Blood, Sweat and Arrogance: The Myths of Churchill's War by Gordon Corrigan

Author:Gordon Corrigan [Corrigan, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780225555
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2012-11-28T11:00:00+00:00

If none of the options offered was acceptable to the French they could be offered the last chance alternative of ‘demilitarising’ their ships, that is of making the guns incapable of being fired and of discharging fuel, in their present berths, provided that such action was completed to British satisfaction within six hours, and that it rendered the ships incapable of being repaired in under a year. Should the French still refuse to cooperate then the British were to sink them.

In 1801 and again in 1807 the British had presented the same stark choices to Denmark, a small neutral nation that was inherently pro-British. The Danes refused to comply and the British government ordered their fleet destroyed to prevent it falling into the hands of the French. On those occasions both Admiral Parker (1801) and Admiral Gambier (1807) protested that what they were being asked to do infringed professional naval honour. In 1807, too, Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the First Duke of Wellington) thought the whole thing distasteful. In the end orders are orders and on both occasions the Danish ships were sunk, burned to the waterline, or boarded and taken back to England. In 1940, too, the three admirals expressed their disapproval, although only Admiral North actually sent a letter of protest after the event, and his career suffered for it.

In Alexandria patient and diplomatic discussions between Admiral Cunningham and the French Admiral Godfroy eventually resulted in the French ships being rendered unusable, without bloodshed. On 3 July Force H sailed for Mers-el-Kebir, and ahead of it went a destroyer carrying Captain C. S. Holland RN with the ultimatum for the French. At first the French Admiral Gensoul refused to see Holland, but when he did he asked for time to consider. Gensoul signalled the Vichy Admiralty to the effect that he had been given six hours to sink his ships or the British would use force. Presented like that, Vichy could hardly do otherwise than tell Gensoul to refuse, although it is difficult to see how, even if Gensoul had signalled the full terms of the British ultimatum, once Vichy had been asked for instructions, the French government could do other than order resistance. Force H mined the entrance to the harbour and, having extended the time limit for French compliance, Admiral Somerville opened fire at 1745 hours. The Bretagne blew up, the Dunkerque ran aground and the Provence and a number of smaller ships were seriously damaged. Strasbourg and five destroyers got out of the harbour and back to Toulon, despite the best efforts of the Swordfish torpedo bombers from Ark Royal. In all forty-seven French officers and 1,250 sailors were killed, and another 351 wounded. Somerville called it ‘a filthy job’, and Cunningham a ‘ghastly error’.7 On 7 July the Richelieu was immobilised in Dakar by attacks from British carrier aircraft and motor torpedo boats, at the cost of another 154 dead Frenchmen, but she was not sunk nor her guns rendered useless. French

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