German victory at Dunkirk followed by German peace offer. What would happen next?

In the scenario where the vast majority of the BEF is captured or killed, Britain has to be concentrating on rebuilding the army and also dealing with greater than OTL losses of ships and aircraft. While essentially all of the heavier equipment of the BEF was lost on the continent, a fair number of soldiers came back with rifles and personal kit (web gear, canteen, helmet, etc). Yes, many came back with just the clothes on their back but a fair amount of useful light equipment did come back. In addition to replacing the heavy equipment, more ships, and more aircraft, you now have to produce a lot of rifles and mundane but necessary equipment like canteens. It strained Britain, with a good deal of US assistance, to replace all of this lost equipment, every extra set of web gear, rifle, or canteen makes doing this that much more difficult. WE know that a German invasion of England was not going to happen, the British did not know that even if they saw it as improbable. Don't forget that ITTL resources to deal with German troops should they land are even less than OTL and destroyers and other RN ships are fewer as are RAF fighters.

The reason all of this is important is that the UK still has to reinforce Singapore and elsewhere against the Japanese potential threat, even if Italy is not in the war yet they can't ignore North Africa & the Red Sea area. All of this on top of a much larger need to re-equip the rebuilt army at home, probably with less American assistance for reasons that have been listed before. Whether than has been an armistice or Phony War part deux, if a German invasion of Russia goes off in spring, 1941 the UK simply won't have that much "stuff" to give the Russians.

Roosevelt is on thin ice with neutrality acts, providing arms to the UK when the USA needs all that stuff to rebuild its own forces. If the situation in the UK with a disaster at Dunkirk is as described, much weaker militarily, and the Germans and French reach or are seriously negotiating a final agreement, and the Germans offer the British a no harm no foul peace, Roosevelt will have a very difficult time in giving the sort of aid and making changes in neutrality laws that happen OTL. Also the "Western Atlantic Defensive Zone", US ships in convoy escort & so forth. ITTL the UK would be very fortunate to get the same credits and material they did OTL, I expect they would get less with an admonition to cut a deal.
 

Anchises

Banned
Remind me again how many neutral democratic nations has Nazi Germany invaded by this point - nearly always without a declaration of war?

And we have to take into account that it is 1940. Sure the Germans have broken their word several times. If they retreat from France and the BeNeLux countries they might rebuild at least a little credibility.

They could try to put a "we are only interested in reversing the unjust results of WW1 spin" on their behavior. And after a catastrophic defeat there might be a few people in GB willing to listen.
 
Then, once France falls, it has to be said that Britain and Germany are left effectively unable to seriously damage one another militarily. The German threat to invade Britain is frankly incredible, and not in the good sense of the term. Britain cannot invade Europe. So they're left with fanciful and unproven half-measures like aerial bombardment, fighting around the margins, or to take your examples, becoming a covert arms supplier to continental resistance groups and to the Red Army. At some point one has to acknowledge that any professed war aim of compelling the other side to surrender is unachievable and therefore not worth wasting money or lives on. It seems like it could easily evolve into a sort of cold war-type or at least phony war-type tension.

It's not true that Britain can't damage Germany militarily. The blockade does that; it prevent Germany using her own, let alone France's, industrial capacity to its potential. It ties Germany into a toxic and unstable master-client relationship with the USSR.

The Germany threat to Britain was not "incredible". It was taken very seriously at the time. We have the benefit of hindsight; knowledge of the forces and their capability and the examples of amphibious operations undertaken later in the war, and of the Luftwaffe's flaws when fighting over Britain to realise that it was overstated, yet OTL the Luftwaffe's strength and capability was grossly over-exaggerated. This means that a passive Germany will be perceived to continue being an existential threat - one that is building up its strength for a 1941 offensive. German protestations to the contrary are not credible.

Anyway, the campaigns against Vichy territories and Italy still happen (it's really not credible that Hitler can order Mussolini around). Then Japan goes into Indochina, Germany into Russia and we're pretty much back at OTL.

The way for Germany to exit the war in 1940 is to take the initiative and force Britain to choose. That means putting a generous peace deal together and forcing the Cabinet and Government to choose between ongoing war or time to rebuild and recover while continuing to oppose Germany as best they could.
 
It's not true that Britain can't damage Germany militarily. The blockade does that; it prevent Germany using her own, let alone France's, industrial capacity to its potential. It ties Germany into a toxic and unstable master-client relationship with the USSR.

The Germany threat to Britain was not "incredible". It was taken very seriously at the time. We have the benefit of hindsight; knowledge of the forces and their capability and the examples of amphibious operations undertaken later in the war, and of the Luftwaffe's flaws when fighting over Britain to realise that it was overstated, yet OTL the Luftwaffe's strength and capability was grossly over-exaggerated. This means that a passive Germany will be perceived to continue being an existential threat - one that is building up its strength for a 1941 offensive. German protestations to the contrary are not credible.

Anyway, the campaigns against Vichy territories and Italy still happen (it's really not credible that Hitler can order Mussolini around). Then Japan goes into Indochina, Germany into Russia and we're pretty much back at OTL.

The way for Germany to exit the war in 1940 is to take the initiative and force Britain to choose. That means putting a generous peace deal together and forcing the Cabinet and Government to choose between ongoing war or time to rebuild and recover while continuing to oppose Germany as best they could.

I could quibble with the first part of your comment here but I'm not sure it matters as, from your final paragraph, I think we are probably in general agreement in terms of how we view Germany's policy options circa mid-1940.

As I've stated, I feel that in an ironic way Germany could probably put more political pressure on Churchill via such a diplomatic route, at least if it was prepared to be patient, than it could through any of its available military means. Obviously some great military geniuses of the time like Goering disagreed with me.
 
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hipper

Banned
In the scenario where the vast majority of the BEF is captured or killed, Britain has to be concentrating on rebuilding the army and also dealing with greater than OTL losses of ships and aircraft. While essentially all of the heavier equipment of the BEF was lost on the continent, a fair number of soldiers came back with rifles and personal kit (web gear, canteen, helmet, etc). Yes, many came back with just the clothes on their back but a fair amount of useful light equipment did come back. In addition to replacing the heavy equipment, more ships, and more aircraft, you now have to produce a lot of rifles and mundane but necessary equipment like canteens. It strained Britain, with a good deal of US assistance, to replace all of this lost equipment, every extra set of web gear, rifle, or canteen makes doing this that much more difficult. WE know that a German invasion of England was not going to happen, the British did not know that even if they saw it as improbable. Don't forget that ITTL resources to deal with German troops should they land are even less than OTL and destroyers and other RN ships are fewer as are RAF fighters.

The reason all of this is important is that the UK still has to reinforce Singapore and elsewhere against the Japanese potential threat, even if Italy is not in the war yet they can't ignore North Africa & the Red Sea area. All of this on top of a much larger need to re-equip the rebuilt army at home, probably with less American assistance for reasons that have been listed before. Whether than has been an armistice or Phony War part deux, if a German invasion of Russia goes off in spring, 1941 the UK simply won't have that much "stuff" to give the Russians.

Roosevelt is on thin ice with neutrality acts, providing arms to the UK when the USA needs all that stuff to rebuild its own forces. If the situation in the UK with a disaster at Dunkirk is as described, much weaker militarily, and the Germans and French reach or are seriously negotiating a final agreement, and the Germans offer the British a no harm no foul peace, Roosevelt will have a very difficult time in giving the sort of aid and making changes in neutrality laws that happen OTL. Also the "Western Atlantic Defensive Zone", US ships in convoy escort & so forth. ITTL the UK would be very fortunate to get the same credits and material they did OTL, I expect they would get less with an admonition to cut a deal.

Is that not the antithesis of US foreign policy of the time? The last thing the US wanted wa for the UK to cut a deal with the Germans. In 1940 only the combined forces of the UK and Germany were capable of being an existential threat to the US. Why would the US encourage such a situation?
 
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If the UK and Germany come to an armistice or even some sort of peace, this does not mean that the UK and Germany are now (or will be) allies in some future conflict against the USA. Some sort of end to the conflict in summer, 1940 with a complete Dunkirk disaster and Churchill not the PM but someone with less resolve to carry on the war (and absent the resolve of a leader like Churchill how willing/united would the British be in rejecting a status quo antebellum peace), this sort of "end" would actually be better for the USA. While Sealion is not happening, though this is NOT known at this time, continuing the conflict after the rejection of a "fair" offer by the Germans will make it hard for Roosevelt to supply LL or other actions helping the UK and may result in Britain accepting a peace in the future less favorable. By this I mean possible territorial/colonial losses, limitations on armaments (example no 4-engine bombers), etc. The result of this outcome could result in a Britain either unable to be a powerful ally to the USA against Japan now or Germany later, and/or a Britain fully neutral or even vaguely fascist.

Roosevelt vs the isolationists where brave Britain is fighting on rebuilding their army against a Germany with an appetite for conquest that cannot be sated creates a narrative that OTL allowed Roosevelt to do a lot to help Britain. Helping a Britain that has had a catastrophic Dunkirk and has turned down a very favorable end to the conflict creates a domestic environment where Roosevelt cannot justify diverting any US military production to the UK at a time when the Us desperately needs everything it can make to supply its own buildup.
 
If the UK and Germany come to an armistice or even some sort of peace, this does not mean that the UK and Germany are now (or will be) allies in some future conflict against the USA. Some sort of end to the conflict in summer, 1940 with a complete Dunkirk disaster and Churchill not the PM but someone with less resolve to carry on the war (and absent the resolve of a leader like Churchill how willing/united would the British be in rejecting a status quo antebellum peace), this sort of "end" would actually be better for the USA. While Sealion is not happening, though this is NOT known at this time, continuing the conflict after the rejection of a "fair" offer by the Germans will make it hard for Roosevelt to supply LL or other actions helping the UK and may result in Britain accepting a peace in the future less favorable. By this I mean possible territorial/colonial losses, limitations on armaments (example no 4-engine bombers), etc. The result of this outcome could result in a Britain either unable to be a powerful ally to the USA against Japan now or Germany later, and/or a Britain fully neutral or even vaguely fascist.

Roosevelt vs the isolationists where brave Britain is fighting on rebuilding their army against a Germany with an appetite for conquest that cannot be sated creates a narrative that OTL allowed Roosevelt to do a lot to help Britain. Helping a Britain that has had a catastrophic Dunkirk and has turned down a very favorable end to the conflict creates a domestic environment where Roosevelt cannot justify diverting any US military production to the UK at a time when the Us desperately needs everything it can make to supply its own buildup.

I don't buy it, because it changes nothing about the reasons why the US chose to support Britain. Which was because the US was hostile to Germany because Germany was an expansionary militarist power with a record of breaking treaties, meaning that it was in the US's interests to ensure that Britain was also hostile to Germany.

These drivers still apply. You're arguing that a fair offer by Germany changes the US's perceptions of, and attitudes towards, Germany; that the US decides that Germany isn't the threat to the US that she thought she was. But Germany's designs on the East are public knowledge (regardless of the examples of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and the value of previous treaties signed by Germany, the treaty would have to have something about Britain accepting Germany's free hand in the east), indicating that Germany still has military expansion in mind. Furthermore, the M-R pact is still in operation, so the US has to plan under the assumption that two great powers and all the resources and industrial capacity of continental Europe might be directed against her in the future. The rational response to that is to find a powerful European friend - meaning the UK.

In contrast, Britain making peace creates big problems for the US. Britain, having made a peace deal, may say that they still dislike Germany and will work to oppose her, but the US cannot take her word for it. Indeed, the US will be very much aware that continued British rearmament could quite easily be directed against the US in the future, rather than against Germany. This is the nightmare scenario for the US - Britain, Germany, Japan and the USSR all working against her.
 
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