From the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor to the amphibious landings in the Solomon Islands,
and from the fall of Gondar in Ethiopia to the commando raids in Norway's Telemark region,
World War Two was truly a global conflict.
But who was fighting who? To paint the war as a struggle between the Allies and the Axis
Powers is accurate, but only up to a point. In some cases, whole nations were torn apart and
found themselves embroiled in civil wars that played out alongside international violence.
In the dying days of the imperial age, a civil war was never just a civil war.
Conflict at home meant conflict in far-flung colonies, too, often hundreds or even thousands
of miles away. This is how troops flying Le Tricolour found themselves locked in
combat against one another in the tropics of Gabon, almost 5,000 miles from Paris.
On May 10, 1940, Adolf Hitler's Blitzkrieg — or Lightning War — gripped France in its teeth.
Manpower and hardware poured over France's eastern borders at a frightening pace,
and a summer of resistance would give way too early into a protracted autumn of occupation,
as an armistice was signed and went into effect on July 25th.
There were now essentially two Frances, or perhaps three. The
Nazis did not overrun the entirety of France — they did not need to. Instead,
they occupied a vast area comprising the northern half of the country,
as well as the entire Atlantic coastline right down to the border with neutral fascist Spain.
The long-disputed eastern territories were absorbed into Germany proper, while the Northern
Zone was occupied by Nazi forces. The Southern Zone — Vichy France — would remain independent
but would serve as a puppet state, ally, and collaborator, with the Nazis to the north.
A third France would exist as a notion only — at least at first — the idea of
what the country had been and what it could become again in the future. This was Free
France — a sort of continuation government that had fled France as the country fell,
setting up a headquarters first in London, and then later in Algiers.
So, three Frances — Free France, Vichy France, and the German-occupied Zone Nord, or Northern Zone.
But even this idea of three separate entities is oversimplifying things.
France's Empire, particularly in Africa, also needs to be considered.
Key French territories in Equatorial Africa swiftly joined the Free France cause.
Chad offered unyielding support for Free France throughout the conflict. To the south,
Cameroon had been overseen by the pro-Vichy Richard Brunot, but this was reversed on August
27th when General Leclerc landed at Douala and swiftly claimed the territory for Free France.
This 'idea' of a nation had land, it had soldiers, and, increasingly, it had a plan.
Only, there was a problem — Gabon.
Administered from the capital Libreville, Gabon had initially declared for the Free French,
thanks to its sympathetic governor Georges Masson. The colony's population, however,
and the local Catholic bishop, had other ideas, and Masson was forced to abandon his principles
and side with the Vichy forces. This decision would haunt Masson for the rest of his days.
The plan was to assault the Axis powers in Africa, expanding the global conflict across the
continent. High on the agenda was Libya — part of the Italian Empire — and in early October,
Charles de Gaulle arrived in Cameroon, ready to survey the situation for himself.
Chad, he decided, would make an ideal staging post for an assault in the north.
But Gabon, in the south, must fall to the Free French.
On October 27th, Free French forces crossed the border from Cameroon into Gabon,
seizing the strategic town of Mitzic. The Battle for Gabon had begun.
By the end of the first week of November, the Free French advance was going well. Lambaréné
fell on November 5th, along with the Vichy garrison in the town,
and Free French troops continued to push further into Gabon. Although stung by the
recent defeat at the Battle of Dakar in September — the only major military
engagement in French West Africa, which would remain in Vichy's hands throughout
the war — the British Royal Navy continued to support the Free French troops on the ground.
On November 8th, one of the British ships — the HMS Milford — spotted a Vichy submarine,
the Poincelot, and engaged. The sub escaped but was chased down by a Supermarine Walrus biplane,
launched from the HMS Devonshire. The Vichy navy had lost two of their Redoutable-class
submarines off Dakar and was not in any hurry to lose another. The Poincelot dived but was rocked
by two depth charges launched from the Walrus and was gravely wounded. The submarine's crew
had no choice but to scuttle their vessel, and her captain went down with his ship.
Later that same day, Major Marie-Pierre Koenig landed at Pointe La Mondah, within striking
distance of the Gabonese capital Libreville, with a force of Legionnaires and colonial troops.
The Vichy situation in Gabon had gone from bad to dire in only a few short days.
But the battle was not yet finished. On November 9th, Free French Lysanders took off from Douala
and ran bombing raids on the aerodrome at Libreville. The raids were somewhat successful,
but only up to a point, and the Vichy defenders still had a foothold in the capital.
Koenig was now advancing on Libreville, but the resistance he met was more dogged than
perhaps he expected, and the fall of Libreville was delayed. Off the coast,
another naval engagement saw Free French vessels engaging their Vichy counterparts,
achieving maritime supremacy when Vicky's Bougainville craft was sunk.
Libreville was now within grasp, and Koenig's forces succeeded in their
objective the following day, November 10th. Libreville had been liberated. The city,
named literally Free Town, now belonged to the Free French.
The territory of Gabon — or what was left of it — would follow close behind. By November 12th,
the last remaining Vichy forces still held onto the strategic harbour at Port-Gentil,
but they knew the game was up. They surrendered without a fight,
ceding control of Gabon to the Free French. Governor Masson, appalled by the events of
the past few days, and devastated by his own about-face, took his own life.
The fall of Gabon meant that all of French Equatorial Africa joined the Free French cause.
France's colonies in West Africa would remain under the control of the Vichy regime,
but there would be no further action in this corner of the continent. Instead, De Gaulle and
Leclerc returned their intentions to the north, to Chad, and beyond that, to Italian Libya.
For two years, the forces of French Equatorial Africa bided their time. But when the moment
finally came in November 1942, the repercussions were enormous. On November 8th — two years to the
day after Major Koenig landed at Pointe La Mondah — an Allied force assaulted
Casablanca in Morocco and Oran and Algiers in Algeria. Operation Torch was underway,
and allied forces began pushing eastwards towards Tunisia. At the same time, further east,
the forces of British Field Marshals Alexander and Montgomery were engaged in a bitter struggle
against the Axis at El Alamein in Egypt. Victory here would come three days later on November 11th,
and a second Allied pincer would begin its advance to Tunisia.
The opening of another front in Africa caused serious alarm for Nazi Germany. As Operation
Torch ignited a powder keg in North Africa, Hitler realised the time was up for Vichy France.
Such a large territory along the Mediterranean coast — within the Axis sphere of influence
but beyond its direct control? This simply could not be permitted. On November 11th,
the Axis launched its own operation — Fall Anton: the total annexation of Vichy France
and Corsica, and the division of the territories between Germany and Italy.
By January of 1943, the Free French had broken through from Lake Chad as far as Tripoli in Libya,
joining up with their British Allies. To the north, across the Mediterranean Sea,
is the Italian Mainland. Some of the bloodiest chapters of the war remained ahead,
but events in Africa had shifted the balance of power in Europe for good.
The land that is present-day Gabon would have had a rich and vibrant culture some
six hundred years ago, before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1472. We know this
because of the tribal art that traces its roots back to this time, although much of
the context and understanding behind this art has been lost. In the centuries that followed,
tribal governance in the region coalesced, and the land became part of the far larger Kingdom
of Congo and the Kingdom of Loango, before becoming a vassal of the Portuguese Empire.
In the 19th Century, the arrival of the French would see one colonial power give way to another
before the Agadir Crisis saw the territory ceded to Germany between 1912 and 1918. Gabon would
finally taste independence in 1960 and joined the Commonwealth in June 2022 after 62 years of
nationhood. Still, woven into that rich tapestry of culture and history are 17 days in 1940,
when Vichy and Free French forces clashed on Gabonese soil — an all-too-often forgotten
conflict that would have a huge role to play in the progress of the Second World War.
What do you think about the story of Gabon,
and the French colonial rebellions during World War II? Let us know in the comments.