Guardian of Democracy - A French AAR

October 29th 1939​

German plans to prepare an attack to Norway have leaked to London, they immediadly planned to launch an invasion there to protect the sovereignity of Norway. And perhaps the iron in Sweden as a nice side-benefit. Or the other way round. Apparently we should prepare for this as well so we sent our transports from the Mediterranean to Brest just in case. The size of our transport fleet caused uproar in the cabinet and another 5 were ordered, currently there is no way to move troops around in the Mediterranean and Atlantic at the same time.

November 16th 1939​

Soviets have finally met a nation that had the guts to refuse their refusals of territory and bases. As it would nevertheless lead to annexation why not at least try to fight it out first? Naturally aid from our side will be limited, we don't even know what to do with Germany let alone Soviet Union to go with it.

Frankly this war is a big let-down for many of the more eager officers, nothing really happens. Germany has started to try to bomb northern France but their feeble efforts have been ended fast with our interceptors. Some have been lobbying toward starting to bomb Germany ourselves, it was chosen to be tried with 4ème Escadre at around Stuttgart. If they manage to have some effect on the installations, such as forts, airport or AAs, with those new tactical bombers without excessive damage then some new ones might be ordered.

November 21st 1939​

After first attempts the bombing runs were cut due to little damage done and yet some casualties from the flag fire. We are missing the war on this war.

The new flagship of our navy, the glorious and modern Dunkerque battleship has been finally finished. The most major difference it has compared to the older ones is the increased anti-air capacity making it more resistant. It was deployed to Marseille as apparently we already have naval dominance in the Atlantic. This was proven by a recent battle won on the Norwegian coast where our 1ére Flotte de la France again won their counterpart without loosing a single ship. According to our counts those were the last German capital ships.

December 5th 1939​

The Battle over French and German skies continue. German bombing runs to France have been quite early spotted and intercepted, our radars must be doing something right. Brits on the other hand keep on doing bombing runs to Ruhr area, the effect on the industry isn't all that massive but there's not much more that can be done to directly harm them. On the North Sea some naval encounters have occurred resulting in altogether the loss of one German light cruiser. The efficiency of our missions is harmed by the winter arriving, conditions are harsh. The ships have to from time to time be withdrawn to base. One destroyer in 4ème Flotte de la France has to remain in the harbour to be repaired. Due to fear on invasion to Denmark French fleets aren't anymore patrolling the Baltic Sea, they might end up trapped after all.

Prototype testing of the new light armor AMX-R40 are finished, it was time to start building them. Directors from SOMUA, the plant responsible for development, came forward with a proposal. They said that with extra funds allocated for throughly thinking through the production line of the vehicles, based on the knowledge gathered by Renault on production technology, could be made a lot faster. Funding was given, but at the same time two divisions worth of the armors was ordered right away. They will not benefit from the gains of the new production lines, but that's a cost we must bear. Renault representatives complained that they could have done the production line development cheaper but for us time was essential and the contract was given to SOMUA.

January 5th 1940​

Against all odds the Finns have managed to repel all attacks the Soviets have thrown at them. They truly know the environment they are fighting at, war correspondants all over the World are filling newspapers with stories of white-cled warriors on skis. The French government has condemned starting the war, but it still it remains politically unwise to actively participate in it. We have sent messages to the Soviet ambassador in Paris that we would be willing to help the two parties approach but in vain. As public support is very strongly on the Finnish side we agreed to provide them with some of obsolete military equipment, after all we have plenty of that lying around with all these modernization programs.



The recently developed night strafing doctrine for our air units will be refined to a first strike doctrine that will allow significantly better performance from our interceptors, especially during night time.

Unfortunately our observations have been confirmed with first hand sources and the Germans are indeed constructing a new model of armor. It seems they are replacing both their light and medium armor with them, plus building new divisions.

January 24th 1940​

Endless resources have proved to override skill, tactical superiority and even determination, the Finnish "sisu". Soviets have managed to cut the country in half with an attack to the west to Oulu, on that point Finland is on her narrowest. Our military attaché in Finland has gotten the impression that an attack of that magnitude on that region was not taken as a serious option in Finnish defence plans, a pretty logical choice thinking of the difficulties to supply anything on those rash condition. The Soviets had taken this into account and built very quickly new roads reaching almost to the border before the outbreak of hostilities without the Finns finding out, the result can be clearly seen. The only question remaining is will Finland be annexed fully as the Baltic states of will they make a final stand so impressive that they will just be allowed to sue for peace. We told the Soviet ambassador in Paris clearly what we would think of an outright annexation, it would make further co-operation impossible and perhaps even lead to a state of hostility. The Swedes are at least, for the moment, sighing of relief as they chose not to fully side with the Finns, now Soviet troops are nearly on their border. But might their next goal actually be the iron-mines of Swedish Lapland?



In the North Sea another small skirmish resulted in German loss of a ship and one of our light cruisers being so damaged it was sent home. Upon further inspection it was deemed too hard to repair and was scrapped. Also battleship Lorraine was quite heavily damaged, another battleship Bretagne was assigned to replace her from Algeria during repairs. Luckily we had focused enough on naval doctrines to give our navies the upper edge on this war.

February 9th 1940​

The Finns indeed resisted valiantly even after the situation seemed desperate. As our and British diplomatical points became clear enough in Kreml they decided it would not be worth it to demand too much. They did demand vast regions in Karelia, enough to justify to their population the massive losses and thus accepted by us. Finland will have a much harder time to defend from an attack from the east now the natural borderline Karelian Isthmus with all the Mannerheim Line fortifications is now lost.

March 6th 1940​

Seeing the futility of attacking us directly, especially during winter, Germany has taken an alternative route. They have declared war on two innocent bystanders, Norway and Denmark. Propably they plan on using Norway as a base to finally get their submarines out in the Atlantic and Denmark is naturally essential with the ability to block the Baltic Sea. Those both are also means to secure the safe supply of Swedish iron to Germany. Apparently there had been British plans to pre-emptively land to Narvik, move forward to the iron mines and all the way to Finland during the Winter War, for the Germans that must be have been a scary vision. Although pretty impossible to succeed in with Swedish and Norwegian opposition. Now, however, Norway and Denmark have joined our alliance.

No matter how it breaks our heart Denmark seems like a lost cause. The country is mostly plains and they have no defensive installations or a large army, better place our attention to Norway. We shall help Denmark somewhat by assigning our 3ème Flotte de Soumarins and 1ére Flotte de la France to patrol the seas around her, as the Germans must make a landing somewhere they can be sunk. 4ème Flotte shall patrol the Norwegian coastline. From Calais a force totalling four division and two artillery brigades will be sent to Norway, first to the harbour in Bergen and then where they are needed. Leutenant generals Guillaume and Tassigny will lead the troops, Tassigny as a veteran from the Spanish Civil War was an obvious choice and Guillaume is one of the rising stars.

March 12th 1940​

The Danish government seeing the futility of fighting, especially after they realized there would be no outside help, decided to agree to annexation by the Germans so their citizens wouldn't get killed in vain. Can't blame them for that.

But the solution raised a pretty serious problem: our submarines. They were patrolling in Stora Belt at the time of the surrender, token German troops were immediadly moved to guard the straits for them to exit to Atlantic making them trapped. A brave crisis plan was made by lt.gen. De Tassigny: as the main German troops hadn't still reached Denmark he could with his troops quickly land to Odense, let the submarines pass and then get pack. As a diversion Guillaume was to land at Århus. Convinced by his past successes, the plan was to be put to use.

With the new ultra-fast small arms assembly lines ready all we need is to finish the new infantry weaponry models to make the best use of them. Luckily that shouldn't take too long. Our resource situation seems to be getting pretty bad as the war goes on, UK is no longer able to supply us with that much excess materials as their own production eats up more of it and trade with other nations is not as beneficial. Therefore a decision was made to enhance our refining technology, as we have too little oil coal is converted to oil. The process is too inefficient eating vast amounts of coal for a small amount of oil, that must become better.

March 20th 1940​

The whole absurdity of the plan cought the Germans by surprise, after all they hadn't even noticed there were submarines trapped. By the time they reached our positions the straits were almost fully opened, our troops could withdraw after just minor skirmishes and with minimal losses. First succesfull land operation on our side during this war!



De Tassigny was not happy though, he had received as a liberator in the cities and towns of Denmark, people gave them shelter, food and reconnaissance aid requesting nothing in return. He just couldn't bring himself to tell them his only task is to liberate some submarines, not the whole country. Most of the people who had aided them will face terrible faiths when the Germans return, he tried to take as many with him as possible but not all fit in the ships. Unfortunately for us he decided to publish the story and he even found a publisher in a rightist national newspaper. In it he critisized the government saying it promoted democracy only in rhetoric, that we had failed to stop fascism in Denmark bu then brough false hopes that would bring yet more misery. He also noted the failure to secure democracy in Spain as our fault. All in all his article caused major upproar among the hard-liners, hopefully we can manage to convince them that there were no other choices.

Further east Soviet Union continued their practice of bullying the new small states, this time it was Romania's turn. From Romania only Bessarabian provinces were demanded, the justification was that they had belonged to Russia before 1918 and had Russians living there. Romania having seen what happened to Finland chose to agree to demands.

April 7th 1940​

Now our infantries are once more ready to be equipped with more modern equipment. The actual equipment will be a hard task for our industry though. The troops at Maginot were given priority in upgrading. Although new productions should be started rigth away it was deemed wiser to wait a few weeks for the last interceptor to be finished freeing up production capacity. As the productions do start two series of 10 divisions will be ordered, there is no reason to limit them as there are no innovations on the horizon either giving better equipment or reducing build-times.



The disappointment within Renaul leadership upon loosing the contract on the vehicle assembly lines was alleviated as they were now given the responsibility to research what might in the future be built on those lines: a new medium tank model.

Another naval battle in the North Sea has resulted in our victory, as earlier some German ships were sunk and our old light cruiser got hit. It will be sent to shore for scrap metal, it has served it's actual purpose in absorbing hits.

May 5th 1940​

Attempts to stay out of the war with neutrality have proved to be as futile as we had thought, especially for nations with a strategically important geographical location. Unfortunately for the Belgians, Dutch and Luxemburgers their position is very strategic and Germany has declared war on them. They have immediadly realized their mistake in isolationism and pledged allegiance to use. Might they really be attempting to bypass the Maginot line? At least Gamelin wants to call their hand and keep the troops put. But at least there must be something major going on as also Hungarian and Slovakian troops have entered the borderzone.

Naturally this meant going to full alert. All production not related to new units was reduced to zero, planes were redirected from protection of Alsace Lorraine and Pas de Calais to protect the skies above Lowlands. The expeditionary troops in Norway were pulled back as certainly they would not attack there anymore, especially with our carrier protecting the seas. 1ère Flotte with battleships was sent to the Dutch coast just in case it could participate in some battles with it's massive guns. To help the Belgians our tree westernmost armies abandoned the border fortifications and moved forwards. If they are fast enough they might hit the riverlines before Germans and stop them there with the Belgians. The weather in the region is clear besides the rain in the coast, no help from that front.

May 9th 1940​

The tiny but brave nation of Luxembourg has been annexed by Germany, although their means to resist weren't all that major at least they tried. Our soldiers cried in their massive forts behind the border hearing the news and many avenged to help them later.

The German attack truly seems to focus on the north, at least according to de Gaulle. He rushed to general HQ and demanded his troops to be dispatched to Belgium, he had good grounds explaining that armor doesn't really do that much help in the middle of fortifications. Also the Norwegian expeditionary troops will be shipped to Ghent in Belgium first. Unfortunately Netherlands seems to have been hit hard as Arnhem fell and there are attacks all across the border. Belgium also lost Liege with some forts. Meanwhile our air force seems to be quite effective indeed against German tactical bombers that they cought without covering planes.

May 13th 1940​

Once again de Gaulle has proved to be a major political tactician. While HQ was still discussing where to deploy the newly-built armor division he had already given the commander of the division orders to go to Brussels as soon as possible. Many members of the supreme command do support his views about forming a armor-only army but it had been stuck in Gamelin's desk. Now that the step has been taken it was let to happen, also lt. general Juin's armor was sent to Brussels to rally together. As the infantry equipped with armored cars doesn't fit de Gaulle's plans being too slow they are distributed equally to the armies at Belgium.

On the actual front very sad news were received from the Belgian command: several division hadn't managed to withdraw behind French lines but had been encircled in the city of Bastogne. Left without supplies and under attacks from all directions they had surrendered. In the Netherlands it's just as gloomy, Eindoven is lost.

May 19th 1940​

General Giraud has been defeated in Antwerp, it a place with did seem like a weak spot in the front as it could be attacked from three directions giving the opponent a clear benefit. Although de Gaulle was dispatched to aid immediadly he couldn't reach the battle in time. Despite heavy opposition from the Belgians Brussels was deemed as too hard to defend. Frankly so was whole Belgium as without Brussels Namur would be just as vulnerable. Defence was to be pulled back behind French border, although it would be noble to form a solid line and try to hold it to the end for Belgium it just doesn't work like that anymore with all the new weaponry. Speaking of which, the air group assigned to hunt enemy bombers above the Netherlands was ordered to interdict enemy troops in Flanders instead hoping to slow their advance. To manage in stopping the enemy two divisions from each part of Maginot were withdrawn moved to the North-West.

May 29th 1940​

Belgium is about to fall, they hold only Ghent anymore. We have indicated them they would be perfectly welcomed on our side, but you just can't make a man not to protect his land. Their morale was highly boosted with the landing of 48th South Midland division in the city. The Dutch on the other hand have already lost their land, at least temporarily, and to ease supply and command routines agreed to let their remaining troops be a part of our military structure. As a first action their bomber squadrons that had fled to Norway were flewn to Dover to reach the fighting in Belgium instead of bombing the Germans in the Netherlands. Revenge is good, but there should be some sense to it.

First strike doctrine for our air forces is now completed, next it's time for air general Valín to put into common use the techniques he and his veteran pilots have acquired. Also the improved computing machine has been finished boosting our research, perhaps enough to let the improved artillery brigade project started by Schneider to finish before Germans get too far.

June 7th 1940​

The stubborn defence of Ghent continues. British Expeditionary Force has finally really landed, it's about time. To ensure functioning chain of command they were made part of the Belgian command structure.



Just in case of a breakthrough in Lille our, and some Dutch, planes were based further away in Paris. They can still reach Belgian airspace and their base is now more secure.

On the coast of Norway 4ème Flotte has blocked an invasion attempt, the transports got away but luckily they were spotted in time. Another front is the last thing needed now.

June 30th 1940​

It seems as if the momentum of the German attack has ended. They don't dare to crush straight-forward to our well-entrenched position and seem to have shed enough blood on the rivers surrounding Ghent. Our side having air superiority over Belgium must have something to do with it, the Brits have even started to do strategic bombing again as there are less German fighters to combat. Field marshall Georges formely stationed on the southern flank of the Maginot line has been assigned to lead the Belgian front from an HQ in Valenciennes, General Mulhouse will take his old position.

Since there doesn't seem to be an immediate drastic threat anymore the intensity of upgrading and reinforcing troops have been lowered to enable some construction work as well. Dunkerque shall be fortified after all and the new divisions ordered will need artillery to support them. New armor orders have to wait for the assembly lines to be finished.

July 12th 1940​

United Kingdom now has a new prime minister, Winston Churchill now holds the post. He seems just like the kind of man needed to run a country at war.

Outside the Spanish coast increased German submarine actions on merchant vessels require immediate action, 3éme Flotte has been sent on an anti-submarine mission in the area.

August 17th 1940​

Apparently the German high command got as desperate as we got confident and resorted to a new method: diplomacy. Italy has joined the Axis alliance opening another front to the war. In Africa our troops acted as was planned, immediate forward thrust. The fleets in Mediterranean also knew what to do, they left their ports to hunt and destroy all Italian vessels.

Unfortunately the act was co-ordinated, at the very hour of the announcement a major German attack started towards Reims. De Gaulle was immediadly sent to give armoured support to defenders and 1ère Armée left Dunkerque to act as a reserve in case of a breakthrough.

August 19th 1940​

Rheims was lost for a moment, but then de Gaulle managed to gain it back when all of the attackers hadn't managed to get to good positions. More are to come though and his situation seems dire. 2éme and 3éme Armées from neighbouring provinces have been called for help by harrassing the flanks of advancing troops. Air forces have been re-directed to focus on Rheims only.

In Africa Italian troops are on withdrawal, some movement is visible towards Northern Italy and our border but it seems the forts there are good enough deterrent.

August 22nd 1940​

After having blocked an attack to Valenciennes from Mons we seized the initiative. A 3-pronged counterattack to Rheims with massive air support is accompanied with an attack to Mons from Lille. It doesn't seem likely to succeed, but at least it'll divide the attention of the German command.




Although Italy has been acting with quite a lot of hostility towards Greece Churchill still didn't see there to be a direct threat towards Greece and refused to guarantee their independence. Other sad news from the region reached us as well: one of our submarine fleets had been spotted and sank by the Italian main navy.

Production of new equipment was halted, top priority was given to upgrading our armored forces to new models and taking care of reinforcements overall.

September 5th 1940​

Hungary has ever since the Versailles peace treaty was signed though Transylvania rightly belongs to her, now with fears of German attack Romania decided to agree to ceding the provinces.

Finally the advanced vehicle production lines would be ready, unfortunately we simply don't have resources to use them. Perhaps after our existing armor is upgraded it's time to build some more. As the capabilities of the Italian navy seem to be essentially better than the German one we must work to improve ours, thinking of our battleships as floating fortresses might be a solution.

September 9th 1940​

The Belgians and Brits tried to break out of Ghent to Mons, they were supported by our troops and got initial success. German reserves regained the province though.

In Grenoble a German assault was eventually blocked by our mountaineers, it's clear from their troop buildup that it won't be the last attempt. 1ère Armée was sent to reinforce the Italian front.

Following the heavy losses, including a battleship, in the Mediterranean the rest of our fleet was sent there.

September 13th 1940​

Although limited success was eventually gained advancing in Belgium Germans pulled another ace from their sleeve: an attack on the Maginot line. 1ère Armée has now more important places to secure than the Italian border.

Our attempts to regain the province was stopped with a surprising counter-attack from seemingly withdrawing German panzers.

In Belgium Brussels was taken back, but it's under a counterattack as well.

September 21st 1940​

Strassbourg remains in German hands, but unfortunately it's not the only place where the front is falling: there has been a breakthrough in Grenoble. De Gaulle with his armors and 4éme Armée is sent there, the rest of the troops near Maginot are being deployed for one more major attack to regain the fortress line. It won't be as usefull as before since the forts are pretty damaged, but it's still better than nothing.

October 1st 1940​

The fronts are now really confusing. Attacks and counter-attacks from both sides are made, it's very unclear to say which side would be winning. What can be said that our industrial capacity isn't big enough to reinforce our losses as they occur, if this goes on for long we are in trouble. In the south Grenoble was lost and our troops in Nice are apparently on retreat as well.

October 9th 1940​

No clear victor still, but our abilities to engage in further counter-attacks are, at least for now, pretty inadequate.

October 15th 1940​

The mountaineers of Armée des Alpes couldn't regain their positions. Not only that, afteir their attack failed Germans stroke back with a vengeance. Now also Lyon has been lost, as Marseille is increasingly in danger our fleets are rebased to Algeria instead.




In the north de Gaulle is trying to regain Chaumont together with de Tassigny. Doesn't look favourable though, together with the Hungarians the Germans are performing deathly well.

October 21st 1940​

Brussels has been retaken by Germans and they have beaten our forces in the southern part of the Maginot line as well. However in the south they have been beaten back from Lyon. If only it was known which front needed more attention!

November 3rd 1940​

Chaumont was again retaken, but it's not a very favourable position as it can be counter-attacked from all previous Maginot provinces. A battle was won in Lyon but apparently in vain, a breakthrough is close north of it in Besancon.8éme Armée is sent to help there as we have, for now, a slight advantage in the Northern front.

November 9th 1940​

Marseille has fallen and with no reserves that south the chances of getting it back are extremely slim. Ships bringing needed goods from England are starting to be increasingly filled with people on their way back. A secret directive was given to ports that all Jews and families of political or military figures are given priority.

November 18th 1940​

Holding on to Southern France would have been a waste of resources, the last defence line is to be made in the North around Paris using rivers as a menas to aid defence. Snow has fallen to higher grounds, at least it will hit the attacker worse than us.

Ambassadors in all neutral countries are given the order to immediate accept any contact offer sounding like a peace negotiation.

December 12th 1940​

Fighting has reached the easternmost metro stations of Paris. De Tassigny and de Gaulle are commanding the desperate attempt to contain the enemy once more, their adversary field marshall von Rundstedt has proven his abilities to gain victories numerous times before.

December 22nd 1940​

The assault on Paris was blocked, but von Rundstedt didn't grieve on it too long. He ordered another assault on the south at Orleans apparently attempting to break our forces to two parts. Our troops were sent back, but once again de Gaulle and his armor were threwn to counter-attack and once more they succeeded. It's getting increasingly hard to manage the logistics, too many troops, too many wounded men, too many civilians heading towards the coast. Most of our supplies never reach their target.

Hardly anybody in Paris even notices the approaching Christmas.

January 8th 1941​

New year didn't bring much new hope. Huntziger did manage to regain Orleans once again taking some pressure away from Paris. Our planes are moved to be based on England, German air power is too strong and the airfields are in constant risk of bombing. Besides, if all else fails they can continue the fight.

January 24th 1941​

After a brave and prolonged battle our troops in Paris have been beaten back. Although there are forces who would be willing to continue the fight even still it's been deemed impossible. The French army will leave France but not for good.

January 29th 1941​

As the French government and prominent military personnel kept on shipping themselves to England forces less keen on keeping up the fight gathered around general Petain and sued for peace with Germany separately. He had enough authority with the people to convince it's the right thing to do although we tried to convince them otherwise. A puppet government was formed, it won't be controlling whole of France though. Germany kept the regions next to the Atlantic Ocean and most likely will try to continue to England from there. At least in Africa the Axis are on retreat, Ethiopia has been taken by the Brits and attack in Libya is soon complete. The United States have been sending supplies according to the lend-lease contract, perhaps they can take our place in the alliance against fascism.

But we shall keep on fighting, all colonies south of Sahara remained loyal and de Gaulle managed to save many divisions in England. He was appointed as field marshall and made Chief of Staff. With the navy Britain has surely it can repel any German invasions and wait for the Americans join the fight.

We shall return.

Viva la France!