Francois Darlan
The lesson of Poland was a simple one, if a country had a colony, even if it wasn't an unpleasant place with time and effort one could use said colony as a springboard to reclaim your lost homeland. Even if it seemed hopeless it offered you a chance. Thus two plans were created in case of yet another German invasion. The Maginot Line and the Warsaw plan.
The Maginot line was the first plan, in the event of a German invasion it would hopefully stop them cold with the belgians working with us we could stop the germans and strangle them, but like I said it had been very clearly proven that a country could fight on from their colonies so the war saw plan was plan B.
First part of the plan was find a colony that could act as a back up. Algeria was chosen for its size resources and because it was declared an integeral part of France. With the end of the war the decision was made to build up our Algerian territories if the worse came to pass.
We emptied our prisons, mass exile to settle Algeria replaced most punishments. Troops were given plots of land, the Arab Population didn't like it they revolted. While it was a controversal decision we decided that we needed the warsaw plan more then we needed the Arabs.
We graciously resettled the Arab population in Gabon, while this had negative effects on the native black population we could afford to lose Gabon losing Algeria would mean losing our back up plan. To further help with the settling of the land we offered santuary to christians in the middle east. Offered deals to Native French giving them free land, and used methods of carrot and stick to build up the northern coastal area of Algeria.
It was decided that a portion of the government would always be settled there. Quite a bit of the reperations money went into paying for all of this, military bases were build there, ports were expanded and industry was moved there as well. Not as much as the metropole but we accomplished quite a bit during the 1920s. Of course we were not the only ones with such a plan, the Dutch built up suirname, the Belgians built up a portion of Congo, the British had plans for Canada, and of course the Poles had their standby as well.
Unlike the British or the yankee's we saw the end of the great war as just a pause in the fighting, the nature of the german was in my opinion one of aggression and sooner or later he would be back.
The lesson of Poland was a simple one, if a country had a colony, even if it wasn't an unpleasant place with time and effort one could use said colony as a springboard to reclaim your lost homeland. Even if it seemed hopeless it offered you a chance. Thus two plans were created in case of yet another German invasion. The Maginot Line and the Warsaw plan.
The Maginot line was the first plan, in the event of a German invasion it would hopefully stop them cold with the belgians working with us we could stop the germans and strangle them, but like I said it had been very clearly proven that a country could fight on from their colonies so the war saw plan was plan B.
First part of the plan was find a colony that could act as a back up. Algeria was chosen for its size resources and because it was declared an integeral part of France. With the end of the war the decision was made to build up our Algerian territories if the worse came to pass.
We emptied our prisons, mass exile to settle Algeria replaced most punishments. Troops were given plots of land, the Arab Population didn't like it they revolted. While it was a controversal decision we decided that we needed the warsaw plan more then we needed the Arabs.
We graciously resettled the Arab population in Gabon, while this had negative effects on the native black population we could afford to lose Gabon losing Algeria would mean losing our back up plan. To further help with the settling of the land we offered santuary to christians in the middle east. Offered deals to Native French giving them free land, and used methods of carrot and stick to build up the northern coastal area of Algeria.
It was decided that a portion of the government would always be settled there. Quite a bit of the reperations money went into paying for all of this, military bases were build there, ports were expanded and industry was moved there as well. Not as much as the metropole but we accomplished quite a bit during the 1920s. Of course we were not the only ones with such a plan, the Dutch built up suirname, the Belgians built up a portion of Congo, the British had plans for Canada, and of course the Poles had their standby as well.
Unlike the British or the yankee's we saw the end of the great war as just a pause in the fighting, the nature of the german was in my opinion one of aggression and sooner or later he would be back.