German seizure of French fleet

Greetings,

A while back I made a search of my WW2 references looking for any information on German efforts to aquire units of the surrendered French fleet in occupied Europe or Vichy France and didnt come across anything except for the wholsale scuttling of said ships when the Germans tried to take them by force (I cant remember the date off hand). Were there any diplomatic efforts or otherwise made, prior to this? Given the amount of effort the RN expended in guarding against the relatively few Kriegsmarine capital ships available it would seem a good idea to try and aquire a light cruiser or more by fair means or foul if at all possible.

Has anyone heard of anything relating to this?

Brendan Ibbs

Look for biographies of Adm. Darlan, French CNO and a member of more than one Vichy government under Petain. From June 1940 his main concern was keeping both British and German hands off his fleet.

Well, about the only way you can lay hands on a fleet is by walking over previously-unoccupied territory and try to rush to the harbor. This the Germans did in November 1942, and the fleet scuttled itself to avoid that.

One of the reasons that Vichy France was allowed to exist, and keep its colonies was that the fleet was a bargaining chip. If it had been turned over to the Germans, the British would have been in serious trouble in the Med, and that's the reason why they attacked a French squadron in Mers-El-Kebir in 1940. Vichy always tried to prevent anyone from interfering with the fleet and the colonies, since these were the only things they could use to negociate with the Germans. After a while, they fooled themselves into believing that the Germans still cared about what was left of the fleet and Empire, but that's another problem.