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I’ve always been curious about how this would have changed the war. In the video game HOI4 they deliberately give massive penalties to all but ensure this can’t happen in normal non meta circumstances; even with a player who won’t make any of the errors the French made. Would you have basically had a rerun of WW1 or would Hitler have never invaded the Soviet Union? Would the US have joined the war earlier if it could simply ship a few million men over to open French ports?

US wouldn't even have been needed, the combined french and british industry including their empires ofc, would have curbstomped the germans sooner rather then later.

That however assumes two things, france doesn't break appart from internal infighting, and two frances military doesn't do the same thing.

People forget often that the french republic was quite unstable. Right wing vs Left wing was quite prolific and probably if left alone the french republic would've gone the same way as spain earlier.

Further to get to such a scenario you'd have to massively addapt the premise, f.e. Czeckoslovakia wouldn't be just given up. At very least that would tip the scale torwards the allies side.

Then you get the big unknown, mostly the soviet union, which made advances torwards joining the axis powers before.

The big question is why didn't France fall?

Did things go pretty much as is, but the French just didn't surrender leaving a resisting French state in part of what would have been Viche France

a similar war to the real world, no battle of Britain so home front morale is weaker, allies even more dominant at sea as the French fleet hasn't been sunk by the British, maybe no North African campaign as such as shipping in supplies from Germany just isn't viable

Did French/British command and control work better preventing the German blitzkrieg over running the combined armies

Germany's sunk

Did the French mound a successful counter attack into Germany itself that actually continued on and required Germany to pull back forces from France & Belgium

again Germany's sunk

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
The big question is why didn't France fall?

Did things go pretty much as is, but the French just didn't surrender leaving a resisting French state in part of what would have been Viche France

a similar war to the real world, no battle of Britain so home front morale is weaker, allies even more dominant at sea as the French fleet hasn't been sunk by the British, maybe no North African campaign as such as shipping in supplies from Germany just isn't viable

Did French/British command and control work better preventing the German blitzkrieg over running the combined armies

Germany's sunk

Did the French mound a successful counter attack into Germany itself that actually continued on and required Germany to pull back forces from France & Belgium

again Germany's sunk

no, if a battle of france can happen, as it did, the french can not win.
There isn't any manpower to fill the gaps of the northern blunders.

The only thing that would prevent such an outcome is when czechoslovakia isn't given up and france takes decisive early war manouvres,taking the rheinland in order to cripple an allready weakened germany that doesn't get free reign.

The Allies could also have kept their armies along the border and covered the Ardennes better instead of moving the expeditionary forces too far north.

The scenario of France surviving is not so far fetched as it seems. The Germans changed their plan Yellow at the last moment after it was discovered by the allies after a plane was forced to land in Belgium carrying the plans. The original plan know by the allies would of seen the Panzer divisions driving right into the waiting allied armour and defensive positions. Could Germany have survived losing a massed armour battle ? Would Italy have joined the Axis after such a defeat ?

Quite a lot of people ignore the political trouble France was in during the late 3rd Republic.

Like, throughout the interwar period I don't think France had a government that lasted to 2 years before an election. Some years there was an election every few months as Alliances broke down.

How I learned about it, or at least how i've interpreted the history of it. It was less that France fell and more that no one was really willing to stand up to defend the failed Third Republic.

WW2 probably ends with the US nuking Moscow, Europe skips its social democracy phase and we are slaves in a corporate dystopia 80 years earlier.

France's main issue at and during WW2 was that they were unorganized and wholly dependent on the Maginot line. I think that even if the Maginot line extended all the way to the sea, the lack of organization and political strife would have still allowed the Germans to punch through. At best, it might have delayed the German advance for a little while.

I think the only way France doesn't fall is if they actually invaded Germany while their forces were still occupied in Poland rather than skirmish inconclusively along the border while wagging their fingers. Hitler was making a massive gamble by having most of his troops in the east. Germany was basically defenseless from the west for the first few weeks of the war. The French simply hesitated because they had poor ability to actually push into Germany, but ultimately it was the wrong choice. Even a poor logistic train supporting their army would still have allowed them to take huge chunks of Western Germany, including most of the industrial areas.

Thats really the only way France had a hope of staying in the war, and indeed maybe ending the war before it kicked into high gear. If France/England had made even a little headway into Germany immediately during the invasion of Poland, Hitler probably would have been forced to conduct a ceasefire and make concessions. Especially since Stalin would also be breathing down his neck after they divided Poland. And indeed with Hitler sandwitched between France+Britain and himself, he might feel confidant enough to immediately invade Germany. Which would probably result in France and Britain helping Germany to keep the Soviets out of Europe.

Thus WW2 becomes Allies+Axis vs Comitern rather than Axis vs Allies.

If my playthrough of HoI 4 as France is any indication:

Germany would re-militarise the Rhineland, Anschluss, invade and conquer Poland, and go about all its early-war stuff as normal, up to and including the invasion and occupation of the Benelux.

Hungary would proclaim Greater Hungary with Germany's blessing. Romania would cede Bessarabia to the SU as Germany split Poland with them. Yugoslavia would bloodlessly split into Slovenia and Croatia. Albania would become Italian. All the Baltic States would join the Axis.

Japan would run roughshod throughout Asia, effortlessly sweeping China aside, before drawing the US into the Allies and the larger war as a whole, leading the Allies to overstretch in the East, performing the world's largest encirclement, and capitulating India, New Zealand, the Indes, and Australia without breaking a sweat.

Africa would fall to the British and French in short order, despite volunteer aid from the Spanish. With Gibraltar and the Suez penning the Italians into the Med, the Royal Navy and aged French fleet would take apart the Italian navy piece by piece.

The Alps would fall to the combined efforts of the Germans and Italians under Luftwaffe cover, but the Axis push would only ever get as far the Rhone, where a series of forts and river crossings would form an impassable barrier that would become the site of many desperate and doomed Italian pushes.

The looming threat of Nationalist Spain would cause a series of fortifications to be built by the French along the border, garrisoned by 24 divisions of good men in the same style as the Maginot and Rhone lines, knowing that the Spanish lack the industrial might to counter fortified infantry.

The extended Maginot line up towards Belgium would become a barrier the likes of which not even the Germans could cross, even with air cover.

Under this stalemate, American and British forces would continue to throw themselves at fortified German positions along all French reinforced lines, while the Axis threw themselves as the French along their own. Allied casualties would reach 20m while Axis only 5m before the renewed French industrial war machine was able to begin turning the tide.

Through the development of Modern Tanks, an airforce of 10,000 next-gen Fighters, and the deployment of specialised breakthrough divisions, the slow but purposeful retaking of Belgium, then the Netherlands, began along the coast. The tattered British forces and what remained of their colonial allies, plus the forces of the recently capitulated Swedes, would all aid in making the most of this push, while half the American forces depleted themselves against the German side of Maginot.

In the Alps, the other half of the American forces would somehow make a foothold across the Rhone, as it became clearer that the Italians had exhausted their industry and manpower. The might of the French took swift advantage, retaking French land before pouring over the Alps to sweep the exhausted Italians aside, driving an eventual line across North Italy to pin what remained of the Italian and German divisions against neutral Switzerland in the Alps.

Nuclear bombs from who knows where would soon fall on Stuttgart, on Rome, and on Taranto, though they were unnecessary strikes that almost ended up hitting my own forces. Later strikes would hit Munich and Salzburg as the Italians were capitulated, their armies encircled and deleted in the Alps, and the Axis frontline redrawn across Northern Italy to meet the surging French army.

The Soviet Union, having sat dormant since the white peace of the Winter War, would in this time have invaded Turkey through the Caucuses, only to never set foot on Turkish soil as the Red Army was forced back through their own oil fields. A second front would be opened in Afghanistan and war declared on Iraq, and the Red Army would quickly have better luck. Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq would form their own coalition, which saw the addition of Iran as the Red Bear waded deeper into the Middle East.

The Soviets would be met casualty-for-casualty by the coalition, until the Turkish drew their manpower dry, and the Soviets, bloodied but with millions of fresh men to spare, walked on to Instanbul, where they would declare war on the already-capitulated and Italian-occupied Greece, drawing them into a conflict with the Allies.

British and American forces would exact a bloody toll on the Soviet approach through Egypt, but the Red Tide would inexorably sweep over the Suez and into Africa proper. The French, however, were not drawn into the conflict, dismissing all calls to arms. They knew that Germany remained the bigger threat, and if they could only force a surrender, they could take the fight to the Soviet Union on its own doorstep, with the might of German industry and resources at their command.

As the sun crept over the first horizon of 1948, a very different war to that of our universe was raging. The Axis dead numbered 23 million, while the Allied dead brushed 22.

Then I got the achievement for reaching 1948 as France (and in general) and I went to bed.

In conclusion: Who knows.

Funny. Every time I play hoi4 and turn randomness on France becomes communist and joins Stalin.

For my 'what if'... there's no Mechelen incident, and Germany sticks to their original plan to sweep through the low countries. The allies expect this, and while hammered by German air power the fighting lacks any decisive outcome. A thrust from Manstein through to Sedan with a pivot upwards is attempted but fails to complete encirclement. This actually helps the allies as their withdrawal to avoid encirclement shortens their lines and improves air cover. The fighting stagnates, German issues with supplies become critical and they cede the initiative. The allies prove unwilling and doctrinally incapable of any kind of meaningful counter offensive, and the war begins to turn in to the attritional mess everyone had always expected. A military coup removes Hitler from power, and this sparks a series of power grabs by political factions across the country. The Soviets announce they're supporting their communist brothers in Germany, and then demonstrate the preparedness of the Red Army in 1940 by barely getting anything through Poland. In reaction to the Soviet invasion the German military sue for peace in France, the terms are barely punitive because France's political situation is teetering as well, and this allows the German military to shift eastward and repel the Soviets. They negotiate an end to fighting, with the Soviets taking complete control of Poland.

The US turns up to help the allies dictate the new German state. It's rebuilt as a puppet to resist any future Soviet intervention. The Soviets pivot East and fight a long, draining war with Japan for control of China. No-one in the West pays any attention.

That scenario leaves our where Japan would get its natural resources for the war from, and the fact that the US was already attempting to slap Japan down over its invasion of China. Do the Allies, particularly the US, start selling Japan oil again to have Japan as a proxy against the Soviet Union? Does Japan still feel boxed in enough to strike at the Dutch oil assets in South East Asia? Presumably if the Soviet Union is actively fighting Japan the Japanese Army faction would prevail over the Navy faction; how does this influence Japanese expansion?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
That scenario leaves our where Japan would get its natural resources for the war from, and the fact that the US was already attempting to slap Japan down over its invasion of China. Do the Allies, particularly the US, start selling Japan oil again to have Japan as a proxy against the Soviet Union? Does Japan still feel boxed in enough to strike at the Dutch oil assets in South East Asia? Presumably if the Soviet Union is actively fighting Japan the Japanese Army faction would prevail over the Navy faction; how does this influence Japanese expansion?

I'm not sure there's any need to address the Japanese shortage of resources? Japan started its war in China facing the shortage, and while resource gains across the Pacific were made, it never stopped being a problem and a lot of those resources ended up being poured in to operations against the US anyway.

Japan didn't feel confident enough to strike at European assets in Asia until ever France and the low countries had fallen, they only did when German tanks were almost at Moscow, so I think we can assume in this alternative they never threaten any European assets. Instead they just continue the quagmire in China they'd already started. The resource strain is crippling as it was anyway, and in both the real world and this alternative Japan muddle along in spite of it, slowly burning through troops and degrading their effectiveness.

The only real difference is I wonder if Russia entering the war sooner meant a more even contest. Instead of the Soviets slicing across China as fast as they could move, the Japanese forces would been less degraded, and the Russians possibly less improved, resulting in a more even and therefore bloodier contest.