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Let's discuss France Fights On a.k.a. the Fantasque Time Line
- Thread starter Hendryk
- Start date
Fred the Great
New member
So I read much of the FFO work on the Warships/NavWeaps Discussion Boards some years ago. There is no doubt it has involved a lot of work, and I think it deserves some respect on that level. That said, I do have some criticisms.
What Hendryk says here was always stated by Fantasque and others involved. I don't like this kind of agenda-driven writing. It's a work of fiction - let's be honest about that - it's not going to heal French pride by showing how things ought to have been. If anything, to me, if it succeeds in that objective - of showing what ought to have been - it might only make the wound worse.
I think this is a very good point. And I would add the minimalist changes and the convergence - killing off historical figures in a similar manner, time and place - idea are all part of a claim continually made that everything is the plausible, if not the most plausible, outcome flowing from the POD. There's a degree of arrogance, without meaning any offence, that came through in the discussion for mine that basically says the authors were writing the definitive "what if" history of what would have occurred if France had fought on.
As above, that's exactly what it is, and the authors own that, so fair play in that sense. But that's not a positive either.
What Hendryk says here was always stated by Fantasque and others involved. I don't like this kind of agenda-driven writing. It's a work of fiction - let's be honest about that - it's not going to heal French pride by showing how things ought to have been. If anything, to me, if it succeeds in that objective - of showing what ought to have been - it might only make the wound worse.
I think this is a very good point. And I would add the minimalist changes and the convergence - killing off historical figures in a similar manner, time and place - idea are all part of a claim continually made that everything is the plausible, if not the most plausible, outcome flowing from the POD. There's a degree of arrogance, without meaning any offence, that came through in the discussion for mine that basically says the authors were writing the definitive "what if" history of what would have occurred if France had fought on.
As above, that's exactly what it is, and the authors own that, so fair play in that sense. But that's not a positive either.
Good evening.
In all of our major decisions, we probably always choosed the median way and certainly not extreme solutions. For example: what about Spain: does Franco joins Hitler in an active war when France leaves for North Africe? If not, will the Germans try to break towards North Africa through a hostile country? Will Japan suddenly give up her expansionist policy? Same thing for Soviet Union?
I don't see the point with killing (or saving) historical figures: these are classical turning points. What about stories "if Alexander the Great or Ceasar doesn't die so young" or "if Christopher Columbus' ships get lost during his first travel", etc.
We could have choosen another POD and having the German caught when exiting the Ardennes, if the French 7th army had kept a central position instead of being sent helping the Dutch. War would probably have evolved towards a far more static story in which Germany begins to have very serious financial problems and the Allies receive lots of planes and tanks in 1941.
In fact, the choice (leaving for French North Africa or not) could very well have been made in reality, but Pétain stepped in.
Loïc
Well, it's a mix of agenda-driven and wargaming (all major operations are wargamed). I'm not sure there can another form of simulation for a world-wide story. Classical (commercial) wargames (even if good games BTW) are lacking lots of details. Moreover, most are designed so that France's defeat in 1940 is almost unavoidable. Because many are American or Australian wargames and if the western allies resist in 1940, the importance of US or Australian contribution to the war would be far less important.Fred the Great said:
Surely not! There are lots of other possibilities to change history. For example, you can get Rommel killed in a French counter-attack, which almost occured in reality. You can have Gamelin breaking a leg in a staircase in Vincennes and another top-commander deciding to keep the 7th army in a central position in May 40, etc.Fred the Great said:
In all of our major decisions, we probably always choosed the median way and certainly not extreme solutions. For example: what about Spain: does Franco joins Hitler in an active war when France leaves for North Africe? If not, will the Germans try to break towards North Africa through a hostile country? Will Japan suddenly give up her expansionist policy? Same thing for Soviet Union?
I don't see the point with killing (or saving) historical figures: these are classical turning points. What about stories "if Alexander the Great or Ceasar doesn't die so young" or "if Christopher Columbus' ships get lost during his first travel", etc.
Definitely not! Think about that: by loosing continental France, the country which had the so-called best army of the world is still facing a tragic defeat and this event will have tremendous consequences all around the world. France and GB can't win the war alone any more and USA and Soviet Union will still emerge as major powers after the war.Burton K Wheeler said:
We could have choosen another POD and having the German caught when exiting the Ardennes, if the French 7th army had kept a central position instead of being sent helping the Dutch. War would probably have evolved towards a far more static story in which Germany begins to have very serious financial problems and the Allies receive lots of planes and tanks in 1941.
In fact, the choice (leaving for French North Africa or not) could very well have been made in reality, but Pétain stepped in.
Loïc
Fred the Great
New member
That's another aspect I did not enjoy. Call me old fashioned but I think a plot should be determined by the author(s), not some game of random chance. There was also - in the discussions from the old days on the other forum I referenced - an attitude of "well that was the outcome of the wargame so that's what we have to go with", and even an implication at times that the wargaming outcome was, by definition, the most likely outcome. It's a work of fiction - and should be owned as such, not presented as anything else.
Good evening.
Of course (but saddly for us French) it's a fiction. About the wargaming side, please note that major operation were played several times (for example, the naval battle in the northern Atlantic which sees the Bismarck sunk) or the Allied landing in southern France in 1943 and the median result was chosen.
Of course (but saddly for us French) it's a fiction. About the wargaming side, please note that major operation were played several times (for example, the naval battle in the northern Atlantic which sees the Bismarck sunk) or the Allied landing in southern France in 1943 and the median result was chosen.
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Next part: 1941
January 1941 :
- Germans and Italians continue to gather forces for operation Merkur, among them German paratroops and mountain troops.
- Germans and Italians begin to target Malta and French airfields in Tunisia (Malta-Tunis Blitz) to create a diversion for Merkur
- Fall of Addis-Abeba and end of Italian East Africa (although troops in remote places will fight until May)
February 1941 :
- To defend Tunis and Malta, the French have to remove some fighters groups from Corsica and Sardinia
- The Luftwaffe begins to target airfields in Corsica and Sardinia
- Greece joins the Allies and attacks Italian Albania, forcing Mussolini to divert some assets there
- Fearing an Allied breakthrough towards Romania and her oilfields, Hitler orders to plan the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece
- German and Italian paratroopers are dropped over Corsica and Sardinia, followed by naval landings ; fierce and indecisive combats on both islands (loss of French BB Béarn)
- A fourth FliegerKorps is deployed in Italy.
March 1941 :
- French troops, despite reinforcements, are unable to hold Corsica and Sardinia which fall in enemy hands in the middle of the month. Heavy losses for the German paratroopers, transport planes and Italian navy
- Military alliance between Japan and Thailand (Siam), leading to consultations between France, Great-Britain and the Dutch in-exile govt ; Siamese ultimatum to France to give up border provinces
- Italian troops in Albania are repulsed by Greek forces ; arrival of German reinforcements
- German troops begin to concentrate north of Yugoslavia and Germany exerts political pressure
- Allies begins to send reinforcements to Greece
- Defensive agreement between Unites-Sates, Great-Britain, France and Australia against Japanese expansionism
- First fights between France and Thailand
- Cash and Carry replaced by Lend-Lease
April 1941
- Beginning of German counter-attack (Rommel) in Albania
- Heavy fighting between Thailand and France
- German ultimatum to Yugoslavia ordering open access to the Greek border ; after acceptance by the Yugoslav govt., uprising of the Army and new govt. favorable to the Allies
May 1941
- German attack on Yugoslavia and Greece, launched from Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria
- Difficult progress, despite desertion of Croatian soldiers, for the German troops, due to the mountainous landscape and the strong French forces
- Cease-fire between Thailand and France, with Japan as arbitrator
- First joint French and British raids on Ploesti
- Naval battle of the Ionian Sea between the Italian fleet and a British-French group: sinking of the Italian BB Vittorio Veneto and old French BB Bretagne
- Naval battle of Danemark Straits: sinking of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen on the German side and Hood on the allied side, with French Richelieyu damaged
- Yugoslav and French troops retreat to northern Greece, but Hitler commits two additional PanzerDivisions (which were training in Poland for Barbarossa); temporary collapse of the Yugoslav road network and German logistics
June 1941
- Nationalist uprising in Irak, supported by German and Italy, quickly broken by British and French forces
- Very heavy fightings in northern Greece, but slow German advance to Athens ; Allied forces evacuate towards Peloponnese
July 1941 :
- End of the battle for continental Greece. As the Allies still hold Crete, Rhodes and part of the Cyclades, important air battles and many small naval actions occur in the Aegean
- Japanese ultimatum asking for the end of commercial traffic between French Indochina and (free) China and demilitarization of northern Indochina
August 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues at a lower pace, the Luftwaffe being unable to suppress her Allied opponents in the area to allow a landing on Crete (while German paratroops are still recovering from the bloody battle of Corsica)
- Hitler decides to postpone Barbarossa in 1942 (even if this was already clear since several weeks in the German high command)
- Argentia Conference between the USA, Great-Britain and France
- Allied decision to send reinforcements to French Indochina (one armored brigade, air groups and several cruisers, destroyers and submarines) and Singapore (several aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers, troops)
- Japan begins the construction of airfields in the Paracel islands and sends reinforcements to Thailand
September 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Plans for a joint allied (ABDF, American-British-Dutch-French) defense in Asia
- Italian maiale attacks on Alexandria, Gibraltar and Algiers: several battleships and cruisers are damaged
- First German attempt to send submarines to the Mediterranean, which is a partial failure due to combined British-French guard at Gibraltar Straits
October 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Japan redeploys units from the Kwantung Army towards Thailand (this comes as a reaction to France holding firm in Indochina)
November 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Allied naval and air bombardment on Genoa harbor and dockyards, several Italian ships under repairs (after Taranto) or under construction are heavily damaged. Several deception attacks on Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and South of France.
- Reinforcements for Indochina : a light USN surface group (1 CL, 4 DD) and 2 Commonwealth squadrons.
- First NA-73 (FFO Mustang-I) delivered to French airforce.
December 1941 :
- On the 6th/7th, simultaneous Japanese air attacks on Pearl Harbor (same as OTL), the Philippines (same as OTL) and French Indochina. The British naval base in Singapore is targeted by midgets submarines (1 CVL sunk and 2 BB damaged).
- On the next days, Japanese landing in the Philippines and French Indochina, after a small naval battle which sees a US-French force defeated, and air attacks on Burma and Malaya ; naval battle in the Malacca Strait, a small British is defeated by the IJN
- Japanese advance towards Dutch East Indies
- At the end of the month, an important Japanese fleet sails towards Malaya ; a very important naval battle occurs in the Southern China Sea : a British/French fleet which is trying to intercept is overwhelmed by Japanese land and carrier-based planes and a night surface action follows. This is a Japanese victory, since the landing at Kuching can't be prevented, but at a very high cost (3 BB lost and 3 others damaged ; 1 CV and 2 BB lost for the British).
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Preparatory work for the arrival of US troops in North Africa
- US-Soviet discussions
January 1941 :
- Germans and Italians continue to gather forces for operation Merkur, among them German paratroops and mountain troops.
- Germans and Italians begin to target Malta and French airfields in Tunisia (Malta-Tunis Blitz) to create a diversion for Merkur
- Fall of Addis-Abeba and end of Italian East Africa (although troops in remote places will fight until May)
February 1941 :
- To defend Tunis and Malta, the French have to remove some fighters groups from Corsica and Sardinia
- The Luftwaffe begins to target airfields in Corsica and Sardinia
- Greece joins the Allies and attacks Italian Albania, forcing Mussolini to divert some assets there
- Fearing an Allied breakthrough towards Romania and her oilfields, Hitler orders to plan the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece
- German and Italian paratroopers are dropped over Corsica and Sardinia, followed by naval landings ; fierce and indecisive combats on both islands (loss of French BB Béarn)
- A fourth FliegerKorps is deployed in Italy.
March 1941 :
- French troops, despite reinforcements, are unable to hold Corsica and Sardinia which fall in enemy hands in the middle of the month. Heavy losses for the German paratroopers, transport planes and Italian navy
- Military alliance between Japan and Thailand (Siam), leading to consultations between France, Great-Britain and the Dutch in-exile govt ; Siamese ultimatum to France to give up border provinces
- Italian troops in Albania are repulsed by Greek forces ; arrival of German reinforcements
- German troops begin to concentrate north of Yugoslavia and Germany exerts political pressure
- Allies begins to send reinforcements to Greece
- Defensive agreement between Unites-Sates, Great-Britain, France and Australia against Japanese expansionism
- First fights between France and Thailand
- Cash and Carry replaced by Lend-Lease
April 1941
- Beginning of German counter-attack (Rommel) in Albania
- Heavy fighting between Thailand and France
- German ultimatum to Yugoslavia ordering open access to the Greek border ; after acceptance by the Yugoslav govt., uprising of the Army and new govt. favorable to the Allies
May 1941
- German attack on Yugoslavia and Greece, launched from Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria
- Difficult progress, despite desertion of Croatian soldiers, for the German troops, due to the mountainous landscape and the strong French forces
- Cease-fire between Thailand and France, with Japan as arbitrator
- First joint French and British raids on Ploesti
- Naval battle of the Ionian Sea between the Italian fleet and a British-French group: sinking of the Italian BB Vittorio Veneto and old French BB Bretagne
- Naval battle of Danemark Straits: sinking of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen on the German side and Hood on the allied side, with French Richelieyu damaged
- Yugoslav and French troops retreat to northern Greece, but Hitler commits two additional PanzerDivisions (which were training in Poland for Barbarossa); temporary collapse of the Yugoslav road network and German logistics
June 1941
- Nationalist uprising in Irak, supported by German and Italy, quickly broken by British and French forces
- Very heavy fightings in northern Greece, but slow German advance to Athens ; Allied forces evacuate towards Peloponnese
July 1941 :
- End of the battle for continental Greece. As the Allies still hold Crete, Rhodes and part of the Cyclades, important air battles and many small naval actions occur in the Aegean
- Japanese ultimatum asking for the end of commercial traffic between French Indochina and (free) China and demilitarization of northern Indochina
August 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues at a lower pace, the Luftwaffe being unable to suppress her Allied opponents in the area to allow a landing on Crete (while German paratroops are still recovering from the bloody battle of Corsica)
- Hitler decides to postpone Barbarossa in 1942 (even if this was already clear since several weeks in the German high command)
- Argentia Conference between the USA, Great-Britain and France
- Allied decision to send reinforcements to French Indochina (one armored brigade, air groups and several cruisers, destroyers and submarines) and Singapore (several aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers, troops)
- Japan begins the construction of airfields in the Paracel islands and sends reinforcements to Thailand
September 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Plans for a joint allied (ABDF, American-British-Dutch-French) defense in Asia
- Italian maiale attacks on Alexandria, Gibraltar and Algiers: several battleships and cruisers are damaged
- First German attempt to send submarines to the Mediterranean, which is a partial failure due to combined British-French guard at Gibraltar Straits
October 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Japan redeploys units from the Kwantung Army towards Thailand (this comes as a reaction to France holding firm in Indochina)
November 1941 :
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Allied naval and air bombardment on Genoa harbor and dockyards, several Italian ships under repairs (after Taranto) or under construction are heavily damaged. Several deception attacks on Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and South of France.
- Reinforcements for Indochina : a light USN surface group (1 CL, 4 DD) and 2 Commonwealth squadrons.
- First NA-73 (FFO Mustang-I) delivered to French airforce.
December 1941 :
- On the 6th/7th, simultaneous Japanese air attacks on Pearl Harbor (same as OTL), the Philippines (same as OTL) and French Indochina. The British naval base in Singapore is targeted by midgets submarines (1 CVL sunk and 2 BB damaged).
- On the next days, Japanese landing in the Philippines and French Indochina, after a small naval battle which sees a US-French force defeated, and air attacks on Burma and Malaya ; naval battle in the Malacca Strait, a small British is defeated by the IJN
- Japanese advance towards Dutch East Indies
- At the end of the month, an important Japanese fleet sails towards Malaya ; a very important naval battle occurs in the Southern China Sea : a British/French fleet which is trying to intercept is overwhelmed by Japanese land and carrier-based planes and a night surface action follows. This is a Japanese victory, since the landing at Kuching can't be prevented, but at a very high cost (3 BB lost and 3 others damaged ; 1 CV and 2 BB lost for the British).
- Battle in the Aegean continues
- Preparatory work for the arrival of US troops in North Africa
- US-Soviet discussions
Does it? It's been some time since I read a summary of the plot that someone posted over on AH.com but IIRC as part of fighting on a large number of troops with at least personal weapons, aircraft, and industry in the form of machine tools and workers are evacuated to North Africa. With no surrender and therefore no Attack on Mers-el-Kabir they also retain their fleet as well as the large gold reserves that were sent to West Africa and the Caribbean. All of which makes them substantially stronger than De Gaulle when he occupied North Africa in our timeline, with few French troops he needed to and was successfully able to raise native units without having to offer any concessions. So why would the government need to offer concessions from a position of greater strength? It does come across a bit as the authors deciding to use it as an excuse to hand wave away a rather divisive and embarrassing future situation. As I said however I haven't read the full story so maybe it's explained there.
A slight digression but how did some of the private companies like Breguet and Marcel Bloch manage, if they did, to avoid being nationalised? My French is quite frankly atrocious so trying to follow some of the on-line sources is a bit tricky, especially when a number of them appear to be contradictory.
I recently tried to wrap my brain around the SNCAs, for the FTL. It just blew my mind. Mind you, Bloch and Potez used Jacques Chirac father (how about that) who was a very clever banker and broker, to get around the Front Populaire nationalizations. Not only did they managed to save - or re-create, or even duplicate ! - their former companies, but they also managed to get a boatload of government money in the process.
For example, by 1938 there were somewhat TWO Potez. Very ironically, the Potez-SNCA was still directed by... Henry Potez himself, but their was a brand new, private Potez managed by Chirac father.
The bitting irony is that both Potez and Bloch were leftists (Rad-Soc, radical / socialists), in the sense they leaned toward the Front Populaire ideals, even if it wrecked and played havoc with their companies.
The French 3rd Republic was very, very bizarre at times.
Artaxerxes
Once upon a Britain dreary
- Location
- #VALUE!
Logistically how does this work?
Don't quote the entire post like this, I felt you asked about logistics of every single event Loic mentionned.
It has already been explained many times in this thread. Let's suppose your house burn to the ground. You are gently invited to a friend house, just because this peculiar friend is a gentleman. Yet the house ain't perfect, but will you complain ? No. You just thank your friend, and try not be a nuisance.
Well, the Metropole, moved to Algeria, feel the same. Surely enough, there are many narrow-minded, racist settlers. But when compared to the native algerians, they are a minority (perhaps 50 000 people to million). So guess why ? the French government, while no teletubbies by any mean, feel compelled to make a positive move toward the native algerian people that graciously accepted to shelter them after France worst defeat in a millenia.
There is also the fact that the entire government and bureaucracy can now see how tense the situation in Algeria already was as of 1940, how ill--treated are the native inhabitants there. Traveling from Paris to Algeria in the 30's was tedious enough, not many politicians were truly aware how bad the situation was (and even before 1945 Setif and German massacres, and 1954, the situation was already explosive).
So the colonists, for all their lobbying power, are told to shut their mouths.
The FTL government is far better than OTL De Gaulle (not too difficult btw !) but their situation is hardly enviable. While the Navy is in good shape, both aviation and ground troops have been decimated. While Uncle Sam will provide military gear aplenty, soldiers can only come from the Empire.
It has already been explained many times in this thread. Let's suppose your house burn to the ground. You are gently invited to a friend house, just because this peculiar friend is a gentleman. Yet the house ain't perfect, but will you complain ? No. You just thank your friend, and try not be a nuisance.
Well, the Metropole, moved to Algeria, feel the same. Surely enough, there are many narrow-minded, racist settlers. But when compared to the native algerians, they are a minority (perhaps 50 000 people to million). So guess why ? the French government, while no teletubbies by any mean, feel compelled to make a positive move toward the native algerian people that graciously accepted to shelter them after France worst defeat in a millenia.
There is also the fact that the entire government and bureaucracy can now see how tense the situation in Algeria already was as of 1940, how ill--treated are the native inhabitants there. Traveling from Paris to Algeria in the 30's was tedious enough, not many politicians were truly aware how bad the situation was (and even before 1945 Setif and German massacres, and 1954, the situation was already explosive).
So the colonists, for all their lobbying power, are told to shut their mouths.
The FTL government is far better than OTL De Gaulle (not too difficult btw !) but their situation is hardly enviable. While the Navy is in good shape, both aviation and ground troops have been decimated. While Uncle Sam will provide military gear aplenty, soldiers can only come from the Empire.
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That's an important factor. In OTL much of the French political class was pretty oblivious to what happened in the colonies so long as local administrators could keep the lid on indigenous discontent, and only realized how bad the problems were when they exploded in its face, by which time it was way too late to do anything about them. It's basically as though the former US Confederate states were overseas from the rest of the country. Then in 1940 the entire government and most of the Senate and National Assembly arrive, and they see with their own eyes that they had been essentially condoning Apartheid rule all along. It's one thing when oppression takes place far enough away that you don't have to think about it if you don't want to, but another to have your face thrust into it.
Also, in FTL the Republic has the legitimacy to engage in far-reaching reforms of the colonial system. It is the legal government, it has the apparatus of enforcement and the military with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sétif_and_Guelma_massacre
D'oh ! the germans are innocents. Stupid autocorrect, may you burn in hell.
More seriously, it was a major turning point on the way to the 1954-62 Algerian war.
D'oh ! the germans are innocents. Stupid autocorrect, may you burn in hell.
More seriously, it was a major turning point on the way to the 1954-62 Algerian war.
Ah that actually helps make what I was trying to understand make a bit of sense. In the case of Bloch/Dassault it appeared to say that the company was nationalised, Bloch was retained as a manager, but then it was talking about a second/parallel company, and a re-founding post-WWII although they were still using the old pre-war date and the official one. It almost makes what happened with the British aerospace industry seem sensible.I recently tried to wrap my brain around the SNCAs, for the FTL. It just blew my mind. Mind you, Bloch and Potez used Jacques Chirac father (how about that) who was a very clever banker and broker, to get around the Front Populaire nationalizations. Not only did they managed to save - or re-create, or even duplicate ! - their former companies, but they also managed to get a boatload of government money in the process.
For example, by 1938 there were somewhat TWO Potez. Very ironically, the Potez-SNCA was still directed by... Henry Potez himself, but their was a brand new, private Potez managed by Chirac father.
Pretty much what happened, indeed. The SNCASO (Sud-Ouest) was the former Dassault plant (and many others) and in 1948 their Espadon competed with Dassault Ouragan for the first french jet. Kind of Dassault fighting with himself
It would be utterly interesting, as far as A.H goes, to try and apply the SNCA model to the 1935 British aerospace companies (although model is not an apropriate word !!)
And then to develop the story to 1969, when the last two behemoths (Nord Aviation and Sud Aviation) finally merged into SNIAS / Aerospatiale. Revisiting all aircrafts from Hawker Hurricane to Concorde, TSR-2 included.
How many major aircraft companies in G.B by 1935 ? I can think of nearly a dozen, a number which match France situation (Bleriot, Bloch, Potez, Amiot, and a boatload of others).
The bottom line of the SNCA was that a) veteran private companies from the pioneers days (1910) were dismembered and b) the plants were stuck together according to geography.
For example, if an Amiot, Bloch and Breguet plant were only 20 miles from each other, then they had to work together under the new SNCA, which covered a broad area of metropolitan France (south and North and East and South, broadly).
I often have this vision of a French Air Ministry bureaucrat taking a map of France, a ruler and a pen, and drawing thick lines across the map. Then he took cissors, cut the map like a pie, into six slices, according to the lines he had drawn. And then he handled that to his deputies, who started happily butchering the aerospace industry, each one according to the slice he had been given.
And you thought the British air Ministry was bad ? The French one was abysmal...
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Alexander Rooksmoor
Well-known member
Especially having read The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969) by William L. Shirer I was interested in similar but different divergences. I think this is because you can see how defeatist the leading French generals were and how they threw away the advantages of their tanks which were much superior to the bulk of what the Germans had in 1940. There were attempts by some French politicians to get to Algeria. The important thing about Algeria was unlike other French colonies it was considered to be actually a part of Metropolitan France and had 3 départements of the kind that France had.
President Albert Lebrun; Edouard Herriot who was President of the Chamber of Deputies, i.e. the lower house; Jules Jeanneney, President of the Senate and the former Commander-in-Chief, General Maurice Gamelin all favoured this step. The Resident-General of Morocco and Commander-in-Chief of the North African Theatre of Operations General Charles Nougès would subsequently write to the Pétain government before the armistice was signed asking to be allowed to continue fighting the Germans from North Africa.
On the 24th June 1940 the ship ‘Massilia’ left Bordeaux where the French government had established itself, carrying 29 deputies and 1 senator Michel Tony-Révillon. It was heading to North Africa to form the basis of a parliament in exile. These men included Édouard Daladier a former prime minister; César Campinchi, the Minister of Marine under Reynaud; Yvon Delbos, a former foreign minister; Georges Mandel, Minister of the Interior; Lieutenant Jean Zay, a former Minister of Education and Lieutenant Pierre Méndes-France, the latter three were Jews; two other deputies, in addition to Zay and Méndes-France were in uniform. These politicians were condemned by the Pétain government as deserters. They were detained on arrival at Casablanca in Morocco and then held in Algiers, making it easier for Pétain in his steps to abolish democracy in France.
With less prevarication by the French government and the intense defeatism of men like Weygand who might as well have been a German agent, a government in exile in Algeria is far from impossible. If we look at what De Gaulle achieved with less authority and from a much weaker position, if those not willing to surrender had not been so effectively undermined by those eager to so, in large part so they could end French democracy and its debauched values - as they saw them - and oversee more vigorous anti-Semitic policies, then it was possible. We do not even have to begin touching on the effectively unused 10th Army in Brittany.
I ended up writing 'Warranted' in Déviation (2014) which envisaged Marshal Pétain being abducted and taken to Algiers in 1941 to be put on trial by the government in exile. Then 'On the Anvil' in From Another Infamy set in Marseilles in August 1942, when rather than Operation Torch, there is an Allied invasion of southern France from Algeria which remained under Free French control, with much of the French Navy in its hands. I also wrote The Brittany Redoubt set in September 1940 in which the British and French forces have retreated to that region. Supplied from Britain and bolstering the French 10th Army are able to slow up and eventually stagnate the German advance especially in terrain not great for rapid tank advances.
There are quite an interesting range of feasible alternatives and for AH writers what distinguishes these is it is far more about attitude than about technology or military responses. One can argue that France was defeated in 1940 from the moment in 1906 when Alfred Dreyfus was exonerated, returned to the army and was promoted to being major. From that time on too many leading men in France were effectively working for its downfall.
President Albert Lebrun; Edouard Herriot who was President of the Chamber of Deputies, i.e. the lower house; Jules Jeanneney, President of the Senate and the former Commander-in-Chief, General Maurice Gamelin all favoured this step. The Resident-General of Morocco and Commander-in-Chief of the North African Theatre of Operations General Charles Nougès would subsequently write to the Pétain government before the armistice was signed asking to be allowed to continue fighting the Germans from North Africa.
On the 24th June 1940 the ship ‘Massilia’ left Bordeaux where the French government had established itself, carrying 29 deputies and 1 senator Michel Tony-Révillon. It was heading to North Africa to form the basis of a parliament in exile. These men included Édouard Daladier a former prime minister; César Campinchi, the Minister of Marine under Reynaud; Yvon Delbos, a former foreign minister; Georges Mandel, Minister of the Interior; Lieutenant Jean Zay, a former Minister of Education and Lieutenant Pierre Méndes-France, the latter three were Jews; two other deputies, in addition to Zay and Méndes-France were in uniform. These politicians were condemned by the Pétain government as deserters. They were detained on arrival at Casablanca in Morocco and then held in Algiers, making it easier for Pétain in his steps to abolish democracy in France.
With less prevarication by the French government and the intense defeatism of men like Weygand who might as well have been a German agent, a government in exile in Algeria is far from impossible. If we look at what De Gaulle achieved with less authority and from a much weaker position, if those not willing to surrender had not been so effectively undermined by those eager to so, in large part so they could end French democracy and its debauched values - as they saw them - and oversee more vigorous anti-Semitic policies, then it was possible. We do not even have to begin touching on the effectively unused 10th Army in Brittany.
I ended up writing 'Warranted' in Déviation (2014) which envisaged Marshal Pétain being abducted and taken to Algiers in 1941 to be put on trial by the government in exile. Then 'On the Anvil' in From Another Infamy set in Marseilles in August 1942, when rather than Operation Torch, there is an Allied invasion of southern France from Algeria which remained under Free French control, with much of the French Navy in its hands. I also wrote The Brittany Redoubt set in September 1940 in which the British and French forces have retreated to that region. Supplied from Britain and bolstering the French 10th Army are able to slow up and eventually stagnate the German advance especially in terrain not great for rapid tank advances.
There are quite an interesting range of feasible alternatives and for AH writers what distinguishes these is it is far more about attitude than about technology or military responses. One can argue that France was defeated in 1940 from the moment in 1906 when Alfred Dreyfus was exonerated, returned to the army and was promoted to being major. From that time on too many leading men in France were effectively working for its downfall.
Interesting, and I think a divergence like this has major repercussions for the unwinding of French colonialism in Algeria-you have on the one hand stronger emotional pressures for the French to retain the Great Redoubt postwar, on the other hand there's less of a "national humiliation" since there was no overall collapse and success in maintaining an Algerian Free French redoubt will require local Muslim cooperation and probably concessions to them about either the long-term end of French rule or (unlikely because it would undermine the rationale of colonialism) full voting rights for all residents of French Algeria. Plus a possibly larger pied-noir population. Lotta interesting ways to go with this.
Depressing thought: is there any way for Dreyfus to be vindicated *without* a major backlash? Maybe Esterhazy is caught red-handed in public meeting with his handler relatively early on before attitudes have hardened or the entire affair never happens because IDK Esterhazy falls off a horse before he can start spying or something.
Depressing thought: is there any way for Dreyfus to be vindicated *without* a major backlash? Maybe Esterhazy is caught red-handed in public meeting with his handler relatively early on before attitudes have hardened or the entire affair never happens because IDK Esterhazy falls off a horse before he can start spying or something.
His grandson Jean-Noël was my history professor in Sciences-Po, and I took the opportunity of bumping into him again recently to bring up alternate history. He sounded fairly interested in both FFO and my own TL, especially when I mentioned that I used his book Georges Mandel, l'homme qu'on attendait as inspiration to replace De Gaulle by Mandel as leader of the Free French in WIAF.
Nice for posting it here.