"La France Continue" (LFC) a different destiny for France. (France continues to fight in 1940 by Emi

Will we get to know if French North Africa has any capacity to produce stuff ore is this going to be part of the evacuation as well.

Chapter 5: Endgame in France

"The news of the appointment of Mandel, who was a Jew, an unforgivable crime in the eyes of my convictions at the time, appalled me. "But no! He's a Jew, he's not capable of fighting, of making war, but we, we're French, we'll show him what we're capable of!" I exclaimed, shocking my mother.
Of course, the content of the appeal of June 16, which closely followed this announcement from Radio-Bordeaux, marked the end of my youthful anti-Semitism. "Here is the man who will lead France to victory! I said to myself. I then took the firm decision to join North Africa and to take with me the maximum of my companions.
Daniel Cordier, Alias Caracalla: memoirs, 1940-1943



June 20, 1940: Bordeaux is on fire. Goering had just launched a raid of 200 bombers on the temporary capital of the French Republic. Despite the efforts of the air force, only 17 attackers were shot down.

Hundreds of civilians perished, with casualties compounded by the fact that the city was crowded with refugees as chaos ensued in the "capital of defeat."

Fortunately, Massilia is intact. The government and parliament were ready to go into exile to continue the fight against the "barbarians and lackeys" who, unlike in 1916, had passed. [19]

As he was about to leave the city hall, Mandel received a surprise visit from the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes.
The latter explains that after several nights of reflection punctuated by prayers, he has decided to support the refugees fleeing Nazism by granting them visas for Portugal. This will partly relieve the Franco-British, who will therefore be able to prioritize the evacuation of their soldiers within the framework of Anabase. Mandel, surprised, could only thank the consul, who hurried back to his consulate to continue granting the maximum number of visas to the refugees.

While France seemed to be recovering, a childish accident, hidden at the time, took place in Châteauroux. Louis Deschizeaux, the city's deputy mayor, tried to have Huntziger's soldiers disarm the city. The officers rejected the mayor's plea with haughtiness and condescension and immediately informed Mandel via the GQG. Mandel immediately dismissed the deputy mayor Deschizeaux from all his offices by decree. Moreover, while the majority of the parliamentarians were on the Massilia, what was he still doing in his constituency?

On the Atlantic front, the German battle cruiser Gneisenau was hit by a torpedo from the British submarine Clyde off Trondheim.

Concerning American power, the French leaders, aware that they would soon be totally deprived of the industrial potential of the Metropole, instructed Paul Reynaud to negotiate with Roosevelt the purchase of American arms in order to equip the armies that would soon be formed en masse in Africa. More discreetly, he also had to discreetly buy factories in order to provide the Republic with non-lethal equipment that was just as necessary for the future victory.
Reynaud will be helped in his mission by the fact that France has, as the General says, "a lot of gold".

Moreover, the General, who combined the art of the word with clear-sightedness, pronounced, on this June 21, a new call to resistance.

"The French government decided, once the Metropolis was fully occupied, to continue the struggle from the Empire, in order not to fall under the dependence of Germany and Italy.

Indeed, to negotiate with the enemy would not be a simple capitulation, but a complete subjugation of our country.

Aware of this, the French do not accept capitulation or servitude, for reasons that are called honor, common sense, the superior interest of the Fatherland.

I say honor! For France has undertaken to lay down her arms only in agreement with her allies. As long as her allies continue the war, her government has no right to surrender to the enemy. The Polish Government, the Norwegian Government, the Dutch Government, the Belgian Government, the Luxembourg Government, although driven from their territory, have also understood their duty in this way.

I say common sense! For it is absurd to consider the struggle as lost. Yes, we are suffering a great defeat. A bad military system, the mistakes made in the conduct of operations, the spirit of abandonment of certain members of the previous Government during these last battles, have made us lose the battle of France. But we still have a vast Empire, an intact fleet, a lot of gold. We still have allies, whose resources are immense and who dominate the seas. We still have the gigantic possibilities of American industry. The same conditions of war which made us beaten by 5,000 planes and 6,000 tanks can give us, tomorrow, victory by 20,000 tanks and 20,000 planes.

I say the best interest of the Fatherland! For this war is not a Franco-German war that a battle can decide. This war is a world war. No one can foresee whether the peoples who are neutral today will remain so tomorrow, even Germany's allies, will they always remain her allies? When the forces of freedom finally triumph over those of servitude, what would have been the fate of a France that had submitted to the enemy?

Honor, common sense, the superior interest of the Fatherland, command all Frenchmen to continue the fight, wherever they are and however they can.

Long live France in honor and independence!"

The Capital of the Gauls was occupied on the evening of the 21st. Fortunately, General Orly was able to withdraw some units of the army of the Alps from the Italian front and send them to the north to reinforce the Germans.

They faced a German army so arrogant that it rushed to Grenoble to overtake its Italian ally!

The Nazi columns were stopped at Voreppe. It was indeed Italy that occupied Grenoble.

To the great joy of the future resistance...

The occupation of Lyon and the upcoming isolation of the Confederation worried the Swiss authorities about the future of their country. Hans Hausamann, captain of the Swiss intelligence services, sent his predictions to his government in an attempt to reassure them and give them faith in the future.

"France and Great Britain would not give in, no matter what. Even if the Germans seized North Africa and Great Britain, the French and British fleets and empires would continue to fight.

Germany would attack the USSR and the United States would enter the war alongside the French and British.

The French, British and Americans will support the Soviets in their resistance to Hitler.

The war will be long. It will end with the total defeat of Germany, a small country with limited industry and a lack of intelligence. The best proof of this is that Germany accepted Italy's entry into the war, which would lead the Axis to disaster.

Pro-allied, Captain Hausamann transmitted information to the Western and then Soviet secret services throughout the war thanks to a spy network created by him, whose branches reached the highest levels of the German high command.

June 22, 1940: The fateful day had arrived.

Contact had been made with the enemy through Spain (for Germany) and the Vatican (for Italy) to organize the signing of the act of surrender marking the end of the fighting in France.

However, an order stipulating that they should prioritize clandestinity over surrender had been discreetly given to the troops. At the same time, secret arms depots had been set up as a matter of urgency in France, which was still free, in order to equip the "soldiers of the interior" when the day came. These hidden depots had been made up of the equipment that could not be evacuated within the framework of the Anabasis.

Huntziger, after bidding farewell to his officers, went to Tours to meet the Germans.

They took him to a place that they kept secret from the French until his arrival.

It was with amazement that, shortly before his arrival, the French commander-in-chief understood where the Germans were taking him.

Rethondes, the very place where the criminal pride of the German Empire succumbed...[20]

The Nazis added symbolism to humiliation!

When he arrived at Rethondes, the French officer had to endure the reading by Keitel of a long plea that accused France of being responsible for the war.

Once this indigestible gruel had been swallowed with difficulty by the French, the Germans dictated their conditions.

In their image. Infamous...

Indeed, the invaders demanded that France deliver to Germany the German and Austrian Jewish and anti-Nazi refugees.

Disgusted, Huntziger and his delegation got up and left the car to go to the tent set up for them by the Germans.

A few hours later, the "negotiations" resumed. The Germans held their ground, but Huntziger and his delegation held firm even when they threatened to escalate the conflict with the remaining French army.

Finally, the Germans, who had been instructed to sign fairly quickly, contacted Hitler, who agreed to withdraw this demand as a prerequisite to signing.

Indeed, he was initially eager to save his army for other campaigns...

As for the administration and plundering of France, he could well find a clique of French collaborators in the style of the Norwegian Quisling[21] to obtain everything he wanted from the French Metropole, especially the German refugees who had been unable to embark for North Africa or to pass abroad.

It was through the mouth of Huntziger, who was soon to leave for an Oflag, that the French government learned of the conclusion of the surrender and the end of the fighting in Metropolitan France by midnight on June 23. In fact, the vast majority of the fighting ceased with the announcement of the signing of the capitulation on the evening of June 22. It should be noted that Italy was represented by Marshal Badoglio. The fighting therefore officially ceased between the Alpine Army and the Italian Army at midnight on June 23.

In London, Churchill made a memorable speech in the Commons on June 23 in which he announced to his fellow citizens that "the battle of France is over, but the battle of Britain is about to begin. "22] In his warlike speech, Churchill expressed his confidence in the final victory over Nazism, confident of French support in the face of totalitarianism, reiterated his calls for American intervention and for the Dominions of the British Empire, and concluded, "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasted for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

It is time to take stock. 60,000 French soldiers lost their lives during the Battle of France against 35,000 Germans in one and a half months of fighting. This exceeds the worst months of the previous conflict for both sides, in terms of daily losses.

As for the Maginot Line, most of its works were still standing on June 22! It was therefore with a certain relief that the German besiegers learned that this hard fight was over. As in Lille, they agreed to pay military honors to the garrisons who had finally laid down their arms.

Hitler, however, was less sympathetic. He immediately ordered to blow up the works of the line! A "now useless separation between Alsace-Lorraine and the rest of the Reich", in his own words.

A new annexation is on the way for the unfortunate French Alsatians and Moselle ... [23]

As for Mussolini, he organized on the 24th a gigantic military parade that he personally presided over in Nice, barely secured by his forces, and proclaimed the return to Italy of the "irredent lands" that are Nice precisely but also Savoy!

It was a minority populace that had bought into the fascist ideas and was handpicked to attend the Italian parade, as the majority of Nice's patriotic population was confined to their homes by the occupying forces.

This could not erase the simple fact that, after the fighting in France, and except for a few Alpine passes and valleys, Italy had only conquered Menton. Nevertheless, Mussolini ordered to take prisoners the "Chasseurs Alpins" who had humiliated his army and proclaimed from Nice the annexation, or rather, the "return" of the irredent lands of Savoy and Nice!

He also received from the Führer a zone of occupation extending to the Rhône.

Certainly, thousands of "Chasseurs Alpins" were seized by the Italians, but some, in accordance with Mandel's instructions, refused to surrender and hid in the mountains.

As for the troops who were facing the Germans further north, that is to say 2 million prisoners, almost a quarter of them tried to escape and 100,000 soldiers managed to do so, because the Germans had difficulty in managing these long columns of men, many of whom suspected that they would not be returning home any time soon...

France was filled with fleeing soldiers who were soon taken in by the nascent resistance. Many of them will be heralds of the resistance.

"Chasseurs Alpins" who refused to surrender and escaped soldiers hid in the countryside and soon formed small mobile groups that quickly joined the Resistance.

They and the "Chasseurs Alpins" who refused to surrender became the first maquisards.

On the other hand, in the chaos of the defeat, some officers destined to continue the fight from exile were seized by the Germans.

This was the case of Bertrand Fagalde, the defender of Dunkirk, captured on the 18th on the Loire.

Knowing that the war was over for him, he told his captors about his deep Anglophobic feelings, judging "perfidious Albion" to be responsible for France's current misfortunes...

The enemy didn't miss a beat and the information quickly reached Berlin...

Georges Mandel and his government were greeted by a frenzied crowd when they arrived in Casablanca.

Indeed, the people of the Empire were perhaps the most ardent supporters of the continuation of the struggle, starting with their press, which was not sparing in its calls for resistance.

While the guns fell silent in France, British commandos launched a raid on Le Touquet, in occupied France. Indeed, Churchill wanted to hit the Nazis "everywhere, all the time" at all costs.

This raid/coup de main has the gift of restoring the morale of the British people and it is planned to repeat this kind of action in the future.

If the French agreed in principle, they would soon insist on having their own raiding force called "Corps Francs", although of course the latter would work in perfect harmony with its British counterpart.

The first members of the French "Corps Francs" were taken from the French troops who had participated in the Norwegian campaign and had withdrawn to Great Britain.

In the Pyrenees-Atlantiques, still beyond the reach of Hitler's Reich for a few more days, Danier Cordier embarked with about twenty companions on the steamer Leopold II bound for Morocco. He became a hero of the famous "Corps Francs" and was the terror of Hitler's soldiers.

While Mussolini's army was humiliated in the Alps by the epic resistance of General Olry's heroic soldiers, some Italian high ranking officers nevertheless showed initiative, for the Allies' relative misfortune.

Thus, in Italian East Africa, although he was isolated from his metropolis by the Allied colonies, the Duke of Aosta, commander-in-chief of the Italian armies in this region, did not intend to remain inactive on this front and prepared an offensive against French and British Somalia as well as against Sudan and Kenya, British colonies.

Moreover, on the colonial front, the British had already gained a psychological advantage by seizing Forte Capuzzo on the border between Libya and Egypt.[24]

From the international and diplomatic point of view, noting France's military defeat in Europe, the Kingdom of Romania radically changed its foreign policy in order to ensure its survival. From being a pro-allied power, it turned to Berlin in order, as King Carol II himself said, "not to suffer the same fate as Poland.

Thus, in exchange for political and economic concessions,[25] the Kingdom hoped to ensure the maintenance of the borders of "Greater Romania.

However, Stalin began to mass his troops on the border with Bessarabia...

All this made Gheorghe Tatarascu, the Romanian Prime Minister, say to Adrien Thierry, French ambassador in Bucharest, on June 18, 1940.

"The Russians and Hungarians, in this part of Europe, have become the Reich's gendarmes and (they) will not be long in asking for their wages at our expense.

Indeed, the head of the Romanian government spoke in these terms because for him, the defeat of France was also that of his country.

Just as he had already invaded the three Baltic nations on June 14, when the eyes of the world were focused on the fall of Paris, the Red Tyrant was preparing this time to claim Bessarabia, a former province of the Tsars' Russia that Romania had recovered at the end of the First World War.

While France was being consumed, Molotov sent a note on June 24 demanding the return of this province to the bosom of Russia, which was now Soviet.

Although Ambassador Thierry urged Romania to resist, as Finland had done, Carol II's soul was not worth that of Marshal Mannerheim...

Thus, the Romanian monarch turned first to Berlin[26], which enjoined him to yield to Soviet demands. The only concession made to the Romanians was that southern Bukovina, initially demanded by Stalin, would remain Romanian...

Despite the withdrawal of the Romanian army, Stalin decided to "test" his new toy on the retreating army. Thus, he launched paratroopers units of the Red Army on the cities of Bolgrad, Cahul and Ismail, which they easily seized[27].

Worse, a battle broke out in Hertsa between the 2 armies, because of the thickness of a badly sharpened red pencil...

Indeed, although not part of the territory ceded by the Romanians, the city was accidentally included in Soviet territory because of the thickness of the pencil that had drawn the new border on the Soviet staff maps.

After this diplomatic debacle, Carol II hoped to get into the good graces of the Reich against Hungarian irredentism by replacing Tartarescu with the Germanophile Ion Gigurtu.



Huntziger signs the act of surrender.


[19] No passing!
[20] In the words of Binet-Valmer, inscribed on a monumental slab in the clearing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918.
[21] And he was soon to find it in the person of Laval
[22] While the Battle of France is over but, the battle of Britain is about to begin.
[23] This did not prevent the Moselle inhabitants from demonstrating against the Nazi presence on the following July 14!
[24] Less well known is the destruction of an Italian border post west of Pisida by a French detachment on June 19.
[25] Oil deliveries in particular
[27] In particular via the redoubtable ambassador Killinger
[28] As well as an important railway junction

Chapter 7: Piracy

"Like the Panzers in the French campaign, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group had a way of popping up where they were not expected. Evading the surveillance of Italian patrols by taking roads thought to be impassable, their commanders also showed daring in the art of combat."
Henri Michel, The Second World War


While the Metropole had just surrendered, Noguès, who was not only seeking at all costs to avoid a Spanish intervention in the conflict, but for whom a purely defensive strategy was not in his nature, decided to strike a blow against the advanced Italian positions along the border.

Of course, it was not yet time for a general offensive, as the French and British were not yet ready, but the aggressive action of the Commonwealth against Forte Capuzzo, as well as the first Franco-Italian engagements, showed that the Duce's army in Africa was not as formidable as might have been feared, even though it had nine divisions facing Tunisia.

But what to do?

The solution came from the British and, more specifically, from Ralph A. Bagnold, who proposed to Archibald Wavell that he form a "raiding" force that would harass the Italian rear by crossing the vastness of the Sahara desert.

Bagnold had convinced his compatriot by threatening to break communications between Egypt and Sudan via an assault from Kufra by an Italian column.

"What will you do if the Italians do not move south?

To this last reticence, Bagnold retorted.

"Piracy! We will attack their convoys, we will harass their posts, we will burn their depots, we will spy and report on their every move and manpower, we will destroy their planes... We will make their lives impossible."

These words won Wavell's decision and he passed the innovative idea on to Noguès, who was immediately won over.

The name of the officer to whom to entrust the unit was quickly found. Indeed, France has a good number of desert baroudeurs and the most famous of them is Georges Estienne. A recognized Saharan. This one has, moreover, also the immense merit of being the son of General Estienne, the "father" of the French armoured weapon during the previous war...


Georges Estienne (Source Wikipedia)

While the British unit was called the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), the French unit was called the "Unité transsaharienne autoportée".

To this pompous name, the Allied press, and soon history, will prefer that of "Lords of the Desert", in homage to Estienne's nickname.

Although Operation Compass/Compas was scheduled for 13 September, it took only five weeks to form the two units, starting with the formation order of 24 June 1940. On 28 July, the "Desert Lords" and the Long Range Desert Group, in perfect harmony, were ready to strike.

Their targets? The powerful bases in the far south of Libya, Mourzouk and Koufra. The objective of these coups? To show the Italians that they would not be safe anywhere, even in the heart of the Sahara!

If the French column started from Largeau, in French Chad, its British counterpart had Aswan as its point of departure.

The motivation of the soldiers, already very high, was further reinforced by the disaster suffered by the Italian navy in Taranto.

For the assault, the British had two aircraft carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious, heavily escorted by the French and British navies.

Alarmed by the Allied manoeuvre, the Italians reacted by... regrouping the bulk of their fleet in Taranto!

"All the birds were in the nest", as Admiral Cunningham said.

If the barrage balloons constituted a major nuisance, the Italian Admiral Campioni had ordered to leave the protection nets at a distance to allow a rapid departure.

Fatal mistake...

It was on July 3, around 10 pm that the planes took off towards their prey.

The Swordfishs arrived on target 2h30 later.

In spite of the strategic importance of the base, its anti-aircraft defenses were not up to the task and the biplanes succeeded in passing relatively easily the fire of the flak.

Illuminated by 4 bengal fires, the preys were ready for their execution...

The first kill was that of the Giulio Cesare. Hit by 3 torpedoes, the monster sank in less than 12 minutes.

The next victim was the Caio Duilio, hit by 2 torpedoes, as was the Conte di Cavour a few minutes later.

The cruiser Fiume was also destroyed during the coup de main.

Several other units were damaged to varying degrees during the attack, while the fuel depots were in flames.

The key pieces of the Italian fleet, its battleships, now lie mostly at the bottom of the harbor!

This was a huge success for the Allies, who could calmly prepare the withdrawal of the Royal from the front lines, while this new disaster shook the opinion of Mussolini's high Italian dignitaries, and especially the monarchists, a little more.

The British alone could ensure the blockade of the Libyan coast, while the Japanese, via their military attaché in Berlin, Takeshi Naito, would soon take a close interest in the Franco-British attack...

This success was all the more important as the bombs were about to hit England...

Moreover, he pushed Franco to be reluctant to enter the war, whereas negotiations on his intervention with the Nazis had been going well since the capitulation. Indeed, the prospect of a rapid Axis victory was becoming more remote, while Franco had in mind the fact that the Allies would seize all of Spain's colonies within a few weeks...

Moreover, the Allies promised him a secret agreement by which they would give him the agricultural products that Spain so badly needed, as well as the machine tools necessary for the industrialization of the country, in exchange for his non-intervention.

In Africa, we should note that one of Estienne's seconds was Lieutenant Louis Blanchard. Although he was originally a legionnaire, the General immediately sensed that Private Blanchard would make an excellent leader for this operation and placed him in the Trans-Saharan Self-Propelled Unit, rather than maintaining him in a legionnaire unit in the order of battle for Operation Compass/Compas.

Everything happened very quickly for Private Blanchard. During the review of his unit, de Gaulle spent more time on him than on the others.

"Private, what is your name?" the Minister of War asked him after observing him in detail for about twenty seconds.

After the legionnaire introduced himself, de Gaulle simply replied.

"Hmm I see." Then he tugged on his ear, which made his comrades smile.

Calling his officer, he announced his future transfer to the Trans-Saharan Unit and his appointment to the rank of lieutenant.

De Gaulle had perfectly recognized in "Louis Blanchard" Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince Napoleon.

Having volunteered in the Foreign Legion at the declaration of war, he had, in fact, in spite of the law of exile, decided to defend his true homeland.

France...[30]

A perfect connoisseur of the desert, Captain Estienne led his column to Mourzouk at the cost of a single vehicle lost due to an engine failure.

Estienne also relied on his perfect knowledge of Arabic and on a message from the highest Muslim religious authorities of the Empire, which explained the motivations of the French Republic, to obtain important information from the natives about the habits of the garrison. Such as the fact that the Italian soldiers locked themselves in the fort every night.

Estienne decided to take advantage of this to launch a devastating night raid on the Mourzouk runway to deprive the Italians of their air force. This raid was a great success and ended with the destruction of the Italian aircraft.

Mourzouk was isolated from the rest of Libya!

Equipped as a light force, Estienne's soldiers nevertheless appeared to be quite helpless in the face of the enormous firepower deployed by Mussolini's soldiers. Indeed, if the secondary objectives were immediately fulfilled in the first assault, the Italian garrison was still resisting.

Lieutenant "Blanchard" then advised Estienne to use the mobility of the only artillery piece carried by the troop, and to fire a few salvos at the fort before moving it a good hundred meters away and repeating the maneuver, and so on.

The aim was to make the Italians believe that the French had a large artillery.

The Italians, totally caught off guard, and believing they were facing a deluge of artillery, decided to send an emissary to Estienne to negotiate their surrender!

The Napoleonic maneuver had succeeded perfectly!

The Italian commander was surprised to discover that the French had only one gun.

Too late, the fort and its garrison had surrendered.

Graziani and the Italian command were appalled by this rout[31] while reports of the concentration of Allied troops on the colony's borders multiplied.

The Fascist marshal asked Rome for reinforcements, but most of the simple supplies that were destined for him had already been sunk by the Royal Navy[32] and ended up at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Compass was already well underway before it was even launched...

All the more so since, to the great astonishment of the British army commanders, Adolf Hitler's designated victim, Winston Churchill, ordered the last remaining armored vehicles in Great Britain to be sent to Egypt to take part in the great attack planned against this same Italian Libya.

Moreover, this decision left the generals Wavell and O'Connor who were in command in the Middle East stunned, while obviously satisfying them, despite their fears for their motherland, while John Dill, the imperial chief of staff, commented.
"The Prime Minister was always preparing ambitious offensive plans. And not only in connection with the offensive against Libya. While the time was ripe for the Battle of Britain, his eyes were fixed on the Dodecanese, whose conquest he was preparing, while it took all our powers of persuasion to prevent him from rushing back to Norway."

But the Prime Minister was confident in the Royal Navy and, above all, in the RAF, which had to protect it from the Nazi Luftwaffe, despite the shameful surrender of the Channel Islands to a German reconnaissance plane! It is true that the islands had been evacuated by the British army and were not supposed to be defended.

But already, since July 10th, the Battle of Britain had begun.



British Swordfish flying over the HMS Ark Royal, 1939 (Source Wikipedia)

[30] Just like his cousin, Joachim Murat, who was involved in the Internal Resistance.
[31] Especially since Kouffra had also fallen.
[32] The French Navy remained in its bases until it received the first ammunition delivered by the American arsenals.

Chapter 9: The War Takes a New Course

"The Italian army, crushed by the repeated assaults of the air force and subjected to the incessant fire of the Allied artillery, could hardly hope to hold out for long. Isolated by land and sea, as the Duce's army was, its only hope was to surrender. It could not be a new Dunkirk. It would therefore be a new Sedan.
José Aboulker's war diary about the siege of Sirte, Libya, October 1940.

British intelligence was right to warn the Prime Minister that England would be Hitler's next target. It was time for the Luftwaffe to prepare itself and replenish its strength[45]. Concerning the strength of his RAF, Churchill did his accounts.

The contribution of 400 D-520s from the French Air Force (half of which were used as spare parts reserves due to the loss of the French aircraft factories) gave the Allies about 1,000 fighters to use against the enemy Luftwaffe. Thus, the French contribution was already decisive in allowing an Allied numerical superiority in terms of fighters at least.

Moreover, contrary to what Nazi propaganda would have us believe, the British aircraft factories were working at full capacity, and even faster than those of the Reich, as we would know after the war! The latter produced a little less than 560 additional fighters per month!

The German commanders planned, as an initial phase of the battle, to attack the British convoys in the Channel, in order to test the reaction time of the RAF and to know its doctrines of engagement.

The assault was scheduled for July 10th.

Why an assault on England and not on AFN?

First of all, Hitler was aware of the naval superiority of the Franco-British, as the first few weeks of the Regia Marina's unflattering engagement had proven.

To send an army to Africa was to risk seeing it end up at the bottom of the Mediterranean...

But the Führer's main argument was that if he invaded AFN, he might neutralize France, but England would remain at war.

"What we need is to bring Churchill down with a massive air campaign over Britain. Once he is overthrown, we will negotiate peace with the British. Then the Jew Mandel will have something to worry about," he explained to the OKW.

Just as Churchill had predicted...

Thus, it is indeed in England, or rather above it, that the fate of the conflict will be decided.

Luftflotte 2 and 3, stationed in the occupied countries opposite England (Holland, Belgium, Northern France), supported by the fifth, based in Norway, were preparing to attack.

Indeed, 2500 aircraft, of which a third were fighters[46], were preparing to strike at the Royal Air Force, which fortunately already had an equivalent number of fighters, including the very maneuverable and powerful Spitfire. In addition, England, the only country in 1940 to have an efficient radar network, had significant anti-aircraft resources.

The British forces were under the command of Air Marshal Hugh Dowding.

On 10 July 1940, the Kanalkampf, the first phase of the Battle of Britain, began.

The fighting was violent but reassured the British Prime Minister. On average, the Germans lost 3.5 aircraft for every Franco-British aircraft shot down.

It is also with an astonishment easy to guess that the Nazi aviators saw Dewoitine 520 with blue white and red cockade appearing from the clouds!

Churchill did not hesitate to express his confidence to his generals and to reiterate to them that he was right to send to Egypt the last tanks of the British army.

As for the Nazis, they saw their numbers melt away while Allied maritime traffic was not interrupted in the Channel.

On 1 August, Goering launched the second phase of the battle, a direct and massive assault on the British airfields and aeronautical factories.

And every day, the number of missing German aircraft continued to rise.

And what can we say about the catastrophic losses of the Stukas, which finally pushed the Nazis to withdraw them from the front lines!

Just like the French workers in June 1940, the British workers continued to work during the raids, but little by little, British production began to decline.

On August 15, Goering ordered Luftflotte 5, based in Norway, to attack Scotland and the north of England in order to "occupy" the British squadrons stationed there and prevent them from reinforcing their counterparts further south. The Air Marshal, Hitler's designated successor, rejected out of hand the objections of his subordinates, who argued that the operation was likely to be expensive.

German losses were very heavy, so much so that in the end the aircraft of Luftflotte 5 were transferred to Luftflotte 2 and 3 stationed in France.

Thursday 15 August 1940 was nicknamed "Black Thursday" by the German airmen.

In response, the Führer insisted that Mussolini launch his own attacks on Malta, Tunisia and above all Algiers, in order to force the French and British to withdraw their squadrons from the English front to defend the Mediterranean. However, Mussolini was already engaged in similar attacks, fights in which the RAF squadrons based in Malta and the Maurane-Saulnier 406, obsolete, which would have been overtaken by the German planes, largely hold up to the Mussolini squadrons!

As Churchill had predicted once again...
The Duce could only order the intensification of the raids, at the cost of heavy losses for the Regia Aeronautica[47].

On September 4, Hitler, appalled by the losses of his "invincible" Lutwaffe (nearly 900 aircraft compared to half that number for the Franco-British), ordered the cessation of daytime raids on military targets in favor of nighttime raids on London and the major English cities.

Indeed, despite the destruction of its factories and runways, the RAF still had resources, while Nazi losses remained high despite a semblance of rebalancing.

Churchill, enraged by the Nazi attack on his capital, ordered a retaliatory night raid on Berlin.

Goering could now be called Meier!

London burned but England, and the World, were saved.[49] 15,000 Britons, however, died under the bombs of the Nazi Blitz[50] on English cities.

Despite Hitler's hope that the attacks on the cities would break the morale of the British and push them to negotiate, the population rallied around Churchill, reassured by the Prime Minister's fiery speeches, the effective resistance of the RAF and the fact that England could also count on French help.

While the war in the air raged on, politics and planning for the future continued to be important.

First of all, in the field of eloquence, Mandel made this speech to the French, relayed by the BBC, on the airwaves of Radio-Alger.

"Today, September 17, 1940, the war has taken a new turn.

In the English skies, the enemy, frightened by his heavy losses, facing the unfailing determination of the allies and the value of their pilots, has given up daytime attacks on British industry in favor of terrorist and night attacks on English cities.

This battle of London was an admission of failure for the Führer and his death air force.

Indeed, far from making England bend, the fights over Great Britain have, on the contrary, considerably weakened the air force of our enemies, already reduced by 1000 aircraft, during the invasion.

Unable to force England, Hitler took his revenge, as usual, by massacring innocent civilians, disregarding human laws.

Warsaw, Rotterdam, Bordeaux and now London.

Thus, the air war has taken a new turn. And it is not favorable to Mr. Hitler.

On the maritime front, the Italian fleet, although regrouped in its bases, was nevertheless roughly hit by the combined forces of the French and British fleets, while every day, the desperate attempts of the Duce to supply his Mediterranean colonies with convoys, came up against our effective blockade.

But the Germans were not to be outdone. Faced with the superior power of the Allies' combined navies, any idea that the Reich's forces might be able to project themselves, whether to North Africa or to England, appears to be highly illusory. As proof of this, I would like to point out that in order to strike at our trade, Hitler has been reduced to the same lowly measures as the previous German Empire.

Submarine fleets, privateers hiding under a false allied or neutral flag and warships reduced to conducting a war of maritime coups de main.

Contracted to a war of harassment, the Reich demonstrated its inferiority on this second front, which was a drawback for it, given that it was facing the two largest empires in the world, both in terms of demographics but also in terms of surface area and various resources.

Soon, we will have reconstituted our forces and Mr. Hitler will not be able to do anything about it.
The naval war has taken the same turn as in the previous conflict.

Time is on our side.

On the land front, here in Africa, I can now confirm to you the crushing of the Italian lines, whose forces, in full rout, are retreating in disorder, whether in Cyrenaica or Tripolitania, under the combined and effective action of the forces of the French Empire, of the British Commonwealth, but also, let us not forget them, of our Polish, Czech and Belgian brothers-in-arms and of the other member nations of the great allied coalition, as well as of the multitude of foreign volunteers[51] fighting for the cause of freedom.

For the fascist criminals, who are leading Italy to its ruin, justice, too, will be done!

Here, too, the war has taken a new turn.

On the intelligence front, every day new Frenchmen, eager to save the fatherland, join the ranks of the army of the interior. Their information on enemy activities, accumulated little by little by the Allies, is vital in the preparation of the great reconquest.

As for the traitors in the service of the clique, they lost nothing to wait. Believing themselves to be on the side of the victors, they will see that it is their German masters who will be crushed in the end by the ever-growing forces of the Allies, while those of the Reich are gradually dwindling, as events on land, at sea and in the air simply show.

They will pay for their crimes when the tide turns definitively in favor of the camp of freedom.

French people, the hour of revenge will soon ring.

And on that day, justice will have the last word, even though, as you know, my friends, there will still be many trials to go through before the criminals receive their just punishment.

The day of glory will come, however.

"To arms, citizens!"

On the political level, on September 30, 1940, largely as a result of "forcing" by the French, the Franco-British made a joint declaration denouncing the nullity of the Munich agreements and announcing the return to Czechoslovakia of the Sudeten territories after the joint victory. This denunciation was the very continuation of the denunciation of the second Vienna arbitration, granting northern Romanian Transylvania to Hungary, as well as that of the Craiova agreements, by which the new Romanian dictator, Ion Antonescu, ceded southern Dubruja to Bulgaria.[52]

Georges Mandel, a former minister of the colonies, was well aware of the reforms necessary to maintain the unity of the "Empire" in the future.

He therefore decided to organize the election of a "Council of the Empire", an election in which not only French citizens but also the "Indigènes" could participate.

Aware that the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate would be hesitant in the face of such a bold reform, Mandel used the weapons provided by French law. In strict compliance with the rules that the Republic had given itself since its entry into the war.

Indeed, the first polls of deputies confirmed the virulent opposition of the right to the project. But also the more insidious opposition of the radical center-left.

Thus, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Édouard Herriot, who came from the ranks of this party, worked underhandedly to liquidate a project "that would make France a colony of its former colonies"!

Mandel therefore relied on the law of December 8, 1939, modifying article 36 of the law of July 11, 1938, on the organization of the nation in wartime, which authorized him to proceed with decree-laws to govern the country in war.

Léon Blum, head of French diplomacy, was fully satisfied. In 1936, he had been refused by the chambers to grant French citizenship to the Muslims of Algeria.

The election would take place within 6 months, the time to organize it. The "Council of the Empire" will have to debate and vote on reforms concerning the Empire and, in particular, on the status of its constituent territories and the future rights of its inhabitants.
It was the brand new press organ of France in exile, "La France combattante", which published the announcement in its columns.

"La France combattante" brought together in its teams volunteer journalists from various newspapers who wanted to speak out for the Republic against Laval and the collaborators.

As the spiritual son of Clemenceau, did Mandel not know the importance of the press?

The head of the government of France in exile was now a determined opponent of Herriot. After his opposition to the defense of Lyon, here they were again opposing him and his management of France!

But Mandel, with the help of the General and Louis Marin, was already preparing his response.

Indeed, he needed to have his hands free to lead France into exile...

A secret meeting took place in Gibraltar between Sir Andrew Duncan, the British Minister of Supply (who managed armaments) and Raoul Dautry.

The 2 men had a mandate from their respective governments to negotiate the pooling of resources of the 2 allies in the creation of a new weapon.

The atomic weapon.

From this meeting was born the Franco-British Nero/Neron project, which worked in perfect harmony with the American project called Manhattan, but which allowed the two European powers to obtain their own weapons, and thus strategic autonomy in the future.

Frédéric Joliot-Curie, son of Pierre and Marie Curie, was the leader of the French part of the Néron Project.

It was therefore in North Africa that the land war regained its rights with the launch of the joint Franco-British offensive against Italian Libya.

This was Operation Compass, launched on 13 September.

In order to equip the mounted infantry, the Bren Carriers graciously provided by the British were not enough. It was therefore necessary to requisition all the vehicles in North Africa that were suitable for the desert and not used for transporting logistics. So it was a whole host of disparate vehicles that were set in motion from 13 September 1940 onwards to transport infantry and logistics.

For once, it was the Allies who showed boldness and surprised the Italian forces by using their armoured force en masse and in precise locations.

The flagship of the French attack was the brand new 1st armored division, the product of the reorganization of the DCr and other DLMs that had been withdrawn from AFN under the leadership of General Delestraint and Charles de Gaulle. It was commanded by General Touzet du Vigier.

Already morally tested by the "Lords of the Desert" and considerably weakened by the Allied blockade, the Italian army quickly broke down.

The retreat quickly became a debacle, as it was unable to stop the Allied attack due to a lack of courage, equipment and, above all, of a competent leader.

Cut off by the 1st armoured division, the infantry divisions infiltrated in the breaches thus opened and rushed towards the east.

Tripoli fell on 19 September and the French flag was flown over the palace of Graziani, who had taken to the skies.

In the east, in Cyrenaica, the British Western Desert Force attacked from its advanced point of Forte Capuzzo and made a vast turning movement through the desert that led to Tobruk, which quickly fell. There too, the Italians were routed. The general offensive of the Allies was therefore a much greater success than they could have foreseen at the beginning, which gave a boost to their population, whether it was the unfortunate French population of the Metropole, which was under the enemy's yoke, or the British urban population, which was hit by the German bombardment.

The Italians, pursued relentlessly by the Allied soldiers, placed themselves as hedgehogs in the coastal towns, using the Libyan cities as a shield, which delayed the Allied rush and the Franco-British junction.

In the middle of this war, an officer of the 1st armoured division distinguished himself even more than the others. Coming from the infantry, veteran of the French campaign, he also has a great mastery of the fighting between infantrymen.

Arriving in the provisional capital of the French Republic after an epic journey through invaded France and then Franco's Spain, the officer discovered a city full of refugees from Metropolitan France. Deserving officers evacuated in priority, weapons engineers, political exiles whether Germans or Austrian Jews or anti-fascists or Spanish Republicans.

But he didn't really have time to discover Algiers because he was quickly summoned to the Ministry of War to meet the minister in person.

Charles de Gaulle, whose works he had read and whose theories he knew.

Although he was very busy with his task as Minister of War and the reorganization of the French army, General de Gaulle nevertheless took the time to meet with all the Frenchmen who had managed to escape, by their own means, from Metropolitan France to North Africa.

Although he had served in the infantry, de Gaulle saw in him an ideal officer for the brand new 1st armored division being formed by amalgamating the various Combat Tank Battalions present in North Africa or repatriated from the Levant[53]. The minister therefore placed him in this new unit with the rank of commander[54] because with the disaster in Metropolitan France, the capture of many officers and the crass incompetence shown by the others, the French army was sorely lacking in officers capable of leading it at its head.

He therefore joined his unit in southern Tunisia where it was already training to incorporate the new tactics advocated by the General.

These angry outbursts, but above all his ardor in communicating, which had the gift of motivating his men, quickly made the rounds of the army and had reached the ears of De Gaulle, who was very happy to have promoted the noble Picard.

He also knew how to use words to boost the morale of his troops, to whom he promised that they would participate in the future liberation of France. Troops made up of volunteer officers advocating new methods based on those used by the enemy against France, baroudeurs who had served in the colonies and were determined to "break the Boche", volunteers from North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa who wanted to defend their "mother country" against Nazi barbarism.

In Africa, he now had the capacity to prepare his unit for the new war thanks to the human pool of the Empire, the protection of the fleet and the Mediterranean, and the French army was now only facing an enemy that was much weaker than the Germans and had retreated behind its border.

Although it was preparing its forces for the offensive, the French army had not remained inactive as we have seen. In addition, mobile Corps Francs harassed the advanced positions and the Italian supply convoys.

Moreover, prisoners had been taken and interrogated.

The commander did not beat about the bush and declared the enemy "demoralized".
He was not far from reality because, in fact, most of the Italian soldiers, already stunned by the announcement that they had to go to war with France, were doubly demoralized by the "Sursaut" of the Republic, by the lack of supplies due to the blockade of the Libyan coasts by the combined force of the British and French navies, and above all, by the Taranto disaster. But this was only true for the basic Italian soldier, the elite divisions and the praetorian guard of Fascism represented by the Blackshirt Corps retained all their strength.

This man who was not afraid of danger and who knew how to motivate his troops was Philippe de Hauteclocque.

After a month of furious fighting, the French and the British joined forces in Syrte, where the routed Italian troops had regrouped. The Allies having cleared the coastal cities one by one of any Italian presence, the last remnants of the Italian troops in Libya were clustered there. They were pounded not only by the artillery of the French and British ground units, which surrounded them, but also by the guns of the ships stationed offshore.

A new Dunkirk unfolded before the eyes of Philippe de Hauteclocque, who witnessed the shelling of the unfortunate Libyan city and Mussolini's troops by Allied cannons. But this time, no evacuation was possible for the besieged, as the French Navy and the Royal Navy controlled the seas. Only a few privileged people were able to flee by plane, such as Rodolfo Graziani, the Italian commander-in-chief in Libya before the beginning of the assault and the Allied bombing raids which transformed the city's airfields into vast crater fields.

So it was a second-rate Italian general, who was made commander-in-chief of a dying army, who signed the surrender act of the encircled armies in Sirte.

One of his soldiers, Massimo Bara, a future great Italian author who survived the sinking of the Normandie in February 1942, will give a poignant account of the deep distress of Italian soldiers subjected to the Allied blockade that isolates them from their homeland and their families, and then the sudden and decisive assault of the Allies on the colony, all against the background of the questioning of his "faith" in the Duce in the young man of 20 that he was then in his famous novel Come scritto nella sabbia. [55]

As were Mussolini's dreams of glory...


De Hauteclocque, a history buff, quickly realized that he was not witnessing a new Dunkirk, but rather the Italian version of the defeat at Sedan, where an army isolated from its bases surrendered after a hellish bombardment.

Once the enemy surrendered, de Hautecloque climbed onto an abandoned Italian tank and harangued his soldiers.

"Soldiers! Swear to lay down your arms only when our colors, our beautiful colors, are flying over the cathedral of Strasbourg!

On this day in October 1940, de Hauteclocque had just pronounced what would later become known as the "Oath of Sirte".

The enthusiastic troop exclaimed in heart. "We swear it! All of them, "Senegalese", North Africans or Metropolitans, have now sworn to liberate the mother country, even if they have to die.

De Gaulle was now sure that he was dealing with one of the officers that France needed in order to recover and reconquer her homeland. De Hauteclocque, for his exploits, received the rank of colonel, still within the 1st Armored Division, which would soon be called upon for new battles.

It should be noted that recent events made De Hauteclocque reconsider his pre-war prejudices, particularly anti-Semitism. Indeed, seeing the Jews from North Africa and repatriated from Metropolitan France en masse and enthusiastically enlist in the French army, de Hauteclocque said to one of his men. "Before, I didn't know how to support these people. Today, I realize that they are proud Frenchmen and good patriots!"

Although politically opposed, the new colonel thus became close to José Aboulker, a young volunteer non-commissioned officer assigned to the new colonel's company.

But many other battles were to take place before de Hauteclocque's troop once again set foot on the soil of the Motherland.




Philippe de Hauteclocque

[45] Crushed by the battle of France and the transfer across the seas of hundreds of downed airmen, captured by the Allies, as we have seen.
[46] That is 850 aircraft.
[47] The Italian air force.
[48] In reference to the German expression "You can call me Meier" when one is certain that something will not happen. But Goering had promised that no bombs would fall on Berlin!
[49] This made Churchill say, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. Or in French, "Jamais dans l'histoire des conflits tant de gens n'ont dû autant à si peu.
[50] That Radio Algiers called "Battle of London".
[51] Mandel deliberately did not mention the Spanish Republicans directly, so as not to irritate Franco.
[52] As a result, the Allies broke off diplomatic relations with Hungary and Bulgaria.
[53] Where they were stationed in view of an operation in the Balkans that was, for the moment, irrelevant.
[54] He was a captain
[55] "As written in the sand" in French/English.