Was Dunkirk REALLY that big of a deal?

[Torretta13]

In other words, IF Hitler had successfully annihilated the BEF at Dunkirk, would that REALLY have, in and of itself, changed the outcome of the war, or probably not? Thoughts?

[BDV]

No, it was not.

The soldiers from the \bef, the \french, and the Belgian Army were removed from the battle at minimal cost for the germans. Thus the Fall Rot warhammer would fall on the severely depleted and fairly lonely french army in time, before the french factories could send to the front the updated materiel, the British/Commonwealth could re-establish a semblance of expeditionary Force, and French politicians a semblance of composure.

On a war style predicated on tempo, not on material/men superiority, the Dunkirk withdrawal offered the germans not only the opportunity to maintain the tempo, but the men/materiel superiority that the Wehrmacht pressed to effect in the week after June 9.

[Sheldrake]

Quite possibly. The loss of 200,000 men, including key leaders would have been a catastrophe for Britain. No one knows what effect of hundreds oif thousands of hostages might have had on the will of the British people to resist.

[pintere]

The British had just under 400,000 dead over the course of the entire war. Losing 200,000 men in one battle would have not looked good, in my opinion. But of course, it is hard to know how this would have affected public opinion in the short term. In the long-term for certain, it would have made it harder for Britain to raise the forces they did later on in the war.

[ChrisDR68]

I don't see why Britain losing 200,000 soldiers at Dunkirk would have changed the outcome of the war.

Losing that many men would certainly have been serious for Britain but the UK's security wasn't primarily in the size of her army but in the fact that she was an island with easily the largest and most powerful navy in Europe.

Once France had surrendered Hitler had a major problem if the British refused the come to terms as he expected them to do. He didn't have the u-boats to starve Britain into submission in 1940 or 1941 and his navy was tiny in relation to Britain's if he decided to go ahead and gamble with Operation Sealion meaning his seaborne invasion force would have been horribly vulnerable to the Royal Navy's intervention.

The Fuhrer seemed to be master of all he surveyed in June 1940 but it was an illusion. Britain was a tough nut to crack which the German's were ill equipped to deal with.

[Alanmccoubrey]

Indeed, how could the UK not having an army have possibly have affected the outcome of the war ? :roll:

[Karelia]

Of course the British Navy would have been a real and serious threat to German invasion. On the other hand the German invasion would have been a very real and serious threat to Britain without an army. Would the British have been ready to gamble?

IMHO losing those 200.000 men (=the British Army) in Dunkirk would have changed the hole picture and quite possibly changed the outcome of the war.

[steverodgers801]

Well for one thing no Africa campaign.

[Sid Guttridge]

Dunkirk was a very big deal to the British, and therefore to the course of the war.

Britain had a small regular army and the great majority would have been lost at Dunkirk.

The only nearly fully equipped division left in the UK at that stage was 1st Canadian, and it had no operational experience and few regular soldiers in its ranks.

In view of this, the effective loss of most of Britain's regular army would have left the UK almost defenceless and with little immediate prospect of replacing the lost expertise of the regular troops.

This would have given the peace party in the cabinet much more leverage and may have resulted in a compromise peace with Germany.

As it was, sufficient regular troops could be re-equipped after Dunkirk, but before Germany could mount an invasion, for a serious ground defence to be mounted, alongside the sea and air defences. This strengthened Churchill's hand domestically.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ML59]

Well for one thing no Africa campaign.

The African campaign, at least until mid-1942, was not waged by British units but, mainly, by Commonwealth units: Australians, Indians, South Africans, New Zealanders, black troops from British African colonies and also Free French, Czech, Greek, Polish and other "exotic" units. Very little support from UK other than some (not all!) weaponry: tanks, artillery, airplanes.

[ML59]

The loss of a full army of about 200.000 soldiers could have been a big psychological blow for the British citizens and leadership but there is no reason to believe it could have been a final death blow for the British military capability. I personally suspect that the importance we all give to Dunkirk is more related to the huge propaganda efforts put up by the British government of the day that tried (successfully!) to sell to its citizens a defeat as a major victory than to any real military aspect. At the end of the day, after the fall of Crete, Singapore and all of Malaya, Hong Kong, Tobruch, just to name some major British defeats, the total losses were even higher but the empire was still able to stay in the field.

[BDV]

Again, there were costs in time and men and materiel to annihilating the Dunkirk pocket - such as it would form probably it would be known as the Ostend-Niewpoort pocket - although a british breakout towards Calais cannot be excluded.

OTOH the German performance in frontal assaults was mediocre to say the least in WWII, in 1939 (Warsaw), 1940 (Maginot Line, Calais, Lille, Holland), 1941 (Tobruk, Brest, Polotsk, Tallin/Estonia, Tula, Sevastopol), 1942 (Stalingrad), 1943 (Kursk), 1944 (Wacht am Rhein).

"Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across." - but annihilation battle at Dunkirk, germans were ill equipped for.

[steverodgers801]

there was still the attack on Eithiopia and how many of those common wealth troops would have been recalled to england

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ML59,

In divisional terms, the British Army had almost all its professional eggs in just one basket in mid 1940. If no regular (or, indeed, Territorial) troops had got back from Dunkirk, it would have been much more difficult to rebuild a ground army to complement the Royal Navy and RAF.

All the later British Commonwealth defeats you mention were of forces with relatively low regular contents. The one place the UK couldn't survive the defeat of a similar force was in south-east England in 1940.

Certainly the UK might well have survived behind the RAF and Royal Navy, but the British cabinet would have had some much tougher choices to make without a regular army at hand and the Germans would have been much encouraged. A compromise peace would have been significantly more likely.

The evacuation of Dunkirk made it much easier for the UK to continue the war with at least a little confidence.

Did British propaganda make much of the "miracle" of the escape? Damn right!

So, was Dunkirk REALLY that big a deal? YES, because it may have turned the defeat of the liberal democracies in the European War of 1939-40 into the victory of the liberal democracies in the Second World and Cold Wars of 1939-1991.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Karelia]

Agree with you totally, Sid!