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OTD 80 years ago. Lord Gort, GOC of the BEF, contacts Anthony Eden at the War Office with an urgent request for instructions. Gort reports that the French 1st Army on the BEF’s right is collapsing. He wishes permission to form a semicircular position around Dunkirk ... (thread)
... and “fight it out with his back to the sea.” Gort adds in a second message that he only intends to do this as a last resort if the French line collapses completely.
Eden discusses Gort’s message with General Ironside, CIGS. Both agree that Gort is overreacting ...
Eden discusses Gort’s message with General Ironside, CIGS. Both agree that Gort is overreacting ...
Churchill, hurried back from Chartwell, convenes a War Cabinet meeting at 4.30pm. Ironside tells WSC that Gort’s request has been denied. Supplies “at a pinch” can be sent to Dunkirk, but it is no appropriate base for an evacuation. WSC agrees ...
Dunkirk, he says, would be a “bomb trap ... [the BEF’s] loss would only be a matter of time. Instead, Gort is ordered to move his army southwards to reestablish contact with the main French force on the Somme. WSC decides he will go personally to France to give these orders ...
![Dunkirk, he says, would be a “bomb trap ... [the BEF’s] loss would only be a matter of time. Instead, Gort is ordered to move his army southwards to reestablish contact with the main French force on the Somme. WSC decides he will go personally to France to give these orders ...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYYtpFvUEAAQNJP.jpg "Dunkirk, he says, would be a “bomb trap ... [the BEF’s] loss would only be a matter of time. Instead, Gort is ordered to move his army southwards to reestablish contact with the main French force on the Somme. WSC decides he will go personally to France to give these orders ...")
The PM’s aides Ismay and Jock Colville make preparations to cross the Channel, but at the last moment Churchill reluctantly concedes that it would be unwise for him to make the trip personally. Ironside instead is delegated to give Gort the news ...
Ironside arrives at Gort’s HQ in the early hours of 20 May. Gort explains to the CIGS that the order to retreat to the Somme is nonsensical. 7 of his 9 divisions are already in battle and cannot disengage without disaster. Ironside reluctantly agrees that Gort is right ...
Gort does agree to mount a limited counterattack towards Arras with some of his remaining reserves, though he is sceptical of its value. Ironside report back to the War Cabinet that Gort’s judgment is right and they are wrong ...
In the event, the Arras counterattack on 21 May cannot restore the overall situation, as Gort predicted. But it does rattle General Rommel enough that the German armored advance is temporarily halted, buying time to garrison the Channel ports ...
In his war memoirs, Churchill is characteristically cagey about this whole episode. He attaches the decision that the BEF should move southwards to Ironside (though conceding that he agreed with it) and says nothing about his scepticism regarding a retreat to Dunkirk ...
Churchill suggests, instead, that it was he on 20 May which first conceived of making evacuation preparations from the Channel ports. The reference he makes to the War Cabinet minutes is technically correct, the inference misleading ...
One of Churchill’s greatest accomplishments was shaping the narrative of the Second World War in a manner that reflected most attractively on his own decision-making at the time. The events of 19 May 1940 are one small example of this. END.
