Attack on Mers-El-Kebir harbor 3 July 1940 by Maxrossomachin for Wikipedia “Attack on Mers-el-Kebir” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

(10) ANGLO-FRENCH WAR

(3 JULY 1940 – 10 NOVEMBER 1942)

It’s another war that tends to be forgotten or overlooked when it comes to the Second World War, similarly to the Italo-Abyssinian War and East Africa Campaign – perhaps not coincidentally because it was the other war within the Second World War that involved fighting in Africa.

It was also something of a historical throwback but even further back than to the nineteenth century and the Scramble for Africa. Instead, it was throwback to the Anglo-French wars fought from 1689 to 1815 – dubbed the Second Hundred Years War.

Of course, it was a pale shadow of the former Anglo-French rivalry for nothing less than global dominion – evoking the quip of Marx that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. Yes, it was fought as part of a war effectively for global dominion – but not so much by Britain or France, and the fighting between them was at the fringes or periphery of the larger war.

Indeed, Britain only fought France to pre-empt Germany (or Japan) – and was mostly limited to fighting France or Italy at the fringes or periphery of its war with Germany because it lacked the ability or means to attack Germany directly. Or as historian H.P. Willmott observed – “In this initial period, Britain, expelled from the continental mainland and unable to carry the war to Germany, was obliged to fight where she could rather than where she would”.

The war was technically not Anglo-French war but Anglo-Vichy war, which effectively was also a civil war between the German puppet Vichy regime in France and the Free French government, contested not in France itself but in – and for control of – the French colonies. With the safety of distance and the lack of strategic importance, most of the French colonies aligned with the Free French – with the significant exceptions of French North Africa and Indochina.

It was also not continuous but sporadic, with fighting isolated to brief campaigns in dispersed locations.

The first of these campaigns was the British naval attack on French navy ships at Mers El Kebir in Algeria on 3 July 1940, “the main part of Operation Catapult, the British plan to neutralize or destroy French naval ships to prevent them falling into German hands” after France surrendered to Germany. That played a large part in Vichy hostility to Britain that saw Germany court the Vichy regime – and Spain – as active allies against Britain in 1940 but fortunately both Vichy France and Spain declined to abandon their neutrality for war against Britain.

On 23 September 1940, Britain and Free French forces under de Gaulle launched Operation Menace to take the Vichy port of Dakar in French West Africa, but withdrew on 25 September 1940 when they met fierce resistance from Vichy forces – the one British defeat in the Anglo-Vichy war.

Otherwise, French colonies in Africa aligned themselves with the Free French, although one colony – French Equatorial Africa or Gabon – had to be occupied by Free French forces with British support in a campaign from 27 October 1940 to 12 November 1940 before the Vichy colonial government surrendered.

From 8 June to 14 July 1941, British and Free French forces fought and won the Syria-Lebanon campaign to capture those Vichy territories, effectively to pre-empt Germany (and Italy) exploiting them against Britain in the Middle East, as with the coup Germany had sponsored in Iraq to install an anti-British regime – which Britain crushed in May 1941.

From 5 May to 6 November 1942, British forces fought the Battle of Madagascar to capture that Vichy territory for Free French control, effectively to pre-empt Japan using it as a base for naval forces to seal off the Indian Ocean – something of a missed opportunity by Japan.

The final campaign in the Anglo-French war – which also included a brief Franco-American war – was of course Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa. The Vichy regime in North Africa initially resisted before by good fortune the Vichy commander Admiral Darlan was captured and effectively defected to the Allies, nominating himself as the leader of French North Africa and West Africa with their forces now on the Allied side. Vichy France itself effectively ceased to exist as Germany now occupied all France, although Germany kept up some semblance of the puppet regime in occupied France and subsequently as government-in-exile in Germany.

The Anglo-French war prompts to mind the snide observations by historian Gerhard Weinberg which he posed as questions for World War Two historians – why Britain was so consistently defeated by German and Japanese forces until the Battle of El Alamein (such that its only consistent victories were against French and Italian forces), and why Vichy France strongly resisted Allied incursions but so readily gave up Germany or Japan without resistance.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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