Fighting from the colonies (a Free French ARR)

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The year is 1941. Almost one year ago, the armies of France and
her allies were defeated. Following this debacle, a puppet
government was created which, while Germany fully occupies the
north of the country, would administer the south of France and her
colonial empire.

French tank destroyed during the 1940 campaign.

But even though their homeland was brought to its knees, a handful
of men chose to keep on fighting. Vowing to liberate their country
someday, those free French stand together with their British
allies, the last defenders facing the German juggernaut.

Winston Churchill, British Prime minister vowed to
defeat Germany no matter what.

The first goal of free French forces would now be to reclaim the
colonial empire, as most of it is controlled by Vichy. Indeed at
first, only Congo Brazaville and new-Caledonia rallied to De
Gaulle's forces.

Félix éboué, governor of equatorial Africa greeting De
Gaulle.

Following German meddling in the near-East, free French and
British troops intervened, defeated the Vichy defenders and took
control of the region.

Australian armour, on parade in Beirout.

Now, with a basis of operations in the Mediterranean, British
support and colonial manpower, the leaders of free France begin a
massive effort to create an army worthy of name.

Congolese sentry. African soldiers would be the
backbone of the French army for times to come.

 

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Okay. First arr for me. This one will not contain much text and it will certainly contain many errors.
The game is played on easy with a couple of homemade events so that the game doesn't feel like a hands-off one.
Finally, updates might not be regular but they should come eventually.

 

[OLDTIMER]

Hi,

looking forward to this...

Rgds, Oldtimer

 

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Yeah good luck and nice pics!

 

[Atruejedi]

Hey, good stuff, Oxymore! Finally, something different!

Looking forward to seeing some combat.

 

[unmerged(9046)]

I like where this AAR will be going. Good luck!

 

[unmerged(10426)]

This looks to be interesting.

 

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Whereas the war in Europe had entered the Blitzkrieg age, poor
infrastructure, long distances and months-long advances through
deserts or jungles ensured that the African war would not be
swift.

Assembling and supplying a credible force in the region
would prove a logistical nightmare.

The first units assembled in Tchad would proceed west against
Vichy west-Africa, little resistance was met at first, and with
tactical support from Valin's air squadrons, Monsabert's column
advanced at a slow but steady pace. A second force was sent north
into Italian Libya, to ultimately join with the British troops
fighting from Egypt. Again little to no resistance was met, as the
Italians were kept busy by stubborn commonwealth troops.

Heavy fighting near Tobrouk. Anzac troops would rarely give an inch to the enemy.

With Germany now engaged against the Soviet Union, the Italians,
left alone to face an enemy advancing on two fronts, began to fall
back until Tripoli itself came under siege. When free French
divisions from Tchad reached the Mediterranean coast, the
encirclement was complete and the city fell a few days after.

Montgomery's and Leclerc's forces, resting in Tripoli.

All was not bright however for despite severe losses against the
British and French navies, the Italian fleet somehow managed to
pull off a landing in Malta, after weeks of bombardment the island
fell to Italian marines. Mussolini's armies may have been expelled
from Africa but a threat remains in the theater as long as the
island is in Italian hands.

The loss of Malta would prove a serious drawback for
the allies.

Attention now turned to Tunisia and Algeria. With support from the
fleet and air force, allied forces quickly proceeded into French
north-Africa. The advance was fast and unopposed, as Vichy's
authority in the region began to fade. Only in Morocco did the
remnants of the Vichy African army put up a fight.

After Casablanca fell, the last remaining objective of the
campaign was Dakar. As numerous French and Belgian transports were
being assembled in Brazzaville, Muselier's battle fleet headed
into the Atlantic. The landing was almost compromised when a large
German fleet appeared but superior leadership and experience
allowed the French navy to prevail.

Near the African coast, the French fleet scored its first major naval victory over the Kriegsmarine.

With Dakar taken and the spectacular escape of the French fleet from Toulon,
the rest of the colonial empire aligned itself with De Gaulle. Now is the time
to regroup and start planning. The army is in no shape to fight a continental campaign
and needs to be bolstered, an industry must be created to support the fight, men are
needed to fill in the ranks... there is much to be done.

Many Algerians and Moroccans joined the ranks of the
free French.

 

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Thanks for the replies

I'll try to play as active a role as I can in this war.

 

[Atruejedi]

If I may suggest, please include in-game screenshots of what you are up to! This way we can know the dates, who is fighting, etc.

No need to be fancy, I just think it would be supplementary

 

[unmerged(41995)]

Great AAR!

Great Pics!

 

[unmerged(17581)]

Don't the Free French have, like, 1 Base IC in this scenario?

What is Free France's current situation?

 

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The game has been played ahead. So unfortunately no screenshot at least for a while.

And yes, base IC is 1. I gave myself a couple more, thinking of it as British support, in order to play the game instead of watching it. Also, I moved the capital a couple of times and designed an event to inherit Vichy's fleet (didn't work so I edited the save file ) and get a little manpower.

 

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Ah, IC. I suppose then that the only way you can regain IC is through CONQUEST!

Good luck doing that with your four or five infantry divisions, though.

 

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When the French fleet disappeared from Toulon, so did the Vichy
regime. After the incident, German troops proceeded to occupy the
whole of France. Left with no colonies, no navy and virtually no
army, Vichy leaders had nothing left to bargain with.

Marshal Pétain, former head of the Vichy regime.


The arrival of hardened wehrmacht divisions on the shores of
southern France meant that De Gaulle and his staff would not be
able to attack there without help from Great Britain. The British
however were not ready to commit any sizable force to such an
offensive. Churchill was now too preoccupied by the situation in
Asia, where British India itself was now under threat of a
Japanese invasion, and the presence of a large Italian army in
Malta.

Gritting his teeth, De Gaulle abandoned the project for now and
instead focused on gaining naval superiority. Bolstered by the
Toulon fleet, admiral Muselier joined a strong Royal Navy force to
patrol the Mediterranean. Throughout fall 1942, several violent
engagements took place and all sides suffered heavy losses.
Capitalizing on Italian blunders and no small amount of luck, the
allied fleet took the advantage, soon Italian shipping was all but
stopped, the bulk of Il Duce's navy gathered rust at the bottom of
the sea and French marines were landing in Crete.

Generals De Gaulle and Giraud, after the victory in Crete.

Once Crete was taken, De Gaulle decided to force a landing in
Greece. He speculated that with the majority of the wehrmacht now
advancing deep inside Russia, the Germans could send few
reinforcement to the Balkans. Facing increasingly demotivated
Italians and minor axis powers forces, the courageous colonials of
the free French armies advanced fast, taking Athens in less than a
week, only to continue north at an infernal pace. Early 1943, all
of Greece and half of Bulgaria was already under French control.

Artillery position near Tirana. After begin expelled from Greece,
the Italians established strong defenses in the mountains of
Albania.

 

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Any in-game screenshots? Though if you've taken Greece by yourself, that is quite a feat!

 

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Capitalizing on their recent successes, the French troops pushed
ever onwards and overpowered Bulgarian defenders in a few weeks.
When Sofia fell, they kept on advancing deep into Romania, taking
Bucharest less than a month later. With Greek and Yougoslav
volunteers now joining the ranks along the French, African and
middle-Eastern soldiers already composing it, the French army was
fast becoming a truly international force, while also beginning to
pose a considerable threat to Germany. Indeed, with the fall of
Romania and Bulgaria, two minor axis powers, the German high
command finally decided to commit major forces to the area.

Greek volunteers joined the free French en masse.

The first wave of German reinforcements slowed down the French
advance considerably, the second wave stopped it cold and the
third reversed the tide. Superior numbers of German Panzers and
motorized infantry forced the French army to retreat on the whole
front, bringing back awful memories from the darkest days of 1940.
The retreat did not however degenerate into a rout thanks to the
mountains of southern Serbia and Albania, in which a solid line of
defense could be created just in time to stop the German
reconquest.

French column retreating towards more defensible positions.

Rumored dissensions between Churchill and De Gaulle led to one of
the most dramatic diplomatic failures in modern history. Instead
of joining the effort in the Balkans, the British army engaged in
a limited campaign to reconquer Norway. Only after the Germans put
a brutal end to that campaign did three divisions of Indian and
Australian infantry land in Greece, but they never left Athens.
Elsewhere, Moscow was surrounded on all sides and the Red Army
barely holding its own in western Siberia. As for the Americans,
despite having sunk just about every Japanese warship in
existence, they were only advancing at a turtle's pace in the
Pacific and certainly not willing to get involved in Europe. The
French were effectively on their own.

Strategic situation during the summer of 1943.

In the following months, a gruesome stalemate ensued in which both
side suffered tremendous casualities. Lacking significant air
assets, the French defenders suffered heavily from enemy tactical
bombing. The Germans and Italians, bogged down in mountainous
terrain and harassed by local partisan activity, would suffer even
more, losing several divisions to encirclement on more than one
occasion.

Despite their losses, the axis powers engaged in a massive build
up throughout the whole remainder of 1943 and, as winter
approached, launched a full-scale attack on the French positions.
The fighting took a turn for the worse as an entire army was
encircled in southern Albania, only thanks to naval superiority
and sufficient transports could it be evacuated. This second
Dunkerque managed to completely break the morale of the retreating
troops and, in face of impending disaster, a general pull-out was
ordered. The balkan campaign, after its spectacular initial
victories ended in bitter defeat.

Abandoned trucks near Tirana. A lot of material was lost during
the retreat.

 

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I hope the map is readable. The only imaging software I have is illustrator.

 

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Strategic situation during the summer of 1943.

QUOTE]

Oh my god! Germans in Siberia! Looks like a though fight for you there. Wish you the best of luck.

 

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Hello people. This game has taken quite a disturbing and ridiculous turn so I'll just stop the arr altogether.

Basically, after the Balkan retreat I saw that Sicily had been left undefended (Italy had less than twenty divisions at the time) so I land there unopposed and proceed north with all my forces. Nothing serious is thrown at me until I reach the alps and establish defenses there. The bulk of my army then goes west, German divisions in France are scattered like it's sunday morning... encirclement + destruction + advance further + rinse + repeat.

I don't know why or how but I conquered all of western and central Europe facing one or at worst two enemy divisions at a time. Perhaps they kept being strat-deployed into provinces I already occupied or something... bottom line is I defeated Germany's >200 divs with about 20 of my own, some of them militia. :wacko:

Since I couldn't go into German occupied Russia I declared war on the Soviet Union and kept advancing against token opposition till the pacific. Once I got new units rolling, Moscow fell rapidly and I pushed against Japan. The US had long sunk every single Japanese ship and was just... not doing anything since then.

So I land in Japan, take the home islands, retake Indochina... the Japanese are actually putting up a fight but seeing as how Europe + Russia = a shitload of IC, I'm not having a hard time.

Then Japan surrenders... to the US. I'm left with their home islands, they're left with Saigon and its surroundings, Siam inherits their pacific possessions...

Neville + white peace + release as many satellites as possible + leave UK alliance... in a matter of days UK dows me... the world goes mad and everywhere people start dancing for no reason.

The painful END​