The Danes were minuscule compared to France, their army was tiny, of coarse they surrendered fast, the French in the other hand, were an industrial powers and could’ve easily defeated Germany if they did anything other than what they did in our timeline, the French are literally at the apex of what made the 20th century suck.
Denmark is a tiny flat country with barely an army, navy or air force. They couldn't even use their geography to their advantage like Finland did against the Soviets because they were invaded on a warm April day, or Norway against Germany because they directly border them and, again, are pretty small and flat. What do you really want them to do? I mean, the German army was half the size of Denmark's entire population in 1940 ffs.
@@kaliyuga1476 he did not rise to god status in France ! What are those lies ! He is seen as a traitor, a french who betrayed the ideal of our nation... before spreading lies you should check yourself
If he had not betrayed to the Germans? Maybe not quite godlike worship but he would certainly be viewed as more important than Charles de Gaulle is in real life.
It would have been cool to talk about the consequences in Metropolitan France, the different occupation and destructions. The Germans "spared" France in our timeline, but without surrendering, they might have destroyed much more, similar to what happened to Poland.
@@C.viscione At least until the Allied comeback, then you'll have to hope it goes like in OTL with the chief of the german garnison refusing to destroy the monuments of Paris.
hitler ordered Paris to be burned to the ground in our timeline but the general (or whatever rank he was) found paris too beautiful and didn’t do it. In this timeline Paris would have been rubble by the end of the war
@@uncanadien3272 Eh it was less of a 'didn't do it' and more of a 'by the point hitler ordered this the population of paris was grabbing weapons and fighting streetfights with german patrols while most of the german garrison had already left' kind of thing. While yes he could have destroyed some of the more important monuments, he wouldn't have been able to do much else before his troops either got taken out by the parisians or the combined French-American force moving to relieve Paris.
Well what I'm getting out of this is that Algeria would most likely be in Eurovision seeing as they would have a much closer bond to Europe in this timeline
@Lyes kara actually, i had not realised what you were saying. Are you telling me that a little shithole appearing in the XVIth century has more history than one if not the oldest country in europe. And don't blame the bad french colonisators for the non-progress that has happened since algeria was free. Try to look at the terrorist and corrupted government before accusing everyone of neo-colonialism.
Sad to think that petain could have been such a hero that the world would have saluted him and all of France would remember him after his death for the hero he was but instead he just got remembered as a traitor
@Cpl. Rook Not just (some) people, also the right wing ruling elites that Petain represented. France between the wars was massively divided between left and right and the right preferred to see the Nazis take France than the left. The right often characterises itself as nationalist but in truth, it favours it's own class interests over everything else. Modern globalism would be another example: one big winner in that and it isn't the average joe.
@Totally not the flash :3 yep. But it was his choice. Maybe he regret it by the wars end. Knowing he never could go back.
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@Corporal Rook you haven't read the French hymn lyrics, have you? Let's go children of the fatherland, The day of glory has arrived! Against us tyranny's Bloody flag is raised! (repeat) In the countryside, do you hear The roaring of these fierce soldiers? *They come right to our arms* *To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!* Grab your weapons, citizens! Form your battalions! Let us march! Let us march! May impure blood Water our fields! This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings, What do they want? For whom these vile shackles, These long-prepared irons? (repeat) Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult! What emotions that must excite! It is us that they dare to consider Returning to ancient slavery! What! These foreign troops Would make laws in our home! What! These mercenary phalanxes Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat) Good Lord! By chained hands Our brows would bend beneath the yoke! Vile despots would become The masters of our fate! *Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,* *The disgrace of all groups,* *Tremble! Your parricidal plans* *Will finally pay the price! (repeat)* *Everyone is a soldier to fight you,* *If they fall, our young heroes,* *France will make more,* *Ready to battle you!* Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors, Bear or hold back your blows! Spare these sad victims, Regretfully arming against us. (repeat) But not these bloodthirsty despots, But not these accomplices of Bouillé, All of these animals who, without pity, Tear their mother's breast to pieces! Sacred love of France, Lead, support our avenging arms! Liberty, beloved Liberty, Fight with your defenders! (repeat) Under our flags, let victory Hasten to your manly tones! May your dying enemies See your triumph and our glory! We will enter the pit When our elders are no longer there; There, we will find their dust And the traces of their virtues. (repeat) Much less eager to outlive them Than to share their casket, We will have the sublime pride Of avenging them or following them!
Winston Churchill gave a pretty good analysis of this question in Chapter X of "Their Finest Hour". He didn't believe the damage to mainland France would have been much greater, and the situation in the Mediterranean would have been much improved for the Allies.
@@scholaroftheworldalternatehist Mate, call me out for hindsight bias, but man I am mad the French barely did anything to stop the Germans and prevent WW2 from reaching the scale it did! They seemed scared out of their wits to handle Germany...
A better world then, these memes are annoying and boring like dad jokes, plus there's ignorant people who thinks the entire history of France was this.
@Well yes But actually no most algerian were ok with france being there(you don't hear about them thanks to the civil war+ the ethnic cleansing of pieds noir) the native were counted as second class citizen,seeing how france was losing everything they would probably do the same thing they did in this timeline and give full citizenship to all the native in the oversea territories. the whole place would probably stay poorer than the hexagone would still end up more developped than neightbouring country like how actual oversea territories are today
Why is it that every timeline that Germany is on the losing side of WW2 does Germany end up with the Oder-Neisse borders? They don’t make sense for anyone unless you’re Stalin and deliberately trying to move Poland and Germany as far away from you as possible and have no problem with forced expulsions and genocide. Though this is kind of a minor gripe as well, it seems unlikely Romania and Bulgaria would still surrender to the Soviets, since the Allies could easily capture Adrianopole and move north- and neither wanted to be under Soviet domination. Hungary might become a Soviet puppet if Operation Margarethe still works out, but with the allies closer and Soviets farther, that seems to be more a toss-up. Bohemia was also mostly unoccupied when the war ended and isn’t the easiest part of Europe to invade, so unless it’s specifically doled out to the Soviets, it would also likely go to the West. Basically, the Warsaw Pact wouldn’t exist. Would Morocco and Tunisia remain French? Also, Algeria kind of means there’d be a lot more Arabs in France. So you could end up with the awkward situation where there are more Muslims in France than Catholics. France doesn’t have the demographics to assimilate Algeria without it also going a lot the other way around. Though, overall, pretty good video. I went into this thinking that nothing would change because the Axis would mop up the weak forces left in Algeria, but then I remembered- this is Benito we’re talking about here.
Simple, if the Soviet Union wins, they will necessarily annex East Poland, and only East Prussia and Danzig is not enough to compensate, at least the whole of Silesia has to be ceded to Poland as reparation, east of Brandenburg and Pomerania may be able to be salved by the Germans, but they will need luck because the demand for unconditional surrender is inevitable.
Melnek Is Poland being run by Genocidal Maniacs? If not, it can’t happen- Poland would be half German if they got everything they got from Oder-Neisse- Even just all of Silesia is a dubious notion. Parts of Silesia and East Prussia were half-Polish, though. Poland isn’t really powerful enough to prevent either the Allies or Soviets from doing what they want. Most likely the Morgenthau Plan would happen - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#/media/File%3AHenry_Morgenthau's_Proposal_for_Post-War_German_Boundaries.png but with half of East Prussia also being German. Though there’d still be enough Germans in Poland to cause headaches for everyone, including Poland. Not even France has fully yet assimilated Alsace-Lorraine. Maybe you’d see it become Poland’s Catalonia.
You're Spying Morgenthau results in a Germany already split in at least 2. Honestly, Germany losing East Germany has proven to be enough to stop it from being a dominant European power. Again, I would like to point out that there’s enough Germans in Poland to cause major headaches. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_Poland_immediately_after_World_War_II#/media/File%3ACurzon_line_en.svg I mean, what do you expect when 1/3rd your nation is composed of a hostile ethnic group? Do the Poles even really want that land? There were a lot of plans to utterly destroy Germany by forcing it to pay huge reparations and deindustrialization at Yalta, which also didn’t go anywhere- largely because it would have held back the wider European economy and resulted in one of the worst genocides in Europe. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Implementation And even THIS plan didn’t include the Oder- Neisse borders, btw- even the Western Allies in a genocidal mood didn’t want the Oder-Neisse borders. There is no way that happens unless Stalin was total control of Poland. Romania and Bulgaria surrendered to the Soviets because they had no choice and could see they were doomed. If the Western Allies are in Greece, they DO have a choice. Romania in particular still had an army that could at least slow down the Soviets before the Allies could move up to there. The worst that happens may be the Romanians lose all of the land east of the Carpathians and/or is forced to be a neutral buffer state.
i disagree with the Algerian argument because A: in our world algeria was already seen as a core state similar to Alaska and the United States B: if Algers served as the capital of france during the bloodiest war of all time it would hold too much emotion to just let go C: Tuinesa and Morocco are not apart of Algeria
I think the scenario with the most interesting potential is What if Humans never migrated to the Americas? This would leave the Americas untouched for thousands of years until the Vikings and eventually, Columbus. How different would the world be today if humans had contact with organisms that could be considered 'monsterous'?
@@andrewrobinson2565 You misunderstood his comment, I think the second sentence was in reference to the mega-fauna that died off due to early human migration from Siberia (IE the ancestors of Native Americans)
@@jackstoltz330 "This would leave the Americas untouched for thousands of years until the Vikings......" Pajalsta.. Smart ass.. It's there in plain English.
Another side effect is that Paris is essentially wiped off the face of the earth, as the Nazis planned for the entire city to be destroyed if the French didn’t surrender, no building, person, historical site, or monument would have been spared, everything from the worst house in the Parisian slums all the way to the Eifel Tower and Arc de Triumph would have been completely destroyed
or do the Filipinos and Americans forces did in the Philippines they declare the city of manila a open city and vacate their forces to the Bataan peninsula.
If they kept fighting before the loss of Paris that would be the case, Warsaw was destroyed because the city was defended by urban fighting, here in this scenario Paris has already fallen and then Petan decides to not surrender.
The Poles may have lost Warsaw (through no fault of their own), but at least they have national pride and dignity for their courageous and non-stop fight throughout the entire war. Buildings can be rebuilt......Regarding the Philipines, Manila suffered similarly to Warsaw not in the opening stages of the War, but at the end.
@Zex idk No of course not but would you prefer to give your country to a enemy invader if that was the price of keeping it unscathed? Also, Hitler made orders to destroy Rome and Paris but these were not carried out by officers in command on the ground. The worst excesses of the Nazi regime were reserved for Central and Eastern Europe. So the likelihod of Paris being destroyed in the manner of Warsaw, was very unlikely.
Question: *WHY* would Petain change his mind and call for continued resistance? What reason would he had? I think a better PoD would be the one used by the authors of "1940: Et si la France avait continué la guerre?" - namely, a pro-German mistress of French President Paul Reynaud dies in an earlier car crash, and thus Paul Reynaud was more receptive to Charles De Gaulle's proposal to keep fighting. Alternatively, the Germans' Ardennes Forest breakthrough was less successful with the Allies managing to rush enough reinforcements just in time to, if not contain it, slow the Germans down and convince the French that resistance is still possible and desirable. Of course, maybe those wouldn't solve the morale problem the French people were experiencing, which an inexplicably pro-resistance Petain might be able to resolve.
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Paul Reynaud was the president of the council of ministers, technically the prime minister tho. The president of the republic was Albert Lebrun
@@TheVoiceOfReason93 just a useless detail to be fair. Before 1958, France was a parliamentary republic, thus the president of the republic wasn't the most powerfull charachter of the state
@ No, no, it's still a fair point to make. The implications is just because Reynaud is convinced does not automatically mean France would fight on, not when other powerful members of government disagrees. Still, I reckoned it still might had mattered to some extent. At least it did for those guys who wrote "1940: Et si la France avait continué la guerre?".
1.What if Mongolian Army success to invade Japan. 2. What if Xinhai Revolution failed. 3. What if Axis power won the North African front? 4. What if France won the Seven year war?(Remake) 5. What if Ottoman was the Alley? 6. What if Russia won the Crimean War?
@@rokball4892 oh I looked it up, I didn't know GB and France were in a colonial war in (1754) before the Silesian conflict (1756) but either way the Silesian dispute is what really escelated things which is why some see it as the start of the main war (1754-63 isn't 7 years)
@@davrosdarlek7058 Prussia and UK vs Austria, France, the rest of HRR, Russia and Sweden. However: UK fight mainly NOT in Europe so in Europe: Prussia vs Austra, France, Sweden, the H.R.R, and Russia.
@@scholaroftheworldalternatehist I think this is a even better timeline than France continuing the fight during WW2. Better avoid the bullet entirely than treat the wound later.
Addon to Algeria staying in France: They probably would either become a Federation with France and the Tauregs or the Tauregs gain full independence as an ally of France.
The tuareg are a small tribe in algeria, most of them actually live in lybia. They only play a small role, not important enough to be considered in this alternate timeline.
Algeria can't stay with france just because france killed algerians and stole their lands and dissimated entire tribes... Touareg are part of algerians they are amazighs just like us and muslims.
My grandaunt was born in Algeria when it was France. She told me once how she never got jobs when she put Algeria as her birthplace on the cv. then she swapped it to France and she got pretty much every job she applied for.
Well it sure wasn't cool, but undestandable. Pretty much all nations people before globalisation would do the same in fact it's natural tribalism. Even now I don't believe a single moment I can find a job easily in Korea or Japan due to my mixed origins. It's uncool, but being more comfortable around people of your own especially in tense political and civil situations is nothing but human nature. Not mention how Algerians were considered rebels and terrorists for a long while after Algerian war of independence. Don't be too angry about it really.
This brings up a good question - how far back does a nation's history go? Because that was Gaul. Most historians seem to think "France" began in the 800s. It's sorta similar to Egypt. The Egypt today is absolutely nothing like the Egypt of 2000 BCE. But China today is the same culture as China of 2000 BCE. It's weird.
3:29 The relationship between the Moroccan protectorate, the Allies and the Axis is much more complicated than that. Morocco wanted to be loyal to what was at the time the French authority but was also extremely shocked and refused to apply Vichy laws about the Jewish. By then end of 1943 the protectorate was rather loyal to the Free French Forces
Several points seem a little questionable to any French viewer 1 / Pétain calling to continue the war, it seems questionable to me, he was attracted by totalitarianism and surrounded by people who hated the 3rd Republic. (He didn't like it himself). But if he continues the fight the 3rd survives. 2 / France is resuming the fight effectively: this only seems possible to me at the cost of a thorough "cleaning" of the generals to make room for two categories (and preferably those who belong to the 2), namely those who have the willingness to fight no matter what and those who understood modern warfare. If in addition they are good tacticians it is beneficial but the first 2 are vital. But Pétain does not like the proponents of armored combat in general. 3 / De Gaulle is already secretary of state for defense (the post of minister is held by the president of the council, by choice of the latter, which is a mistake but hey) but Pétain and De Gaulle hate each other (among others De Gaulle published a book that he had written and that Pétain had prefaced under his name instead of releasing it under Pétain's).
There you go, but seen from the Anglo Saxon POW these are "details" ...
I completely agree with you. The real rot lay in the right wing politcal classes that took over the government in the dying days of the 1940 campaign, and their fellow travellers in the army. It is a great shame that this right wing figures stained French history for there were brave patriots at every level of French society and France had the talent, technology, industry and the will to resist. The German attack on France in 1940 was a very near run thing, German victory only seems inevitable with hindsight.
Dominique Schlag den Hauffen Petain wasn’t that sympathetic to the Axis, especially compared to other ‘collaborationist’ leaders, like Laval, or Quisling. You’re right about his political views, but there’s a degree of separation between that and liking Nazi Germany. Remember that not everyone who fought on even the side of the western Allies did it because they liked democracy- often, they just hated the other guy more. There were Monarchists and Communists in the Italian and French Resistances. I’m inclined to Churchill’s assessment of his character, which was that he was a ‘defeatist’ and didn’t have the personality to preserve in the face of overwhelming defeat (I guess like Churchill was.)
@@innosam123 It seems a stretch to say that Churchill ever faced overwhelming defeat. The destruction of the BEF was bad but that still left a wide moat and the Royal Navy in the path of having Britain be thoroughly over-run. By the time Petain was able to take over the French gov't, German units were already well south of Paris. No matter what Petain's attitude was, total defeat was already well underway. At the time, convinced that Britain was also on its way to defeat (not implausible in 1940), Petain might well have been wondering how to repeat de MacMahon's career.
@@bobwinters5572 Well, the British *thought* they were facing overwhelming defeat, since they thought the Luftwaffe was approximately twice the size it actually was. In which case, yeah, the Germans probably would have won the Battle of Britain and might have been able to destroy large parts of the Royal Navy if they attempted to get into the Channel.
@@montecarlo1651 if France/Britain had let Poland mobilize and remembered how to run an offensive WWII would've ended in 1941 with a complete allied victory against the Germans/Soviets.
An important event you skipped over is the Japanese conquest of Malaya and Singapore. With the war in North Africa over in 1941 the British and French can transfer forces to the Far East and prevent the Japanese taking Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. This whole area turns into a meat grinder of Naval and Air forces with the British and US equal partners until the US builds up their fleet enough to steam roll across the Pacific. Great video.
Assuming the Chinese were at least competent and efficient against the Japanese, we will likely see Korea being a subject to China then to Russia. The reason why I would say Korea will become a subject to Russia is because even a miraculous victory for the Qing, they still are quite weak against European technologies used by West, Russia, and even Japan; thus, still would have lost Korea anyway just from a different power. Thus, Japan will be weaker and Russia will be stronger than our timeline. This is my speculation.
what if the british and french government and commanders were competent and not pacifist and pushed germany while they were fighting poland (also allowing them to mobilize early)
There was a plan made by the french of creating a alliance called the little entente with Poland Czekoslovkia Romania and Yugoslavia wich was more created to contain a new Austria-Hungary but would work against germany since after the anshluss exept Romania all had a border with Germany and exept France would be all contected by land and could have become a european version of the chinese united front
His reputation was already tarnished by the gibes of Alexandra, the Roman people and nobility would never accept him. He would not reunite the empire and Agrippa would become the first Roman Emperor
@@AndrewSmith-ck2kl They might accept him if he came back a winner. And I've read a suggestion that if Anthony had won his previous war with Parthia he might not have had to depend on Cleopatra so much, and been less politically vulnerable.
A point not addressed here is when the war with the USSR would begin, and which side would start it. Even Hitler would not have attacked to the east while still embroiled in a land war in the west. Also, driven back to the home islands in 1944, Japan would have time to reflect (and starve), and might offer terms which would be acceptable to the Allies.
Germany didn't really adopt Blitzkrieg. It was more like they combined their existing tactics with motor vehicles. In fact, they didn't even use the word Blitzkrieg.
You made a small mistake: Germany would have kept it's Eastern territories. This was destroyed by the Soviets who previously agreed on not punishing Germany, but later on betrayed the US and Britain
You mean the parts that went to Poland? It is possible, if the Soviets didn't get to Berlin, but the Allies did first. Then it would be up to them to decide Germany's fate. If the Warsaw Uprising succeeded, Poland could be an independent state, but I don't know if it would stop the Red Army. It might still be let through by the Poles, who would probably prefer to keep their territories and not worry about launching an invasion themselves. And if Poland was independent and lost their Eastern territories anyway, they would demand them back or to get German lands in return. Because being squashed into 1/3 of your former size with almost the same population would not be fun. That was the reason Soviets gave them eastern part of Germany in the first place, even while controlling the country, to get on their good side and shut them up, because Poles had been really damn troublesome to Russia before.
@@ooi97 In the conferences between the Allies about the post war situation everybody agreed until 1945 to let Germany keep it's eastern territories until the last second. With the war ending much earlier, because of the western allies conquering all of Germany and probably the western parts of Poland the American plan of a post war Germany would have succeeded. And Poland didn't loose 1/3 of their territory, but instead they lost regions that weren't ethnically majority Polish (Belarus, Northernmost Ukraine). You can argue about the last one.
This video is a great one, as is this channel!!! It's a massive inspiration to my own channel, as now I am covering a range of topics about what if Britain and France actually invaded Germany in 1936, March 1939 or in September 1939, as well as many more about Versailles, World War I and the Cold War.
i'm almost sure with a fast victory against the germans, the allies in Europe would turn on the soviets. as i don't actually think the soviet would leave poland alone.
I answer late, but I have a different view regarding Poland I don't think the Soviets would try to subdue Poland into the Eastern Bloc. There's a smarter way for USSR to ensure Poland won't be joining NATO. Friendship treaties, or in Finland, YYA-Treaty, or Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. They did this with Finland and it pretty much worked in both sides' favor. I could definetly see Stalin pulling off something similar with Poland. It ensures a neutral buffer zone between the Soviets and the West.
France was bled white by its victory in ww1. 1.4 millions dead and 4.2 millions wounded for 40 millions inhabitants. The casualtied are extremely high, illustrating the huge French war effort. With low demographic evolution, France could not afford to repeat the same sacrifice in ww2. In the 6 weeks of fighting in the battle of France, the French casualties rate was on par with the rate of the battle of Verdun... So in the end, surrendering was an intelligent but not honorable choice
I don't know how France could have continued the war w/o surrendering in 1940 (haven't seen the video yet), but there's one overlooked effect of France's surrender that hasn't been mentioned, which is that the French language would still be a widely used international lingua franca instead of being replaced by English. At the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson ASKED that the Treaty of Versailles be translated into English. At the end of World War II, the Allies sent Germany orders to surrender in two languages----English and Russian----and the United States never again had to ASK that international treaties be written in English.
The French had no modern divisions left, just like the British, but didn't had a channel to protect them. Surrender or not, the result would have been exactly the same.
Some of my own opinion for discussion: - The Atomic bomb was initially developed as a weapon to use against Germany, and so their early defeat would probably have delayed the bomb's existence (or the bomb may never have existed, at all), making an invasion of Japan more likely. - The diversion of troops from the Eastern front to fight the Allies in Greece and Sicily would certainly hinder the German's advance into the Soviet Union. So I think the Soviet will have more success in this timeline, rather than just having Eastern Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. - The Asian front could have more differences than with our timeline. The Soviet participation in the front would be extended to over a year, or even more, rather than just a month in our timeline. This means the Japanese would likely be pushed out of China by the Soviet, making the CCP much stronger than in our timeline. A Soviet invasion of Japan might even be possible. - Algeria staying with France because of the French government relocating there would be a bit unreasonable. Algerian nationalism and Arab nationalism would destabilise the region if France held on to power, and the dire economic situation France found herself in after the harsh German occupation will make it difficult to put down any rebellions or independence movement. Overall I think this is a good alternative history scenario with a lot of interesting events. Keep up the good work man.
Hmm, when I saw this I didn't at first realize that this could be so influential, and now if a ww3 doesn't happen in this world it doesn't look like a bad place to be in, less deaths from the holocaust, less soviet influence and maybe the soviet union falls after Stalin's death, quite a nice scenario to me
Two main issues. 1) Number of battles won is irrelevant, only wars won. e.g. Vietnam - US battles won: All War won: 0 2) Germany would not have been able to invade Russia if France had not surrendered, neither would Japan have been likely to declare war on the US or British territories without the control of French territories being granted to the Japanese by Germany.
@whatifalthist My thoughts on this timeline: 1) Probably no Barbarossa 2) Much more brutal occupation and resistance within France herself. Great videos as always, but surely Hitler wouldn't have invaded Russia with such a clear 2nd Front? In your timeline, France would be much more of a thorn in the German's side, and so a lot more resources would have to go into maintaining control (also you didn't focus enough on how the French Resistance would be on steroids if Petain had been in charge, making the German occupation more costly and brutal for both the Germans and the French and how this would have soured Franco-German relations long after the war).
@@theveryproudmoroccan2834 No worries bro, I mention this in some of my own Alternative History videos, check them out and let me know your thoughts. Whatifalthist is a major influence for me, so if you love his content you'll love mine too!
Here is one I haven't seen proposed on any of the alternate history channels. What if Germany ignored France in World War II, and focused to the east the entire time?
5 minutes in and this is already riddled with errors. The French NEVER signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany. They signed an ARMISTICE. Over 1.2 million French POWs remained in Germany until their liberation in 1945.
Hey, you should make what if France won wwii. Fix the problems that the french had to cause them to surrender. Btw great video. You've had an amazing upload streak recently haha. Also when is the next stream?
You should try a whatifaltfuture where you answer the fascinating question, what would happen if Greece and turkey went to war in 2020. Drawing in countries like Egypt, Israel, Armenia , Cyprus and Azerbaijan
Would a southern French goverment base its goverment on a city like toulouse rather than borduex since it is a more significant important and more centrally located city
Toulouse is a big city, but it lies in the middle of nowhere. It has a central position in one of the least developed part of France. It makes more sense to take Bordeaux, or maybe Marseilles in the south.
I don't know if Petain would actually do that, since he himself was a sympathizer to fascist ideals (he was the one who proposed and remained in Vichy France after all), I would say it's more likely of him either make fleeing after the fall of Paris, have him die of some disease, or have someone in the military accuse him of treason against the state for recommending surrender and then have De Gaulle do the fervent speech of no surrender and keep fighting till victory
What if Poland had amuch more solid defence in WW2? ~ earlier mobilisation, quicker modernisation (I read somewhere they were supposed to be modernised by 1945, oh the irony), knowing they were on their own from the start and rather than holding as much ground as they could (by guarding the border), they withdraw to natural defences which make the blitzkrieg less useful. The ineffective polish deence in 1939 delayed the Nazi invasion of France by 6 months alone so a really good defence could delay it by much longer which might be enougth time to get the allied mindset changed or something, at least regarding the Ardennes.
with a stronger poland, they would have resisted longer, which means against the incompetent soviets that their eastern border wouldnt break instantly. the war against the nazis cannot be won and would not have been delayed much. there are no natural defences in the western part of poland, it is the bane of polish existance that there is basically just flat plains all the way to the swamp lands in modern day belorussia, ideal ground for the blitzkrieg style warfare that the german army was built for. This might lead to prevent the alliance of soviets with the brits and french though, with the nazis stopping at the curzon line and secretly supporting the rest of poland in their efforts to defend against the soviets. with direct support lines coming in, this might lead to a year or two of resistance, much like the war in finland showed the complete inability of the soviet army for offensive war. The news in the west would now have to report much more on the soviet invasion, thus sparking outrage at possible soviet support. i doubt the war in the west would have gone much differently, but with no alliance with the soviets possible, the brits might just give in and sign a peace deal on the right terms. France would become a fascist state, ceding alsace-lorraine back to the germans, a breakup of belgium into german, dutch and french parts would be negotiated. Norway and denmark would reunite into a germanic northern union, which might take up sweden aswell as finland. Poland would get back a lot of its nazi occupied land, basically reverting borders back to pre-ww1 status but with the region around warsaw, which was part of russia before ww1, now being the polish heartland to fight the soviets in a proxy war with nazi german help. Remember that for the nazis, the soviets were the real threat. They would have negotiated relatively fair terms with great britain to close the western front and prevent a possible american intervention. this peace would have also prevented the holocaust to some degree, with the original nazi plan to expell all the jews being implemented, either to the usa, the middle east or to madagascar.
@You're Spying im sorry, i find it much more plausible to envision a poland that mobilizes against advice of its western allies than a france that is willing to leave the maginot line. The whole polish defense was based on ww1 strategies - dig in and wait until the brits and french take on the nazis and send aid. That was the idea on the western front aswell, hence the whole maginot line debacle. The mechanized blitzkrieg was not anticipated, hence why poland lost as quickly as it did. An early mobilization could have helped, but would have only slowed down the germans. Romania can be ignored, just as it could be ignored as an axis power later on. Im not sure how you think they are a significant factor. Poland was outnumbered, outgunned and overwhelmed on two fronts. There is no Germany being pushed into a defensive position on the eastern front, except poland invents the nuke in August 1939 and drops it on Königsberg.
I love how you can make videos out of subjects that won't changed the world that much and are very short but are still very interesting to watch nonetheless. Alternatehistoryhub made a video on this very same topic two years ago and it was just seven minutes talking about the Paris being burned to the ground because the French continue Urban fighting in Paris and then surrender, and that was just it, He didn't even considered the effects of the French military and leadership fleeing to north Africa and all of the French empire being in the hands of the allies.
Paris would be destroyed and all of France would have been decimated. no Vichy France and all of it would have been considered hostile leading to Reinhard Heydrich to be deployed into France earlier avoiding his death by Czech resistance. leading to a massive blow to resistance and possibly making D-day harder.
at 0:54 I seriously doubt only 44% of all the wars they participated in were victories for France. Many of which on that list were either inconclusive or there was a strong case why the French did well. The Franco-Dutch war, France gained territory in the Treaties of Nigmegen. The Nine Years War was more of a compromise. France retained some territory and gave up some to the Allies, despite its armies being generally victorious on the battlefield. The Spanish War of Succession is complicated. A Bourbon was placed on the Spanish throne, but no universal monarchy. Plus, France ceded territory to the British in the Americas. France was beaten in 1940, but the Free French continued fighting. Officially, France rejoined the war in 1944, and had over 1 million men fighting on the western front.
Yes most of the ones he put as a defeat were victories or inconclusive also he only did wars from the 1600s onwards and missed out big ones like the second opium war, Greek war of independence etc and included wars that were clearly separate wars as part of the same war.
As an Algerian from our point of view thanks to our guerilla Warfare and cutting of supply lines plus the immense cooapuration of the natives that came from exposing the raping and pillaging of the villagers by the frenshs has resulted in severe losses to the French both in the public opinion like you said and the military too for example the frenshs resulted in isolating parts of the states in order to pacify it directly with brute force yet they didn't realize that by doing this they exhausted their inland forces and given time to other states to mobilize it's resources I say this from the teaching in schools and from my grandfather stories as he was one of the first to join the independence Movement as our region was the heart of most of it and he was one of the first people to fire the bullets of the start of the revolution in our region
Algeria didn’t gain independence due to military action, the ALN was soundly defeated by 1961, you gained independence due the french public, De Gualle wanting to de-colonise and UN pressure on France.
I disagree. With the Germans not fighting on 3 fronts in 1941 they are able to keep a tighter hold on Italy and Greece while as you say not occupying Crete. This combined with the materials and manpower lost fighting Mussolini’s battles allow Germany to have a heavier focus on the Soviets, in addition the fact that the disastrous parachute landings of Crete never happen, we get to see great numbers of mobile infantry on the eastern front making a victory over the USSR much more feasible. Following this, even with US manufacturing and economics I couldn’t see continental Europe being liberated.
Whether France surrendered or was conquered I think the outcome would have been the same. France lacked the air power to challenge the Luftwaffe so it probably makes no difference. A more interested scenario: What if the French fleet at Mets El Kebir had joined the Royal Navy and the French troops rescued at Dunkirk had remained in Britain or joined de Gaulle?
Very cool, I really like this timeline. However, I do have a suggestion. I think you should list your sources for these videos in the description of your video to strengthen your credibility and the ability of people who agree with you to defend their opinions in debate.
I think you made a couple of mistakes Romania and bulgaria would have definetly joined the allies if they got the chance. King micheal would have loved to join the allies and the tsar in bulgaria would also join. I think operation magarethe would be more sucessful with the larger allies foodhold in europe. Sicilia being invaded seems inpausible but the german garrison could move to greece with a reason in this timeline so why not. The warsaw uprising would suceed because the soviets would be in way more of a rush because the allies would actually be able to steal land that was promised to the soviets. The big problem is that the soviets would surely get a part of east germany and to have a land connection would have roads through poland where there might be a berlin airlift situation on a larger scale where poland would join the allies but let the soviets through
Good afternoon sir, a bunch of my friends and I are having a debate where I proposed how severely different world history would be if horses were to randomly explode (explosions can not be predicted by any human algorithm and explosions are equivalent to one stick of dynamite) I was wondering if you’d be interested in exploring this and making it into a video
To be fair, France's surrender memes and generally bad military reputation isn't limited to just WW2. Even though they did indeed fight heroically in WW1 they still had the upper hand on paper yet managed to botch that war so incredibly that Europe needed the US to bail it out by joining towards the end of WW1 and finally be able to put the Central Powers(not Axis, this is WW1 not WW2) back. Similarly France lost a '1 on 1' war to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war, which again on paper France had no business losing as badly as they did. Heck if we're going back far enough, a significantly inferior English army managed to conquer nearly the entirety of France during the awfully named Hundred-Year War. France's positive military reputation mostly comes from its golden age under Louis the XIVth or perhaps slightly earlier during the 30 year war itself. Other than the 30 year war though, and it's technical victory over the English after losing nearly their entire country, the French military has only been successful against inferior opponents not really against equal ones. Thus my main issue with your alternative analysis, in that you've given France way too much credit. After all there was a reason why they surrendered so quickly in WW2 and why Petain was so quick to side with the Nazis. Even if he himself suddenly didn't I strongly disagree with your notion that his celebrity status would have carried the day. The French people were still extremely weary of the war, regardless of Petain himself, and his example to either direction would have only gone so far. Ultimately I don't think France not surrendering as early as it did would have made much of a difference as they would have still surrendered a month or 2 later, I strongly disagree they would have continued to fight from Algeria or elsewhere.
When you wargame the Fall of France, its almost impossible to get the historic result. Even if the French player has NO PLAYER, they just stand there, Germany might well fail against the static French and mobile British. So a scenario where France actually defends its border would be a lot more interesting.
In the alternative scenario of the French continuing to fight, the French could have made a stand in Normandy where the Germans would have to contend with the infamous hedgerows that gave the Allies so much trouble in 1944. The British would also have likely fortified the Channel Islands to back up the French,, and they would have remained in Allied hands.
Giving up so early... Almost same losses in 5 weeks , than during the first 12 weeks of "Operation Overlord" (D-Day, battle of Normandy...) , common make your own research and you'll see it's a fact. If France had continue war after the ceisure of Paris ? In fact they did, for 10 days, Paris is ceised the 14, armistice is signed the 25 of June, the lack of air support and armored divisions made combat almost impossible in that new type of war. Truth is that if France had continue war, AKA say fuck off to any Hitler negociation proposal, the Germans were free to bomb every cities, by the end of June 1940 France have 0 airplane in his sky, there's no military operations possible here, not in WW2. I have a question you didn't ask in this vidéo. What if the British never decided to retreat without telling their intentions to the French ? Admiral Weygand had plans to break the Dunkirk pocket, using the british tanks and air support, it was still possible at this time because the German forces were too extended, when he asked to see the british General Gort, he found out about the evacuation plan... wich was already occuring, the French government was not even aware, Dunkirk was taken the 4th of June. Not very correct. I'm not saying the British caused defeat, it would be dishonest, but they are always forgotten when it comes to find out what went wrong.
Yeah also this video also seems to ignore the situation of Reich if the french ignores to surrender. Also considering how French had the most centralized capital among other nations loss of the capital basically meant the loss if war anyway they didnt surrendered for nothing. They would get mopped down by Nazis even worse which would mean saying goodbye to modern France we have today. Also probably east front ideas might have to be thrown out of window if there is a much stronger allies which I highly doubt they would have been in a fairly nice position but still
Biggest difference: the Danish surrender would get the fame it deserves
true they surrendered before the Germans even invaded
Didn't it take 2 hours to take Denmark as well?
The Danes were minuscule compared to France, their army was tiny, of coarse they surrendered fast, the French in the other hand, were an industrial powers and could’ve easily defeated Germany if they did anything other than what they did in our timeline, the French are literally at the apex of what made the 20th century suck.
@@bigbo1764 true
Denmark is a tiny flat country with barely an army, navy or air force. They couldn't even use their geography to their advantage like Finland did against the Soviets because they were invaded on a warm April day, or Norway against Germany because they directly border them and, again, are pretty small and flat. What do you really want them to do? I mean, the German army was half the size of Denmark's entire population in 1940 ffs.
Then Pétain would be risen to god like worship by the French today.
He id
@@kaliyuga1476 he did not rise to god status in France ! What are those lies ! He is seen as a traitor, a french who betrayed the ideal of our nation... before spreading lies you should check yourself
@@MrMisterCritique does present-day France live up that ideal?
If he had not betrayed to the Germans? Maybe not quite godlike worship but he would certainly be viewed as more important than Charles de Gaulle is in real life.
They would've added another part to the Holy Trinity
You just answered the question I didn't know I wanted the answer of, my good man
Why's that?
It would have been cool to talk about the consequences in Metropolitan France, the different occupation and destructions. The Germans "spared" France in our timeline, but without surrendering, they might have destroyed much more, similar to what happened to Poland.
Petain could declare Paris an open city and move to Bordeaux. That will probably spare it from destruction.
@@C.viscione At least until the Allied comeback, then you'll have to hope it goes like in OTL with the chief of the german garnison refusing to destroy the monuments of Paris.
hitler ordered Paris to be burned to the ground in our timeline but the general (or whatever rank he was) found paris too beautiful and didn’t do it. In this timeline Paris would have been rubble by the end of the war
@@uncanadien3272 No great loss tbh.
@@uncanadien3272 Eh it was less of a 'didn't do it' and more of a 'by the point hitler ordered this the population of paris was grabbing weapons and fighting streetfights with german patrols while most of the german garrison had already left' kind of thing. While yes he could have destroyed some of the more important monuments, he wouldn't have been able to do much else before his troops either got taken out by the parisians or the combined French-American force moving to relieve Paris.
"What if France didn't surrender?"
History memers: *_IMPOSSIBLE_*
Historians: France in history was always hard to beat, very unlikely to surrender, and even beaten, would rise again and still be dangerous.
@@kamilkrupinski1793 kids on reddit:unfortunately for you history will not see it that way
@@kamilkrupinski1793 History shows the French march backwards
@@josephawilkinson and in cars they have 6 reverse gears
@@DiaGall 😂
Well what I'm getting out of this is that Algeria would most likely be in Eurovision seeing as they would have a much closer bond to Europe in this timeline
They might even get annexed by France, who knows? 🤷🏻♂️
Considering what I know about France, most Algerians would be seen as (and consider themselves) French by the present day in this timeline.
@@rupertgarcia Algeria was already "annexed" it was a department.
@Lyes kara actually, algeria hasnt really gone very far since france let them go on their own way
@Lyes kara actually, i had not realised what you were saying. Are you telling me that a little shithole appearing in the XVIth century has more history than one if not the oldest country in europe.
And don't blame the bad french colonisators for the non-progress that has happened since algeria was free. Try to look at the terrorist and corrupted government before accusing everyone of neo-colonialism.
Sad to think that petain could have been such a hero that the world would have saluted him and all of France would remember him after his death for the hero he was but instead he just got remembered as a traitor
@Cpl. Rook Not just (some) people, also the right wing ruling elites that Petain represented. France between the wars was massively divided between left and right and the right preferred to see the Nazis take France than the left. The right often characterises itself as nationalist but in truth, it favours it's own class interests over everything else. Modern globalism would be another example: one big winner in that and it isn't the average joe.
ua-cam.com/video/oKN-NcyV4oI/v-deo.html 7 coalitions to defeat the French hahaha europe humiliated
@Totally not the flash :3 god do you even know history. Germany only wanted news ,slavs and non whites to be exterminated
@Totally not the flash :3 yep. But it was his choice. Maybe he regret it by the wars end. Knowing he never could go back.
@Corporal Rook you haven't read the French hymn lyrics, have you?
Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
*They come right to our arms*
*To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!*
Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!
This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings,
What do they want?
For whom these vile shackles,
These long-prepared irons? (repeat)
Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult!
What emotions that must excite!
It is us that they dare to consider
Returning to ancient slavery!
What! These foreign troops
Would make laws in our home!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat)
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brows would bend beneath the yoke!
Vile despots would become
The masters of our fate!
*Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,*
*The disgrace of all groups,*
*Tremble! Your parricidal plans*
*Will finally pay the price! (repeat)*
*Everyone is a soldier to fight you,*
*If they fall, our young heroes,*
*France will make more,*
*Ready to battle you!*
Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Bear or hold back your blows!
Spare these sad victims,
Regretfully arming against us. (repeat)
But not these bloodthirsty despots,
But not these accomplices of Bouillé,
All of these animals who, without pity,
Tear their mother's breast to pieces!
Sacred love of France,
Lead, support our avenging arms!
Liberty, beloved Liberty,
Fight with your defenders! (repeat)
Under our flags, let victory
Hasten to your manly tones!
May your dying enemies
See your triumph and our glory!
We will enter the pit
When our elders are no longer there;
There, we will find their dust
And the traces of their virtues. (repeat)
Much less eager to outlive them
Than to share their casket,
We will have the sublime pride
Of avenging them or following them!
Winston Churchill gave a pretty good analysis of this question in Chapter X of "Their Finest Hour". He didn't believe the damage to mainland France would have been much greater, and the situation in the Mediterranean would have been much improved for the Allies.
Then, there won’t be France surrendering memes
Yo, I made a similiar alt-history video on this topic, check it out if you want:
ua-cam.com/video/Ap20D1B0swU/v-deo.html
ScholaroftheWorld nope ja bit..
@@scholaroftheworldalternatehist Mate, call me out for hindsight bias, but man I am mad the French barely did anything to stop the Germans and prevent WW2 from reaching the scale it did! They seemed scared out of their wits to handle Germany...
A better world then, these memes are annoying and boring like dad jokes, plus there's ignorant people who thinks the entire history of France was this.
@@suzanneskinner8851 Probably they were , WW1 had a great impact, almost 50% male population was either injured or killed
To summarize, almost all the world is just slightly better.
Itamar Klartag all but Korea
@@Salty-Doggy I mean without South Korea, the Kim regime would probably be less insane... So silver lining here??
@Well yes But actually no well Algeria would probably have a higher standard of living being part of France.
@Well yes But actually no most algerian were ok with france being there(you don't hear about them thanks to the civil war+ the ethnic cleansing of pieds noir)
the native were counted as second class citizen,seeing how france was losing everything they would probably do the same thing they did in this timeline and give full citizenship to all the native in the oversea territories. the whole place would probably stay poorer than the hexagone would still end up more developped than neightbouring country like how actual oversea territories are today
honestly no, since there would be more jews in europe
man he's really been cranking out these vid
keep up the good work
Can you do. If the Paris Commune somehow annexed the newformed French Republic in 1871?
Relevant (to this video) ua-cam.com/video/Ap20D1B0swU/v-deo.html
Heberth Ryan your idea is more lazy than his
@Heberth Ryan That’s even more impossibe than my scenario.
Why is it that every timeline that Germany is on the losing side of WW2 does Germany end up with the Oder-Neisse borders? They don’t make sense for anyone unless you’re Stalin and deliberately trying to move Poland and Germany as far away from you as possible and have no problem with forced expulsions and genocide.
Though this is kind of a minor gripe as well, it seems unlikely Romania and Bulgaria would still surrender to the Soviets, since the Allies could easily capture Adrianopole and move north- and neither wanted to be under Soviet domination.
Hungary might become a Soviet puppet if Operation Margarethe still works out, but with the allies closer and Soviets farther, that seems to be more a toss-up. Bohemia was also mostly unoccupied when the war ended and isn’t the easiest part of Europe to invade, so unless it’s specifically doled out to the Soviets, it would also likely go to the West.
Basically, the Warsaw Pact wouldn’t exist.
Would Morocco and Tunisia remain French? Also, Algeria kind of means there’d be a lot more Arabs in France. So you could end up with the awkward situation where there are more Muslims in France than Catholics. France doesn’t have the demographics to assimilate Algeria without it also going a lot the other way around.
Though, overall, pretty good video. I went into this thinking that nothing would change because the Axis would mop up the weak forces left in Algeria, but then I remembered- this is Benito we’re talking about here.
Simple, if the Soviet Union wins, they will necessarily annex East Poland, and only East Prussia and Danzig is not enough to compensate, at least the whole of Silesia has to be ceded to Poland as reparation, east of Brandenburg and Pomerania may be able to be salved by the Germans, but they will need luck because the demand for unconditional surrender is inevitable.
@@Melnek1 agreed poland surviving as not a soviet puppet would likely see them demand more land in the peace deal
Melnek Is Poland being run by Genocidal Maniacs? If not, it can’t happen- Poland would be half German if they got everything they got from Oder-Neisse- Even just all of Silesia is a dubious notion. Parts of Silesia and East Prussia were half-Polish, though. Poland isn’t really powerful enough to prevent either the Allies or Soviets from doing what they want.
Most likely the Morgenthau Plan would happen - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#/media/File%3AHenry_Morgenthau's_Proposal_for_Post-War_German_Boundaries.png but with half of East Prussia also being German.
Though there’d still be enough Germans in Poland to cause headaches for everyone, including Poland. Not even France has fully yet assimilated Alsace-Lorraine. Maybe you’d see it become Poland’s Catalonia.
You're Spying Morgenthau results in a Germany already split in at least 2. Honestly, Germany losing East Germany has proven to be enough to stop it from being a dominant European power.
Again, I would like to point out that there’s enough Germans in Poland to cause major headaches. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_Poland_immediately_after_World_War_II#/media/File%3ACurzon_line_en.svg
I mean, what do you expect when 1/3rd your nation is composed of a hostile ethnic group? Do the Poles even really want that land?
There were a lot of plans to utterly destroy Germany by forcing it to pay huge reparations and deindustrialization at Yalta, which also didn’t go anywhere- largely because it would have held back the wider European economy and resulted in one of the worst genocides in Europe.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Implementation
And even THIS plan didn’t include the Oder- Neisse borders, btw- even the Western Allies in a genocidal mood didn’t want the Oder-Neisse borders. There is no way that happens unless Stalin was total control of Poland.
Romania and Bulgaria surrendered to the Soviets because they had no choice and could see they were doomed. If the Western Allies are in Greece, they DO have a choice. Romania in particular still had an army that could at least slow down the Soviets before the Allies could move up to there.
The worst that happens may be the Romanians lose all of the land east of the Carpathians and/or is forced to be a neutral buffer state.
i disagree with the Algerian argument because
A: in our world algeria was already seen as a core state similar to Alaska and the United States
B: if Algers served as the capital of france during the bloodiest war of all time it would hold too much emotion to just let go
C: Tuinesa and Morocco are not apart of Algeria
I think the scenario with the most interesting potential is What if Humans never migrated to the Americas? This would leave the Americas untouched for thousands of years until the Vikings and eventually, Columbus. How different would the world be today if humans had contact with organisms that could be considered 'monsterous'?
I think humans were there before the Vikings. "Humans" is not a synonym for "Europeans".... Regards, A European
@@andrewrobinson2565 You misunderstood his comment, I think the second sentence was in reference to the mega-fauna that died off due to early human migration from Siberia (IE the ancestors of Native Americans)
Andrew Robinson that’s literally the alternate scenario dumbass, that people never migrated there and it was completely uninhabited before the Vikings
@@jackstoltz330 "This would leave the Americas untouched for thousands of years until the Vikings......" Pajalsta.. Smart ass.. It's there in plain English.
@@KaiserMattTygore927 I think he missed out the native Americans if you read it again... I only understood what was written...
"The answers may surprise you"
What if Korea wasn’t divided
What if you shut 'cho bitch ass up. 1v1 me COD MW no rematch 3 stock i'll beat 'cho ass so hard brother
@@1.3mviews64 you are brave yet foolish to try go up against the supreme ruler of Best Korea
Then you’d have those sexy South Korean chicks too. Damn the bad luck, am I right?
Kim Il-Sung would have won an all-Korea election in 1948, the US wouldn't allow it
WHY DO I FIND YOU EVERYWHERE
OMG THANK YOU THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I ASKED FOR :D
Haha
Another side effect is that Paris is essentially wiped off the face of the earth, as the Nazis planned for the entire city to be destroyed if the French didn’t surrender, no building, person, historical site, or monument would have been spared, everything from the worst house in the Parisian slums all the way to the Eifel Tower and Arc de Triumph would have been completely destroyed
or do the Filipinos and Americans forces did in the Philippines they declare the city of manila a open city and vacate their forces to the Bataan peninsula.
If they kept fighting before the loss of Paris that would be the case, Warsaw was destroyed because the city was defended by urban fighting, here in this scenario Paris has already fallen and then Petan decides to not surrender.
The Poles may have lost Warsaw (through no fault of their own), but at least they have national pride and dignity for their courageous and non-stop fight throughout the entire war. Buildings can be rebuilt......Regarding the Philipines, Manila suffered similarly to Warsaw not in the opening stages of the War, but at the end.
@Zex idk No of course not but would you prefer to give your country to a enemy invader if that was the price of keeping it unscathed? Also, Hitler made orders to destroy Rome and Paris but these were not carried out by officers in command on the ground. The worst excesses of the Nazi regime were reserved for Central and Eastern Europe. So the likelihod of Paris being destroyed in the manner of Warsaw, was very unlikely.
This would hurt the Axis war effort in the long term.
Question: *WHY* would Petain change his mind and call for continued resistance? What reason would he had?
I think a better PoD would be the one used by the authors of "1940: Et si la France avait continué la guerre?" - namely, a pro-German mistress of French President Paul Reynaud dies in an earlier car crash, and thus Paul Reynaud was more receptive to Charles De Gaulle's proposal to keep fighting. Alternatively, the Germans' Ardennes Forest breakthrough was less successful with the Allies managing to rush enough reinforcements just in time to, if not contain it, slow the Germans down and convince the French that resistance is still possible and desirable.
Of course, maybe those wouldn't solve the morale problem the French people were experiencing, which an inexplicably pro-resistance Petain might be able to resolve.
Paul Reynaud was the president of the council of ministers, technically the prime minister tho. The president of the republic was Albert Lebrun
@ Oh. I see.
@@TheVoiceOfReason93 just a useless detail to be fair. Before 1958, France was a parliamentary republic, thus the president of the republic wasn't the most powerfull charachter of the state
@ No, no, it's still a fair point to make. The implications is just because Reynaud is convinced does not automatically mean France would fight on, not when other powerful members of government disagrees. Still, I reckoned it still might had mattered to some extent. At least it did for those guys who wrote "1940: Et si la France avait continué la guerre?".
1.What if Mongolian Army success to invade Japan.
2. What if Xinhai Revolution failed.
3. What if Axis power won the North African front?
4. What if France won the Seven year war?(Remake)
5. What if Ottoman was the Alley?
6. What if Russia won the Crimean War?
Wasn't the 7 years war a war between Austria and Prussia to begin with?
Davros Darlek No. the seven years war between France and Britain.
@@rokball4892 oh I looked it up, I didn't know GB and France were in a colonial war in (1754) before the Silesian conflict (1756) but either way the Silesian dispute is what really escelated things which is why some see it as the start of the main war (1754-63 isn't 7 years)
@@davrosdarlek7058 The Seven Year War was more of a merge of 2 wars so you are right
@@davrosdarlek7058 Prussia and UK vs Austria, France, the rest of HRR, Russia and Sweden.
However: UK fight mainly NOT in Europe so in Europe: Prussia vs Austra, France, Sweden, the H.R.R, and Russia.
The Brittany pocket plan was also pretty good, the french would withdraw their entire military to Brittany and continue the fight with British support
Out of the 14,000,000 realities Dr.Strange saw, none were one where France didn't surrender.
How about the timeline where the French _actually_ attack Germany as planned during the Saar Offensive? ua-cam.com/video/Ap20D1B0swU/v-deo.html
He wasn't looking close enough...
@@scholaroftheworldalternatehist I think this is a even better timeline than France continuing the fight during WW2. Better avoid the bullet entirely than treat the wound later.
Addon to Algeria staying in France: They probably would either become a Federation with France and the Tauregs or the Tauregs gain full independence as an ally of France.
The tuareg are a small tribe in algeria, most of them actually live in lybia. They only play a small role, not important enough to be considered in this alternate timeline.
Algeria can't stay with france just because france killed algerians and stole their lands and dissimated entire tribes... Touareg are part of algerians they are amazighs just like us and muslims.
@@RioX001 the akhamokh or the touareg leader lives in algeria so Algeria controls touareg
@@yonniiisan keep crying 😭 rageux
@@theveryproudmoroccan2834 crying about what?
My grandaunt was born in Algeria when it was France. She told me once how she never got jobs when she put Algeria as her birthplace on the cv. then she swapped it to France and she got pretty much every job she applied for.
The Pieds-Noirs did encounter some trouble when going back to mainland France after the Algerian independence.
Well it sure wasn't cool, but undestandable. Pretty much all nations people before globalisation would do the same in fact it's natural tribalism. Even now I don't believe a single moment I can find a job easily in Korea or Japan due to my mixed origins. It's uncool, but being more comfortable around people of your own especially in tense political and civil situations is nothing but human nature. Not mention how Algerians were considered rebels and terrorists for a long while after Algerian war of independence. Don't be too angry about it really.
It’s easy to proclaim pacifism when you’re 40 miles behind the artillery.
Yes, thank you, yes. I have been waiting for this for a long time!
“France is one of the most, if not the most successful military in history”
*Julius Caesar: Lmfao, not when I got to em..*
rome didn't look very successful either during the frankish invasion
Arguably France also has a good head start as entitites go..
Julius Caesars military brilliance is greatly overstated
@@firecreeper2249 franks are germans not french lmao
This brings up a good question - how far back does a nation's history go? Because that was Gaul. Most historians seem to think "France" began in the 800s.
It's sorta similar to Egypt. The Egypt today is absolutely nothing like the Egypt of 2000 BCE. But China today is the same culture as China of 2000 BCE. It's weird.
3:29 The relationship between the Moroccan protectorate, the Allies and the Axis is much more complicated than that. Morocco wanted to be loyal to what was at the time the French authority but was also extremely shocked and refused to apply Vichy laws about the Jewish. By then end of 1943 the protectorate was rather loyal to the Free French Forces
Can you do: What if operation unthinkable happened?
Several points seem a little questionable to any French viewer
1 / Pétain calling to continue the war, it seems questionable to me, he was attracted by totalitarianism and surrounded by people who hated the 3rd Republic. (He didn't like it himself). But if he continues the fight the 3rd survives.
2 / France is resuming the fight effectively: this only seems possible to me at the cost of a thorough "cleaning" of the generals to make room for two categories (and preferably those who belong to the 2), namely those who have the willingness to fight no matter what and those who understood modern warfare. If in addition they are good tacticians it is beneficial but the first 2 are vital. But Pétain does not like the proponents of armored combat in general.
3 / De Gaulle is already secretary of state for defense (the post of minister is held by the president of the council, by choice of the latter, which is a mistake but hey) but Pétain and De Gaulle hate each other (among others De Gaulle published a book that he had written and that Pétain had prefaced under his name instead of releasing it under Pétain's).
There you go, but seen from the Anglo Saxon POW these are "details" ...
I completely agree with you. The real rot lay in the right wing politcal classes that took over the government in the dying days of the 1940 campaign, and their fellow travellers in the army. It is a great shame that this right wing figures stained French history for there were brave patriots at every level of French society and France had the talent, technology, industry and the will to resist. The German attack on France in 1940 was a very near run thing, German victory only seems inevitable with hindsight.
Dominique Schlag den Hauffen Petain wasn’t that sympathetic to the Axis, especially compared to other ‘collaborationist’ leaders, like Laval, or Quisling. You’re right about his political views, but there’s a degree of separation between that and liking Nazi Germany. Remember that not everyone who fought on even the side of the western Allies did it because they liked democracy- often, they just hated the other guy more. There were Monarchists and Communists in the Italian and French Resistances.
I’m inclined to Churchill’s assessment of his character, which was that he was a ‘defeatist’ and didn’t have the personality to preserve in the face of overwhelming defeat (I guess like Churchill was.)
@@innosam123 It seems a stretch to say that Churchill ever faced overwhelming defeat. The destruction of the BEF was bad but that still left a wide moat and the Royal Navy in the path of having Britain be thoroughly over-run. By the time Petain was able to take over the French gov't, German units were already well south of Paris. No matter what Petain's attitude was, total defeat was already well underway. At the time, convinced that Britain was also on its way to defeat (not implausible in 1940), Petain might well have been wondering how to repeat de MacMahon's career.
@@bobwinters5572 Well, the British *thought* they were facing overwhelming defeat, since they thought the Luftwaffe was approximately twice the size it actually was.
In which case, yeah, the Germans probably would have won the Battle of Britain and might have been able to destroy large parts of the Royal Navy if they attempted to get into the Channel.
@@montecarlo1651 if France/Britain had let Poland mobilize and remembered how to run an offensive WWII would've ended in 1941 with a complete allied victory against the Germans/Soviets.
An important event you skipped over is the Japanese conquest of Malaya and Singapore. With the war in North Africa over in 1941 the British and French can transfer forces to the Far East and prevent the Japanese taking Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. This whole area turns into a meat grinder of Naval and Air forces with the British and US equal partners until the US builds up their fleet enough to steam roll across the Pacific. Great video.
UK and france were to busy taking all the big islands in the Mediterranean and balkans and southern Italy to worry about malaysia and east indies
One question
What if
China won the first sino Japanese war?
Assuming the Chinese were at least competent and efficient against the Japanese, we will likely see Korea being a subject to China then to Russia. The reason why I would say Korea will become a subject to Russia is because even a miraculous victory for the Qing, they still are quite weak against European technologies used by West, Russia, and even Japan; thus, still would have lost Korea anyway just from a different power. Thus, Japan will be weaker and Russia will be stronger than our timeline.
This is my speculation.
what if the british and french government and commanders were competent and not pacifist and pushed germany while they were fighting poland (also allowing them to mobilize early)
@Corporal Rook butterfly effect, what if this causes the German advance through the Ardennes to fail?
There was a plan made by the french of creating a alliance called the little entente with Poland Czekoslovkia Romania and Yugoslavia wich was more created to contain a new Austria-Hungary but would work against germany since after the anshluss exept Romania all had a border with Germany and exept France would be all contected by land and could have become a european version of the chinese united front
What if Marc Antony beat Augustus? Augustus himself considered Antony to be a superior general, so I think it's a realistic possibility
His reputation was already tarnished by the gibes of Alexandra, the Roman people and nobility would never accept him. He would not reunite the empire and Agrippa would become the first Roman Emperor
@@AndrewSmith-ck2kl They might accept him if he came back a winner. And I've read a suggestion that if Anthony had won his previous war with Parthia he might not have had to depend on Cleopatra so much, and been less politically vulnerable.
Today would be the tenth of Antonius, 2773 AUC
Could you do what if the Imperial Federation was formed? It was a plan to convert the British empire into a global federal superstate.
A point not addressed here is when the war with the USSR would begin, and which side would start it. Even Hitler would not have attacked to the east while still embroiled in a land war in the west.
Also, driven back to the home islands in 1944, Japan would have time to reflect (and starve), and might offer terms which would be acceptable to the Allies.
Germany didn't really adopt Blitzkrieg. It was more like they combined their existing tactics with motor vehicles. In fact, they didn't even use the word Blitzkrieg.
You made a small mistake: Germany would have kept it's Eastern territories. This was destroyed by the Soviets who previously agreed on not punishing Germany, but later on betrayed the US and Britain
You mean the parts that went to Poland?
It is possible, if the Soviets didn't get to Berlin, but the Allies did first. Then it would be up to them to decide Germany's fate.
If the Warsaw Uprising succeeded, Poland could be an independent state, but I don't know if it would stop the Red Army. It might still be let through by the Poles, who would probably prefer to keep their territories and not worry about launching an invasion themselves.
And if Poland was independent and lost their Eastern territories anyway, they would demand them back or to get German lands in return. Because being squashed into 1/3 of your former size with almost the same population would not be fun. That was the reason Soviets gave them eastern part of Germany in the first place, even while controlling the country, to get on their good side and shut them up, because Poles had been really damn troublesome to Russia before.
@@ooi97 In the conferences between the Allies about the post war situation everybody agreed until 1945 to let Germany keep it's eastern territories until the last second. With the war ending much earlier, because of the western allies conquering all of Germany and probably the western parts of Poland the American plan of a post war Germany would have succeeded. And Poland didn't loose 1/3 of their territory, but instead they lost regions that weren't ethnically majority Polish (Belarus, Northernmost Ukraine). You can argue about the last one.
Ok nazi.
@@ooi97 Poland would not let the Red Army in. The Warsaw Uprising was specifically to get independence before the Read Army got there.
This video is a great one, as is this channel!!! It's a massive inspiration to my own channel, as now I am covering a range of topics about what if Britain and France actually invaded Germany in 1936, March 1939 or in September 1939, as well as many more about Versailles, World War I and the Cold War.
i'm almost sure with a fast victory against the germans, the allies in Europe would turn on the soviets. as i don't actually think the soviet would leave poland alone.
I answer late, but I have a different view regarding Poland
I don't think the Soviets would try to subdue Poland into the Eastern Bloc. There's a smarter way for USSR to ensure Poland won't be joining NATO.
Friendship treaties, or in Finland, YYA-Treaty, or Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.
They did this with Finland and it pretty much worked in both sides' favor. I could definetly see Stalin pulling off something similar with Poland. It ensures a neutral buffer zone between the Soviets and the West.
It's a crime that Whatifalthist doesn't have 100k subscribers
his videos are interesting, but alot of it is speculation and his voice is annoying, either way the videos are well thought out.
France was bled white by its victory in ww1.
1.4 millions dead and 4.2 millions wounded for 40 millions inhabitants.
The casualtied are extremely high, illustrating the huge French war effort. With low demographic evolution, France could not afford to repeat the same sacrifice in ww2.
In the 6 weeks of fighting in the battle of France, the French casualties rate was on par with the rate of the battle of Verdun...
So in the end, surrendering was an intelligent but not honorable choice
I don't know how France could have continued the war w/o surrendering in 1940 (haven't seen the video yet), but there's one overlooked effect of France's surrender that hasn't been mentioned, which is that the French language would still be a widely used international lingua franca instead of being replaced by English. At the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson ASKED that the Treaty of Versailles be translated into English. At the end of World War II, the Allies sent Germany orders to surrender in two languages----English and Russian----and the United States never again had to ASK that international treaties be written in English.
Finally thank you whatifalltist
The French had no modern divisions left, just like the British, but didn't had a channel to protect them. Surrender or not, the result would have been exactly the same.
This is so fascinating I just don’t want it to be over. I could watch all day and never get tired.
Its crazy to think that Norway lasted longer in ww2 then France and the Benelux combined.
Oh! I'm so glad you posted this one. I've wondered what would have happened ever since I read Churchill's wwii account! Thanks!
Some of my own opinion for discussion:
- The Atomic bomb was initially developed as a weapon to use against Germany, and so their early defeat would probably have delayed the bomb's existence (or the bomb may never have existed, at all), making an invasion of Japan more likely.
- The diversion of troops from the Eastern front to fight the Allies in Greece and Sicily would certainly hinder the German's advance into the Soviet Union. So I think the Soviet will have more success in this timeline, rather than just having Eastern Poland, Bulgaria and Romania.
- The Asian front could have more differences than with our timeline. The Soviet participation in the front would be extended to over a year, or even more, rather than just a month in our timeline. This means the Japanese would likely be pushed out of China by the Soviet, making the CCP much stronger than in our timeline. A Soviet invasion of Japan might even be possible.
- Algeria staying with France because of the French government relocating there would be a bit unreasonable. Algerian nationalism and Arab nationalism would destabilise the region if France held on to power, and the dire economic situation France found herself in after the harsh German occupation will make it difficult to put down any rebellions or independence movement.
Overall I think this is a good alternative history scenario with a lot of interesting events. Keep up the good work man.
Hmm, when I saw this I didn't at first realize that this could be so influential, and now if a ww3 doesn't happen in this world it doesn't look like a bad place to be in, less deaths from the holocaust, less soviet influence and maybe the soviet union falls after Stalin's death, quite a nice scenario to me
Two main issues.
1) Number of battles won is irrelevant, only wars won. e.g. Vietnam - US battles won: All War won: 0
2) Germany would not have been able to invade Russia if France had not surrendered, neither would Japan have been likely to declare war on the US or British territories without the control of French territories being granted to the Japanese by Germany.
@whatifalthist My thoughts on this timeline:
1) Probably no Barbarossa
2) Much more brutal occupation and resistance within France herself.
Great videos as always, but surely Hitler wouldn't have invaded Russia with such a clear 2nd Front? In your timeline, France would be much more of a thorn in the German's side, and so a lot more resources would have to go into maintaining control (also you didn't focus enough on how the French Resistance would be on steroids if Petain had been in charge, making the German occupation more costly and brutal for both the Germans and the French and how this would have soured Franco-German relations long after the war).
Hitler invaded the soviets because the soviets themselves planned to invade Germany two months after Barbarossa. Do your research.
@@theveryproudmoroccan2834 No worries bro, I mention this in some of my own Alternative History videos, check them out and let me know your thoughts. Whatifalthist is a major influence for me, so if you love his content you'll love mine too!
Been subscribed since u been 15k ur channel so lit ur literally undefeated never stop posting
Germany would've destroyed Paris like they destroyed warsaw
Love your videos! Keep the great work up!
Here is one I haven't seen proposed on any of the alternate history channels. What if Germany ignored France in World War II, and focused to the east the entire time?
The germans invaded France because they were afraid of a WW1-like 2 front war, it was the nightmare of their generals.
You are truly cultured in the way of memes
Can you please do a video on “What if the US never invaded Iraq”?
Or another good one “what if there was no Balfour Declaration”
5 minutes in and this is already riddled with errors. The French NEVER signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany. They signed an ARMISTICE. Over 1.2 million French POWs remained in Germany until their liberation in 1945.
Hey, you should make what if France won wwii. Fix the problems that the french had to cause them to surrender. Btw great video. You've had an amazing upload streak recently haha. Also when is the next stream?
Great Video Rudyard
You should try a whatifaltfuture where you answer the fascinating question, what would happen if Greece and turkey went to war in 2020. Drawing in countries like Egypt, Israel, Armenia , Cyprus and Azerbaijan
What if Cuba became the 51 US state.
Would a southern French goverment base its goverment on a city like toulouse rather than borduex since it is a more significant important and more centrally located city
Toulouse is a big city, but it lies in the middle of nowhere. It has a central position in one of the least developed part of France.
It makes more sense to take Bordeaux, or maybe Marseilles in the south.
Not much wine in Toulouse, Bordeaux however, was another matter.
I don't know if Petain would actually do that, since he himself was a sympathizer to fascist ideals (he was the one who proposed and remained in Vichy France after all), I would say it's more likely of him either make fleeing after the fall of Paris, have him die of some disease, or have someone in the military accuse him of treason against the state for recommending surrender and then have De Gaulle do the fervent speech of no surrender and keep fighting till victory
Generally in a France didn't surrendered scenario Pétain dies of a stroke, in one he was attested for treason then dies of the stroke.
@@whilryke Sounds good for me
I thought at first it would be about what if France invaded Germany in 1939 when they were focused on Poland
It’d be the equivalent of an ant defying a boot.
What if Poland had amuch more solid defence in WW2? ~ earlier mobilisation, quicker modernisation (I read somewhere they were supposed to be modernised by 1945, oh the irony), knowing they were on their own from the start and rather than holding as much ground as they could (by guarding the border), they withdraw to natural defences which make the blitzkrieg less useful. The ineffective polish deence in 1939 delayed the Nazi invasion of France by 6 months alone so a really good defence could delay it by much longer which might be enougth time to get the allied mindset changed or something, at least regarding the Ardennes.
with a stronger poland, they would have resisted longer, which means against the incompetent soviets that their eastern border wouldnt break instantly. the war against the nazis cannot be won and would not have been delayed much. there are no natural defences in the western part of poland, it is the bane of polish existance that there is basically just flat plains all the way to the swamp lands in modern day belorussia, ideal ground for the blitzkrieg style warfare that the german army was built for.
This might lead to prevent the alliance of soviets with the brits and french though, with the nazis stopping at the curzon line and secretly supporting the rest of poland in their efforts to defend against the soviets. with direct support lines coming in, this might lead to a year or two of resistance, much like the war in finland showed the complete inability of the soviet army for offensive war. The news in the west would now have to report much more on the soviet invasion, thus sparking outrage at possible soviet support.
i doubt the war in the west would have gone much differently, but with no alliance with the soviets possible, the brits might just give in and sign a peace deal on the right terms. France would become a fascist state, ceding alsace-lorraine back to the germans, a breakup of belgium into german, dutch and french parts would be negotiated. Norway and denmark would reunite into a germanic northern union, which might take up sweden aswell as finland. Poland would get back a lot of its nazi occupied land, basically reverting borders back to pre-ww1 status but with the region around warsaw, which was part of russia before ww1, now being the polish heartland to fight the soviets in a proxy war with nazi german help. Remember that for the nazis, the soviets were the real threat. They would have negotiated relatively fair terms with great britain to close the western front and prevent a possible american intervention.
this peace would have also prevented the holocaust to some degree, with the original nazi plan to expell all the jews being implemented, either to the usa, the middle east or to madagascar.
@You're Spying im sorry, i find it much more plausible to envision a poland that mobilizes against advice of its western allies than a france that is willing to leave the maginot line.
The whole polish defense was based on ww1 strategies - dig in and wait until the brits and french take on the nazis and send aid. That was the idea on the western front aswell, hence the whole maginot line debacle. The mechanized blitzkrieg was not anticipated, hence why poland lost as quickly as it did. An early mobilization could have helped, but would have only slowed down the germans. Romania can be ignored, just as it could be ignored as an axis power later on. Im not sure how you think they are a significant factor. Poland was outnumbered, outgunned and overwhelmed on two fronts. There is no Germany being pushed into a defensive position on the eastern front, except poland invents the nuke in August 1939 and drops it on Königsberg.
I love how you can make videos out of subjects that won't changed the world that much and are very short but are still very interesting to watch nonetheless. Alternatehistoryhub made a video on this very same topic two years ago and it was just seven minutes talking about the Paris being burned to the ground because the French continue Urban fighting in Paris and then surrender, and that was just it, He didn't even considered the effects of the French military and leadership fleeing to north Africa and all of the French empire being in the hands of the allies.
Ah yes papa kim now controls Korea. Truly the best timeline
Redo the cold war video soon maybe?
That would be nice. A more in depth version
Ooooh one of my favourites
Paris would be destroyed and all of France would have been decimated. no Vichy France and all of it would have been considered hostile leading to Reinhard Heydrich to be deployed into France earlier avoiding his death by Czech resistance. leading to a massive blow to resistance and possibly making D-day harder.
Sounds like your audio levels surrendered.
at 0:54 I seriously doubt only 44% of all the wars they participated in were victories for France. Many of which on that list were either inconclusive or there was a strong case why the French did well. The Franco-Dutch war, France gained territory in the Treaties of Nigmegen. The Nine Years War was more of a compromise. France retained some territory and gave up some to the Allies, despite its armies being generally victorious on the battlefield. The Spanish War of Succession is complicated. A Bourbon was placed on the Spanish throne, but no universal monarchy. Plus, France ceded territory to the British in the Americas.
France was beaten in 1940, but the Free French continued fighting. Officially, France rejoined the war in 1944, and had over 1 million men fighting on the western front.
Yes most of the ones he put as a defeat were victories or inconclusive also he only did wars from the 1600s onwards and missed out big ones like the second opium war, Greek war of independence etc and included wars that were clearly separate wars as part of the same war.
As an Algerian from our point of view thanks to our guerilla Warfare and cutting of supply lines plus the immense cooapuration of the natives that came from exposing the raping and pillaging of the villagers by the frenshs has resulted in severe losses to the French both in the public opinion like you said and the military too for example the frenshs resulted in isolating parts of the states in order to pacify it directly with brute force yet they didn't realize that by doing this they exhausted their inland forces and given time to other states to mobilize it's resources I say this from the teaching in schools and from my grandfather stories as he was one of the first to join the independence Movement as our region was the heart of most of it and he was one of the first people to fire the bullets of the start of the revolution in our region
Algeria didn’t gain independence due to military action, the ALN was soundly defeated by 1961, you gained independence due the french public, De Gualle wanting to de-colonise and UN pressure on France.
I disagree.
With the Germans not fighting on 3 fronts in 1941 they are able to keep a tighter hold on Italy and Greece while as you say not occupying Crete. This combined with the materials and manpower lost fighting Mussolini’s battles allow Germany to have a heavier focus on the Soviets, in addition the fact that the disastrous parachute landings of Crete never happen, we get to see great numbers of mobile infantry on the eastern front making a victory over the USSR much more feasible. Following this, even with US manufacturing and economics I couldn’t see continental Europe being liberated.
Whether France surrendered or was conquered I think the outcome would have been the same. France lacked the air power to challenge the Luftwaffe so it probably makes no difference.
A more interested scenario: What if the French fleet at Mets El Kebir had joined the Royal Navy and the French troops rescued at Dunkirk had remained in Britain or joined de Gaulle?
I liked your former tone and pace
Fantastic video. Thanks!
Very cool, I really like this timeline. However, I do have a suggestion. I think you should list your sources for these videos in the description of your video to strengthen your credibility and the ability of people who agree with you to defend their opinions in debate.
This is far more accurate than the alternate history hub one
You should continue this
Basically: What if Petain was De Gaulle? (Or: What if Petain was French Churchill)
Basically this timeline is where Petain is not a sellout
I think you made a couple of mistakes
Romania and bulgaria would have definetly joined the allies if they got the chance. King micheal would have loved to join the allies and the tsar in bulgaria would also join. I think operation magarethe would be more sucessful with the larger allies foodhold in europe. Sicilia being invaded seems inpausible but the german garrison could move to greece with a reason in this timeline so why not. The warsaw uprising would suceed because the soviets would be in way more of a rush because the allies would actually be able to steal land that was promised to the soviets. The big problem is that the soviets would surely get a part of east germany and to have a land connection would have roads through poland where there might be a berlin airlift situation on a larger scale where poland would join the allies but let the soviets through
Good afternoon sir, a bunch of my friends and I are having a debate where I proposed how severely different world history would be if horses were to randomly explode (explosions can not be predicted by any human algorithm and explosions are equivalent to one stick of dynamite) I was wondering if you’d be interested in exploring this and making it into a video
Whatifalthist can you do a video on What if the Scramble for Africa never happened
What if An Lushan's rebellion never happen? How will this affect the Tang dynasty and the rest of the world?
To be fair, France's surrender memes and generally bad military reputation isn't limited to just WW2. Even though they did indeed fight heroically in WW1 they still had the upper hand on paper yet managed to botch that war so incredibly that Europe needed the US to bail it out by joining towards the end of WW1 and finally be able to put the Central Powers(not Axis, this is WW1 not WW2) back. Similarly France lost a '1 on 1' war to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war, which again on paper France had no business losing as badly as they did. Heck if we're going back far enough, a significantly inferior English army managed to conquer nearly the entirety of France during the awfully named Hundred-Year War.
France's positive military reputation mostly comes from its golden age under Louis the XIVth or perhaps slightly earlier during the 30 year war itself. Other than the 30 year war though, and it's technical victory over the English after losing nearly their entire country, the French military has only been successful against inferior opponents not really against equal ones. Thus my main issue with your alternative analysis, in that you've given France way too much credit. After all there was a reason why they surrendered so quickly in WW2 and why Petain was so quick to side with the Nazis. Even if he himself suddenly didn't I strongly disagree with your notion that his celebrity status would have carried the day. The French people were still extremely weary of the war, regardless of Petain himself, and his example to either direction would have only gone so far. Ultimately I don't think France not surrendering as early as it did would have made much of a difference as they would have still surrendered a month or 2 later, I strongly disagree they would have continued to fight from Algeria or elsewhere.
Agree
Next whatifalthist should be about what IF salvador alende was never elected
What if France had attacked Germany when Germany attacked Poland?
What if Justinian Plague never happened ?
2:10. Interestingly enough, those soldiers on the left are actually Danish, from a country that surrendered 6 hours into its invasion by Nazi Germany.
Sadly for the Arts, french not surendering means Paris is obliterated
When you wargame the Fall of France, its almost impossible to get the historic result. Even if the French player has NO PLAYER, they just stand there, Germany might well fail against the static French and mobile British. So a scenario where France actually defends its border would be a lot more interesting.
Perfect timing
I literally just arrived in France yesterday
In the alternative scenario of the French continuing to fight, the French could have made a stand in Normandy where the Germans would have to contend with the infamous hedgerows that gave the Allies so much trouble in 1944. The British would also have likely fortified the Channel Islands to back up the French,, and they would have remained in Allied hands.
Giving up so early...
Almost same losses in 5 weeks , than during the first 12 weeks of "Operation Overlord" (D-Day, battle of Normandy...) , common make your own research and you'll see it's a fact.
If France had continue war after the ceisure of Paris ?
In fact they did, for 10 days, Paris is ceised the 14, armistice is signed the 25 of June, the lack of air support and armored divisions made combat almost impossible in that new type of war.
Truth is that if France had continue war, AKA say fuck off to any Hitler negociation proposal, the Germans were free to bomb every cities, by the end of June 1940 France have 0 airplane in his sky, there's no military operations possible here, not in WW2.
I have a question you didn't ask in this vidéo.
What if the British never decided to retreat without telling their intentions to the French ?
Admiral Weygand had plans to break the Dunkirk pocket, using the british tanks and air support, it was still possible at this time because the German forces were too extended, when he asked to see the british General Gort, he found out about the evacuation plan... wich was already occuring, the French government was not even aware, Dunkirk was taken the 4th of June.
Not very correct.
I'm not saying the British caused defeat, it would be dishonest, but they are always forgotten when it comes to find out what went wrong.
Yeah also this video also seems to ignore the situation of Reich if the french ignores to surrender. Also considering how French had the most centralized capital among other nations loss of the capital basically meant the loss if war anyway they didnt surrendered for nothing. They would get mopped down by Nazis even worse which would mean saying goodbye to modern France we have today. Also probably east front ideas might have to be thrown out of window if there is a much stronger allies which I highly doubt they would have been in a fairly nice position but still
Denmark: *nervous sweating*
Good job on this!