June 1940: France Fights On

France does not surrender to Germany in WWII

This game is a simulation of an alternative history scenario in which France does not surrender to Germany in the summer of 1940. The game assumes that the French government goes into exile early in June 1940, and resolves to fight on alongside the British. This version also assumes the French get a bit of help from the weather, and overcast skies keep the Luftwaffe grounded for a few days in early-June. This pause in bombing delays the collapse of France’s Weygand line, and allows the French 10th army to withdraw to the Breton Peninsula and dig in. French forces in the South of France also regroup and continue to fight. You play the Allies, and you must find a way to hold onto the Breton Peninsula until the end of 1941, or 18 months. By 1942, world events should start to favor the allies (Russia and Germany could go to war. Maybe America gets into the fight). If you can find a way to capture Paris before 1942, you will win the game.

The French government did draw up plans to create a “national redoubt” on the Breton Peninsula, but never put them into place, opting to negotiate a surrender to Germany and neutrality. The French army was in very rough shape by 1941, and maintaining a garrison of troops in a corner of France for the indefinite future would have been a major financial burden for a cash strapped UK to shoulder on its own. With most of France occupied by Germans, the British would have to pay any French soldiers left in France. In the summer of 1940, with the US on the sidelines, this would probably have been a non-starter for the British, and without British support, French forces would definitely not have been able to hold out in a fortified corner of the Republic.

However, this game assumes that the British do support a defiant French government in a last stand against the German army. There would have been some good reasons for the British to keep the French in the fight on continental Europe:

1) The French Navy would have been available to the British. The fate of the French Navy was really the only leverage that the French government had over the Germans during surrender negotiations. In the end, the Germans allowed a rump French state to keep its colonies in order to keep France’s seven battleships and one aircraft carrier out of British hands. If the British had access to an extra seven battleships and an aircraft carrier in the Summer of 1940, the British would have been in a much more secure strategic position. The German army would have been tied down trying to finish off well entrenched Allied forces in France in any case, and would likely not be available for an invasion in 1940. Any kind of German invasion of the UK would have been off the table, and British politicians would have known it. British colonies also become more secure because the British can now afford to send a carrier group to the Pacific to deter Japanese aggression. In a world where the HMS Prince of Wales is escorted by the French Carrier Bearn, the Japanese probably do not take Malaya and Singapore. This frees up a lot of Indian and Australian troops to fight in France.

2) There is no North Africa front. Instead of being neutral territory, French colonies would be available to British forces in the Mediterranean. British bombers could reach Rome from bases in Corsica, and British tanks could threaten Italian held Libya from the East and the West. A wing of Royal Air Force bombers and a few Royal Navy submarines operating from bases in Tunisia would make it incredibly difficult to supply any kind of Axis force in North Africa. The Germans and the Italians would not be able to cut off supplies to Allied bases in Tunisia in the same way that they blockaded the Island of Malta. The Italians would probably have called off any plans to invade British occupied Egypt, freeing up Allied ground forces. Tanks destined for Egypt could be sent to France. Instead of fighting running battles in the deserts of Libya, Rommel is stuck in a trench in Northern France.

3) Occupying France would have been much more difficult. When France surrendered to Germany, French soldiers became POWs for the remainder of the war. A big chunk of France’s military age male population spent the war in Germany, often times working in German factories. If France had not surrendered, large numbers of French troops would still have surrendered to the Germans. However, many would have tried to make there way to French lines to continue fighting for the legitimate, democratically elected government of France. Many more would simply have taken off their uniforms, gone home and buried their weapons in their backyards. The situation in France in 1940 would have been very similar to the situation in Iraq after the invasion of 2003: lots of soldiers and weapons melting into the population and waiting for an opportune time to strike back at their occupiers. The French resistance looks a lot more vicious with hundreds of thousands of ex soldiers at its disposal. Partisan activity in France would look more like the guerrilla wars of the Balkans, and they would tie down a large number of German ground forces, making Britain more secure. German troops that would have been available to invade Greece and Crete are now busy patrolling the streets of Paris. This frees up even more British troops to fight in France.

This game assumes that the Allies have control of ~900,000 troops clustered around various ports on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. As the game moves forward, more Allied troops become available, but you will never achieve parity with the German/Computer forces. This is probably a realistic assumption through the end of 1941. To win, you need to make effective use of partisans and commandos. You can liberate Paris before 1941….but you need to wage a successful asymmetric campaign to do so. Good luck!

Click here to play on a mobile device. You might want to use a stylus

Other games you might enjoy:

The Stalingrad of Africa: Cuito Cuanavale
Help Chindits and Chinese forces reopen the Burma Road
Lead Panzers across Tunisia during WWII
A brigade level video game of WWII’s Tunisia Campaign
A brigade level video game of WWII’s Operation Crusader
A brigade level video game of WWII’s Battle of Gazala
A brigade level simulation of a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia

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