The exiled Vietnamese emperor being on the island and being opposed to Vichy is OTL, but the Wikipedia article is too sparse to tell if him being in a key Free French command position happened historically. How did he get to a major radio anyway? That the book bothers to note his participation suggests he'll be important later.... knowing TTL's luck, the destroyer he will serve on (he joined the navy OTL) will get sunk and further enflame things in Vietnam.
TTL's Dakar operation happens later, but it's more successful with the French folding! Nice, but if Vichy joins the axis those ships will be a sore spot. Then again, Franco-British naval warfare in the Caribbean will massively spook the USA, they'd likely act.
Loan sharks would send leg breakers after someone who defaulted the first time and would not loan them any more money
Britain in this case did already default on billions of dollars of WWI war loans. Note the US did not send leg breakers and is now loaning them more money
If you or I defaulted on a loan I would not reasonably expect for that lender to offer me another loan until I repaid the defaulted loan with appropriate penalties and fees
I would also not expect to receive another loan with such a default on record without posting collateral, and that the collateral in question would need to be feasible to collect, ie property in a jurisdiction that will actually work with the lender.
Finally of course if you or I rented a car or a piece of equipment we would be expected to return it in the same condition we borrowed it at the location we borrowed it from or else pay for it
Britain in OTL got incredibly generous terms you or I would never expect to get from a bank even without a default on record, despite also defaulting on her WWI loans. Here Britain is being treated like the credit risk she looks like
The Cabinet at least has heard Germany's terms and knows they are worse than this. The Cabinet also knows the McNutt administration has been twisting the previous acts as far as they would go to favor Britain and is promising to alter the deal in Britain's favor
I also didn't write that much of the British side of things, yet
Cape Palos had its origin in the French surrender and the naval situation immediately following it. The surrender of France had removed the French Navy from the British order of battle and left it in a state of limbo where it could possibly be added to the Italo-German one in the future. There had been proposals to immediately neutralize the French Navy, however that had been prevented by the need for French cooperation to complete the evacuation of British and other foreign troops from France, which took until August. By that point Palimpsest had gutted the British Fleet Air Arm and the Battle of Britian was preventing the replacement of the expended carrier wings.
By December the situation had improved to the point where the British had rebuilt their carrier air wings and air cover could now be provided to attempts to pressure the French. The first was the medium sized force at Dakar built around the battleship Strasbourg, which was easily convinced to join the carrier Bleriot and its escorts in the West Indies and sit out the war. This left the next major concentration as the fleet at Mers-el-Kebir.
The French had stationed the majority of their fleet in the colonies, to keep them away from the German occupiers so that they could not be easily seized. The Battleships Richelieu, Jean Bart, Dunkerque, Lorraine and Provence, the seaplane carrier Commandant Teste. the heavy cruisers Algerie, and Colbert, eight destroyers, three Avisos and six submarines represented a powerful force. The three modern battleships in particular could sway the balance at sea against the United Kingdom when combined with the other modern capital ships available to Germany and Italy. Yet for the moment those capital ships were not a factor, with only two modern Italian battleships being combat ready, with every other modern Italo-German ship either working up or in yard hands. In three months that would change, with five battleships becoming battle ready, but for the moment the British could operate with impunity.
At Gibraltar the Battlecruisers Hood, Howe and Rodney, the battleships Canopus, Majestic and Duke of York, the aircraft carriers Ark Royal and Albion, three heavy, six light, and two anti aircraft cruisers, along with 27 destroyers were assembled under Admiral Cunningham. The goal of this force was to convince the French fleet to do the same as the squadron at Dakar, and either join the Free French or head west and sit out the war. The gathering of such a large fleet could not be hidden and the Spanish were well aware of the composition and status of the fleet.
When the force made preparations to depart the French were promptly notified and when the fleet as a body left just after nightfall on the 16th of January the French were informed within a half hour. By 10:30pm Admiral Gensoul was ordered to depart Mers-el-Kebir for Toulon. Gensoul managed to depart by 4:30am, minus Commandant Teste, the submarines and gunboats and immediately headed due north at his best speed, to enter the safety of neutral Spanish territorial waters.
At 7:30 he was found by the British dawn patrol off Albion and the British turned to pursue him. At 8:30 a combined strike force off the two carriers arrived and Admiral Cunningham summoned Gensoul to turn around or be attacked. Gensoul refused and at 8:50 the combined air wings launched torpedo attacks on the Richelieu, Jean Bart, and Dunkerque, seeking to cripple the most potent of the French units. Under orders from Paris not to fire unless fired upon Jean Bart and Dunkerque did not defend themselves, Richelieu did as Gensoul countermanded that, but the order was not transmitted quicky. The flagship survived unscathed but Jean Bart and Dunkerque each took two torpedoes, the former was merely slowed to 27 knots but otherwise fully combat capable, the latter was slowed to 23 knots and lost her main battery due to magazine flooding.
At 9:45 the British battleships were sighted and Gensoul realized that he had a problem. Even the slow British battleships could make 25 knots, while his slow battleships were limited to 18 given their age. With two hours to go before reaching Spanish territorial waters he would be engaged by the British before he reached that point, and the British were not too likely to respect Spanish territorial waters in any case. He thus ordered Rear Admiral Godfroy to take the Lorraine and Provence and charge the British fleet and buy time. With those obsolete battleships out of the fleet he could then increase speed to the 23 knots that Dunkerque could make and reach Spanish waters quicker.
On seeing the obsolete battleships charging him Cunningham ordered the fleet to open fire at 10:21. Lorraine blew up at 10:27 from a magazine hit and was unable to even make a single shot in reply. Provence opened fire at 10:39 but by that point had already taken severe damage and lost her fire control. She fired ineffectively at Hood until 10:56 when her main battery was silenced. At 11:02 she blew up from a magazine hit either from Canopus or Majestic. Gensoul considered sending his destroyers to try and delay the British next, but realized that being outnumbered 2 to 1 by the present destroyers and facing a large number of cruisers they were unlikely to do much.
Following the destruction of Lorraine Cunningham ordered his ships to advance on the French at maximum speed to catch them before they could reach the safety of Spanish territorial waters. This resulted in his force becoming strung out with the Canopus and Majestic falling behind the faster ships but meant that by 11:20 his faster ships were entering extreme range. Engagement of the modern French units was temporarily delayed by the need to dodge a French air raid which was otherwise ineffective but Rodney opened fire on Dunkerque at 11:36, with Hood engaging Jean Bart at 11:39, Duke of Yorkengaging Richelieu at 11:42 and Howe engaging Colbert at 11:43.
The French could not effectively respond as the all forward arrangement used on their modern capital ships meant that they had a wide blind spot astern. Bringing their heavy guns to bear would require making wide zig zags that would massively slow down their progress, something inadvisable given the disparity in force. Instead Gensoul’s force bore onwards and at 11:49 a Spanish destroyer announced that the French had entered Spanish territorial waters and demanded that Cunningham cease his attacks.
Cunningham ignored this and at 11:51 the first hit occurred on Dunkerque, by 12:00 she had taken two more 15” hits and every other major French vessel had taken at least one hit. At 12:03 Howe put a shell clear through Colbert’s forward stack and snuffed two thirds of her boilers, dropping her to 20 knots. At 12:11 another shell dismounted her inner shaft and left her completely dead in the water, to be destroyed by 12:25, leaving Howe to focus on Algerie.
At 12:13 the first British cruisers began opening fire on the French destroyers. At 12:20 the destroyer Bison took a hit to her torpedo flats from the cruiser Belfast and was lost, followed by the Jaguar taking a rudder hit from Kent and beaching herself at 12:26. At 12:31 the destroyer Casque was lost from fire from 3 different cruisers and a minute later Jean Bart took a hit to her stern that reduced her to 15 knots. Cunningham scented blood and was prepared to see the French annihilated however he received a new message from the Spanish
The Spanish battlecruisers and heavy cruisers had entered the scene and the Spanish were now threatening to open fire if he did not stop violating Spanish neutrality. Cunningham believed that the Spanish were bluffing and was confident that any one of his capital ships could take both Spanish battlecruisers. However he was under orders not to engage the Spanish under any circumstances, his verbal instructions permitted violation of their neutrality but not an actual shooting incident as the government feared having Gibraltar neutralized as Malta had been. This at 12:40 Cunningham ordered his force to cease fire and break off…
…Cunningham dog legged around the Balearics and took a position off Cape Cerbere on the 19th to try and intercept Gensoul’s fleet as it crossed into French waters or to force it to be interned in Spain. The Spanish however stated that as France was currently at peace they were not required to intern the French vessels, which could stay as long as they wished. Cunnigham then radioed London for permission to strike the French vessels in Barcelona on the 20th but was firmly denied and forced to return to Gibraltar…
…Cape Palos was a tactical and operational victory but an immense strategic failure. Cunningham had destroyed 2 old battleships, a heavy cruiser and three destroyers, crippled two modern battleships, heavily damaged a third and a heavy cruiser and damaged 5 destroyers to varying degree and suffered only minor damage and less than a dozen total casualties, only 3 fatal. However in doing so he had caused a diplomatic disaster that severely hurt Britain’s standing among neutrals, not only for firing on the French but for violating Spanish neutrality.
The British actions in instructing Cunningham to go to such lengths to neutralize the French fleet seriously compromised their position in the long term. The unoccupied parts of metropolitan France had been de facto neutral in the war, now France was effectively a cobelligerent against the British with French warships and aircraft actively taking action against them in the Mediterranean. The French colonial possessions in general became much less sympathetic to the British and any hope of bloodlessly forcing them to change allegiance had disappeared for the moment…
…Despite acting within his instructions, and having ample precedent in the form of no lesser personage than Horatio Nelson, Andrew Cunningham was court martialed and cashiered to mollify foreign, particularly Spanish, opinion. This was an unpopular move and was one of the contributing factors to the May 18th Confidence Vote in Parliament…
…Cunningham’s one mistake was in not ordering his ships to make their best speed earlier in the battle. While this would mean that Canopus and Majestic would have fallen behind, Cunningham possessed enough firepower in his other four capital ships not to need them, and an extra half hour of combat would have likely seen the destruction of at least one of the modern French capital ships. As it was they would be present to influence matters well into 1944…
-Excerpt from 101 Great Naval Battles, American Youth Press, New York 2010
Well there's the update, somewhat disrupted by research for an ASB story idea, quotes as follows
Wanted: Paleontologist specializing in pre Carboniferous era for elaborate practical joke. Two Week minimum contract, NDA required
I've been to the Ediacaran and there was nothing trying to sell me a lousy T-shirt
Oh god that last line effectively confirms the remaining French ships will be used by the Axis. Whether under Vichy flag or German who knows, but either way Churchill's paranoia has caused even more damage than OTL.
Interesting ASB idea, something ISOT 300+ million years ago?
…Malta had been neutralized as a threat to Italian supply lines to Africa by the end of August 1941. However Sanna insisted on having the island captured, as both a bargaining chip and to prevent the British from eventually reinforcing it and using it as a threat. The problem he faced was that he had no plans to invade the island, Italian war plans against Britian had all been defensive in nature and assumed that they would not be able to take the offensive. The collapse of France, destruction of the Mediterranean fleet and the presence of the Germans in distracting the British made invading Malta a real possibility.
Sanna ordered a plan drawn up and an invasion was tentatively scheduled for January 2nd 1942. The attacking force would consist of elements of two airborne divisions, an airlanding division, five infantry divisions and the entirety of the San Marco Marine Regiment, with the support of 90 tanks. Against this the British had 12 battalions of infantry, no operational tanks, and seven remaining 18 pounder artillery pieces. 19 Heavy and 150 light coastal guns, along with 280 AA guns had previously defended the island, but after months of air attack and intermittent naval bombardment most were out of action.
The invasion was soon delayed 29 days to January 31st due to both a lack of lift, both aerial and naval, and the fact that the Italian navy wanted to wait until repairs to the battleship Vittorio were completed and the newly completed Roma was nominally combat capable. The extra time would allow the Italians to crash complete a number of additional landing craft and to borrow many of the craft the Germans had built for their planned invasion of Britian, as well as a number of German transport aircraft and gliders. Even with that however they lacked the lift to drop their paratroopers in one day, let alone one sortie, and needed to not only cancel a subsidiary attack on smaller islands of Gozo and Comino but to have the amphibious forces make multiple trips.
The attack began on the 30th with preparatory bombardments of Marsaxlokk Bay, St. Paul’s Bay, Mellieha Bay, and the area northwest of Valletta, with each target receiving a working over from one of the older Italian battleships and a heavy cruiser, as well as lighter units. Only Marsaxlokk Bay in the southeast of the island would actually be an invasion site, with the others attacked as a diversion. On the morning of the 31st under the cover of numerous airstrikes two battalions of the “Nembo” Paratrooper division landed at the heights overlooking Marsaxlokk Bay. Over the course of the day 5 more battalions and supporting elements of the division were landed before the amphibious assault began with the evening tide.
The San Marco Marines and Cremona division landed at Marsaxlokk Bay with the support of the battleships Leonardo da Vinci and Duilio, the Armored cruiser San Marco, the AA cruiser Scipione Africano and the light cruisers Ancona and Taranto, which deliberately beached themselves to provide close in fire support. The Italians quickly overwhelmed the single Maltese battalion defending the beaches and linked up with the paratroopers by next morning. There however the good news ended.
The Italians had underestimated both the degree of supply consumption and the difficulty of landing follow up echelons, resulting in the Livorno division and the first company of tanks not being fully landed until February 2nd, rather than 1st, giving the British time to establish some sort of defensive line north of the landing. A second airborne attack, targeting RAF Ta Kali west of Valetta suffered severe difficult, with the first wave of the Folgore paratrooper division pinned down immediately after landing in the morning and suffering heavy losses, with the second wave taking similar casualties and the third merely stabilizing the situation for the fourth wave to finally seize the airfield, too late in the day for the La Spezia division to begin airlanding operations.
Italian operations against Valetta did not start until the 3rd and the British were dug in against both prongs of the attack. Minimal progress was achieved on the 4th and 5th with breakout only occurring on the 6th and Valetta only being captured on the 7th, with the rest of the island falling on the 9th. Gozo and Comino surrendered on the 12th after preparations for an assault had visibly begun.
The British had suffered 15,000 casualties, 5,000 dead or wounded and the rest captured, while the Italians had taken 25,000 and lost a considerable number of transport aircraft and landing craft. A powerful blow had been dealt to the British position in the Mediterranean and to British prestige. Yet it was arguably an unnecessary one.
Malta had been starving when the Italians invaded, despite the resupply during Palimpsest and the constant trickle of supply by submarine and evacuation of non combatants. The British would have been forced to attempt a second Palimpsest, against an intact Italian fleet, negotiate for the evacuation of civilians or surrender the Island by May at the latest. The first could have offered a chance to bleed the Royal Navy to death, the second to relieve East Africa in exchange for relieving Malta and the last capture of the island without essentially gutting 3 divisions in the process…
…There were major questions asked about why the Royal Navy did not relieve Malta. Certainly the Royal Navy had more than enough warships to do it if taken as a whole. In the Mediterranean however, while it did have 7 capital ships, only 4 were modern and the 3 obsolete vessels were located at Alexandria separate from the modern ships at Gibraltar. Attacking 5 modern and 4 obsolete Italian capital ships with that force was possible, given the individual superiority of the British vessels. Getting to that point however would require penetrating through hundreds of miles of Italian controlled air space, subject to air attack, running picket lines of submarines and MAS boats and only then being able to attack the intact Italians after potentially taking severe losses. The RN attempted to mitigate this by recalling both capital ships that had been dispatched for routine maintenance after Cape Palos as well as additional reinforcements for a relief expedition, but by the time they were ready to sail again it was the 10th and Malta itself had been lost.
The RN would take criticism of its action to heart and act more aggressively against the next major Italian Naval Operation…
…The proximate cause for the February 14th Valentines Day coup was King Paul’s decision to open an investigation into atrocities against Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians and Albanians during his father’s reign, as part of a compromise to expand conscription and increase military funding to maintain Yugoslav neutrality in December 1941. This was unpopular with Serbian nationalists in the Yugoslav military who felt that those targeted had done nothing wrong and merely did what was needed to maintain order. These nationalists felt that the action was a blatant power grab to replace them with non-Serb officers and became responsive to Chetnik overtures for a coup.
On February 14th forces loyal to the plotters, including elements of the Royal Guard, seized key points in Belgrade. Communication was cut off with the city secured by 1:00pm and the King captured while attempting to flee with his family. With the safety of his children on the line King Paul agreed to abdicate in favor of a transitional council, Serb dominated, that would oversee the reformation of Yugoslavia into a Republic and was escorted into exile in Germany. The coup itself was relatively bloodless with only eight deaths and in Serbia it quickly received widespread support among a nationalistic populace.
Outside of Serbia however Prince Paul had been quite popular among the other ethnic groups of Yugoslavia, who were quite concerned by his replacement by a cabal of Serbian ultranationalists. Croat, Slovene and Bosniak military units quickly ended up refusing to recognize the coup and effectively in a state of mutiny. In the south and center of the country these units were put down, in the north however there was a critical mass of Croat and Slovene units combined with local civilian populations that resulted in a prolonged revolt.
With most of the Yugoslav army not combat ready after the Coup the plotters called in German aid, and a pair of German motorized corps quickly crushed active resistance by the end of February…
…Following the Coup Yugoslavia became a full member of the German Alliance, now known as the Pact of Steel. It did however have to make territorial concessions, northern Slovenia to Germany, Backa, Baranja, Medimurje and Prekmurje to Hungary and Yugoslav Macedonia to Bulgaria. Notably however Yugoslavia did not make any territorial concessions to Italy, as Sanna did not want to deal with the occupation of any more hostile territory at the moment, something that would cost him a great deal among Italian nationalists…
…The awarding of Yugoslav Macedonia to Bulgaria was considered sufficient compensation that the Bulgarians were willing to forgo any requirement for territorial compensation from Greece in order to provide troops and military access for Otto. This in turn meant that Germany merely needed to pressure Greece for transit rights, both land based in Thrace and by sea, something the Greeks were willing to accept as a cost of avoiding an unwinnable war. That however meant that there was no reason to compensate Demir’s Turks with Ionia, something that did not sit well with Demir’s fanatics…
-Excerpt From The Fall of Europe, Scholastic American Press, Philadelphia, 2005
I think I could have worded that better, no reason rather than no need
Hitler wants to attack the USSR through Turkey>Needs access via Greece and Bulgaria>Bulgaria wanted something>Hitler was going to compensate them with Greek Thrace>Greece would not agree>Hitler would invade Greece>Because Greece is invaded Turkey gets Ionia/ Because of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria gets something>no need to give them Thrace>Greece will agree to transit rights to avoid war>No invasion of Greece>No giving Ionia to Turkey>Turkey very unhappy
I think I could have worded that better, no reason rather than no need
Hitler wants to attack the USSR through Turkey>Needs access via Greece and Bulgaria>Bulgaria wanted something>Hitler was going to compensate them with Greek Thrace>Greece would not agree>Hitler would invade Greece>Because Greece is invaded Turkey gets Ionia/ Because of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria gets something>no need to give them Thrace>Greece will agree to transit rights to avoid war>No invasion of Greece>No giving Ionia to Turkey>Turkey very unhappy
Yugoslavia as a full (if very unstable) axis member and a Vichy-esque Greece?!? That's a little terrifying. Though perhaps Greece will get forced into the Allied camp anyway if Demir acts. No way he can take smyrna alone though, would the Germans support him wagging the dog? This could be a chaotic diplomatic dance.
So historians look down on Sanna for gutting 3 divisions to take malta, I am curious where he will be missing them the most.
Yugoslavia as a full (if very unstable) axis member and a Vichy-esque Greece?!? That's a little terrifying. Though perhaps Greece will get forced into the Allied camp anyway if Demir acts. No way he can take smyrna alone though, would the Germans support him wagging the dog? This could be a chaotic diplomatic dance.
So historians look down on Sanna for gutting 3 divisions to take malta, I am curious where he will be missing them the most.
