Operation Catapult

One obscure part of World War Two history is what happened to French forces immediately after their defeat to the Nazis. When the French surrendered to the Nazis in the Second World War, these forces didn’t just turn in their weapons and go home, France as an entity still existed in some form and needed forces to defend her from Allied and Axis threats alike. Would French military assets be neutral or now used against the Allies? In the immediate and chaotic aftermath of French capitulation to the Germans, British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made a decision that is still derided in France today, and resulted in the death of nearly 1,300 French sailors, attacking the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. Churchill himself would write “this was the most hateful decision, the most unnatural and painful in which I have ever been concerned.” This article will detail the events around this attack, and the context around the Allied decision.

With the collapse of the French in 1940, the Nazis occupied northern France but left southern France and most of the French Colonial possessions “unoccupied.” These unoccupied and colonial areas were organized under a new government known as Vichy France, named after the new capital city of Vichy, which took a collaborationist stance with the Nazis. The Nazis also sent around two million French prisoners of war (POWs) into forced labor camps throughout Nazi controlled Europe. However, not all French armed forces accepted this new government and Nazi rule; a French general, Charles de Gaulle, successfully fled to England and set up the “Free French” forces and government in exile, vying against Vichy France to be the legitimate government of France. The free French forces consisted of French African colonial forces, escaped French forces, the French foreign legion, and fragmented resistance groups.  These Free French forces would serve alongside the Allies for the duration of the war and even against Nazi allied Vichy forces. As the war waged on, and the Allies invaded places like North Africa and Italy, Vichy forces routinely joined the Allies, and the numbers of Free French forces swelled to 1.2 million by the war’s end. But our story takes place in 1940, just after the capitulation of French forces to the Nazis.

As the new armistice went into effect between Germany and France, the British government feared that the Nazis would take control of the French navy, even though the armistice directly referenced that the Germans would make no demands of the French fleet, with a similar statement in the armistice with the Italians. The British doubted that the Italians and the Germans would hold to their world and leave the French fleet neutral, and their fears (in their minds) started to be realized when the Italians requested the French to “temporarily” relocate the bulk of their fleet to North African ports, within reach of Italian forces. The British feared this move could lead to the Italians/Germans taking control of the fleet, and with a combined Italian, German, and French fleet against the lone British Royal Navy, the balance at sea would swing towards the Axis powers, leaving the British position untenable for the long term. To the British, an allied or neutral French fleet could be the difference between victory or total defeat. To counter the potential threat of a French fleet being used against them, the British devised an operation known as Operation Catapult, the main objective being the securing of French naval assets in multiple locations such as Egypt, French Algeria, and England.

However, before the British launched Operation Catapult, negations were opened with their former allies to secure a peaceful transition of French naval vessels around the world into British hands. These negotiations were not successful, so the British delivered an ultimatum to the French admiral in charge of the most powerful group targeted in Operation Catapult, Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul, at Mers-el-Kébir, in French Algeria. The British fleet to deliver this ultimatum and use force if necessary to secure the ships at Mers-el-Kébir, was known as Force H. Force H, in communications back to the British high command, indicated their wish to avoid hostilities and predicted that hostile action would alienate French forces everywhere. The Admiralty, earlier directed by Churchill, were insistent on hostilities if the French did not agree to the demands, saying “firm intention of His Majesty’s Government that if the French will not accept any of your alternatives, they are to be destroyed.” The task force arrived off the Coast of French Algeria on 3 July. Also, on 3 July, British forces boarded French ships and submarines moored in Plymouth and Portsmouth, England. There was light resistance to this surprise boarding action, resulting in the death of three British Navy personnel and one French sailor. In Alexandria, Egypt, the French navy surrendered their five ships to the British peacefully.

A British Captain who spoke French, Cedric Holland, was selected to deliver the ultimatum, while the insulted Gensoul, who resented negotiating with a junior officer to him, sent his subordinate in his stead, causing confusion on who was empowered to make a decision. The ultimatum contained 3 options for the French: 1. join the British and continue the fight against the Germans and Italians, 2. Sail to a British port and the crews will be repatriated to France and the ships returned (with compensation if damaged) at the conclusion of the war, 3. Sail to the West Indies to be demilitarized in a French port or entrusted to the United States (neutral at the time) to remain safe until the conclusion of hostilities. If these options were refused or no response received, the French were informed they would be attacked (with regret) in 6 hours. Gensoul saw no acceptable options and readied his fleet to defend themselves, stating “given the form and substance of the veritable ultimatum which has been sent to Admiral Gensoul, the French ships will defend themselves with force.”

Although there was hope that the French would change their minds or the British would back down, the six hours passed and hostilities commenced, with the HMS Hood opening fire first, followed by Force H fully engaging. After ten minutes of sustained bombardment, the French surrendered. 1 battleship was fully sunk, 2 heavily damaged, 3 destroyers damaged, and a few smaller ships damaged. In all, 1,297 French sailors lost their lives with 350 wounded, though some ships escaped to Toulon, receiving a hero’s welcome upon their arrival.

In 1942, the Germans did try to capture the French fleet, now mainly based out of Toulon, in violation of the Armistice, but the French successfully destroyed any ship of value prior to the arrival of the Germans, showing the French resolve to keep the navy out of Axis’ hands. The legacy of Operation Catapult and the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir is mixed, with historians debating that the attack, although uniting the Vichy French in opposition against Britain, was a tactical success, and others debating that its military success did not outweigh the propaganda value against Britain. Further, there is debate that with the successful scuttling of the French navy in Toulon in 1942, were the British fears unfounded and did Britain attack a former ally for no reason? We will leave that up to you to decide.