Mers-el-Kebir - Tragedy on a Grand Scale

[Music] [Music] so the attack on mers el kabir possibly one of the most divisive actions taken during the second world war what happened and was it justified due to the still a very charged cloud that hangs over the whole action we'll consider this in two parts first a brief accounting of what actually happened and then secondly a consideration of the potential rights wrongs and motivations of it all and who if anyone bears primary or overall responsibility for what happened that day as it's somewhat maybe somewhat unsurprising with the situation that we're facing historians are still very much divided over this so of course the latter part of this video is purely my analysis based on various documents available from the period taken from the national archives so feel free to disagree with it if you feel that that evidence might show otherwise now the background as to what actually happened is that in 1940 france had fallen to the nazi assault and what would become the vichy government was in the process of forming and then negotiating daesh accepting an armistice with the german authorities admiral darlan head of the french navy was part of this new government but the british were concerned that the negotiations and the armistice that they voted to accept would lead to either the surrender or seizure of the french navy or a large part of it by the axis powers if the axis could somehow accomplish this it would turn the tables on the british war efforts giving the germans and the italians access to two modern fast battleships that were almost complete two battle cruisers and a significant force of older battleships cruisers and destroyers this was especially important as the mediterranean over the course of a few months had gone from a jointly french and british-held lake to having the italians involved in the ward then having the french drop out and if the french and the french fleet and the italian fleet combined and faced off against the british the british run are hiding to nothing now some french warships were already in various british ports as they'd been based there at the time of the wall of france this mounted about one-fifth of the french fleet by the time of the attack on mirzel kabir of the remaining four-fifths about half were in toulon or some other mainland french port and the other half which critically included the most modern and capable french capital ships that were currently able to put to sea in active service as opposed to the incomplete richly class battleships were now in north african ports primarily in merzel kabir thus on the 3rd of july operation catapult was undertaken the ships in british ports would be seized or talked into allowing themselves to be boarded whilst a force of royal navy vessels were positioned outside merzel kabir to negotiate with the french forces present under admiral jean-soul as to what their ship's fate would be this force consisted of the capital ships hms hood hms valiant and hms resolution along with the carrier arc royal and an escort of cruisers and destroyers the negotiations dragged through most of the day on and off but were unsuccessful as the situation deteriorated the arc royal flew off aircraft to lay mines across the harbour and the first shots were fired as french aircraft intercepted the force and shot down a skewer other french ships were ordered to head to the area to assist but the british were intercepting and decoding the french signals and knew that this had been ordered and so just before six o'clock that evening the order went out for the british ships to open fire none of the french vessels were designed to stand up to 15-inch guns and their salvos and within three volleys the battleship britannia was hit and one of its main magazines detonated killing many of the crew and sinking the ship almost immediately the french returned fire but more ships were hit and the fires began to spread strasbourg and a small escort managed to sneak it out of the harbour and get underway and out to sea evading the mines and a hasty airstrike as well as managing to outrun hms hood as she stripped a turbine during the pursuit the british ceased fire after about 10 minutes but the next day thanks to further french signals being read that told of minimal damage to dunkirk the ark royal launched another airstrike this one managed to blow up a ship full of depth charges that was moored next to the french battle cruiser which was also sunk by the massive hole that was blasted in its side the tail end of operation catapult involved hms hermes launching airstrikes on the richlio and some french air raids on gibraltar but the main act was done strasbourg would reach too long and the british ships withdrew overall 1300 french sailors and two british airmen would be killed the majority of these casualties being aboard britannia and that's a brief outline of the circumstances of the attack itself the situation that led up to it is of course a much wider topic and that's what we'll discuss now so if you're just here for the bare facts of what happened this is where you can drop out so what wasn't known in the run-up to this particular incident by either the british or the french was that ironically enough both officers in the reggia marina the italian navy and the kriegs marina the german navy did actually suggest seizing the french navy to add to their own vessels but this had actually been vetoed by of all people hitler himself as he was worried that a failed attempt to seize the french fleet might lead to the french sailing their entire fleet to join the british willingly and as far as he was concerned he had the french exactly where he wanted them with the current armistice proposals now what the british did know going into the situation was two things firstly by the time of the attack on merzel kabir they no longer trusted the word of admiral dala the aforementioned head of the marine national although he had been a very close and trusted ally in the past months of the conflict he was now moving into the political sphere of the vichy government and appeared to have given multiple contradictory statements in the past few weeks a month before the fateful operation dalair had been against an armistice at all stating that he would rather mutiny and lead the fleet to fight under the british flag if any such negotiation was entered into but just under two weeks later this had shifted to a general opposition to an armistice but with simply a promise to britain that no french ship would ever fall into german hands but a few days after that the french cabinet of which he was now part voted in favor of an armistice which changed the field yet again because the armistice had sent terms and conditions attached to it this was met with a british acknowledgement of the situation as both britain and france had entered into a mutual understanding that one of them would not seek peace without the other and the british stipulation to releasing them from this obligation was that they could seek an armistice just fine considering the situation that was happening as long as the french fleet moved to british ports due to the aforementioned agreement but at this point darling now said that the french fleet could not and would not sail for british ports as they would be needed to defend what was left of france the new vichy cabinet formed and the german armistice terms were accepted darlan now promised again to keep french ships out of german hands but by now the british were convinced that he was both lying and entirely unreliable having changed the position that he ostensibly stood for four times in two weeks and now promising something that was impossible given the terms of the armistice treaty which the british now knew specifically they'd read article 8 which when translated into english by the british decoders at the time read article eight the french war fleet with the exception of the part that is le which is left at the disposal of the french government for the safeguarding of french interests in its colonial empire will be gathered in ports to be determined and will have to be demobilized and disarmed under the control of germany or italy respectively the designation of these ports will be made according to the home ports of ships in peacetime the german government solemnly declares to the french government that it does not intend to use during the war for its own purposes the french war fleet stationed in the german-controlled port except the units necessary for the surveillance coasts and mines dredging he that being hitler formally solemnly and formally declares that he does not intend to make any demands on the french fleet during the conclusion of the peace with the exception of the part of the french war fleet to be determined which will be earmarked for the safeguarding of french interests in the colonial empire all war units outside french territorial waters will have to be recalled to france now what this told the british was that it was entirely possible for the germans to determine that the french needed a relatively small and light fleet to secure its colonies and thus could demand the relocation and recall of every other major french vessel back to france and crucially as per the first paragraph that they would be under german or italian control regardless of which port they were in this went directly against darland's assurances which he now appeared to have given despite the fact that he knew what this armistice article entailed and had voted for it hence the british concluded that he must be lying since what he was saying and what he'd voted for appear to be two entirely different things now granted the article did explicitly say that the germans promised to disarm the ships and not to use them for their own purposes but given that the entire war at this point was the tail end of a string of solemn promises by hitler not to do a thing which he had then gone and done including such minor things as the takeover of czechoslovakia and the invasion of poland the british were somewhat inclined to treat that particular aspect of the article as not worth the paper it was written on instead it looked to them to be the perfect setup to get the french fleet under access control fully armed and then simply not disarm it and take it away for their own use which of course would have been the worst possible outcome for the british the armistice was then amended at italian suggestion to allow the french to temporarily keep ships in north africa whilst the final details were worked out but to british eyes this now looked like firstly the axis powers already altering the deal and pray they didn't alter it any further plus it put a lot of friendships beyond the reach of any french troops still in mainland france to defend them from seizure except for whatever colonial forces happen to be present in north africa which obviously were somewhat smaller in number and lesser incapability compared to what was left of the main french army it also rather conveniently left them in range of the italian forces that were present in their own north african colonies the italians having just entered the war as we mentioned earlier put significantly more pressure on the british since they now had to worry about the italian fleet as well as the creeks marina having just lost access to the french fleet and of course they were now panicking about the french fleet potentially being added to one the other or both of their opponents now to be completely fair to him darlan did order at this point that french ships in ports that were about to be occupied directly were to sail to other unoccupied locations which seemed to be more in keeping with his personal promise but also counter to the terms of the armistice which he voted for and promised to abide by which added to the confusion along with the fact that whatever his intentions were at this point he was now part of the vichy government and as such he could be overruled by his colleagues at least in theory he then further muddied the waters by trying to get french ships released from british ports by presenting a version of the armistice to britain that was somewhat different from the actual text of the armistice which as we mentioned the british already knew this duplicity cemented still further in the minds of the british political establishment the idea that dalan was outright lying to them and leading to the british leading the british to write off any guarantee that darling had made before entirely of course unknown to the british dalon had in fact ordered the toulon fleet to scuttle itself if the germans tried to seize it and he was actually determined as far as anyone can tell post-war to ensure that the french fleet did not fall into any foreign hands this was perhaps the first great missed opportunity to prevent the tragedy with darlian having managed to turn himself from trusted ally to persona non grata in british governmental circles in the space of about a fortnight at this point no intention of his no matter how it was stated or how sincere it was was actually going to be believed by anyone other than darling now in all of this it does have to be remembered that most of the vichy french government at this stage was doing what it thought best for france and not what i thought was best for britain a situation that was compounded by the fact that some of britain's strongest allies in french political circles had lost power with the fall of reynar's government and some of the most anglophobic french politicians had risen along with pitta in the new one however as it was the british who took the decision to attack this is why the majority of reasoning at this point focuses on them and their perceptions of what was going on since after all they were not psychic and they could not read minds and so they could only go by what they thought they could perceive was happening hence the explanation of darland's intentions which we know versus his actions at the time which was what everyone was basing their perception of him on and so the british resolved to neutralize the french forces in north africa and elsewhere passing command of the north african operation to admiral somerville the primary intent being to secure the vessels for further operations against the axis and if they couldn't to definitively deny them to the axis instead there was a secondary political issue in the with france gone there was much international speculation including it amidst the fishy french cabinet that britain would soon fold as well but this from available primary sources does not appear to have been the primary consideration at the time it was an important secondary concern but it didn't drive the british decisions all that much now this is not to say that all british personnel supported this decision far from it in fact the strongest argument against hostile action actually came from the royal navy with officers and men from the general crew of the ships all the way up through captain holland of the ark royal who incidentally is not the same holland who would later command hms hood through to admiral somerville and on even up to admiral north were all highly opposed to the idea of shelling their erstwhile allies and they were far more convinced of the opinion that the french regardless of darla would never allow their ships to fall into axis hands this was based on their own interpretations of the actions and conduct of the french officers and men they had until this point served alongside during the war at the same time they were somewhat dismayed at the extremely hostile treatment that their own officers and attaches had been receiving in france from dalan and others during the formation of the vichy government which was a complete 180 to the situation weeks before this whole conundrum can be illustrated by two separate events in the days leading up to the attack admiral somerville protested quite extensively the potential action that was being directed and suggested alternative courses of action he was reprimanded from whitehall for doing so and was instructed to get on with his orders separately at alexandria where a similar situation was playing out lieutenant jack van de castille aboard hms malaya found himself aiming down the sights of one of his one of his ship's guns at the french ships despite having until that morning had an appointment aboard the cruiser duquesne where a number of french officers awaited him armed solely with a cake and 27 candles to celebrate his birthday now with that said the british set out for merzel kabir and the situation began to escalate towards its tragic conclusion the first message that was sent to merzel kabir was sent by wireless ahead of the destroyer hms foxhound which was in turn itself running ahead of the main british force this wireless message read as follows again translated as it was sent in french to admiral johnson the british admiralty has sent captain holland to confer with you the british navy hopes that their proposals will enable you and the valiant and glorious french navy to be by our side in these circumstances your ships would remain yours and no one need have anxiety for the future a british fleet is at sea off or waiting to welcome you message ends quran of course being an alternate name for merzel kabir admiral somerville had sent captain holland of the ark royal to the french aboard hms foxhound as somerville didn't speak french at least in any real conversational capacity whilst holland was fluent in it unfortunately this was the point that things started to go wrong the french admiral johnson decided to take personal offense to a mere captain being sent to negotiate with him and refused to even see holland even after the reason for holland's dispatch was explained instead he sent one lieutenant dufay his chief of staff to see the captain dufay of course had little authority to negotiate and even less of an idea of what the heck was actually going on after just over an hour of somewhat pointless back and forth foxhound along with holland was ordered out of the harbour on his way out he managed to snag johnson's flag lieutenant and finally actually hand over the british ultimatum which the flag lieutenant promised to give to jean-soul holland therefore stayed behind in foxhound's motorboat which technically hadn't been ordered out of the harbour whilst noticing the french ships were beginning to raise steam at some point around 09 35 in the morning admiral jean-soul received the four-point british ultimatum although without holland there to actually discuss it there was no chance at this point to explain the additional caveats the ultimatum again translated back into english read as follows 2. monsieur la merial jean soul from admiral somerville his majesty's government have commanded me to inform you as follows they agreed to the french government approaching the german government only on conditions that if an armistice was concluded the french fleet should be sent to british ports the council of ministers declared on the 18th of june that before capitulating on land the french fleet would join up with the british force or sink itself whilst the present french government may consider that terms of their armistice with germany and italy are reconcilable with these undertakings his majesty's government finds it impossible from their previous experience to believe that germany and italy will not at any moment which suits them seize french warships and use them against britain and allies italian armistice prescribes that french ships should return to metropolitan ports and under armistice france is required to yield up units for coast defense and mine sweeping it is impossible for us your comrades up till now to allow your fine ships to fall into power of german or italian enemy we are determined to fight on until the end and if we win as we think we shall we shall never forget that france was our ally that our interests are the same as hers and that our common enemy is germany should we conquer we solemnly declare we shall restore the greatness and territory of france for this purpose we must be sure that the best ships of the french navy will not be used against us by the common foe in these circumstances his majesty's government have instructed me to demand the french fleet now at merse el cabir and ora shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives a sail with us and continue to fight for victory against the germans and italians b sail with reduced crews under our control to a british port the reduced crew will be repatriated at the earliest moment if either of these courses is adopted and by you we will restore your ships to france at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile c alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against germans or italians since this would break the armistice then sail them with us with reduced crews to some french port in the west indies martinique for instance where they can be demilitarized to our satisfaction or perhaps be entrusted to the united states of america and remain safely until the end of the war the crew being repatriated if you refuse these fair offers i must with profound regret require you to sync your ships within 6 hours finally failing the above i have the orders of his majesty's government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into german or italian hands that is the full content of the communique but to briefly summarize it for those of you who've maybe found a bit too long option a was for the french to come over to the uk and continue the fight as fully armed french warships with french crews option b was to sail to british ports again except this time the ships would be surrendered to british control and the crews would be sent back to france both of these options had the french promised that their ships would be given back to them at the end of the war and any losses made good option c was to sail their ships away from continental europe with options being either french ports in the west indies either caribbean or potentially to the united states of america with their ships then either being demilitarized or interned with the crew being repatched repatriated again the fourth option was that they scuttle their ships within six hours of receiving the communique and the fifth option was that if they didn't do any of the other four options that the british would use whatever necessary force they felt they had to to prevent the ships from falling into enemy hands around 10 o'clock the flag lieutenant returned with a written note that simply stated as follows again translated into english one the assurances given by admiral jean-soul to admiral sir dudley north remain the same in no case will french warships fall intact into the hands of the germans or the italians two in view of the substance and form of the downright ultimatum which has been sent to admiral jean-soul the french warships will be defended by force there was now a further exchange of notes with jean sewell absolutely refusing to physically meet captain holland who for his part had headed back to the foxhound to communicate events to somerville the main british fleet then arrived and signaled by lamp into the harbour the signal read as follows to admiral jean-soul from admiral somerville we hope most sincerely that the proposals will be acceptable and that we shall have you by our side at 1109 a second handwritten reply was received by the british from admiral jean-soul i read as follows again translated admiral jean-soul can only confirm the reply already sent by lieutenant de vacio dufay two admiral johnson is determined to defend himself by every means his disposal and three admiral johnson draws admiral somerville's attention to the fact that the first shot fired at us will result in immediately ranging the whole french fleet against great britain a result which would be diametrically opposed to that sort by his majesty's government several hours passed without any further reply and so a further message was sent from the fleet by signal lamp that the french fleet would not be allowed to leave the harbour unless one of the terms was accepted around the same time news arrived of the french ships in alexandria agreeing to disarm somewhat saving lieutenant van de castille's birthday cake appointment and this fact was also communicated to admiral jean-soul but with the french apparently refusing to even acknowledge these further communications somerville prepared to open fire at around 1 30. but as no french ships had made for c he put this back to three o'clock and sent yet another signal asking for jean-soul to hoist a flag in signal if he accepted any of the british terms he also ordered the laying of mines at the harbour entrance which we described at the beginning finally at around 1440 jean-soul signaled that he would accept a delegate for a face-to-face meeting thus with the attack delayed again since it would take more than 20 minutes for captain holland to actually get back into harbor uh holland was sent back via foxhound and then via boat up to the dunkirk arriving aboard at quarter past four or sixteen fifteen jean-soul for his part appeared to be even more affronted that the delegate was once again holland and not somerville and what followed was less negotiation and on occasion more argument with jean-soul maintaining that he would only obey admiral dalla and the french government however during this discussion jean-soul also produced a code message sent from admiral darla a week earlier now i couldn't find the original text since the main references to this come from the admiralty archive documents but they do cover some of what it said the cipher code message opened with something to the effect of this will be the last cipher message that you will receive from me this being the message from darla it had various orders and clauses in it and captain holland pointed out that clause 3 stated that french ships may be taken to the usa under certain circumstances which included potential attack or seizure by the enemy captain holland pointed out that the british were threatening to attack or seize his ships depending on which clause of the ultimatum you read and thus jean-soul could take his ships to the usa under these circumstances which was another option under the british ultimatum as well for whatever reason possibly because the absolute letter as read of the cipher referenced germany and italy but not the british jean-soul refused to agree with this interpretation at the same time as all this had been happening signals had been flying back and forth between jean sewell and the vichy government dalai could not be contacted having gone home for leave and in any case obviously as per his cipher having given his final orders and for whatever reason jean-soul repeatedly omitted any part of the british terms except that simply to join them or scuttle needless to say presented with apparently only those two extreme options the french leaders available at at the time told him to meet force with force and to not surrender his ships the british meanwhile were reading every signal that was being sent back and forth at the end of the negotiating process admiral johnson's final communication was sent at twenty past five or seventeen twenty and read as follows again need as it be said translated from the french one the french fleet cannot do otherwise than apply the clauses of the armistice on account of the consequences which would be born by metropolitan france two formal orders have been received and these orders have been sent to all commanding officers so that if after the armistice there is a risk of the ships falling into enemy hands they would be taken to the usa or scuttled three these orders will be carried out four since yesterday second of july the ships now at aura and mirzel kabir have begun their demobilization reduction of crews men belonging to north africa have been disembarked of course to the british clause 1 and clause 2 seem to be in complete conflict since clause 1 compliance with the armistice would hand most of the french fleet into german or italian control and clause 2 said that if that happened they would be taken to the usa or scuttled these two obviously being completely mutually exclusive additionally it was fairly obvious that the french ships were preparing to sail and so item four stating that they had been demobilized and their crews were being reduced was also taken to be patently false at the same time the british fleet was also sent word via signal intercepts of the incoming french reinforcements that had been ordered into the area and so at 1715 jean-soul was given until 1730 to accept one of the british terms be sunk holland left at 1725 to the sound of alert sirens aboard the french ships and about half an hour after holland left the british guns opened fire so that gives some more detailed idea of why the british thought the way they did and the course of the negotiations themselves which of course inevitably would lead to tragedy there are thus two questions left to be resolved was the british attack legal and on that fateful day who if anybody bears overall responsibility for things turning out the way that they did with regards to the legality of the attack article 46 of the declaration concerning the laws of naval war states that a neutral war vessel which the french vessels at this point were may only be attacked under very specific circumstances the primary one being that the vessel takes a direct part in the hostilities at this point france being a neutral power there was no cause to attack the french on these grounds since but the ships were anchored not doing a lot the third point in article 46 states that firing upon a neutral ship is justifiable if that ship is in the direct employment of an enemy government this was also not the case as the fleet was definitely under french command alone at this point regardless of what may or may not have happened subsequently but the second point of article 46 states that if a neutral ship is under the orders of an enemy government that ship or fleet may be fired upon with the french fleet having taken shelter in a port specified by the armistice dictated by the axis and with their stated intention being to continue to follow the terms of that armistice which of course included giving the majority of the fleet into german or italian control for disarmament it's quite possible to say that the french fleet was complying with german orders and the fact that the french navy under dalau was preparing to fulfill the demands of the armistice demonstrates that it was obeying the will of germany at least in this regard thus in article 46 whilst two points of law are against the attack one of those points permits it so as a question of international law it basically depends on which point of argument you wish to use to determine if this attack was actually legal or not in my view personally churchill should probably have relied more on the information available from the offices of the royal navy but in the circumstances as we've outlined you can at least understand where he was coming from although to be completely fair to churchill it was not necessarily the will and motivations of french officers and men that he was particularly doubtful of it was more that he doubted their ability to actually carry out those intentions should the germans and italians position themselves to seize the ships as he believed they were going to do however legal or not depending on your interpretation of that particular article the attack was coming and this is where i put forward my point of view and that's as [ __ ] this is as follows the man most responsible for the attack going ahead and the subsequent loss of life that ensued is admiral johnson all other factors aside he had a duty to his men and i believe that he failed that duty abysmally now allow me to explain the british were coming right or wrong legal or not there was a british fleet offshore with its reasons for being there its demands for resolving the situation without violence and that was a situation that admiral johnson now needed to resolve simply telling them that what they were doing was illegal it was not going to cut any slack now much is made in some quarters of jean-soul not wanting to break the armistice agreements for fear of german republic reprisals against the french populace and or the sailors families and indeed he did include this in one of his communiques now whilst this may have been a legitimate concern as this is nazi germany we're dealing with and reprisals were not exactly unknown for them the simple fact again to me remains that by this point the polish norwegian belgian and dutch navies had already faced the situation and near enough universally what was left of those navies had stuck two fingers up at the nazis in any conditions that they might have put in armistice or peace treaties and simply sailed off to keep up the fight as covered quite extensively in the video that i did on the free navies of world war ii thus i cannot accept this supposed fear of reprisals as a make-or-break concern for jean-soul or at least a valid one in light of the decisions made by the men and officers of the other navies then you have jean saul's conduct he's faced with a fleet that had explicitly stated repeatedly that his life and the lives of his men would potentially be forfeit without satisfactory resolution to the situation even if he was determined to reject such demands and fight he owed it to his men to at least hear out the british negotiator captain holland instead he spent about two-thirds of the day refusing to see him or respond to all that much in the way of communication simply because he viewed holland as inferior to him by din to poland being a captain and him being an admiral and i'm sorry but some petty personal distinction of perceived class is not a valid excuse upon which to risk the safety and well-being of thousands of men under your command not to mention the most powerful french fleet that was operational at the time jean-claude was supposed to be an admiral he was supposed to be a leader and a leader should make the decisions in the best interests of his command and not start making irrational decisions because of what he perceives as some petty insult and then you have how he acted with regards to his orders he had as we covered pre-existing orders from dala and he was told explicitly in those orders that these would be the final ones issued no further orders would be forthcoming for this situation he was also confronted admittedly by a situation which was technically outside the letter of those orders although interpretation could be made now at this point he could act in one of two manners namely as a by the book officer who enacts orders from above and no more or no less or as a by the spirit of the law officer who takes into account his obligations and thus takes action in line with these obligations ensuring that the actions that he takes are in the interests both of his standing orders and his men now to my mind this kind of officer is by far the superior kind of officer but that aside navies have places for both now by the spirit of the orders officer would recognize his duty to preserve the lives of his men and the integrity of the french fleet it would be clear that to refuse all terms would likely result in the loss of his ships and the deaths of his men and this was not an end that benefits the marine national france or compliance with the german armistice in any way thus such an officer would likely take up captain holland's suggestion and interpret that whilst darling's final orders referred to germany and italy as the enemy they had of course been written before it could be foreseen that britain could have become an enemy and so the spirit of those orders would allow him to act according to them in the face of british demands or threats no matter how reasonable or unreasonable the interpretation would thus run along the lines of the british are threatening to seize or destroy my ships therefore they are the enemy therefore clause 3 directs that if an enemy threatens to seize or destroy my ships i may seek refuge in the usa the british are also explicitly willing for me to seek refuge in the usa therefore i may fulfill my orders preserve my men and my ships and technically also stick by the armistice conditions as article 10 states that i should not allow my ships to be used in hostile actions with germany or transferred to the uk generally and of course sailing to the usa under threat of seizure or destruction would mean that the british couldn't use the ships and that they couldn't be used in actions against germany at least at this point with the united states still neutral but it would appear that admiral johnson was clearly not this kind of officer which leaves him to take up the by the book officer role now a by the book officer would check his orders his orders don't cover this situation so he must then request new orders and that is eventually what jean's all tried to do despite darlan having already told him that his previous honor orders were final now i would argue that it was thus a failure on this part to see that he now had to work with the spirit of his orders given darlan's explicit instructions but at the same time you could argue that as other forms of superior still existed in the forms of the other members of the vichy cabinet he could ask them for new proper orders to address this specific situation however to receive proper orders your superiors have to have the full and correct information of what is actually going on therefore his communications should have consisted of the full extent of his existing orders i.e admiral darland's ciphered instructions basically this is what i've been told to do so far plus a full description of the situation he currently faced including and most importantly even if he chose to neglect everything else all the options on the table from the british this was especially important given that dalan was out of contact however johnson spectacularly failed to do so instead telling the vichy government that the offer was join us or scuttle which is not only an outright lie it's a dereliction of duty since it fails to give his superiors the necessary information from which they may take a proper decision and thus then give him adequate direction in the form of new orders now it's entirely possible of course that their reply to him might have been the same or they might have agreed with holland's idea to send the ships to the usa or anything else but we'll never know because they were never given the chance to make that decision due due entirely to jean-soul's failure to properly communicate with them he wasn't being shot at he was sitting in a stationary ship he had hours to talk to them and he couldn't even be bothered to talk to them properly if he had done so then responsibility for refusing the british terms and any attendant consequences would have rested with the vichy french government but he didn't and so they couldn't make adequate reply they could only go with what he told them and what he told them was blatantly inaccurate and so the orders that came back were not applicable to the situation that he actually faced thus jean-soul failed to act in a manner befitting either type of officer and thus in my view he utterly failed in his duty as admiral to his nation as he got a good portion of the french fleet damaged or destroyed and also more importantly he failed his duty to his men by getting 1300 of them killed almost entirely because he was too proud to talk with a captain too unimaginative to interpret the orders he had and too lazy or too duplicitous to report the situation accurately to the people who could have given him new orders and i personally can never forgive him for that the sad irony of it all of course is that the british attack on merzel kabir gave germany and italy as well as fishy france massive amounts of propaganda material to turn against the british and any allies they might pick up in their continued fight with nazi germany this rather unsurprisingly also led to significantly more resistance amongst various french colonies and other elements of the french fleet it nearly scuppered the otherwise peaceful resolution of the situation in alexandria and of course would be partially responsible for the loss of hundreds if not thousands of further lives in the next few years as various vichy french territories and naval units resisted allied efforts to liberate europe with fatal consequences for troops and civilians on both sides and at the end of the day of course it must be acknowledged that when the germans eventually did make an attempt of sorts to seize the french fleet at toulon including the repaired dunkirk and the strasbourg the french sailors and men did in fact scuttle their ships in the overall scheme of things as the germans and italians tried to seize various elements of the vichy fleet they would only get their hands on a few small units so there we go you have a little bit more information about the house and the wise of the attack and you have my own personal interpretation of where the responsibility lies now of course you could say that the british should never attack have attacked in the first place and therefore should never have put the french in the situation that they faced at merzel kabir and that's an entirely reasonable thing to say in hindsight and looking at the whole thing holistically especially with much of the feedback from the various men in the royal navy that's now available to us through various documents i'd agree with you but hindsight as they say is 2020 and a lot of the items that we now know upon which we can make that assessment were not known at the time at least to the british government and so whilst if placed in the situation same situation with the knowledge that we have today i would have said no the british should not attack if i was in the position that the british government was in with the information they had available and the rather long and storied track record of pretty much every german promise being broken shortly after it was made in that position i think i would probably have ordered the fleet to kabir myself as well and once that particular die was cast well we've already been over who i think was mainly responsible for that particular mess up and at the end of the day we have to remember that right or wrong legal or not no matter who bears the ultimate responsibility this long chain of tragedy ended up with 1300 french and two british servicemen losing their lives completely unnecessarily and that is unfortunately the ultimate tragedy of war that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 643,099

Rating: 4.8504643 out of 5

Keywords: wows, world of warships, World War 2, France, Marine Nationale, Vichy France, Royal Navy, Mers-el-Kebir, Oran, Force H, Ark Royal, Hood, Valiant, Resolution, Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Bretagne, Mogador, Gensoul, Somerville, Darlan, Captain Holland

Id: 1aoi33VAAO4

Length: 49min 12sec (2952 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/pdboddy]

Great analytical video on what was a preventable tragedy.

[u/Emilia_Ree]

another exellent video from drach

[u/frostedcat_74]

a cake and 27 candles ? screw you churchill