The successful retreat of the British and French forces in Dunkirk not only marked the complete defeat of the British and French forces on the Western European continent, but also a symbol of the fascist German dominance of the entire Western Europe. But judging from the successful retreat of the British and French forces in Dunkirk, it also laid the foundation for the future British and Allied forces in Western Europe.
Dunkirk retreat schematic diagram
Earlier Britain and France launched a blitz in Germany to attack Poland and provoked the beginning of World War II. Even after the Soviet Union and Germany divided up Poland, the ally of Britain and France, they still took action. "Policy of Appeasement". But the situation in Western Europe was not as smooth as the leaders of Britain and France thought. After the Soviet Union and Germany partitioned Poland, Germany continued to open up the Western Front.
France was known as "Europe's first land-based military power" at the time, but under the blitz of German troops, it was wiped out by the Germans after only more than forty days of resistance. In order to preserve the effective strength of the British Army, how to safely withdraw the hundreds of thousands of British Expeditionary Forces stationed in France to the country has become a difficult problem for the newly appointed British Prime Minister Churchill.
With the 40 main divisions of the German army approaching the coast of the English Channel, how can the British and French coalition forces of more than 400,000 people withdraw from the Western European continent in the first time?
For this reason, Churchill, as the prime minister, also formulated a new plan, code-named the "generator plan", and the content of this plan is also the Dunkirk retreat.
The situation in Western Europe before the Dunkirk retreat
As early as the outbreak of the Second World War, Poland, as an ally of Britain and France, pinned the country’s security hopes on the two countries, but in fact, the Second World War The real situation after the outbreak was not what the Poles wanted. After the Industrial Revolution, Britain was originally the leader in Europe, but with the outbreak of the First World War, the status of the leader was gradually overtaken by the rising United States. During the First World War, Britain was badly injured. Coupled with the ensuing economic crisis, Britain's national strength was no longer as good as before.
Therefore, under such a development trend, the United Kingdom wants to be self-reliant, so it must hope that the Soviet Union and Germany will fight against each other and draw the disaster eastward. This is why after Germany blitzed Poland, Britain and France still watched it. Change, one of the reasons for adopting the "appeasement policy". The situation of France after World War I was exactly the same as that of Britain. In order to prevent German invasion, the French invested a lot of material, financial, and manpower to build a strong fortress defense system on the northeast border between France and Germany. Chino Line of Defense". The French regarded the powerful fortress defense system as a great moat, which could prevent the German invasion, and why should they get the fire up and manage the life and death of their ally Poland?
The former site of the Maginot Line of Defense
However, as an ally of Britain and France, Poland has lost its lips and teeth. Poland has been destroyed, which is of course beneficial to Britain and France. Since September 1, 1939, when Germany blitzed Poland, although Britain and France had foreseen their own dangers, they always believed that the war between Britain and France and Germany would not start soon, and the British Prime Minister and the French President What we need to do now is how to stabilize our domestic situation, so of course we still implement the "appeasement policy." Although he witnessed what Germany did to its ally Poland, it continued to condone what it did to avoid a military conflict with Germany.
Magino’s defense line diagram
may hinder international protests, and Britain and France certainly have to implement certain counterattacks against Germany. For this reason, on September 3, 1939, Britain and France successively declared war on Germany, but the so-called declaration of war was only a declaration of war on paper. Although Britain and France had adopted an attitude of declaring war on Germany on the surface, in fact they were Almost never fired a single shot at the German army on the French-German border, and a "sitting war" that had nothing to do with oneself began.
faced the fascist German aggressive ambitions approaching step by step. After a few months of idling, the British and French coalition forces were also forced to start an anti-aggression war and began to taste the bitter fruits of the war, just like their ally Poland.
Dunkirk retreat
The illusory "Machino Line"
After the First World War, in order to prevent the German army from advancing straight forward, from 1928Since the beginning of the year, the French have built a fortress defense system made of reinforced concrete covering all kinds of cannons, trenches, fortresses, kitchens, power stations, hospitals, factories, etc., which is the world-famous March Connaught line of defense. The defense line cost a total of 5 billion francs and stretches for hundreds of kilometers on the northeastern border of France. It was basically completed in 1940. The purpose was to prevent German military encroachment. At that time, not only the French had high hopes for the Marchillo defense line, but also the British. I also blindly believed that Germany would not dare to attack France rashly because of this expensive line of defense.
But in fact, the French and the British are thinking wrong.
Although the Macchiro line of defense is solid, it almost covers the entire French-German border. On this strong line of defense, France has all kinds of cannons, trenches, various kitchens, hospitals, and power stations. It can be described as Europe at that time. The largest military fortifications. In addition, the passages in the entire defense system extend in all directions, and there are also tram passages in the larger fortifications. The entire huge defense system took more than ten years to fortify and consumed a lot of French manpower, material resources, and financial resources. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for the French to pin their country's security on this line of defense.
However, although the Maginot line is solid, but Germany really wants to act, it will not necessarily attack the Maginot line head-on, the Germans will definitely detour.
The German army that bypassed the "Machino Line"
Although the French-German border was protected by France's huge investment in the establishment of the Maginot Line, there is no solid state between Germany and Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The Maginot Line traverses it, but the Netherlands and Belgium also built an indestructible line of defense before the war: the "Dutch Fortress" and the "Eben Emar Fort", and the French "Machino Line" from north to south, Connected to each other for hundreds of kilometers.
In early May 1940, 136 divisions, 2580 tanks and 3824 aircraft of the German army formed three armies A, B, and C. They were deployed on the 800-kilometer-long front from the North Sea to Switzerland. The code name of this combat plan is The "Yellow Plan", and the creator of this plan was Manstein, who boldly proposed to use tank troops to attack northern France through the Ardennes, thus driving straight into the French mainland.
On May 10, 1940, the German army decided to adopt the "Yellow Plan". The A group army was the main offensive force, bypassing the Maginot Line through the Ardennes area, and went straight to France. Army Group B served as an auxiliary attack, occupied the entire Dutch territory and northern Belgium with blitz, prevented the Dutch army from rendezvous with its allies, and broke through the defense line established by the Belgian army on the Albert Canal, so that Army Group A could successfully invade and sail into northern France. The flank of the main force of the British and French Allied forces created conditions. The C Army is responsible for the feint, attacking the French Maginot Line from the front and containing the defenders in the Maginot Line.
Under the German blitz attack, the Netherlands and Belgium surrendered to Germany on May 14th and May 27th one after another. This line of defense, which stretches for hundreds of kilometers, is only left with France in the desperate resistance.
Dunkirk retreat
After the surrender of small countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, etc., France is left on the Western European continent still fighting to the death. Look at Britain at this time. Although the war did not reach the borders of the United Kingdom, the British government’s situation was also in dire straits. The British Prime Minister Chamberlain who blindly implemented the "appeasement policy" made the British people more and more disgusted. He elected another new prime minister to lead the people out of the predicament. This person is also the main architect of the Dunkirk retreat plan-the 65-year-old British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
After Churchill took office, he first visited France. After learning that France was about to surrender, this surprised him, but he still expressed his determination to continue fighting against the Germans. For this reason, he had to withdraw the British expeditionary forces that were arranged in France before the war. At this time, the British high-levels had reached a consensus. Since France has no intention of continuing to fight, leaving only the British army to fight alone, it is better to withdraw to the country. To save strength. On May 26, Churchill ordered the development and implementation of the code nameFor the "generator" retreat, the main content of the plan is that the British army uses 30 ferries and 12 minesweepers to withdraw 10,000 people from the three ports of Calais, Brun and Dunkirk on the west coast of France every day.
But under the attack of the German navy, land and air forces, can such a huge retreat plan be achieved?
- "Generator" plan
When the "generator plan" was implemented on May 26, Calais and Buren of the three originally designated ports had been occupied by the Germans, and the more than 400,000 British and French coalition forces were only left. The port of Dunkirk can be used. However, Dunkirk is not a safe place. Secondly, Dunkirk has a longer retreat route, which to a certain extent also increases the risk of retreat. Secondly, the port of Dunkirk has been in ruins under the heavy bombardment of the Luftwaffe. In addition, the British navy's warships were unable to get close to the beach due to their deep draft, and the retreat speed was extremely slow. The retreat in Dunkirk took place. On the first day of China, the British Navy only withdrew more than 7,000 people.
On May 28, bad weather in Dunkirk blocked the German airstrike, and nearly 17,000 people were able to evacuate. After the retreat began, the Germans stepped up their ground offensive and used bombers and submarines to attack the British transport fleet from the air and sea. In addition, the British army also requisitioned civilian ships along the English Channel for retreat tasks. They used all kinds of small boats as ferry and retreat ships, and at the same time sank trucks into the sea as a beach extending to the sea. Ship trestle.
47,000 people were evacuated on May 29, more than 50,000 people were evacuated on May 30, and 68,000 people were evacuated on May 31. At the same time, in order to cover the safe evacuation of the ground and maritime transport fleet, the British Air Force dispatched a total of 2,739 sorties of fighter jets for air cover, which effectively resisted the German air strikes.
More than 60,000 people were evacuated on June 1. Due to German air strikes and gunfire approaching Dunkirk Beach, the Anglo-French allied forces began a night retreat from June 2nd, using night cover to evacuate 26,000 people every day. United Kingdom. Dunkirk was captured by the Germans on June 4, and the 40,000 French troops who served as guards and had no time to evacuate were captured by the Germans.
From May 26 to June 4, a total of 338,226 people withdrew from Dunkirk to the UK. Among them, the British army was approximately 215,000, the French army was approximately 90,000, and the Belgian army was approximately 33,000. . During this great retreat, the evacuating troops discarded all the heavy equipment, and only the rifles and several machine guns they brought back to the United Kingdom. On the beach of Dunkirk, the British and French coalition forces discarded a large amount of military equipment and supplies, but they laid the foundation for the future Allied forces to counterattack the European continent and defeat German fascism.
In just a few days, the United Kingdom not only used a transport fleet to transport the retreating coalition forces between the English Channels, but also used civilian ships along the coast. These civilians, like soldiers, braved the German sea and air. Under the fierce bombardment of firepower, 338,000 people were evacuated between Dunkirk and Britain with difficulty, saving a lot of viable power for future Allied counterattacks, creating a miracle in the history of World War II.
As British Prime Minister Churchill said when he reported to the British Parliament on the Dunkirk retreat on June 4, 1940: " We frustrated Germany's attempt to eliminate the expeditionary force. This retreat will breed victory!"
In this way, the Dunkirk retreat was not only a miracle created by the British, but also laid the foundation for the victory of the Allied counterattack in the future.
The pictures in this article are all from the Internet, if there is any infringement, please contact to delete.
The main reference materials of this article: "The Secrets of the Allied Battlefield in World War II", "Baidu Entry of Dunkirk Retreat"
Text/History of Uzawa
