The latest news of the B.E.F. in France is extremely grave. It had always been obvious, even before the defection of the Belgian King, that the British force was running risks of encirclement in its heroic efforts to keep the Somme-Arras gap as narrow as possible.
It now seems likely that we shall pay heavily in British lives for King Leopold╒s action. We have to face the fact that the possibility of withdrawing the B.E.F. from its present position is small. It is now virtually surrounded, and the abandonment by the Belgians of their position on its eastern flank has left Dunkirk, its port of evacuation, in grave danger of falling to the Germans.
The situation is now so clear that military reasons need no longer impose silence. Nothing that we say to-day can be of the slightest value to the enemy, and one is free to tell in outline the story of eighteen heroic days. Some of us have been nauseated by rumours in England that our soldiers had in some way failed. They did not fail in any way, either in leadership or in gallantry or in endurance. No troops in the world ever fought better.
THE MOVE INTO THE LOW COUNTRIES
When the French and British Armies moved forward into Belgium in answer to the appeal of the Dutch and Belgian Governments they took up positions previously planned which were intended to provide a bulwark if the Belgian defences along the Albert Canal and the Meuse failed to stem the Germans long enough for the Allies to reach them. In spite of the fact that, owing to the speed with which the Germans broke, the roads were flooded with refugees, the advance was carried out faultlessly.
The early collapse of the Belgian advanced positions enabled the Germans to push on fast and to attack violently the lines held by the British east of Brussels from Louvain to Wavre and by the French on their right from Wavre to Namur. Simultaneously the Germans advanced rapidly through the Ardennes and pierced the French defence on the Luxembourg frontier. The B.E.F. resisted stoutly, and in almost every case where it lost ground temporarily to particularly heavy attacks it regained it at once by counter-attacking.
It is now common knowledge that at several points the French were not so successful. The French Government has been frank about these failures, and they cannot be ignored in any candid summary of what happened. For the B.E.F. they were disastrous and led directly to the critical situation in which it now is.
DIFFICULT WITHDRAWAL
The French army on the British right withdrew, and the B.E.F. had to withdraw in conformity. It was a most difficult withdrawal, and could not have been carried out without first-rate leadership from Lord Gort, supported by efficiency among his subordinate commanders and staffs and the utmost discipline and dogged endurance on the part of the troops. The B.E.F. withdrew with its right flank almost in the air, maintaining tenuous contact with the rapidly retreating French forces on that flank, and did so through country and along roads which were being heavily bombed and were congested almost beyond belief with refugees and French and Belgian soldiers and transport.
After giving blow for blow all the way, the B.E.F. established itself, as directed by the French High Command, on the River Scheldt from Maulde (on the French frontier north of St. Amand) on the right to Oudenarde on the left. On this line some fierce fighting took place, and little ground was lost. But German pressure on the French forces farther to the south increased, and so did that fatal gap which had now been created between the French armies on our right and their main body. In consequence we had to carry out another masterly withdrawal to the defensive positions which we had built along the Franco-Belgian frontier during the winter.
In the meantime German armoured and motorised divisions had streamed through the gap and were already threatening Arras, formerly the site of our G.H.Q. Indeed, the German forces were using this gap to threaten the flank and rear of all the Allied northern armies. In an endeavour to close it a British force moved down to the Arras area and counter-attacked successfully. The Germans were so vastly more numerous, however, that our success was only a local one, and in the end our little force was almost surrounded and only just got away.
╥HEROIC EFFICIENCY╙
The B.E.F. was now faced with the problem of manning a continually extending front which faced first south and then due west in order to protect its lifeline to the sea. The fact that it quickly formed the necessary defensive line in spite of the fact that fast and powerful German armoured formations were trying to encircle it is yet another proof of the heroic efficiency which both commander and troops have shown throughout this epic fortnight. Small British motorised and light armoured detachments, supplementing their anti-tank guns with field artillery, kept pace with the encirclement and resisted every attempt at penetration of our lines.
Up to this morning the B.E.F. was facing the enemy on the French frontier from near Ypres to the River Scarpe. Thence it supported the part of two French armies roughly as far as Douai, and from there a thin but resolute line continued the ellipse into which the British force had been driving through the forest of Nieppe (between Hazebrouck and ArmentiÅres) and Cassel to the west of Dunkirk. By now Dunkirk was the only port at Lord Gort╒s disposal, and even though it was being severely bombed it remained reasonably possible to evacuate the B.E.F. from it, even though the evacuation would have made Gallipoli look easy. It was difficult, but quite possible so long as Dunkirk and the adjacent coastline remained in British hands. But now that the Belgians have surrendered our northern flank it is difficult to see how the Germans can be prevented from capturing Dunkirk and cutting off the B.E.F. completely.
THE UNCLOSED GAP
One obvious question calls for an answer. Why was it not possible for the B.E.F. to cut its way southwards through the encircling ring and join the French on the south side of the ╥Arras gap╙? Why did the French not make a simultaneous attack from the south, so that the two forces in combination might cut across the lifeline of the advanced German motorised forces and leave them in the air?
The answer is short and bitter. The French tried and failed; we did not even have the means at our command to make it worth trying. For such an attack in modern warfare, as all of us know now too late, two things are essential: armoured vehicles and the co-operation of low-flying ╒planes. We did not have enough ╒planes, in spite of all the unbelievable heroism shown by the R.A.F. in their attempts to make up for numbers by gallantry, and we did not have nearly enough tanks.
The end is not yet. The B.E.F. may succeed in fighting its way out of the net. Dunkirk may be kept in our hands. The French may be able by a supreme effort to reach us from the south. What the B.E.F. will attempt ╤ the break for the south or the break for the coast ╤ is still unknown.
