masse to the Free French. Another possibility is a Vichy refusal to allow Japan into French Indochina and turning that transfer into an outright war.


It might also be possible for Henri Dentz to avoid getting Syria invaded by the UK.


I don't see a lot working until the USA gets into the war. A few extra pieces are possible, I suppose.

Hi,

but with the french fleet sailing to america, vichy is dead and france will suffer very heavy... because it is betraying the treatment. france loose its honor - the only thing hitler (sometimes) accepted. this will not happen - the french maybe think about such things but no officer in the vichy-fleet will do it. so the whole plot is nonsense...
 
I want to nighlight that there was no treaty between France and Germany. There was an armistice, which is different. The armistice ended the fighting with the intention that there would be a later peace treaty signed (most likely with the belief that Britain would seek peace terms and all belligerents would negotiate a peace treaty).

If you want to read the terms of the Second Armistice of Compiegne, you can go here: http://www.enotes.com/topic/Second_Armistice_at_Compiègne

In terms of the ships in Algeria or Dakar leaving for another colonial port - that may not be in violation of the armistice. Any ships at Toulon that move, would be in violation. To be honest, given that the French ships in Africa are outside the power of the Germans anyway, simply basing them in the Caribbean is unlikely cause the Germans to attack.

However, any Vichy government conspiring to defeat Hitler more or less defeats the purpose of signing the armistice to begin with. Anything overt is going to violate the terms of the armistice. Anything done covertly could be found out. Neither the Germans nor the Italians are stupid.

The most I see is that after Operation Torch, a decision is made to repudiate the armistice and send the French fleet in Toulon to Algeria to join the Allies along with most of the government and as many fighting age males as possible.
 

Cook

Banned
POD: the French fleet sails to America to be interned, and Operation Catapult never happens. There is therefore much less souring of relations between Britain and France.

There was already considerable souring of relations between the two allies even prior to France’s request for an armistice with the Germans. When in 1939 the British had send an Expeditionary Force to France that was half the size of the one that they’d sent in 1914 the French had been appalled, and things were not improved buy Britain’s taking a further six months to build the B.E.F. up to ten divisions, two of which were unequipped Territorial Army divisions. When the B.E.F. withdrew under fire at Dunkirk the myth developed in France that the British had let down the French, choosing to run back to their island instead of fighting. The fact that the French cabinet rejected Premier Reynaud’s proposal to continue the war from French North Africa and rejected the offer of Union with Great Britain is an indication of just how strong this feeling was, even at the highest, most responsible level.

When Petain dispatched negotiators to discuss terms with the Germans the only conditions he gave them was that the French Empire was to remain intact and the Fleet would not be handed over to the Germans. He could hardly insist on anything else since more than half of mainland France was in Germany hands and German spearheads were only days away from the French Fleet in Toulon.

Hitler, for his part, was more than happy for the French Fleet to be effectively neutralised and for the French Empire to remain intact lest it fall into British hands. When it came to mainland France he had Frenchmen willing to do his bidding, anyone else rapidly disappeared from the equation.

How well could Vichy France collaborate with Britain against the Nazis? The general idea is, even though France is supposedly out of the war, it continues assisting the Allies as much as it can. Could the French government offer bases in Africa to the British?

General Weygand, the incompetent commander who was a large part of why France fell, ended up commanding French Algeria after the Armistice. He told Louis Rougier, who acted as an informal liaison between Britain and Vichy France, that, ‘If they (the British) come to North Africa with four divisions, I will fire on them. If they come with twenty divisions, I’ll welcome them.’ Weygand had every intention of using French North Africa as a base for resuming the struggle against Germany but only when Britain had the strength to provide real forces to assist. That was something that would take years, until that time he would quietly make is own preparations while complying with the official Vichy policy of Collaboration. Weygand’s plotting was as incompetent as his general-ship had been and it came to the attention of the Vichy authorities and subsequently that of the Germans, who insisted that be replaced in November 1941; they threatened to occupy France if he wasn’t removed from his post. He had taken no actual action against the Axis but his loyalty could clearly not be counted on. Had anyone actually taken action to aid the British they would have quickly fallen victim to the Vichy authorities.

It needs to be remembered that the Vichy Regime of Petain, Darlan and Laval was in no way neutral; they were a puppet state of Nazi Germany and conducted a two and a half year war against the British Empire.

What else could they do? You may have to have someone other than Petain to make this work, suggestions?

Simply put if the men ruling France weren’t willing to do what Hitler wanted, other Frenchmen would be found who would.

For you to have a scenario where the British are able to obtain bases in French North Africa it would not be a Vichy North Africa, it would be a Free French North Africa; the Governors and Military Commanders of French North Africa would have to respond to de Gaulle’s call and rallied to the Free French cause.
 
If, prior to the armistice, a substantial part of the French fleet (including most of the big ships the Brits were worried about), went to French Empire ports such as french West Indies, French Guiana, etc in the western hemisphere, catapult may become unnecessary. It is unlikely the US would allow German Navy teams of any significant size to set up shop in the western hemisphere to monitor those ships, so any small number of observers could be dealt with easily if/when the fleet decides to go over to the allied side at some point after 12/7/41.

OTL there was some consideration/planning prior to Pearl Harbor of a USMC operation to take over the French West Indies.
 
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Amusing to see that after Hitler violated numerous agreements, starting with Munich and certainly including the armistice with France, it would be French honor in question if Vichy stopped cooperating fully in the face of economic robbery under the armistice terms, Germany claiming hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen as conscript labor and even Alsace-Lorraine which Germany simply stole without mentioning the change of status under the armistice.
 

Cook

Banned
If, prior to the armistice, a substantial part of the French fleet (including most of the big ships the Brits were worried about), went to French Empire ports such as french West Indies, French Guiana, etc in the western hemisphere, catapult may become unnecessary.

Prior to the Armistice the French were still fighting and the Fleet had a mission, to escort escaping convoys from the southern French ports to North Africa and to protect French North Africa and the Levant from attack by the Italian Navy. What would be the military point in sending the French Fleet to the Caribbean when the enemy was in Europe?

After the Armistice the Fleet had new orders; to maintain the sovereignty of the French Empire, the most important and valuable piece of the Empire being again, French North Africa.

Either way the orders to the Fleet need to be considered from a purely French perspective, either a France still fighting or a France that has acknowledged the New European Order and is seeking to improve its position in it.

 
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