Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Saint George and The Eagle

One of the difficult things for most modern readers on WW2 to understand is just how big a shock the Fall of France in 1940 was. The prevailing wisdom at the time overrated the French army, which was felt to be the best in Europe. It was conceded that Hitler had an advantage in numbers of divisions, in air strength and in armor such that a French offensive might not be possible. However no one in 39-40 would have regarded France collapsing in six weeks as a possible outcome, much less a likely one.

US policy in this period must be viewed through that lens. FDR did not want the West to lose but never seriously considered before Dunkirk that such a result was even remotely possible. That being the case, FDR felt free to indulge the US popular opposition to any involvement in European Wars. So this ATL requires that the British exaggerate the perceived dangers beyond what elite opinion thought was likely. The British had a very good propaganda machine in the US aided and abetted by elements in the US media and a VERY Anglophile US Protestant East Coast elite.

US intervention was out of the question. FDR lacked the balls after 1938 for such a risk and would probably have failed had he tried. However there was precedent from the Spanish Civil War for “volunteer” units. The US had de facto sent two small brigades to fight for the Reds in Spain. Italy had sent a small army and Germany a mixed air/armor force [the Condor Legion]. Regrettably in 1939 the political supporters of the internationals followed the Moscow line of anti-interventionism in the plutocrats war. However, the British Labor Party and the left wing of the FDR administration had enough contacts among the anti-Stalinist US left to have remobilized the nominal framework of the brigades as an anti-Hitler volunteer force in Canada.

Presume this was done. Say one hundred thousand volunteers of various stripes are mobilized. A special Canadian bond issue pushed by the Anglophile US elites mentioned above funds this. FDR does for London what he did for Chiang and allows serving officers to take a leave of absence to participate [this amounts to giving semipublic US blessing but can be explained away using the precedents of the Spanish Civil War, the French Foreign Legion, the Lafayette Escadrille etc – in fact FDR allowed this to an extent with the Eagle squadrons of the RAF a year later].

As is my pattern in such situations I will allow an old cavalry colonel by the name of George Patton to volunteer for command. George is the sort of romantic fool to jump at the chance of combat. He was also enough of an army politician to see that a three star combat command would be his ticket to high command of US forces should the US enter the war.

So the Loyal Americans get a few brief months training in Ontario and are ferried over to France during the winter of 39-40. Say by the end of April Patton has eighty thousand men in the Pas de Calais grouped into two nominal divisions plus the original two brigades [Lincoln and Washington]. What he would not have had is much equipment. The British would have given ‘real’ units priority on US war material. However it would have been politically impossible to treat these men the way the British treated their own territorial divisions, as essentially labor service units instead of combat formations. So give George’s forces a full complement of motor vehicles – US had more than enough trucks, pickup trucks, autos, motorcycles etc. The units would have had basic WW1 infantry arms in sufficient quantity. AT and AAA would have been out of the question. Ditto modern armor and heavy artillery. However there were more than enough WW1 era 75’s to somewhat compensate and probably enough low grade obsolete French tanks for half a dozen battalions.

When the balloon goes up, Gort would have left Patton’s force behind in the same manner as he left his territorials. Patton would have had a cow. The big battle is starting and he has nothing to do. However I will now give him something he used during 44-45, a nominal armored cavalry regiment that he in fact used as his personal scout force. Most European armies of this period were even more short of auto drivers, auto mechanics, radio operators etc than of the actual equipment. An American force would have lacked for none of the skills. So Patton has groups of 2-3 autos, half a dozen motorcycles and a truck with a field radio out behind the allied lines looking for something heroic to do.

So he would have been aware hour by hour of the disaster on the Meuse. He would also have been effectively ignored by higher command [Gort essentially ignored his territorials in this period in OTL; essentially Gort was focused on his main front and the higher French commanders were ignoring the British altogether]. And George Patton was in OTL noted for acting on his own hook repeatedly. The probable German line of advance would have been obvious by late on the 14^th at the latest. The only advance that made sense was behind the allied armies in Belgium along the north bank of the Somme to the sea at Abbeville.

So as long as Patton left his formal HQ in place to make it seem as if he was doing nothing there would have been nothing to stop what follows. His two least unprepared units were the two brigades, the Lincoln and Washington. Regardless of nominal TO+E they would have in fact been motorized light infantry. So Patton strings them as blocking forces on the main east-west roads in the area of Arras. They mission is to lay a few mines, blow up a few bridges, make the German spearheads deploy, then scoot away. They would have taken heavy losses but could probably have slowed Guderian down by a day so that he reaches Amiens and Abbeville on the 19^th instead of the 18^th. This gives George 96 hours to make a fortified hedgehog. Have him use Weygand’s system from OTL’s June 1940. Wired in battalion strongpoints built around 75’s used in a direct fire AT role. This doesn’t require major forethought. It would have been a normal procedure to any officer who had been through the mill in 1917-18 such at Patton. Strongpoints to force the enemy to deploy, then counterattacks from reserve units. Patton puts his two oversize divisions into the strongpoints with the chewed up brigades and the half dozen tankette battalions as the reserve.

The big French problem dealing with the Germans in 1940 was their extremely slow OODA loop. Patton would have been capable of responses as fast as the Germans – full motorization and very ample supply of radios plus George’s own battlefield abilities. With this George can tie up Guderian in a slugfest for three days [this is what Weygand did to Guderian under worse conditions in June]. By the end of the third day in OTL the Allied command had finally reacted. In OTL they freed up the British territorials and a brigade of British Matilda tanks. In OTL it was too little too late although they did give Rommel quite a scare for a few hours. Here Patton can use the territorials to keep plugging gaps in his own front and the Matildas as a counterattack reserve. Essentially Guderian never reaches the sea and the allied army group [less the Belgians who will still surrender in all probability] comes out of the gap George keeps open. The BEF, French 1^st and French 7^th [the three best allied armies] make it out by May 28^th with all their equipment.

Needless to say the Loyal Americans are mostly chewed to pieces in the process. However George Patton is the savior of France and France probably does not fall in 1940. Instead Weygand with the three extra armies is beaten back to Paris but holds in front of the city. We have a whole different war here.

Of course the Loyal Americans are a most improbable AH. However there were more than ample British units in the exact position, the territorial divisions I keep mentioning. What was missing was a commander. Had the territorials in Gort’s rear been organized as a 2^nd Army there is no reason why a competent commander could not have done what I have George Patton doing here. Of course finding a competent British army level commander would have been even more of a fantasy than my Loyal Americans. The least bad would have been Auchinlek. However the politics of the British army would probably have kept an India army man from getting such a command. There was O’Conner but he was not considered army level. Still if…

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