Fallout and Historical Legacy

In the summer of nineteen forty, the Royal Navy attacked a French fleet moored off the coast of North Africa killing almost one thousand three hundred sailors Winston Churchill described his decision to green lightight the operation as the toughest he ever had to take. But was it the right decision In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Edward Abel Smith talks to Spencer Mizen about an episode that would shake Britain's wartime relations with France Hello Edward. Thank you very much for joining me today. Your new book is called A Hateful Decision And it tells the story of one of the most controversial decisions that Winston Churchill took as wartime prime Minister And that was to order the Royal Navy to attack the French fet while it was moored at Mres E Caber in july nineteen forty. Now this was an extraordinarily contentious act For a start it was perpetrated against an ally and a stricken ally at that. It was the deadliest act between the two nations since I believe the Battle of Waterloo one hundred and twenty five years earlier, and it resulted in the deaths of some thirteen hundred French sailors. And obviously it sort of cast a shadow over Anglo French relations. And yet despite all this, it's an event I think, Edward that many of our listeners won't know a great deal about. So I was wondering if you could start by giving us a quick introduction and an overview of what happened at Mizele Kaber in the summer of nineteen forty. Yeah, of course, Spencer As you say, it's largely a forgotten episode, but one that arguably helped hit the balance of the entire war at a moment when Britain was at its weakest. So the British sent a fleet known as Force H to Merzelle Kaber, where some of the most powerful French battleships were stationed And this was just weeks after France had surrendered to Germany. And Churchill's big fear was that this mighty French fleet might fall into German hands and This was something that would spell Disaster for Britain. So Force H arrived at Murzelle Kabir on the morning of the third of july nineteen forty And they issued an ultimatum to the French ships there either join the Allies and effectively defect from France sail to a neutral port or scuttle their ships And the French had until the end of the day to decide And they ultimately refused. So the Royal Navy open fire and as you say one thousand two hundred and ninety seven French sailors were killed, multiple ships destroyed or damaged over three hundred wounded relations between the two nations, Britain and France completely shattered because of the events that day. So why exactly were the British so weare of by? whyy were they so terrified by the prospect of the French fleet falling into German hands. I mean, can you tell us a little bit about the strength of the French Navy and its potential for wreaking sort of havoc on the British war effort if it was deployed against the Royal Navy. Absolutely. and it's not very well known that It's certainly something I wasn't fully aware of. By nineteen forty, the French Navy was The fourth largest in the world behind only the Royal Navy United States and Japan And it included an impressive collection of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. And they had a combined displacement of roughly eight hundred thousand tons and just to put that into context that's over double the size of the German Navy at the time. so it wasn't only the size but it was also the power and the jewels at the centre of the French naval Proud, as it were. were two capital battleships, to Dunkirk and the Stress book. And these were described by Churchill as two of the finest vessels ever built And Churchill knew that if the Germans gain control of the French fleet or even part of it or even some of you know, those capital, one or two of those capital ships They could dramatically shift the balance of power at sea because they would bolster their own Navy and also leave gaps in Allied defences And what we need to remember at the time is that this took place just after Operation Dynamo, the famous evacuation at Dunkirk where yes three hundred and thirty thousand troops were whisked across the channel But the British left behind huge supplies and seven hundred tanks over eighty thousand military vehicles So Britain no longer had dominance or they were certainly weak when it came to army and ground power The RAF was a fourth of the size of the German Luftwaffe So the only strength that Britain really had at that point was the fleet And that was the only weakness that the Germans had So should the French fleet fall into German hands, they would then have supremacy over land a So for Churchill, this was a strategic threat to Britain's overall survival And the Franco German arrmistice was signed it was signed on the twenty second of june nineteen forty and came into effect three days later And within that, there was a specific article, it was article eight of the arrmistiffs. which said that Germany would not use the French fleet in combat, but would take control of it and understandably Churchill and the British Admiralty didn't trust Asurance and they believed that Hitler had every intention. of using the French Navy to defeat Britain and also cut off the supply lines. So it was both the impact on merchant shipping as well as on the Navy. One question some of our listeners might be asking here is, what did the French simply comply to British demands? The countries, as we said were allies. It was surely in French interest that the fleet wasn't employed against the Royal Navy and that Britain was able to stay in the fight. What was French thinking in regards to its fleet in the summer of nineteen forty. Yeah, it's a really good question. Ultimately Admiralty did not want. their fleet to fall into German hands and they had issued orders to that effect that their ships were to be the last resort be scuttled. rather than than fall into German hands. The challenge that the British had was they were therefore putting all of their faith in crew of individual ships to follow through with those orders. So the French absolutely wanted to And as I said, the challenge for Britain was almost sort of a timing behind it and the lack of control And when it came to the actions at Merzel Kabir, when the British arrived and they delivered an ultimatum to Admiral Senoul, who was the admiral in charge of Force Dred the Rid Force, which were based at Mozelle Kabir. The ultimation was really asking Gentl to commit an act of treason turn against the French addmiralty and to join another foreign power So it put him in an incredibly difficult position and history has judged him very harshly on the way that he refused the British demands But from my research and You know, reading into it and reading his accounts from the day. He was ultimately following orders, which was that his fleet shouldn't fall into a foreign power. And albeit Britain was an ally, it was a foreign power. Great, I'd like to come back to the negotiations in a bit. But first can we chat about Winston Churchill? Be not only as the title of your book sort of alludes to, did he describe the attack on Mayor Zelkaber is a hateful decision. He also referred to it as the most unnatural and painful in which I've ever been concerned. What does your research and what do the Prime Minister's diaries and public utterances the time tell us about his state of mind, as he wrestle with the decision of whether or not to order the attack M al Kabir. What we need to remember is Churchill had only recently been installed as prime Minister and in that short period of time He had faced the evacuations at Dunkirk that I already mentioned, Italy joining the war, the fall of France, fallpart other parts of Europe So he was working at Break Nck Speed There were multiple war cabinet meetings about what should be done with the French fleet And there were almost sort of two different sort of sides of the same argument One was the kind of churchill Lord Beaverbroke approach, which was There needs to be absolutely no concessions. The French fleet needs to be captured and taken immediately. And then there was the other side which came more from parts of the admiralty and other parts of the war cabinet, which was give France more time and allow more of a diplomatic solution. But really it came down to the point of if these ships fall into German hands, that spells the destruction of Britain and for Churchill It ultimately came down to victory at all costs and his rhetoric of never surrender So they went with the more extreme version But it impacted him hugely during the decision making. there several diaries that people write that they saw him in tears. and as you say, he describes it as the hardest decision that he's ever had to make, but also the most essential. Okay, can you tell us about H Force and the British Force chargeed with sailing? to Marizel Kabir and if necessary attacking the French fleet there. And also can you introduce us, Ebra to the British commander charged with leading the operation, James Sommerville because It seems that you have a fairly jaund this view of this entire operation right from the get go Absolutely. So Force H was pulled together only a matter of days before the attack took place and leading force H was Vice Admiral James Somerville. and this was really a second coming for him because he had been mistakenly diagnosed with tuberculosis a year before and his naval career came to a sudden end, but because of the rise in hostilities, he was effectively the only member of the Navy of enough seniority to be able to lead this new force So he found himself almost by accident leading Force H, and he had no idea what he was being sent to do Initially, the sort of rumor was that they were there to shore up some of the supply lines that the French had been protecting up to that point before they entered into the armistist negotiations. So he was a huge amount of shock when he receive the orders that he was to provide this ultimatum and ultimately attack the French fleet He sort of knew where his strengths were and knew where his weaknesses were And he decided right from the start that he was not the right person to actually lead the negotiations directly with the French and with Admir Genzo who was leading force Tad in Bazell Kabir So he appointed Captain Holland, Cedric Holland, who was known as Hookie because of his misshapen nose. And Hookie Holland had been based in France. He had been the naval attache in Paris for two years and had built really strong relationships with French officers and other members of the Navy. and he was highly respected and highly trusted So it made sense that he as the committed Francofile that he was would lead the negotiations. But actually, although it came from a very good place by Samuel Somerville it was the wrong decision and ended causing a huge amount of angst with the French who saw it as an insult that someone in so four aboutbout four ranks below Vice Admiral Jenzl was being sent to negotiate with him. Okay, so let's look at those negotiations in a little bit more detail then because Chapters twelve and thirteen of your book entitled Parly and Stalemate. Drop us like right into The heart of these of incredibly tense fraught negotiations between British and French that took place just off the North African coast ahead of the attack You relate how Hookie Holland approached the French vessels genuinely believing that they wanted to talk to him, wanted to see him, wanted to negotiate with him. when in fact he had a heavy machine gun trained on his boat ready to open fire. So can you talk us through these negotiations And maybe just explain in a bit more in detail. I know you've already kind of talked about a bit, why they ultimately broke bang. Yeah. I mean, they broke down for a few reasons. so The negotiations, they all started on the morning of the third of July in Hookie Holland was sent ahead of the rest of Force H aboard. HMS Foxhound And they approached the French fleets at Moelle Kaber And it actually took seeververal hours to even be allowed to have a meeting. with the French They were initially asked to leave. Admiral Jenzou was insulted because of Captain Holland's rank but was also obviously very insulted by the insinuation that the British didn't trust that he would not hand his ships over to Germany. So Holland was initially sent away. he refused to leave and he decided to actually try and make access to the harbour directly, not by force, but uninvited And what he didn't realize and I'm not sure he ever realized, I haven't seen any record later on in his life actually how close he got to being down by the French because they told him to leave informs him that he shouldn't enter the harbour and yet he was still trying to do so. He was eventually invited aboard Dunkirk, the battleship to meet with Admiral Gento where he was received with a very sort of frosty, understandably frosty reception sort of late in the afternoon. But the delays were not all the French being stubborn That was certainly part of it, but it wasn't the full extent of it Admiral Gentsel was planning to either retaliate to an attack or ideally try and escape from the harbour after Dar So he was deliberately trying to delay negotiations He wasn't able to make contact with the French admiralty, so he wasn't able to receive instructional T So he needed to delay for that but also He had absolutely no intention of succumbing to a threat from a foreign nation. So up to that point they had been disarming due to the armistice and following the requirements of the armistice So they tried to delay the British as much as possible that day so they could re arm to fight back So negotiations break down. Captain Holland is eventually driven away from Dunkirk and then at six PM on the third of July, the British attack on the French fleet. for month is Can you tell us about how the attack unfolded and kind of talk us through the experience if you can of being a French sailor under a tch. Because for all the kind of diplomatic wrangling, there's a very human story here, isn't it there? There a lot of people lost their lives. And what did your research into the book tell us about the experience of the French sailors who came under attack that day? Well, the French sailors before they came under attack, they were called to action stations earlier that day. because of a threat And initially, understandably, they assumed it was the Germans, maybe the Italians, and some of them were quite exxcited by the idea of avenging or trying to avenge what had happened on the mainland up to that point So it was obviously a huge amount of shock and disbelief when they found out that it was the British that they were being into action stations to to face against. I don't think anyone Probably on both sides, but in particular on the French side really believe that it would down to actual attack And as you say, the negotiations failed Somerville from the British side had clear instructions that The fleet needed to be put out of action before sunset. So that was his deadline. And at six o'clock, he ordered that fire would be opened And the attack only lasted for a matter of minutes, really. It wasn't hours. it was minutes And some of the first shells that came into the harbour the battleship, the Britannia, which was one of the older but still incredibly powerful battleships there The shells which hit it almost destroyed it instantly and just under a thousand saailors were killed in that kind of early strike and then aboard Dunkirk, Proant, which were the other battleships The French were initially trapped. they were desperately trying to remove themselves from their awnnings to be able to escape the harbour And from Provence, they did fire back and manageed to get close to one of the British battle crruiser HMS hood, which was firing on them but they were knocked out before they could actually make any impact one of the battleships, Strasbourg did manage to escape. this was an absolute disaster British because you know they want to put all of the ships out of action, but the two which they were really desperate about were Dunkirk and Stressborg So that managed to escape and actually no one Admiral Somerville and any of the naval leaders for the British didn't realize that had happened. They actually thought it had been sunk, and it was only later on when it was spotted by one of the biplanes that they realized that it had managed to managed to escape For the French sailors, it was over very quickly So when the smoke cleared that day after the attack that only lasted minutes, that was only when they really notice the level of destruction that had happened. and then there was the gory task of Rrieving bodies of those that have been thrown from their ships And in that initial waver of attack over a thousand, Sailors were killed. Okay, so you with that in mind, that really leads us to the question of the fallout from the attack. This must have caused an enormous amount of outrage and anger and shock among the French Can you talk us through what happened over the next few weeks? the attack impacted Anglo French relations. Absolutely. The first thing to say is that clearly this was a time where France was going through absolute turmoil in all aspects And so the attacks at Merzell Kabir were almost another blow to an already beaten down nation. The initial response was almost too declare war effectively between France or what remained of France and Britain. And there were some initial retaliation, there were some French airstrikes at Gibraltar straight after the attacks killed a few civilians and injured a few more Then there were some later attacks or some skirmishes at Dakar for example. But really, France was in such a weak position and the formation of free French opposed to Vichy France, So there was al there was already an internal struggle going on there. So I'm not trying to say it went unnoticed because it didn't, but it was in the context and the backdrop of so many other events. What really struck me when when I was reading accounts from those not necessarily involved Moiseelle Capir but reflections afterwards was that the French were adamant that they would never let their ships fall into German hands And this was put to the test in november nineteen forty two. So two years later, German forces launched what was known as Operation Anton and that was to seize remaining French fleets at Toulon And at that point, the French sailors scuttled All of their, I think there were just under eighty ships in the harbour at the time and scuttled all of them and prevented her capture. So Really, that was a sign that this lack of trust that the British had. in the French was unfounded So I think the ramifications after that point almost kind of shone the spotlight on what happened at Maz Al Kabir The reaction around Britain was relatively subdued, if not positive. the view of victory at all costs and never surrender. ion speaking louder than words. think was a very important moment for British people and also the British allies. So in the US I think one thing that has often been overlooked with what happened at Moel Kabir was This was the defining moment S Roosevelt and the American administration. that showed that Britain. would continue the fight at all costs. Can we talk about that in a little bit more detail Because Churchill Kling didn'tly that part of the rationale for attacking the French fet was that it showed to the rest of the world especially Americans that Britain meant business they would stop at nothing to win the war, did you genuinely believe that that was one of the reasons Churchill ordered the attack. And I guess You are kind of arguing actually if that was the case, it really works. The Americas were impressed. Absolutely. What we know up to the point of the attack. is that Churchill's, I don't want to say his number one priority because he had so many of them, but one of his absolute key priorities was American involvement. in the war and he saw that as the path to victory So he was busy courting Roosevelt and had a very good open channels of communication with him And he saw in Roosevelt someone who like Churchill knew the importance of naval power and the significance of naval power So he understood and he knew that Roosevelt was concerned himself about Germany gaining dominance at sea because what that would do desespite the fact to quote, the current U SS president, there's a big, beautiful ocean between Europe and America. Roosevelt saw the danger that would come from Germany having dominant in the Atlantic So I can't say for certain that Churchill knew that by doing this attack, That It would help the relations with America Ultimately, we know that in the build up to it, he was hoping for diplomatic solution But what we do know for sure is that the American response to the attack was as you say that Britain was serious about continuing the war and very understandably And this was coming from Kennedy, the American ammbassador to the UK. Very understandably, there was a strong belief that if Britain was offered a peace deal with Germany given that Britain was on its knees at this point, that they would take it And for Roosevelt and for the Americans, they were concerned about sending supplies and providing their support to Britain if it was ultimately going to end up falling into German hands one way or another. So this was the defining moment when they realized that Britain was going to fight on until the end That wasn't the reason Churchill went into this in the first place But it certainly helped justify the action that was taking place. . And what about the Germans then? Did Operation Cutterport change in any way Hitler's sinking when it came to Britain and the prospect of it putting up significant military resistance. Hitler really wanted to agree a pact with Britain. I think it was up to this point that he believed that Britain would come to the table So this was certainly a sign of strength British and their intention. but Within Germany, this was obviously a an absolute goldmine when it came to propaganda, so showing that the British were war criminals and were willing to their allies and so forth. So it was greeted by surprise and shock within the German leadership. but also was taken full advantage of when it came to the perception of Britain I think the other thing to say as well is it really showed that the only way to stop Britain being a problem for Germany was fighting and defeating Britain a peaceful solution was not going to be possible, certainly not with Churchill at the helm. Okay, by the way, listeners, this isn't the first time that Edward has appeared on the History Extra podcast. In fact, he came on here just over a year ago to discuss a remarkable life Nicholas Winton who helped hundreds of Jewish children escape Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War. If you'd like to listen to that podcast, all you have to do is click on the link that I'll leave in the podcast description Okay, Edward, to return to Operation Cataple. In hindsight, more than eighty years later, do most historians tend to see it as justified as being militarily effective Has their view on it changed much in recent years? I would say, and I'm sure several people might disagree with this, I would say the general consensus from historians is that The attacks were justified and they were essential And really certainly from British historians perspectives The French left little option but to go ahead with this I can't speak to whether attitudes have changed recently, but certainly from my own research I can agree with that opinion up to a point. It's clear that if Germany had got their hands on the French fleet that it would have speled destruction and it's almost certain that it would have speled complete destruction for Britain and therefore the result of World War two would have been very different. So it was absolutely essential that that happened. What's clear though, when you look at the accounts from those involved and the decision makers at the time France and Britain were on exactly the same page that The French fleet should not fall into German hats And there was a plan in place that The French fleets would sail to a neutral port, most probably in the U.S. to avoid falling into German hands. But it was the appearents of the British and the delivery of an ultimatum. that the French felt gave them no option to return fire And I think where I've landed on this is it was sessential that this was done could have been delivered in a peaceful way because fundamentally bothoth nations, the British and French were on the same page with where they wanted the outcome to be. And finally, Edward, if there's one fact, something that you learned about in this episode in Miselle Kaber that really stayed with you during your research for the book that really struck a chord with you. Would you mind sharing it with us? Yeah That's a really good question I think one thing that really struck me was the impact that this had on Winston Churchill and the normally gung ho stiff upper lip prime minister was initially desperate that this should end peacefully. really struggled with the decision. And when the events unfolded, family members, close advisors, other MPs have all written about how visibly shaken and upset he was by this. And when you put this into the context of all of the decisions that he was making, and all of the weight that were sitting on his shoulders at the time That really struck me And then the other part as well was it sounds very cliche to say it, but the importance of clear communication A lot of this unfolded because communication wasn't clear what the British were asking, what the French were willing to do, what the freat from Germany really was. possible solutions could be And when you put that in a compressed period of time, just in one day with messages passing from one person to another to another You just have a complete breakdown in communication So that really struck me throughout that As I said earlier, both sides were singing from the same hymn sheet, they just probably didn't realize it at the time. and that was all down to a lack of communication. Edward, thank you so much for that. That was absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for having me. That was Edward Abel Smith talking to Spencer Mn' Edward is a non fiction author, feature writer, documentary maker and podcaster His latest book, A Hateful Decision explores the Royal Navy's attack on the French fleet in nineteen forty.