Into the Fire - the "Minor" nations of WW2 strike back
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One RAF squadron is 12 planes plus some replacement planes (a French escadrille). So 14 squadrons are about 200 fighters. If you are talking about GCs (groupes de chasse), it's indeed 500 planes (36 planes per GC).
Will Indochina be supplied with fighters and modern bombers to defend itself from Japanese? I guess the Dixmude is ferrying one GC on her deck.
One more GC with experienced pilots but flying MS 406 and one GB (bombers) on Glenn Martin 167F, plus the Expeditionary Forces in Lebanon (Groupement des forces mobiles du Levant) with three infantry divisions, one Polish mountain brigade and two tank battalions will be very helpful to O'Connor or could be sent to Indochina, at least after the fall of Libya.
And now, Norway! Will Polish troops evacuated from France be sent to Narvik and Bodø?
Also, according to a previous thread i've made, Moncef Bey and Mohamed V from Tunisia wanted to join the Free French OTL - it could aliviate some pressure from Malta, plus help the monarchy of Tunisia retain it's power postwar
Ahmed II ibn Ali, Ahmed Bey, was the bey of Tunis in 1940, he applied Vichy rules and is not likely to help Allies. Muhammad VII al-Munsif, Moncef Bey, will not become bey before June 1942 after the dead of Ahmed Bey. French North Africa will probably have fallen in Allied side at this time ITTL.
If you are talking about the Anders Army, yes it will see more action. As for whether it will be in the east...I guess it depends on your definition of "east".
No, Norway already has enough troops there and you can hardly put more without straining logistics. There are Polish troops and half a squadron there already as well.
Morocco and Tunisia can't exactly secede to Free France, either, since the Free French aren't even in Dakar yet.
Belgium has less exiled troops than France, yet is called "by far" the must numerous. Is it because they managed to evacuate much more of the recognized government?
Anyways, thanks for the run-down on their statuses. With Libya quick to fall and Indochina out of Japanese hands, the Allies are off to a good start. The question is though, what will they do now? They're off the continent, but how long will prep to invade Italy take? And in the mean time, they're not building up experience with large-scale combat.
Speaking of colonies, Free France got a massive chunk of the French colonial empire, but getting to Algeria will still take time. Until then, I wonder if they might take a softer stance towards the native population? I wonder how much influence Félix Eboué has, he was a very cool guy.
Anyways, thanks for the run-down on their statuses. With Libya quick to fall and Indochina out of Japanese hands, the Allies are off to a good start. The question is though, what will they do now? They're off the continent, but how long will prep to invade Italy take? And in the mean time, they're not building up experience with large-scale combat.
"Recruit", sure. This will have interesting effects down the line. How similar is this to OTL? I know nothing about how the Belgian Congo was run during OTL WW2.
Speaking of colonies, Free France got a massive chunk of the French colonial empire, but getting to Algeria will still take time. Until then, I wonder if they might take a softer stance towards the native population? I wonder how much influence Félix Eboué has, he was a very cool guy.
So almost three times OTL casualties. It will sting, but it's only a drop in the bucket of the multi-megadeath meatgrinder that Operation Barbarossa will be. I don't know enough of the finer details of expanding the army to guess how much weaker they'll be in mid 1941 vs OTL.
A while. For Italy, they will need Tunisia at the very least, which will ensure Churchill keeps the pressure on the French government to take Algeria as soon as possible.
Greece is soon to come around the corner, though, and Libya is still quite large-scale. The Allies aren't going to stay inactive, though, the Dodecanese is right there...
Drastic change from OTL. OTL Belgian Congo stayed effectively neutral despite Ryckmans wanting to join the Allies, and the Force Publique never saw action. Soldiers gaining Belgian nationality for them and their families will ensure many of these people can get educated properly and will facilitate the transition towards a democratic Congolese state.
Very likely to do so, especially since most of the government has been evacuated and France will need that manpower.
It should read "of the minor nations".
The next update will cover Norway and Finland, and the one after that will see what the Allies are up to during this end of year.
Chapter 20: Triumph in the North… (Scandinavia – 1940)
End of 1940
Norwegian Campaign
Norwegian Campaign
Ever since the end of Operation Weserubung, the Germans knew that the peace at the border was temporary. The idea of a thorn in the side of the Germans in the north and the iron ore supply being denied were bad enough, but the thought of a shared border between the Allies and Finland on the eve of Barbarossa was deemed potentially catastrophic by the Wehrmacht.
Even as the French Campaign still raged, the Luftwaffe allocated resources to contest the air from the Norwegians and Poles who doggedly held on.
Still, with the construction of a new airfield at Mo i Rana, and the fact that the Norwegians were not being constantly reinforced with new planes, made so that the balance of power slowly shifted in favor of the Germans. And with the Battle of France draining all resources, the German high command decided that this would be the perfect time to attack Norway.
By August and the fall of Sedan, these ones had managed to wrestle the air almost completely from the Allies in the area. And in the meantime, the Heer deployed forces ready to advance towards Bodo and Narvik from the south: the German 69. Infanterie-Division, 163. Infanterie-Division, 2. Gebirgs-Division and 3. Gebirgs-Division had by now been fully reinforced and ready to move. In the meantime, limited paratrooper operations were planned to cut the rail lines between Bodo and Tromso.
On August 9th, Hitler ordered the launch of Operation Schneesturm, meaning the conquest of Norway.
Enjoying air supremacy despite the bravery of the Norwegian and Polish squadrons, the Germans quickly managed to re-establish contact with the Allied defense line at the Skjerstadtfjorden. The Allies had indeed not stayed idle, having established many forts along the fjord, which greatly hampered the mountaineers and infantrymen.
Thankfully, the air supremacy enjoyed by the Luftwaffe allowed these forts to be constantly bombed from above, literally showering the area with bombs. This allowed the 3rd Mountain Division to break through the Norwegian lines at Langset, on the east of the fjord, and come within sight of Fauske on August 11th.
By now, the British were fully aware of the offensive, but were stuck in a pickle. To reinforce Norway would be to risk their fleet against the German bombers, which could prove quite expensive. Despite the risks, Churchill ordered that “no Allied nation be left behind”. On August 12th, despite the deteriorating situation in France, a convoy led by the HMS Hood and the carrier HMS Furious left Scapa Flow with supplies destined for Narvik, including many aircraft.
The Hawker Hurricanes allowed the Norwegian squadrons based at Narvik and Tromso to alleviate the pressure on the ground troops, which were being pushed back. In fact, the safe arrival of the convoy at Narvik wouldn’t be enough to save Bodo.
On August 13th, the German mountaineers, supported by air, broke out at Fauske, despite the bravery of the Norwegian 3rd Infantry Division to hold this chokepoint.
The breakthrough forced the Norwegian high command to evacuate Bodo or risk encirclement. Over the course of the next few days, Norwegian troops would thus stream out of Bodo by sea, in what British officers would later call “a little Dunkirk”. As for the Germans, they pushed through from Fauske towards Straumen, where they were once again delayed by the Norwegian efforts.
Bodo fell on August 15th, about at the same time as the Fall of France, with the Germans now rushing up the coast with little to stop them. Only the Ofotfjord managed to do so, after a long cavalcade in roads that were very much not up to the standards of the Wehrmacht. But in the Norwegian high command, one knew this was going to be tricky to hold.
Despite their efforts, Norwegian forces could not defend everywhere, and the constant pounding of the Luftwaffe did not help things…not to mention the logistical situation. If the Germans managed to get a landing around the Ofotfjord, there would be little stopping them from reaching Narvik…and then Tromso.
Even with the British “shuttles” operating in difficult meteorological conditions between the ports of Scotland and Norway, the situation was becoming more and more precarious, until the Germans inevitably managed to cross the Ofotfjord.
On August 24th, a combined assault by the 69. Infanterie-Division by sea and a paratrooper assault aiming at Bjerkvik and Fossbakken swarmed the Norwegian defenses. Despite managing to push back the German landings at Lodingen, the Heer infantrymen secured beachheads at Skarnes and Tarstad, right at the entry of the Ofotfjord.
Despite naval support from the Norwegian sloops and the two destroyers present there, the Norwegians failed to dislodge the infantrymen, who, under constant air support, broke out towards Narvik.
Silver lining for the Norwegians: they had managed to hold long enough for the paratrooper forces at Bjerkvik to be reduced and destroyed, while those at Fossbakken still proved to be a nuisance. But, by August 28th, with Narvik seemingly about to fall, King Haakon VII had no choice.
From his headquarters in Tromso, he ordered the evacuation of Norwegian forces to the United Kingdom. The fight was lost in Norway, but it could be continued overseas. For those who did not wished to be evacuated, King Haakon asked them to fight the Germans in Norway, burying caches of weapons around the northern part of the country. A delaying battle would be fought throughout Finnmark, in order to stall the units all the way to Kirkenes and the Finnish border.
On September 2nd, British and French vessels started to evacuate the remnants of the Norwegian 3rd, 4th and 6th Divisions, along with anyone who wished to continue the fight in the United Kingdom. Among the evacuees, one could find a great number of Poles from the Mountain Brigade, as well as Polish and especially a great number of Norwegian fighter pilots, who would soon trade their Hurricanes for Spitfires.
As October came and the rest of Norway came under German domination, resistance movements started to spring up around the country, waiting for the inevitable return of the fighters who had left for the British Isles. King Haakon himself tearfully addressed these fighters from London, telling them to carry on the fight wherever it is.
In fact, they would not have to wait very long. These Norwegians, annoyed and disappointed at having been beaten by the Germans, had only one wish: to fight again, and to win. And if that was not in Norway, to hell with it! In fact, General William Steffens, seeing the taste of his men for revenge, told General Dempsey: “My men want only one thing: to be able to wipe the shame of the defeat of the Autumn of 1940. Give me ten thousand rifles, a few artillery pieces and air cover, and I’ll drive the Germans back to Berlin!”. In fact, the Norwegian troops would do more than wipe the shame of their defeat in Narvik, when they would be the first to enter Sofia, only two years later…
Meanwhile, while the Germans crawled through Norway, there was another Nordic country in their mind.
Because of the Allied thorn in northern Norway, and the upcoming Operation Barbarossa, combined with the losses incurred in France, there was a real concern at OKH that Barbarossa would have to be delayed. The only way of stopping this delay was to equip other nations whose manpower was intact. Something that deeply unsettled Hitler and most of the high-ranking Nazi officers. After all, the master race never came begging to others…
But still, the French Campaign had been costly. Too costly. And one needed to recoup these losses somehow. Hungary and Romania were promised equipment, tanks and other goods in order to bolster their participation to Barbarossa.
But, of course, a key issue was the port of Murmansk. If the Allies could bring in reinforcements via this port, which they now could easily do with the presence of Allied forces in Kirkenes…it would be a disaster. Not to mention the fact that most of the units that were supposed to participate in the operation would incur more losses in Norway, and probably not be ready by the Summer of 1941! If one were to reach Murmansk, we would have to use the Finns to do so.
And with the presence of Allied forces in Norway, this also discouraged Finland from pursuing closer ties with Germany, one that would jeopardize the entire operation.
So, the German diplomatic machine got to work. Ludwig Weissauer, secret representative to the German Foreign Ministry, met Gustav Mannerheim in Helsinki in early September, once Norway was doomed to fall. This one assured Mannerheim that the bond between the Soviets and Nazis was only temporary, and that soon, Greater Germany would ask for Finland to help it, in exchange of which the Germans would help Finland take back the territories lost during the Winter War and more! Weissauer also promised the transfer of weapons, tanks and aircraft to Finland [1].
Mannerheim pondered this quite heavily. In fact, he was growing increasingly annoyed with the Soviet ambassador, Zotov, who demanded many things and proved himself to be a total nuisance. Not to mention that the British supported the Soviets, with ambassador Sir Stafford Cripps showing himself extremely pro-Soviet. In fact, when the Finns inquired of British support, their answer was unequivocal: acceptance of the lost territories during the Winter War and cooperation with the Soviets. Mannerheim chose to ignore the possible reinforcement of RAF squadrons to the country, combined with an expeditionary force which could defend Petsamo: the acceptance of the loss of the Winter War territories would be too much to bear.
In fact, the Finns would have more success with the Americans, who, right up until Barbarossa, had hoped to keep Finland out of the war, by offering compensation for the lost territories and promises of the sending of P-40s to Finland, as soon as the flow of deliveries permitted...
In fact, Mannerheim did not wish to let his country be completely taken over by the Germans. However, he did agree to negotiations with Germany, which culminated in the “troop transfer agreement”, with Germany being able to transfer troops through Finnish territory, as long as these were not used to attack Norway.
This troop transfer agreement was met with overwhelming approval with the Finnish population, and thus only strengthened Mannerheim’s position. Thus, the General could have a free hand with the Germans.
These ones asked that, when the time came, Finnish forces support the German thrust towards Murmansk, the White Sea and Leningrad. In exchange, these forces would be graciously reequipped “German-style”, and the Finnish Air Force would receive brand new aircraft which could destroy any Soviet fighter.
Later that September, the proposed union with Sweden had completely finished panicking the Soviet leadership. Faced with a hostile German-aligned behemoth on the border, they finally offered the Finns some terms. In exchange for the proposed union being dropped and a reduction in a growing German military presence, the Soviets offered to remove ambassador Zotov and to move their troops several miles away from the border.
Satisfied with such an arrangement, Mannerheim agreed to the terms. In secret, he and German general Franz Halder agreed to not overly panic the Soviets by stationing the German forces further from the border, and then making them “transit” to Norway and Sweden once the border had been secured in mid-October.
In exchange for the equipment, Germany asked for Finland to undergo partial mobilization, and to commit itself to the assault on Leningrad (which also implied the Finnish aggression on Soviet forces without them attacking first). Mannerheim agreed to both terms, which were soon followed by President Ryti. In exchange, Finland would get grain, fuel and supplies for their army, as well as their first armored vehicles.
The proclamation of partial mobilization both unnerved and annoyed the Soviets, who saw it as a breach of the Moscow treaty. Mannerheim answered that this was in case of a “German betrayal”, and that with the increase in German forces in Norway, it was necessary.
In the meantime, Mannerheim also met Admiral Conrad Albrecht, on the subject of the port of Hanko. The Finnish navy was weak, and would likely not be able to prevent the evacuation of the port in case of a Soviet evacuation, but with the right support…
Albrecht, on thin ice and badly needing a victory, agreed to propose the idea of a German naval interdiction of the port, which would allow the destruction of nearly 20,000 Soviet troops. He would just have to get a hold of some heavy units…
Concerns also grew in Finland about the potential posturing of the Allied forces against them. With their support of Germany, there would be no doubt that this would anger Britain and the United States. They were ultimately proven right.
[1] In a much better position, the Germans did not promise these OTL.
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So, Kriegsmarine folks will try to redeem their reputation in battles against Soviets?..
IMHO, I think that the Soviet Navy will get the opportunity to score some kills against Germans (IOTL alleged Soviet mine sunk one of the Finnish Coastal Battleships).
Snd speaking of the Navies. Given the TL premise Romania could try to inflict heavy losses on Soviet Black Sea Fleet during its Constanca Raid which may result in early ceasing of its activity (as OTL after 1943 losses of three destroyers in a single engagement) and possible relieving Oktyabrsky of his duties which, IMHO, will be benefecial for Soviets).
P.S. I think that the author will have to think about solutions to fact that after 1941 offenses Finns had some manpower shortages. Also too successful advance may well disrupt evacuvation of Soviet civilians from Karelia which will cause Finns some headache with partisans.
IMHO, I think that the Soviet Navy will get the opportunity to score some kills against Germans (IOTL alleged Soviet mine sunk one of the Finnish Coastal Battleships).
Snd speaking of the Navies. Given the TL premise Romania could try to inflict heavy losses on Soviet Black Sea Fleet during its Constanca Raid which may result in early ceasing of its activity (as OTL after 1943 losses of three destroyers in a single engagement) and possible relieving Oktyabrsky of his duties which, IMHO, will be benefecial for Soviets).
P.S. I think that the author will have to think about solutions to fact that after 1941 offenses Finns had some manpower shortages. Also too successful advance may well disrupt evacuvation of Soviet civilians from Karelia which will cause Finns some headache with partisans.
The Red Navy's training/combat performance were pretty poor/outdated, as were a number of their designs. I could see some damage being inflicted because there are so many Soviet ships/subs potentially present in an engagement with the Germans, but much more than that seems optimistic.
Yeah, although even during the Russo-Japanese War Imperial Russian Navy managed to send two Japanese Battleships to the bottom via mines.
Edited: But yeah, you're correct as the Red Navy was more useful as a source for the Naval Infantry.
Yeah mines are a big part of naval warfare in the Baltic, but in a flat out naval battle most casualties are coming from opposing ships themselves.
Seems Germany's solution to manpower losses in France is to equip the Axis minors instead, giving them a much larger role in Barbarossa than OTL. Gonna have fascinating political impacts, especially late war.
So Norway still falls in the end. Sad, but this was a fun battle. Now that you mention it, while a few TLs have had Norway hold on I don't think I've seen one really explore the consequences of "a shared border between the Allies and Finland on the eve of Barbarossa". Fighting all the way to Narvik by land is one HELL of a campaign with plenty of wild stories, if they weren't Nazis I would have felt sorry for the German mountaineers.
So Norway still falls in the end. Sad, but this was a fun battle. Now that you mention it, while a few TLs have had Norway hold on I don't think I've seen one really explore the consequences of "a shared border between the Allies and Finland on the eve of Barbarossa". Fighting all the way to Narvik by land is one HELL of a campaign with plenty of wild stories, if they weren't Nazis I would have felt sorry for the German mountaineers.
The war in Greece will go very well I see. That's one very different course of the war if Bulgaria falls as soon as 1942, and I wonder how that will happen. Perhaps they send too much of their army to Russia and don't have time to extract it back home when the Germans fail to defend them?
OTL Bulgaria didn't participate in Barbarossa. I suppose that Bulgaria will simply switch sides sooner.
P.S. Anyway, I, as a Russian, still thinks that the USSR will have a better ITTL outcome from this war in terms of losses/devastation.
What will happen to the Neubaufahrzeug tanks? Would Germany give them to Finland? Our will have their OTL fate?