I’m reading *The Second World War *by Antony Beevor and now is the time for the humiliating train carriage meeting between General Huntziger’s delegation and Hitler et al. Writes Beevor:
If I’m reading this correctly, Pétain and Weygand would not concede to the fact that Germany would *not *touch France’s fleet or its colonies. In short: Why not? (I know about the Vichy regime and all but that does not explain the reluctance to concede to the fact that the Germans wouldn’t touch French colonies and fleet, to me.)
And then: Hitler wanted to divide the French from the British and “simply ensure that they would not hand over their fleet to their former ally.” Selbstklar. But how does that work with the fact that Kriegsmarine would *not *touch the fleet? Would not Kriegsmarine see that that would not happen by rather getting its hand on the French navy?
And “they” – those who may turn the fleet over – is that Pétain et al? The surrendering French who, if the Kriegsmarine got it hands on the fleet, would hand it over to the British?
Italics added and I’m quoting not by cut and paste but by typing the words so there might be some mistakes done in the process. Also, English is not my first language and I’m reading this book in Swedish, but here’s the original text according to Google Books (unnumbered) to which the Swedish translation is truthful.
I’m not familiar with the details of this meeting, but I think you’re simply misreading Beevor. As I read the passage, Hitler had guessed that the two points on which the French would not concede were giving the Germans control of their fleet or their colonies. The “on the other hand” indicates that these two points were concessions that the Germans had to make. The Germans wanted to control the French fleet and ensure that it would not be handed over to the British, but they were disappointed because this was not possible. The English construction is a little awkward, but still understandable to a native English speaker. It may have gotten lost in translation since English is not your first language.
My recollection is that the British sunk a great part of the French fleet in order to deny the Germans its use. This, unlike the ships, did not go down at all well with the French.
Speed. End the French side of the war so that resources could be completely focused on the UK (with one eye on Russia). No time wasted on mopping things up all over France, dealing with guerrilla movements, interning even more French soldiers, etc. Having a puppet government acceptable to most of the French would smooth things along very nicely.
Plus an actual surrender rather than a debellatio was going to be a much bigger boost to Hitler’s ego. He was really keen on repaying for the 1918 surrender.
Keeping resources out of British hands. If Hitler really insisted on taking the fleet, what would stop them from sailing to British controlled ports before the Wehrmacht could get to them? A lot of the fleet was in Marseilles and overseas.
Similarly with the colonies. If the French decided that the colonies were outside of German influence, what would keep them from becoming bases for the British? Especially places like Syria and North Africa.
It may surprise people how “respectful” everyone was of Vichy France’s overseas territories. When the Free French took over Saint Pierre and Miquelon on Christmas Eve 1941, the US and Canada were both furious and threatened to kick the Free French out and restore it to Vichy forces. This was after Dec. 7th and the US was formally at war with Germany!
(OTOH, the US has no problem with the UK taking Iceland after Denmark was conquered. And the US then assumed control in July 1941, well before Pearl Harbor!)
The French were given the choice of sailing to the West Indies to be demilitarised , joining the British, or harbouring neutrally in British ports. These alternatives were rejected by the French with the assurance that they would never give control of the fleet to the Germans . Churchill could not take this risk and ordered the bombardment of the French fleet at harbour.
As for the colonies - Germany couldn’t effectively reach the French possessions in Africa and Syria, let alone Indochina and the Pacific so had bery little leverage in that regard. Even if they could have been occupied it probably made more sense to let a quiescent Vichy regime administer them rather than waste German manpower on it. Petain and Weygand’s views were probably irrelevant - Hitler wasn’t really interested in plaaces in the sun - his eyes were to the East.
It may have been an issue of recognizing the reality on the ground. The German army already occupied most of northern France. There was nothing Petain and Weygand could actually do to change that.
At the same time, the French colonies and French fleet were not under German control and the Germans would not have been able to capture them. If Petain and Weygand had agreed to surrender them to German control, it’s very unlikely they could have enforced that agreement. So the Germans agreed to allow a portion of France to remain nominally independent in order to keep French forces beyond its control neutral.
