Could France fighting on in WWII (from Algeria) lead to no US entry, and more dominant USSR postwar?

[raharris1973]

Here's my train of thought:

1) France loses on the mainland but the government continues in exile at Algiers, leaving the French Navy and colonial ally by Britain's side.

2) This results in a much earlier Allied victory in North Africa

3) This also results in Japan not daring to occupy French Indochina, and thus Japan is not embargoed by the US and UK

4) Barbarossa still happens, the Germans are still held off

5) Without embargo, no Japanese attack on the US, no German and Italian DoWs on the USA.

6) The US follows a policy of ever increasing aid for the British Empire, French Empire and Soviet Union

7) The US, while a naval ally and arsenal for the Allies, has difficulty finding consensus to actually send American troops and air forces to fight on the European continent. So no American declaration of war, just everything short of war, and in the Atlantic, well, that's kind of a war really.

8) Russia still wins at Stalingrad.

9) American public and elite opinion, seeing the Allies hold the Germans and then begin to turn the tide, thinks that the policy of fighting to the last Russian, Frenchmen and Brit is working and urgency to enter with US forces on other continents stops building at some point

10) Meanwhile, Hitler, not having Japan as a fighting ally, and doing a bit worse than OTL through the time of Stalingrad, does not DoW the US or launch geographically Unrestricted U-Boat warfare. Thereby he avoids inadvertant cooperation with those in America who think it must join the war.

11) Without American manpower and airpower, the Anglo-French can only peck around grabbing Mediterranean islands through 1944, while also bombing and supporting resistance movements.

12) Eventually, later than OTL, in '46 or '47, the Soviets basically finish the German army, take Berlin, and occupy Germany to the Rhine and North Sea at a minimum, and possibly all the way to Germany's western border. As this is being accomplished French and British Imperial troops are landing in France and the Low Countries. So the USSR finishes the war occupying all, or nearly all of Germany and Austria in addition to central and southeastern Europe. The Western Allies have France and the Low Countries, and possibly Italy, Norway and Greece. If lucky, maybe Denmark and Rhineland. The Soviets have a chance at Denmark too. The USSR finishes the war as the weightiest power in Europe. Britain and France are not trivial,but lack the capability to replenish and sustain their power as much as the USSR. Consequently, the postwar USSR gets to pretty much do what it wants in its near peripheries. This Soviet Union does not want war with anybody, but does want to secure what it has one, and call the shots on all Europe-wide questions.

 

[stevep]

Its an interesting idea and definitely a possibility. I think with such a TL the allies could not only pick up the Med islands but probably in 42 or 43 start landings in Italy. How far they get could be an issue but with Germany bleeding out, and bleeding out the Soviets in the east ultimately their likely to gain most/all of the peninsula.

Issues might be does Germany still develop the V weapons because if so the V2 especially is a serious threat to Britain and its ability to continue the war.

Also with a longer war the election will be delayed so how long does Churchill stay in power? That could cause serious problems with regards to India. Mind you without a war in the Far East the Bengal famine should be avoided. I think its too late to avoid partition and its still likely to be very bloody as OTL.

At some point the allies will have to land in France, almost certainly in the north. Can they wait long enough until the Germans have been bled such that a secure landing is possible? As such a breakout into N France and the liberation of Paris would be a huge boost to moral and potentially resources.

The best bet for everybody but how likely I don't know is that the Soviets, despite looting every gain for manpower and establishing puppets is just about devoid of manpower by the time they take Berlin. If the allies are in N France by this time, especially if Hitler stays in Berlin and is removed as a factor then you get a lot of German commanders deciding to surrender to the allies [if in the west or south] or fight as hard as possible in the east, with forces possibly deliberately between switched eastwards.

As such when the final surrender occurs its possibly along the Rhine although perhaps with the Netherlands and some neighbouring regions in allied hands. Even then there might be issues of if a dissatisfied Stalin decides to push westwards and secure the entire continent along with possibly invading the ME.

Its going to be difficult to get a balance point where the allies still win but Britain especially is strong enough that the western allies are going to be able to deter even a drained USSR. Plus without direct US military involvement will there be any version of the Marshall Plan. Even the quick ending of L-L and draconian terms the US demanded for a new loan to Britain of OTL would be disastrous for the allies in TTL and you could see communists coups in either/both France or Italy.

 

[WolfBear]

I'm unsure that the Soviet Union would have actually been willing to continue fighting the Nazis until 1946 or 1947, especially without any meaningful Western Front. In such a scenario, a separate peace with the Nazis might have looked awfully attractive. What do you think, @History Learner?

 

[History Learner]

I'm unsure that the Soviet Union would have actually been willing to continue fighting the Nazis until 1946 or 1947, especially without any meaningful Western Front. In such a scenario, a separate peace with the Nazis might have looked awfully attractive. What do you think, @History Learner?

Totally agreed, but I also more broadly do not see any ability for the Soviets to hold off the Germans at large here either. Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World War II: Part II by Denis Havlat:

Overall, the Western Allies were responsible only for a small fraction of the losses sustained by German infantry and armor between 1941 and 1943 (around 10 percent); however, their contribution in the destruction and occupation of the Luftwaffe was overwhelming. The same applies to their contribution in forcing the Germans to leave most heavy artillery in the Reich as anti-aircraft weapons, preventing them from being used as anti-tank weapons in the East. Without Allied military intervention, the Germans could have sent at least 2,000 additional tanks, some 5,000 additional 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, around 15,000 additional aircraft, tens of thousands of additional motor vehicles, and up to half a million additional soldiers to the Eastern Front in the years 1941–1943, which would have shifted the balance in their favor.​

Further on:

Without the need to fight in the Atlantic; to transport large amounts of troops, equipment, and supplies across the entire continent; and the necessity to defend against Allied bombing, Germany could have massively reduced its U-boat, locomotive, and anti-aircraft gun and ammunition production and converted at least part of these capacities into the production of more aircraft and equipment for land warfare. Additionally, without bombing, and the need to maintain a large enough army to fight on several fronts, there would have been less need to use forced labor in the factories, thus boosting production. Historically, Germany already outproduced the USSR in certain areas like locomotives, trucks, and even bombers, with 12,664 produced by Germany in the years 1941–1943 as compared to 11,359 built by the USSR.170 Without Allied intervention and Lend-Lease, Soviet margins in these areas would most likely have widened, while margins in areas such as tanks would have shrunk significantly. If Germany and its industry could have concentrated on one single front from 1941 onwards, it most likely would have vastly changed the outcome of the war in the East.​

There's also the fact that, from 1940 onward, the Germans are going to be treating France as a whole as an occupied country with regards to forced labor, ransacking the economy for supplies, etc. To cite from Chapter 3 of Peter Lieberman's Does Conquest Pay:

Germany immediately began recruiting West European labor, especially skilled workers. By the end of 1940, 220,000 civilians from the western occupied nations were working in Germany; a year later, the number had grown to almost 300,000. The flow of volunteers dwindled in 1942, after the unemployment that had been caused by the invasion dried up, despite policies intended to free up additional labor, such as withholding unemployment benefits, lengthening the work week, and closing down "unessential" enterprises.40 Germany then began deporting workers for forced labor in German factories. The German foreign labor czar, Fritz Sauckel, began combing through Dutch and Belgian factories, without indigenous cooperation, although the Dutch secretary-general for social affairs authorized the release of labor records.41 In France, Pétain's prime minister Pierre Laval managed to put off Sauckel until February 1943, when he instructed French labor agencies to provide employment data and personnel to the German recruiters and imposed sanctions against conscription evaders.42 The total foreign labor force in Germany increased from 1.2 million in 1940 to 7.1 million—or a fifth of the total labor force—in 1944.43 Only a third of these were West Europeans in 1943, but they represented a sizable proportion of their domestic labor forces (see table 3-4).​

In January to February of 1943, the Germans brought from France 125,000 specialist workers, for further context on a monthly basis. Further:

The indigenous administrations of every occupied country collaborated fully with German financial depredations. French negotiators fretted that the demanded "occupation costs" payments would enable the Germans "to buy the whole of France," but after a few protests they caved in.20 Vichy unilaterally lowered its payments from 400 to 300 million francs per day in May 1941. But German authorities countered by making greater use of the clearing mechanism and, in November 1942, they forced Vichy to increase its daily payments to 500 million francs.21 Belgium and the Netherlands failed to offer even this degree of resistance, although their obligations too were unilaterally increased to cover higher German expenditures. By agreeing to German demands for occupation costs and clearing arrangements, collaborating administrations effectively put their finance ministries, central banks, and taxation systems at Germany's service. Thus France and the other occupied economies were compelled to become Germany's economic allies.​

What could be possible effects of utilizing France sooner and earlier? To quote from Germany in the Second World War, Volume 4:

The consequences of that decision, needless to say, also affected the army's main programmes, even though they were included in the top priority class. Thus, tank production alone was short of over 6,000 skilled workers in January 1941 so that Todt—who was focusing increasingly on that sector because ammunition manufacture, his real responsibility, was running at only half speed—requested from Hitler the provision of additional labour.412 This was to be released from the rest of armaments production for the army, as well as from the army's personnel planning. Hitler approved Todt's request, and although Goring thereupon asked for additional manpower for the Luftwaffe, which Hitler granted, Halder nevertheless appeared to be proceeding from the assumption that munitions for the army would enjoy priority until the summer of 1941, with the Luftwaffe not being 'served' until after that date.​

Just two months of French recruitment and a few months increased reparations would enable the Germans to not only eliminate their manpower shortage in tank production, but also afford the manpower and resources needed to construct an entire additional Panzer Group for Barbarossa. You need roughly 85,000 men for this PzGr 5 and 6,000 men to address the labor shortages in the German tank industry, which would still leave you with ~30,000 surplus Germans based on January and February conscription rates of 1943 OTL. End result of that is Moscow and Leningrad go down in 1941.

 

[History Learner]

2) This results in a much earlier Allied victory in North Africa

I'm also going to counter signal this, because the existing French garrisons in North Africa were second or third rate formations in 1940; they had been stripped to fight on the mainland. Short of mechanization and heavy weapons, they wouldn't be able to do the heavy fighting or logistical advances to support an early victory without at least six months to a year of rebuilding. North Africa doesn't have those resources, however, which means they would be dependent on Lend Lease/Cash and Carry. I bring up Cash and Carry because the French retained nearly $3 Billion in Gold in North Africa and there is no way Lend Lease could be extended to them until they use up that reserve, which adds further complications.

More importantly, however, is the fact it's extremely likely Spain will join this conflict here. The French have still been defeated on the mainland in six weeks and here, as opposed to OTL, Hitler has no reason to refuse Spanish gains at the expense of the French since there is no Vichy to cater to. With Madrid in, Gibraltar will rapidly forced under and German-Spanish forces based out of the Spanish territories can cut the only railway link from the Atlantic into North Africa. That renders the French position in North Africa untenable offensively at best.

 

[WolfBear]

Totally agreed, but I also more broadly do not see any ability for the Soviets to hold off the Germans at large here either. Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World War II: Part II by Denis Havlat:

Overall, the Western Allies were responsible only for a small fraction of the losses sustained by German infantry and armor between 1941 and 1943 (around 10 percent); however, their contribution in the destruction and occupation of the Luftwaffe was overwhelming. The same applies to their contribution in forcing the Germans to leave most heavy artillery in the Reich as anti-aircraft weapons, preventing them from being used as anti-tank weapons in the East. Without Allied military intervention, the Germans could have sent at least 2,000 additional tanks, some 5,000 additional 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, around 15,000 additional aircraft, tens of thousands of additional motor vehicles, and up to half a million additional soldiers to the Eastern Front in the years 1941–1943, which would have shifted the balance in their favor.​

FWIW, the Western Allies, other than the US, will still be willing to fight the Nazis by both air and sea in this scenario and also in North Africa and maybe Italy as well. It's just that they won't be able to open a second front in France until 1946 or 1947. So, the Nazis will still have to divert some resources to fight the Western Allies. Your own data here is from 1941 to 1943, when there was no second front in France yet. But even with these diverted Nazi resources by the Western Allies, I'm just not sure that the Soviet Union would have actually had the willpower or, for that matter, manpower to actually continue the war effort non-stop until 1946-1947 without any Western Front in France until then. It just seems like making peace would be a much more appealing prospect for the Soviet Union once they are able to regain all of their 1941 territories.

 

[History Learner]

FWIW, the Western Allies, other than the US, will still be willing to fight the Nazis by both air and sea in this scenario and also in North Africa and maybe Italy as well. It's just that they won't be able to open a second front in France until 1946 or 1947. So, the Nazis will still have to divert some resources to fight the Western Allies. Your own data here is from 1941 to 1943, when there was no second front in France yet. But even with these diverted Nazi resources by the Western Allies, I'm just not sure that the Soviet Union would have actually had the willpower or, for that matter, manpower to actually continue the war effort non-stop until 1946-1947 without any Western Front in France until then. It just seems like making peace would be a much more appealing prospect for the Soviet Union once they are able to regain all of their 1941 territories.

Britain can fight on until it exhausts its manpower and financial resources in 1944-1945, but by then it will be fighting an increasingly lost war. The USSR will go under in 1941-1942, and the Axis will begin using Turkey to conquer the Middle East while the Spanish-Italians squeeze the French out of North Africa. By 1945, I would expect the battleground to have shifted to Sub-Saharan Africa and the borderlands of India.

 

[WolfBear]

Britain can fight on until it exhausts its manpower and financial resources in 1944-1945, but by then it will be fighting an increasingly lost war. The USSR will go under in 1941-1942, and the Axis will begin using Turkey to conquer the Middle East while the Spanish-Italians squeeze the French out of North Africa. By 1945, I would expect the battleground to have shifted to Sub-Saharan Africa and the borderlands of India.

If the Anglo-French fight on in 1940-1941, then Lend-Lease aid to the USSR in 1941-1942 and beyond might still be a thing, no?

 

[Buba]

In 1945 or '46 latest the SU runs out of soldiers.
Hence I'm not so sure about the continuing offensives.

 

[WolfBear]

In 1945 or '46 latest the SU runs out of soldiers.
Hence I'm not so sure about the continuing offensives.

Yeah, AFAIK, as it was, the USSR's primary source of continued manpower was the younger age cohorts.

 

[History Learner]

If the Anglo-French fight on in 1940-1941, then Lend-Lease aid to the USSR in 1941-1942 and beyond might still be a thing, no?

Undoubtedly, but without direct American military entry you've dramatically changed things vis-a-vis the strategic picture. For one, the air war in 1942-1943 in the East is completely different:

The total Anglo-American bomb load released over Europe in 1942 totaled 46,972 tons, more than what the British had dropped from 1939 to 1941.160 With the exception of targets like Lübeck, Bremen, Cologne, and a few others, bombing in 1942 did little physical damage to German industry. There were still severe problems with accuracy and not enough bombers to cause any large-scale disruptions of German industry. However, even without physical damage, bombing still managed to reduce production figures by disrupting the time schedule. When Allied bombers attacked, the factory workers had to leave their workplace and resort to the air raid shelter, which resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of work hours in each enterprise.161 Additionally, the fear from being killed by bombs resulted in high rates of absenteeism: By 1944 some 20 percent to 25 percent of the workforce was absent regularly.162 The main contribution of bombing in 1942, though, was that it opened up another front for Germany. In order to protect its cities and their population against Allied bombers, the Luftwaffe was forced to allocate ever-increasing quantities of its aircraft for the defense of the Reich and Western Europe. From June to December 1942 the Germans lost 2,388 aircraft on the Eastern Front, as compared to 2,547 on all other fronts.163 By the summer of 1942, the Western Allies were inflicting nearly half of all Luftwaffe losses. This represented a significant increase from the 20 percent to 25 percent of all losses they had inflicted in the second half of 1941. Besides the large number of destroyed aircraft by Western forces, substantial Luftwaffe formations had to remain in the Mediterranean and Western Europe. By November 1942 there were 1,315 German aircraft stationed in the Mediterranean and a further 365 day fighters and a similar number of night fighters in Western Europe for the defense of the Reich.164​

Given the RAF was exclusively night bombing, the impact of the Americans is already clear, particularly when comparing 1941 loss rates to 1942. Further:

In the six months from June to November 1942, the Luftwaffe had lost 1,980 aircraft on the Eastern Front; during the same six months of 1943 losses had increased by just 5.5 percent to 2,090 destroyed machines, of which only 674 were fighter aircraft. The Western Allies, on the other hand, were able to increase their share of destroyed Luftwaffe aircraft dramatically. From June to November 1942 they had destroyed 2,181 German aircraft, in the June to November 1943 period the number had increased to 5,280 machines, of which 2,404 were fighters, an increase of 142 percent. Throughout 1943 the Western Allies were responsible for the destruction of more than three-quarters of all German fighters and two-thirds of all Luftwaffe aircraft in general.​

You seem a similar tale in terms of AFV strength:

While it is certainly true that the Germans used and lost an overwhelming majority of their infantry on the Eastern Front, in relation they lost far more equipment against the Western powers. Since modern wars are not decided by the number of soldiers alone but rather the number and quality of aircraft, tanks, transportation vehicles, and guns, military aid to the Soviet Union has to be measured by the amount of such material destroyed by the Western Allies. As has been mentioned before, by February 1943 German tank losses in North Africa had amounted to 835 tanks; until the capitulation of the Afrika Korps in mid-May, hundreds more were lost. From the data available, it would seem that the total German investment of tanks into the North African Campaign from February 1941 to May 1943 amounted to roughly 1,400 machines. Additionally, over a hundred German tanks were lost during the defense of Sicily and several hundred during the last months of 1943 after the Allies had invaded the Italian mainland. Total tank/spg losses inflicted on the Germans by the Western Allies in the three years from 1941 to 1943 thus amounted to roughly 2,000 destroyed machines, nearly 10 percent of production.142 Losses of tanks/spg’s on the Eastern Front amounted to 14,227 destroyed machines from June 1941 until December 1943.143​

Further:

By the end of May 1942, the frontline tank strength in North Africa had increased to 330 machines, and by the end of October, just before the Allied offensive at El Alamein, there were still 242 frontline tanks in North Africa.145 While far greater numbers of German tanks were stationed in the East (1,503 in March 1942, 3,133 in November 1942, and 2,374 in March 1943), only a fraction of these were operational.146 Out of the 1,503 tanks present in March 1942, only 140 were serviceable; in April 1943 a total of 600 tanks were serviceable despite the fact that the total number of tanks was roughly four times higher.147 Had the tanks that were sent to Africa and Italy been relocated to the Eastern Front instead, they would have increased overall tank forces only marginally. However, they might have greatly increased the number of serviceable tanks during critical time periods as during the German advance toward Moscow and Stalingrad and the Soviet counteroffensives before these cities, possibly influencing the outcome of these battles. Similarly, the tanks that were sent to Italy and Western Europe in the years 1943–1945 would have greatly increased the offensive capabilities of the German army. Based on available data, German tank/spg casualties during 1944 in Italy and Western Europe can be estimated to have been at around 4,500 to 5,000 machines, a significant portion of the 19,002 tanks and sp-guns produced by Germany during that year.148​

How about overall manpower?

Besides a large number of tanks, Western involvement also kept significant amounts of German manpower away from the Eastern Front. On 22 June 1941, when the German armies invaded the Soviet Union with 3.2 million men, there were 594,000 German soldiers stationed at other fronts.149 A year later, the German army in the East had shrunk to 2.85 million soldiers, while the number of German soldiers stationed at other fronts had increased to 971,000.150 By the middle of 1943, the numbers had increased to 3.12 million soldiers stationed at the Eastern Front, compared to 1.37 million in other parts of Europe.151​

There's also the fact that the entire German strategy for 1942 would be changed, with the Americans still neutral. Hitler's mad dash for the Caucasus oil was driven by the realization that with the U.S. in the war, the long expected air war with the Anglo-Americans was at hand, to which Germany desperately needed the fuel to fight such. If Hitler does not feel he is under such desperate circumstances, it is entirely likely he will stick to the phased plan of operations envisioned in Case Blue, avoiding such debacles as the diversion of 4th Panzer Army in July which was born from his haste. One could even make the argument that Case Blue might not happen, given the reduced prominence of oil in the German view; perhaps another go at Moscow and Leningrad?

 

[Buba]

6) The US follows a policy of ever increasing aid for the British Empire, French Empire and Soviet Union

Not possible without DOW.
In OTL FDR was cheating, lying, breaking the law etc. to send materiel to the UK - how much more can he do?

As to DOW against Germany - by mid 1942 FDR will fabricate some porker he can sell to Congress.