page_title: French Somaliland in World War II
section_title: Fighting after the armistice
hierarchical_section_title: French Somaliland in World War II / War with Italy and armistice / Fighting after the armistice
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Poste militaire français à Ali-Sabieh, près de la frontière entre la Côte française des Somalis et l'Éthiopie. Construit sur un piton, le poste suveillait la frontière et la ligne Djibouti-Addis Ababa du Chemin de fer franco-éthiopien qui passait à proximité. Photo datant de c. 1940. English: French military post at Ali-Sabieh, near the French Somaliland-Ethiopia border. Built on an outcrop, the military post kept watch on the border and on the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railway that passed nearby. Photo from c. 1940.
context_page_description: French Somaliland, with its capital at Djibouti, was the scene of only minor skirmishing during World War II, principally between June and July 1940. After the fall of France the colony was briefly in limbo until a governor loyal to the Vichy government was installed on 25 July. It was the last French possession in Africa to remain loyal to Vichy, surrendering to Free French forces only on 26 December 1942. Pierre Nouailhetas governed the territory through most of the Vichy period. After aerial bombardment by the British, he instituted a reign of terror against Europeans and locals. Nouailhetas was eventually recalled and forced to retire. From September 1940, the colony was under an Allied blockade, and many of its inhabitants fled to neighbouring British Somaliland. After the territory's liberation, there were many governors and recovery from the deprivation of 1940–42 was only beginning when the war ended in 1945.
context_section_description: Between 1 and 10 July several clashes with the Italians took place on the plain of Hanlé, at Ali-Sabieh and along the railroad. The border area of western French Somaliland was occupied by Italian troops. Under increasing British pressure, they withdrew from Hanlé beginning in October 1940 and from Dagguirou by April 1941, when the French had returned. When the government on 10 July learned that the armistice was not yet put into effect in Somaliland, President Philippe Pétain sent General Gaëtan Germain as his personal representative to correct the situation. Germain arrived at Asmara on 14 July. On 19 July the local conseil d'administration (administrative council) voted unanimously (with the exception of Legentilhomme) to remain loyal to Pétain's collaborationist government at Vichy. Germain then negotiated the resignation of Legentilhomme and convinced the armistice commission then being set up that it was inadvisable and impractical to demilitarise French Somaliland, in which approximately 8,000 soldiers (with tanks and airplanes) thus remained on guard. French troops in British Somaliland were withdrawn. On 23 July Germain succeeded Legentilhomme as commander-in-chief of French forces. On the same day, Governor Hubert Deschamps  was dismissed for his refusal to expel the British consul, with whom he had reached an agreement to supply the colony with food. Germain succeeded him as well, thus becoming the supreme civil and military authority in the colony. He entered Djibouti on 25 July. According to the Service historique de l'armée de terre, the official archives of the French army, which has a dossier of events in French Somaliland from 17 June through 11 July, the colony "ceased to be a theatre of operations" on 28 July.
  On 2 August Legentilhomme and two officers, Captains Appert and des Essarts, refused the offer of repatriation on an Italian airplane and defected to the British. They arrived in Aden on 5 August. The Italian chief of staff, Pietro Badoglio, had "with casual vindictiveness" ordered him shot if he fell into Italian hands, in accordance with paragraph 14 of the armistice convention which defined those leaving French territory to fight against Italy as "illegal combatants". Negotiations at Dewele on the local implementation of the armistice were only finally completed on 8 August. In a note penned that day, now in the Archives nationales d'Outre-mer, the French colonial official Edouard Chedeville recorded that "the Italians have taken by force our posts at Dadda'to and Balambolta, and occupied certain others after we had evacuated them, notably Dagguirou and Agna in the Hanlé, Hadela to the north of lake Abbe and possibly also Alailou.
  During the period of uncertainty in Djibouti, the Duke of Aosta urged an attack on British Somaliland in order to cut off the French colony from British support. Benito Mussolini approved the campaign on 19 July, but the situation in Djibouti changed rapidly in Italy's favour after that. The 17th Colonial Brigade under Colonel Agosti occupied the French fort at Loyada on the border with British Somaliland in early August. When the Italian invasion of British Somaliland began on 3 August, the forces at Loyada moved on Zeila, which they had taken by 5 August. The French territory was completely surrounded on land by Italian possessions. Vichy managed to continue supplying it by submarine from Madagascar, and maintained direct contact by air through flights from France via Greece (usually terminating in Madagascar).
caption: French fort at Ali-Sabieh, overlooking the railway, c. 1940
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