And who took these photos?
email (option): ahum@quicknet.nl
Guys
I find the third Photo most prophetic with a large group of German Solders Standing around gazing out over the Channel obviously wondering how the Heck this routed army (Ian’s words not mine) got away and although they did not know at the time a Classic case of Winning the Battle but losing the war 
email (option): grumpy.moran@gmail.com
Why the Germans allowed the BEF to escape will remain a matter of conjecture...there are a number of theories.
The allied armies, however, manifestly failed at both a tactical and strategic level and utterly failed to contain the Germans in a meaningful way apart from a few localised operations which could not alter the final outcome.
The term 'Rout' is defined as an 'overwhelming and disorderly defeat' and I would argue the term applies to the Allied armies...The eventual extraction of many of the men only occurred because of the Germans hesitancy at the vital moment..not as the result of any structured evacuation on our part. It was, after all, a completely 'ad hoc' plan.
Add to this the fact we lost virtually all the equipment for the complete army, which temporarily at least,rendered it utterly incapable of defending Britain had we not had the natural defences of the English Channel to stop the Germans.
The 'Battle for France' was lost before we even got there due to outmoded tactics and thinking, a lack of integration between the different arms of service and in France, an ally that had an even more outdated view of the 'modern' battlefield than we did.
Germany managed to pull off a victory in France at a speed and in a fashion that was not considered possible and it has rightly gone down in history as an example of 'how to do it'..playing on both their own strengths and our weaknesses. Granted,they made a strategic, or perhaps political, mistake in letting our troops escaped but at a tactical level they certainly won the battle....and we certainly lost it...Ian
email (option): julie@wright52.plus.com
You are right of course Danny..there was no real prospect of a German invasion...though I am not so sure we were aware of that at the time. Apart from anything else the German Army was primarily designed and trained to fight land battles and 'thought' that way. I would think they had little knowledge, equipment or training suitable for seaborne operations and landings. They certainly didn't have the in depth Naval power required and in due course fell at the first hurdle in not achieving air superiority...an absolute requirement.
It should be remembered that Hitler openly admired the British Empire and didn't necessarily want to utterly defeat us. He thought that 'coming to terms' with Britain was the best solution, having first got himself into a good bargaining position.
Having defeated us militarily in France fostering the idea in our minds that invasion was both possible and imminent would merely reinforce our belief that our best course of action was to accept the terms offered. Lord Halifax and many others accepted that concept and I believe we came much nearer to surrender than is generally supposed.
It must have been difficult at that point to see where and with what we were going to fight back...Ian
email (option): julie@wright52.plus.com
In Amsterdam and Rotterdam there were some requisitioned Rhine barges converted to front loading landing boats; their captains were standing on the wharfs laughing their heads off: imaging such a loooong barge crossing the North Sea, trying to brave 3 - 4 m waves.
Mid 1940 that "Operation Seelöwe" was quietly cancelled.
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