French forces after 1940

I suppose you mean Toulon

 

Yes, Toulon was what I meant. Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't check any references and went on memory on that one. My mistake there.

 

While Petain had his sentence commuted, his Prime Minister Pierre Laval was executed - Laval was 'infamous' for his public pronouncements on the course of the war, including the widely reported " je souhaite la victoire allemande .." which I think he uttered some time after Stalingrad; " I am hoping for German victory.."

Aside from Vichy policy towards French Jews, Laval institued the hated 'STO' - Service Travail Obligatoire- which involved sending young French men - hundreds and thousands of them - to work in German factories ..

 

I think under the circumstances, it's fair to say that the negotiations failed because they were sabotaged by the French Admiral.

The British gave the French admiral Gensoul 4 options:
(a) Sail with the British and continue the fight against the Germans.
(b) Sail under British control to be interned at a British port.
(c) Sail them with us with reduced crews to Martinique or Guadalupe in the West Indies
(d) or entrust them to the United States until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated.

....Otherwise the Royal navy will sink them.

Genesoul did not communicate these options to Darlan, instead he presented the British demands as "Surrender your ships or be sunk".

By the time the "threat presented itself" (ie German commandos seizing the French ships) it would be too late to do anything about it.
Had the French fleet sortied, the RN may well have lost a couple of battleships.
The RN had 2 battleships & 1 battlecruiser, the French had 2 battleships & 2 battlecruisers.
The British began firing when it was observed that the French ships were building up steam, a clear indication that they intended to sortie.

As it turned out the battlecruiser Strasbourg was able to slip by the British and escape to France. (she was much faster than the British battleships)

And despite the French having ample & clear warning that there was a danger (after Torch) the attack very nearly succeeded.

Suppose Robin hadn't been able to contact Dornon?
Suppose the Germans hadn't got lost & delayed?


Let's say that the French armistice had allowed the Germans to set up an airbase in the West Indies, and in 1942 they have some Fw200 stationed there. The French also have a couple of atomic bombs there. (1,200 miles from the USA)
However they promise that they will not let the A-bombs fall into the hands of the Nazis. (despite having broken agreements before.)

If you were the President of the US, would you take the risk that they will keep their word, and allow them to keep the A-bombs? Or would you order the bombs neutralized?

Had the French fleet fallen into Nazi control in 1940 it would arguably be worse than the US having a couple of cities nuked.

Even if the risk was only 10% or even 5%, the British couldn't take that risk, as it could have tipped the balance in the war at that stage.

 

Just watched a documentary (by BBC?) on pay-TV here in Aus. I suggested that Adm Gensoul badly handled the incident. Apparently his pride was offended that a mere captain (a former naval attache to Paris) was sent by the RN to deliver the ultimatium. It also suggested that the driving force behind Churchill's tough stance on the French fleet was a desire to impress the Americans that Britian was determined to fight on and prepared to do whatever it took, even fire on former allies. It noted the US had initially refused to transfer the old destroyers to the RN but after Mer el Kibber it did.

 

Talk about impressing the Americans. I dont think the Americans were too impressed with the French, I heard that General Eisenhour wanted to have De gaulle shot, but Churchill talked him out of it (Later on after the war De Gaulle re-payed us in full by blocking our move to join the rest of Europe in the common market) I think Ike said that he did not trust De Gaulle and he would stab the Allies in the back.

 

That was DeGaul though I don't think he was considered to be representative of the French. I suspect it would have taken someone fairly "prickly" to do a good job of really representing the French interest and in the long run that was important not just to French but Europe as well.

 

I think De Gaulle had a love hate relationship with Churchill, didnt De Gaulle live in Northern Ireland when he was in Exile in the UK, I wonder if he did that to stay off English soil and keep out of Churchills way.

 

In fact the whole sentence was "I wish the Victory of Germany vs Bolshevism" which wasn't exactly the same thing but the last part of his sentence was later forgotten.

 

This is getting silly and fully out of topic. So de gaulle was going to be shot and saved by Churchill and then blocked the admission of te UK in the E.U..... .Mind you, I think he really was trying to do you a favour. Had you joined in earlier you might have the Euro now and depend on the health of the weakest of the Euor zone.

Seriously this thread is about the Armistice army.

 

I am by no means a fan of De Gaulle, but we should give him is due. Had there been no war he might have retired as an obscure field officer in the French army. As it was fate and circumstance placed him in a station well above his pay grade to act as commander of Free-French forces, quasi head of state, and figurehead of French resistance. All without any serious resources to speak of.

He was well aware he needed first Britain, then the US far more than they needed him, or the forces at his command. He bluffed and blustered enough that when the shooting was done, France was treated like one of the victorious powers. No small feat. He may have acted at times as a supreme jerk, but I am sure in part he felt he needed to to insure France's place in the post war world.

 

Now we're getting into "what if" territory here. I didn't know the French were attempting to develop an atomic bomb. And even if Vichy let the Germans establish FW 200 bases, or even u-boat bases at Martinique I believe a USN carrier task force could tend to it properly in a timely manner once we got involved in the war directly. I'm sure some US Marines would be more than happy to throw in with them too.

I appreciate your position on the British decision to attack the French navy when they did, but I still believe they did more damage by doing that than by taking a "wait and see" posture. The Vichy navy would have been hampered by the loss of sufficient oil supplies and proper air cover, much like the Italian Regia Marina. And the Vichy navy would have a hard time getting past Gibraltar. And if they did manage to break out into the open Atlantic, not being a true blue water navy, would be chased down by the Royal Navy like the KM capital ships, or pinned down in port. They would not be able to help one iota with Operation Sea Lion.

 

You are right Skipper I should have not included the part about things not involed with WW2, but is was the period after ww2 when the so called Allies (America, Britain, France & Russia) seemed to forget all what they had been through and fell out, did the U.S. and the French ever see eye to eye after 1945 I dont know.

 

I don't think the allies showed any real signs of forgetting "all they had been through". They did on the other hand have different priorities and goals. Certainly the US and France have cooperated on numerous equations post war.

 

I think stalin had no intention of giving up the countries the Soviet army had taken, and I think he would have fought his former allies to keep them, he knew that after 6 years of war the allies would not take the Soviets on in a full scale war, I have seen stuff on the history channel about Berlin in 1945, some Russian soldiers were a little bit aggressive towards certain allied troops, some even felt intimidated by them.

 

the whole sentence is here ...." je souhaite la victoire de l'Allemagne....because without German victory Bolshevism will become established everywhere.."

YouTube - "Je souhaite la victoire de l'Allemagne..." - Discours de Pierre Laval le 22 juin 1942

These were the words of the French Prime Minister in June 1942 as he continued to 'sell' alliance with the Nazis to his countrymen. At home Vichy leaders went to great lengths to carry out what they perceived to be German 'policies', 'work service' or forced labour for German factories, deportations of Jews etc. To all intents and purposes France had effectively 'changed sides' when Petain signed the armistice and then shook Hitler's hand at Montoire. And while some French servicemen were unsure where their duty lay, most were convinced that theirs was to carry on fighting for a regime that was now essentially at war with Britain...

 

That doesn't account for Austria though does it? Stalin was certainly going to keep everything he could but he wasn't going to risk a major war over a relativly small chunk of land.

 

I dont think Stalin would have given up all of Austria in 1945 after all the Red Army had lost 17,000 men in the Battle of Vienna alone.