WI Brazil invade French Guyana in 1961

First a bit of context, translated from this article:

"The constitutional crisis caused by the resignation of president Jânio Quadros (in august 25 of 1961) frustrated a plan that, if executed, would surely gain a place in the anthology of political ravings: The president wanted to annex French Guyana into the brazilian territory, in a suprise military operation - a offensive like the frustrated argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982

The argentinean invasion of the falklands resulted in a war between England and Argentina. What would be the international reaction for a brazilian expansion into French Guyana? Jânio Quadros even convocated the governor of Amapá, Moura Cavalcanti, to a secret audience in Brasília, a politician that years later, during the military regime, became the leader of the ministery of agriculture of general Garrastazu Medici and governor of Pernambuco after a indirect election..."

"..Besides giving the order to Moura Cavalcanti, the president showed a order to a military commander with the textual orientation:

*Study the possibility of annexing the French Guyana into Brazil - if possibility, by peacefull means"

Very well, first a map of the state of Amapá, where the invasion would begin:

mapa_de_amapa.gif


The PoD is that Jânio Quadros doesn't resign and he continue with his plans to annex French Guyana, using a anti colonialist casus belli, could he succed by diplomatical means? And if he didn't, how would a invasion of Guyana play out in the field and in the international stage?
 
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I don't think so. As far as I know article 5 only applies north of a certain line (tropic of cancer), so it wouldn't apply-same as with the Falkland war.

True however France considers it's foreign areas to be part of mainland France (though I don't know if that was the case at this stage), could that make a difference?
 

CalBear

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True however France considers it's foreign areas to be part of mainland France (though I don't know if that was the case at this stage), could that make a difference?
No. The Tropic of Cancer was chosen for exactly that reason, to limit the OpArea of the Alliance.

Probably wouldn't matter all that much. The French are still a substantial military power. Perhaps just as importantly the move would, understandably, cause great consternation in London (Since Guyana independence is still five years into the Future) and the Hague (Suriname will not become independent until 1975). That puts three founding NATO countries in the mix, that is likely more than enough to get the U.S. extremely concerned.
 
With the west indies territories (Martinique, Guadeloupe), the French have some very close base for logistics and assembly area.
Under sea, they have 4 Aréthuse class submarine and 6 Narval class, all modern diesel submarine.
On the surface, the Clemenceau aircraft carrier enter service in November 61, so except work to be accelerated. The two De-Grasse class cruiser are in service in their post war configuration (8 twin 127mm turret and 10 twin 57mm), plus two mighty ship: the Richelieu (reserve fleet since 1958) and the Jean-Bart in service ( 2*4 380mm, 12*2 100mm, 14*2 57mm). The Arromanche (colossus class) is in service, as the LaFayette (independance class), all with piston driven aircraft, including the Breguet Alize. Crusader were ordered in 1962 as the Etendard IV.
We also have 5 T53 class destroyers, 12 T47 (four receiving Tartar system in 1962, could be accelerated), 14 Le Normand class frigates, 4 Le Corse class frigates, plus several former US ships.
The AAA of the french fleet is really impressive (57mm all the way)

The air force receive it's first Mirage III in july 61, but it still relying on Super Mystère and Mystère IV.

The ground force, here it will be fun due to politics, in april the coup fail, so the politics may not be so confident in the army, despite the lack of support for the putschist (a lot of units follow De Gaulle and not Challe).

Hope this help.
 
No. The Tropic of Cancer was chosen for exactly that reason, to limit the OpArea of the Alliance.

Probably wouldn't matter all that much. The French are still a substantial military power. Perhaps just as importantly the move would, understandably, cause great consternation in London (Since Guyana independence is still five years into the Future) and the Hague (Suriname will not become independent until 1975). That puts three founding NATO countries in the mix, that is likely more than enough to get the U.S. extremely concerned.

The Tropic of Cancer specification only came about with the later edition of Turkey which has an article 2 that states it is "amending article 5", it is not with the original treaty article 5. There has been much theoretical debate about French Guiana in NATO, and it isnt conclusive one way or the other.
 
NATO has forces in French Guiana today, but I'm not sure if they were there at the time period we are talking about. Even if the territory isn't covered by NATO alliance, what does the organization do regarding its forces? If they try to maintain "neutrality" or try to evacuate and come under fire, does NATO retaliate?
 
Brazil gets its teeth kicked in even if no one aids France. Period dot.

One interesting thing to think about is if you can push this plan back by a few months and have the invasion kick off and butterfly the Algiers Putsch. Despite the loathing of de Gaulle and his plans to withdraw from Algeria that was present among the generals involved, they were French nationalists and I strongly suspect that they would table their plans if a department of France was being carved off by a hostile foreign power.

If de Gaulle was smart (and he was), he would use this as a convenient cover to do some reshuffling and send the whole French Foreign Legion from Algeria to the Caribbean to fight the Brazilians, both to take back Guiana and to cover for his eventual withdrawal from Algeria. Everyone knew the Legion was a coup risk even before the putsch because their officers were right-wingers and the enlisted and NCO's were foreigners who didn't have personal ties to France or opinions about French politics. Their main motive was defending their turf (the Legion was afraid it would be disbanded if it lost its ancestral home in Algeria). Once there, they would not be moved back across the Atlantic until the Algerian question was settled.

This has interesting implications for the future of the Legion. 1st REP, 10th Parachute Division, and the 25th Parachute Division wouldn't be disbanded like in OTL after the putsch and the Legion's commanders would have more influence in determining the fate of it because they are still esteemed generals (especially since they just liberated Guiana) and not traitorous failed rebels.

I can see the Legion not being downsized like IOTL, retaining its reputation as a place for rogues and fugitives (most of the background checks and such were only adopted after the coup when the French decided it might be a good idea to do quality control on the men that enlisted), and Guiana becoming its home like Algeria used to be (after a Brazilian invasion the French would logically want to keep a larger force there anyway to deter aggression). A larger Legion actually has interesting implications. Maybe such a force would also be loaned out to the U.N. to clean up messes in the Third World that everyone wanted dealt with but didn't want to take responsibility for (places like OTL Darfur, Congo, Afghanistan at this point in time, and Somalia). That would be the Legion in its traditional role of fighting foreign conflicts where casualties would be a domestic issue if native boys were dying but not if desperate foreigners were. The costs of these operations could be defrayed between all the U.N. member states. I think I saw a thread like this a while back where someone floated the idea of the French turning the FFL over to the U.N. permanently as a peacekeeping force. That could have interesting implications for a lot of wars in the third world.

Sorry, I just have a fascination with the FFL :D
 
Huh, shades of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium stories, except that there the CD forces were derived from (trained by, emulated procedures of) the FFL but answered to a bilateral US/Soviet regime that bypassed and replaced the UN completely.

It is hard to imagine the Legion working for the UN as currently set up, with a Soviet/Russian veto on the Security Council and eventually the Chinese veto being wielded by the PRC. As pointed out above the Legion's officers are very right-wing. Obviously with France also holding a veto the UN won't send the Legion to do anything France finds obnoxious, but then again these kinds of French colonels and generals might have different views than the mainstream French government, and the notion that whatever they do must also be pleasing to the PRC and Soviet Union must surely grate on them. Of course Pournelle had the CoDominium Marines accept orders from a regime even more evenly divided in interest between eastern and western blocs, but after all it wasn't the Legion itself, just something modeled after it.

So I think the final step of moving it over from French to UN custody directly is not going to happen. If on the other hand the same Legion winds up in the same missions all over the globe at UN request but still nominally under French orders, that fig leaf might be sufficient to save the pride of the officers, even if they do despise the politics of this or that current French government.

Getting back to the POD, I have to wonder who Quadros was in terms of his relationship to the US government. Some Latin American leaders of the decades after WWII were locally popular but not approved of in Washington, and others were people who were in power mainly because the US government preferred them to the likely alternative.

The funny thing about the Falklands war was that the Argentine junta was definitely a gang of US acolytes, and may actually have expected the USA to back their play for the islands, in consideration of services rendered in the common anti-Communist cause or just to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.

I don't think JFK would fail to prioritize the interests of a NATO ally, particularly one with a UN Security Council veto and as pointed out a military quite capable of responding forcefully to anything Brazil could do on its own--therefore not to be restrained except perhaps by exceedingly high-handed methods Kennedy could ill afford. So the question of whether Kennedy liked DeGaulle or not is not really on the agenda. (And to give DeGaulle his due--when, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, US ambassadors briefed the top three European national leaders on the US position re Cuba and the risk of global war resulting, the British PM and West German Chancellor inserted some pointed dissents--they would go along, but argued the Americans were not behaving entirely reasonably. French President DeGaulle on the other hand responded by offering the unconditional support of France. Of course JFK has no way of knowing this yet!) And there is little reason to doubt that when push comes to shove the USA will back France even if Quadros was essentially a creature of the USA himself.

But if Quadros was someone whom the US wanted to edge out anyhow--this incident is a godsend.

Of course it is a little odd to insist that Cuba's relationship with the USSR is illegitimate while supporting the right of several European colonial powers maintaining colonies--but of course the Monroe Doctrine always contained a loophole for established, continuing colonies, it only disapproved formerly independent republics (or kingdoms maybe I suppose) being newly subjugated to some overseas power. The argument I guess is that first of all it is Castro's dictatorship itself which is already unacceptable, and secondarily that making alliance with the Soviets is tantamount to re-colonization. Anyway France's right to defend Guiana is perfectly clear under Monroe doctrine, particularly since there is no question of a native secessionist movement, merely that of an outside power attempting simple conquest.

Another issue of interest to me is whether this ATL (almost OTL) incident would cloud the prospects of developing Kourou space port or not. The French government may be confident that they can show the department is well defended but will the consortia of French and other European corporations making up Arianespace be deterred by the possibility the Brazilians might stir up trouble?

The fact is there are few places in the world, if any, superior to Kourou for launching spacecraft, particularly commercial ones headed for geosynchronous orbit. I'd think they would not be deterred, particularly if the Legion is based there. Legion basing would probably be a nice bucket of pork for residents--though it is also possible that the hard-scrabble Legionaires will make life a bit of a trial for a number of people too. With ESA coming in next to the Legion French Guiana will enjoy quite a bit of franc investment cumulatively, and both operations may provide the basis of several rather developed technical industries to keep them locally supplied.

So the weird echoes of Pournelle's fictional future we must now regard as an ATL are all the stronger, with the Legion based right there where France's and to an extent all Europe's and the world's space port is.

All they need now is an Alderson drive (presumably with some French name for its French discoverer). Oh, and all the other high tech Pournelle just assumed we'd have by 2000 that in fact we did not, such as fusion rocket drives.
 
But if Quadros was someone whom the US wanted to edge out anyhow--this incident is a godsend.

Jânio Quadros was a desaster of a president, he was elected as a right wing populist, but he allienated his support base after...well, this:

janio-quadros-especial-22-size-598.jpg


He gave the medal "Ordem do cruzeiro do sul", the hightest brazilian military medal to Che Guevara, and he sent his VP (Jango Goulart, the one that got couped in 1964) to China, he also resigned thinking that the people would support him and make demonstrations asking him to continue in power, but it did not happened, the rest is history

In the worst case scenario the French convince the americans that Quadros is a communist and the 1964 coup happens three years earlier
 
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Jânio Quadros resigned because he had no power to actually do things so this wouldn't work out unless he managed to get backing in this regard. Who did so would pretty much define how things would go but going through the list of people of influence in this period(especially in the military) I can't think of anyone who would ally with him much less back something like this.

If we skip that part and assume it happened somehow does France actually have any interest in French Guayana? Even today it is hardly populated(3.0/km2) at that year it would be IIRC around a tenth of that, about twenty-five thousand. If diplomacy doesn't work and things go crazy to an actual conflict then the question is what France would want because barring the USA disagreeing that is going to happen.

On the flip side under the assumption the people with enough power in the country to support this did so for reasons then Brazil could be a lot better since they are all pretty universally horrible. Though those were the same people the USA was backing so that complicates things. Would have to look things up to figure out who the USA would put into power at this point, I presume they wouldn't annoy France by leaving the people who just attacked them nor they would backtrack and decide to support the people they were opposing which under the requirements of this scenario I think removes everyone relevant I can recall.
 
Jânio Quadros resigned because he had no power to actually do things so this wouldn't work out unless he managed to get backing in this regard. Who did so would pretty much define how things would go but going through the list of people of influence in this period(especially in the military) I can't think of anyone who would ally with him much less back something like this.

Well, he did have the power to do what he wanted, but not political power, he kept making personal and secret threats to his opponents, and the information of those threats could send him to jail, this was also another reason for his resignation
 
Goulart was a name I did recognize, as a victim of American king making. So that question seems answered. Too bad some of those who stood up to Yankee arrogance were such buffoons--but then I suppose that a leader with Quadros's policies who was not a buffoon would have been very quickly and drastically removed from power. Since Uncle Sam did coup out Goulart, should I figure he was a more serious figure?

Anyway I am having trouble following the reasoning of Quadros regarding invading French Guiana. Is it the same as the Argentine Junta invading the Falklands?

As for the question "would the French want to fight for it..." well, quite aside from any positive value the department brings (and I did talk about the spaceport, which would become a real thing not long after a decade had passed 1961) no major country can afford to allow some small nation to simply seize any territory it claims. The prestige issues seems too obvious to even discuss.
 

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Goulart was a name I did recognize, as a victim of American king making. So that question seems answered. Too bad some of those who stood up to Yankee arrogance were such buffoons--but then I suppose that a leader with Quadros's policies who was not a buffoon would have been very quickly and drastically removed from power. Since Uncle Sam did coup out Goulart, should I figure he was a more serious figure?

Anyway I am having trouble following the reasoning of Quadros regarding invading French Guiana. Is it the same as the Argentine Junta invading the Falklands?

As for the question "would the French want to fight for it..." well, quite aside from any positive value the department brings (and I did talk about the spaceport, which would become a real thing not long after a decade had passed 1961) no major country can afford to allow some small nation to simply seize any territory it claims. The prestige issues seems too obvious to even discuss.
Pretty much spot on.

The British sent just about their entire fleet and a significant percentage of their mobile forces literally a third of the way around the planet to take back a set of islands with a total population of under 3,000 people (and crapload of sheep) in an era where the whole "national pride" motivator was considerably lower than in 1961 France.
 
Goulart was a name I did recognize, as a victim of American king making. So that question seems answered. Too bad some of those who stood up to Yankee arrogance were such buffoons--but then I suppose that a leader with Quadros's policies who was not a buffoon would have been very quickly and drastically removed from power. Since Uncle Sam did coup out Goulart, should I figure he was a more serious figure?

Anyway I am having trouble following the reasoning of Quadros regarding invading French Guiana. Is it the same as the Argentine Junta invading the Falklands?

As for the question "would the French want to fight for it..." well, quite aside from any positive value the department brings (and I did talk about the spaceport, which would become a real thing not long after a decade had passed 1961) no major country can afford to allow some small nation to simply seize any territory it claims. The prestige issues seems too obvious to even discuss.


Translating more of the article:

"I remember the therms" - Said Moura Cavalcanti, in a interview recorded in Recife...""...Moura Cavalcanti descibres, with details, the surrealist scene that he watched in Brasíli, as a witness and character in a day in 1961:

Geneton Moraes Neto – Which orders did you received from president Jânio Quadros in Brasília, in relation to the french guyana?

Cavalcanti : “When president Jânio Quadros analized the sales process of magnesium to foreign countries, he gave me the following order: Defend the national interests above anything else. Also : I believe that it is the time to solve this definitively. why we don't annex french Guyana into the Brazilian territory?

GMNWhich reaction did you have after receiving this order?

Cavalcanti : “A violent reacion. First: I didn't had the structure of a conqueror. I didn't dreamed of conquering lands...""...I looked the to sides confused. ANd Jânio Quadros told me: "Sit here". I sited close to the telex And he gave a telex to a officer that looked, for me, the chief of the high command of the armed forces

GMNWhich commentary did Jânio made about the plan ?

Cavalcanti : “Jânio Quadros told me: A country that dominates the plate from caribbean will show the world". The president looked to the small paper in his hands, with order. Then he looked at the map of Brazil, gigantic, in the wall. He shaked slightly his head, before saying that the country that held the plate of caribe would be respected and would dominate the world"

GMNWhy did his idea didn't happened? ?

Cavalcanti : “Because Jânio Quadros resigned days later. The conversation with Jânio happened in august of 1961, days before the resignation”.

GMNHow would be made the anexation in pratic? ?

Cavalcanti : “The anexation of French Guyana would begin with a visit of Jânio Quadros to the Amazon. A fleet would arrive at the docks in Amapá"

I translate the rest tomorrow, It is 03:35 am here
 
Even if France does not get overt support from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands they will certainly greatly reinforce their armed forces in their territories and assist in the logistics and transport. There would be no need to invoke NATO even if it were possible. If both countries actively supported France militarily a naval blockade of Brazil would be easy.

One wishes Brazil well but not in this aggression. French Guiana was a wise POD of the three colonies. Both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands had begun the road to independence for theirs.

What of Venezuela's claim to most of British Guiana? Could they have played a part?
 
If France shows sufficient resolve, Argentina might take notice of the reaction of another European nation to invasion of its overseas territories when considering the Falklands war.
 
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