British make peace after loss at Dunkirk

The decision to stay in the war made by Churchill in cabinet with Halifax and Neville Chamberlain was a result of a realistic review of the options open to them and the liekly results for the British Empire, and was made when Op Dynamo was only expected to evacuate 45000 men. This decision was stuck to even when only 25000 men were relieved in the period theoretically safe prior to German intervention.

This suggests to me that the British Imperial government (and I think that point is important and overlooked - the government was concerned for the future of the Empire, not just the Home Islands) would have, even with a greater loss at Dunkirk, continued the war, looking, as they did IOTL to stand fast against the foe, striking back where possible until US intervention.
 
It would seem that if the BEF was lost at Dunkirk and then more forces were lost in France that Churchill's government might very well suffer a no confidence vote. It is highly likely that if this had happen that Halifax might be asked to form a new Conservate government to replace Curchill's. While there were forces in Great Britain for the most part they were Ill equipped and trained to fight. It needs to be stated that the commonwealth forces that arrived in Britain were lacking modern weapons. A shortage of anti-tank weapons and the fact that most of the artillery were left over WWI pieces.
 
Further to that point (equipment problems), I'm sure I've seen somewhere that we didn't even have enough rifles for our OTL troops until about September 1940, when the Americans sent over hundreds of thousands of surplus Springfield rifles. Not sure where you would check that, as I can't remember where I read it. Sorry...
 
Further to that point (equipment problems), I'm sure I've seen somewhere that we didn't even have enough rifles for our OTL troops until about September 1940, when the Americans sent over hundreds of thousands of surplus Springfield rifles. Not sure where you would check that, as I can't remember where I read it. Sorry...

Let's assume that you recall correctly.
So what?
If the premise is that much less men make it out of Dunkirk, then obviously the available rifles will be enough for those smaller numbers of men.

The point in this thread has always been the men, since we know from OTL that the loss of materiel at Dunkirk and the brief shortages in the summer of 1940 did not convince the British they had to surrender, nor did they make Seelöwe possible. The British simply went on to produce better, more modern equipment.

This also goes to show that worrying about old equipment or WWI-vintage artillery is irrelevant.
 
You are confusing the halt order with the fighting for Dunkirk, they are several days apart.
At the time of the alleged halt order/running out of petrol neither side was at Dunkirk.
Three days later German armoured forces advanced towards Dunkirk and were considerably delayed by British rearguard, allowing the main bulk of the BEF to reach the port and evacuate.

Short answer is that the Germans tried what you are suggesting and failed.

After reaching the Channel the Germans mved north along the coast, capturing ports and slowly cutting off the the BEF from support from England. They had reached Dunkirk by 24 May when given the halt order.

If Hitler and Von Rundstedt had not ordered the panzer divisions to halt from 24 to 26 May, but instead ordered an all-out attack on Dunkirk, the retreating BEF might well have been cut off from the sea before it form a defensive perimeter around Dunkirk.
 
After reaching the Channel the Germans mved north along the coast, capturing ports and slowly cutting off the the BEF from support from England. They had reached Dunkirk by 24 May when given the halt order.

If Hitler and Von Rundstedt had not ordered the panzer divisions to halt from 24 to 26 May, but instead ordered an all-out attack on Dunkirk, the retreating BEF might well have been cut off from the sea before it form a defensive perimeter around Dunkirk.

On 24 May, the Panzers are nowhere near Dunkirk -
Calais and Boulogne only fall on 25 and 26 May and after that the fighting for Dunkirk begins.

Look at a map, the Germans simply aren't quite there - the main fighting during the evacuation (28/29) is at Cassel, further inland and slighly south of Dunkirk, and the British were definitely attacked by tanks.
 
First, I dislike your allegation that I have been using "sleight of hand" to prove my points. In my limited knowledge of the language, that implies an allegation of bad faith on my part. I don't care if you used smilies; so please be kind and withdraw the allegation.

Now, would the Germans be able to employ proper strategy, new doctrines, a better decision-making in the Seelöwe operation, as they had done in the Blitzkrieg, a kind of warfare which is known by its German name not by chance?
No.

The strategic plan was nothing short of suicide, its only excuse being that Kriegsmarine planners probably were not interested in actually sweating it out because they thought that it would never come to fruition, since either a) the British would be fooled into seeking terms or b) the Luftwaffe would never achieve the air supremacy that was demanded of it.
The doctrine was non-existent. The Kriegsmarine had no standing procedures, no experience, no suitable equipment and no inclination for fighting its way ashore in an opposed landing over an open beach. And before somebody mentions Norway, I'll point out that there a) there was no opposition to speak of, b) it was carried out in ports, not on open beaches, and the British wouldn't be as obliging as the Norwegians in yielding ports without both a fight and extensive demolitions, c) anyway, Norway had cost almost all the ships employed there and d) again it had succeeded against odds.
As to the decision-making, well. This is the kind of operation which requires mutual understanding and close cooperation between the three services. That alone disqualifies the Wehrmacht.

The Royal Navy, on the other hand, would be playing in its own courtyard, doing the thing it had trained for. Even assuming it were restricted only to night fighting, the British destroyers were exactly pretty good at it. And even assuming they had to expend three destroyers every 24 hours, they could afford it.

It is irrelevant that the Luftwaffe scored some good hits in 1941 around Crete. The situation was not comparable. For starters, there were little if any British fighters around, while they would be thick as flies over the Channel. Then, the German pilots had got some serious training at ship-hunting by 1941, which was untrue in 1940. Then, the Germans had managed to deliver some effective anti-armor bombs, which were in great shortage in 1940 (that's why even a direct hit by a Stuka would probably not pierce the Revenge's deck). Then the Luftwaffe had managed to set aside more units for the specific task of anti-shipping, while in 1940 they had one unit for that (they could use bomber units used and trained for land targets, so you're back to the issue with lack of training).


I will happily withdraw the smilie, Michele. And no insult was intended. This is a What if discussion forum so some challenging of conclusions or comment is to be expected.You seem to have a tendency to use figures to support your conclusions while ignoring soft data or rival figures, which IMO is data sleight of hand. If the shoe fits….

The Luftwaffe, despite its lack of suitable bombs and training, was able to make the Channel a no-go area for British shipping in the summer of 1940, despite copious support by the RN and RAF given to those convoys. And destroyers didn’t have armoured decks so they would be vulnerable to conventional bombs. Or are you also suggesting the Luftwaffe had a lack of those?

The Germans pulled off some remarkable coups in the early part of the war, often against the odds. Yet when dismissing a potential invasion, you stick firmly with the tired line that “it can’t be done because there are myriad reasons why it can’t be done”.

I am sure “nobody” believed Eben Emael could be done. Or Norway. Or the Ardennes and the crossing at Sedan. Or Crete. Yet, they were done. In fact, there are hardly any (combined) operations by the Germans that failed prior to 1942. Unlike the allies, the Germans did not need several months to plan such operations; they were done on the fly (like Norway and Crete). Sure, they were not very sound in a logistical sense and were vulnerable to setbacks but they usually worked out. Now the Germans were not supermen but they often succeeded with boldness where a more conventional mind would shy away because the correlation of forces did not seem promising. Perhaps that was the reason they succeeded? Perhaps the allies overestimated the threat because the Germans did things they would only do with overwhelming superiority of force?

You also claim that the “British wouldn't be as obliging as the Norwegians in yielding ports without both a fight and extensive demolitions”.


How could you possibly know that? Based on what? Wishful thinking? Pre-battle plans?

Maybe the British would staunchly defend their ports. Maybe they would cravenly run or surrender e.g. the Dover Gallop or the Harwich Handicap? Maybe they would be surprised before they could blow up the ports.

Or that the Wehrmacht was incapable of interservice cooperation. They were locked in a deadly rivalry for resources but that was mirrored in the British forces too, and in practically any other military. Only strong political leadership could govern such behaviour and that was missing in Germany. But actual cooperation was usually very good as proven in numerous combined operations. Strategic aims might be different but actual cooperation was sufficient. Norway being a case in point.

It is these kinds of statements that undermine your conclusions.

Its too much wistful thinking doused in self-serving figures.

But in the end, this thread is IMO about what the consequences could have been if the BEF was destroyed in France, not endless discussions if the BEF could have been destroyed.
 
Strikes me the POD would have to earlier. Lets assume that the BEF is annilhated at Dunkirk. What would actually make the British people surrender? It is my understanding that public opinion was very much in favour of teaching this Hitler fellow a lesson. The music and literature of the time reflects this very strongly. Why? Because quite frankly he was taking the p***. The mood in Britain had gone beyond feeling sympathy for the Germans, the average British citizen had had enough of Hitler and his double dealing and fake promises. The general populace knew (or at least suspected) that war was coming. Furthermore, whilst the loss of a land army is never good, it was the Royal navy who more than anything else helped put the Great into Great Britain.

Facts and figures of this battle or that battle are just sophistry. What would change the mood of the British people enough that war would be seen as the greater of two evils. Indeed an evil that had to be gotten out of, preferably with the national pride still intact?
 
I will happily withdraw the smilie, Michele. And no insult was intended. This is a What if discussion forum so some challenging of conclusions or comment is to be expected.You seem to have a tendency to use figures to support your conclusions while ignoring soft data or rival figures, which IMO is data sleight of hand. If the shoe fits….

The Luftwaffe, despite its lack of suitable bombs and training, was able to make the Channel a no-go area for British shipping in the summer of 1940, despite copious support by the RN and RAF given to those convoys. And destroyers didn’t have armoured decks so they would be vulnerable to conventional bombs. Or are you also suggesting the Luftwaffe had a lack of those?

Actually you should withdraw the allegation of sleight of hand on my part, not the smilie. "Data" sleight of hand should be the fact that I ignore rival figures or data? What figures and data? Who's been posting accurate figures and accurate data here? The thread started with wrong figures as to the number of personnel involved. No later than a couple of posts ago, you wrongly claimed that on the 24th the Germans "had reached Dunkirk". Wozza already took care of that claim, which BTW shows rather clearly you lack basic information about the actual situation on the ground.

But I did my little part; I showed that your claims about Boulogne were incorrect, for instance. I pointed out how your mentioning the 1st Armoured in one breath with the Dunkirk situation is specious at best, given where it was actually deployed. So don't come here telling me I "ignore rival" data; what I did is exactly to challenge rival _and incorrect_ data, much of which were posted by you. And I did not find any reply by you; to come up with the accusation that I ignore "rival" data after I challenged your incorrect claims and you kept mum about them, it's, well, I'll leave other readers to decide how to best describe this behavior.

Your claim about the Luftwaffe making the Channel a no-go area for British shipping falls roughly in the same category as mentioning the 1st Armoured in the Dunkirk context; it's not actually an outright falsehood, but close to it.
For starters, the British had no particularly pressing need to send small, slow, weak convoys around in the Channel. They stopped because those convoys were taking losses, but also for the simple reason that they could simply ship by rail the stuff around; it was coastal small-fry shipping.
Secondly, it is false that the Germans made "the Channel" a no-go area; if they made anything like that, it was the Strait of Dover. The Channel is way longer than that bottleneck, and coastal small-fry continued to hug the coast farther West. The relevance of this for Seelöwe is evident: assuming this is any evidence that the Luftwaffe can shut the area to shipping, that's useful only if the Germans decide to land straight at Dover on a 20-km frontage in the most predictable and narrowest point, i.e., they'd be wanting to be slaughtered (indeed, the German plan was not to land just there; the Heer wanted a much wider frontage).
Thirdly, it is false that the Luftwaffe alone shut that narrowest part of the Channel. The British would have been more than happy to send convoys timing them so that they'd be in the narrowest point under cover of darkness. But there were also the German E-Boote. Now, sending out British destroyers to protect the convoys at night, convoys that were carrying stuff that could be easily sent overland, was a waste of time and efforts. OTOH, had that area been swarming with 3-kt. German river barges, the destroyers _would_ have come out to play at night. No Luftwaffe in the dark. The Germans could send out the E-Boote, sure... but as you'll remember the name of the kind of ship we know as "destroyer" was originally, in full, intended to mean "destroyer of torpedo boats". Guess who wins?
Fourthly, predictably enough the best aircraft to sink small, slow, unarmored merchantmen was the Ju 87. Indeed, the last convoy to go through, codename Peewit, was attacked by 144 Stukas in two sorties, very effectively. Now, what's the most interesting detail about the Stuka's pedigree in the Battle fo Britain? Well, that it was withdrawn from combat. Twelve days after the Stukas' success against Peewit, the Luftwaffe decided that "until the enemy fighter force has been broken", i.e., forever, "Stuka units are only to be used when circumstances are particularly favorable", i.e., never. Indeed, on that successful day against Peewit, the Stukas had taken 6.9% casualties, a clearly unsustainable rate for a strength of about 290 serviceable bombers (this would climb to about 14.5%!! the day before Goering decided they were unfit for combat). Especially if they also would later have to serve as flying artillery for the poor soaked German infantrymen stranded on some British beach with no real artillery to speak of.
All of that, with Fighter Command making only a limited effort to protect the convoys. Dowding had correctly decided it was not worth to erode his force to defend this kind of target.

All of the above thus proves that the outcome of the Kanalkampf against a half-hearted British attempt to keep going with non-vital coastal shipping made of small, slow, unarmored, unarmed merchantmen, only in the narrowest part of the Channel, is no indication of what would happen if the British made a determined effort to crush a German invasion fleet made of river barges, over a much wider frontage, by using fast, maneuvering, armored and armed warships, covered by an all-out effort by Fighter Command.

I'll come back to you on other points of your message.
 
You also claim that the “British wouldn't be as obliging as the Norwegians in yielding ports without both a fight and extensive demolitions”.


How could you possibly know that? Based on what? Wishful thinking? Pre-battle plans?

Maybe the British would staunchly defend their ports. Maybe they would cravenly run or surrender e.g. the Dover Gallop or the Harwich Handicap? Maybe they would be surprised before they could blow up the ports.

Try with, the Norwegians had no armed forces to speak of; had no war experience to speak of; included a small but active minority that had strong sympathies for Germany; had not even properly mobilized.

Nothing of which, very evidently, applies to Britain.

Next time you are going to ask why I rule out that the British would offer more resistance than the Luxembourgians?
 
Or that the Wehrmacht was incapable of interservice cooperation. They were locked in a deadly rivalry for resources but that was mirrored in the British forces too, and in practically any other military. Only strong political leadership could govern such behaviour and that was missing in Germany. But actual cooperation was usually very good as proven in numerous combined operations. Strategic aims might be different but actual cooperation was sufficient. Norway being a case in point.

The Germans had a very fine, excellent inter-service cooperation – at the tactical level, between their army and their air force. No other nation had that in 1939, at least not at their level, by a long way.

That's more or less the end of it.

Operational cooperation between the army and the air force could be worked out, as long as things were going well, and provided Goering was not in a bad mood. Joint strategic planning was a no-no.

Cooperation between these two services and the navy was non-existent on all levels. That the Norwegian gamble only cost most of the navy is a clear sign of that, rather than the fact that it succeeded is the sign of effective cooperation.

Cooperation among all the three services, as would be needed in a landing operation, was a non-starter, in no small part also due to the ticket paid by the navy for Norway. Even passing knowledge of the chatter about Seelöwe (calling it "planning" would be really too much) would confirm this. I could go on at length, but I really feel I shouldn't be doing your homework. So I'll give you some clues.

On 28 July (two months before the ballpark date of an invasion!) Raeder announced that the first wave could be landed over a period of ten (!) days, even with a much narrower frontage than previously discussed. Halder privately commented: "If that is true, all previous navy statements are a lot of nonsense and a landing is not possible at all".

Two days later, Hitler met with Raeder, Von Brauchitsch and Halder. It seems high time for a decision whether to launch the operation or not, doesn't it? Do you notice someone missing? Not only the Luftwaffe's not there. But also, Raeder left during the meeting, after delivering his memo to the tune that the invasion could not be protected by the Royal Navy and the supplies could not be guaranteed through the bad weather of October. Raeder wants a fur of sea mammal, but then he goes away. Fine, exit the Kriegsmarine, and what do the Führer and the Heer decide? That the Luftwaffe (absent) will launch the air offensive and that it will take care of the obstacles, hopefully, while the final decision will be taken later. The generals approve, what's the cost to them? If the flyboys deliver, maybe the British will surrender; if they don't, the one to lose face is Fatty.

We might add there also was a smallish amateurish private army, healthily hated by the three Wehrmacht services and by the Heer in particular; I doubt they'd tell those the day of the week if they kindly asked, which they would not.

That's the German inter-service cooperation at the strategic level.
 
Debates about cross channel invasions rarely lead anywhere. On one hand there is the plethora of facts which would indicate that this invasion would be a complete failure. On the other is the belief that if the stars aligned in the proper manner it could have worked. Had Singapore or Crete been total disasters for the Axis forces (or simply not attempted) I suspect it would be possible to show a huge volume of information of why such attacks were doomed to failure. Regardless, the plan (if it can be called that) was so full of holes it is doubtful it was ever meant to be attempted.

On the otherhand it all boils down to the point of this what if. Is British morale at the point where it is so brittle any momentary (and argueably short-lived) shock is going to break it? That point which occured in WW1 for Germany when Ludendorff suddenly clamoured for an Armistice. Lord North's 'O God! It is all over' after Yorktown.

The answer would appear to be no.
 
The Germans pulled off some remarkable coups in the early part of the war, often against the odds. Yet when dismissing a potential invasion, you stick firmly with the tired line that “it can’t be done because there are myriad reasons why it can’t be done”.

I am sure “nobody” believed Eben Emael could be done. Or Norway. Or the Ardennes and the crossing at Sedan. Or Crete. Yet, they were done. In fact, there are hardly any (combined) operations by the Germans that failed prior to 1942. Unlike the allies, the Germans did not need several months to plan such operations; they were done on the fly (like Norway and Crete). Sure, they were not very sound in a logistical sense and were vulnerable to setbacks but they usually worked out. Now the Germans were not supermen but they often succeeded with boldness where a more conventional mind would shy away because the correlation of forces did not seem promising. Perhaps that was the reason they succeeded? Perhaps the allies overestimated the threat because the Germans did things they would only do with overwhelming superiority of force?

The reasoning above is fallacious.

There are two points of view to take into account as to the sequence of German successes in WWII with reference to the 1940 situation: ours (hindsight) and the British decision makers' in the summer of 1940, after a hypothetical loss of 50,000 to 100,000 men in Dunkirk. Let's deal with the latter first.

The British couldn't know the Germans would be successful in Crete, in the Balkans etc., so we can ignore anything taking place after summer 1940.
The British also knew the Germans had two strategies: siege or assault. The siege would be mainly by U-Boote, with air bombing added in but secondary. This would be a long-haul strategy. On the one hand, the lack of 100,000 men would be a hindrance, given the overall British manpower pool, but OTOH, the longer the run, the less importance would have this loss. Additionally, the long run meant more time to recruit allies, which the British were already planning to do. Note on this point that the German siege strategy would mainly feature submarines – this is exactly what brought the USA into the war twenty years before. Once more populous allies are in, the lack of 100,000 men is of very secondary importance. The long-haul choice would be welcome to the British, overall; they knew they had not yet fully mobilized their industries and imperial resources. Meanwhile, the siege would mainly be fought by the Royal Navy, a less manpower-intensive service than the Army, and the 100,000 lost men would have been _infantry_men.
The assault strategy was more feared. After all, the quick KO was what we are talking about in the first place, if we base this reasoning on the Polish, Norwegian, French-Dutch-Belgian successes of the Germans. But then again, did the British decision makers think that a quick assault would be staved off by the Army? No. For such a contingency, they mostly relied on the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The loss of 100,000 grunts in Dunkirk made no difference here; the German sea mammal would be drowned in the Channel by the other two services. Sure they were striving to rearm and train the Army, but it was a distant third in the quest for glory should the Germans be foolish enough.
This is the POV of the British decision makers in the summer of 1940, after a hypothetical loss of personnel at Dunkirk. In neither case does it lead to surrender.

Now, our POV. Sure the Germans managed a series of stunning and unpredictable successes in WWII, and continued with them for a while after their first strategic defeat, which is, not by any chance, the Battle of Britain. Now, what can we say of these successes with our hindsight? Not only that they were unpredictable (which would run against the grain of us alt-history fans of going with the most likely outcomes). But also that
a) they were successful in no small part exactly thanks to their being unpredictable, and
b) that exactly because they were unlikely, statistics in the first place, let alone other factors, were against them.
A secondary drawback of this strategy is that it is very costly even when it is successful; vide the disappearance of the German destroyer force in Norway or the cost of Unternehmen Merkur. But there's worse.
What was the first ingredient of their unpredictability? That they were high-yield gambles, exactly because they were at the same time very-high-risk gambles. A boxer doesn't expect the opponent to entirely forsake his guard in order to carry out an all-out attack with both hands. For this very reason, it is possible that the all-out attack is successful – the first time. It can be the second; the more it is attempted, the more likely it is that a blow exploits the lack of guard and deals with the high-risking guy.
Suppose I want to play the stock exchange. I decide to invest all of my savings in a very dubious looking stock, but which will yield a lot if the company succeeds. My broker advises me against this. The company succeeds and I make a lot of money. This proves my broker was wrong and I was right – this time. But suppose I follow the same strategy again, and again, every time investing all my savings on it? Will my broker be wrong every time? Not only chances are he'll be right sooner or later, but also, when he is, I'm broke. High-yield, high-risk. Fail once, and you're screwed. Now suppose my broker gambles with a colleague. He wins his gamble if I a) follow his advice, or b) do not follow his advice, and lose my money. OTOH, he loses if I both do not follow his advice and gain money. It turns out the first time he loses his bet. My unpredictable decision, followed by an unlikely outcome, have defeated his wiser assessment. Now, should he change his bet for my second investment? For my third?

Probabilities are against a continuing series of unlikely outcomes. That's why it is the correct choice not to expect them to continue.
 
There was a massive shortage of modern equipment. British Industry was incapable of producing the equipment needede to fully equip the British Military in 1940 due to the fact that the British Government falled to order enough stuff before the war. As for the British producing outstanding equipment it should be noted that they continued to produce the 2 Pdr AT gun until late 1941 due to the fact that they worried about not having any AT Guns despite the evidence that it was hopeless in dealing with German tanks.. It is also tru that the United States Shipped Hugh ammount of WW1 Lee Endfield rifles that had been used by the US Army in WW! when their was a shortage of equipment.
 
It should also be noted that in war there is always a political aspect to it. Thus democracies tend to be effected by the impact of disasters on the battlefield to a great degree. Heavy loses of Personnel could very well result in a government falling.
 
Note that the 'Miracle' of Dunkirk was that 338,000 men were successfully evacuated in the first place.

This was by no means seen as a given and analysis of the situation ordered by Churchill in his first days as PM assumed that the BEF would NOT be saved.

In fact, a quarter of the British troops were assumed to be salvageable, consisting of 40,000 rear echelon troops evacuated prior to Operation Dynamo on the grounds that their assigned function no longer existed and 25,000 which was given as the minimum number the British were certain of being able to evacuate under fire. So a worst case scenario would involve @185,000 British troops lost.

Anyone want me to post a day by day breakdown of the evacuation?
 
Note that the 'Miracle' of Dunkirk was that 338,000 men were successfully evacuated in the first place.

This was by no means seen as a given and analysis of the situation ordered by Churchill in his first days as PM assumed that the BEF would NOT be saved.

In fact, a quarter of the British troops were assumed to be salvageable, consisting of 40,000 rear echelon troops evacuated prior to Operation Dynamo on the grounds that their assigned function no longer existed and 25,000 which was given as the minimum number the British were certain of being able to evacuate under fire. So a worst case scenario would involve @185,000 British troops lost.

Anyone want me to post a day by day breakdown of the evacuation?

Posting such a breakdown, while unnecessary, would be interesting.
 
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