Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [34]
British casualties in France were large in relation to the size of the BEF, but trifling by comparison with those of the French, and with the infinitely more intense struggles that would take place later in the war. The army lost just 11,000 killed and missing, against more than 50,000 French dead. In addition, 14,070 British wounded were evacuated, and 41,030 BEF prisoners fell into German hands. The loss of tanks, artillery and weapons of all kinds was, of course, calamitous. It is a familiar and ill-founded cliché that the 1940 British Expeditionary Force was ill-equipped. In reality, it was much better supplied with vehicles than the Germans, and the quality of its tanks was good enough, had they been imaginatively employed. When Hitler’s Field Marshal Fedor von Bock saw the wreckage at Dunkirk, he wrote in astonishment: “Here lies the material of a whole army106, so incredibly well-equipped that we poor devils can only look on with envy and amazement.” The BEF was driven from Dunkirk after relatively light fighting and very heavy retreating because it lacked enough mass to change the outcome of the campaign once the French front was broken, and was outfought by German formations with better leadership, motivation, and air support. The British Army was now, for all practical purposes, disarmed. Almost a thousand RAF aircraft were gone, half of these fighters.
But Britain had human material to forge a new army—though not one that alone could ever be large enough to face the Germans in a continental war—if only time was granted before it must fight again. An American correspondent reported home107 that Londoners received news of the French surrender in grim silence rather than with jokes or protestations of defiance. The Battle of France was over, Churchill told the British people on the following night. The Battle of Britain was about to begin. The position of Churchill’s nation on June 17 was scarcely enviable. But it was vastly better than had seemed possible a month earlier, when the BEF had faced annihilation.
THREE
Invasion Fever
IN THE MONTHS after September 1939, Britain found itself in the bleak—indeed, in some eyes absurd—position of having declared war on Germany while lacking means to undertake any substantial military initiative, least of all to save Poland. The passivity of the “Phoney War” ate deeply into the morale of the British people. By contrast, the events of May and June 1940 had at least the merit, brilliantly exploited by Churchill, that they thrust before the nation a clear and readily comprehended purpose: to defend itself against assault by an overwhelmingly powerful foe. The Royal Irish Fusiliers, back from Dunkirk, staged a mess party to celebrate news that the French had surrendered. “Thank heavens they have,”108 said an officer gaily. “Now at last we can get on with the war.” A middle-aged court reporter named George King, living in Surrey, wrote in a diary letter intended for his gunner son, left behind in France and on his way to captivity in Germany: “Winston Churchill has told us109 just exactly where we stand. We are on our own, and have got to see this thing through; and we can do it, properly led. Goodness knows what the swines will try, but somehow we’ve got to stick it.”
Naval officer Robert Hichens wrote on June 17: “Now we know that we have got to110 look to ourselves only, I have an idea that England will respond wonderfully to this setback. She is always greatest in taking reverses.” After Churchill addressed the