OTOH, PĂ©tain was opposed to any cooperation with Britain; without him, that position has much less influence.
WI: Vichy Without Petain
- Thread starter Whiteshore
- Start date
The legislature had a voice in this. From Jacksons 'The Dark Years', Paxtons 'Vichy France', or Hornes 'To lose a Battle' I find the same general narrative.
Petain supported Reynauds decision to evacuate the government to Algeria. Until... A poll of the legislature revealed little support. About 20% of the Deputies were supportive of continuing the war. The balance, a large majority wanted a immediate end to the fighting, a cease fire and armistice. Hopefully with peace negotiations soon after. Reynaud was unwilling to follow this and resigned. At this point Petain offered to head a new government and open Armistice talks with the invader.
What motivated the legislature were two items. One was the perception that France had lost the battle and Metropolitan France was soon to be completely over run. The second was a impending public safety crisis. Tha huge number of refugees fleeing the Germans were causing a breakdown of health and food services in southern France. There was a rapidly growing inability to feed these people, or deal with the disease and other health issues emerging. No one wanted to think about several million sick and starving women and children camped in the streets or along the roads of Pergnaion, Bourdoux, Toulouse Lyon, Marsaille, ect...
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But without PĂ©tain, the fleet moving to safety is also more likely. The British may pause to see how things are breaking before taking any irrevocable action. And I suggested that even if CATAPULT begins as OTL, Darlan probably won't be incommunicado, which could change the outcome.
What about Doriot? He was a fascist without street credit.
Pierre-Étienne Flandin - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
On that note, he could be another potential leader of alt-Vichy as well.
Nope, especially as the Collaborationistes like him only gained prominence later on in the war IOTL.
Darlan's position would be interesting. He can argue that he avoided needless deaths, but then the Germans and Italians can argue that France breached the armistice by not fighting. He is now the man who collapsed the armistice and will be in trouble from Germany, Italy and Vichy, and maybe even occupied France. Better hope he got on one of the boats...
But then if Germany tries to negate the armistice, does the Toulon fleet try to flee (presumably to Malta or Alexandria where they can't be detained by armistice commisions). Then, too, the French airforce (well those that can) also head off, to Spain, Britain, Switzerland, North Africa (and some to Malta or Gibraltar).
Then, too, most of the colonies will likely declare for Free France [1] which also affects axis plans. It's potentially a big boost to Britain - a few extra pilots for BoB, for Malta, for the far east and middle east. Extra ships and subs, and a reduced need to keep Vichy ships honest. And fewer French territories to be blockaded or taken by the Free French.
The down side would be that France likely suffers even more than OTL.
[1] Darlan vs De Gaulle power struggle won't be good. Maybe we get two Free French factions.
And this reminds me of the joke where Petain and Darlan are travelling through a town. The cries of "Vive Petain!" die down for a moment and a lone voice shouts "Vive Darlan!". Petain turns to Darlan and says " I didn't know you were a ventriloquist"
Not so sure about that.Mars El Khebir really made many French completely outraged at the British and pushed them much more into the German camp or at least nutrality. That feeling still exists today so Petain is just one influence amongst a good few.
Was 'Free French' even a factor in June/July 1940?
De Gaule was a non-entity as far as i know it until we get a bit further (and nobody really liked hm, surely not Stalin who regarded him as a 'b..sh..ter' of note.
I believe France is still trying to come to terms with the amount of people who worked enthusiastically for Germany.
De Gaule was a non-entity as far as i know it until we get a bit further (and nobody really liked hm, surely not Stalin who regarded him as a 'b..sh..ter' of note.
I believe France is still trying to come to terms with the amount of people who worked enthusiastically for Germany.
It wasn't. Only by mid 1941 it started to become more of a political entity. There were only 26 parliamentarians who wanted to continue fighting from Africa, Mandel being one of them. The rest, something like 560 parliamentarians wanted to surrender.
CATAPULT was planned and executed in view of what the British in late June thought the French navy might do. At that time, PĂ©tain was (correctly) recognized by Britain as a very great influence. My point was that the removal of PĂ©tain before CATAPULT substantially changes the circumstances which OTL led up to CATAPULT.
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Is Darlan the 'joker' in the pack? a lot of French top military commanders (or so i have heard) identified more with their German colleagues than with Britain and surely not with that colonel.
Could Vichy have been even more aligned with Germany that OTL?
Did Germany take into account any experience from Denmark? The government worked and Denmark could be seen as just bowing to the will of Germany.
That lasted right up until 1943 after all.
Could Vichy have been even more aligned with Germany that OTL?
Did Germany take into account any experience from Denmark? The government worked and Denmark could be seen as just bowing to the will of Germany.
That lasted right up until 1943 after all.
An earlier rise to prominence of the Collaborationistes could be a good start, so there's that. And speaking of which, how would the "National Revolution" differ ITTL without Petain on top and with a different leader, especially as Lebrun would most likely still be the puppet President here.
Without Petain would this push de Gaulle's idea of the Franco-British Union through without Petain's opposition?
Without Petain I think we get Pierre Laval in his place and more collaboration with Germany.
Without Petain I think we get Pierre Laval in his place and more collaboration with Germany.
Not as a organized entity. There were a fair number of French who would have supported continuing the war, mostly from hatred of the Germans rather than love of the English or democracy, tho those factions did exist.
In the summer/sutum of 1940 most French, and many others such as the US government and citizenry, were operating under the delusion there would soon be peace negotiations, a treaty signed off in early or mid 1941, and a end to German occupation. Thats what most French and the rest of the world expected in 1940. Except the British and some anti Fascists. elsewhere. Hitler had a hell of a opportunity here. Petain and a majority for French would have signed off on a peace treaty that allowed France to return to peace. If the war ended for France they would have accepted it. Hitler misjudged. he had a idea of dictating a grand peace treaty to everyone. France Belgium, Netherlands, Britain. He wanted at least a neutral if not supportive Europe at his back for the next decade or two while he accomplished his goals in the east. Hilters over focus on getting Britan to the peace negotiations and a Grand Treaty caused him to miss the fleeting opportunity with France.
by the end of 1940 most French men were realizing there would be no peace treaty and de-occupation in 1941. They still hoped, but it was clear the odds were against it. Petain and the many people associated with the Armistice lost some prestige at this point. The Germanophobes, and there were a lot of them in France gained traction gradually. On June 22 1941 came a massive political shift in France, and globally. Since August 1939 the Soviet party line was the Germans were victims and the "Socialist Government" of Germany a friend of the working people. A large part of the left in France and globally followed this line, not all, but enough to neutralize the lefts opposition to Facism. That ended abruptly with the German attack on the USSR. In France this was the start of a clear dividing line between 'Collaborationits' and 'Resitance'. It took time for the mass of the French population to commit to one side or the other and 30 months later a majority still kept their heads down and dodged the question, but there was from mid 1941 a clear line to cross if one wanted to.
Previous to this the primary motivation of the French to the war and the Germans was the desire for a peace and exit of the German army. A lot of their actions during this 1940-42 period can be interpreted as Collaboration, but the motivation was to cooperate to what ever extent was necessary to get the Germans out. Those actually supporting the nazi agendas were a minority populating the right of the political spectrum. This did not cover the entire population with right wing sympathies. Many of those were rampant Germanophobes and would rather talk to a Communist than a German. Shoot the Germans now, and the Communists later when not needed. DeGualle, Darllan and many other leaders of the Free French fell into this category.
Don't forget Henri Giraud. He had the favor of the west in the begining.
So let's say there is a treaty late 40, final treaty, a real easy treaty to get France out and stay out, something like Alsace Lorraine is under German occupation indefinitely, but French civil administration continues. Longwy and Briery under German occupation for 15 years. Some reasonable level of reparations, perhaps mainly truck production. But maybe some Char Bs and D520 shipments. French Military kept small. Presumably Belgium makes peace also for Eupen Malmedy. No colonial changes for either, Germany can't reoccupy those anyway.
How does Britain and Germany continue the war with France de occupied, Britain has much less invasion fears and could commit a lot to Egypt. The Germans could keep a small number of divisions on the west of Germany, like 10, and send the rest east if Barbarossa was still to happen.
It's an interesting point, to work with, but it will need Hitler to be dealt with first [1] as a lot of the Armistice conditions were deliberately intended to replicate the conditions that Versailles imposed on Germany. This vengeful attitude extended to using the original carriage where the Treaty of Versailles was signed, but while the Entente chose a discrete wooded site to minimise public humiliation, Hitler made a big deal of it to rub French noses in it.
There probably were others with similar vengeful mindset, but Hitler was instrumental OTL and cooler heads may have prevailed otherwise.
[1] So you'd really need him in place at the start of Fall Rot to ensure it runs broadly to plan, but out of they way at then end of it - fell down the stairs, tripped over his dog on a steep mountain trail, fell out of a boat at Neuschwanstein, or whatever.
He was actually the moderate of the two camps in regards to what the terms should be as many actually wanted harsher terms for France while a small few ministers wanted more lenient terms.
I didn't know that.
It's strange to think of Adolf being any kind of moderating influence.
Not really, well, actually, given that the popular accounts of Hitler came from the Generals that survived the war and wrote their memoirs, with the common theme of them being right while Hitler was wrong it is no surprise.
A funny anecdote on Hitler is him becoming a marriage counselor for the Goebbels family.
There were other such cases, after all, he liked to view himself as an arbiter for the various inter service conflicts and was very sharp minded, especially in regards to global economics and politics. (From the top of my head all his assumptions in regards to Turkey were more or less on point throughout the war.)
(He still liked to drag a conversation for hours and had bouts of anger occasionally, he even made Goring cry at some point- though that's mostly because Goring was depressed)