We Stand Alone - A French AAR

[BigPoppa1111]

This is my first attempt at an AAR. I haven't noticed many French AAR's on here, so I decided that I would try my hand at one. I hope to be able to update this at least every other day, but I do stay busy with work, so you guys will have to bear with me when it comes to the quickness of the updates.

I am playing Vanilla DD with the latest patch. I am not going to set any goals for this game as I tend to like things just to develop as they may. I am only oprating off of a rough outline of how I want the game to go. I am going to try playing fairly historically with respect to balance. In a game it is easy to neglect certain aspects (ex. not focusing on a navy if you want to be a land power), but these things would be nearly impossible with real life politics being what they are. So, as a consequence of this, decisions that may not be good for my game will be made because they represent having to satisfy certain political egos. I am going to try and play this game like I do not know what the future will hold. Historically, Germany did not attempt to attack France until 1940, but IRL I am sure the French leaders did not know this and had to plan accordingly. I will attempt to do the same thing, but again, this will be my game and will not follow history exactly.

This AAR will focus around a few certain individuals and will reflect the war from their point of view. In addition, I will provide a neutral game account at the same time to fill in the blanks between the POV posts. I have certain preferences and these will naturally show up on the development of this game. As this is my first AAR, constructive criticism is welcome. This being said, he are my warnings.

I am not going to spend awhole lot of time researching stuff to make this AAR historically accurate. I do not know if de Tassigny was a soldier in WW1 nor do I really care. I will take historical libertys when necessary. This AAR, above all, is meant to entertain, it is not meant to be historical. If I portray someone in a way that is unhistorical, please just go with the flow and enjoy the AAR.

I will only use one "cheat" or "exploit" and that is a self made event to sleep the old guard leaders. However, this will not be run at the beginning of the scenario. It will be used in conjunction with the AAR and will fit naturally in the story when it occurs.

This being said, here is the first post. Enjoy!

 

[BigPoppa1111]

Somewhere in a bombed out field in Belgium - 1918

Captain Jean-Marie Lattre de Tassigny peered carefully up over the top of the entrenchment. The front had been remarkably quiet today, but you could never be too careful. He hadn’t survived four years of war being careless. The Germans had been driven back, but they were nowhere near defeated. There was a good chance that a Boche with a chip on shoulder was looking for a careless Frenchman. De Tassigny gripped the American made Springfield tightly in his hands. The order was to come at any time. Then, as he had many times before, he would lurch over the top of the trench and start running towards the German lines.

He looked left and right down his own trench. He could see the weariness in the eyes of his countrymen. De Tassigny’s unit had been assigned to work with the AEF when it had arrived. He hated to admit it, but without the American’s, his country probably wouldn’t have made it through 1917. But what concerned him more was the fact that even with the American’s and their seemingly endless confidence that victory was at hand, most of his fellow Frenchman still had that look of defeat in their eyes. Lately, they had shamed him. When the order to charge came, you could no longer count on your own men to follow you up and out. Many simply were too tired of fighting. But many more just lacked the will to fight. Even though France would survive, the French people’s will to resist had been crushed. Even after the AEF had arrived, there were still many in his government that advocated negotiating a peace with the Germans.

At 22, de Tassigny was a young captain. But he had earned his commission the hard way. He had started out in 1914 as a private, after the conscription notice came to him via the Post. But through a combination of attrition and showing a little bit of personal initiative, he had earned a Lieutenant’s commission and had been promoted steadily after that. His men respected him, and so did the Americans. He knew he had beaten the odds, surviving in this hell for four years, but he tried not to focus on that. All he was worried about now was getting him and his men through this next fight alive.

Then he heard it. That sharp whistle blast that signaled the Grim Reaper to come and start taking his toll. De Tassigny looked left and then right, took a deep breathe, and launched himself over the top. He tried to take off running but his foot got caught in the top of the entrenchment and he fell flat on his face. “Dammit. Way to lead your men, Jean”, he cursed at himself. But before he could get up, he heard the German machine guns start chattering. He looked ahead and then felt something heavy fall on him. He shrugged and one of his men fell off of him, lifeless eyes staring into his own. Only later, would Jean realize that if he hadn’t of fallen, that he would have been the lifeless soldier laying there. But that didn’t occur to him right now. He got up, remained crouched over, and sprinted after the rest of the men, zig zagging his way through No Mans land.

Jean looked ahead and saw that his men, or what was left of his company, had made it to the first set of German entrenchments. He stopped maneuvering and ran straight for the trench. The sound of the battle was all around him. He heard men scream, small arms fire, machine gun fire, grenades, and artillery. It was like the noise of Hell had encompassed this barren wasteland. He finally reached the trench and slid under the wire that covered the front of it.

“Jean, you’re alive!”

“Yes, Pierre, but barely.” Pierre was his senior non-com, a Master Sergeant that had somehow managed to stay alive through this bloody mess, they called war. Pierre was twice his age and tended to treat Jean more like a son than his captain.

“I have gathered the men who made it across here. We were just about to make for the next trench. You care to join us this time?” The smile that flashed across Pierre’s face made it abundantly clear that he was aware of his captain’s folly coming out of the trench.

“Let’s get it on boys!” And with that he lept out of the safety of the trench into the death of the open field. He began running at 45 degree angles again, trying to keep the Germans from getting a bead on him. Jean had made it about half way to the next trench when he began to here a low whistling sound, rapidly gaining volume. Four years of war had taught him what the sound meant as he dove for cover. He looked to the left just in time to see most of his men doing the same thing. The next few seconds seemed to pass in an instant. The earth began to shake under him and he remembered feeling himself flying through the air toward the trench he just came from. Then, it all went black.

 

[BigPoppa1111]

Paris - 1936

De Tassigny walked the long corridor of the Capitol building. He had no clue where he was at. He turned around and looked where he had came from. Then looked at where he was going. It all looked the same. “How can anyone get anywhere in this damn place?” he wondered. He must have wonder out loud, because a flustered corporal stopped and asked if he needed help.

“Yes, I am trying to find PM Lebrun’s office.” He said to a soldier that was obviously very young. Too young, de Tassigny thought.

“Oh yes General, follow me.” As he turned around and led de Tassigny back the way they came.

De Tassigny was beginning to feel dumb, when the corporal led him up a set of stairs to the next floor and then twisted his way through a maze of hallways. Finally they stopped in front of a large oak door. “Are we finally here?” he wondered. “I sure hope this is a good meeting, because I doubt I could find my way out of here in a hurry if need be.”

“Here you are, sir.” The corporal said smartly, saluting him.

“Thank you, Corporal, you were more than helpful. I doubt I would have found this on my own.”

“Yes, sir.” He turned and looked very relieved as he walked away.

De Tassigny opened the heavy wooden door and slipped his way inside. The office was large and elegant. The wood trim matched perfect with the tone of the marble flooring. The whole room had a look and feel of elegance. “Such strange opulence for a Socialist”, de Tassigny thought. He, himself, was a staunch conservative, though he often hid his politics for, well, political reasons.

Lebrun’s secretary sat behind a small desk in the corner of the office entry. De Tassigny guessed her to be about his age, and she was rather attractive.

“You would be General de Tassigny, I presume?”

“You presume correctly, maam.”

“Mr. Lebrun said to send you right in when you arrived.” She said as she rapt once on a door that de Tassigny guessed led to Lebrun’s private office. She then opened the door and said “He will see you, now.”

“Thank you kindly, maam.” De Tassigny said as he walked in.

Albert Lebrun had been in office for four years, and it was starting to show on him. But, although de Tassigny disagreed with his domestic politics, he had to admit that he had been a capable leader. As he watched him writing something on a paper laying on his desk, he wondered what the Prime Minister wanted with him.

After what seemed like an eternity, Lebrun finished writing and looked up at him.

“Ahh, General, glad you could make it. Please. Sit.”

“Thank you, sir”. De Tassigny took a chair and pulled it up to Lebrun’s desk.

“You are probably wondering why you are here.”

“As a matter of fact, sir, I am.” De Tassigny shifted slightly in his chair. He was nervous, though he tried desperately not to show it. Whenever he came to this building it was always just in the first floor office of Maurice Gamelin, the Chief of Army and acting Chief of Staff. De Tassigny was wondering what unpleasant business the Prime Minister was about to carry out in place of old Maurice.

Lebrun was watching him like a hunter would watch his prey. Lebrun may be a socialist, but he was no fool, although de Tassigny thought the two to often be one and the same. Lebrun broke the long awkward silence. “I have just finished reading the recruitment proposal you had submitted to Maurice. I must say, I am rather impressed. Maurice had said that you were an excellent field commander, so it caught me off guard when you showed a talent for administration as well.”

“Thank you, sir.” De Tassigny was unsure of whether that was a compliment or not.

“Do you really think this will work?” Lebrun quizzed.

De Tassigny was about to answer when he caught himself. What was Lebrun getting at? Surely Lebrun knew he wasn’t in the business of wasting his valuable command time writing reports if he didn’t believe they would be useful.

“Yes sir. I believe that if we adopt the key points of my proposal that we could increase the manpower available to us for recruitment and for our conscription classes. You know as well as I do that we would be dangerously short on reserves if we had to go to war.”

“Yes we would.” Lebrun leaned back in his chair. “I have an offer for you, General.”

Here we go, de Tassigny thought. Somehow he got the feeling he wouldn’t be in command of his divisions for much longer. If he only knew how right he was.

“As you know, Maurice is just acting Chief of Staff. We have been in no hurry to replace him, but we have never stopped looking for someone to make it a permanent job. I think I have found him.”

De Tassigny swallowed hard. Was this really happening? Was Lebrun really going to offer him the Chief of Staff position? He tried hard to suppress a smile, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.

Lebrun watched de Tassigny closely, and could see his mind working. Then he saw the faint traces of a smile forming. Poor fool, he thought, he doesn’t know what he is about to get into.

“I am offering you the position of Chief of Staff for all of our armed forces, General. You seem to have a knack for administrative work, as well as the ability to lead. More importantly though, you seem to be an innovative thinker. Too many of our top field commanders seem to be stuck in the past. Now, I am by no stretch of the imagination a general, but this isn’t the middle ages anymore, my boy. You can not sit here and tell me honestly that in the past twenty years the art of war has not changed. I am not going to meddle in your affairs. I will be strictly a hands off manager. You have my full support to enact any changes you desire, to any branch of our armed forced that you desire.”

“Thank you, sir.” De Tassigny felt relieved. If he took this job, it was imperative that his boss either allow him a free hand or see things the way he did. It seems as if he would get both here. “With that assurance sir, I accept.”

“Good to hear that. I wasn’t going to accept no for an answer anyways. Here is the official order. It will be released to the press later today. Take this to Maurice, he has been charged with making this an easy transition. But I would suggest you make contact with each of the Chiefs. You don’t want them to find out they have a new boss from the radio.” Lebrun handed him the order.

De Tassigny took the order and smiled. This is what he had always wanted. Now he could go about his life long dream. Making sure his beloved France could stand alone in the world.

He saluted, did an about face, and headed out the door.

 

[Pequod]

There aren't very many French AARs. I'm keeping my eye one this one. Good luck!

 

[BigPoppa1111]

Appreciate it. This one will focus on de Tassigny alot at first, but once the wars heat up then the other characters will come into play.

 

[unmerged(17581)]

Excellent start!

 

[Garuda]

Good luck with your first AAR UG. Playing it as France is going to be, well, challenging!

 

[BigPoppa1111]

Here is the next update.

Paris – January 1 1936

De Tassigny had just finished making the last of his introductory phone calls, when Vincent Auriol appeared in his door way. Auriol was a bear of a man, he must have been at least 6’5 and 300 lbs, de Tassigny thought. But he was also, hands down, the best minister in Lebrun’s cabinet. The man was a mastermind of productivity and knew how to squeeze ever last ounce of efficiency from the economy he was in charge of. He had requested a meeting as soon as de Tassigny took over as Chief of Staff.

De Tassigny walked down the hall to the south conference room. The meeting with Auriol had went surprising well. He was expecting an early turf was from the man that had a reputation for getting what he wanted. But he had found that they were, surprisingly enough, on the same page for most things. As the man in charge of the economy of France, de Tassigny knew that a good relationship with him would be critical, if he wanted the resources to develop the armed forces the way he had in mind. Auriol had managed to convince him that, at least for this next year, most of the economic resources should be poured into developing new industry and modernizing existing industry. This held no immediate benefit to de Tassigny, but it didn’t take much convincing for him to see the long term wisdom in it. A larger and more modern industrial base would allow the production and equipping of more units, as well as providing a better infrastructure to supply and transport his military. Auriol had predicted hat he would occupy most of France’s industrial capacity for about a year, after which he promised de Tassigny that he could have the bulk of it for his own uses. This satisfied de Tassigny, though he knew it would be a hard sell to his chiefs that worked under him. All three of them took advantage of his meet and greet phone call to bend his ear about how much they needed more money and more equipment. He knew the challenge would be tough, as Maurice had warned him that Francois Darlan, the Navy chief, and Victor Denain, the Air Force chief, did not particularly get along. De Tassigny would later realize that this would be a prime candidate for the understatement of the year award.

De Tassigny’s thoughts continued to wander as he finally reached the conference room where his staff meeting was to be held. The door was still closed, but he had no trouble realizing they were in there. He pushed the thought of Roger Salengro, the new Intel minister, from his mind and opened the door.

“I don’t care how modern my navy is, Victor. If France wants to continue to be a colonial power in these modern times, we must have a strong navy. Your air force can rot in hell for all I care.” Francois Darlan pulled no punches as he laid his feelings about this matter out for all to see.

“Your navy is the biggest waste of resources this country has. That new battleship you have under development, what is it, the Dunkerque? If I had that kind of resources in heavy bombers we would be able to blast our enemies back into the stone age should the need require.” Victor Denain was old school for sure. Control of the skies ala 1918 was what his whole philosophy was based on.
“Gentlemen, have a seat. No need to get worked up yet.” His predecessor had hated this conflict, but De Tassigny knew that a little bit of conflict could be good. It will help them to stay sharp in their thinking. He just had to figure out some way to control it. He was pretty sure he knew how.

“I figure I will start this meeting with some bad news. I have just agreed to cancel the production of the Dunkerque.” De Tassigny waited for the room to explode.

“Finally, at least someone around here realizes what a waste of resources that monstrosity was.” Victor’s response was as obnoxious as it was predictable.

Darlan, however, did not say a word. This surprised de Tassigny, but it also made him feel that he had underestimated Darlan.

De Tassigny continued. “I have agreed with Minister Auriol, that the best application for our industrial resources right now is to expand our economic capabilities. This will preclude any military related expenditures from having priority this year. But before…”

“You have done what?! My airforce is in desperate need of modernization. Surely you have taken that into account and have not cut it from the budget as well.” Denain spoke with a mixture of astonishment, rudeness, and disdain, not to mention utter bewilderment.

“OUR airforce, Victor, will not be modernized this year. And neither will our army.” De Tassigny looked at Maurice when he said that.

Maurice recoiled at the words, but did not speak. Yes, thought de Tassigny, I see where Maurice’s first priority is. This may be easier than I had thought.

De Tassigny continued, “we all are going to have to make sacrifices this year. Our navy is large and modern, but I believe that we are headed in the wrong direction with it. Planes, my friends, are going to dominate both land and sea in the upcoming years, and we must be ready for this. But first let me lay out to you my plan for the next two years for our military.”

De Tassigny spoke at length to his chiefs. At first the look on their faces was shock and utter confusion. De Tassigny was essentially advocating a complete reorganization and complete retraining of both the navy and the army. He had plans to focus on close air support from the airforce, but that would never happen with Denain running things. To avoid the conflict now, de Tassigny decided to adapt to Denain’s strength and that was developing an air superiority force that would be able to stop enemy bombers. He had promised Denain that instead of focusing on upgrade the existing air force, he would instead, place priority on construction of additional interceptors. This seemed to make Denain happy.

Maurice was not too happy that they were going to shift the training emphasis of the army from a Grand Battle plan style of training to a Superior Firepower doctrine. However, de Tassigny had agreed with him about his pet project, the extension of the Maginot line to the sea, and de Tassigny used that to secure many years of cooperation with Maurice. De Tassigny promised that this would be the top priority when the resources came open. Once de Tassigny had promised him that, Maurice wouldn’t have cared if they dismantled the entire army. His life long dream was finally going to be fulfilled. At last, in his mind at least, France would be completely safe. De Tassigny was not entirely sold on extending the Maginot line, but he knew that for a modest expenditure of resources that he could have almost unlimited power over Maurice. That made it all worth while. The leaders of the army would be pulled away from their troops for retraining. In the meantime, they would be replaced with some handpicked men by de Tassigny, generals that had shown a talent for organization and logistics.

Darlan, however, seemed to have no thoughts about the new changes, and that worried de Tassigny. As he explained that they would move away from the old archaic concept of Fleet in Being to the new carrier driven strategies of Base Strike, Darlan did not move a muscle. I must meet with him separately, de Tassigny thought. I get the feeling he is not telling me everything. He had canceled production on the Dunkerque, told him that all of his officers were going to need to be retrained, and told him that they would not be producing any new naval units over the next two years, and Darlan acted like someone was reading him a Dear Abbey column. But Darlan did manage to crack a smile when de Tassigny asked him if he would be interested in going to Britain to receive some education on this Carrier based system. It seemed that Darlan was very shrewd after all.

De Tassigny left the meeting perplexed. I must see what is driving Darlan. He was too quiet for all of the stuff I threw at him. There has to be something going on there. However, de Tassigny did not have time to worry about it right now. There was mounds of paper work on his desk. Personally, he would have preferred just building a lot of infantry and close air support aircraft and be done with it. No navy, no tanks, none of that. Just infantry and CAS. With that, he felt confident that France could stand alone. But alas, this was more a position of politics than personal opinion, so he was forced to play with the hand he was dealt. If only he could bluff better, he thought.

 

[GeneralHannibal]

Well, De Tassigny certainly has his hands full with them. Is Maurice still in charge of the Army? Great writing.

 

[unmerged(60155)]

id like to see if france could for once not let a german across its borders.

sounds interesting, hope you get a good start for your first aar.

 

[Vann the Red]

A France AAR? How lovely. Count yourself another reader, UG!

Vann

 

[stnylan]

I find the focus on Darlan interesting. I find myself wondering what role he will end up playing.

 

[Vann the Red]

My first guess would be a likely coup leader. But that would handicap as he may be the best admiral the French have.

Vann

 

[unmerged(55086)]

Very good writing. I'm looking foward for next update.

 

[unmerged(59514)]

Great writting! Hope you could manage your odious fascists. If you want go to see my first AAR it's an French '36 too (Funky Froggy). Maybe you could pick some ideas. Good luck! Kick Boche asses for me!