Some wild guesses here as to the cause of the retreat to, and evacuation from, Dunkirk. Plenty of literature out there if you care to read it.
Yeah, kind of my thought too.
However, I think there may be reasonable questions in the retreat to Dunkirk, and the evacuation. It's just that I don't think it starts with:
Something I've never understood is how over 300k men could not fight back against the Germans?
I think the answer to that question is: they COULD fight back. But they were ordered to evacuate.
When a soldier, or a unit, receives orders, they don't just say "stuff it, I wanna do something else". Particularly not if they are (were) in the British or French armies of that period.
It may well be a reasonable question to ask "why were they ordered to evacuate?" Clearly this question remained for the French high command, as the order to evacuate at Dunkirk was a unilateral decision taken by the British (although later supported by the French).
My short answer to that question would be: how often to forces that are surrounded by a superior enemy force manage to survive? Here I think a reading of historical evidence justifies the British decision. One could suggest that an aggressive attack southward might have been the better approach. But then I look at the appalling lack of timely coordination between British, French, and Belgian forces up to that time, and the visible evidence that the German army could out-maneuver, and "slice and dice" any joint allied effort the moment it got started. This was all VERY visible to Gort, and he made it clear to the British high command. With that perspective, I think the evacuation was the right call.
As it was, many soldiers DID fight back. There was a rearguard, that fought tooth-and-nail to hold the perimeter, while those soldiers "stood on the beach waiting to be picked up."
As the BEF was just about the only standing army that Britain had available for home defense, it seems that a large part of the decision process was related to preservation of forces. A force in being, ANY force in being, was better than no force. So seeing the whole BEF (and 3 French field armies) "put in the bag" by the Germans was not exactly something the British leadership was keen on. Even IF they had taken their share of Germans with them, it would have been a catastrophe for Britain.
As it was, some 100,000 French troops were rescued from Dunkirk, and the great majority were efficiently returned to France (with some 50,000 getting back into combat before the armistice). And most of the fresh forces that remained in Britain, that had not been committed to the original BEF, were sent over to France after Dunkirk, while the British Dunkirk evacuees were recovering and re-equipping.
At least, that's my reading of the "plenty of literature out there", that I do "care to read".
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
