WI: France Uses Chemical Weapon after Paris Falls

As it says..

What if the French use Chemical Weapons on the advancing Germans after Paris falls in WWII?

Could the French have stalled the blitz considering the Germans most likely didn't have gas masks?

Would this butterfly the Vichy peace?
 
I suppose you haven't heard about neither the GM30 or GM38 gas mask used by the Germans...

Having a gas mask in service, and actually carrying it around with you, are two different things. I don't know to what extent the French were prepared to use chemical weapons in the rapidly-devolving situation surrounding the fall of Paris, or to what degree the Germans were prepared to counter this or even respond in kind, but I can offer an example that Allied forces invading Normandy (and France in general) in 1944 were issued special uniforms, detection kits, and gas masks to counter a feared German use of chemical weapons to oppose the landings... and then promptly threw much of the gear away, rather than schlepping it around, after it became clear that wasn't going to happen.
 
Look at photos, and you'll see that around 10% of guys are usualy wearing their masks in combat in 1944 1945. So late in the war and they were still doing that.

Once I read vet from Normandy, and when asked if he and his buddy's trew away the mask and/or cannister he said No way! because they sometimes got checked for it! and they would get in trouble when it was missing.:D

The gas mask was issued to them and they were responsible for it, that is why it is listed in their ID book, same as the rifle, bayonet, etc.

Anyway, let's suppose that, for the sake of the What if, France goes dumb and does that. What follows then? A disaster for the German army as its horses were quite vulnerable for them, along with those soldiers that were not able to get their masks at hand.

Then Hitler, in rage, orders to bomb France with gasses in kind.

Then Churchill...
 
Would France have the supply, logistics and delivery systems to simultaneously launch a large scale gas attack against the entire German advance? The first gas attack is going to be by far the most effective since after that the Germans are going to be much more prepared. If they could pull off a large-scale surprise gas attack it would definitely throw a wrench into the German advance. A small attack in one area wouldn't make much of a difference besides maybe slowing the German advance if they decide they need to be more cautious and prepared to respond to more gas attacks.

Any gas attack would probably take the gloves off for everybody. Even if Hitler was anti-gas I think he would still feel the need to respond in kind. Then France would probably use more gas, then the UK and soon everyone is using gas whenever possible.
 
Would France have the supply, logistics and delivery systems to simultaneously launch a large scale gas attack against the entire German advance? The first gas attack is going to be by far the most effective since after that the Germans are going to be much more prepared. If they could pull off a large-scale surprise gas attack it would definitely throw a wrench into the German advance. A small attack in one area wouldn't make much of a difference besides maybe slowing the German advance if they decide they need to be more cautious and prepared to respond to more gas attacks.

Any gas attack would probably take the gloves off for everybody. Even if Hitler was anti-gas I think he would still feel the need to respond in kind. Then France would probably use more gas, then the UK and soon everyone is using gas whenever possible.


This is indeed the problem. Given the confused and slow response to German advances a coordinated gas attack is unlikely, making the decision to use it quite unlikely, and very dangerous for France. If the attack is too haphazard its effect would be small, and the price to pay would be very large.

Still, it would be interesting if the use of chemicals were a part of the doctrine of France pre 1940 as a prepared last measure, making the attack more coordinated.
 
Still, it would be interesting if the use of chemicals were a part of the doctrine of France pre 1940 as a prepared last measure, making the attack more coordinated.

Which I'm personally surprised wasn't an actual part of their defense-in-depth strategy that birthed the Maginot Line.
 
Which I'm personally surprised wasn't an actual part of their defense-in-depth strategy that birthed the Maginot Line.

Well, I guess the fear of damage to the already small civilian sector was a part of it. Though, I haven't read much on French general doctrine so I couldn't say for sure.
 
My guess would be the soldiers who fought in WWI saw the horrors of gas warfare first hand. By WWII those same soldiers had ascended to the leadership positions and weren't willing to start the use of gas again.

If France did have doctrine that if they were being attacked they would unleash a massive gas counter-attack they would then assume the Germans would respond in kind. With airpower WWII gas attacks could reach many more people than just the front-line soldiers in the trenches. After they started using chemical warfare it wouldn't be long until French and German cities were being gassed.
 
Jeremy Paxman and Robert Harris did a book on this, and both it and its' bibliography are extremely useful; there are several inconvenient facts, some of which the men of 1940 were well aware of, some not.

Much of gas attacks' prompt tactical effect came simply from the fact that it was a cloud of opaque vapour; mixing smoke shell with gas shell to extend the term of a gas attack beyond the filter saturation point and oxygen tank life of the defenders had already been highly successful at Vimy; smoke alone could have much of the same effect.

Most of the damage actually done by inhaled gas was not prompt, but expressed itself in later life, when the gassed had retired from the army and were approaching middle age, when the respiratory damage done by exposure really started to make a difference to their lives.

The short term effects of gas could be mostly produced by smoke alone, which had very little of the long term effects, and was also much cheaper. Certainly much cheaper than gases capable of promptly and severely injuring large numbers of people; things like the later elaborations, nitrogen mustard and so on, the arsenic based D series agents, which were highly lethal, were also expensive and available only in small amounts.

The allies were dimly aware of this, but not of the extent of German superiority, larger stockpiles of more lethal agents- the allies did not suspect the existence of the organophosphate G series at all. They knew that the Germans were well prepared, just not how well.
 
Top