The formation of the Franco-British Union would be the tipping point, and on March 7th, MacArthur declared war on Integralist Brazil, stating "Salgado poses a threat to the American way of life. His mongrel armies may one day come to invade our own, subjugating us in his religion of death and destruction. We must not allow that to pass! We must fight the Integralist menace, wherever it may try to hide!"
I can't help but find it amusing that, when declaring war on an Axis nation whose leader had sang praises of Adolf and the "crusade against Bolshevism", Mac has to throw in something evoking the fear of miscegenation to appease the less-savory elements of his National Salvation government.
Would Barbie even exist? I know Transformers is supposed to still be around ITTL, but a lot of classic 80s franchises probably never get off the ground. Many were developed explicitly to sell toys.
I simply can't see such a consumerist and fashion obsessed doll gaining any notoriety in the UASR. If it is to arise, then it is much more likely to be an evolution of the Bidi Lili doll that originally enspired Barbie. Heck, is the Handler family aren't White Emigrees, the dolls name could still Stat as Bidi Lili up untill the modern day.
As for Oppenhimer himself, he would obviously not get any flack for being a supposed communist. Actually he might be elevated even more than he was OTL, especially with there being a massive nuclear missile gap with the FBU. And that brings me to something a but more on topic. Does the UASR still detonate the first nuke in 1943 on a Japanese Naval base in Korea (I think that is how it went in the Great Crusade thread) or is it later?
for Oppenhimer himself, he would obviously not get any flack for being a supposed communist. Actually he might be elevated even more than he was OTL, especially with there being a massive nuclear missile gap with the FBU. And that brings me to something a but more on topic. Does the UASR still detonate the first nuke in 1943 on a Japanese Naval base in Korea (I think that is how it went in the Great Crusade thread) or is it later?
They might want a more simplified version of the flag for vexilogical reasons. The Tricolour and the Union Jack are both easily recognizable at a distance.
They might want a more simplified version of the flag for vexilogical reasons. The Tricolour and the Union Jack are both easily recognizable at a distance.
The naval ensign is more or less the same sans the fasces so it's just the Norman cross with a hole in the middle.
The tricolour is not used because it is a republican symbol and as per the FBU treaty and the coronation of George VI as Emperor of the Franco-British Union as well as King of Great Britain and her Dominions the legacy of French republicanism ends forevermore with the formulation of the Union.
It is a de facto annexation in totality of France and her empire into the British Commonwealth with the Metropole having the prestige of being directly attached to the United Kingdom.
While Paris is the devolved centre of government of France, London is the de facto and de jure capital of a unitary state and they just add more seats in parliament for all the French delegates of the General Assembly and change up the electoral system to accommodate the French districts.
If this sounds unequal, well, it was the original FBU treaty OTL which was rejected by Petain being the legal leader of France to everyone except the UK and Free France being a baguette Taiwan in central Africa.
Of course, more immigration over time enters France than Britain and eventually Paris has its revenge as the Hexagon's per capita wealth climbs to a more equal level with that of Great Britain until the economic centre of gravity has increasingly shifted to the other side of the channel.
Sort of like what would have inevitably happened if the English King during either the Angevin era or the Hundred Years war ever actually succeeded in taking over France. But not quite as total as the centre of finance remains pretty firmly in Britain, and the Midlands are very hard to beat in terms of places to site heavy duty industry in Europe.
But for some English nationalists they found that in victory, there is defeat.
I'm surprised that such an arrangement has lasted as long as it has because that seems like something that would piss off not only the French Republicans, but also all three flavors of French Monarchists.
I'm surprised that such an arrangement has lasted as long as it has because that seems like something that would piss off not only the French Republicans, but also all three flavors of French Monarchists.
For the average person in France whether the tax man reports to London or Paris is materially meaningless as long as the tax rate remains about the same and the person they complain to is still speaking French to them.
For the average person in France whether the tax man reports to London or Paris is materially meaningless as long as the tax rate remains about the same and the person they complain to is still speaking French to them.
That seems... a little optimistic? I mean, the French haven't been particularly shy about being big mad at their government since 1789. That is after all why there are three completely different flavors of French monarchist and why France went through three republics over the course of the 20th century OTL. That sort of unequal treaty might be considered acceptable in the immediate face of Petain and Nazi bullshit but I'm not entirely sure that's sustainable in the medium term, let alone to TTL's 21st century. Especially if France ends up being the economically dominant part of the Union as you say.
French Devolution happening as soon as an actually constitutional order is scratched out, as well as it being a couple of decades (more than enough for people to acclimate and the Union to become the New Normal) before le Hexagon outpaces Ingerlund both probably help in spades.
I could see the threat of the Internationale and fear of communism working to quell dissent, especially in the aftermath of the war with a lot of France itself needing time to recover. I can also imagine the French nationalists leveraging that fear to get concessions over the years, possibly contributing to the growth of le Hexagon.
Basically Britain got to use the immediate danger of ww2 and the threat of communism to get themselves into a position of power and authority, only to slowly lose ground over the coming decades.
[Done with some vital help from @vilani99 . Thank you, vilani! ]
Excerpts from Adrien Guerland*, Edges of Darkness: The Rise and Fall of The French State (Paris: Fraternité, 2012)
Edges of Darkness is a 2012 popular history book written by Adrien Guerland, detailing the rise of the French State, from the beginning of French right-wing movements and organizations and their role in it, to the atrocities committed by the National Collectivist regime, until its eventual capitulation to Franco-British forces. It was one of the many non-academic historical works to be written after the exposes of the French State's role in the Holocaust, and is a polarizing book in the Franco-British Union, in contrast to a unanimously positive reception in the ComIntern.
Clouds on the Horizon
The Second American Civil War was, by every means, one of the many events that had an impact on every corner of the world in some way or the other. In France, this impact would manifest itself in the emergence of a new ideological strain of right-wing politics in the French political scene in the 1930's, as well as two new political parties that adhered to it.
……..
After the Red May Revolution, the Third Republic experienced a Red Scare like never before. The shock produced by the fact that the nation which so far had been considered to be the beating heart of capitalism had succumbed to a communist revolution, had started to take root amidst the populace, leading to some uncomfortable questions being asked. If it could happen to them, it was argued, then there was no reason why it wouldn't happen in France, considering the history of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune.
The opposition to the ideals of the Revolution and the Commune, coupled with a nostalgia for the monarchy and a significant spike in anti-Semitism after the Dreyfus Affair was what led to the formation of the Action Française, a counter-revolutionary, anti-parliamentary movement that would stay at the fringes of the extreme far-right. They would be at the peak of their influence during the next twenty years after their formation in 1899.
Although the victory against the Deutsches Kaiserreich in the Great War led to an upsurge of jingoistic fervor, and the Russian Revolution had led to a fear of Bolshevism, the AF were not well placed to exploit the situation. The rise of fascism as a political ideology, especially in Germany and Italy, presented a threat to the regressive supporters of the House of Bourbon. Matters would be complicated further by Pope Pius XI condemning the Action Française on 29 December 1926; followed by many of Maurras' writings being placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum on 9 January 1927. This was in no small part due to Maurras' utilitarian approach towards Catholicism, which unsettled most of those who agreed with him on many issues. On 8 March, AF members were forbidden to receive the sacraments, thus rubbing salt in the movement's wounds and subjecting its cadres to social ostracism. This, along with the failure to gain any significant level of popular support in the face of the Fédération Républicaine, would prompt many to leave. Noteworthy among them was Eugène Deloncle, the founder of the notorious terrorist group, La Cagoule.
……..
As the first half of 1933 saw the success of the Second American Revolution, leading to the aforementioned Red Scare, the AF felt that they had a chance to rise out of the ashes. But unbeknownst to Maurras and the rest of the AF leadership, the seeds of a new right-wing movement had been sown the previous year. One that would eventually supersede and consolidate most of the disparate movements and organizations on the right in due time.
In 1931, Jacques Doriot, the SFIC mayor of Saint Denis proposed that the ComIntern follow a "Popular Front'' strategy of alliance between the Communists and other Socialist parties in order to contain the rising threat of fascism and prevent it from taking root wherever possible. While the Popular Front would indeed become official ComIntern policy later on and yield results, at the time he suggested it, there was still a year to go before the 1932 American presidential elections, the most prominent and successful example of this strategy, and the staunchly Stalinist SFIC would not countenance such an alliance with the "enablers of bourgeois capitalism". The Politburo quickly got wind of the matter and acted with alacrity, expelling him from the party in 1932 (1).
Disillusioned and infuriated at his expulsion, Doriot made a vow to himself that, from that moment onwards, he would work for the destruction of Communism however he could. His political views took a sharp turn towards the right, culminating in him founding the Parti Populaire Français in 1933 (1), widely considered to be the first fascist party in France. The PPF adopted a platform of nationalism, corporatism, class collaboration, anti-communism, anti-Semitism (after 1934), anti-capitalism, anti-liberalism and a vicious opposition to Freemasonry. It also declared in its manifesto that "France must look to the past to seek strength and inspiration, not to recreate it, as some deluded people would rather prefer to". This could only be interpreted as a slight directed at the Action Française, and dictated the state of relations between the two movements, with Doriot and Maurras regularly attacking the other in their party newspapers.
……..
In 1934, Pierre Clémenti, a young Corsican who was then a sports columnist for the press of the Radical-Socialist Party, took the decision to leave the party. Having already cut his teeth in the circles of militant French nationalism (in 1932, he was on the leadership board of the National League of French Youth, and in 1933, he helped Henry Coston in forming the Francistes party, as a splinter of the Mouvement Franciste), he no longer fit in with the center-left policies of the Radicals.
After an acrimonious fight with Coston, Clémenti would leave the movement, taking the bulk of the cadres with him and forming the Parti Français National-Collectiviste. The PFNC had a platform that was practically similar to the PPF; however, there were a few differences. Firstly, they believed in a theory of racial supremacy not dissimilar to the NSDAP's idea of Herrenvolk. Secondly, they were more nationalistic than the PPF, calling for the partition of Belgium on ethnic lines and the formation of la plus grande France (Greater France). Indeed, in 1934 itself, Clémenti had contacts in the right-wing of the Walloon Movement. This would put them on a collision course with the Belgian Rexist Party and its charismatic leader, Léon Degrelle. Like the PPF before them, they were also contemptuous of nostalgia for the French Empire, antagonizing the Action Française and inviting vitriolic attacks from them in the process.
The PFNC was, from its early days, funded by the Third Reich; indeed, Clémenti had befriended the chief propagandist of the NSDAP, Julius Streicher, after quite a few guest appearances at their rallies. On the other hand, the PPF had to compete for Italian funding with the Mouvement Franciste at first, but as time went by, Mussolini was convinced by his closest advisors that Doriot was the better bet over Bucard, leading to the Francists having their funds cut and diverted to the PPF, something that would cause bad blood to develop between Doriot and Bucard for a while.
……..
The 1936 legislative elections were marked by two major events: one, the SFIC, the SFIO, the PRRRS and various other Socialist parties fought the elections under the banner of the Popular Front, using the very strategy that Doriot had suggested back in 1931. The irony of it was not lost on the SFIC and Doriot, who would launch quite a few barbs at his former party during the campaign. Secondly, the PPF and the PFNC, participating in national level elections for the first time, were able to punch significantly above their weight for two new parties, with the former getting 54 deputies and the latter getting 30. A scrutiny of the results shows that the PPF and the PFNC had usurped the lion's share of the voter base of the FR and the PRAS (Parti républicain agraire et social), by effectively playing on the fears of the conservative and rightist sections of the French populace and at the same time, employed a populist rhetoric designed to attract the French working class, something that was new to the political scenario of the Third Republic. More than that, it marked the beginning of the decline of the Center as a viable political force in France, as the Left began to coalesce and come together, mirrored by similar developments on the Right.
As the newly elected Front Populaire government and the rightist opposition settled down to business, Doriot and Clémenti found themselves coordinating the actions of their parties in the Chambre des députés, with the PPF deputies supporting their PFNC counterparts in any debate, and vice versa. Joint marches were undertaken by both parties, seeking to drum up support for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. Indeed, this was mostly possible due to the strong ideological similarity both parties had, in addition to the cordial, friendly relationship between their respective founders (2). In December 1936, Clémenti suggested that their parties be merged, considering that their views and goals were practically the same, and that it would be better to stand united and work towards achieving them. Doriot replied that he would bring it up at the next Congress of his party.
Half a year later, in June 1937, the two of them declared the formation of the Parti Populaire National Collectiviste Français (French National Collectivist People's Party, PPNCF), the party that would not only go on to become the dominant face of fascism in France, but also the primary driving force of the regime that would join the Pact of Steel.
……..
By 1939, after the successful annexations of La Rocque's Parti Social Français and Bucard's Mouvement Franciste, the PPNCF stood tall like a Colossus in the French political stage. Very few noteworthy right-wing movements existed from that point onwards, with the exception of Déat's Rassemblement National Populaire, a grouping of Neosocialists who had been expelled from the SFIO for adopting a National Syndicalist stance, and the Action Française, which by this time, was eking out a miserable existence, sustained only by Maurras' painstaking efforts. The atmosphere in France was tense, with Germany having annexed Czechoslovakia the year before. The PRRRS and Daladier had, in all honesty, made an attempt to stand up to Berlin, even withstanding British pressure on the matter. But the Radicals' hand would be forced by the military and the government's center-right and right-wing allies in the Chambre, with Daladier forced to renege on agreements with the Czech. It was a bitter humiliation for him, and as Germany invaded Poland later in 1939, he would belatedly realize the poison chalice that was the offer of support provided by Doriot and Clémenti last year. Indeed, the decision to shake hands with the PPNCF had not gone down well with many in the party, as well as its voter base. This would have significant consequences in the legislative elections next year.
Darkening Skies
If the 1936 elections were a testimony to the extent of the divisions in French society and politics, the 1940 elections served to showcase the level to which the French populace had been polarized. With the first Popular Front government leading to significant activity on the part of the right, and a shameful foreign policy disaster of the succeeding Radical government leading to the left becoming increasingly bellicose, one could easily say that two Frances existed in the Métropole.
Due to the PRRRS's backroom deal with the PPNCF and the humiliation suffered to Germany, its voter base would abandon them en masse and shift to the left, boosting the numbers of the SFIO and the SFIC. On the other hand, the PPNCF benefitted largely from the lack of any notable challengers on the right, and thus was able to nearly triple their numbers in the Chamber of Deputies, reaching a total of 234 deputies. The elections threw up another surprise: the RNP entered the Chamber with 22 deputies. Observing the writing on the wall, Déat would quickly form a post-poll alliance with Doriot, Clémenti and Bucard - the Front de la Liberté (3) (Front of Liberty). The Popular Front had returned to power yet again, but the path in front of them was more difficult than ever.
The Stahlpakt would invade the Soviet Union barely five days after the election results came out, giving the newly elected government its first major challenge as the PPNCF paramilitaries, the Blueshirts and the Gardes Française began to march regularly through the streets of several cities as a show of force, chanting pro-German, pro-Italian, anti-Soviet and anti-American slogans, which provoked an inevitable response from the SFIC's own paramilitary cadres, leading to bloody clashes and brawls across the country. The PF government condemned the streetfights, though not before having to deal with an exceedingly acrimonious shouting match in the Palais Bourbon over the very same issue. Considering the numbers of the Front of Liberty, such incidents would recur rather often in the future, especially when the government made attempts to discuss the "relations of France with her eastern neighbours".
The Axis invasion of Norway on 10 October, 1941 would spur Blum and his government into action. A few days ago, he had sent Jean Monnet to London, intrigued by his idea of a "Union" with Britain in the event of war. Roughly ten days after Norway was attacked, France would sign a nonaggression pact with Liberia. The last action had led to some consternation in military circles, with the overall opinion being that it sent a negative message to Berlin and Rome. On 12 December, a general order of mobilization would be promulgated, in response to increased German presence in the Rhineland and the "inevitable breakout of hostilities with Germany". It would begin the chain of events that ended with the fall of the Popular Front and the Third Republic, the formation of the French State, and the United Kingdom declaring war on the Anti-ComIntern Axis.
……..
The order of mobilization only inflamed an already volatile domestic situation in the Métropole. While left-sympathetic citizens queued up at recruitment offices and centers, their rightist brethren arranged for elaborate and aggressive draft-dodging campaigns. Attempts to dissuade and intimidate potential military recruits often turned violent. The Cagoulards took to bombing recruitment offices, adding to the workload of the already exhausted police and Gendarmerie.
On December 15, Doriot, Clémenti and Bucard denounced the mobilization order in an energetic speech:
"People of France! The dupes and puppets who are governing our beloved nation would have you believe that by raising your arms against our eastern neighbours, you are fighting for the honour of France. Nothing could be further from the truth! In reality, you are being lied to, to fight a war for the Judeo-Bolshevik puppet masters in Russia and America, for their false, mongrelizing creed of class struggle and internationalism! They seek to destroy all we hold precious: our national identity, our unity, our society and our religion! We call upon you to resist this "call to arms" that will spell doom for France! Vive la France!"
The resulting riots would occupy the government's attention for some time, and in the meantime a malevolent plot was underfoot in the military; one that had been kick-started by the mobilization.
The French Army had a tradition of deep rooted conservatism, as was typical of most European militaries in the interwar period. However, it was not merely political, but also doctrinal - as can be attested to by the fact that the French military was modernizing at a highly lethargic pace, and by the early 1940's, was appreciably inferior in several regards to the Wehrmacht and the Italian military. The expectation of the generals after 1933 was that they would be fighting off a Soviet-American invasion of Europe - a strategic calculus in which Germany and Italy would be co-belligerents, if not allies. It was no surprise then that the order to mobilize was received poorly by the High Command.
For most of the generalship, already displeased with the Front Populaire for being "too soft on the Bolsheviks and the Maximalists", this was the last straw. Many of them would coalesce around Maréchal Philippe Pétain, the Marshal of France and the Lion of Verdun, and begin to weave the threads of the conspiracy that would "save France from falling into the dark abyss of Communism". The Old Marshal began by reaching out to as many generals and commanders as he could, while at the same time sending out feelers to the leaders of the PPNCF, the RNP and the AF. Telegrams were sent to the German and Italian embassies in Paris, informing them of the developments. The missives that Cécil von Renthe-Fink and Giacomo Acerbo would send to Berlin and Rome afterwards, would please the Führer and the Duce to no end. Germany and Italy had been looking for a way to get Türkiye into the war on their side since the Izmir Conference, and this opportunity could not have come at a better time; not to mention the possibility of bringing one of the foremost continental powers into the war in the east, thus killing two birds with one stone.
For the rest of December and much of January, levels of violence across the country would fall considerably, as the right-wing paramilitaries began to preserve their strength for what was to come. Even the excessively violent Cagoulards seemed to have gone quiet. An uneasy calm descended upon the Métropole - it was but the harbinger of the storm to come.
The Deluge Arrives
The dominoes would start to fall from 28 January, 1942, when Blum declared war on Germany. Just five days later, on 2 February, Pétain delivered his pronunciamiento, declaring the military's loss of faith in the civilian government. The leaders of the coup d'état gave an address to the "loyal patriots of France" to "arise, and take back the country from the clutches of the communist puppets in the Palais Bourbon". Statements of support for the Maréchal came in from the commanders of the troops stationed in Alsace-Lorraine and Provence, precipitating a tense standoff between the government and the military.
In London, the Conservative government of Edward Wood took a highly controversial and, according to his many critics, spineless stance regarding the developments in France. By declaring that "His Majesty's Government will take no action whatsoever on behalf of the government of France other than acting as a mediator for peace negotiations" between the civilian government and the rogue military high command, Prime Minister Wood had performed the ultimate act of appeasement, with the blessings and support of King Edward VIII. The outrage triggered by the declaration would culminate in half the Conservative delegation in the House of Commons crossing the aisle the next day, making a no-confidence vote all but inevitable. Feeling disgraced by the outcome, Edward abdicated that very day, in favor of his brother, George VI.
The standoff ended when the Corps de Cavalerie, under the command of Général René Prioux, marched on Paris. He hoped to seize the capital quickly with his three light mechanized divisions, and overthrow the government before a civil war broke out between the Pétainists and the Loyalists. Whether Prioux acted on his own, or on the orders of his army group commander, or on the personal orders of the Lion of Verdun is difficult to ascertain, as many of his fellow generals and co-conspirators, as well as his staff and subordinate officers, either did not survive the war or refused to divulge what they were aware of, eventually taking the secret to their graves. Additionally, a large amount of the documentation regarding the actions of the PPNCF regime was destroyed in the twilight years of the war, leaving us with little to work with.
Regardless of whose orders Général Prioux acted on, it is certain that the French Civil War began with Prioux's advance on Paris. Parisian citizens took to the barricades to block the advance of the Corps de Cavalerie. The Gendarmerie, along with the help of Communist paramilitaries, fought tenaciously enough to give the mobilized reserve divisions loyal to the Republic time to reinforce the capital. However, they would be stymied by the vicious, bloody fighting on the part of the Blueshirts and the Gardes Française, who made desperate efforts to break up the barricades.
The events of 10 February are enough to put an end to all excuseology and apologism for France's heroes of the First World War. That evening, Pétain, accompanied by Doriot, Clémenti and Bucard, met with Rudolf Hess, Hitler's favored lieutenant, and Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's foreign minister. They brokered an agreement in which Germany and Italy would support and recognize a new regime under Pétain's leadership and assist with the pacification of the country. In exchange, the French State would become a signatory of the Pact of Steel, join the Anti-ComIntern Axis, and enter the war in the Soviet Union.
On the next day, the German and Italian governments announced a police action in support of "the French people's valiant efforts to throw off the Judeo-Bolshevik yoke." The 1st and 2nd Army Groups, constituting the bulk of the French Army's modern mechanized forces and combat power turned towards the heartland, supported by the German Army Group West. Italian marines and paratroopers landed on Corsica, quickly overwhelming the meager opposition they encountered.
The Darkest Hour
The Pétainist forces stationed in Alsace-Lorraine made relatively good progress, only slowed down by the valiant efforts of Loyalist officers and soldiers, who put up a desperate, if unorganized defense, hoping to buy as much as time as possible for the FP government. But with the troops of Army Group West pouring in, this would prove to be nothing less than a Herculean endeavor. Still, the Loyalists made sure to hold ground at all costs, as the cry of "Ils ne passeront pas!" rang out and the blood of Frenchmen stained Northeastern France yet again.
In spite of their heroic, Thermopylaean sacrifices, they could only hope to delay the inevitable, as Calais would fall to the Pétainists after the local Gendarmerie were overwhelmed by the Blueshirts and the Garde Française, who managed to hold on to the city for long enough to be relieved by a motorized infantry division. In Provence, however, the Pétainists found themselves in a difficult situation as they were outnumbered by the Loyalists, and after a series of bloody skirmishes, they would be forced to retreat to Nice and Marseille. They prepared themselves for a siege, as the Loyalists made several offensive attempts against the two cities. The standoff would be broken only by the mutiny of the Flotte méditerranéenne. As the warships stationed in ports across southern France declared support for the Pétainists, the morale of the Loyalists shattered like glass, as they were forced off the eastern half of the southern coast. More army units defected, and by the beginning of March, Provence would be firmly in Pétainist hands.
On the heels of the loss of Provence came further disaster, as the units of the Corps de Cavalerie entered Paris on 4 March, to a joyous welcome by right-wing paramilitaries and citizens. The government was forced to retreat westwards, to Loire and eventually, Brittany. All Loyalist military units were ordered to preserve their strength and retreat. But in the midst of the chaos that engulfed the Métropole, with the morale situation being rather critical, it was effectively every man for himself. In spite of this, the Loyalists of the First Army would attempt to march westwards to Brittany, and their fellows in the Third Army would march south through the Pyrenees to the Spanish Free Soviet Republic, in what is now known as the Marche du chagrin (March of Sorrow).
Throughout April, the retreating Loyalists were harassed by Pétainist units of the Armée de l'Air, who had made their choice to defect once it became clear who was going to triumph. With turncoat forces on their heels, the fear of air raids, abysmally low morale and an undercurrent of suspicion among their ranks, the First Army's Loyalists somehow managed to reach Brittany, a broken and demoralized lot who were desperate for succor. With the help of the RAF and the Royal Navy, they would be evacuated to the Home Islands in one of the largest evacuations in military history - Operation Dynamo.
For the Loyalists of the Third Army, the march to Red Spain was nothing less than a march through hell, what with the defection of the Mediterranean Fleet forcing them to avoid the southern coast at all costs. This left the Third Army with two options: brave the interior passes of the Pyrenees, or make for the Atlantic coastal passage and risk falling into the jaws of the Pétainists. As the putschists traversed the Massif Centrale, a decision was made: they would make for the Pas de la Casa and the Col de Puymorens. A spirited rearguard action on the part of the 6th Corps bought the remaining two corps enough time to make it to their designated passes, forcing the Pétainists to cease their pursuit. In Paris, Pétain and his allies could do nothing but accept the escape of the Third Army as a fait accompli and focus on consolidating their new regime. It was just as well that the turncoats stopped their chase, considering the terrifying conditions in Southwestern France at that time of the year. Temperatures in April in the Col de Puymorens average at -0.5°C at the lowest, and the Pas de la Casa at -1.4°C, and April 1942 was a cold month. Fortunately for the Loyalists, the Pyrenees were a relatively short crossing, with the first exhausted soldiers arriving at the railhead in Sort on the other side just two weeks after the evacuation order was given. A week after that, on the 15th of April, the last remains of the 6th Corps arrived in Red Spain.
The Loyalists in the Spanish FSR had a feeling that they didn't have much time on their hands. By crossing the Pyrenees, they might have evaded the putschists for the time being, but it was only a matter of time before the Spanish State would be persuaded to "complete its unfinished business". Their concerns were shared by many in the Admiralty and the Imperial General Staff, who began to prepare for another evacuation after Dynamo. They would have at least a month in their hands before the Falangists would eventually pounce on Red Spain and, more worryingly, were racing against time, as on 4 April, Hitler had started pressuring Mussolini and Mola to declare war on the Franco-British Union.
1.IOTL, he was expelled in 1934 and formed his party in 1936.
2.A 180° swing going on here - IOTL Clémenti was deeply hostile towards Doriot, considering him still to be a communist, even after he was expelled from the SFIC/PCF.
3.An alliance that Doriot was trying to push with the PSF IOTL, which was rejected by La Rocque due to apprehensions that it was an attempt to annex his party.
That seems... a little optimistic? I mean, the French haven't been particularly shy about being big mad at their government since 1789. That is after all why there are three completely different flavors of French monarchist and why France went through three republics over the course of the 20th century OTL. That sort of unequal treaty might be considered acceptable in the immediate face of Petain and Nazi bullshit but I'm not entirely sure that's sustainable in the medium term, let alone to TTL's 21st century. Especially if France ends up being the economically dominant part of the Union as you say.
Probably one of those situations where nobody's really happy with the status quo but a) it's not completely intolerable and b) nobody can build a consensus on what exactly they want to do instead, so it trundles on until the issue is forced by a major recession or TTL's equivalent of UKIP happening or what have you. Bit like Scottish independence IOTL.
Hasn't stopped OTL France or the US from keeping the Fasces in places like Coat of Arms or other places. The Fasces has a much older history than Fascism, unlike the Hakenkreuz which basically came and went with Nazism as far as usage in Europe was concerned.
Hasn't stopped OTL France or the US from keeping the Fasces in places like Coat of Arms or other places. The Fasces has a much older history than Fascism, unlike the Hakenkreuz which basically came and went with Nazism as far as usage in Europe was concerned.
For the average person in France whether the tax man reports to London or Paris is materially meaningless as long as the tax rate remains about the same and the person they complain to is still speaking French to them.
I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of French society. This isn't the ancient regime. This isn't the death of political engagement of modern neoliberalism either. French society around both world wars was in fact extremely political.
I think this is going to be fairly palatable to French conservatives, both republican and not, because it let them redistribute power away from Paris under a FBU devolution scheme. But I really don't think it's going to be uncontroversial beyond that. The populists on the right will blame everything on the anglo yoke, and the left, both republican and socialist, was always a proponent of centralization of the republic as their only hope to implement their program without unbeatable institutional resistance, which isn't really an option in a binational structure.
The large organizational differences between the French center and left and their political counterparts in the UK will also be massive issues in normalizing binational politics.
But then the FBU is kinda integral to the setting by now so we kinda have to accept that it works.
Fascinating stuff. I like how France's general militant spirit came through, and how the in-universe author lionizes the Loyalists despite the fact that they were mostly swept aside. I especially like the inclusion of 'Ils ne passeront pas,' and can't help but chuckle at how in the future people will associate Gandalf's sacrifice as a direct reference to that.
Fascinating stuff. I like how France's general militant spirit came through, and how the in-universe author lionizes the Loyalists despite the fact that they were mostly swept aside. I especially like the inclusion of 'Ils ne passeront pas,' and can't help but chuckle at how in the future people will associate Gandalf's sacrifice as a direct reference to that.
Fascinating stuff. I like how France's general militant spirit came through, and how the in-universe author lionizes the Loyalists despite the fact that they were mostly swept aside. I especially like the inclusion of 'Ils ne passeront pas,' and can't help but chuckle at how in the future people will associate Gandalf's sacrifice as a direct reference to that.
There is a bit of a personal reason why the author gives the Loyalists that respect - his grand-uncle was in the Third Army.
Even though the Loyalists took a big L, that is beside the point for many in the FBU, who see them as nothing less than heroes.
PS - Also consider the fact that in 1940, the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies is a right-wing one, yet the government is formed by a coalition of left-wing parties.
That is French politics in the early half of the 20th century for you.
Even if he didn't have a personal connection with the Loyalists, lionizing them seems fair to me. Sure, they lost, but their opponent was the goddamned fascists; Churchill was an evil old bastard, but I agree with his sentiment that if Hitler invaded Hell I'd cheer for the Devil.
Plus, a daring escape from rapidly approaching jaws is a fine story in and of itself.
Fighting the War that Never War: The Eastern Front in 1942
Excerpts from "Fighting the War that Never Was; or that time INTREV did professional alternate history," posted by RollingRoyce at net/global/http:co.na/uchronia/zine/
It's sometimes said that we take ourselves too seriously in this hobby. Well, eat your heart out, because none of us rivet counting grognards will ever hold a candle to the 1978 Military History Symposium conducted at the behest of the INTREV Joint-General Staff.
What had begun several years ago as a simple musing of the Military-Historical Institute of the Militärakademie "Friedrich Engels" became the subject of the hitherto largest joint military exercise in history, a subject near and dear to all our hearts: Operation Jupiter, the aborted Ukrainian strategic offensive.
Jupiter was to be the natural follow-up to Mars. After breaking the back of Army Group Centre, the Joint-Stavka's attention turned southwards to the liberation of Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Planning shifted here even as the tanks were still grinding forward west of Moscow. Capitalising on the surging number of mobilised American divisions that would be entering into the theatre in the first half of 1942, the Stavka began building up forces along the Rostov-Millerovo-Belgorod axis.
In the north, the Belgorod Front under Nikolai Vatutin would first take the vital rail junctions at Kursk and Kharkov before beginning the west-ward push to the Dnieper River. The Southwest Front under Maurice Rose would drive Southwest to Dnepropetrovsk, forcing a crossing before the Axis could dig in on the right bank of the river. The Rostov Front under Fyodor Kuznetsov would encircle the Italian First and German Sixth Armies in the city of Rostov itself, supported by marine attacks at Mariupol and the Separate Coastal Army driving north from Crimea.
It was an ambitious but well-measured plan. Scheduled to begin in late May to early June, after the spring swell of the rivers had ebbed, the plan was in its infancy, only known to the highest echelons of government and the military before events scuppered it.
A perfect storm of events occurred over the course of February 1942, placing Operation Jupiter on indefinite hiatus. The decisive Fascist coup de main in Western Europe brought the whole of the European subcontinent into Axis hands. The powerful French Army, a massive counterweight holding large German and Italian reserves down, instead struck against its own government.
With the French Métropole now in Axis hands, and Britain being chased out of the Mediterranean, it was clear that the non-aggression pact with Türkiye was not worth the paper it was written on, necessitating the shoring up of the Caucasus.
As if the prospect of thousands of additional German panzers and well-trained landsers, backed up by a French expeditionary force, heading East wasn't bad enough, Imperial Japan would soon plunge the entirety of the Pacific into the fires of war, effectively closing the Vladivostok convoy route from April to November.
The UASR could no longer fully supply forces in theatre, let alone surge additional forces into the country. While Soviet production of war materiel, particular munitions, grew considerably over the course of 1942, it could not make up for the massive deficit. Nor could the new revolution in intermodal, containerised shipping be adopted fast enough to make up for the disruption.
Consequently, Operation Jupiter nearly disappeared from memory, remaining full classified until the statute of limitations in 1952. Even when most materials relating to the operation were declassified without challenge by the All-Union government, the documents remained largely unexplored in the archives until its unlikely resurrection years later.
Fast forward to the fall of 1974. Mikhail Kessler, then a major and graduate student at the Militärakademie, was beginning his dissertation when he stumbled upon a reference to Operation Jupiter while reviewing the minutes of a GKO meeting. Intrigued, he began to delve deeper. Some of the details, as published in his memoir, are quite amusing. Initially, he was unable to get the Soviet Army's archives to ship documents to Dresden, as they had not yet been duplicated for preservation, nor were they willing to accommodate a Free German junior officer's request to move them ahead in the schedule.
So instead, Kessler and a comrade piled into a 1966 Trabant Beetle for a summer road trip to Moscow, returning with the car's suspension sagging under the weight of xeroxed copies. The effort was well worth it, because his 1975 dissertation on the operation was added to the academy commandant's recommended reading list.
Because nothing of Operation Jupiter was ever finalised before it was cancelled, the specifics of the operation are quite hazy. The last reliable source we have is a Stavka summary dated 1 March 1942, just after planning had been ordered halted. After outlining the operational objectives of the three fronts, it summarises a total expected Soviet Army commitment of "no less than forty rifle divisions, four of the 'brigade bucket' tank corps, plus at least as many independent tank brigades." The WFRA was expected to commit twelve motor rifle divisions, plus at least six tank or mechanised divisions.
Total strength was estimated at around 1.2 million when factoring in corps, army and front level assets, against an expected Axis strength between 700,000 to 900,000. Right off the bat, this tells us a lot; German force estimates are much lower than the actual offensive operations they waged in the summer and fall of the year. The total strength of Soviet forces committed at the outset of Operation Sonnenrad, the German offensive to the Don River, was also higher, though the divisions were equipped below the minimum level considered acceptable for offensive operations.
While the force multiplier from the freeing up of forces from OB West is obvious, the higher actual deployed Soviet forces in the desperate defence there gives us our first indication that Operation Jupiter was meant to be a single part of a comprehensive offensive strategy for 1942, the other components of which were in an even less developed state than Operation Jupiter. Forces that would have been utilised to lift the Siege of Leningrad were being diverted southward as early as April in response to the observed buildup of German forces.
In essence, Operation Jupiter would attempt to perform the same trick that the Second Battle of Stalingrad had: take permanent initiative in the course of the war on the Eastern Front. If this sounds familiar to my subs, it's because it is. Every major offensive operation undertaken, from Mercury to Icebreaker to Bagration to Mars, had been an attempt by INTREV to permanently wrest the initiative from the invading forces. If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again!
Leaving aside all the other factors, like the Western Front not opening up or Imperial Japan not getting involved, we're still left with a really important missing ingredient between June 1942 and June 1943: a whole year of continual refinement of the organisation, doctrine and training of their forces. Remember in 1942 the Soviets were only just reimplementing the corps level of organisation, reducing the huge strain on the army headquarters to separately direct between eight and twelve divisions as well as numerous other units. The average fielded strength of a Soviet rifle division was still only around half that of a German division.
We all want to see the Nazis fall on our face (well…most of us do. Some of you–let's just say I've got my eyes on you mate), but wishing and making it so are two different things. And it's good that we're seeing a lot of shifts in historical perception. Until the 90s or so, in the Entente uchronia scene our non-involvement in the war was a pretty standard feature of Nazi victory timelines.
And these stories, many of them classics of the genre, were not all right-wing! Fatherland by Robert Harris, one of the crossovers of uchronia into serious literature, is vehemently anti-Nazi, focusing its plot on a conspiracy to eliminate conspirators at the Wannsee conference within the Reich to protect relations between the Reich and the British Empire, is very intimately reflective on the policies of appeasement and collaboration with the Nazis and Britain's culpability for the cataclysm that followed. Nevertheless, the formation of the Franco-British Union and our involvement in the war was still taken as a sort of article of faith, by writer and reader alike, as a necessary component to defeating the Third Reich.
In recent years, there's been a revisiting of this trope, especially on Our Dear Board. And at times, I think we have overcorrected. We as amateur historians have taken to fighting the unfought battles of Operation Jupiter with great gusto, and many timelines, whether they prevent the Pétain putsch or just all together maintain longer neutrality in the West have come down on the war ending by Christmas 1943.
This is a positive trend, no doubt spurred on by the painful process of no longer feeling like the gentlemen across the Weser River are aliens in human clothing, and a trend to avoid the worst sorts of jingoism about their military competency. So while once we viewed the communists as a stumbling colossus being outfought on a man-to-man basis by the hard-fighting Germans only to overcorrect to one that lionised the heroics of our Eastern Allies, I think it's interesting that the largest, most comprehensive professional study of Operation Jupiter came to the opposite conclusion, that the operation would have failed well-short of its objective, that the danger of a crackback after the culmination point was far too high for comfort.
Hopping back in our TARDIS to the world of 1978, it's hard to overstate how much of a huge event the Jupiter war games were. It was not just a big deal for the officers and soldiers participating in them, they were a sort of cause celebre even in the broader public, and for more than just the usual fanfare of our Internationale is Struggling Together reasons. This was the first time that soldiers of the DBA (Deutsche Befreiungsarmee, German Liberation Army) were invited to participate in major exercises on Soviet soil. Armed Germans coming to Ukraine as guests was kind of a big thing for relations between the USSR and the FSRD.
This was the capstone for the rehabilitation of East Germans in the Comintern, a sign that they were fully trusted as part of the Internationale, and that their state did not exist as an imposed victor's peace over the country.
And while the Jupiter war games were the centrepiece of Solidarity 78, I should note that there was a lot more going on concurrently. For example, the Luftstreitkräfte der DBA sent its elite JG-1 fighter wing to Centre 1521 Maryy, the varsity fighter weapons school, to train on new fourth generation aircraft. And Sergei Bondarchuk shot principal photography for his long awaited epic Waterloo, using the surplus of soldiers and the official cooperation of multiple governments to film the action at full scale.
Digressing back to the subject, the Jupiter segment of the symposium began with a high level war game, conducted in May and hosted on the campus of the Kiev All-Arms Higher Command School. A delegation of officers from the Engels Military Academy presented the scenario, and a delegation from the Nanjing Army Command Academy would serve as umpires. The Axis team was selected from the cream of the crop of the INTREV Northeastern Group of Forces, predominantly colonels and brigadiers hungry for their first divisional command. While drawn heavily from the DBA, a few notable American officers took part, including Our Dear Board's favourite H.S. Thompson.
INTREV forces were played by the up and coming officers from the Alma-Ata, Kiev, and Ural military districts; administrations which played a central role in combined arms military training and development. Most notable of their ranks is Vadim Rogovin, future commander of the Azanian Expeditionary Force.
Details on the order of battle are fairly sparse in public domain literature presently. While I'm sure it would win a freedom of information request, as of yet no one has bothered to publish primary sources on the world wide web. But from what I've been able to gather from secondary sources, the exercise had a slightly modified order of battle from the last preliminary plans. Rifle corps return to the orders of battle, and the Soviet tank corps follow a late 1942 spec, with each tank brigade augmented with a motor rifle battalion.
The German order of battle was prepared by the Engels Academy's historical department, and represents a good estimate of German dispositions under the premise that INTREV maskirovka successfully obfuscated the operation's existence until two weeks before D-Day and tactical objectives until two days prior.
The exercise was run on a modified version of the INTREV's ISO 4182:1975 wargaming system, a stripped down version of which is known commercially as the Operational Art map game. Computational assistance was provided by several PARC Alto MSAC computers, a then state of the art minicomputer with a megabyte of RAM and a megapixel display.
The exercise simulated a one month long offensive phase. At the conclusion of the time limit, which would take seven days, umpires would render a final judgement, scoring based on the feasibility of unmet objectives. Players worked over sixteen hours per day, sleeping a few hours here and there, simulating the stress of real operational environments.
The outcome was a disappointment for the good guys. By the official judgement of the umpires, the Wehrmacht team was judged to have won a narrow tactical victory. Their forces maintained cohesion, and were able to thwart outright the INTREV team's scoring objective to facilitate the encirclement and probable destruction of at least one of the field armies, with the German divisions weighted fifty percent higher than an Italian, and twice that of a Romanian or Hungarian.
While some commentators have objected to the lack of a "no-retreat" order hindering the German players, in real-life Hitler's Führer directives were not so absolute in 1942, with many officers finding ways of creative compliance when the situation on the ground. And while INTREV was able to reach the Dnieper, by the close of the operation the Wehrmacht held three of the four scoring bridgeheads. Taken together with the losses incurred, the umpires ruled that the possibility of counterattack remained high.
Probably the more fascinating part of the Jupiter war games is the field exercises and second round of war games that followed. Even as the tactics and weapons get revolutionised, the last war still prefigures expectations of the next war. Jupiter-78, as it was called, was one of the largest peacetime exercises conducted by INTREV, and differed from the usual trend by largely involving reserve troops and officers. While cadrist formations were involved, about two-thirds of the Soviet units that took part (the largest national contingent) were from the Class B or C manpower categories. That is to say, divisions that in peacetime are kept at either ~50 percent or ~25 percent manpower strength respectively.
In this way, Jupiter-78 served as a stress test for the whole mobilisation system, from the calling up of reservists to their depots, processing them into units for refresher training, and the movement of forces to the theatre of operations.
So imagine, if you will, a bunch of reservists being called up from across the USSR, all being funnelled into the bustling cities of Ukraine for several months of service, meeting new comrades from all over the world. I've been told from first-hand accounts that the subject notwithstanding, the general atmosphere was a bit more like the Olympics, particularly with regard to the amount of fornication going on.
Jupiter-78 would refight a never fought campaign from the Second World War with modern weapons and a simulated nuclear battlefield. An enemy attempting to dig-in themselves in Eastern Ukraine, the "Circle Trigonist" aggressors from INTREV's long-running parallel narrative world, would be counterattacked by a coalition of Soviet, Chosunese and Zhonghuan forces. American and East German units would stand-in for the aggressors.
In the sources I have read on the subject, I am left with a single, burning question: did they try doing the accent? Inquiring minds must know. If you were there, or know someone who was, I desperately need to know how into character the aggressor units were. I know some blokes get offended by it, but please, Yanks never stop. That fake RP you do, it's great, especially when it comes from characters branded with the mark of going to state schools.
With that digression out of the way, the other difficulty in studying Jupiter-78 is how thoroughly serious accounts are obfuscated by search engine chaff. Since it's the first large-scale use of the MILES training system, which uses the same operating principles of Lasertag to improve the fidelity of training engagements, one has to wade through a sea of computer science and engineering related hits unless one has access to academic databases, and unfortunately most relevant journal articles are not available in digital form yet.
This was no barrier for me, old enough to know how to do things the old-fashioned way, but I have noticed a creeping wikiception on more publicly available discussions. It did not reveal, as many pop history commenters have insisted, serious problems in the communist military establishment. No, it is not the reason why they didn't go for the Last Crusade when the Falklands Incident kicked off. What's remarkable about Jupiter-78 is how unremarkable it was in terms of findings.
The military mobilisation system was functioning as intended. Reservists were able to integrate in with cadrists, even in the training environment. Professional and reserve echelons fought together well because ongoing reservist training was effective. As with all things, there was room for improvement. But even neutral military attachés observing or researching the subject found the field exercise was umpired with great scrutiny. Some units did better than others; the Zhonghuan 42nd Mechanised Division (which carries the legacy of the famed 2nd Division of the New Fourth Army) did notably well in taking its objectives quickly and with minimal casualties.
What is notable about it, I think, is how we talk about generals always re-fighting the last war. And here I don't think that's a bad thing. The Second World War went poorly enough for the Communists that they remain very aware of how badly things can go. Seriously fighting an operation where the enemy had occupied core French territory would be unthinkable for us. We all knew before the 80s, from the Prime Minister on down, that if the war went hot and West Germany was overrun, we would exercise the Samson Option and pull the temple down around us, and that'd be all she wrote for human civilization.
By contrast, they seem much more aware that mutually assured destruction can fail, that counterforce strategies that all the major powers have taken could push us into the nightmare scenario of a broken-back war, that the ladder of escalation has many rungs before we find the will to end it all. It took the crises of the Long 80s for us to realise we weren't quite ready to end the world just yet, even as we fought an undeclared war with each other across the entirety of the Global South.
