The motive behind the decision to halt the German armor at Dunkirk, instead of letting the panzers race on to the beaches, is one of the most widely argued events of the campaign. Rundstedt even described it as leading to a turning point in the war.
Originally it had been the German intention that the armor on the west side should be the hammer that struck the Allies against the anvil of the stationary armies of Bock. But Rundstedt ordered a pause while the motorized infantry closed up to the armor to prepare for the attack. Hitler turned the pause into a longer halt. During this delay—and partly due to an understandable desire to preserve the armor for the coming battles in central France—Bock’s armies became the hammer and the stationary armored divisions the anvil.
It has been said that a handkerchief floating in the air is like an army: striking it with a hammer will move it but do nothing more unless an anvil is brought into position behind it. This handkerchief analogy is popular with military lecturers because with it they are able also to illustrate another military principle. They point out that a bullet will penetrate a handkerchief even while it floats on air. This is because the velocity of the bullet is great enough to permit the anvil to be dispensed with.
So it was that the penetration of the French front line in May 1940 was achieved by high-velocity attack which shattered the defending armies instead of merely pushing them back. But as the Allied armies retreated to the sea, the German velocity was lost. Now it became a more orthodox sort of war, and the armies of Bock were suffering air attacks by the RAF as the Dunkirk fighting grew more desperate.
These air attacks were not made by the heavy bombers of RAF Bomber Command. Although the French government and Army High Command appealed for “the strongest possible air support in the coming battle,” the British Air Ministry gave minimal air support to the land fighting. They preferred to continue with their strategic plan to bomb German oil targets and aircraft factories while the BEF fought for survival at Dunkirk. That the conquest of France would bring Germany war materials in abundance seems not to have occurred to them.
Manstein provides three possible reasons for Hitler’s decision to halt the tanks. First, he wanted to keep his armor intact for the coming battle in central France. Second, Goring deserved the chance to gain a victory for his airmen. There was an element of politics in this idea, since the Luftwaffe was considered to be a Nazi Party arm because of Goring’s political status and also because it was created by the Third Reich. Once Goring got permission from Hitler to destroy the enemy in the Dunkirk perimeter by air bombardment, the German Army commanders kept their front-line forces well back from the beaches lest they became victims of their own bombers. Third, says Manstein—far less credibly—Hitler believed that a compromise peace with the British would not be possible if he destroyed their army.
After the event. Hitler himself gave many different reasons for his decision. One of them was that the sudden heavy rain of 26 and 27 May made the “Flanders marshes” difficult for tank action. Some historians scoff at this excuse, but J. F. C. Fuller, one of the foremost tank experts, agreed and added that the network of drainage dikes to the south of Dunkirk was impassable by tanks.
By 28 May Guderian agreed too. Although a severe critic of the halt order, he found that the heavy rain of the previous two days made the terrain difficult for him. The XIX Corps diary quotes him advising Kleist’s chief of staff that a tank attack would be pointless in such marshy ground. He said that infantry was more suited for that sort of country and his tanks were suffering unnecessary casualties. Ultimately the German armor was withdrawn from the fighting to refit for the coming battles in the south.
Hitler was concerned about the casualty returns from his tank units. By this time, half of the tanks of Kleist’s panzer group were out of action and so were one third of the tanks of Hoth’s XV Panzerkorps. Tank men, among them General Nehring, say Hitler could not under-
Stand that such statistics included tanks disabled for small faults that could be rectified within a few hours. That was small comfort for Hitler and his more nervous high commanders, who could scarcely believe that they had defeated what was considered the best army in Europe and so every moment waited for the massive counteroffensive that they felt must come sooner or later from the French armies in the south.
It is difficult to believe that Hitler had evolved any strategic reason for sparing the BEF. As recently as 24 May, Hitler’s Directive No. 13 had begun to be put into effect. “Next goal of operations is the annihilation of the French, British and Belgian forces. . . During this operation the task of the Luftwaffe is to break all enemy resistance in the encircled parts and to prevent the escape of the British forces across the Channel.”
The halt order is more easily understood if the coastline is seen as the German and French High Commands saw it. They had no staff experience, historical tradition, or equipment for amphibious operations. They saw the coastline as the end of the European land mass —the edge of their world. The Germans did not even consider the possibility of a sea evacuation. Gort himself had not envisaged it, and neither had Churchill. Even the men who were organizing Operation Dynamo had only limited hopes for its success. The Dunkirk evacuation was a miracle of improvisation and desperation. As far as the records reveal, no one anywhere even began to guess what would be done at Dunkirk until it happened.
The halt order was originally a sensible precaution, a logical military procedure, whether the next stage of the campaign was to be a move north or a move south to central France. There were cities to be taken, and any built-up areas were mincing machines for the panzer divisions. The Germans were right to be nervous. Whichever way this great concentration of armor turned they would be exposing their supply lines and rear echelon to an active enemy. These same German armies had just proved how suicidal that could be.
Only after the BEF had been “miraculously” rescued by sea was the halt debated. Even then, the German High Command had no idea that well over 300,000 had escaped them. “Even 100,000 would have struck us as greatly exaggerated,” said Luftwaffe General Albert Kesselring afterward.
The British Expeditionary Force included virtually the whole of Britain’s regular peacetime army. Had that been lost, there would have been very few first-class professional soldiers left to set about training a new army. Besides, the escape of so many brave young men was a great morale booster. Although the survivors were chastened by the fierce German attack and impressed by German fighting skills, equipment, and organization, this mood changed quickly to one of indignant belligerence. The British began reminding each other of the theory that Britain lost every battle except the last one. Had the BEF been captured, as the greater part of France’s army eventually was, then Hitler undoubtedly would have used those men to bargain for an end to the war. Could such overtures have been curtly brushed aside by a government which needed a population unified in its determination to continue the war?
World History
