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West & (Communist) East France?

M

MAC161

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Published by SLP
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Just a random question/pondering, based on revisiting this story on Uchronia (and which I still haven't found an English version of, to confirm if it's any good):

If, somehow, WWII went badly enough for the Allies that the Soviets conquered everything up to Paris (POD in the above story was Battle of the Bulge being a German victory, which is a stretch, to put it politely), how might France end up divided a la OTL's Germany? Who would be the French equivalents of Pieck, Ulbricht and Honecker? What would the rest of divided Europe look like with the Soviets, say, on the right bank of the Seine? Would Paris be divided like Berlin, and if so, where would the West French capital likely be set up?
 
Wendell said:
A partitioned France really just is not likely and largely misses the point. Germany was divided because it started the war. Korea ended up divided, sure, but the factors there were unique and the peninsula had been Japanese at the start of the war.
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SpanishSpy said:
If nothing else I can’t see de Gaulle ever allowing this.
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Very true; certainly the Parij POD isn't feasible, or not without serious earlier Allied screwups and/or better strategic planning and logistics on the Germans' (esp. Hitler's) part--neither of which is really plausible even from a "soft AH" standpoint.

The only real way I can currently see a divided France happening is if, somehow, after the 3rd Republic's defeat, the "French State" had been established as a (still obviously puppet) junior partner in the Axis rather than an "armed neutral" as with Vichy, and maybe joining in Barbarossa, whether officially or just with far greater military support beyond the LVF and other individual collaborationist units. Either way, such a change might tempt Stalin towards continuing on after Berlin, or at least demanding a greater Soviet role in overseeing postwar Western Europe; he's overrun the other European Axis states (apart from Italy) by that point, and taken more losses from "a second French invading force" or some such line, so the logic (to him) for that maybe isn't too farfetched. Of course, all this depends on the Allies acting towards France as they did in OTL, which is very unlikely if the country goes full-on Axis member.

There's a What If? 2 essay that touches on a Soviet-backed "Red France": Basically, it starts with a Halifax gov't coming to power in 1940 instead of one under Churchill, which leads to an armistice where France is occupied only as far as Paris, and there's no energy in the country as a whole for any further fighting (despite de Gaulle's efforts). As a result, Hitler has more resources and better timing (April 1941) for Barbarossa; Britain only goes to war against Japan, separately from the U.S., and neither of these powers provides any aid to the USSR. Germany is still crushed, albeit by 1946, at the cost of 40 million Russians, and Stalin decides to just keep going for the rest of Hitler's conquests from Norway to Paris, all the way down to Rome, with the help of Communist resistance movements; the ending has him celebrating May Day 1946 at Versailles, and already thinking about going after Francoist Spain, while anti-Communists like de Gaulle are purged. Far-fetched even for AH, but entertaining reading.
 
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As mentioned the PoD being the Battle of the Bulge doesn't make much sense. The goals of the operation were to seize Antwerp, denying the port to the WAllies and cutting off the British forces to the north thus forcing the WAllies to make a negotiated peace. It was all fantasy but there was never any intention of driving on Paris, even that was too much of a stretch amidst the delusions.

There certainly are circumstances were France could be considered an occupied nation by the WAllies, there were plans for it IOTL and Vichy actively joining the Axis would certainly encourage a view that France was an occupied enemy rather than a liberated ally. I can't see the Soviets being permitted an occupation zone however, they might lobby for one but the best they'll probably get is a seat on an advisory commission similar to the occupation of Japan. Arguably the Soviets would see more gain in subtely and then overly undermining the WAllied occupation, particularly if de Gaulle remains a major figure and follows through on his threats to align himself with Moscow in such a scenario.

The only real way I can see the Soviets getting an occupation zone is if they get there themselves but that's also a big ask. Even in some sort of D-Day fails scenario where the Soviets are able to overrun Germany before the WAllies are across the Channel in force would the German occupation forces in France really fight on fanatically rather than surrender en masse to the WAllies like they did in Italy IOTL? Even if the chaos of such a scenario prevents the WAllies from simply swooping in and the Soviets make it over the Rhine would they really want to carve up the country in the aftermath? The Soviets were confident of France having its own organic revolution post-war IOTL and here Communism is likely to be even more popular having defeated Germany single-handedly, why carve out a rump French state when you'll likely have the whole thing shortly?

You would probably need a scenario where the above has happened but the Red Army decides to stay in Eastern France to await the imminent French revolution, and the WAllies are fine with this and don't demand any German occupation zone of their own for some reason. The revolution devolves into civil war with both the WAllies and Soviets setting up alternative French regimes in the aftermath.

The nature of the Soviet-backed East France would be impacted by its origins and the possible earlier Cold War it might ignite but going with what usually happened in the early Eastern Bloc, the PCF and SFIO would likely be united into a single party, possibly led by Thorez, in coalition with various trade unions, peasants organisations and interest groups. It would likely style itself as the successor of the Popular Front and the embodiment of the resistance to Fascism whilst casting the West French regime as a continuation of Vichy. Depending on how much of Eastern France the Soviets take it is likely to have significant resources and a large industrial base with the potential to be quite successful similar to the DDR.

Speaking of which, there are massive implications to the Soviets controlling most or all of Germany ITTL. A united socialist Germany will have much more of an impact on the world than a socialist French rump state and will likely impact the nature of Eastern Bloc relations significantly. Not to mention the challenges the Soviets would have in feeding all these people.
 
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This was explored in the second volume of the Jour J series, in which the POD is (not very originally) a failed D-Day landing. It takes months longer for the Western Allies to liberate France, by which time the Red Army has steamrolled Germany and crossed the Rhine. The northeastern third of the country is a Soviet-aligned People's Republic, and Paris is divided into a "free" and a "communist" sectors. It's pretty soft AH, so plausibility is very much not the point. Classically, the framing device is a police investigation.

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MAC161 said:
Just a random question/pondering, based on revisiting this story on Uchronia (and which I still haven't found an English version of, to confirm if it's any good):

If, somehow, WWII went badly enough for the Allies that the Soviets conquered everything up to Paris (POD in the above story was Battle of the Bulge being a German victory, which is a stretch, to put it politely), how might France end up divided a la OTL's Germany? Who would be the French equivalents of Pieck, Ulbricht and Honecker? What would the rest of divided Europe look like with the Soviets, say, on the right bank of the Seine? Would Paris be divided like Berlin, and if so, where would the West French capital likely be set up?
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Its

Something I'm considering for the Afterlife Diaries but under different circumstances. The Soviet Union basically fights the Nazis all the way into France. At which point Britain (who, without the USA had an armistice with Germany) re enters the war and the allies divide Europe up along the siene under threat of British nuclear weapons

What is more likely is I'll have the Soviet Union just take all of Germany after the war with the Iron Curtain on the Rhine. Even if the Soviet Union gets as far as Paris.
 
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