Second Front: The Allied Invasion of France, 1942–43 (An Alternative History)

by Alexander M. Grace

  All that would change now. Patton had arrived shortly after dawn and had visited the command posts of the 1st and 34th Infantry and the 1st Armored Divisions and even some of the regimental commands. He had been encouraged by the way the division commanders, notably Ernest Harmon, who had replaced General Orlando Ward as commander of the 1st Armored, had taken control of the situation and were organizing their troops to return to the fight. Together they had worked out a battle plan, not to set up a defensive line, but to go on the offensive. Patton knew, partly from the super-secret intercepts of German coded communications, the ULTRA program, that, if the Allies were still vulnerable in their new lodgment, the Germans were also fighting with a scratch force thrown together without prior planning or staff organization. Now was the time to strike a blow, which would be all the more unexpected after the sharp reverse the Americans had just suffered. If they could tum the tide, it would immediately restore the shaky morale of both the Americans and the French.

  It was also important to retake as much ground as possible. Patton had studied every scrap of information he could obtain about German tactics in the desert and in Russia, and he knew that, while the Germans were hard to stop on the offensive, they were even more tenacious on the defensive, and the ground they were contesting now was excellent defensive terrain which would cost the Allies dearly to capture once the Germans had had a chance to settle in.

  For the moment, the Canadians in the west had rebuffed half-hearted attacks by a German infantry corps on their front and were even advancing slowly. The American 36th Division and the French were actually pushing the Italians back quickly along the coast to the east, with naval gunfire blasting anything within twenty miles of the coast whenever the Italians seemed about to make a stand; and Nice was expected to fall quickly, unless the Germans arrived to shore up the defense. And the last Italian troops on Corsica had thrown down their arms in the face of the combined offensive of the American 3rd Division and Koenig’s Free French corps that swung around both sides of the island. Furthermore, Patton had been advised that the 29th Infantry Division, the last major American unit in England, was being shipped to Marseille, as were two British divisions that had been earmarked for North Africa and would no longer be needed there in light of the Axis evacuation. He could also expect that Montgomery’s Eighth Army would soon be available for operations on the continent, although he doubted it would be in his area of responsibility, something of a relief in view of Monty’s well-earned reputation as a prima donna who would certainly not take orders from an American graciously. In any event, he had plenty of forces on hand to deal with the German thrust down the Rhone Valley. It only remained for him to motivate the men and their officers and drive them forward. This was the moment he had been born for, Patton was certain, and he would not let it pass.

  Patton was now standing up on the seat of his jeep, returning the salutes of the troops of the 1st Armored Division as they rolled along the highway past him. The barrel chested General Harmon was standing next to him, waving them on and shouting words of encouragement as well. Like Patton, Harmon liked to wear a pair of ivory-handled revolvers, although he used shoulder holsters, and some had come to the conclusion that he was a martinet, merely aping Patton’s style. But Harmon was one of the most experienced armored officers in the army and had a positive love of battle that had soon dispelled any doubts his troops had had about him, as much as they had regretted the loss of the popular General Ward who was saddled with at least part of the blame for the defeat at Valence.

  “The 2nd Armored is coming along right behind us,” Harmon shouted over the roar of the tank engines and the high-pitched squeak of the bogie wheels. “By tomorrow we’ll be in position. That’ll give the Germans something to think about.” “If the weather would just clear up for a couple of days,” Patton said, “there isn’t a doubt in my mind that we could drive the Germans all the way back to Lyon and beyond.” As he watched the passing column, he spotted an open jeep hauling a 37mm anti-tank gun and crowded with GIs. He waved it over and pointed a finger at a rather elderly major sitting in the front passenger seat, a gold cross pinned to his collar.

  “Chaplain,” Patton bellowed, “I’m giving you a direct order that I want you to pass along to all of the other clergy with II Corps.”

  “Yes, sir,” the priest replied.

  “I want you to devote your prayers for the next twenty-four hours to obtaining clear skies for our aircraft.”

  The priest sputtered. “But, General, I don’t know if it’s right to ask the Lord to take sides like that.”

  Patton roared at him: “You know what kind of animals we’re up against, dammit! If God isn’t on our side now, what good is He? I’m holding you directly responsible for the weather, now get on with it!”

  The flustered priest simply saluted, and the jeep wheeled back into the column, gears grinding.

  Harmon chuckled and shook his head. “So now God’s been drafted.” He paused for a moment and then went on. “I guess you missed the chaos down at Marseille, but I can only imagine what an amphibious landing would have looked like against real resistance. The British were right that we couldn’t have done it across the Channel where the Germans were waiting for us.”

  “That was the whole point of this exercise. The idea of fighting our way ashore and then trying to supply an army across the beaches until we could capture a port and get it working just turned my stomach. That’s why we’ve got to make this work. We’ll never have another chance like this. It’s like a prizefight. The Russians have given the Nazis a body blow at Stalingrad and they’re staggering. Now is not the time to give them six or eight months or a year to reorganize and mobilize their resources, just giving them little jabs the way Churchill wanted to do.”

  “Hence the code name HAYMAKER for this operation.”

  “Exactly. In one fell swoop we’ve got all of North Africa and Corsica already, and the French are fighting on our side, even if they haven’t gotten their own house in order yet, and the battle is right here on the continent. The Germans are being pulled both ways, and something’s got to give. They’ve had it all their own way so far, picking where and when to fight. Now we’re taking the war to them, and we’ll see how they like it.

  Patton whacked Harmon on the shoulder stoutly and hopped down from the jeep. He strode over to where a truck had skidded off the road and was spinning its wheels in a patch of ice on the verge. He shouted instructions to the terrified young driver who finally got the truck into low gear and rocked it out of the hole and back onto the road. Patton waved and climbed into his own jeep and sped off up the highway.

  0800 HOURS, 29 DECEMBER 1942

  AJACCIO, CORSICA

  The tall, angular figure of General Charles de Gaulle appeared at the open bridge of the corvette Savorgnan de Brazza as it pulled up to the quay amid the frantic cheers of a mob of civilians waving tricolor flags and soldiers bearing the Cross of Lorraine patch on their shoulders. The small port was already crowded with French naval vessels, crews lining their railings at attention while the foghorns of the fishing vessels and tugs made up a raucous chorus. De Gaulle was wearing a simple army officer’s uniform, covered with a slicker against the chill mist that hung in the air, and his kepi with the two stars of a general de division.

  The jetty was kept clear of the crowd by a cordon of marines, and a reception line was formed of senior officers waiting to greet him as he strode down the gangway. There was General Koenig, commander of the Free French Corps, and General Jacques Leclerc of the 2nd Free French Division, both men having adopted false names to protect their families remaining in occupied France. There was also General Alphonse Juin, who had been commander of the Vichy French armed forces in North Africa and would lead the rearmed and reorganized divisions that were currently undergoing training for commitment to the front in France itself, General Emile Bethouart, commander of the Casablanca Division, and Admiral de Laborde, commander of the French fleet, whose flagship Str
asbourg rode at anchor in the harbor. Lastly there were Jean Moulin, de Gaulle’s envoy to the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) as the resistance was known, and Gilbert Renault, better known as Colonel Remy, head of the Gaullist intelligence network in France, the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA), along with a host of lesser officers and local government officials. Off to one side, part of the crowd but not quite among it, was a small knot of older men in dark suits, surrounded by fit young men in short leather jackets with noticeable bulges under one armpit: the capos of the Union Corse, smiling benignly.

  De Gaulle paused for a moment when he stepped off the gangway, then knelt and kissed the ground to the thunderous applause of the crowd. It had been over two years since de Gaulle had set foot on French soil, and he had very nearly not made it this time. Ostensibly as a matter of security, de Gaulle in his shabby little offices in London, had been kept in the dark about the plans for the invasion until the last possible moment, long after the negotiations between the Americans and the Vichy regime had been concluded, and his objections to dealing with the collaborationists had been met with cold indifference. The inclusion of the Free French forces in the assault on Corsica had been meant as a sop to his pride, but one he had had to accept. But now, in the nearly two weeks since the first Allied landings, the Allied Supreme Command had found one pretext after another to postpone his travel to the liberated zone. Finally, de Gaulle had had to take matters into his own hands, virtually escaping from England aboard one of the few ships in the Free French “navy” without the approval of any Allied authority, which was why he chose to arrive here, at the one place he would be assured of a warm welcome, the territory recaptured by his own troops.

  Beyond the importance of the men who were present at this homecoming, it was significant that others were not there. General Lucian Truscott, commander of the American 3rd Infantry Division, which had assisted in the defeat of the demoralized Italian garrison of Corsica, was at his new headquarters at Bastia, on the far side of the island, totally ignorant of de Gaulle’s arrival. More importantly, General Henri Honore Giraud, recently named commander of the French Armed Forces, and a longtime opponent of de Gaulle, was also absent.

  When de Gaulle had composed himself, he stalked over to the reception committee with his stiff stride and exchanged salutes and handshakes with the assembled men. It was clear from the first that he was being treated with more deference than his two stars would have required, since he was junior to virtually every other officer present. They all stood to attention for the playing of the “Marseillaise” by a tinny municipal band that was soon drowned out by the emotional singing of thousands of spectators. They then marched in a line abreast up the Place Marshal Foch to the city prefecture where they would hold their meeting.

  Once the senior officers had arranged themselves around a long baize-covered conference table, General Juin began.

  “The assassination of Admiral Darlan and the tragic death of Marshal Petain have considerably altered the political skyline, as it were, of France.”

  Remy cast a knowing glance at de Gaulle, who sat next to him, noting the distinction between the description of the two deaths. It was clear that there had been no love lost between Juin and Darlan.

  “Consequently,” Juin went on, “we were hoping,” and he nodded to de Laborde and Bethouart in turn, “that we could come to a workable political arrangement with a minimum of fuss. Dissension in our ranks now will only serve to benefit the Nazis on the one hand and the Communists on the other. Those of us interested in a reborn, strong France will find it necessary to make certain sacrifices to achieve this goal. We must, for the moment, put behind us all past recriminations and causes for complaint. There will be ample opportunity after France is free once more for the politicians to conduct their investigations and inquests.”

  De Gaulle nodded. Since de Gaulle’s announcement on the BBC in June 1940 of his rejection of the armistice with the Germans and his call to the French military and people to continue to resist the invader, there had been a constant war of words between de Gaulle’s followers and those of Petain, and there had been some truth on both sides. The Free French had criticized the Vichy regime for its subservience to the Nazis, permitting the Reich to rape the country of its resources and its manpower, while the apologists for Petain replied that they were surrendering the minimum cooperation possible in order to avoid even worse demands. The Vichyists, for their part, accused de Gaulle of selling out French interests to the British and Americans in return for their niggardly support in terms of arms, while de Gaulle insisted that he fought bitterly against such encroachments but that he lacked any political or military leverage with which to resist them. The conflict had gone beyond words to actual war when Free French troops had attempted and failed to capture Dakar from the Vichy garrison and then succeeded in taking the French territories in Syria and Lebanon in 1941 with the help of the British. Such charges and blood feuds would undoubtedly provide material for years of controversy, but the men in this room were apparently willing to forego that prospect for the moment.

  “This is possibly the greatest turning point for France,” de Gaulle announced, his large hands gripping one another on the table in front of him, “in this century, even since the Revolution. I am here to place myself and the forces under my command at the disposition of the French people. I would be unfaithful to the memory of the brave men who fought and died at Bir Hakeim if I did anything less.”

  Of course, de Gaulle had originally planned to do a great deal less, insisting to both the Allies and his own colleagues that all French forces be immediately placed under his command as part of the liberation, and that many Vichy officers, those who had not already been in contact with the Gaullists, or who did not instantly declare their loyalty to de Gaulle, be dismissed. When it became clear that the Allies would sooner do without de Gaulle than without the Vichy French Army, and that his followers would follow any French general who would lead them against the Germans, de Gaulle had pivoted, “turning within his own length” as Leclerc would later comment, and was now here to compromise.

  Juin puffed out his chest slightly at the mention of Bir Hakeim, the glorious episode in North Africa where an outnumbered and surrounded Free French garrison had withstood days of bombardment and assault by the Afrika Korps and had then fought its way back to friendly lines. This was something in which all Frenchmen could take pride after the ignominious defeats of the 1940 blitzkrieg.

  “What we have in mind,” Juin explained, “is the creation of a Committee of National Liberation, which will serve as the provisional government of all France until the Germans have been driven out and proper elections can be held, and we would like you to assume the presidency of the CNL.”

  “And will the rest of the Vichy administration go along with this?” Remy asked. “With the death of the Marshal,” Juin went on, “and of Darlan, we have a good opportunity to put aside Petain’s ‘national revolution,’ or at least parts of it. We attempted to arrest Laval, but it seems that when the German commandos came to kidnap Petain, another detachment was able to facilitate the escape of Laval, who is now in Paris, but that only discredited his followers even more. Giraud will be happy to retain his position as commander of the armed forces, but he will have no direct control over troops, and the presidency of the CNL will also be invested with the title of commander-in-chief We will explain this as a means of putting you on an even footing with Churchill and Roosevelt, but it will also give you the authority of dismissing Giraud if he should prove to be a hindrance. My fellow officers and I speak for at least three quarters of the officer corps in all services in making you this offer.”

  De Gaulle thought for a long moment and then nodded and spoke to the room in general. “Our main goal must be the liberation of all national territory, followed by the destruction of Germany. Our armed forces must play as large a role in this struggle as possible if we are to have any voice in the negotiations that will
ultimately bring about an end to the war and construct the peace thereafter. We must mobilize every man and devote every resource to the war effort until that is accomplished.”

  Juin smiled. “We have three divisions of veteran troops receiving new American equipment and undergoing training in North Africa, and two more divisions in metropolitan France. They should all be in the line within one month. At that time we can pull the remaining troops of the Armistice Army back to refit and form new divisions with them, and there are at least 50,000 men we can mobilize in Morocco and Algeria plus a like number from Corsica and the liberated zone on the mainland, which is all we can hope to arm for the time being anyway. By the end of March we should have no less than a dozen divisions at the front, two of them armored.”

  De Gaulle nodded and smiled. “With that kind of force and our navy, we’ll be almost on an even footing with the British and Americans in front line strength on the continent.”

  “And General Marshall has already proven an eager recipient of the intelligence from our networks in the occupied zone,” Colonel Remy added, “in addition to the contributions our FFI has been making in holding back the Germans.”