1940: BEF doesn't budge
- Thread starter JimmyJimJam
- Start date
The Germans aren't breaking through yet: the BEF chooses to fight rather than withdraw.
The Pzdivisions go around the BEF, which is cut off in a kessel. More Uk prisonners.
What is needed is for some coordination between french and british counter-attacks. As long as these counter attacks were uncoordinated, Rommel will break somewhere and keep going until he reaches the sea.
What is needed is for some coordination between french and british counter-attacks. As long as these counter attacks were uncoordinated, Rommel will break somewhere and keep going until he reaches the sea.
Redbeard
Banned
JimmyJimJam said:
The German main trust in May 1940 had separated the mobile British and French forces sent into Belgium from the the French main force. The BEF not withdrawing would not change that but only mean the entire BEF being surrounded and killed/taken PoW. That could very well lead to the British asking for an armistice. The actual retreat was a very well conducted manoeuvre by both the British and French forces taking part. Some units were surrounded and fought to the last man. Not at least the French units defending the Dunkirk evacuation area fought ferociously and valiantly.
The allies had expected the Germans to attack through Belgium, which also was the orginal German plan, but after a liason plane carrying a staffofficer and the plans was lost over France the plan was changed into a main trust through the Ardennes. This sector was weakly occupied by the French with 3rd line reservist Divisions, and initially the French high command simply refused to acknowledge that this was a main trust. The French leadership believeing their own recon reports might have been enough to change the world for ever.
Regards
Steffen Redbeard
It would take another PoD to make this PoD realistic: Some training to enable the troops to fight the German tanks. A suitable weapon was just developed: The humble "Molotov-Cocktail". Mines would also work, so would heavy artillery converted to anti-tank-guns. Bazookas would take more time than the few days the British had, afaik. The fact that the Germans liked to send their tanks in without protection by soldiers could be used against them by destroying their whole panzer army in one stroke, if the British can prepare such an operation within two weeks.
Redbeard said:
From "The Blitzkrieg Myth" by John Mosier, pp. 142:
"After less than a week of fighting, the French Army was in surprisingly good shape..."
"...the German aim in this campaign had always been to "separate the British from the French armies, and occupy Belgium together with Northern France," so the British, when they decided to pull back toward Dunkirk, effectively accomplished the key German aim."
Mosier bases the last claim on a quote from the German General Rochricht, who analyzed the campaign. Is Mosier's evaluation of the situation in May 1940 completely inaccurate?
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This Mosier interpretation misses out certain important facts:
1. Most of the troops in the Northern Allied pocket are French
2. The Dyle plan itself separates Allied forces
3. The German capture of Abbeville makes this separation complete
4. The BEF launches a counter-attack after the Germans capture Abbeville - this counter-attack is in a broadly southerly direction
Most of the French army is on good shape for the simple reason that it has done no fighting! It tended to be in the wrong place at the wrong time due to slow tactical response times.
1. Most of the troops in the Northern Allied pocket are French
2. The Dyle plan itself separates Allied forces
3. The German capture of Abbeville makes this separation complete
4. The BEF launches a counter-attack after the Germans capture Abbeville - this counter-attack is in a broadly southerly direction
Most of the French army is on good shape for the simple reason that it has done no fighting! It tended to be in the wrong place at the wrong time due to slow tactical response times.
BEF fighting on
Agree the retreat was the only option after the German breakthrough. If you want a different turn for the Battle of France, you could consider two POD's:
1. Right after the Germans broke the French front in Sedan, the French and British (possibly Belgians as well) immediately retreat south of the Somme, iInstead of first waiting for three days until the Germans reached Abbeville, then retreating towards the Belgian coastline. King Leopold III of Belgium tried to convince the Allies this was the right thing to do, but hell, how could a Belgian have any valuable opinion about military strategy, right? This would have saved the best French forces (I and VII Army) and the BEF, to make a stand on the Somme and the Aisne, keeping the connection with a large chunk of the Maginot line. Of course, this would have required a more energetic command than Gamelin, but if you assumed a Weygand, a Giraud or a de Gaulle were at the head of the French army, this may have happened.
2. The Brits make a much more serious effort to build their presence in France during the 8-month phony war. Though the WWII BEF was a very fine fighting force, it was ridiculously small compared to Britain's potential - less than half the size of the Belgian army for that matter - or to the WWI BEF. Churchill was painfully aware of this; this was a great shame to him, and that's why he never blamed the French for the defeat in 1940. He knew all too well they had not been properly supported by their ally. If you'd have a BEF that was, say, triple the size of OTL, it could have kept a much larger part of the front in Belgium and Southern Holland. This would have in turn freed up elite French troops to guard the Meuse, and Sedan would not have happened. And even if it had happened, the French would have been able to constitue a strategic reserve which was cruelly missing OTL to mount a counter-attack.
Wozza said:
Agree the retreat was the only option after the German breakthrough. If you want a different turn for the Battle of France, you could consider two POD's:
1. Right after the Germans broke the French front in Sedan, the French and British (possibly Belgians as well) immediately retreat south of the Somme, iInstead of first waiting for three days until the Germans reached Abbeville, then retreating towards the Belgian coastline. King Leopold III of Belgium tried to convince the Allies this was the right thing to do, but hell, how could a Belgian have any valuable opinion about military strategy, right? This would have saved the best French forces (I and VII Army) and the BEF, to make a stand on the Somme and the Aisne, keeping the connection with a large chunk of the Maginot line. Of course, this would have required a more energetic command than Gamelin, but if you assumed a Weygand, a Giraud or a de Gaulle were at the head of the French army, this may have happened.
2. The Brits make a much more serious effort to build their presence in France during the 8-month phony war. Though the WWII BEF was a very fine fighting force, it was ridiculously small compared to Britain's potential - less than half the size of the Belgian army for that matter - or to the WWI BEF. Churchill was painfully aware of this; this was a great shame to him, and that's why he never blamed the French for the defeat in 1940. He knew all too well they had not been properly supported by their ally. If you'd have a BEF that was, say, triple the size of OTL, it could have kept a much larger part of the front in Belgium and Southern Holland. This would have in turn freed up elite French troops to guard the Meuse, and Sedan would not have happened. And even if it had happened, the French would have been able to constitue a strategic reserve which was cruelly missing OTL to mount a counter-attack.
Well, if the BEF is annihilated and the RAF takes a fair bit of damage fighting the Luftwaffe in France, I think Britain might well end up making peace, though that will probably require Churchill getting tossed out first.
If Britain does decide to keep fighting, they'll have a much harder time of it. The BEF being destroyed mean that they'll have a serious shortage of trained soldiers, which means that the North African campaign probably won't be as bad an embarrassment for Italy as it was in OTL, and probably results in Britain having to leave their Pacific possessions with even less than they had in OTL to make up for the lost units of the BEF.
At the least, the Battle of Britain is going to be a lot longer and much more painful for the UK, with Britain maybe not regaining control of their home skies until Hitler shifts the Luftwaffe out for Barbarossa. If control of the skies makes Hitler too bold he might even try an invasion or an attack with airborne troops, though I doubt he could manage a successful full-scale invasion and occupation.
Interestingly, does anyone think Britain being in a much more desperate situation might prompt an earlier US entry into the war? There was clearly a fair bit of sympathy for Britain in the US, as Lend-Lease and such indicates, might Britain being invaded, even if unsuccessfully, be enough to overcome the isolationist sentiment?
Also, from what I recall Churchill threatened to use poison gas on the Germans if they invaded Britain. Certainly I can't see Britain just being invaded and occupied while they still have fairly large stockpiles of mustard gas that haven't been used. Presumably the Germans will respond in kind if Britain gasses their troops, and given how such things work I'd imagine before long everyone will be using poison gas just as happened in WWI. Anyone care to speculate on how that will effect the course of the war?
If Britain does decide to keep fighting, they'll have a much harder time of it. The BEF being destroyed mean that they'll have a serious shortage of trained soldiers, which means that the North African campaign probably won't be as bad an embarrassment for Italy as it was in OTL, and probably results in Britain having to leave their Pacific possessions with even less than they had in OTL to make up for the lost units of the BEF.
At the least, the Battle of Britain is going to be a lot longer and much more painful for the UK, with Britain maybe not regaining control of their home skies until Hitler shifts the Luftwaffe out for Barbarossa. If control of the skies makes Hitler too bold he might even try an invasion or an attack with airborne troops, though I doubt he could manage a successful full-scale invasion and occupation.
Interestingly, does anyone think Britain being in a much more desperate situation might prompt an earlier US entry into the war? There was clearly a fair bit of sympathy for Britain in the US, as Lend-Lease and such indicates, might Britain being invaded, even if unsuccessfully, be enough to overcome the isolationist sentiment?
Also, from what I recall Churchill threatened to use poison gas on the Germans if they invaded Britain. Certainly I can't see Britain just being invaded and occupied while they still have fairly large stockpiles of mustard gas that haven't been used. Presumably the Germans will respond in kind if Britain gasses their troops, and given how such things work I'd imagine before long everyone will be using poison gas just as happened in WWI. Anyone care to speculate on how that will effect the course of the war?
MrP
Banned
Ah, the Operation Sea Lion thingy. From what I've read it seems pretty unlikely. If memory serves there's a good essay on it way back up at www.alternatehistory.com , before the discussion fora. It specifies some major German failings, e.g. lack of any useful transport.
Chengar Qordath said:
The US probably wouldn't have bothered - there was a lot of sympathy and support for Germany there, which might have turned ugly if the US had declared the war. It was necessary to get most of the people behind such a decision in the first place. FDR's strategy, afaik, was to wait for that, therefore.
Without the professional officers and NCOs of the BEF, I doubt the British can wage anything resembling an effective war.
benedict, actually the BEF was an astounding deployment, considering the size of the British army at the time of Munich(18 months earlier). Also, it was France and not England which handled such planning, and only as the Polish crisis hit did France suddenly feel a desperate need for an immediate LARGE British presence. Lastly, given the overall miserable performence of the French Army, it would have taken a BEF of spectacular size(30-40 divisions) to really make any difference.
benedict, actually the BEF was an astounding deployment, considering the size of the British army at the time of Munich(18 months earlier). Also, it was France and not England which handled such planning, and only as the Polish crisis hit did France suddenly feel a desperate need for an immediate LARGE British presence. Lastly, given the overall miserable performence of the French Army, it would have taken a BEF of spectacular size(30-40 divisions) to really make any difference.
benedict, actually the BEF was an astounding deployment, considering the size of the British army at the time of Munich(18 months earlier). Also, it was France and not England which handled such planning, and only as the Polish crisis hit did France suddenly feel a desperate need for an immediate LARGE British presence. Lastly, given the overall miserable performence of the French Army, it would have taken a BEF of spectacular size(30-40 divisions) to really make any difference.
It is not so much a matter of size as capability. The British Army had thirty divisions on paper (including TA reserves) since 38/39
However there was no equpment for them and a shortage of specialists
The British Army did suffer twenty years of neglect, but nine months of phoney war should have produced a larger deployabler force than nine divisions - and some of these were harldy equipped.
It is not so much a matter of size as capability. The British Army had thirty divisions on paper (including TA reserves) since 38/39
However there was no equpment for them and a shortage of specialists
The British Army did suffer twenty years of neglect, but nine months of phoney war should have produced a larger deployabler force than nine divisions - and some of these were harldy equipped.
British support during Battle of France
That was not exactly Churchill's opinion... He has very harsh words in his Memoirs about this. And by the way, May 1940 is more than 2 years after Munich. And if the Brits did not have a larger standing army in 1938, well, don't blame the French for it! British policy during the inter-war period was simply disastrous, and there would be books to write about the accumulation of blunders made at that time.
The performance of the French army was not that bad where it had the chance to engage in a real battle. They held the Maginot line, did remarkably well in Gembloux, held the Dunkirk perimeter by their nails to save the BEF, withstood the German attacks in Zealand and Southern Holland, etc. Their high command simply did not have the strategic flexibility to respond to the Sedan breakthrough. And, by the way, I'm not French, I'm just tired of the haughtiness and bias with which their participation in WWII is viewed in some circles...
Grimm Reaper said:
That was not exactly Churchill's opinion... He has very harsh words in his Memoirs about this. And by the way, May 1940 is more than 2 years after Munich. And if the Brits did not have a larger standing army in 1938, well, don't blame the French for it! British policy during the inter-war period was simply disastrous, and there would be books to write about the accumulation of blunders made at that time.
The performance of the French army was not that bad where it had the chance to engage in a real battle. They held the Maginot line, did remarkably well in Gembloux, held the Dunkirk perimeter by their nails to save the BEF, withstood the German attacks in Zealand and Southern Holland, etc. Their high command simply did not have the strategic flexibility to respond to the Sedan breakthrough. And, by the way, I'm not French, I'm just tired of the haughtiness and bias with which their participation in WWII is viewed in some circles...
The performance of the French army was not that bad where it had the chance to engage in a real battle.
Whilst it is true that one should not extrapolate across the board from the performance of Corap's ninth army it is impossible to agree with this statement.
The DCRs (armoured divisions) for instance were atrociously mishandled - they were caught in the open, and simply seemed not to use reconnaisance.
They held the Maginot line,
the Maginot line extension was broken at longwy, and finally the Maginot line itself at Colmar, although the latter not until June 15th
did remarkably well in Gembloux, held the Dunkirk perimeter by their nails to save the BEF, withstood the German attacks in Zealand and Southern Holland, etc. Their high command simply did not have the strategic flexibility to respond to the Sedan breakthrough.
Nor did the troops have the tactical flexibility though, nor was there effective logistics, preparation or staff work for any sort of mobile battle. This meant that breakthrough was always likely to cause trouble.
And, by the way, I'm not French, I'm just tired of the haughtiness and bias with which their participation in WWII is viewed in some circles...[/QUOTE]
Agreed. But they had had twenty years to build an up to date army. The British had not bothered and the Germans did it in seven .
Going back to Gembloux, French performance is "fine." But they still lose the field. Even without the Ardennes breakthrouh a few more battles like that would have lost them the war unless they learnt and changed fast