Norway - The Fauske Struggle

IOTL, four sanitary trains were sent to Dietl before he surrendered without opposition from Swedes although they knew the reality of the load. It was before this uchrony's POD. No reason to have any change here.

Of course! Thanks a lot.

More Arctic SAS operations?

The Non Battle of Cape Matapan

Strange things sometime happen during a war that nobody could have foreseen, as the Cape Matapan encounter.

July - The convoy transporting the Polish soldiers of Carpathian Rifle Brigade from Levant to Gibraltar slowly hastening in Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its neutral status, at least toward Italy not formaly at war with Norway nor Poland, gives it a kind of immunity as long as no German plane or submarine is encountered. But who knows... These countries dispached their destroyers HNoMS Sleipner, ORP Błyskawica and ORP Burza to escort Polish and Norwegian liners and cargo ships in order not to provoque the Regia Marina while dissuading it to attack unarmed vessels. A kind of tension is neverthless perceivable as the little fleet came along the Crete coast, the tinny escort being definitively not strong enought to reppel Italian cruisers or battleships should they have the idea to fight. The intermittent presence ot a Short Sunderland from Alexandria give some appeasement to the souls.

Apprehension and watch increase when cape Krios, South-West of the minoan island, is rounded. It was not in vain as, few hours later, a seaplane wearing the fasci littori is spotted over the convoy. The alarm goes off and the destroyers go to the front. The Sunderland present at this very moment send a repport on the incident to Alexandria and Admiral Cunningham dispach HMS Warspit and HMS Valiant as a matter of reinforcement. While these men of war are sailing to reach the convoy, Polish and Nowegians see two Italian destroyers, Emanuele Pessagno and Nicoloso da Recco, coming at gun range but without agressive move. Sleipner and Błyskawica stand in the way and everybody are staring in each other's eyes.

Emerging from opposite sides of the horizon at the same time are the Italian fleet leaded by the heavy cruisers Zara, Pola and Fiume, accompanied by four other destroyers, and the Warspit and Valiant with their own four destroyers. Everyone accelerate at full speed but without opening fire, hindered by merchant ships and under instruction restricting their action: Italians having only mission to examine cargo of passing vessels and British prohibited from putting at risk the Poles in starting combat at proximity. After a half-volte worthy of Vienna or Saumur equestrian schools, Italians disengage and disapeare behind the horizon, taking advantage of their superior speed to deny British to have the opportunity to open fire. "Hurrays" are shouted from every decks and the British men of war, after having accompagnied Nowegians and Poles for a short time, come back to Alexadria while planes from Matla take over.

The rest of the journey along the Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan coasts was without any noticeable incident, Vichy planes being satisfied by spotting these ships from place to place, staying at safe distance.

A Blazing Ambassador

August 28th - Singapore - After his triumphant first leg, De Gaulle and the members of his staff and government came back to the question of French West Africa. While French North Africa was out of the Free French's reach for the moment, FWA could prove more vulnerable. However, the operation had to be carefully planned to avoid causing French blood to be shed in fratricidal clashes. It was agreed that the first action to be taken was to destabilise the country, and the present tour and the mass rallies were a good prelude to this, which had to be exploited to the full. A meeting with Roosevelt would be the high point of the tour. The financing of a dissident press and the creation of a radio-broadcasting station for Dakar were approved. Although Senegal was solidly held and had the military resources to make it difficult to take it by force, the same could not be said for neighbouring territories, and it was decided to start nibbling away. A landing operation in French Guinea and Mauritania was planned, while putting pressure on Dakar by sea to prevent any reaction. Once the colony had been isolated and surrounded, action by land and internal subversion would be possible, as a prelude to a final landing if necessary.

Churchill, once informed of these plans, was receptive and even enthusiastic. Moreover, he owed it to De Gaulle to have been able to resist Tokyo's request to close the Burmese route to China, thanks to the intransigence of the Free French in Indochina. Of course, setting up a transmitter in Douala posed no problem and the Royal Navy lent its support to an expedition to Abidjan, Port Étienne and Dakar, and he will do his own of Roosevelt. This last point was a little trickier to manage, but the very media-savvy and flamboyant Sir Philip Kerr, Marquess of Lothian, the United Kingdom's ambassador to Washington and a fierce lobbyist for greater American involvement in the war, soon succeeded in getting the White House to admit that it would be a great pity to deprive itself of French support and that, whatever one might think of this general, he had always worked for the Allied cause, unlike many French decision-makers, and seemed to have the massive support of the liberated populations, the Douala Declaration being a step towards what could be a "Commonwealth à la française" *. Incidentally, he seemed far less anti-Republican and above all totally anti-German than the whole of Pétain's government. Roosevelt eventually acquiesced, but as Vichy remained the legal representative of power recognised by the United States, De Gaulle's visit did not have the status of an official visit, only a private meeting.

Learning of the decision by the President of the United States, the General was torn between the satisfaction of political recognition from a major power and the disappointment that it would not be total. His entourage, led by Mandel and Argenlieu, persuaded him to seize this wonderful opportunity, which should continue to marginalise Vichy supporters. They also managed to get him to agree not to launch an armed operation against the French West Indies before this meeting.

October 21st - Washington - After stopovers in Honolulu and San Francisco, where French sailors were duly feted, De Gaulle flew to Washington where he was received on 21 October. Much to the dismay of the French and francophile Americans, the exchange between the two men turned out to be rough, with De Gaulle unable to shake off his haughty arrogance, leaving Roosevelt somewhat disappointed that thanks for the American commitment to France during the last war were paid only with lip service and that his host spoke only of the greatness of France. This is all the more bitter given that Kerr had a completely different approach to American politics and public opinion, even going so far as to facetiously present King George III, in front of his full-length portrait which adorns the entrance to the embassy, as "the founder of the Republic of the United States of America". All the British and French diplomats had a hard time mitigating this misunderstanding, which lasted throughout the war.

* In French