THE WITHDRAWAL FROM DUNKIRK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 283, Issue 283, 14 March 1941, Page 4

THE WITHDRAWAL FROM DUNKIRK

THE withdrawal from Dunkirk has been the subject of no little speculation which could not be relieved immediately by the publication of cold facts. One outstanding fact remained clear, however, and that was that the British Expeditionary Force was able to get out of a very tight corner. This tight corner was created by a combination of circumstances which have since been closely examined, and it is this examination which has given much valuable information to the British military authorities on the problems which are presented by modern military offensive operations. The outstanding fact which calls for comment is the surprisingly large number of effectives which were evacuated from France by way of Dunkirk, Captain Margesson, Secretary for War, putting it as high as 85 per cent, presumably after a complete check having been made. This figure should be fairly correct because, when the troops were withdrawn to the beach at Dunkirk they were still under control, there was no panic action, and a proper check-up of i&e various units was made at that point. They were, naturally, some losses during the period of embarkation, but in consequence of the exceptional smoothness of the sea these were very light indeed. To evacuate 85 per cent of a force which was being attacked on three sides is no mean achievement, even given the advantages of calm weather and a plentiful supply of ships to take the men off from the shore. There still remained the fact that the enemy was pressing onward relentlessly, that air observations by the enemy were continuous, and that the Germans had the ascendancy in the air. The British control of the sea was only a partial advantage in this singular contest. What was the basic cause of the considerable margin of sucess scored by the British troops engaged in this evacuation operation ? The basic cause was that the morale of the men did not break down despite the severe strain to which they were subjected, over a lengthy period. A breakdown in morale would have made the evacuation an impossibility* but because morale held, discipline was maintained: without discipline an army becomes a mob, and a mob cannot be handled because it has no. mind. Military discipline cannot .be established in a moment, it takes considerable time to build it up. The building up process is gradual, the successive steps appear to the recruit to be purposeless and sometimes quite futile. But each step achieves something essential, and that is the creation of a habit of mind or of action. The stronger the discipline, the greater the effectiveness of the control of the mind of the army. Soldiers in the field, particularly the fifteen per cent of the British Expeditionary Force which was not evacuated from Dunkirk, could see no sense in the tasks which/ they were called upon to perform, tasks involving the fighting of rearguard actions for days on end, nights on end;, too. Without sleep, inadequately fed that gallant fifteen per cent, fought on, delaying the enemy, harassing his forward thrusts and never breaking. They went on obeying orders to the limit of their strength and because they did so the British Expeditionary Force saved 85 per cent of its effectives to fight on another day. The men who are in German prison camps to-day are the men who achieve the greatest victory of the war to date. The men who ifell in battle paid in full for the evacuation, but they sold their lives dearly and to the great advantage of their comrades. They would not do less.