If the US would have entered WWII on the Anglo-French side in 1939 and sent an AEF to France by May 1940, would this have been enough to save France?

[sillygoose]

The French had radios. But the generals did not use them. According to legend - because of bad feng-shui.

Not nearly as many. Not sure why they didn't use them as much, but maybe like the Soviets later they distrusted them because of how the Luftwaffe would vector in on them and bomb them or because they knew their codes had been broken.

 

[WolfBear]

What happened to that reserve IOTL?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France#Central_front

They lacked air support and got smashed while assembling or carrying out operations. The Germans had largely achieved air dominance by this point. Same reason the Germans counterattacks against the Allies in Normandy failed repeatedly.
In France though there was the added problem of lack of radios and too systematic and linear thinking among the French army, so they simply got overrun when trying to organize and set up lines or counterattacks.

I explicitly stated in my earlier post here that it got sent to the Low Countries and then encircled by Sickle Cut.

Also, why did the French actually bother risking a war when they did not have air superiority at the start of this war?

Also, another, off-topic question: Without the 1940 Fall of France, do you think that India still gets partitioned at independence? What about if there is no WWII at all?

 

[sillygoose]

I explicitly stated in my earlier post here that it got sent to the Low Countries and then encircled by Sickle Cut.

Also, why did the French actually bother risking a war when they did not have air superiority at the start of this war?

Supposedly Roosevelt said no support in a war if they didn't stand up to Germany immediately after the Czechoslovak situation. So that coupled with British public opinion (influenced by the media/Churchill group) forced Chamberlain to risk war. France got dragged along. Plus apparently they thought they could simply hold out until they mobilized industry and the US support that was promised materialized.

Also, another, off-topic question: Without the 1940 Fall of France, do you think that India still gets partitioned at independence? What about if there is no WWII at all?

Seems like yes considering the Muslims and Hindus couldn't work together.

 

[WolfBear]

Supposedly Roosevelt said no support in a war if they didn't stand up to Germany immediately after the Czechoslovak situation. So that coupled with British public opinion (influenced by the media/Churchill group) forced Chamberlain to risk war. France got dragged along. Plus apparently they thought they could simply hold out until they mobilized industry and the US support that was promised materialized.


Seems like yes considering the Muslims and Hindus couldn't work together.

Do you have a link for FDR saying this?

Interesting.

 

[sillygoose]

Do you have a link for FDR saying this?

No link, it was a footnote in an FDR biography. I'm looking through which ones I have to find it. It was originally from a report by Drew Peterson in April 1939 about a March 1939 phone call. It is presented a little differently in the article "Once More Into the Breach" about Britain's guarantee to Poland, with the ambassador Kennedy relaying that message.

 

[WolfBear]

No link, it was a footnote in an FDR biography. I'm looking through which ones I have to find it. It was originally from a report by Drew Peterson in April 1939 about a March 1939 phone call. It is presented a little differently in the article "Once More Into the Breach" about Britain's guarantee to Poland, with the ambassador Kennedy relaying that message.

Interesting message to give to a country when the US itself is unwilling to actually go to war.

Anyway, if there's no Fall of France in 1940 and the Soviet Union still conquers the Baltic countries, if the Baltic countries ever once again eventually become independent, do they get successfully integrated into Western security structures (except likely without US involvement in this TL) or would the West avoid integrating the Baltic countries into its own security structures in such a scenario in order to avoid pissing off Russia?

 

[sillygoose]

Interesting message to give to a country when the US itself is unwilling to actually go to war.

It's complicated. The US leveraged access to their factories and FDR was promising in the event of war the country wouldn't be in at the beginning, but would finish it. Of course he didn't say that it would come at the price of virtual puppetization.

Anyway, if there's no Fall of France in 1940 and the Soviet Union still conquers the Baltic countries, if the Baltic countries ever once again eventually become independent, do they get successfully integrated into Western security structures (except likely without US involvement in this TL) or would the West avoid integrating the Baltic countries into its own security structures in such a scenario in order to avoid pissing off Russia?

Butterflies would be WAY too large to say.

 

[WolfBear]

It's complicated. The US leveraged access to their factories and FDR was promising in the event of war the country wouldn't be in at the beginning, but would finish it. Of course he didn't say that it would come at the price of virtual puppetization.


Butterflies would be WAY too large to say.

You really believe that the US puppetized the Anglo-French during and after WWII?

 

[sillygoose]

You really believe that the US puppetized the Anglo-French during and after WWII?

Anglos mostly yes. Churchill even basically said so privately when forced to bankrupt his country and then sign away the empire and later even most foreign policy and their monetary policy to get US financial and material help. After things are a bit murkier since by the 1960s Britain was able to avoid Vietnam and did invade Egypt against US wishes (but couldn't stay). But largely Britain has been America's lapdog since WW2. France largely has been able to maintain their own foreign policy because De Gaulle realized allying with the West Germans meant not having to eat American shit forever. Britain sort of tried that pre-WW2, but couldn't tolerate Germany's independent foreign policy and US displeasure over Hitler breaking the new order that the US largely set up after WW1.

 

[WolfBear]

@sillygoose BTW, how exactly did FDR plan to get the US involved in WWII without Pearl Harbor?

 

[sillygoose]

@sillygoose BTW, how exactly did FDR plan to get the US involved in WWII without Pearl Harbor?

At the time he was working on engineering a naval incident in the Atlantic, but that wasn't moving the public to war. Antagonizing the Japanese was his last play.

 

[themarcksplan]

Also, why did the French actually bother risking a war when they did not have air superiority at the start of this war?

I have a post on recent reading addressing this somewhat here.

Summary: no later than after Munich, France knew it needed the SU to have a good shot at winning. But its leaders were too weak/irresolute to force Britain to make the necessary concessions to Stalin or to tell the UK to fuck off and ally with SU on their own. When the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was announced, France's foreign minister knew they were fucked and wanted to abandon Poland. Daladier kept sleep-walking into disaster. Perfidious Albion largely knew it had rat-fucked France into a bad war but no biggie - it had a moat and barely risked anything in the Battle of France anyway. It had other options.

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Re the OP, any ATL involving immediate American belligerence implies better war preparation. If it's politically feasible to be in the war it's feasible to prepare for it (witholding judgment on that big "if"). Yes US was averse to military spending but see, eg, the Vinson Acts as a fight with Japan emerged in the late '30's. If we'd perceived a brewing fight in France we'd have raised a meaningful army. Not a huge one because we'd still be largely free-riding on the "surrender monkeys" in France as we did for 'Murica's first ~160 years.

If we send just 10 strong divisions they might have prevented the Sickle Cut. US Air power will reduce LW dominance and US will probably insist that RAF Spitfires not be too afraid of Germans to help France. Even if that doesn't prevent Sickle Cut, Allies could have pretended they landed at Pas de Calais and reinforced it rather than evacuating (much stronger air/sea forces over the Channel with US in). With a strong Dunkirk "beachhead" preventing Fall Rot, France doesn't surrender. Allies keep building strength and Hitler shoots himself by 1942.

American belligerence also makes more likely that the Low Countries cooperate with planning; maybe they can be bribed into belligerence before May 10 as well. USN in the North Sea makes Norway operation more difficult. Italy craps its pants and maybe even joins the Allies.

 

[Floridaman]

If the US would have entered WWII on the Anglo-French side in 1939 and sent an AEF (American Expeditionary Force) to France by May 1940, would this have been enough to save France? I'm aware that a PoD for this would likely need to be in the immediate aftermath of WWI at the very latest, most likely; maybe Woodrow Wilson's 1919 stroke ends up killing him?

Anyway, thoughts on this? And what effects would this have had on the rest of WWII and on the aftermath of this war?

Errr how? The American people very much had no willingness to get involved, and if the us government was seen as war mongering in you would get another bonus army incident and possibly an outright coup.