Good evening.
I'm Loïc Mahé, indeed one of the three creators of FFO.
Since there are no plans at the moment to publish our story in English, I've decided to post here a very summarized timeline of FFO and of course explain our choices and answer questions.
I hope my English isn't too rusty!
Just a few words for the moment:
- about the POD (turning point): the (fictional) car accident where Paul Reynaud's mistress (H. de Portes) and his collaborator Paul de Villelume die occurs on 6th June (please note that the lady died OTL on 28th in a car accident after Reynaud was replaced by Pétain). Of course, this is not going to change history immediately, but it is known that these two had a bad influence on Reynaud at a critical point (after Dunkirk and the breakthrough of the Weygand Line). So, things continue as OTL for a few days (govt leaving Paris, plans to evacuate men and weapons to North Africa, evacuation of the gold reserves, etc).
On the 10th, Weygand tries to force the govt to ask for an armistice since he believes the failure comes from politicians, not the army. A more determined Reynaud, backed by De Gaulle and others, can fire Weygand and replace him by Huntziger (this was considered OTL).
On the front, there are some marginal changes which begin to occur a minor delay for the Germans (from a couple of hours to one day max), because the new high command (Huntziger) takes somes decisions with the clear idea to buy time in order to help the evacuation.
The major POD occurs in the night of June 12th to 13th, with Pétain trying to impose his views and being arrested as a traitor (please note Clemenceau took similar actions in 1918).
After this, changes become more radical, but it has to be noted that no miracle is possible and that the Germans will mostly be delayed by logistics and the last French potent forces (including aircrafts, as more and more D-520 are available), which won't have been backstabbed by Pétain "the hero of Verdun" asking to stop fighting.
- why is FFO not very far from OTL? Well, we had the idea to simulate the whole WW2 on a detailed basis and we didn't want to allow a heroic France beating in the end Germany (and Italy) alone, or even with Great Britain, since these two important countries had lost the land battle in May 1940. So, no best case for France. Moreover, in order to draw a plausible simulation, we had to rely on historical documents and no invent everything in our fertile minds. So, no production of tanks, planes, etc in North Africa (and that's only an example), even if this *might* have been possible (on the mid/long term).
Of course, every French, starting from myself, would love to see the Germans stopped dead in the Ardennes and Germany loosing the war in 1941, against opponents which have, with enough time, much more men and money. Or even before 1941, if the Wehrmacht overthrows Hitler if the battle of France is lost. But this would be another story and could be writen only with a very simplified point of view (pure fiction), because materials would be lacking . For example, we have a rough idea of the French production in 1941, but not after. Another example: what will do Stalin if France is not beaten in 1940?
That's enough for now!