Southern France

Well i doubt it would have had a very big effect on the front...i think it was prob 7000 men diverted. Also i think the only time a jailbreak diverted troops that i know of was with the events that the "Great Escape" is based on.
However i don't think an extra 7000 men could have stemmed the tide in the battle of the bulge...(which is when i think the breakout happened)

 

"Police operations" and hunting escaped POW takes foot soldiers. But the real effective armies are made of panzer, half track, and anti aircraft guns. If you don't have all that modern equipements, you just have soon-to-be POWs in a mobile war.
I really doubt the soldiers sent after the escaped POWs were front line units with their heavy gear. Mostly reservists and untrained troops, hitler youngs... Won't make much difference if they're on the main battlefield or not, IMHO.

 

impossible.simply impossible

From the south of France u can not go to germany unless you turn left at the french Alps, go around them via Paris area and then towards strassbourg / metz area. The Alps would have been an untakeable defensive position. The threat of german troops in North Italy (and thus in the allied flank) was too big. Germany could easily keep sending reinforcements over austria/hungary into italy, which would have meant enormous pressure on the allied right flank (North Italy was still occupied and allied advances got stuck there.)

Allied supply lines would have needed to go from england via Gibraltar to Marseille, making them vulnarable. supply lines from southern france to Germany were long and subjected to the Italian threat.

Patton could never have landed at Calais, since the fortifications there were extreme. besides that a single army would have been crushed there by the panzer divisions which were stationed in the calais area, by Hitlers orders.

The shortest route to germany would have been to land in Holland. From Dutch coast to Ruhr area is a mere 260 kms and with Berlin at some 750kms. Rivers would cause problems, but with airborne attacks in the "hinterland" this could have been overcome. Rotterdam, being the largest port in the world would have been perfect for supplying the advance into germany.
Reinforcements do not have to travel long from uk to holland (app. 7-`14 hrs).

 

Very well written!

 

I would have to agree with you Mart! You know your geography quiet well. The Supply lines would indeed be in danger of being broken and that would just spell "End of War" for the Allies if they put all they had into the South of France.

The Alps would also have presented a problem, the Axis forces would be able to make day and night raids on the supply lines as to get back to the Alps would be easy enough and it also would give Artillery further range. The South of France would be next to impossible to attack and hold.

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Mussolini

"Blood alone moves the Wheels of history." Benito Mussolini.

"What the proletariat needs is a bath of blood." Benito Mussolini, speech in Milan, July 22, 1919

"Liberty is a duty, not a right"
--Benito Mussolini

 

Not only that but getting all of those ships into the Med without detection would mean taking the scenic route around Africa and through the Suez because Spain would definitely have report those ship movements through Gibralter. Too long of a distance

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Tschuss