WI: Vichy France an Axis belligerant and no Free French

[Eurofed]

Also, if he's doing well against Russia he's going to push for the Urals, not settle for a peace.

I would expect that someone may spin a Brest-Litovsk peace to him as "mein Fuhrer, let's grab all the really valuable land from Stalin now, finish the job with Britain and America, and administer the Bolsheviks the telling blow when our hands are free and the Reich has recovered its full strength". Remember, he was willing to accept the Dniepr border in 1943.

FDR on the other hand was loved tremendously.

And almost as much hated. I remember the cartoon where a child draws his name on the pavement, and the other one tells Mummy that Junior has written a dirty word.

Probably our leftmost president, even after the Reagan realignment he is lauded and loved and looked up to.

And of course "winning WWII" hindsight has nothing to do with it (just like winning the Cold War made Reagan much more of a saint).

He is also not stupid. If land invasion of Europe is out of the cards he'll aid Churchill where he can, pursue the war against Japan to his fullest, play up every German Atrocity Stalin can news to him of in the media, and when the nukes are ready, BOOM.

I stated that IF he can suppress his quite eager urge to seek a D-Day showdown with Hitler, he's going to win the war with nukes, even if I cannot agree with your assessment that Stalin is necessarily staying in the war to the bitter end. It may quite well be that Hitler refuses common sense and give him no other chance.

Furthermore, he did not rely on the War for his third term, he got it using his experience combating the Great Depression not the needs of wartime.

The third term was not so much a breach of precedent as the fourth one. Grant and even more so TR had made a credible bid for it.

 

[Eurofed]

Have we considered a possible "Downfall" attack in Europe? The use of nuclear weapons in a tactical role would crush German resolve.

I admit my lack of familiarity about those plans in 1945-46. OTOH, nukes are nukes. Whether they are used to wipe out Hamburg, Munich, Milan, and Lyon, or to blow up massed Axis armies on the beaches of Italy, France, and Denmark, they are going to win the war for America. No question about this. My whole argument is that with the right sequence of circumstances, the Anglo-American public may lose the will to fight before they can be used.

The United States will not be suffering terrible manpower losses without large ground forces.

In which way, the American troops committed to landings in North Africa, Italy, and France did not qualify as "large ground forces" ? The American public was not so insensible to large manpower losses, given that the ones at Okinawa practically made the US leaders crap in their pants about a conventional invasion of mainland Japan (and the war with Japan was always more personal to the USA than the one with Hitler).

The Soviets would almost certainly remain in the fight, because of the way Hitler used his allies in OTL--they would only appear in numbers when Germany was on the ropes. There would be no giant French forces appearing in the opening campaign, because the Germans didn't raise large numbers of allied forces for the opening attack.

You may notice that I assumed a scenario where French forces on the Eastern front tip the Axis into success of Operation Blue. 1942 is precisely when the Germans "did raise large numbers of allied forces" to the Eastern front, so I took your argument into consideration beforehand.

Before 1942, the French are essentially going to fight in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Only in the Axis optimal case (which it requires several factors aligning for the Axis in 1940-41) of capturing the Middle East, this can indirectly affect the Eastern front since they can strike Russia from the Caucasus, too. And I do regard this outcome as much less likely than French contribution allowing the Axis to conquer Stalingrad early on, when it was lightly defended. What French contribution is almost guaranteed to do for the Axis before that, is to secure the Mediterranean and North Africa. Useful, but not a game winner (unless it topples Churchill).

A 1946 overland campaign spearheaded with nuclear ordinance would win rather quickly for the allies. France and Italy would suffer nuclear attack.

No question whatsoever with that.

The Soviet Union would face a long and grueling war, as it did in OTL--but even if Germany somehow fared even better than OTL, there is no hope of Germany ever shutting down the Soviets by taking the Volga Bend and the Transural region-the Soviets will simply withdraw industry from Muscovy if need be.

And where are they going to get oil from, if they lose (connection to) Baku ? Siberian oilfields didn't quite suffice in 1942-43, and America was not logistically in the position to make up for the difference.

The last comment about Muscovy is typical Sovietwank fare. The USSR is dead as a major military power if it is pushed beyond the Volga, almost down to Nationalist China levels. Even if it magically manages to move all its European industry beyond the Urals, it can't move the manpower. Good luck fighting the European Axis with the Siberian and Central Asian manpower, and the limited amount of industry they can transfer to Siberia without ASB assistance.

Vichy in the Axis would probably lead to a nuclear campaign in Europe, possible a Downfall kind of military campaign, a badly wounded Soviet Union with no real hope of challenging the United States,

Quite sure, IF they get to use them. But I expect that there's no need for Downfall. Simply an handful of European cities get artificial sunshine and that's the end of it.

But this scenario would end with Europe scarred by miles long burn marks, not a successful German State.

It is a devil's bargain, but from an utilitarian PoV, I'm sorely tempted to accept the sacrifice of some European cities if it means Nazism is over and Communism is kicked back to Muscovy borders and fatally crippled in 1945. As for a successful German state, there would be no GDR, the bloody Poles would not unleash their merry ethnic cleansing of Germans under American watch, and Germany would have an excellent chance of getting back to unity and democracy in 1937 borders within a decade or so.

 

[Aranfan]

1. Truman won WWII.

2. I thought Baku was coastal?

3. I will respond in more detail later.

 

[Eurofed]

2. I thought Baku was coastal?

And the large number of Soviet tankers to ship it through the Caspian Sea are ? Not to matter the lesser but not trivial logistical trouble of shipping it from Kazkhstan coast back to Muscovy, or for that matter taking the overlong and logistically horrid overland route through occupied Persia as an alternative.

 

[Aranfan]

When was Persia occupied?


Still coming up with a more detailed response to your earlier post.


Edit: I know there were hundreds of Oil Tankers in the Caspian before 1900.

 

[lothaw]

When was Persia occupied?


Still coming up with a more detailed response to your earlier post.

The British and Soviets occupied it in late 1941 I believe in a joint effort. There was a very real fear that Persia would start selling it's oil exclusively to Germany and perhaps even join the Axis. This was a preemptive measure to prevent that from happening.

 

[Eurofed]

Edit: I know there were hundreds of Oil Tankers in the Caspian before 1900.

I trust you on this. Then the oil picture is not so bleak for the Red Army, even if there is still the not-trivial logistical headache of shipping the oil from Kazakhstan to Moscow.

Nonetheless, French presence and early capture of Stalingard is going to wreck the success of Operation Uranus. This means that the Axis shall enter 1943 with a much stronger position on the Eastern front. If they play theri cards decently, they can still easily exhaust/demoralize the USSR into a separate peace during 1943.

 

[Aranfan]

Doing some digging, it seems a rather lot of oil was transported via the Caspian to Moscow by way of Turkmenistan in OTL.

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/32_folder/32_articles/32_ww22.html

 

[Commissar Luigi]

By Eurofed

I stated that IF he can suppress his quite eager urge to seek a D-Day showdown with Hitler,

From what I understand of WWII, I never heard/read anything about FDR being eager to invade mainland europe. I read that Stalin kept demanding for a second front to be opened in France but FDR and Churchill kept delaying.

(It could be because they weren't really ready to invade or they really wanted Hitler and Stalin to duke it out more, or maybe other reasons)

Maybe he could have done it sooner by himself instead of Operation Torch. From what I know it seems that Operation Torch was just a mop up job as the Axis forces in North Africa were pretty much beaten by the Commonwealth forces. (I could wrong about this)

 

[Eurofed]

From what I understand of WWII, I never heard/read anything about FDR being eager to invade mainland europe. I read that Stalin kept demanding for a second front to be opened in France but FDR and Churchill kept delaying.

Well, from what I know, FDR and to a rather lesser degree his generals were always hyper-eager to launch D-Day as soon as possible, he was pressuring to do it in 1942-43, Churchill and his own generals had to rein FDR and the Yankee brass down a lot, practically Torch and Italy were also a compromise way to open a second front without screwing everything with a premature D-Day. FDR wanted to appease buddy Stalin in full and get Hitler's scalp ASAP, not really caring about Europe after the demise of the Nazi (he seemed to think of Communism as a learning experience). Churchill of course wanted to keep Russia in the war, but by giving it exactly enough rope to make its part, reconquer its own territory and not getting an extra inch. Part for this, part because they honored old UK peripheral strategy, the British favored landings in Italy and the Balkans, with France only being the final telling blow, if ever.

 

[Wyragen-TXRG4P]

IOTL, the Vichy governement was willing to go to war against england over its attack, Petain was the one that decided that one war was enought.
Let us say Petain is shot by a British assassine several hours before, he survives (without him, the Vichy governement would loose much legitimacy) but stay in a coma for several days, on the radio Churchill claimes being he one giving the order. When Petain recovers, the war is already declared.
There is a possibility that a French declaration of war causes the downfall of Churchill.
Should the war continue anywhay, Hitler would move the troops occupying northern France and send them to Egypte with the help of French reinforcements.
The Franco-German alliance is quickly victorious in Egypte, then in the middle-east, where they join Iraq and Iran, Iraq annexes Kuwait. Britain may again, leave the war. Span would probably be convinced of joining.
With secure southern borders, turkey might well decide to join the axis against the soviet-union although such involvement wouyld not have the sucess of the european front.
Seizure of the caucase would be made much easier by 1942, with Iranian and Turkish involvement.
Good chance that the soviet-union leave the war (temporarly at least) if the operation is sucessfull. Should Britain still be at war, India and eastern africa would be the next battle grounds.

Eurofed, I'm not too certain about the details, but when Hitler declared war on the USA, the Axis lost. Be it like OTL or nukes used as intended, America is going to have boots in Berlin when the war ends.

With england out of the war, German allies controlling north africa and continental europe, the US can´t get to Germany.

OTOH, nukes are nukes. Whether they are used to wipe out Hamburg, Munich, Milan, and Lyon, or to blow up massed Axis armies on the beaches of Italy, France, and Denmark, they are going to win the war for America. No question about this. My whole argument is that with the right sequence of circumstances, the Anglo-American public may lose the will to fight before they can be used. .

A bombs aren´t H bombs and Berlin isn´t Hiroshima or Nagasaki, small cities made of plywood. It would take years between the time when the first A bomb is produced and the time Germany is destroyed. Good luck maintaining airsuperiority over continental europe with the soviet-union out of the picture.

I hate the man's guts for foolishly selling half of my continent to Stalin for nothing.

And lo! He should have given this ultimatum to Stalin, retreate immediately to the 1939 or face a declaration of war. Damnable coward, he should have understood that Warsawa and Budapest was worth a millions of yankee lives and shared that view with the public of the US, they would surely have accepted.
Attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was what caused Japan´s surrender, never mind that Mandchuko had just been lost and that Korea was rapidly following (40% of Japanes casualties in WW2 was due to the few weeks of the soviet intervention) or even the naval victories of the last 3 years.

 

[Alex Richards]

There is something people are forgetting.

The sinking of the French fleet was controversial to the French, and this was precisely because of one key factor:

The French navy had already declared to Churchill they would rather scuttle the fleet than hand it over to the Nazis.

Now, even after Oran, I believe that this would be the case (if only to prove to Churchill he was wrong), and so we face this situation:

The French fleet is entirely gone. Those ships that haven't been sunk are halfway across the atlantic with opposition politicians to form a GIE (pretty much Free French, but nowhere near as influential). Similar events incapacitate parts of the Army and Airforce.

Though Hitler has still got Vichy bases, they still only have the original numbers of ships and a small increase in planes. The biggest increase is the army.

 

[Eurofed]

There is a possibility that a French declaration of war causes the downfall of Churchill.
Should the war continue anywhay, Hitler would move the troops occupying northern France and send them to Egypte with the help of French reinforcements.
The Franco-German alliance is quickly victorious in Egypte, then in the middle-east, where they join Iraq and Iran, Iraq annexes Kuwait. Britain may again, leave the war. Span would probably be convinced of joining.
With secure southern borders, turkey might well decide to join the axis against the soviet-union although such involvement wouyld not have the sucess of the european front.
Seizure of the caucase would be made much easier by 1942, with Iranian and Turkish involvement.
Good chance that the soviet-union leave the war (temporarly at least) if the operation is sucessfull. Should Britain still be at war, India and eastern africa would be the next battle grounds.

A reasonable assessment.

With england out of the war, German allies controlling north africa and continental europe, the US can´t get to Germany.

Also quite true. IIRC, America is not going to get intercontinental bombers with nuclear delivery capacity until the early 50s. Good luck convincing the American public to remain committed to an otherwise unwinnable war that long.

Good luck maintaining air superiority over continental europe with the soviet-union out of the picture.

True as well. America would need to have at least several hundreds of nukes, in order to have a plausible chance of saturating continental Europe's air defense. Which IIRC weren't coming till 1948-49 at the earliest.

And lo! He should have given this ultimatum to Stalin, retreate immediately to the 1939 or face a declaration of war. Damnable coward, he should have understood that Warsawa and Budapest was worth a millions of yankee lives and shared that view with the public of the US, they would surely have accepted.

I don't pretend that much. But it is perfectly true that with somewhat different political and strategic choices in 1943-45, America could have easily secured at the very least Grossdeutchsland, Czechia, Slovenia in the Western camp (just by pushing to meet the Soviets as east as possible in 1944-45 and enforcing the principle of "everyone keeps what he holds" at Yalta and Potsdam; America had the means to cowe Stalin into getting no freeloader occupation zones in Central Europe if only it dared to use them), with a bit more luck (e.g. fostering the German Resistance with a guarantee of a Japan-like conditional surrender, national unity in pre-Munich borders and no Soviet occupation, and a more determined and organized Valkyrie being successful, or alternatively starting to reduce Land-Lease and aggressively pushing Western troops forward after D-Day) western Poland, western Hungary, and Croatia would have been in the Western camp, too, with the Iron Curtain on the Vistula and Danube. Of course, the optimal case of saving all of Eastern Europe from the Soviets and enforcing the 1939 Iron Curtain would have required the much more difficult case of the Western Allies managing to defeat Germany, or overrunning Eastern Europe, before Bagration.

Attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was what caused Japan´s surrender, never mind that Mandchuko had just been lost and that Korea was rapidly following (40% of Japanes casualties in WW2 was due to the few weeks of the soviet intervention) or even the naval victories of the last 3 years.

August Storm is way overrated as a substantial cause of Japan's surrender. It was Russian last-ditch grabbing of Manchuria and Korea for its own gain much more than anything else. At the very most, it only accelerated the surrender of Japan by a few weeks. What August Storm did, the mass starvation from the American blockade would have done anyway.

 

[Eurofed]

The sinking of the French fleet was controversial to the French, and this was precisely because of one key factor:

The French navy had already declared to Churchill they would rather scuttle the fleet than hand it over to the Nazis.

Now, even after Oran, I believe that this would be the case (if only to prove to Churchill he was wrong), and so we face this situation:

The French fleet is entirely gone. Those ships that haven't been sunk are halfway across the atlantic with opposition politicians to form a GIE (pretty much Free French, but nowhere near as influential). Similar events incapacitate parts of the Army and Airforce.

Though Hitler has still got Vichy bases, they still only have the original numbers of ships and a small increase in planes. The biggest increase is the army.

The Marine Nationale was almost entirely loyal to Vichy in 1940. If Vichy declares war to Britain as a result of Mers-el-Kabir, and signs a peace treaty and an alliance with Germany and Italy, those officers are going to obey what they regards as the legitimate government (even more so, since the FF don't exist) and join forces with the KM and RM, not hand their ships over to new enemy Churchill or sink them. The rest of the Fleet would indeed be quickly lost to Royal Navy attacks, but the French Mediterranean Fleet would surely remain intact and would soon combine with the Regia Marina. Their combination would give naval superiority to the Axis in the Mediterranean. The scenario you describe assumes a level of Free French-like radical antifascist sentiments (in a TL where the FF don't exist) that simply didn't exist in the Marine Nationale.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Also quite true. IIRC, America is not going to get intercontinental bombers with nuclear delivery capacity until the early 50s. Good luck convincing the American public to remain committed to an otherwise unwinnable war that long.

The B-36 which could fly round-trip from North America (Gander, Nfld) to Berlin could carry even H-bombs (once they arrived). OTL it first flew in '45, and entered service in '49, but it was delayed several times for other projects and could have been speeded up.

 

[merlin]

From what I understand of WWII, I never heard/read anything about FDR being eager to invade mainland europe. I read that Stalin kept demanding for a second front to be opened in France but FDR and Churchill kept delaying.
(It could be because they weren't really ready to invade or they really wanted Hitler and Stalin to duke it out more, or maybe other reasons)
Maybe he could have done it sooner by himself instead of Operation Torch. From what I know it seems that Operation Torch was just a mop up job as the Axis forces in North Africa were pretty much beaten by the Commonwealth forces. (I could wrong about this)

Agree with Eurofed re: FDR and the cross-channel invasion, though IMO opinion Churchill was more concerned with it - failing as per the Dardanelles! That's why he, and Brooke wanted to to ensure success, and meanwhile divert German attention and forces away ..
I have highlighted the second part, because it suggests you should do some more reading of Operation Torch and the German reaction to it. Hitler, insisted on pouring men and equipement into North-West Africa in order to hold up Anglo-American Forces, in which he succeded. After all, if it was only 'mopping up' the Battle of Kasserine wouldn't have happened, if it was only 'mopping up' when Tunis was taken how come they took 230,000 axis prisoners, and if it was only 'mopping up' then the Sicilly invasion could have happened much earlier.

 

[Something]

Should the war continue anywhay, Hitler would move the troops occupying northern France and send them to Egypte with the help of French reinforcements.

There is no way that Germany would send all his troops from occupied France to Egypt. I highly doubt the Germans will trust the French (politically and militarily) enough to defend Northern France.

The Franco-German alliance is quickly victorious in Egypte, then in the middle-east, where they join Iraq and Iran, Iraq annexes Kuwait. Britain may again, leave the war. Span would probably be convinced of joining.
With secure southern borders, turkey might well decide to join the axis against the soviet-union although such involvement wouyld not have the sucess of the european front.

Ah such fantasy. You fail to take into account logistics in this battle. There are very few coastal ports capable of supplying an army. That was one of the reasons why Rommel was desperate to capture Tobruk as he was operating out of Tunis. Take into account that the further the Axis beats back the British the longer and more vulnerable its supply lines are going to be while the allies will have it vice versa. Rommel had no hope of winning El Alamein. In fact Rommel actually lost MORE troops overall in the North African Campaign. Then your disregarding the Tenth Army stationed in the Middle-East . The Tenth Army could have reinforced the 8th Army as well as quickly taking control of Syria and Lebanon. The 10th army in OTL had 7 infantry divisions, 1 armour division, and several independent armour and motorized brigades (The British Empire and the Second World War pg. 164) and considering this timeline it would have been even larger. Iran by this time was already occuppied by the USSR and UK.

Seizure of the caucase would be made much easier by 1942, with Iranian and Turkish involvement.
Good chance that the soviet-union leave the war (temporarly at least) if the operation is sucessfull. Should Britain still be at war, India and eastern africa would be the next battle grounds.

Again you disregard logisitics and underestimate allied strength in the Middle-East. Really you would think that if they were in such dire traits they would reinforce the place

With england out of the war, German allies controlling north africa and continental europe, the US can´t get to Germany.

Sure

A bombs aren´t H bombs and Berlin isn´t Hiroshima or Nagasaki, small cities made of plywood. It would take years between the time when the first A bomb is produced and the time Germany is destroyed. Good luck maintaining airsuperiority over continental europe with the soviet-union out of the picture.

Heh the irony. YOU DID NOT DO THE RESEARCH.

Hiroshima had 381,000 pop at the beginning of the war. It was also relatively untouched in the war so many Japanese moved in to escape the bombings. A lot of buildings were constructed quite strong because of earthquakes in the region. The radius of total destruction was 1 mile which in dense cities would have killed many (note this is total destruction not all the afflicted areas) and then there's radiation. Nagasaki on the other hand had a lot of wood homes and even though the US used a more powerful atomic bomb on them suffered less casualties then Hiroshima. Also take in the radiation and nuclear fallout carried by the wind. Nukes even nukes as weak as these will cause a lot of damage.

Now be a good boy and listen to Blue Max when he tells you that the Soviet Union will not be knocked out. Stalin moved a lot of Russia's industry east of the Urals and even if Moscow fell, the USSR could have continued fighting. The Vichy French would not have been that helpful in the Eastern Front. You are extrapolating way too much. Also take in hand the massive airplane production in the United States and the fact that the RAF and USAAF would have crushed the Luftwaffe without the help of the Soviet Union. The RAF did it before the Soviet Union entered the war anyways.

Attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was what caused Japan´s surrender, never mind that Mandchuko had just been lost and that Korea was rapidly following (40% of Japanes casualties in WW2 was due to the few weeks of the soviet intervention) or even the naval victories of the last 3 years.

I demand you show evidence of this.


I can't tell if this is Vichy-wank or Nazi-wank...

 

[Something]

The Marine Nationale was almost entirely loyal to Vichy in 1940. If Vichy declares war to Britain as a result of Mers-el-Kabir, and signs a peace treaty and an alliance with Germany and Italy, those officers are going to obey what they regards as the legitimate government (even more so, since the FF don't exist) and join forces with the KM and RM, not hand their ships over to new enemy Churchill or sink them. The rest of the Fleet would indeed be quickly lost to Royal Navy attacks, but the French Mediterranean Fleet would surely remain intact and would soon combine with the Regia Marina. Their combination would give naval superiority to the Axis in the Mediterranean. The scenario you describe assumes a level of Free French-like radical antifascist sentiments (in a TL where the FF don't exist) that simply didn't exist in the Marine Nationale.

Where are you getting your information from? Considering the number of French ships that went to the allies in OTL (before the attack) your assumption is quite false. The reason why the Royal Navy went to Mers-el-Kébir was because the BULK of the remaining French s

 

[Aranfan]

Hey, Eurofed, did you ignore my final question on the first page or did you miss it?



Where was De Gaulle during the Blitzkrieg that took down France (I'm thinking of turning this into a TL)?

 

[Eurofed]

The B-36 which could fly round-trip from North America (Gander, Nfld) to Berlin could carry even H-bombs (once they arrived). OTL it first flew in '45, and entered service in '49, but it was delayed several times for other projects and could have been speeded up.

Well, after reading the problematic development history of the B-36, I'm rather skeptical that it could be speeded up substantially. Let's stick to the 1949 entry into service. This means about 5-6 years when America is practically forced to twiddle its thumbs about an unwinnable conventional war, waiting for the means to nuke continental Europe from North America. That's an awful lot of time, politically. I need to remind that the American public got awfully bored and sick of the military stalemate in Korea (against an enemy they regarded any bit as evol and dangerous as the Nazis) and clamored for end to the war after just a couple years.

Moreover, it's not like fascist Europe is going to twiddle its thumbs in the meanwhile, either. If the Americans still use nukes on Japan, the Nazis shall know that they exist, work, and they are coming. The Italo-German-French nuclear and intercontinental missile project is going to get absolute priority and the Axis physicists shall be whipped up into producing results or else (and they shall be disabused of many of their previous false asumptions after witnessing Hiroshima). Even if the Axis cannot get nukes by 1949, very likely they can get intercontinental missiles. A chemical or radiological warhead ICBM that can reach the East Coast is an effective enough deterrent, and that ends America's Hot War ideological crusade, say hello to MAD and Cold War.