WI: De Gaulle instead of Sikorski

[My Username is Inigo Montoya]

WI De Gaulle had died in a plane crash sometime in 41-43, while Władysław Sikorski had made it to the end of the war?
How would the Allies administer France after the liberation?
And would Poland fare any better with its prime minister alive?

 

[Deleted member 14881]

Well unless the W Allies can get to the Vistula Poland is screwed still.

I don't know enough about France to comment

 

[SeanPdineen]

f

Guaird, blum and Sheumaan form a government of national unity

 

[Cook]

Depending on the date, I would think Leclerc would become head of the Free French.

 

[Remicas]

Giraud or even Darlan are more likely to be head of the French government. That is of a country under a military administration by the allies as they wanted to do before de Gaulle proved is legitimacy. Unless they manage to be as popular as de Gaulle OTL and take as fast to take credit for the Liberation.

 

[Cook]

...even Darlan are more likely...

Not a chance. The British were relieved* when he was assasinated in Algeria because it saved them having to do something about him. The allies were under no illusions when it came to Darlan.

That the head of the S.O.E.’s Mediterranean operations was in Algiers in the days immediately prior to Darlan’s assassination may have just been a coincidence but we simply don’t know; the S.O.E. took the wise option of not recording everything they did for posterity if it was considered likely to embarrass future British governments.

*Champaign cork popping relieved.

 

[Remicas]

You're right. Actually I heard that Eiseinhower, upset by Darlan, said one day that he needed "an assassin and a good one" (paraphrasing).
Looks like French officers are always infuriating, no matter who.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

A pity. Darlan could have seized so much in the moment. Preventing the Axis seizure of Tunis & Bizerte in November 1942 would have advanced the Allied cause considerablly.

 

[Cook]

Looks like French officers are always infuriating, no matter who.

Darlan being infuriating wasn't the issue, his being the primary collaborator, who the British had been fighting for two and a half years, was. That they were then forced by circumstances to temporarily accommodate him and his despicable regime would have been infuriating; hence the ongoing suspicion that the S.O.E. had at least some involvement in his, <cough> retirement.

The French Forces of the Interior would never have accepted Darlan's leadership anyway.

 

[Wolfpaw]

Leclerc probably leads Free France, though perhaps Legentilhomme might be another candidate.

Poland is behind Russian lines, and thus beyond the pale.

 

[Cook]

As for Sikorski, he’d either be pressured by Churchill and Roosevelt into giving up his suspicions of the Katyn Massacre and resume relations with Stalin, in which case he’d probably end up having a similar fate to Edvard Benes, or he and his government in Exile remain in London as a very awkward, and completely impotent, guest after the war.