The french fleet bombed by the british

Wht didn't the french send their fleet to the carribean ? , and with the british bombing of their fllet , wouldn't the french consider it a stab in the back or allied treason ? What do you think ?

 

it was too sudden. France capitulated without warning and ships are slow.

The British made a decision that the French nqavy either needed to surrender their ships to the RN, sail to spain and be interned or face the consequences.

The british could not afford the ships falling into German hands and no decision was forthcoming.

It's one of those decisions that have to made and will always be wrong.

Frankly we did the lesser evil. The war in the med/n africa was changed for the better due to the loss of the French fleet at port.

FNG

 

The French most certainly did consider it a stab in the back. But then, the British considered the French surrender as a stab in the back as well; they had an agreement not to surrender but to continue fighting despite occupation of European territory.
The terms of the French surrender did not allow them to move all their ships to the other hemisphere. The fleet was France's biggest bargaining chip, and it had to be carfeully administered. Once the British started beating on it, the person happiest about that was Hitler.
"The war in the med/n africa was changed for the better due to the loss of the French fleet at port."
Actually it was changed for the worse, but the political gains were considered worth it.

 

why worse? If the germans had the fleet it would have made things very awkward.

FNG

 

The fleet was not send to the caribean, because in the caribean the fleet would be of no use to France.
Also, no french port in the caribean was large enough to harbour the fleet and supply it.

The british ultimatum led the french 4 possibilities:

- Continue the fight alongside the RN
- Sail to England to be interned
- Sail to the french West Indies(Martinique, Guadeloupe)
- Be interned in the US

All of these were of course rejected by the french.

Militarily/strategically seen, Mers El Kebir did not improve the british position in the Mediteranean.
After all the french fleet was not decisively weakened(1older battleship sunk, 2 dammaged), and after the incident the risk of seeing the fleet fall into german/italian hands had rather increased than decreased.
Also the anglophoby that was here created probably impeached the french fleet to join the allies in 1942.

But from a political point of view, the decision becomes understandable.
In july 1940, everyone believed that Britain would seek to get out of the war that had become desperate.
Mers El Kébir showed everyone that Britain was resolved to fight on, and that it was worth helping/supporting them.

Today, we know from documents that Pétain/Darlan would never have led the fleet fall into german/italian hands, but in 1940, Churchill could not be so sure.

But was a tragic and difficult decision to take, especially for a francophile like Churchill("The most difficult decision in my life...."), as well as for Admiral Somerville.

 

The two sides were stuck in a situation with no easy answers.

The French Admiral had not received authorisation from his legally appointed superiors. The rights and wrongs are immaterial he does not have the authority. For him to comply with the British demands would have been treason. Individuals can make personal choices a la the Free French but fleets can’t make that choice.


On the British side there is even less room for manoeuvre.

The British army is at least in the short term a spent force. A depleted RAF is preparing for the fight of its life. The only place where the British still have a clear advantage is at sea and even there things aren't looking rosy.

Pre war there had been an agreement that France would look after the Med and Britain the Atlantic. This agreement is now as dead as the dodo. The British are going to have to find forces to cover the Med.

The Italian fleet may not have had a great track record but in 1940 no one knows that. Frankly on paper the Italian navy looks pretty punchy. What will be obvious is that a combined French Italian fleet is the nightmare scenario.

The French had promised that their fleet will not be used against Britain but the brutal reality is that they may not be willing or even able to keep that promise.

Thus the British are in a situation where they have to one way or the other knock the French fleet out of the picture.

Sadly for the Frenchmen killed it was a rock and a hard place situation.

 

Somerville was just following orders and had no decision to make. I get the impression he was glad it was an order as he was unhappy at the task. Just one of many difficult decisions Churchill made which was why he was such a good leader. He did not shirk his responsabilities regardless of how foul they were.

by the way according the one website the french lost the Dunquerque (Battle Crusier- badly damaged and beached), Bretagne (Battleship - sunk), Provence (Battleship - badly damaged) as well as several other ships damaged.

3 of the 4 capital ships in harbour were effectivly put out of the war and it was these ships that worried the Admiralty and were obviously targetted first.

 

But how would they prevent it?

 

- By sailing to an allied harbour(Would have been the best decision)

-By sinking the fleet(as actually happened in december 1942, when the germans tried to seize it)

 

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They were already out of the war since june 22nd 1940.... :-?

Main targets were probably the Dunkerque and Strasbourg.
Dunkerque was indeed out of action for several months, and was never fully repaired, but if the fleet had indeed joined the axis powers, it could have been reapired quickly.

2 older battleships were hit, Bretagne was sunk, and Provence dammaged.

 

Except as far as we knew at the time, Vichy France was a German puppet, and Vichy assets were liable to be used against us. Look at the Luftwaffe use of bases in Syria as an example.
The French fleet represented a huge potential threat to our Med forces.

Hindsight is great, but never available in time!

 

Most unfortunately yes....

As I already said, the british decision seems understandable to me(actuallly even De Gaulle understood it.... )

There were already some promises which Pétain had not kept, like handing over to Britain 500 german pilots in french prisoner camps, or like communicating the terms of the french-german armistice to the british before signing it....but Mers El Kébir remains one of the most tragic episodes of WW2 nevertheless.

 

"why worse? If the germans had the fleet it would have made things very awkward."

The Germans didn't have the fleet before or after. Here's what you wrote: "The war in the med/n africa was changed for the better due to the loss of the French fleet at port." Since the attack had no bearing on whether or not the Germans got the French fleet, it did not make things better or worse in that regard. What it did was to convert the French into a disgruntled neutral. It increased their degree of cooperation with the Germans. The French went on to provide intelligence to Germany, even though they did not become actively aggressive toward the British. If the British indeed felt concerned about the naval balance in the Med, they could have attacked someone other than a neutral. They could have launched their attack on Taranto, which had been in the planning since about 1937.
The British knew the terms of France's surrender, but they made a silly mistake in interpreting them. They saw for themselves the wording that said French ships would be under German "control," but someone who had failed French 101 translated "control" as though it meant the same thing in English as it did in the foreign document. In fact, it merely authorized the Germans to monitor the French warships. After Catapult was over, there was less monitoring work for the Germans. No wonder Hitler was so happy.
The main justification now cited for Catapult is that it served wonderfully as a publicity stunt. It cannot be defended on military terms since it made things harder for the Allies in the Mediterranean and also established animosity with the French, which continued to have deadly consequences for some years.
Even at the time, Churchill and Roosevelt were citing Catapult as an impetus to American investment in the British war effort. You can decide for yourselves whether the dog is wagging his tail or vice versa. And you can also decide whether or not Churchill foresaw this or simply wanted to vent his wrath at the French.

 

so it's partially frances fault for being stubborn and illogical(weird , because i heard the french were a logical people)so france more or less shot off it's own toe.

 

I'm not sure the refusal to follow orders delivered by a foreign admiral can be called stubborn or illogical. If I were to place blame on the French, I would do so on the basis of their surrendering to the Germans rather than continuing the fight from abroad. However, nations act in their own perceived self-interest, and the French leadership felt its people would have better lives via the surrender. At that point, the actions of the French navy become extremely logical. The whole situation must be viewed through French eyes, not Churchill's, if French policies are to be understood.

 

The commander of the french fleet at Mers El kébir, Admiral Gensoul obeyed the orders he got from his governement, and of course no one can blame him for doing so.

Had De Gaulle not been General, but Admiral(like his son), and had he be in command at Mers el Kébir, than yes, he would probably have disobeyed and have sailed to Britain with the fleet....but then again he couldn't be everywhere....

One can of course discuss Pétains decision for accepting cease fire, but that's a whole different story....

 

The bottom line in all this is simply that the British did not at the time believe that they had any choice but to act as they did, purely as a matter of survival. It was tragic and unfortunate that it happened, and none of the RN participants in the attack were happy about it, but given the strategic situation at the time, Churchill did not dare take any chances, IMHO. You can argue the ifs and what have yous till the cows come home, or whether or not someone's French was up to snuff, but in the end it simply does not matter, because we were not there, under the strain of those events, with the information then available, so we shouldn't second guess them with the hindsight we now possess.

 

"The bottom line in all this is simply that the British did not at the time believe that they had any choice but to act as they did"
If that's true, then that was extremely foolish. But I don't believe it's the case.

"Churchill did not dare take any chances, IMHO."
Then why did he take such a huge chance?

"You can argue the ifs and what have yous till the cows come home, or whether or not someone's French was up to snuff, but in the end it simply does not matter, because we were not there, under the strain of those events, with the information then available, so we shouldn't second guess them with the hindsight we now possess."
Are you saying Churchill was unaware of the Italians? Are you saying translation from a Romance language to a Germanic language is possible only by hindsight?

 

No, I'm saying that we were not there, and should bear that in mind when levelling criticism.

 

That's good advice for any such discussion.