WI: Petain joins the Free French Forces?

What if instead of trying to collaborate with the Germans, Phillippe Petain instead decided to flee to London, alongside Charles De Gaulle, to join the Free French Forces?
 
What if instead of trying to collaborate with the Germans, Phillippe Petain instead decided to flee to London, alongside Charles De Gaulle, to join the Free French Forces?
The stress likely kills him. The intense stress of fighting a prolonged conflict with the Nazis while viewed as a junior partner by the British and Americans, jockeying for aid and support likely speeds up the issues that plagued Petain several years after the war.

Petain would also be a detriment to the Free French. Churchill considered him a defeatist and Petain's authoritarian style would not endear him to the Allies he desperately needed.
 
No Petain in Vichy means less legitimacy for French State (which without him, would probably also keep name of French Republic). More colonies will defect to Free France, and earlier.
 
Petain wouldn't join the Free French. Not in any situation looking like OTL anyway.

After the defeat of the French in 1940, the individuals who joined the Free French were people who were for continuing the war against the Germans. This was very much a minority position in 1940, and the idea of leaving the war was perceived to be the best option at the time by most of France. At this time it's important to remember that the defeat of France came as the end cap of German victories in Europe and for most in Europe it looked like Germany had pretty much already won.

Petain was brought in as Prime Minister after Reynaud opposed asking for armistice terms. Petain was expressly made Prime Minister because he was an elder statesman of sorts and because he was not opposed to an armistice.

The Third French Republic was totally discredited by the loss. The "debauched and weak" socialists were blamed and a new sort of order was increasingly being called for in France. Something to save them for whatever social and societal degeneration that had supposedly gripped them. Petain was the man for the job and he held a vote for a series of constitutional amendments to form a new government. Out of 800 deputies and senators only 80 voted no.

From then on, Petain follow a collaborationist course. Not because he was a germanophile or something like that, but because he wanted to get France the best peace terms, keep the empire together, and ensure France had a place in what he and the other Vichy collaborates thought was the future German led European order.

To restate myself, Petain wouldn't join the Free French. He was in favor of ending the war and helping to reshape France and keeping France's influence in Europe and abroad. If you want him to join the Free French you need a situation where working inside a German led European system is considered impossible or otherwise unpalatable for the French, or a situation where Germany's military victories are not as constant, or a situation where French national opinion is swayed in favor of continuing the war at any cost.

If you want to know more about Vichy France, I suggest Robert O. Paxton's "Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944." It's a very interesting book that goes into depth about the regime, it's formation, governance, and what it did during the Holocaust.
 
Petain was also, shall we say, “not with it” by
1940. In other words he wasn’t senile yet but he was almost there. A meeting Petain
had in the summer of that tumultous year
with British Major General Sir Edward Spears
illustrates this point. Spears pleaded with
Petain to rally France against the Germans,
to save France as Joan of Arc had earlier done. At the mention of her name Petain lit up. “Joan of Arc! Have you read my speech on Joan of Arc?” “No...” “Now that is too bad. I made it at Rouen; now when was it, in 1937, 38. It was an extremely fine
speech, I must say. I shall read it to you.”
After a lengthy search the speech was found,
& Petain read it in a monotone to his visitor.
After finishing Petain remarked “Joan of Arc
was a peasant of France. Our peasants are
part of the soil of France. I made a very fine
speech on the peasants of France- now let me see, it was some time back, you must
see it, I shall read it to you.”* Needless to
say, Petain did not end up doing what Spears
asked him to do.

Petain joining the Free French is as ASB as
Vulcans suddenly landing on Earth to fight
the Nazis.

*- The Petain-Spears meeting is recounted in
Gene Smith, THE ENDS OF GREATNESS
(1990), pp. 163-164. A look @ the lives &
careers of Anthony Eden, Sir Douglas Haig,
Petain, & Walter Rathenau. A lively, most
enjoyable read.
 
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And the fact that he can't isn't related to that question?
Who is to say he can't? His senility could lead him to believe he alone can save the French similar to World War I and the mutinies. That is why it's a challenge. Come up with a scenario and see where it goes. It's easy to say impossible. History usually asks you to hold it's beer and show otherwise.
 
Who is to say he can't? His senility could lead him to believe he alone can save the French similar to World War I and the mutinies. That is why it's a challenge. Come up with a scenario and see where it goes. It's easy to say impossible. History usually asks you to hold it's beer and show otherwise.
Alright, but that means discussing what makes it hard to him to join the FFL is very important, otherwise you can't say why he joined the FFL regardless.
 
What if instead of trying to collaborate with the Germans, Phillippe Petain instead decided to flee to London, alongside Charles De Gaulle, to join the Free French Forces?
You would probably need different Nazis, like ones that see France as prime lebensraum. If it's apparent that defeat means the total erasure of France from the map then I sure Petain would be able to keep his defeatism to himself. Although under such circumstances I imagine there would be no Free French Forces as the French Third Republic's government would probably just move to Algiers when the continent is overrun.
 
Petain was an ardent anti-Semite; he carried out Nazi requests on Jews with enthusiasm. He wasn't just doing the whole "must protect my nation by working with the Germans" stick that so many non-German countries do and it infuriates me. Germany was far from the only nation with numerous fascists.


Just like when the Soviets took over and local collaborators (however many where exiles in Moscow but still they were not Russian) supported the regime, when the Nazis took over sympathizers were also in charge. No one who collaborated did so just to "spare the country" outside of Denmark or a few other cases (and even with Denmark Erik Scavenius was not supportive of Denmark taking contested land post-WW1 from Germany so he certainly wasn't the most anti-German Dane). Mannerheim does not count because Finland was not a puppet; it was a co-belligerent. Petain embodied the French anti-Semitic, fascist elements that were very much present in France during the Dreyfus affair just under half a century prior to the war. French fascism aligned itself with Germany because it saw it's values and priorities as being largely championed by Hitler and the Nazis. They would have preferred France to be the vanguard, but as long as they had some things they could easily work with Berlin.
 
Petain was also, shall we say, “not with it” by
1940. In other words he wasn’t senile yet but he was almost there. A meeting Petain
had in the summer of that tumultous year
with British Major General Sir Edward Spears
illustrates this point. Spears pleaded with
Petain to rally France against the Germans,
to save France as Joan of Arc had earlier done. At the mention of her name Petain lit up. “Joan of Arc! Have you read my speech on Joan of Arc?” “No...” “Now that is too bad. I made it at Rouen; now when was it, in 1937, 38. It was an extremely fine
speech, I must say. I shall read it to you.”
After a lengthy search the speech was found,
& Petain read it in a monotone to his visitor.
After finishing Petain remarked “Joan of Arc
was a peasant of France. Our peasants are
part of the soil of France. I made a very fine
speech on the peasants of France- now let me see, it was some time back, you must
see it, I shall read it to you.”*

If he was so muddled, who did actually run the day to day business of the Vichy regime?
In other words, how much of a figurehead was he?
 
Appart from the realism issue, with Pétain being who he was by that point, the OP is also an essentially an internal contradiction: the Free French became a thing because the french government choose the armistice instead of evacuating what it could and continuing the war from the colonies like other countries had done. It was no done deal, they're was allot of partisans of continuing the war in the french government and military. Without Pétain prestige and support it would have been quite hard for the supporters of an armistice to win the day. Therefore, a Pétain who somehow became for continuing the war would have meant a France who does so and would butterflied both the Free French and Vichy as we know it, tough some kind of puppet regime installed by the Germans would have been likely.

One of my favourite TL has that as its starting point (the general idea of France continuing the war not Pétain somehow changing his mind) but since its in french most people around here probably couldn't be able to read it :(
 

DougM

Donor
You can’t have it both ways. Either he was mentally unstable as represented by the speech incident, or he was not. If he was then he is not responsible for what happened in France under Germany and we should look to others (whom ever was the power behind The thrown). If he was responsible then he most have been mentally fit and thus could do (within reason) what he wanted.
He was only something like 76 to 80 or so during the war. I know a lot of folks 10 years older that are still mentally fine. On the other hand I know folks a lot younger that are not all there. But either way you can’t argue both sides. And if he is unstable then the “hate” and “blaming” he is getting is underserved
 
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