Axis plans for the Toulon fleet and French salvage hopes

Destroying the Toulon fleet also removed Vichy France's last major bargaining instrument with Germany. An Axis plan called for German sailors to seize the vessels and transfer them to Italy despite the armistice prohibition. Erich Raeder reportedly warned that French officers would not surrender their ships to a foreign power, although later accounts may overstate how clearly he opposed the attempt at the time. French engineers meanwhile altered orders for capsizing the ships and tried to settle them upright so that France might recover them after the war. That decision preserved a postwar hope but also made some wrecks easier for Italy to salvage as scrap. The episode joins political leverage and professional honour to the engineering consequences of how a fleet is destroyed, while retaining caution about Raeder's later reputation.