Dunkirk, victory or defeat? What is the historical consensus right now?

[Sheldrake]

There is a tendency to over estimate British Army capabilities because of the result of the Battle of Britain and eventual victory. The BEF did not face the German schwehrpunkt in 1940. The British track record until 1942 was not good, losing many battles that, on paper, they might have won. BEF became known as = Back Every Friday. Contemporary records and memoirs reflect a lack of confidence in the British Army doctrine and culture. The British Army was sufficiently shaken by 1940 that it carried out radical structural reforms, such as the decentralised brigade and battle groups. Many of the brightest and best young Britons rejected institutions epitomized by "Colonel Blimp" and set up their own private armies - SAS Commandos etc. It is telling that the military authorities supported these alternative organisations that sapped many regular formations of talented junior leaders.

Good point, British results weren't that great until US supplies arrived.

I am not so sure about the lack of confidence in the army, you can probably find an equal amount of records which show a very positive-minded side of the story. Anecdotal evidence is always dangerous. Do you have examples of these records?

I don't think the British results were soelely due to the supply of good american tanks. As a starting point check the results of the Batholomew committee .
https://defenceindepth.co/2016/06/17/19 ... nity-lost/

[steverodgers801]

The main problem in Africa is that the British never adapted to the new style of warfare. They refused to coordinate their arms together. Tanks were sent with out any support, and such. Monty changed such behavior, which was one of his best achievements.

[Sheldrake]

The main problem in Africa is that the British never adapted to the new style of warfare. They refused to coordinate their arms together. Tanks were sent with out any support, and such. Monty changed such behavior, which was one of his best achievements.

This was a direct consequence of the attempt to implement on of the key findings of Bartholomew:

The other primary recommendation was the operational building block of the Army should now be the Brigade, and the independent Brigade Group, rather than the Division.

Attempting to follow this theory led to failure to co-ordinate their infantry, armour and artillery at divisional level, with penny packet all arms jock columns at a lower level. The principle firepower of any formation lay with its artillery, which can be concentrated at the highest level of command while control decentralised to support whatever unit needed it most. This principle was followed in the initial operations in Nov 1940 but then neglected until August 1942 and the arrival of Montgomery and Kirkman his gunner.

Batrtholomew's committee (which did not interview any senior gunners) made its fatal recommendations as a result of concluding that command and control at divisional level was impossible in the BEF from the failure of communications in mobile warfare. The BEF had deployed with less than full establishment of radios. During the phoney war of 1939-40, security concerns resulted in units were forbidden from wireless training. As a result, w hen the war started in earnest wireless communications were dreadful. "like listening to a crowded sherry party" Lt Col H J Parham, CO 9th Field Regiment dissented and drilled his regiment in controlling the fire of the regiment by wireless. In 1941, after his promotion to Brigadier CRA 38th Division he demonstrated how a single observer could move the fire of 72 guns as a single battery. At this point the penny dropped and Home forces were increasingly drilled to fight as divisions.

[Nickdfresh]

So again: why weren't German forces ordered to fully attack the stranded allied force at Dunkirk? Victory there could have ended the war in Western Europe.

They did attack. But there is a lot of information available and several theories, including that Hitler was trying to reign in his wayward generals and remind them that he was still their Nazi boss (which I do not buy and think Karl-Heinz Frieser gets this wrong). But in earnest, the panzers did need a rest and unsupported by infantry and they could have been minced up. The French Army, always ignored in these threads, did make a gallant stand compared to the "300" and Dunkirk would have been no walk over with tanks that were unsupported by infantry and manned by exhausted crews. That would have been a risky prospect. The terrain around Dunkirk was not particularly favorable to panzers and the Germans never really imagined, much less believed, the British could accomplish such a massive scale of withdrawal because they simply had no point of naval comparison as the Kriegsmarine was a small service and I think this in no part crimped German imagination. Certainly Goering was a dolt but so far his Luftwaffe had performed overall very well and there were no grounds to think the BEF could have escaped on the scale it did. The BEF at Dunkirk was far from the only concern as there were large pockets of the French Army to be reduced as well and I think people assume in hindsight that somehow the Wehrmacht had some sort of situational awareness they didn't have as were running wild around France.

Also, the Battle of Arras played no small in the escaped as even Rommel was genuinely spooked by a competent Allied counterattack against the corridor which unfortunately the Allies were incapable of actually mounting. But Arras certainly gave them pause...

[antfreire]

[quote="]So again: why weren't German forces ordered to fully attack the stranded allied force at Dunkirk? Victory there could have ended the war in Western Europe.[/quote]

(Quote) It might well be that Hitler, at the time of the encirclement of Dunkirk thought that the war in the West was already won and the next step would have been to make peace with Great Britain. This was also the way many British political and military leaders thought at the moment. However Churchill thought differently and Roosevelt realized that the possibility of that peace would have been disastrous for USA. They eventually proved right and Hitler proved wrong.

[Nickdfresh]

Yeah, the "peace deal" thing is beyond nonsensical and silly. Giving Briton her BEF back probably isn't going to make anyone warm and teary for the Third Reich as they can continue resistance. Hitler is often quoted out of context saying warm and fuzzy things about the noble and Aryan British Empire. What they leave out is that he also says some very bitter things and wanted to "annihilate" BEF units in various sectors. Any 'deal' was tantamount to Vichy-Britain...

And then there was his Luftwaffe pummeling the beaches and the Royal Navy, only the RAF now close enough to Britain to offer serious battle also foiled the encirclement. It is hardly a show of good will...

And oh yeah, the order didn't even originate with Hitler, it was Von Rundstedt...

[BarKokhba]

Thanks Nickdfresh. Good insights here, especially about remnant French capabilities.

[Paul Lakowski]

read once that Churchill told his back benchers ; officially Dunkirk was a great victory for Britain, but privately it was the worse defeat in 400 years of British history.

[sitalkes]

Well a couple of divisions of the BEF were composed of labour battalions, it wasn't all well trained and equipped. The rear area troops were evacuated first, and their evacuation started before the main Dunkirk battle. If you have played any sort of tabletop battle or Total War game you will have experienced what effects routs can have on troops, and how it only takes a few troops to keep the rout going as long as the pursuit is unrelenting. That was the whole point of the blitzkrieg strategy - by sending mobile troops into enemy rear areas you totally unbalance them and keep them in a state of disorganisation and this allows a smaller force to surround and defeat a larger one. The British army didn't work out how to use tanks properly until October 1942 but I wouldn't say there was any lack of confidence in the army's methods amongst the lower ranks. They did hold up the Germans initially in 1940 until forced to retreat by the Belgian surrender.

[Henri Winkelman]

Thanks for all the responses guys! Very interesting to read.

[steverodgers801]

First Kleist ordered the stop of the panzers because he was worried about the terrain, the Panzers badly needed repair and rest so they would be ready for the next phase of the battle. When the fight went to Hitler Goering stepped in and said the Luftwaffe could finish off the forces alone. Goering was correct except for the fact that the British used
all those civilian craft. With out those the evacuation would have been vastly different

[BarKokhba]

Judging from the info from the above posts, it seems the Germans did not have the singlemindedness or single command decision to make one final coordinated annihilating attack on the BEF. That, and overall fatigue, resupply issues, and the belief that they had already achieved victory (except for the mop-up operation) explains things a bit better. I'd like to visit Dunkirk and learn what the local historians there say.

[Henri Winkelman]

Judging from the info from the above posts, it seems the Germans did not have the singlemindedness or single command decision to make one final coordinated annihilating attack on the BEF. That, and overall fatigue, resupply issues, and the belief that they had already achieved victory (except for the mop-up operation) explains things a bit better. I'd like to visit Dunkirk and learn what the local historians there say.

That's my conclusion as well, although I still question if an attack would have been really succesful. (i.e. without big German casualties and with the eventual surrender of more than 350.000 Brittish and French troops) But we will probably never know that.

[randwick]

.It's a bit misleading to think Dunkirk was the first concern of the OKW ,
Hitler believed in a policy of being "soft" with Britain
France had to be utterly beaten ,Paris had to be taken
The battle of the border was a success, now all of France was the priority , preventing a defense of Brittany or the evacuation of the French Army to Algeria ,
the Rhone valley industrial area and the totality of the South West coast were important consideration.
the Panzers needed some regrouping and refitting , the whole Army was stretched and had to be redeployed

Dunkirk was a successful defeat , the men got out but the losses in equipment were disastrous ,
for reason of propaganda , the whole episode was painted in heroic color when in fact it was a stunning defeat