July 3 , 1940. Mers el Kebir

Churchill placed the Vichy Navy in an unenviable situation.

In fear for what the French Fleet would do if the Germans attempted to sieze it, Churchill decided to gain its assistance in the Allied cause, beome Neutral, well away from Europe or to be sunk where they lay.

The Vichy chose to defy Churchill, and suffered heavy losses from Sea and Air bombardment.

What if???

In your opinions, what chances were there of the Vichy Navy chosing either
a) Join the Royal Navy
b) Demobilize and sail to the French West Indies ie Martinique
c) Demobilize and sail to a US port
d) Fight.

And if option b or c, what do you think would be the reaction if a U-Boat would see the British escort and accidently put a few torps into the Dunkerque ??

 

The odds of anything but a situation ending in battle was almost inevidable. The French, under Admiral Gensoul, were not going to make a local decision. As the state of the French Admiralty in France was in flux it was impossible to reach Admiral Darlan for any decision (which likely would have been negative in any case).
The British under Admiral Somerville became less and less patient with the French and finally simply made threats.
Since the French across the board where not interned in a British or neutral port generally refused to surrender or demobilize on their own it is unlikely that a major force such as was at mers el Kebir would simply acquess to any demands made of them by the British. A fight was inevidable.

 

Thanks TAG.

I was hoping someone would have some fanciful theory on how the Vichy navy would accept asylum in either Martinique or the USA.

In doing so a UBoat would sink Dunkerque and so inflame Vichy hatred for the Germans that the US and Brits could "walk in" to French North Africa.

I am trying to link a British capture of Tripolitania in April 1941 with an Invasion of France in 1943.

 

If the Vichy government could not handle its position close to "neutral" I´d think Adolf would invade the country. So losing the fleet otherwise than by "fighting" would probably mean Germans entering the rest of France in my opinion. Only low number of troops available would stop Hitler from doing that.

 

So in June 40 with the Wermacht taking a short breather after clearing the Atlantic Coast they would have just kept on heading south?

In April 1941 with Marita & Barbarossa maybe things would be a little different, I'll have to re-think a bit.

 

many of the prominent members of the Vichy regime were not so bad oriented towards Germany, than against allies.

I think there was little chances for a good decision or compromise, and the allies could not make such a gamble.

IMHO they made the good decision.

 

For Allies, read the British.

Just finished The Vichy Regime 1940-44 by Robert Aron & Georgette Elgey, yes, there appears that some arrangement could have been cobbled together. Iff they had the time which in July 1940 didnt exsist.

One of Darlan's gripes is that the Brits didnt believe him, when he said the Fleet would never be taken by the Germans or Italians.

 

Again, Darlan was an anglophobic prick.

since the end of June, the Anglo French relations degraded seriously (for obvious reasons).

Of course, things could have gone smoother, like in Alexandria I believe, but the Brits had many reasons to believe Darlan was not sincere and was just buying time (anyway, at this time, he was convinced that it was now UK's turn to fall to Germany).

Later on, when Darlan spoke against the Toulon French fleet to fall into German hands, he was not in charge anymore.

He was in Alger in november 1942, to visit his dying son, and got captured by the insurgent who made a putsch to prepare Torch landing.

Even at this moment, he managed to send 2 messages to the Naval HQ in Alger (not under resistance's control at this time) ordering to oppose to the Allies. One of these messages, written by his hand, still exists.

This is only on the 10th and 11th of november that he will order to cease fire, while he was under US custody, after hundreds casualties both French and allied.

Such a man was clearly hard to trust, back at the time of Mers El Kebir.

[ 30. October 2006, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: chocapic ]