The Cruel Sea:
The Marine Nationale
in the Second Great War, Part Two
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
August 2023

In the world of the Second Great War, American President Woodrow Wilson mediates a peace settlement at the end of 1916. Not everyone is satisfied, and in 1940 war returns as France, Russia and Italy seek to redeem this “lost victory.” That’s the theme of our Second Great War alternative-history story arc, which includes The Cruel Sea, an expansion for Second World War at Sea: Bismarck. Our storybook Fleets of the Second Great War: La Royale tells about the French fleet of this reality in exhaustive detail.

The story began here.

When new capital ship construction could begin again in 1928, the Marine Nationale laid down three 23,000-ton battle cruisers of the Dunkerque class, followed by a pair of fast battleships a year later, of the Richelieu class. That stretched the treaty’s definitions, but France complied by only laying down one ship, the third of the class, in 1930 and a fourth as well as the lead ship of the improved Gascoigne class in 1931. One more Gascoigne followed in 1932, and a pair in 1933 to round out the class of four ships.

In 1934, after the Coty movement gained full control of French government, they sought to make a statement through the next round of battleship building, as part of their commitment to Redonner à la France sa grandeur. The Vienna accords included an escalator clause allowing any signatory to build ships of 45,000 tons, rather than the previous limit of 35,000 tons, beginning in 1938, the twentieth anniversary of the agreement. The French chose to interpret that to cover ships commissioned in 1938, not laid down in that year (despite having accepted the latter meaning for the start of new construction in 1928), and laid down a 45,000-ton super battleship, Alsace. Other signatories followed with 45,000-ton ships of their own (some of them displacing significantly more than 45,000 tons). That class would be followed by a near-sister mounting 406mm (16-inch) guns, with the lead ship hitting the slipway in 1937, two more in 1938 and a fourth in 1939.

In 1936, the Marine Nationale also laid down three additional battle cruisers beyond their treaty allotment, labelling them “coast defense ships” and publishing false data regarding their size, main armament, and speed. As they were built in naval dockyards, the deception could be maintained until they joined the active fleet in 1939. That caused a media stir, with the French government simply refusing comment and the Japanese taking the opportunity to simply ignore the treaty limits with no comment on their own part, either.

To support the battleships, the Marine Nationale also laid down new classes of heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers, both fleet destroyers and the oversized contre-torpilleurs. The program out-stripped the capacity of France’s naval arsenals and private shipyards, leading to expansion of the latter, while the shipbuilding magnates stifled growth of the government-owned dockyards using their deep connections to the regime. The arms buildup had no purpose if it did not benefit those who had supported the Coty movement.

By the 1930’s, the Marine Nationale had also set out to modernize the older battleships built during and immediately after the Great War. That less profitable work mostly went to the government-owned dockyards; the received ships improved armament and protection, new oil-fired boilers, and aircraft-handling facilities. Their fundamentally poor design meant that only so much could be done with them; even as modernized, they’re really only suitable for secondary duties like convoy escort and short bombardment.

At the outbreak of war in 1940, France possesses 35 battleships, with four more under construction, plus ten battle cruisers and six ancient semi-dreadnoughts. The Marine Nationale also has eight coast-defense ships, less capable than the battleships but modern warships and despite their name fully intended for operations on the open sea.

France has world-wide commitments, as well as the need for considerable force at home. The Atlantic Fleet has most of the firepower, as it’s expected to contest the North Atlantic with Germany’s High Seas Fleet, possibly with some help from France’s Russian allies. The French can’t match the Germans ship-for-ship, but the North Atlantic is vast. Both the Germans and the French seek to bring convoys home while stopping the enemy from doing the same, making for a very active theater of war.

The other main fleet is based at Toulon on France’s Mediterranean coast; the Coty government, with a firm ally in Mussolini’s Italy, has not wasted the billions of francs that the France of our history poured into the new naval base at Mers-el Kebir. It has some of the Marine Nationale’s oldest ships, with a handful of modern units, and is tasked with keeping Central Powers raiders out of the Western Mediterranean and providing a French presence in the campaigns against Austria and Ottoman Turkey. The Mediterranean naval war is an Italian show, from the Allied perspective, and the French are reluctant to place too many of their major units under Italian command.

French Indo-China is protected by a strong squadron built around the four re-built older battle cruisers, with some new ships slotted to join them upon completion. The squadron, based at Cam Ranh Bay, is a gesture against perceived Japanese intentions to expand into the European colonies of South-East Asia. The squadron also is a counter to the German cruisers stationed at Rabaul in German New Guinea, which are positioned to ravage French trade in the Pacific.

The other permanent squadron is stationed at Dakar and a new base at Owendo, both in French West Africa. It doesn’t have any battleships or battle cruisers, relying on coast-defense ships and cruisers, but it has a vital part in French war planning. The Germans have a squadron of their own based at the port of Yaounde in their colony of Kamerun, and France plans to make even more use of African manpower in the upcoming conflict than she did in the Great War.  The French squadron must protect those vital troops convoys, and support land operations against Kamerun.

France does not, unlike most great powers of 1940, operate either airships or aircraft carriers. The Marine Nationale has a strong land-based air arm under its direct control, with squadrons of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. But the Solidarité Française sees the airship as a symbol of the past, one indelibly linked with Germany in the public’s perception. France will depend on the technology of the future, the airplane.

The France of the Second Great War is militarily very strong, especially in comparison to its population and industrial output, but it is not a happy place. Conscription takes young men out of circulation for three years, hampering their careers and educational advancement. Unlike their Central Powers adversaries, women are barred from military service, as a woman’s sole duty is to replenish France’s white population. In the French colonies, conscription is the flashpoint for active resistance against the French regime, with young men often fleeing rather than reporting for duty, and the colonial governments conducting invasive sweeps designed to locate these resistors and compel them to serve an alien people they despise.

Work hours are long in France, with a base work-week of 50 hours for industrial concerns. Consumer goods are expensive and often hard to find; even good red wine and fresh bread are considered luxuries. Food and fuel are rationed, employers are not required to offer vacation time, and collective bargaining by workers is considered a conspiracy and therefore a felony.

Political expression is banned by law, and stifled by the agro-fascist Greenshirt street gangs endorsed by the Solidarité Française. The news media is strictly censored, and only those having shown proper Party loyalty are even allowed to possess radios. Public use of any language other than French is a felony, as is practice of any religion other than Roman Catholicism.

The government insists that this is all the fault of the Germans; once they are defeated and put in their place, then France can return to the carefree lifestyle that its culture celebrates. Until the war is won, France cannot relax her preparations.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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