Why did the Germans, having trapped the British on the beach at Dunkirk, stop their advance? In hindsight they could have easily changed the course of the war, at least w/regard to the British.
This is the subject of much debate.
One school of thought is that the Luftwaffe wanted to show their stuff and lobbied for a halt. That seems unlikely.
More common is the idea that the most-mobile units needed a rest as they had outrun their logistical tail. Leg infantry units also needed to catch up. The armored units were best when they could sweep around the enemy, encircling them.
You cannot do that when your enemy is on the coast.
In my opinion is that like most things, there was a psychological component. To an Army Man like me, sea coasts and rivers are obstacles. To a German, it looked as if the Allied force was already trapped.
To a nautical mind, rivers and seas are highways.
The Germans might have not have seen a big difference in stopping here as opposed to there. In either case the Allies were trapped and it was all over but the shouting.
But in real life, few decisions have only one cause. It it probably closed to the truth to say all these factors, and others, combined to produce the German decision.
How? If Britain had all of their soldiers infantry killed and/or captured, this would not
a. Affect Britains massive Royal Navy, which would have to be dealt with for Germany to invade
b. Affect Britain’s spitfire fleet and airborne radars which enabled them to attrit away the German air force and prevent the Germans from doing enough damage by bombing to make a strategic difference.
So it pretty much goes the same way as the original timeline, except that the Allies might have to delay D-Day a few weeks to replace the missing troops, or they might have had greater difficulty with the land campaign in France, having slightly fewer total troops.
The Dunkirk evacuation was four years before D-Day. The issue is whether, if the British army had been defeated and destroyed in June 1940 the UK would have continued to fight. Yes, they would still have had their navy and their (at the time, undersized) air force, but their capacity to withstand an invasion, if successfully launched, would have been hugely impaired. Almost certainly it would have been necessary to curtail operations in other theatres of war (e.g. North Africa) and reallocate resources to the UK for home defence, and of course national morale and political support for the continuation of the war must have been adversely affected, certainly after the fall of France about two weeks later.
When I was at school in the 50s, a couple of teachers were actually there; one as a lieutenant and one as a sergeant. Fifteen years on from the event, they agreed that the Germans believed that they had us trapped on the beach and that they had plenty of time to work out what they were going to do with three or four hundred thousand prisoners. They had outrun their own supply columns and there was no way they could manage such large numbers. Far better to let them die on the beach at the hands of the Luftwaffe who could fly home to a good meal and a comfy bed every night.
Of course, the heroic action of the hastily thrown-together rearguard, many of whom were executed by the Nazis, should not be underestimated.
In a practical sense, the British army *was *destroyed after Dunkirk. Men were evacuated, in vastly greatly numbers than had been even wildly hoped. But equipment was left behind - destroyed where possible, gifted to the Germans where not.
Lacking equipment, Britain’s ability to fight off an invasion in the weeks and months after Dunkirk was pretty much nil. There were men in uniform, but not a modern army. Churchill gave his “fight them on the beaches” speech because everyone knew the situation was just that desparate and he needed to rouse a defeatist populace. (I’ve heard a rumour that he muttered, as he sat down after the speech, “and we’ll have to beat the buggers round the head with bottles, because that’s all we’ve got”. True in spirit if not in fact.)
The success of Dunkirk was less military (although keeping 350,000 men alive and available to fight isn’t nothing, obviously) but political/social. Public morale was pretty rock-bottom afterwards anyhow - if people had to process the mass loss of lives/capture that could have happened, then “never surrender” would have rung hollow and there likely would have been calls to sue for peace.
I think this underestimates just how astonishing the success of the evacuation was. The British had a “wildly optimistic” estimate that they might get 45,000 men home. Dunkirk was an astonishing feat of logistics that surpassed what anyone believed possible. The fact that the Germans didn’t rush the beach helped, but it’s really not their fault that they didn’t foresee the scale of the evacuation - no-one did.
The story of Admiral Ramsay (who oversaw the Dunkirk evacuation) is underappreciated - he was retired and on the reserve list, and had been drafted in to manage the port of Dover while younger Admirals were sent to fight. It was an important job, sure, but not a critical one. He was needed to keep paperwork moving, manage loading and unloading and keep the port ticking over. Nothing flash. He was basically in charge by accident, because the collapse of the BEF position happened so rapidly he couldn’t be replaced in time. But as it happened, he was a logistical genius, and success at Dunkirk meant he was put in charge of the Allied landings in North Africa, then in Sicily. Then he was given command of the D-Day landings. He died in a plane crash in 1945, over France. I may be merely advertising my own ignorance, but until recently I had no idea that Dunkirk and D-Day were the brainchildren of the same person. (There’s a good thread on Ramsay here)
That appears to be general consensus of political opinion at the time. Lose the equipment is one thing, losing 300,000+ men is another blow entirely.
If the Germans capture the UK forces, Churchill has to sue for a peace agreement therefore no battle of Britain therefore no second front established therefore no dilution of effort therefore everything pans out very differently.
It is too much of a stretch to say that by capturing the UK forces Germany then “wins” but it is less of a stretch to say that the failure to do so pretty much cooked Hitler’s Gans. Sure there are lots of turning points in any conflict but there are very definite ramifications from Operation Dynamo that we can reasonably extrapolate from.
Worth mentioning in passing that anyone, home or abroad that finds themselves in the Dover area should check out Dover Castle.
It is an impressive structure in itself with lots to see but it also has several sections of underground tunnels from which Operation Dynamo was commanded and it has restored war-rooms, hospitals and living quarters. It is a really good day out and the Operation Dynamo section does a very good job of bringing the story to life.
Mr Bull a.k.a. garius is a former (or largely inactive) Doper and quite a knowledgeable bloke on a number of topics, most notably London transport and Brexit but obviously also this sort of thing.
I wondered if it was the same garius!
Amen. 40,000 French and a smaller but significant number of Scots were killed or captured at the Dunkirk perimeter while the rest left. OTOH, not many know that 40% of those taken off of the beaches were also French.
Don’t forget the Royal Indian Army Services Corp companies (lascars), and large numbers of Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian soldiers as well.
There was a couple weeks or so between Dunkirk and the French surrender during which most of the French evacuated were returned to unconquered parts of France to resume fighting. That’s something I just learned after reading up on Dunkirk due to this thread.
I believe Poles and Belgians were also taken off.
Tanks have a difficult time in the marshy terrain around Dunkirk. The nearly succesful counterattack at Arras had revealed weakness in the German line. The German commanders were worried about a successful attack on their flanks and stopped to shore up their lines and wait for logistics to catch up.
The loss of the troops at Dunkirk may have made it harder psychologically to stay in the war but there were of no practical consequence. There was no way for the Germans to invade Britain that did not involve several years of shipbuilding.
I think that capturing the troops was a way to take Britain out of the war without any need for an invasion.
The wiki for Winston Churchill highlights the timing of Operation Dynamo, simultaneous peace talks involving the Italians, and Churchill’s lack of popularity in either the House of Commons or Lords. From the wiki
Given that the loss of the BEF would have been in the area of 320,000 men, and that the following year’s loss of Singapore and defeat in the Malayan Campaign cost the British armed forces 130,000 prisoners, and was “the worse defeat in British military history,” a loss 2.5 times that at Dunkirk would have thrown Churchill out of office, IMHO. Wherein peace would have been sought with Germany.
Not a surrender, but an armistice, which would have ceased the blockade on Germany. No blockade, no more submarine warfare, and perhaps the US continues making money hand over fist supplying the Germans instead of following Lend-Lease. Especially when Hitler fights Stalin the following year. I suspect it would have been viewed in the US in a similar way to the later Iran/Iraq War, a conflict where, as stated by Kissinger, “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.”
The Germans lost WW2 with their failure to knock Britain out of the War with allowing the evacuation of the BEF at Dunkirk. They may still have lost their fight with the Soviet Union, but after Dunkirk, they were doomed.
Going back to the original question, I’ve read this theory in different places.
On a recent thread, someone was talking about the terrain, and the difficulty of fighting in there. IIRC, the area was bypassed when the Allies retook France.