Mer-el-Kebir

[Sir John]

What a horrible decision to have to make but, of course, necessary.

What would PM Muleskinner have done?



SJ

[Swampy]

From Wikipaedia entry, the British gave the French these alternatives:

It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives;

(a) Sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans.

(b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment.
If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile.

(c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans unless they break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies — Martinique for instance — where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated.

If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within 6 hours.

Finally, failing the above, I have the orders from His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands.

These offers are fair. I would have done the same, quite honestly, but I am a fan of Churchill.

[Swampy]

Mule, you're giving a lot of good topics - can I post them on our FB military group?

[Swampy]

I'll share this thread on our FB group, then.

[Sir John]

Imagine if the intact French Fleet had been handed over to our peace loving German brothers in 1940?

[Deleted]

Le Franc Admiral said and I quote him as saying he would scuttle LE fleet before hand it over to the Germans , and then comes a paranoied Churchill .

[Sir John]

Paranoid?

All these events were less than a month after a little event called Dunkirk! The British Army was in hospital or on leave recovering from the disaster, and England awaited the Luftwaffe onslaught they all could see.

If PM Muleskinner accepted the word of a French Admiral, subject to the orders of his political leaders, in particular Petain, then he would be a fool. It was a guarantee that the British had NO right to rely on.

Churchill was NOT a fool!


SJ

[Swampy]

Mar 15, 2013 15:50:57 GMT -5 @muleskinner07 said:

I judege the book by the cover and cover of the book is titled Gallipoli , Churchill was a humbug among many humbugs which includes Herr Socialist FDR .

That's besides the point - even if that's true, the question is if the British could rely on French guarantees not to let their ships fall into German hands.

[Sir John]

If you look at what the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsular was trying to achieve, Churchill's plan was sound and reasonable. To remove Turkey from the Axis would have been an enormous advantage to Britain and France.


The two main reasons it did not succeed was first the amazing determination to die fighting the invaders by the Turks, and some awful execution by the RN Admirals first, and then the British/French Generals.

You are being unfair with Churchill.

[Deleted]

In the intrest of Sir John's sensetivities , I retrack most of everything I said in this post concerning Mr.Churchill and the Empire , however I do think the taking of 250,000 causualties most of who were from ODD a bit excessive at Gallipoli , when the Empire could not silance the Turkish guns at the Dardanelles , how did the Empire think they were going to do so with a landing ? .

[Sir John]

They should have delayed the invasion until about July 1918!

or the first week in November!

[Deleted]

This invasion was well thought out , the Empire had the best avaliable troops on hand the Empire had all the battle ships anyone would need , the only problem was the Turks wern't in on the plan .

[Deleted]

The huge numbers of Casulties to come out WWl boggle my mind , between the Empire , France and Germany has to number in the 5 million I talking about military here not civilians which were ever so much more , even small engagement like Gallipoli 250,000 , that's equvilent to 15 American infantry divisions with all their components .

[mcnoch]

Yes and we had this twice in a generation. That might explain why the vast majority of Europeans think that war is not a good solution.

[Deleted]

Education and civilisation as we know came from Europe , but you look over the history of the past two world wars and you wonder if anyone learned anything from all this , as long as Germany has a heart beat they will only be a heart beat away from a war .