| Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory | 
 enlarge | Author: Julian Thompson
Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 60456
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0283070218
Dewey Decimal Number: 940
EAN: 9780283070211
ASIN: 0283070218
Publication Date: May 2, 2008
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Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory June 17, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
`History provides many examples of a British Army being asked to operate under appalling handicaps by the politicians responsible for British Policy, but I doubted that the British Army had ever found itself in a graver position than that in which the governments of the last twenty years had placed it.'
Maj Gen Noel Mason-MacFarlane briefing the press, 15 May 1940
So opens Julian Thompson book on the Dunkirk Campaign, the title is a bit misleading since it covers the whole employment of the BEF in that forgotten campaign of 1940. Julian Thompson rightly points out that within twenty years the best-trained, best equipped and best-command army went to within a hairs breath of total defeat. The army that in 1918 was at the height of its powers `in a league of its own' was reduced to shadow of its former self by political mismanagement and under funding.
The opening chapters make remarkable familiar reading, under funded army deployed abroad, with a coalition partner with differing views of how the war should be fought and what exactly it wanted from its ally.
Julian Thompson also points out that France 1940 was not a forgone conclusion, both the French and the British had more tanks, and more motorised transport than the Germans. However the shadow of Verdun hung heavy over the French Army, in not only the strategy and tactics employed but the fighting sprit and ethos of the French Army. The French were not up for the same level of commintment or sacrifice as in 1914-15 and soon looked for a solution in a cessation of fighting as soon as it became clear that the Germans where up for a fight. Most British units on the other hand fought well and it is now often forgotten how well the BEF did fight in those dark days of 1940.
This is an excellent book written by a soldier with soldiers in mind, the summary and appendixes are very good. It is in his Reckoning of the campaign that Thompson makes the most valuable contributions to this new history, firstly he quotes the German report on the British Army which was distributed to the German Army prior to the intended invasion of England, in its assessment of the English [as the British are called in the report] the English soldier was in excellent physical condition. He bore his wounds with stoical calm. The losses of his troops he discussed with complete equanimity. He did not complain of hardships. In battle he was tough and dogged. His conviction that England would conquer in the end unshakable...the English soldier has always showed himself to be a fighter of high value. Certainly the Territorial Divisions are inferior to the Regular troops in training, but where morale is concerned they are their equal. In defence the Englishman took any punishment that came his way. During the fighting IV Corps took relatively fewer prisoners than in engagements with the French and Belgians.
He also gives Gort, the commander of the BEF, the credit for making the decision that changed the course of the war, although not a military genius, he had many failings as a commander as highlighted in the book, Gort however grasp very quickly that without her Army, Britain could not continue the war and by evacuating the BEF much to the French and some British political hierarchy opposition, therefore saved Britain and Europe from Nazi domination.
This book is recommended to anyone interested in the subject or how not to conduct expeditionary warfare.
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