WWII what-if: BEF destroyed before it can evacuate, 1940

[Force Lord]

Let's assume that Hitler does not halt his forces and allows them to wipe out the BEF before it can evacuate from Dunkirk. How effective will the British Army be after losing completely their best-trained troops in the Continent?

[Broomstick]

What is a "BEF"? We're not all military/historian geeks here. British-something-something?

[Samuel]

The British Expeditionary Force.

[Big Phil]

Let's assume that Hitler does not halt his forces and allows them to wipe out the BEF before it can evacuate from Dunkirk. How effective will the British Army be after losing completely their best-trained troops in the Continent?

Not very on the British Isles, although it's a moot point unless Hitler can also defeat the RAF and Royal Navy and launch a successful invasion of England. The only difference is that England doesn't have ten or so extra divisions to play with in North Africa, Italy, Greece, and Europe and can't do much offensively until the United States enters the war. I would expect two possible outcomes of a Dunkirk massacre:

1. Churchill dispenses with his fuckery in Greece and Italy and the invasion of Europe occurs as it did historically, although since the Germans aren't distracted by forces in southern Europe it's hard to say exactly how that would turn out.
2. The war takes longer (for the US and UK) since they can't take the offensive as early as they did historically, and the Red Army crushes Germany and occupies the entire country up to the French border. Same end result, but the Cold War is much less pleasant for the West.

[frogcurry]

Not very on the British Isles, although it's a moot point unless Hitler can also defeat the RAF and Royal Navy and launch a successful invasion of England. The only difference is that England doesn't have ten or so extra divisions to play with in North Africa, Italy, Greece, and Europe and can't do much offensively until the United States enters the war.

In the absence of additional troops to fight in Africa when the Italians make their move (bar the not insubstantial army in place at that time), whats the likelihood of the British Empire fighting on alone against Germany for much longer? The loss of the BEF also means no Free French either. The potential inability to build 8th Army could also cause problems in defending Egypt later on, and that could lead to a Nazi-Japan sea link via the Indian Ocean if Egypt fell, not to mention giving them access to the middle eastern oil supplies (via trade, not conquest).

[Uraniun235]

2. The war takes longer (for the US and UK) since they can't take the offensive as early as they did historically, and the Red Army crushes Germany and occupies the entire country up to the French border. Same end result, but the Cold War is much less pleasant for the West.

That's actually the more interesting question for me - what would happen to Germany if it had been totally overrun and claimed by the Soviets?

[Patrick Degan]

Not very on the British Isles, although it's a moot point unless Hitler can also defeat the RAF and Royal Navy and launch a successful invasion of England. The only difference is that England doesn't have ten or so extra divisions to play with in North Africa, Italy, Greece, and Europe and can't do much offensively until the United States enters the war.

In the absence of additional troops to fight in Africa when the Italians make their move (bar the not insubstantial army in place at that time), whats the likelihood of the British Empire fighting on alone against Germany for much longer? The loss of the BEF also means no Free French either. The potential inability to build 8th Army could also cause problems in defending Egypt later on, and that could lead to a Nazi-Japan sea link via the Indian Ocean if Egypt fell, not to mention giving them access to the middle eastern oil supplies (via trade, not conquest).

Absolute rubbish. Britain still has her air force and navy and control of both the Channel and the Mediterranean, while the Axis do not have the naval and amphibious forces to attempt an invasion. This puts an additional strain on those forces to carry on the defence until the troops lost at Dunkirk can be replaced by recruits on the homefront and levies from the dominions, but as the Germans can't even begin to mount anything as ambitious as Sealion, they've got the same time they had in real history. Meanwhile, they're still being supplied by the United States.

The Free French started out as non-French nationals from the colonies who responded to the call of Charles DeGaulle. Those French units which had in real history escaped with the BEF had integrated into the British army command structure, not DeGaulle's. So you're wrong on that score as well.

Britain already had a 50,000 strong army in North Africa in 1940 and the Italians had bungled their operations in theatre even with a 10:1 advantage. One of the biggest early victories in the war was when the Western Desert Force captured a 130,000 strong Italian army. Britain's diversion into Greece, however, had bungled the opportunity to push Mussolini off the continent altogether before the Afrika Corps could even have gotten involved. The 8th Army was later formed by integrating the Western Desert Force (since redesignated XIII Corps) with Commonwealth levies as well as French and Polish units but the British were already doing quite well in North Africa and the BEF weren't part of that equation at all. They still control Egypt, the Arab states are either allied or sympathetic with Britain, and the only chance to establish any sort of sea link is via the Suez Canal —which in the worst case could have been destroyed to deny it to the Axis.

In short, the complete loss of the BEF causes some decisions to be made differently, but in the end does not affect the overall outcome of events. Germany still cannot either invade or force Britain to her knees with the U-Boat War, the Luftwaffle still can't overwhelm the RAF, Britain still gets resupplied by the U.S. before America finally jumps into the war, Britain's other imperial forces are still able to fight in North Africa quite well, and the Free French forces will still eventually form. Germany and Italy will still lose the war; only the timeframe is slightly different.

[atg]

, not to mention giving them access to the middle eastern oil supplies (via trade, not conquest).

IIRC during the World War II timeframe the Middle East produced only a very small fraction of oil compared to the rest of the world. Certainly nothing like the importance of its oil production today.

[Simon_Jester]

True. But on the other hand, Germany only had access to a very small minority of the world's oil anyway, since they never made it to places like Baku and had no access to overseas supplies like those of the US and Dutch East Indies.

Getting a secure land link to even a relatively minor oilfield makes more difference to a power that was starving for oil to begin with.

[ExarKun]

Losing almost 350,000 men can't be insignificant. While invasion of Britain depended on air dominance, the loss of an entire army would have crushed the British morale and have had significance in later battles. Who knows? May be it would have changed things for the Germans

[MKSheppard]

The key thing to remember here is that while the equipment is easily replaceable -- for example, Stuart's dad's unit was an 3.7" AA Gun unit; and immediately after getting off the boat from Dunkirk, they found themselves posted to London Defense with a whole new kit of brand new 3.7"s (they were most displeased over that, they expected a week or two of leave) -- the men aren't.

The BEF IIRC was basically the creme de la creme of the British Army of the period -- and they went on to provide the cadre for much of the British Army that was built up in the British Isles for the invasion of Europe. Without them, the British army that lands in Normandy in 1943-1944 is going to be even more incompetent than it was in @.

And when I say incompetent; I mean "launch unsupported tank or infantry only attacks on german strongpoints, get chewed up, repeat and rinse". It took quite a while of beating their heads against that before they began to do combined arms tactics -- something the 8th Army also learned the hard way in the Western Desert -- but nobody paid any attention to it.

[K. A. Pital]

It could've changed things for the Germans vis-a-vis the British in theaters that they still could have engagements on, but not in the greater picture. It could've changed things for the British, I'd say... not for the Germans.

Invasion of Britain was either way untenable for Germany, and the colonial fighting was of minor importance in the overall war.

[atg]

True. But on the other hand, Germany only had access to a very small minority of the world's oil anyway, since they never made it to places like Baku and had no access to overseas supplies like those of the US and Dutch East Indies.

Getting a secure land link to even a relatively minor oilfield makes more difference to a power that was starving for oil to begin with.

What secure land link? To have that Germany has either beaten the USSR and made it to Baku anyway, or Turkey would have had to have entered the war on the side of the Axis.

Assuming the land link your refering to is Italian North Africa then remember for it to have been of any use it still needs to be shipped across just a small body of water called the Mediterranean Sea. You think the Royal Navy wouldn't be trying to stop that? And that assumes the Axis powers in the Med (read: Italy) even has enough tankers to make a damm difference.

Then bring in sabotage of the oil fields by the retreating Allied forces, etc... Its not a case of 'take middle east = free oils!!' for the Axis.

[Simon_Jester]

What secure land link? To have that Germany has either beaten the USSR and made it to Baku anyway, or Turkey would have had to have entered the war on the side of the Axis.

That latter is at least possible in a scenario where the Axis has effectively total dominance of the Mediterranean; if they'd won in Egypt they would have been able to dislodge the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet from Alexandria and capture or block the Suez Canal. The British wouldn't have a credible naval position east of Italy.

But more generally, you're right, I misspoke, not a land link. But without a base in Egypt, I question the proposition that the British Navy would be physically capable of interfering with oil shipments from the Middle East to continental Europe to any good effect.

Then bring in sabotage of the oil fields by the retreating Allied forces, etc... Its not a case of 'take middle east = free oils!!' for the Axis.

No, it is most certainly not. That is true.

But a little oil is better than no oil, which is what I'm getting at. The Germans needed all the help they could get on that front; they simply did not have enough oil. Any extra supplies they could have secured would have improved their strategic situation, though probably not by a decisive margin.

[ExarKun]

Possible sabotage of Baku oil fields by the Russians didn't stop Germans from going for those fields, so I doubt sabotage was much of a concern.

[Stark]

Without them, the British army that lands in Normandy in 1943-1944 is going to be even more incompetent than it was in @.

What does 'in @' mean? Is it some bizarre shorthand?

What proportion of useful field officers served in the BEF? Losing cadre for training is a problem, but poor command decisions have more to do with the quality of officers than soldier training. If they lose all their experienced field officers, that's pretty terrible.

[TimothyC]

What does 'in @' mean? Is it some bizarre shorthand?

@ Is the generally accepted character used to represent the real timeline without any changes. The other short hand is OTL (Original TimeLine).

[Marcus Aurelius]

That latter is at least possible in a scenario where the Axis has effectively total dominance of the Mediterranean; if they'd won in Egypt they would have been able to dislodge the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet from Alexandria and capture or block the Suez Canal. The British wouldn't have a credible naval position east of Italy.

Also, in such a scenario it appears likely that the Axis would be able to capture Malta as well, which would effectively limit RN operations to the westernmost part of the Med.

But a little oil is better than no oil, which is what I'm getting at. The Germans needed all the help they could get on that front; they simply did not have enough oil. Any extra supplies they could have secured would have improved their strategic situation, though probably not by a decisive margin.

That is certainly true, although Persia (Iran) was in the Allied camp and probably would not have been willing to sell oil to the Germans.

[Captain Seafort]

And when I say incompetent; I mean "launch unsupported tank or infantry only attacks on german strongpoints, get chewed up, repeat and rinse". It took quite a while of beating their heads against that before they began to do combined arms tactics -- something the 8th Army also learned the hard way in the Western Desert -- but nobody paid any attention to it.

Why are you drawing a contrast between the lack of combined-arms tactics in Normandy with the Desert War? AFAIK the worst offenders in Normandy were 7th Armoured Div, while 11th were somewhat better.

[atg]

But a little oil is better than no oil, which is what I'm getting at. The Germans needed all the help they could get on that front; they simply did not have enough oil. Any extra supplies they could have secured would have improved their strategic situation, though probably not by a decisive margin.

Assuming the Axis wins in North Africa, assuming they can take the Middle East quickly, assuming all the oil fields are intact. Where is the infrastructure to move the oil to Europe going to come from?

Is Italy going to magically be able to build a fleet of tankers? Would a hypothetical Turkey joining the Axis cause an oil pipeline to Germany to spring up from the desert? Will a fleet of thousands of trucks appear on Hitler's birthday to give him a gift of oil?

It would take years for the Axis to construct the necessary infrasctructure for it to be worth a damm, and in having to do so they'll be using up what oil/fuel they have that is already needed elsewhere.

[Sea Skimmer]

Why are you drawing a contrast between the lack of combined-arms tactics in Normandy with the Desert War? AFAIK the worst offenders in Normandy were 7th Armoured Div, while 11th were somewhat better.

The 7th Armored was the only division in the entire British north western Europe force at the time which had actually modified its TO&E for combined arms, creating several tank-infantry-artillery teams at the brigade level rather then each type of unit being 100% managed from the divisional level and basically left to fight its own war. The division got a bad reputation only because the incompetent fools the British called a high command decided they had to punish SOMEONE for the failure of so many offensives, and chose the divisions failure at Villers-Bocage to be the example made at Normandy. The fact that the division was ordered to attack while one of its infantry brigades and some artillery had yet to come ashore and that no other units even came close to making enough of an advance to support the division, and that it was opposed by a large number of actual Tiger I tanks (as opposed to the very commonly imagined ones) was all ignored. The division had failed to win the entire Battle of Normandy on its own, and this plus its modest withdrawl from an unsupported postion afterwards was clearly unacceptable, and so something like 25% of its entire complement of officers got sacked.

Only after repeated failures, including the infamous planned from the top Operation Goodwood did other British units begin following the 7th Armored lead. I don’t know of anything being too well done by the 11th Armored, it suffered by far the heaviest tank losses in Operation Goodwood. Its tank regiments did make the furthest gains by a small margin… but also got slaughtered in the process owing to a complete almost stereotypical absence of support leading to the lead units blundering across open fields covered by anti tank guns. But I suppose blindly following orders into death is what the British high command liked out of its men and officers.

[xerex]

Would Rashid Ali's a pro axis revolt in Iraq have a greater chance of success in the new scenario ? As I recall the Brits were scrapping the bottom of the barrel to find reserves to deal with that threat.

[Stuart]

Let's assume that Hitler does not halt his forces and allows them to wipe out the BEF before it can evacuate from Dunkirk. How effective will the British Army be after losing completely their best-trained troops in the Continent?

What makes you think the German Army will win that particular battle? The terms "German Army fights" and "German Army wins" are not synonymous. For your information, the allies were not just sitting on the beach with their thumbs up their ass waiting to be overrun.

As it happens there were very good reasons why the German Army stopped when it did. They had outrun their supply lines, their armored formations were out of fuel and all their units were running low on ammunition. They'd also outrun their command and control system and that alone made it very hard for them to launch coordinated offensives. The Germans needed to stop for a few days to regroup and resupply. The three-day halt in the German advance was inevitable, either a halt was ordered or it would happen without orders.

Another factor involved is that the ground was extremely bad for an assault and very good for the defense; you know there was a reason why the British decided to fall back on that particular point. Gort didn't just throw a dart at a map and say "we'll retreat there," The ground around Dunkirk was marshy, saturated and was transversed by a large and very obstrictive canal that provided a ready-made moat. In short, the British were in an excellent defensive position and that fact was not an accident. It should be noted that at the Battle of Wytschaete, a German assault was repelled quite convincingly. There is a key fact here that needs to be remembered. All the roads leading to the battle front in question (the Dunkirk Perimeter) pass over a single bridge at Poperinge. That supply bottleneck was a major problem for anybody launching any military operations in the area. This hurt the Brits while they were fighting one way and it hurt the Germans when they were fighting the other. Oh, by the way, the weather over Dunkirk between May 29 and May 31 was atrocious and prevented most flying missions so the Germans didn't have any air support.

Now, we have another factor coming in. The British had fallen back on their tail. that means they had fallen back on their artillery and the Dunkirk Pocket was thick with the stuff. Not just normal field artillery but all sorts of good things - like, as Mark mentioned, 3.7 inch anti-aircraft guns. Guess where they were? Not deep inside the pocket but dug in as anti-tank guns on the Dunkirk Perimeter. That perimeter was thick with anti-tank. A two pounder might have been a joke in 1942 but in may 1940 it will stop any tank in German service. What a 3.7 inch would do is gruesome to imagine (and yes, 3.7 inch anti-aircraft crews were trained to engage tanks). Those guns also had plenty of ammunition and their crews knew they would be leaving them behind. So, there was no sense of any need to conserve ammunition. Oh, by the way, the Royal Navy was offshore anyway, evacuating troops. Can anybody say "Naval Gunfire Support".

So, let us assume that the German high command has a fit of collective insanity (not an unknown event see: Russian Front, strategy or lack thereof) and decides to launch an armored offensive right away against the Dunkirk Perimeter. The tanks swarm in, what there are of them that are still operational. A quick peruse suggests that the German armored units were down to 20 - 30 percent of their theoretical strength. The tanks are low on fuel and ammunition. They run head-on into a heavy defense and face the canal. They have no bridging gear (it's stuck on the road somewhere between Aachen and Poperinge with the emphasis on the former) and come to a halt while the tanks get shot up by the British defenses. Every so often one of said German tanks leaps into the air and flies 40 feet backwards when a military genius with a 3.7 inch gun takes a pot-shot. The German infantry try to advance and penetrate but get shot up and hammered by artillery fire (the Germans repeatedly tried to break through the Dunkirk Perimeter and more or less failed). German casualties mount steadily with no corresponding gain. Meanwhile, back on the beaches the evacuation continues.

So, any reaonable assessment of the situation suggests that an offensive by the Germans will not be a complete wipe-out of the Allied forces (BEF and French) but an incremental change and one that does not inflict that many additional casualties on the Allies while inflicting a lot more on the Germans. By the way, you might also note that the rearguard for the evacuation wasn't British, it was French so any accelerated advance by the Germans would bag more Frenchmen, not British. (It was actually planned for the rearguard to be British but it just didn't work out that way.)

What effect does this have? On the British, very little. As we have seen, even had the Germans launched an immediate assault on the Dunkirk pocket, most of the BEF would still have got off. They would have left their heavy equipment (which they did anyway) but more was waiting for them the other side of the channel. mark's story about my father is quite correct, he and his troop left the beach, arrived in Dover where there was a complete battery set of 3.7 inch anti-aircraft guns waiting for him along with a set of orders to take his guns, proceed to St John's Wood and join the London AA defenses. They were mightly pissed by this since everybody else got one or two weeks "survivors leave". Note that, the British sent the recovered troops off on leave. They wouldn't have done that if they had really felt there was any serious threat to the UK. So, the result is that, at worst, the British have a samller (but still significant) cadre for their later Army.

The effects on the Germans are much more interesting. Throwing their ill-supplied and ill-maintained armor in a battle on lousy ground against prepared defenses on the Dunkirk perimeter will cost them a lot, probably most of that armor. In @ that armor spent its time refitting and resupplying and was ready for the second-phase assault on France. In this timeline that armor doesn't get refitted and resupplied, it gets destroyed. This has an immediate and appreciable impact on the second-phase assault. In @ the refitted armored formations were the German reserve and they were decisive in the assault. The French had no reserves and they collapsed. But, in this timeline things are different, Neither side has any reserves and the Germans are pretty mcuh leg infantry only. If they delay enough to rebuild and refit their armored units (which will take much longer than it did in @ due to the carnage on the Dunkirk Perimeter) the French get a chance to catch their breaths and reorganize as well. It's quite possible the British will re-insert their troops (or send fresh ones - by this time there were quite an appreciable force of those) and provide the much-needed Allied reserve. FYI the second BEF was already in France and forming up when France surrendered. Also, everybody has seen how the Germans played the game now and they know the rules (in more senses than one, the atrocities committed by the Germans during the battle for Northern France including the massacre at Le Paradis and the brutalization of allied PoWs from Dunkirk - the Bataan Death March gets all the publicity but the Germans treated the Dunkirk PoWs just as badly - are likely to have stiffened resolve.

Would those changes be enough to keep France in the war? They might just have been. In that case, we see WW1 recreating itself, oddly along almost exactly the same line as twenty five years earlier. If not, well, no difference there then.

Added to this is the pschological effects. Assuming that fewer troops from the BEF got off at the cost of severe dislocation of the German offensive against France, the first thing that will happen is that the British change propaganda gear. It won't be "we saved our army" but "our army heroically bought time for the French to get their act together". The French saw Dunkirk as "The Rosbifs cut and ran". They might now see it as "The Rosbifs died to buy us time" and that might also contribute to them holding on. The Germans, wandering around the blown up and burned out tanks stuck in the mud in front of the Dunkirk Perimeter think "Gee this blitzkrieg stuff is all crap. Perhaps we better have a rethink."

All this talk about "crushing the BEF At Dunkirk" is neo-nazi apologia. The truth is that there were very good reasons why the German Army did not carry out an armored assault on the perimeter. The operational reasons we have covered. The strategic reason is simple. The strategic center of mass for the Allies was the French Army, not the British. It was France and the French Army that were the primary strategic objective, the British were a sideshow. The German generals kept their eyes on the strategic ball and concentrated their efforts on their primary strategic target. As was perfectly right and proper. Diverting effort from the primary strategic objective to a secondary one and by doing so compromising the thrust against that priamry objective is a classical and fatal strategic error (one that, by the way, Germany made over and over again, especially in Russia. Guess what, those disastrous errors on the Russian Front were made by those same Generals who condemned the failure to use armor against the Dunkirk Perimeter. Guess they never did learn.)

[Stuart]

Losing almost 350,000 men can't be insignificant. While invasion of Britain depended on air dominance, the loss of an entire army would have crushed the British morale and have had significance in later battles. Who knows? May be it would have changed things for the Germans

There weren't 350,000 troops evacuated from Dunkirk, there were 334,000 of whom only 199,000 were British. More significantly those troops had already been written off by the British government.. Contemporary British planning was based around using troops that were in the UK only. Getting the BEF back was a bonus.

As for a morale crush, you underestimate the British (bad mistake a lot of people make). Propaganda would have simply changed gear. "Oh ecstasy, we rescued our brave boys" would have become "Our boys sacrified their lives to buy us time. Don't let them down.

The potential inability to build 8th Army could also cause problems in defending Egypt later on, and that could lead to a Nazi-Japan sea link via the Indian Ocean if Egypt fell, not to mention giving them access to the middle eastern oil supplies (via trade, not conquest).

Sigh. OK, the standard North African Logistics Exercise as taught by every staff college from Azebaijan to Zululand via West Point, St Cyr, Sandhurst and Chulachomklao. Take a map of north Africa and 1941. Put your finger on Tunisia. There's a port there. Run your finger east. Next port is Tripoli, 650 miles away. Next port is Benghazi - more than 700 miles. Keep going. Next port is Tobruk, nearly 500 miles. Keep going. Next port is Alexandria, another 500 miles. That's it. Five ports all nicely spread out so that supplying one from the next is only just barely possible. Fail to capture any one of the five and any further advance is impossible. But, there is a comparative abundance of ports in Egypt. So, its easy to support a force in Egypt but very, very hard to attack one there. Now look at port capacity. Remember, one port at a time and only the capacity of the nearest port counts. Guess what, its just possible to support two armored divisions using the available support facilities. That is why the Afrika Corps was the size it was. By the way, the tanks in the Africa Korps? You destroyed them throwing them at the Dunkirk perimeter.

LOGISTICS. They make any North African Axis campaign a sideshow. The Axis isn't going anywhere. let alone to capture Egypt. All that will happen is that people amble up and down the line of ports.

[Serafina]

What Stuart wrote

Wow..thanks a lot.
We were told in school that Hitler told his troops not to advance further - because he did not want to antagonize the british.
It never made sense to me then, and i did some research, but mostly without getting any better information - no great reseach skills at that time.
Overall, it made Hitler look incredibly stupid (not to say that he was not) - stopping an attack that was certain to suceed (the books actually said that). I guess that was the intention - overestaminating the strength of the german army and overplaying the stupidity of Hitler.

Actual question:
How was Dunkirk perceived by the british, french (partially adressed already), germans and other nations?