One of the criticisms of Field Marshal the Lord Gort, aside from decamping to France when Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) and leaving his deputy Massy back in London to try and mind the shop, was that as well as commanding the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) he also had to handle relations with the French plus stay in contact with London. Now the most logical thing to have done would have been for him to stay back in the UK and delegate command to a subordinate officer but if not that the next best thing would seem to be to split the duties so that Gort handled the most senior issues whilst another officer actually commanded the BEF.
So who would be a suitable candidate? Looking at the three corps commanders - Barker, Brooke and Adam - they all appear on the face of it to be of broadly the same age and seniority, would Brooke have stood a decent chance of getting a bump up to command the whole BEF if the position was open do people think? He was made commander of the Second Expeditionary Force, albeit only a reinforced division, that was sent back to France which was meant to form the core of a new BEF certainly suggests he was trusted. If Brooke becomes overall commander that in turn then leaves the spot commanding II Corp open. Montgomery was put in charge of it during the evacuation of the continent when Brooke was called back to the UK in our timeline which is again suggestive that he was considered sound, but the question then becomes how much of that was previous reputation and how much from what he had achieved during the recently fighting and being on-hand at the time. Or would someone else have likely been slotted in to fill the vacancy?
So who would be a suitable candidate? Looking at the three corps commanders - Barker, Brooke and Adam - they all appear on the face of it to be of broadly the same age and seniority, would Brooke have stood a decent chance of getting a bump up to command the whole BEF if the position was open do people think? He was made commander of the Second Expeditionary Force, albeit only a reinforced division, that was sent back to France which was meant to form the core of a new BEF certainly suggests he was trusted. If Brooke becomes overall commander that in turn then leaves the spot commanding II Corp open. Montgomery was put in charge of it during the evacuation of the continent when Brooke was called back to the UK in our timeline which is again suggestive that he was considered sound, but the question then becomes how much of that was previous reputation and how much from what he had achieved during the recently fighting and being on-hand at the time. Or would someone else have likely been slotted in to fill the vacancy?