Mers-el-Kébir

Nope. See->

Unless they try to pass through it they'd be fine, it's more like
>Getting them through the Bay of Biscay

>Was there any reason the French disagreed with joining up with the British other than sheer pride?

French government and military being filled with quislings that wished to join up with what looked at the moment to be the winning side in the war.

>what's Hitler going to do?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Anton

No, it was an irrelevant tiny flottilla.
Had Britain really wanted to get rid of a threat, they'd have attacked the big ass French main fleet in Toulon
But it was near the Germans (unlike the Mers El Kebir flottilla), so they pussied out
In the end, fucking Vichy had to scuttle it to save Britain's ass

The Mers El Kebir flottilla was no danger, but Britain wanted to send a message to Germany (and needed to evacuate its frustration about getting BTFO by Germans in France)

>French sinking more of their own ships 2 years later

What does that have to do with it?

It wasn't an irrelevant tiny flotilla. Those were the best French ships there.

proves they would never have let the germans have it, as already stipulated by their treaty and orders.

Why don't people inform themselves on Mers El Kebir, instead of dumbly believing it's "the French navy" that was sunk there rather than 3 ships?

It proves that the French fleet was never going to get into German hands and that the sinking of 2.5 ships by Britain in Algeria was useless as fuck

>it if a French apologists trying to use Toulon that happened well after the tides of the war turned against Germany as a proof that the Vichy's armed forces weren't working for Germans episode

Honestly France should had been treated as an Axis nation following the WW2 and been occupied by British and American troops.

If they don't try to pass through the narrow and heavily mined strait, how the fuck are they going to get from Mers El Kebir (in Algeria) to the Atlantic?

Vichy probably thought staying "neutral" would be the best course of action, probably they expected atrocities against French civilians or the ending of what little sovereignty the French had left if they made such a move against Germany.
Darlan had no reason not to Just defect to Britain and take most of the fleet with him though. Other then loyalty to Vichy France, which is a bullshit reason.

>Handing over your fleet to an "ally" at gunpoint

hmmm I can see why the french wouldn't do it.

The French fleet should have sailed for either Algeria, Britain, or French Guyana the moment they lost Sedan. Instead they sat around to surrender to Germany.

Even the Poles had the sense to tell their fleet to sail to England when defeat seemed inevitable.

>be a german puppet state
>have your fleet on mediterranean
>brits have enough problems dealing with italians
>wonder why they would very much prefer your fleet to be either sunk, under their control, or somewhere they can't be used against them

>1942
>well after the tide had turned

Maybe in hindsight, but I doubt anyone on the ground had even half the collected knowledge of what was going on everywhere like we do.

it was just an opportunity for Churchill to show Roosevelt that he was serious and determined to continue the war
the fleet posed zero threat to Britain strategy wise
because of Gibraltar

>doing something years after an event is proof of what you would have done (but didn't actually do) earlier

Only reasonable explanation for this is that French wished to keep their fleet so that they could join in with Axis should they succeed against UK.

For those who don't quite fully realize how cowardly and pathetic the British were with that action, here's a pic that will help you understand

> > Handing over your fleet to an "ally" at gunpoint
> hmmm I can see why the french wouldn't do it.

The Brits shouldn’t have needed to point a gun at the French navy, the cowardly frogs should have joined with the UK on their own.

Idk maybe they had some hardliners in their ranks believing france was an empire who could keep fighting as long as she had her colonies.

Wasn't De Gaulle that kind of guy?

Except most of the options given DIDN'T involve handing over the fleet but actually involved taking the ships and fucking off to anywhere elsem

Not like there was anything going on in or around the Mediterranean eh?

The real question is why faggy Brits attacked a flotilla in Africa rather than an entire fleet on France's shore if their main preoccupation was to prevent ships from falling to Germany

Ships can travel over land now?

Because they didn't have cruise missiles that can hit any target from anywhere and destroyed what they had access to?

Brits were a bunch of powerless faggot on an island without any mean to defeat Germany at that point

Meanwhile, the war between France and Germany was over
Why should have French sailors defected from their national navy to join Brits in an unwinnable war?
Before Germany attacked the Soviets, no one rational thought Britain could win

Maybe because the Italians had joined the war and their air force was one thing they had that was consistently decent?

>why should the French side with France's ally instead of joining the people who have invaded and occupied France?

Are you retarded?
The point is that, although the Toulon fleet was more dangerous, Germans were not far so cowardly Brits would rather attack an irrelevant micro-fleet a sea way (than have to come near Germans again)

they neutralized Italians pretty easily and they had the best fleet in the Mediterranean though I see your point

It´s war, you attack exposed flanks at the time of your choosing. No big deal.

What part of "war is over" don't you understand?
Do you remember all these Germans flying to Japan to continue the war after Germany's capitulation in May 1945?
Of course not, because when your country is defeated, you don't care if a powerless island about to get BTFO is still at war with your former enemy

>poland falls
>polish forces continue fight alongside brits
>norway falls
>norwegian forces continue to fight alongside brits
>netherlands falls
>dutch forces continue to fight alongside brits
>france falls
>french forces become best friends with germans
>guys, we totally weren't part of the axis powers t. post-war france

although gave the Germans a clear message that the British would not give up on their Mission to defeat Germany even if they had to betray the French,it was not justified

But French and Belgians and Poles and Czechs all fought for Britain you cuck

>norway falls
>norwegian forces continue to fight alongside brits
>netherlands falls
>dutch forces continue to fight alongside brits

ohyou.jpg
Great troll

Is anyone seriously believing the Axis could have crewed the ships even had they got their hands on them? A more interesting question is, how useful could have defecting French ships be in the Battle of the Atlantic? How many more Germans submarines could have been sunk and British sailors saved?

As for Mers-el-Kebir itself, I'll take Admiral Somerville on his words and call it a blunder.

>Is anyone seriously believing the Axis could have crewed the ships even had they got their hands on them?
They probably could have crewed them, albeit not well. Italy did have spare naval personnel. The bigger problem is oil to fuel them.

>A more interesting question is, how useful could have defecting French ships be in the Battle of the Atlantic?
I'm unclear as to what you mean by this. Are you asking if they had stayed with Vichy and fought for the Axis? If so, nothing; they couldn't have gotten out of the Mediterranean. If you meant that they took up the offer and either were crewed by British or Free French forces, not a whole lot. Bretagne and Provence were old, obsolete pieces of shit. Dunquerke and Strasbourg were ships that were roughly as strong as the Scharnhorst and Gnisenau; in any event, battleships are not great anti-submarine platforms. 6 destroyers would have had a more direct impact, but 6 more out of over 300 that the British already had can only make so much of an impact. The Commadant Teste (sp?) was probably the most valuable ship of the lot, but a single seaplane tender would be nice, but not huge. Could help with covering that gap in the center of the North Atlantic that's hard to cover with air power.

Honestly, the biggest impact of it was how it affected the U.S. Sending a clear message that the British were going to fight, no matter how bad things looked galvanized FDR's support for the UK.

Except they actually did, you mong. Competence aside, Karel Doorman fought in southeast asia after the Dutch had been conquered.

>Is anyone seriously believing the Axis could have crewed the ships even had they got their hands on them?

I know, right?...

Reminder that Britain pulled this same shit on Denmark during the Napoleonic Wars.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Copenhagen_(1807)

>that one idiot samefagging throughout the thread trying to say the Mers-el-Kébir fleet was insignificant

I bet you're the same dumbass with the hateboner for Wellington eh

What's the deal with the recent Ken Burns documentary saying CDG threatened that France could join the Soviets if it weren't allowed free reign to regain its colonies. I don't know enough about the man to know if he was that stupid.

>Britain sends her men, her ships, her tanks and her aircraft to defend France
>gets defeated through utter incompetence on the part of the French
>Still graciously saves tens of thousands of French soldiers from a gruesome fate at the hands of the Germans
>France immediately decides to stab Britain in the back
>Decides that rather than help their allies in their time of need as promised, they will instead give them to their German puppet regime
>Britain implores them to at least decommission their fleet if they won't fight with them
>France still refuses for no apparent reason but to please the Germans who are occupying their nation and slaughtering their countrymen
>Britain decides to sink the fleet so it cannot be used against them
>Frenchmen get all butthurt about the "betrayal" from their allies whose alliance they themselves broke

How is it not justified?

This desu. The French sunk their own Navy at Toulon ( and even then, only one fleet), not the british. All Britain did was kill a few sailors to look good for US support.

Poland's pilots flew over to Britain when it was clear they had lost, joined British forces and launched a highly effective war against the Germans from Britain.

Why did the French fleet not do this also? Too proud?

You sound quite retarded m8

>gets defeated through utter incompetence on the part of the French
As if Brits werent utterly incompetent as well in that campaign
>Still graciously saves tens of thousands of French soldiers from a gruesome fate at the hands of the Germans
The least they could do, given that French conscripts covered the running away of British professional troops
>France immediately decides to stab Britain in the back
By surrendering?
That's what defeated nations usually do
The French had no island to flee to once their army was beaten
>Decides that rather than help their allies in their time of need as promised, they will instead give them to their German puppet regime
Vichy was officially neutral, not allied to the British
And collaborating with an enemy that defeated you isnt a choice
>Britain implores them to at least decommission their fleet if they won't fight with them
>France still refuses for no apparent reason but to please the Germans who are occupying their nation and slaughtering their countrymen
No retard
Brits asked the sailors of Vichy France, a neutral nation, to desert the French navy and join them in some hasardous adventure that meant exiling themselves from their country (and thus theirfamily) maybe forever (no one in 1940 knew that Germany would attack the USSR, thus given a chance to weak ass Brits to be on the winning side few years later)
>Britain decides to sink the fleet so it cannot be used against them
That wasn't a fleet but a tiny flotilla
The French fleet was in Toulon and Brits didnt bother approach it

They did, it was called Free France. Not all of them followed Vichy orders to stay "neutral".

Also I don't know if you've been playing attention during the last 1000 years or so but the French and British don't like each other very much.

Because Poland ceaseed to exist after the invasion
France didn't, it was merely in the same state as after 1871 (or as Japan in 1945, or any of the countless countries that once lost a war withoit being erased from the map)

The war was still ongoing and not lost though.

Justifiable or not, can we at least agree that is was a useless action? All Britain did was literally (figuratively) shot themselves in the food by antagonizing any french forces that'd have been willing to join Britain up to that point.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course but since the French Navy was willing to commit sudoku rather than give their ships to the Germans, wasting lives just to send a message feels rather useless.

Doesn't seem like it was useless if those ships would have been used against them.

Kek, France was the most cucked nation of WW2

>Vichy France, a neutral nation,

You mean: Vichy France, a German aligned puppet state ruled by quislings.

> to desert the French navy and join them in some hasardous adventure

You mean: to desert German puppet state's military and join up with the Free France's Forces operating from Britain or French oversea possessions that didn't choose become part of the Axis.

>The war was still ongoing

In your deluded mind maybe
As pointed out above, by the time Mers El Kebir happened weak faggy cowardly ass powerless Britain was alone against Germany

Aka they had zero chance to win any time soon and the shit would have devolved into a several decades long Cold War in which Brits do nothing but sit on their island and sink some German ship from time to time if it wasnt for Germany attacking the Soviets a year later (something the sailors at Mers El Kebir couldnt predict)

>All Britain did was literally (figuratively) shot themselves in the food by antagonizing any french forces that'd have been willing to join Britain up to that point.
But most of them ended up joining anyway, all it did was prove there were barely any French patriots left on the continent

Is this what they teach people in French school?

But they wouldn't, that's the whole point. The French Navy saw to that.

>Aka they had zero chance to win any time soon and the shit would have devolved into a several decades long Cold War in which Brits do nothing but sit on their island and sink some German ship from time to time if it wasnt for Germany attacking the Soviets a year later
It's like you're trying to make yourself look like a retard

>W-we didn't need those ships or anything, baka
THE MIGHTY KREIGSMARINE

>collaborating with an enemy that defeated you isnt a choice

Are you unaware of what resistance is?

Are you faggots deluded enough to believe Britain could have defeated Germany 1vs1?
Lmao, they weren't joking about British delusion....

Are you deluded enough to think Germany could do shit to Britain when this was their invasion fleet?

>Weak faggy cowardly ass powerless Britain
>Largest and Best navy in Europe at the time.

It was quite important in causing America to continue their support of Britain. Quite coldly, winning greater American support mattered more than offending all the (mostly French) forces it alienated.

>Are you unaware of what resistance is?

Yes, undersground movements
But a defeated state must either collaborate or witness its own destuction (which is not best for its people as it enables a military governance by the enemy which is generally worse than a collaborating national state)

No, that's why I said

>the shit would have devolved into a several decades long Cold War in which Brits do nothing but sit on their island and sink some German ship from time to time

That's clearly not what happened though.

>it enables a military governance by the enemy which is generally worse than a collaborating national state
>What are the Milice?
Do everyone here a favour and never post about WW2 again
Except Germans were getting BTFO land air and sea by some Britbongs so it wasn't a cold war at all

Because Germany attacked the USSR, major retard
That's the entire point of this post Fucking two digit IQ Brits I swer....

You realise the USSR didn't win all by itself right?

The RAF BTFO out the cuckwaffe before June though

The Empire could outproduce Germany, controlled the oceans and had far more strategic options than Germany because of their ability to land and supply troops pretty much anywhere. You also seem to be forgetting the fact that Britain was fighting the Axis in Africa along with a huge fucking air war over the mainland, which they won in both cases. It was more the case that Germany was the one who couldn't do shit; they lacked an invasion fleet and couldn't even beat the RAF, so they turned to enemies on the continent (USSR). Britain had an empire to defend you spastic, the same empire that gave her a shit ton of men and materiel, while Germany sat on its ass and pondered how to cross the British-held channel in a fucking river barge. Really, how can you be this stupid?

>Implying that Hitler, who wrote numerous screeds about the need to destroy "Judeo-Bolshevism", wouldn't attack the USSR the first chance he got wasn't something easily foreseeable.
>Implying that U.S. aid, which had already started before France fell and was only getting more and more large and overt, wasn't something that was foreseeable

Are you a literal retard?
If a country is defeated it means that its government no longer has means to fight the enemy (aka its armed forces were beaten)

Sure civilians can mount underground resistance movements but the government has no other choice than to collaborate

By your logic, a war could only be won if every single citizen of the defeated nation was killed given that collaborating (aka accepting defeat) once defeated on the battlefied is a no-no

Thank hindsight general
Why weren't everyone back then as clever as you?

>what is government in exile?

>Implying literal British maneuvering at the time is hindsight.
>Implying looking at Mein Kampf was something only possible with hindsight
>Implying that the MR pact trade agreements already starting to break down was hindsight
>Implying the economic mess of the Third Reich wasn't immediately noticeable.

A powerless bunch of cretins
A government is supposed to be with its people, not to run away oversea while leaving its citizens to the horrors of enemy military administration

If the current goverment exiles itself, someone will rule the country instead of them anyway, so that's pointless (unless the entire people exiles itself alongside the goverment)

You're a fucking idiot, it's not 18th century levee en masse anymore dickhead

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the French sailors would have mutinied if their officers had told them that they were going to sail out of port to continue fighting a war that seemed over, with no guarantee of ever returning.

Still, it was a necessary step, no matter how distasteful. Perhaps the French will prove stouter next time they're invaded.

You're the idiot here
You're implying that a defeated government shouldnt collaborate with the enemy but rather exile itself and leave its people into direct rule of enemy occupiers

No you fucking idiot, the people average human isn't expected to fight in the 20th century with o training, go and suck off some Milice cock you literal cuck

If I might interject. Since the war was so ongoing, why were the French "defeated" with no hope of winning? Why did Polish forces continue the fight but not French forces?

Polish were invaded too, and Germans started to genocide their people. But they never gave up.

Something useless, moron
Do you think that if the Nazi government had exiled itself to some sympathic country in 1945, it would have prevented the allies from ruling Germany?

>Since the war was so ongoing, why were the French "defeated" with no hope of winning?
Because Britain was weak as fuck and had no chance of winning alone

>Why did Polish forces continue the fight but not French forces?
Because, unlike France, Poland was literally erased from the map
France was in the same state as in 1871 (or as Japan in 1945)
Poland was just no more
Not compatable

>Britain was weak as fuck

You realise they had the strongest navy in Europe at the time. Were winning in Africa against Germany and Germany had no hope of invading them right?

And I don't see how the Polish situation is different to the French situation. Both countries were invaded, both countries had their civilians killed.