What happens after France holds?

What if in May 1940 the French managed to halt the German lightning advance and the offensive loses steam. What happens then, will the Germans still punch through later and France falls anyway? Or will the Allies push the Germans back?
 
What if in May 1940 the French managed to halt the German lightning advance and the offensive loses steam. What happens then, will the Germans still punch through later and France falls anyway? Or will the Allies push the Germans back?

You need more here. Why does France hold? Is the Luftwaffe somehow shot down? Does Guderian run too far ahead with the panzers and get decimated? It is difficult to say without more information.

In general: The French and British have a bigger combined economy than Germany. Redo of WWI with nastier weapons. No HSF to challenge the Allies, but nastier U-Boats. Italy probably stays neutral. The Germans may try a Balkan gambit to break the stalement. US stays neutral, but makes money supplying the Allies. Stalin gleefully watches the Western Powers flail against each other. Japan is stuck.

Mike Turcotte
 
A compromise solution.
No one wants another Great War, and germany is a comfy buffer agains CCCP.
Peace negotiation would probably assign Danzig to Germany, but to restore the independence of mainland poland and a somewhat reduced Czhec state (not including sudetenland).
Some sort of plebiscite to give it legitimate according to self-determination principles.
H could claim to have reached his objectives since he re-annexed "germanic" territories.
Western allies could claim to have reached their objectives since the bulk of poland is still a free nation.
Stalin is the wild card here
 
A compromise solution.
No one wants another Great War, and germany is a comfy buffer agains CCCP.
Peace negotiation would probably assign Danzig to Germany, but to restore the independence of mainland poland and a somewhat reduced Czhec state (not including sudetenland).


By comfy buffer you mean "allied with him to divide Eastern Europe, extending Soviet influence further than it had ever been," right?
 

Bearcat

Banned
Assuming Guderian's thrust is blunted - maybe the French actually kept an operational reserve, maybe Gamelin and Weygand both had aneurysms, whatever - it's still going to be a very tough fight for the Allies. The Germans in 1940 have experience in Poland. The Allies, as Norway showed, don't really quite have their act together. More at the higher levels than the poor bloody infantry, but still, the German infantry has that experience advantage. Also, the French cannot challenge the Luftwaffe in the air, and the Brits can't without committing more of their RAF than they are comfortable with.

My gut feeling is that its a tough bloody slog but France still goes under. However she doesn't appear quite as hopeless in doing so, which may influence what comes after. Certainly no Vichy as we knew it, I'd expect. Quite possibly the French fight on from North Africa without the shock of Guderian's dash to the Channel.

Assuming the Brits succeed in evacuating much of their force along with lots of French when things start to collapse, the tough lessons learned will be even more useful than IOTL. Also, US opinion is less hysterical - the Germans had a hell of a time digesting France, there's less rot about England and her chicken neck. Lend Lease sooner?
 
To have France hold, you would have to get De Gaulle's theories on the army to be applied by the Government. He had tried to propose a development of the French army towards a more "Blitzkrieg" way but the project was opposed by the Etat Major, especially Petain. Get De Gaulle's theories applied, and you get a French army on the same strategical level as the Germans, something that was not the case OTL.

If France holds, the Nazis have a big problem... The Democracies aren't as weak as Hitler sees them. And if the Wermarcht is occupied in France, it won't be able to get the Lebensraum in the East.

If Hitler cannot beat the French, Mussolini will probably keep his nose out of the war as he wasn't ready when WW2 happened.

mailinutile2 said:
A compromise solution.

Hitler wasn't someone you could make compromise with. His whole attitude during the War and the events prior proves it. Besides, Hitler had no real love for the French and was really revanchist : he wanted to humiliate France as much as Germany had been humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. He won't stop until he gets back Alsace-Lorraine and has France on its knees.
 
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