Fantasque Time Line

[Wings]

Chapter 25: Losing the Mediterranean – Act 3: Simoun

By the end of February, Nogues had finished preparations along the Mareth Line for an offensive into Libya, counting at least three divisions, and as such had informed London via the back channels. This operation, codenamed “Simoun”, was prepared for March 2nd, 1941.

But Nogues was no fool. He knew that such an action would entail the occupation of the “Free Zone” by the Germans. Thus, in coordination with Darlan, he organized the covert escape of the fleet in Toulon.

Since August 1940, French sailors had managed to fool the Germans authorities into believing that all the fuel had been sucked out of their vessels, and this despite the harsh fuel restrictions placed upon the ships. However, this did not mean that all ships were fit to sail. Notably, the older battleships, Bretagne and Provence, as well as the seaplane carrier Commandant Teste, were judged to be impossible to rush to Africa with the quantities of fuel available.

Darlan had plenty of ships in Toulon, but he would have to choose which ones to save, as even with the deception, not every ship would be able to make the run to Oran, and towing ships would not be an option, as it would make the tower extremely vulnerable to Luftwaffe air attacks. All in all, Darlan chose the safe option, by choosing to save the maximum number of units, rather than the larger ones.

The Battleships Bretagne and Provence would be scuttled alongside the Commandant Teste, as well as the heavy cruisers Colbert and Foch, and the light cruiser Marseillaise, along with six smaller destroyers (Brestois, Boulonnais, Baliste, Gerfaut, Vautour, Vauban). Several submarines would also need to be sacrificed, whether scuttled in port or taken to neutral Spain in order to be interned there.

In addition to the sailors, these ships would also carry weapons from the Army of the Armistice to ferry to North Africa, alongside with a select few technicians that had been left behind in France, and whom Mandel wished to extradite. All of that, of course, under the seal of secrecy.

But the Germans were not totally fooled, either, which is why the number of weapons Berlin was willing to provide to Vichy was constantly dwindling. Citing the Italian difficulties in Libya or Albania, Berlin provided a list of conditions on the transfer of weapons to the Petain government, the most notable one being the ramping up of deportation of Jews to Germany, which forced the London government to encourage Nogues to be much more careful in his dealings. Thus, priority was not made to the weapons, but more to the existing men: tank specialists, aviation engineers, army officers and other people willing to take up the fight from Algeria. These were easier to transfer than weapons, and much more inconspicuous too.

So, when on February 27th, 1941, Free French troops of the 191st Division started moving from their starting positions at El Aghelia towards Sirte, in the first act of “Simoun”, Darlan was ready. On March 1st, he gave the orders for the fleet to sail in the early hours of the morning, while Nogues’ troops launched their assault from the Mareth Line onto Tripoli.

The Germans and Italians were caught completely by surprise, but no one was as surprised as the French! As the three divisions crossed the border in Libya, they had expected staunch resistance from their Italian counterparts, but all they found was a half-starving army, in dire need of equipment and reinforcements that had been sent to Albania, where the situation was worsening by the day. French troops cut their path towards Tripoli, all the while the D.520s provided ample cover against the sparse Italian planes.
In Toulon, Darlan’s gamble had paid off. The admiral, who had gone to Provence to supervise the defection on board the battleship Dunkerque, was extremely pleased, although a little sad to have to leave some of his precious vessels behind.

This enraged Hitler and the German High Command, who immediately launched an invasion of southern France: Operation Attila. This operation saw German troops rush to the Spanish border and along the Rhone Valley, while Italian troops secured most of Provence and the Alps. Both did so with little regard for the populace or the Vichy troops stationed there. The Germans were furious at Nogues’ betrayal, and the Italians even more furious at the fact that Tripoli was now effectively under siege.

Vichy France did not take long to see its short existence terminated. The Army of the Armistice, who had been partly evacuated to Africa, stood down. Hitler, for his part, having considered Petain and Laval useless, dismissed the both of them and had them sent to Germany, pending trial, with Jacques Doriot being named head of a French government that now did not really exist anymore. The Doriot regime became just like that of Quisling in Norway: a front and nothing else.

All of this did not really console the Italians. They might have gained Nice, Savoy and Corsica, but Libya was running away, and Hitler was calling on the Italians to intercept the rogue French fleet. Mussolini had no choice but to comply, but all that the battle fleet found was the Allied submarine line off Sardinia, and the light cruiser Alberto di Giussano was lost to a set of torpedoes launched by the Narval of commander Drogou.

In the meantime, the French divisions were pushing into Libya, while the first Free French troops were also unloading in Casablanca, followed by the Belgians and British, as well as dozens of aircraft. The heroic entry of the French fleet in the port of Mers-el-Kébir also helped boost the morale of the French troops, which took Tripoli on March 8th. This was the final nail in the coffin of the Italian army in Libya: pushed by the French from Tunisia and the French, Australians and British from El Agheila, the remainder of the Italian Army in Africa had no choice but to capitulate. Hounded from both sides, without any air cover…it was just another disaster in a long line of crushing defeats for Mussolini’s regime, who found himself already quite isolated.

The British of the 50th (Northumbrian) and French of the 4th Moroccan Division met at Misrata on March 16th, 1941, thus completing the conquest of Libya.

This news, combined with the fall of Keren and the impending fall of Tirana, was a gigantic punch in the gut for the overconfident Italian regime, which would largely contribute to the disaster of Cape Matapan just a few days later. Italy needed to prove its worth and it badly needed a victory.
For the Allies, the Conquest of Libya and the securing of the rest of the French fleet was a major victory. At the end of March, the French government left Dakar to install itself in its new offices in Algiers, with Mandel as its head, and De Gaulle as the ever-faithful Minister of War.

For the new government, the return to Algiers was like a triumph: Free France was now in France proper, although on the other side of the Mediterranean. It had a Fleet, an Army, an Air Force, and a large amount of legitimacy. Churchill, the Belgians and Poles had recovered their gold as well as the entirety of North Africa and a large chunk of the fleet, which would relieve Royal Navy assets in the Mediterranean.

For the French, it was now time to look to the future. Transfer of the 86th DIA to Greece was confirmed alongside the newly landed 1st Free French Division, which would join the newly released 6th Australian Division on the mainland. Nogues was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the French Armed forces in Africa (which meant 90% of French armed assets), and Darlan was promoted to…French representative to the Allied High Command. A post which sounded like a promotion, but, for Mandel and De Gaulle, primarily meant to keep this troublesome person away from “his” Navy, which was entrusted to Admiral Emmanuel Ollive.

With the war in North Africa over, the Allies thus shifted their gaze to the other side of the Mediterranean. Greece, of course, but Italy also was right over the horizon, and the Italians were quickly running out of ships…
_________________
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." Sir Andrew Cunningham, Mai 1941
"Let me soar! [...] I need no great host, just [Tyene]" - Nymeria Sand, AFFC II

[DMZ]

Je reste toujours dubitatif sur la possibilité pour Noguès de monter une attaque vers la Libye sans se faire détecter par la commission d'armistice et donc de déclencher une riposte musclée (typiquement l'invasion de la zone non occupée).

[Wings]

Merci DMZ, je vais faire des modifications.

Pour la Grece, les Allemands ne laisseront jamais l'Albanie tomber.
_________________
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." Sir Andrew Cunningham, Mai 1941
"Let me soar! [...] I need no great host, just [Tyene]" - Nymeria Sand, AFFC II

[DMZ]

Ah ! Et il n'a pas été question de l'Armée de l'air. Elle a encore une demi-douzaines de GC en France métropolitaine sur MS 406 ou MB 152-155 à l'époque, ils peuvent fuir vers la Corse et participer à la défense de l'île avant de faire le grand saut ou d'évacuer les équipages.

Je verrais bien une opération Ocatarinetta qui enverrait tout ce qu'on peut en Corse, avions et navires, pour la défendre et se laisser le temps d'évacuer tout ce monde et ce matériel un peu plus tard : " La flotte, le retour ! " Une opération conjointe MN - RN, un mois plus tard, de sauvetage de tous les bâtiments qui n'ont pas pu aller plus loin au moment de la fuite vers l'AFN. On peut même y envoyer les Bretagne et Provence qui y feront office de batteries flottantes, voire à demi coulées devant Ajaccio ou Bastia. Il y a cent milles nautiques, ce qui représente à peu près 0,3 % de l'autonomie de n'importe quel bâtiment de la Royale, ils ont tous au moins ça dans les fonds.
_________________
« Vi offro fame, sete, marce forzate, battaglia e morte. » « Je vous offre la faim, la soif, la marche forcée, la bataille et la mort. » Giuseppe Garibaldi

[Archibald]

[loic]

[Wings]

[loic]

Nous ne nous sommes pas compris : si je comprends bien, de l'armement serait transféré de la zone libre vers le port de Toulon pour chargement sur les navires sur le point de s'enfuir. Ce genre de transfert ne passe pas inaperçu (sauf pour du petit équipement).

Concernant les armes "Berlin was willing to provide to Vichy", il faut se rappeler que le Reich a saisi lors de l'armistice tout l'armement moderne et les véhicules, ne laissant que des miettes. Cet armement est réutilisé par la Heer (notamment sur le front de l'est).
_________________
On ne trébuche pas deux fois sur la même pierre (proverbe oriental)
En principe (moi) ...

[Wings]

On parle ici de petit armement, pas de véhicules apart ceux de la région de Toulon.
_________________
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." Sir Andrew Cunningham, Mai 1941
"Let me soar! [...] I need no great host, just [Tyene]" - Nymeria Sand, AFFC II

[Wings]

Chapter 26: Losing the Mediterranean – Act 4: Lustre

With the fall of Libya imminent with the success of Simoun, the Allies were now fully focused on the transfer of troops to Greece. Operation Lustre, as codenamed by the British, had now started and was in full swing, aiming to transfer no less than nine Allied divisions.
Of course, this posed a problem for logistics. The ports of Greece were poorly developed, and disembarking supplies in Valona was judged too risky considering that the Germans had brought the X. Fliegerkorps to protect Italian reinforcements (no less than seven divisions!) in the area. As such, the Allies continued the submarine harassment of Italian forces in the area.
The Italians themselves had also committed substantial naval assets for the safe escort of these convoys, which made interception of these convoys risky, but not without cost for the Italians. On February 20th, the destroyer Alvise da Mosto was sunk by an aggressive British submarine (HMS Tetrarch), while five days later, the cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere, on a shelling mission along the frontline, was sunk by the Greek submarine Papanikolis.

For the Allies, the focus was elsewhere. The poor Greek road system needed to be rebuilt to accommodate the British armoured vehicles, from Piraeus to Thessaloniki and Valona. Railways needed to be built and renovated, airfields built to accommodate Allied aircraft…in short, the Allied offensive in Albania was delayed till March, the time for everything to be put in place…and for supplies to be accumulated [1].
For the Allies were under no illusions: Germany could not let its ally fail in Albania, but for different reasons than expected. For Hitler and the OKW, the Allied presence in Greece was a critical threat, as the Allies could hope to sway Yugoslavia, right on the front door of the Reich! The issue was how to plan an intervention. While some argued to push back the date of Barbarossa, the Fuhrer was inflexible: there would not be a delay, not even a day! As such, aid had to be provided to the Italians, and quickly!

If the offensive into Greece and Yugoslavia (if the government refused access to the German troops) was maintained for April 18th, the Germans would need to hold Durazzo in order to save the Italian Army…and the Italian government. It was thus decided to send the 5th Light Division [2], under Heinrich Kirchheim, to Durazzo in order to protect the port and keep the Italian Army alive.
On March 4th, the 7th Armoured Division and the Greeks finally started their own push, slamming into the Italian defenses at Fier and Berat. The British armoured division, equipped with Matilda IIs, Covenanters and, more importantly, Valentines, had no problem in blasting the Italian stoppers, rolling onto the plain below.

Then, however, the effort switched. The British wished to rush their tanks along the coastal plain straight towards Durazzo, but the Greeks wished to push to Elbasan and then Tirana, in order to gain a massive political victory. It was later revealed that the Greeks hoped to take the capital in order to force the Albanians to concede Northern Epirus, and thus was more important than the coastal town of Durazzo.
The Greeks pushed hard, managing to rush their way in the Albanian hills and mountains, reaching Elbasan on March 12th, where they were met with the Italian 48th Infantry Taro, helped by the 2nd Alpine Infantry Tridentina. As for the British, they were slowed more by the mud than the Italians, who were desperately waiting for Kirchener’s armoured vehicles to come bail them out.

In the meantime, the Allies did not stay idle. The French 86th DIA and Belgian 2nd Infantry Division had landed on March 15th, and the 6th British Infantry would land on March 20th. The Continentals would move up towards the Metaxas line, with the 86th DIA, equipped with American armored vehicles [3], going up to the Yugoslav border, and the Belgians staying behind Thessaloniki. The Franco-Belgian strategy was to block a future German push through Bulgaria or Macedonia, with the 1st Free French Division and Levant Armored Brigade (reclassified as 1st DB) to join them along the line. The French and Belgian P-40s would of course follow.

The British would see their numbers quickly balloon to more than 150,000 men in Greece as well. The 7th Armoured Division, which was now was in sight of Kavaje after crossing the Shkumbin at Kercukaj, but also the 2nd New Zealand Division and 6th British Infantry, landed in Athens and on their way to the front, the 6th Australian, in the process of transferring from Libya, the 51st Highland, taking position at Karditsa, and the 10th Indian, freshly arrived near Ambracia. All was well for the Allies, with the Italians growing desperate.

Seeing the number of troops in Greece swell, the Regia Marina was asked to sortie to destroy Allied convoys heading for Piraeus. Needing a victory badly after the fall of Keren and Libya, and with the French carrier Dixmude having been spotted off Malta, the Italians felt confident enough to make a hit-and-run by attacking the convoys off Crete which were ferrying the 6th Australian between Benghazi and Piraeus.
Unfortunately for them, the screen of Allied submarines spotted the sortie off of the Ionian Islands, dooming the attempt. The Italian naval force ran straight into a waiting British squadron, which included the carrier HMS Illustrious, and its deadly Fairey Albacore.

Already experienced from the raid on Taranto, the Albacore executed a perfect attack on the Italian raiders, sinking the destroyer Nicoloso da Recco outright, and damaging the cruisers Luigi Cadorna and Pola, as well as the battleship Vittorio Veneto.

The crippled cruisers were then intercepted by the British naval force, spearheaded by the battleships Valiant and Warspite, and the cruisers HMAS Perth and HMS Ajax. What followed was more akin to an execution than an actual battle. Despite the Italian destroyers desperately trying to save the larger units, they were brutally slaughtered while the British battleships pounded the crippled Italian cruisers with shells, eventually sinking them.

The action ended in the morning, with the British finishing off the last Italian destroyers still standing and rescuing the survivors. Alongside the Pola and Luigi Cadorna, the Italians had lost no less than five destroyers in the action, and the battleship Vittorio Veneto was not only damaged, but sunk by a combined effort of the French submarine Dauphin (three torpedoes hit) and the British submarine HMS Upholder (two torpedoes hit, battleship finished off).

All in all, the disaster of Cape Matapan cost the Italians one battleship, two cruisers and five destroyers, leaving more than 3,500 dead and 2,000 captured. The same day, the heavy cruiser Bolzano was also sunk off Sicily by a French task force led by the battleship Dunkerque, which were escorting aerial reinforcements to Malta, adding to the catastrophe.

And as the Italians licked their wounds, their German counterparts finally reacted, taking the 7th Armoured by surprise as their vehicles attacked from Durazzo, pinning the British troops at Kavaje, and seriously threatening an overrun from the hills towards the river, which would put the British in an unfortunate position.

Flanked by the Italians on their left, the Germans thus had free reign to strike a still inexperienced 7th Armoured, all the while leaving the Greeks to struggle for Tirana (it is true that Germany and Greece were not at war yet). The British did try to counter-attack, with disastrous results as the German PaK-38 shredded the Matilda IIs, with only the Valentines being met with limited success.

However, the Germans struggled to exploit their breakthrough: the Luftwaffe was matched in the air by the RAF and AdA aircraft which were eager to strike the Hun once again. Unable to gain total air superiority like they once could in France, the German counter-attack was only partially successful, pushing the British beyond the Shkumbin but being unable to push past the Seman and retake Fier.

This push also allowed the Italians to free up their own divisions (101st Infantry Trieste, 5th Alpine Infantry Pusteria) and bolster the front between the Germans and their lines and stop any counter-attack at Fier-Shegan which could have outflanked the 5th Light Division. This also forced the Greeks back towards Elbasan, not wanting to be taken by surprise with a push towards Kucove.

In the end, the Greeks were forced to abandon the city, so dearly conquered, to establish their line of defence along the rivers, controlling the roads to Greece at Kucove, Gostime and Drize, with the help of the British 6th Infantry, which had just finally put its brigades on the frontline. This also stopped any attempt by the 5th Light Division to break through towards Fier and Valona, now being faced with two British divisions (and the 10th Indian on the way!).
Heading into April, it seemed as if things were in a stalemate, but neither the Allies nor the Axis wished for this to stay this way.



[1] The Allies did not have problems with the Albanian road network, though, since the Italians had kindly helped put it back into shape for their own invasion of Greece.
[2] Future 21st Panzer Division.
[3] Notably M3 Pershing (Lee in US denomination), denomination which would cause confusion with the future M26 Pershing (US denomination).
_________________
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." Sir Andrew Cunningham, Mai 1941
"Let me soar! [...] I need no great host, just [Tyene]" - Nymeria Sand, AFFC II

[DMZ]

[loic]

[demolitiondan]

Sous le régent Paul, la Yougoslavie est neutre, voire axe-bienveillant. Moitié par autoritarisme, moitié par pragmatisme.
_________________
Quand la vérité n’ose pas aller toute nue, la robe qui l’habille le mieux est encore l’humour &
C’est en trichant pour le beau que l’on est artiste

[Wings]

Merci, je vais corriger tout ca.
Pour la 5e Division, les Alliés étaient au courant mais ne pensaient pas qu'elle puisse etre utilisée dans des opérations offensives.
_________________
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." Sir Andrew Cunningham, Mai 1941
"Let me soar! [...] I need no great host, just [Tyene]" - Nymeria Sand, AFFC II

[DMZ]