Prof. Greg Jackson

It's made a protectorate, and skipping past the politics of the Africa-dividing Berlin Conference of 1884 that we covered in episode 128, as well as the hard diplomacy of the Algeciras Conference in 1906 that we touched on in episode 116, that same fate befalls Morocco to French Algeria's west.

The Sultanate becomes a French protectorate in 1912.

Now, France isn't the only colonial power in North Africa.

to the east of Tunisia, Italy takes Libya in 1911.

As we saw in episode 183's tale of the rise of Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.

At the same time, Britain rules in Egypt.

The exact legal status of Britain's dominance here shifts over the years, but de facto rule began in 1882, and despite nominal independence in 1922, that will continue until 1952.

Thus, by the time Adolf Hitler rises to power, the whole of North Africa is under European rule, and the entire western half is under French rule.

Indeed, Morocco, Tunisia, and especially Algeria comprise a treasured region in the global French Empire, an empire that stretches from the Caribbean across much of the African continent, Southeast Asia's Indochinese Peninsula, and beyond.

And that vast empire matters in the context of World War II.

It raises important questions as the Nazi war machine blitzkriegs into France in May 1940, and as the French government flees, leaving the perfectly timed clump of the Wehrmacht's goose-stepping boots to echo through the almost empty streets of the capital that June.

Even if European or metropolitan France has fallen,

Could the French Empire carry the torch?

Could the French government, its virtually untouched and fourth largest in the world navy, and what remains of its army, all evacuate to French Algeria, set up a new capital, and, with the help of colonial subjects, like the half a million who fought for Le République during the First World War, continue the fight?

Britain wishes France would, but this would require a level of global vision and risk tolerance far beyond current French leadership.

Instead, the Third Republic collapses, and a new government, led by great war hero, Marshal Philippe Pétain, signs an armistice.

If you remember episode 188's opening, you know what that armistice entails.

But broadly, I'll remind you that it allows the Nazis to occupy northern and Atlantic coastal France, it makes POWs of the whole French army in Europe, and it permits Philippe Pétain to set up a government in the ski town of Vichy to administer metropolitan France's unoccupied « zone libre » or « free zone » as well as administer the global French empire.

And I say administer quite intentionally.

Per the armistice, Vichy survives only at Germany's sufferance.