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Comment by YouEatThatSoup | Hacker News Reader

Currently reading about Dunkirk because of the movie.

Interesting how the British told the French and Belgians to fight on while preparing and keeping their evacuation a secret. They even forced the French at gunpoint who wanted to defend Dunkirk to destroy their weapons. French who wanted to embark were shot at by the BEF - at the same time when French destroyers were helping the evacuation by fighting German E-boats. The BEF got away and the French fighting were captured. All RAF fighter squadrons were moved to the UK ahead of the evacuation.

It looks this was mostly by the BEF generals in France while Churchill wanted them to fight with the French.

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Let's not forget that Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to attack the French Navy in 1940 as well [1], killing 1300 people.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir

Context being everything, the French Navy was at that stage under the control of the Vichy government of France, essentially a German puppet government and had Churchill not attacked the fleet it was likely it would have been used against the British Forces.

It was likely that the French would've tried to scuttle the fleet had the Germans tried to requisition it, as happened 2 years later in Toulon [1]. But obviously, hindsight is 20/20, there was no way for the British to guarantee that this was going to happen.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_French_fleet_...

I think "likely" is overstating it, given ultimately the Vichy government scuttled almost their entire fleet two years later when the German's tried to take control of it. (The German's in the end captured a small number of small vessels, all the technologically modern ones the German's were interested in—the much large destroyers and cruisers—were scuttled.)

That said, it may well have seemed likely at the time, and it's only from hindsight that this is clear.

The war was truly going badly for UK at the time, with US still not joining the war. And those French naval vessels HAD to be take out of the war somehow. The Royal Navy was mighty, but stretched very thin.

Had the French naval vessels been seized by the Germans somehow to be used in WW2 actively, it certainly would've meant Germans/Italians completely denying the UK ships from reaching Middle East via Mediterranean. This would effectively mean no more supply of oil, meaning UK would've lost the war.

The local French admiral had been warned to surrender/scuttle the ships but he refused on account of his honor.

> Interesting how the British told the French and Belgians to fight on

The French only fought because the British (who were not in command) told them to?

> They even forced the French at gunpoint who wanted to defend Dunkirk to destroy their weapons.

You just said the British told the French to fight on. Now you're saying they forced the French "at gunpoint" (?) to destroy their weapons?

> French who wanted to embark were shot at by the BEF [...] The BEF got away and the French fighting were captured.

Of the people rescued by British ships and taken to Britain, 123,000 were French and 198,000 were British.

As for the BEF "getting away", a second BEF was assembled by Britain to defend France after Dunkirk - again under the command of the French - despite France's defeat being inevitable at that point.

> All RAF fighter squadrons were moved to the UK ahead of the evacuation.

The RAF moved to the UK due to European bases being overrun by the Germans. Nevertheless, despite certain and imminent French defeat and despite requiring aircraft for its own survival, Britain did send squadrons to France after Dunkirk. The RAF in fact sacrificed around 1000 aircraft, and even more in personnel, in defence of France.

It is true that the withdrawal was a unilateral British decision and the French wanted to continue fighting. It is also true that most of the rearguard were French and were, presumably, ordered to destroy any heavy weaponry.

Anyone who believes that the French needed the British to tell them to fight or make them obey orders at gunpoint clearly has a very poor, and highly inaccurate, view of French soldiery.

> ... shot at by the BEF ... 123,000 were French and 198,000 were British

Maybe the British weren't very good shots? More seriously, this might be alluding to the fact that the British were originally given priority for embarkation from the French admiralty. This was changed part way through the evacuation but did mean that the rearguard was almost exclusively French troops.

Again, though, whoever came up with the suggestion that French troops needed to be shot at to follow orders is a fairly nasty Francophobe masquerading as a Britophobe (probably not a word).

It's hard to comment on the RAF bit. I mean, where else were they meant to fly to?

It's a weird analysis, the BEF lost ~70k soldiers attempting to help in the defence of France and Belgium. It seems to suggest that did it to spite the French or something. Very odd.

> the rearguard was almost exclusively French troops

Bit of a stretch for "almost". The entire 51st Highland Division stayed as part of the rearguard, and few if any of them made it home. [1]

Possibly apocryphal: "One Highlander on the beaches of Dunkirk was overheard telling a comrade: 'If the English surrender too, it's going to be a long war'”

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_(Highland)_Division#Franc...

Thank you. I wasn't aware of the history of the 51st. That's some story.

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