Royal Navy attacks the French Fleet

3rd July 1940: The British open fire on their former Ally's capital ships in the Moroccan port of Mers-El-Kebir

The French battleships on the mole at Mers-El-Kebir on 3rd July. They could not bring all their guns to bear on ships outside the harbour from this position.

Ever since the French Armistice with Germany, the British government had been concerned about the powerful French fleet. Although France was now out of the war, the French ships, based at Toulon, Fr…