Weygand turns down Armistice 1940

When General Weygand was told that France would have to hand over all the french ethnic minorities like the jews and the refugees for peace, Weygand who was not present voiced objections.

He argued with Jodl about removing them for hours before allowing Armistice to be signed.

However because the representatives did not have enough military or civil authority they needed his writted orders to sign the Armistice.

Had Weygand stuck to his morales, and rejected the Armistice how would the war have gone differently?

 

The French armed forces were fairly decisively defeated by June 22nd when the Armistce was signed. I don't think how refusing it would delay any occupation by the Germans. Maybe there would have been some more extensive guerilla fighting but basically the French would have been defeated anyway.

 

Goering used to say that the Armistice with France was one of Hitlers worst mistakes.
He tought all of France should have been occupied in 1940, and Germany should also have conquered french north africa(via Spain).
Italians should have attacked Tunisia.
In june 1940, Franco was willing to enter war on Germany's side(in october he wasn't anymore).
Britain would most probably have lost all the mediteranean

It'a a bit ironic, but the fact that France did not continue the war in june 1940 actually saved Britain.

 

However Churchill thought the vast resources of the French Empire would have done a lot to help, he thought the French Fleet would have also been very useful, and that there were enough french troops remaining to be very effective provided they were evacuated. De Gaulle gave exactly the same sentiment.

 

Of course french navy + fleet would have been very helpfull to Britain.
The question is however if the allies would have been able to defend the french empire.

If Spain remained neutral, they most probably could, if Spain choose to enter the war(which it very certainly would have done, had France continued the fight), Germany most certainly would have conquered french north africa.


By signing the armistice, french governement actually assured the neutrality of the empire(which later allowed more and more territories to join De Gaulle).

Hitler was willing to led France get away with not too harsh terms in 1940 because he was not interested in continuing the war against France and Britain.
His real target was the Soviet Union.

 

I disagree -
Had Spain entered the war, it would simply have been another Italy - basically soldiers with obsolete equipment fighting half-heartedly due to lack of interest in an unpopular war, exaggerated due to the still-healing wounds of the Civil War - but without the decent Navy & Air Force.
The only Axis advantage in gaining Spain would be a few extra numbers (soon nullified) and probable conquest of Gibralter (far more serious).

 

It would have allowed the germans to "close" the mediteranean by occupying Gibraltar.
And it would have enabled the germans to transit trough their territory to attack allied positions in Morocco and Algeria.

 

Nope - the Spanish would have occupied Gibralter. The Germans might at most use it as an air force base for Fw200s and a naval base for subs, but that is all. Can you imagine the Spanish finally reclaiming Gibralter then handing it over to the Germans?
The Germans would then have used the Med as an 'Axis Lake', and all British supplies would have to come overseas via Suez or overland.
However, we would then use Gib as a practice Amphibious landing (instead of Dieppe). As the garrison is Spanish, we will have an advantage in equipment, but they will fight bloody hard to keep Gib.

 

It's amazing how deep a grievance of 1714 can run...

 

Roel, go look at Northern Ireland. That dates back to the 12th Century... :cry: :roll:

 

Yeah, but in that case, the British went through a lot of trouble deliberately making it worse...

 

My point is that if the axis powers capture Gibraltar(and french north africa), Britain gets into a very nasty situation in the mediteranean.
The loss of Gibraltar will most certainly lead to the loss of Malta too.(Supplying Malta would become rather impossible).
The loss of Malta will probably lead to the loss of Egypt.

I do not really see how the allies could have reconquered Gibraltar.
Had the axis captured french north africa, an allied amphibious assault against Gibraltar would not have been an option anymore.
An allied amphibious force would have been attacked by air from Morocco and from Spain.

 

You guys forget that Britain didn't use Gibralter during the year it was alone, all British Shipping did come around the Cape.

Also don't forget that there were so many french troops left that to get them to North Africa (Which Reynaud assigned to De Gaulle before he recieved a vote of no confidence, and Petein took over) would have required help from the Royal Navy.

That is a lot of soldiers and equiptment left, I think they would have been able to stand up to the Germans in French North Africa, afterall the British did it in Egypt without them(Unless you include De Gaulles army which didn't yet exist), and the Germans may have sent the same force, to attack more soldiers.

 

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After june 1940, the question was not which territories in the Mediteranen Germany could conquer, but which it wanted to conquer.

I think there is no doubt that if Hitler had chosen to conquer the Middle east rather than attacking Russia, there was not much that could have stopped him in doing so.

 

Agreed - up to a point.

If we lost Gibraltar and Morocco was in Axis hands, obviously there is no way we could bring convoys through into the Med.
This would force us to bring everything round the Cape - which is almost a safer route. Consider it - convoys going from Gib to Malta have to pass insanely close to Sicily. Convoys coming from Suez do not. If we could keep Egypt reinforced then we could also keep a high Naval presence there too - including Aircraft Carriers. These could be put to use defending convoys or even flying planes to Malta - though that could possibly be done from shore. Delivery of aircraft could be achieved by enlarging the practice of flying them up through Africa.
Malta could (potentially) be kept better supplied and at lower risk, if we were free to concentrate on one half of the Med. Yes, the Germans too could concentrate on that half of the Med, but would have to leave a sizeable chunk of forces to guard the Gibralter Straight, just in case the mad Englanders tried getting through that way.

However, if the Germans did decide to go all-out at taking Egypt etc I doubt we would have stood for long.
I do reckon that the Germans would have a rough time of ruling the area later... Their anti-Jewish stance would win intial support (anti-Jewish riots etc began in Palestine in the 1930s), but the fact that they rated Arabs as sub-human (well, everybody except North-Eastern Europeans, really!) would ensure they soon lost that. And we can all guess how the Arabs would react... I reckon we would have been happy to supply an awful lot of arms etc for the ready-made 'resistance movement'.