The Bitter Sea: The Struggle for Mastery in the Mediterranean 1935–1949. Simon Ball

had had modest plans for the Mediterranean–the convoys between North Africa and the metropole–but it had the genuine potential to move in and out of the Mediterranean. France itself had both Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, but the Atlantic coast was occupied by the Germans in June 1940. French North Africa also had Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, all of which remained in French hands. The French were willing and able to transfer warships between the two coasts.

      Like the British, the French had deployed two powerful battle squadrons in the Mediterranean by the summer of 1940. In the western basin the Force de Raid was based in the Oran naval complex, including Mers el-Kébir. In the eastern basin Force X had come alongside Cunninghams fleet in Alexandria. The purpose of Force X was unclear. The French regarded it as a favour to the British, who had demanded reinforcement; the British suspected that it was a vehicle for demonstrating French power in the eastern Mediterranean. ²⁰ What one can say for sure is that it completed only one mission in the entire war: the bombardment of the Libyan port of Bardia in June 1940.

      Even before Force X sailed for Bardia, however, an Anglo-French froideur had set in. The pivotal figure was the great pre-war champion of the Mediterranean, Darlan. Not only was Darlan the head of the French navy by rank but he ran it through an informal closed shop, known as the friends of François, the ADF. Being Darlan’s enemy was not the road to success. The only admiral to defect to Free France, Muselier, had been declared unfit as an officer–admittedly not without cause–and chased out of the service by Darlan. Darlan was undoubtedly master of the Marine but, to his chagrin, the Marine had not always been at the heart of France. As the French government fled south, towards the sea, the navy achieved the importance for which Darlan had longed, a force untainted by failure, the final bulwark of the nation. A prize so precious caused inevitable discord. British emissaries, including Churchill himself, rushed to Bordeaux to urge the French to fight on and, above all, for the fleet to abandon France. Darlan was repulsed. ‘I was disgusted’, he wrote after a meeting with Dudley Pound, ‘by the attitude of these people who had no pity for defeated France and seemed to forget the heroic aid given them by the Marine’ ²¹ For Darlan, the fleet, alive in the empire, was the one bargaining chip that France had left, guaranteeing it against extinction. He understood British cupidity and loathed it. Darlan temporized, saying only that the fleet would never fall into enemy hands, German or British.

      Promises given in bad faith fooled no one. The British ambassador to France dismissed Darlan’s words as pathetic assurances’. ²² ‘In a matter so vital to the safety of the whole British Empire,’ in Churchill’s fatal judgement, we could not afford to rely on the word of Admiral Darlan.’ ²³ By the time Churchill condemned Darlan, he had become much more than a mere admiral but rather the chief executive of the strong, if vague, will of France’s new leader, Marshal Pétain. France had surrendered, the next order of business was the fate of the ships in the Mediterranean.

      The British conducted a rapid poll of the French admirals and found little hope. The Amiral Afrique in Casablanca wearily dismissed the envoys, France was defeated but North Africa would remain indivisible from France; he awaited his orders from Darlan, whatever they might be. The Amiral Atlantique, commanding the Force de Raid, dismissed the idea that North Africa would fight on with its exiguous resources. The Amiral Sud in Bizerta said that the fleet was resigned to capitulation but was at least willing to ask Darlan whether he should continue the fight. ²⁴ Darlan dismissed all such suggestions with contempt–those who asked were ‘living in a dream world’. His mind was filled with the phantoms of German power. She and her allies, he believed, would soon control the whole coastline of western and central Europe from the Cap Nord to Trieste. Equally the southern coastline of the Mediterranean from Spanish Morocco to Cyrenaica would be theirs. If France decided to resist there could be only one result: the ‘asphyxiation’–it is notable that he used Mussolini’s favourite word for complaining about Mediterranean–of North Africa. Darlan imagined Casablanca, Oran, Algiers and Bizerta–and the ships hiding in their harbours–each reduced to rubble by German bombs. All that would be left would be for the navy to flee the Mediterranean, to eke out an impoverished and declining existence far to the south on the Atlantic coast of Africa. It was pointless to place any trust in the British: their men were mediocre, their leaders were stupid. Germany was going to win. ²⁵ The Germans, too, believed that they would win with ‘restraint and insight’. The key, Hitler assured Mussolini, was to offer France lenient terms on the fleet; then, the Führer correctly perceived, Darlan would castrate his own navy. ²⁶

      When Somerville set sail for Gibraltar, his putative mission was to secure the Mediterranean approaches against the Italians; his real mission was to take on the French. Cunningham, too, was ordered to take out Force X. There the similarity between the two cases ended. The twins, issued with the same orders, effected very different results. Whereas Somerville attacked Mers el-Kébir, Cunningham refused to attack the French in Alexandria. The French at Oran were in the French empire; any damage caused would be to French or Algerian lives and property. The French at Alexandria were deep within British ground; any damage caused would be to British or Egyptian lives. The Force de Raid was much more powerful than Force X. At its core lay two of the most impressive vessels in any navy, the fast battleships Dunkerque and Strasbourg. These modern, rakish vessels, completed only in the late 1930s, had claim to be the most powerful warships in the Mediterranean. The key variable, however, was that Cunningham was in a position to say no, whereas Somerville had little choice.

      It would have been hard to find a more reluctant warrior than Somerville. Upon reaching Gibraltar, all the senior officers on the Rock convened to agree that they did not wish to engage the French. Somerville was forced to admit, however, that no such sentiments existed on the lower decks of his ships, the killing didn’t worry the sailors in the least, ‘as “they never ’ad no use for them French bastards” ’. ²⁷ The gloom of the senior officers was lightened only by their firm conviction that ‘the French collapse was so complete and the will to fight so entirely extinguished, that it seems highly improbable that the French would, in the last resort, resist by force’. In this ideal world the French would agree, if not to hand the ships over to Britain, then at least to flee to the West Indies or scuttle the things and have done with the whole affair. All that would be needed would be a British show of force off the coast of Algeria. The naval officers had seriously misread their new enemies. When Captain ‘Hooky’ Holland entered Mers el-Kébir harbour with British terms, he was barely able to persuade Amiral Atlantique to see him. His desperate pleas to avoid bloodshed were to no avail. His motorboat pulled away from the French flagship Dunkerque less than half an hour before the British opened fire and only thirty-two minutes before the old French battleship Bretagne exploded, killing nearly all the crew. Holland’s small boat was picked up bobbing outside the harbour after the battle. ²⁸

      As Somerville himself admitted, his assumption that he would not have to fight–that the French would abandon their vessels if he opened fire–led him to botch the battle. Although the British gunfire hit the Dunkerque, it missed the Strasbourg entirely. She was able to cast off from the middle of the harbour, escape from the anchorage and head off east before Somerville could react. By the time Force H swung around and gave chase, one of the fastest battleships in the world had a 25-mile head start and was beyond recall. Strasbourg made her way, unmolested, across the Mediterranean to berth with the rest of the French fleet in Toulon. ‘I’m somewhat appalled by my apparent lack of foresight,’ Somerville confided in his wife,‘I never expected for one single moment that they would attempt to take their ships out of harbour under such conditions.’ ²⁹

      The situation