Marshal Petain & The Orleans Regime Part 3

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Marshal Petain & The Orleans Regime, Part Three

by Raymond Speer

Author says: what if Marshall Petain continued the fight from Orleans? muses Raymond Speer. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).

Baleful Prospectives In East

The Year 1940

On November 5^th,Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat (pictured), defeated Wendell Willkie, Republican, in that year's presidential election.
Roosevelt gathered 27.3 million popular votes and 449 electoral collge votes and Willkiie got 22.3 million popular votes and 82 electoral college votes.

In the American election, both political parties completely supported the British-French Allies. Easy terms of credit were backed by the USA Congress and Allied prospects of munitions purchases from America were advertised as a reason why the long Depression could soon be expected to end.

On that same day (November 5th), the French and their Army of Algeria went east into the Italian province of Libya, sandwiched between the French possession of Algeria and the (de facto) British land of Egypt. General Henri Giraud, one of the heroes of 1940, was now leading the "seven Negro divisions" which Weygand had laughed at to conquer Libya. Giraud's efforts were applauded by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, which had been instructed to attack Libya that month from the east.

On November 8^th,

Hitler's commanders showed him on a maptable that the Italian hold on Libya was precarious and required a least a corps of Germans to solidify their ally's hold on that desert track. "In this month, the best our Italian friends managed to do is manage to lose only a half dozen ships and evade at the last minute an amateurish assault on Greece," said Hitler with sarcasm.

Hitler directed his paladins to the ominous situation in Eastern Europe. While the German forces were still busy fighting two foes in the West,
Stalin and his Communists were steadily training and re-equippng the world's largest armed forces. "At a single shot from his pistol," said Hitler, "a force of more than four millions will rush us in an assault unimagined by the Kaiser's worthies. Petain and Churchill will seal their borders as tight as they can, and hope the barbarity of that onslaught will not reach their women and children."

"There is the weak point: Ploesti, Romania," Hitler said as he gestured to that dot in eastern Romania. "Stalin has a bomber command dedicated to wiping ot our whole installation there in a single sorty. If he messes up that site severely enough, and for only a couple weeks, our airforce is essentally grounded.""

Air Marshall Hermann Goering (pictured) bragged that the air defenses of Ploesti were second to no other in the world. "Those Russian peasents will be wiped from the air,"" said the Reichs Marshall.

"I can only hope," said Hitler. "More likely, some one like General Milch will show up the day after the oilfield has been exploded, and tell me that the complete collapse of the air defense was brought about by the failure to have some special little screw!"

"Excuse me, my leader," interupted Wilhelm Keitel, "your decision of reinforcements to Libya, to strike back against the enemy's assault there?"

"Send Rommel down to Tripoli, and we'll hope he can do something down there with what we can afford to send him," said Hitler. "Hopefully a change in scenery will inspire him".

On December 18^th,in a special conference at the Berghof, Hitler's mountain home, the dictator and his closest confidents reviewed the plans for Operation Barbarossa, an attack of the whole German military directly against the USSR. "We should unleash it early next summer," Hitler told his guests. "If we wait to the middle of summer, maybe Stalin will launch an offensive."

"That is what Laval is saying," observed Ribbentrop. Laval, who? asked Hitler.

The German Foreign Minister explained that Pierre Laval had once been the French Premier and had been French Foreign Minister for a longer period. "He is the short man with a moustache who invariably wears a necktie of pure white."

"Oh, yes," said Hitler. " The silliness of those politicans with their gimmicks."

"Laval got in touch with some Italians he had known in Paris and had gone over to northeast Italy to confer with them. Laval said that he was on a confidential mission from Petain, who wanted to sound us out about a possible peace."

"Didn't Petain fly over to London for an afternoon?" Hitler asked.

"That was only last week. He toured a cemetary where bombing victims from Coventry were buried."

"Yes, my Fuhrer," responded Ribbentrop. "Petain forecast that we would be ousted from northern France this coming year."

"So what gossip did Laval spread among his Italian friends?"

"Laval says that Petain is largely tired of de Gaulle and realizes that General has no idea to bring hostilties to an end between Germany and France. And also Petain is suspicious of Stalin, and what schemes those Communists may have against us."

Hitler asked Ribbenhrop what Petain suggested Germany do? "Laval says that Marshall Petain wants to sound you out, and see what agreement you men might make together.""

"Has Laval gone back to Petain?"

"Laval returned two days ago back to Orleans."

"Interesting," said the solumn dictator.

Author says this is my third installment in my Marshal Petain & The Orleans Regime.