On the plains of Western Europe under the bright moon, there was also a person who couldn't sleep for a long time in the middle of the night.

Fang Yan was lying on the narrow marching bed, his thoughts surging that he couldn't sleep peacefully no matter what, and the faint light in the barracks revealed through the window, illuminating his solemn and solemn face. After tossing and turning for a long time, Fang Yan, who was not sleepy at all, simply sat up, leaned back against the head of the bed and pondered silently.

As a traverser with an unusually clear understanding of the historical process, Fang Yan knew that the defeat of the coalition forces on the northern front was already sealed at this time. Their procrastinating actions and chaotic command destroyed the last chance of the main force to break through, and even if there was a startling counterattack by the German high command like the battle of Arras, it was only a flashback attack by a small number of troops, and it would hardly have any impact on the overall macro situation. Because even if the defense line of the German armored forces was broken through for a short time, the chaotic coalition forces would not be able to withdraw on a large scale, and at that time, the latter would at most slip out of the fingers of the Germans, and the main forces would still be trapped in the encirclement.

However, the coalition forces could not escape by land, but could be evacuated by sea. Fang Yan will never forget the retreat from Dunkirk, which was touted by the English-speaking world in history, and the efficiency of these British Army, which had no merits on the battlefield, was unmatched. In just eight days, they withdrew 340,000 troops from a small beach, a speed comparable to that of Hong Kong journalists.

What made Fang Yan feel tricky was that the British had long been familiar with this kind of oil on the soles of their feet: as early as the Battle of the Dardanelles in 1915, the retreat of the British army in the final stage could be described as perfect, not only did the German-Turkish army on the opposite side unnoticed, but they themselves did not lose a single person!

Is it possible to stop the British from escaping from the sea? Fang Yan thought about many ways, but in the end he vetoed them one by one. It is an extremely stupid false proposition to use the air force to destroy the British transport ships in the first place, even if the Germans have 10,000 bombers to dispatch, and the pilots are all super elites who drop bombs in every 100 shots, but as long as others retreat at night, the German army will be completely blinded. Historically, the British fleet had been operating at night for a few days, and it was very efficient, withdrawing more than 30,000 trapped people every day.

What's more, the actual situation is far from being as exaggerated as Fang Yan imagined. Due to the establishment of the HNA system, the air support available to the German Army in this plane was not as strong as it was at the same time in history. Dunkirk, on the other hand, was close to Britain and far from Germany, and German planes could not stay in the skies over it for too long, which further limited the use of German air power.

The most important thing is that the British Air Force will not continue to hide its smuggling. Faced with the critical juncture of life and death in its own expeditionary force, the 30 fighter squadrons that Britain had left behind and watched the destruction of their allies would definitely come to the skies over Dunkirk to cover their lives. Under the elimination of the other, the Luftwaffe can succeed then hell!

Thinking of this, Fang Yan couldn't help but deeply despise Goering and Hitler in history. The two core leaders of the Nazi Party, one who was greedy for vanity and wanted to make himself a hero in the limelight, was superior to everyone in the country except Hitler in every way; The other is always looking to restrain the power of the army and strengthen the authority of the Nationalist-controlled air force to counter it. As a result, the two powerful commanders subconsciously ignore all the risks and forcibly go down until everything is messed up.

Aviation alone was obviously not enough, but even with the assistance of the navy, it was no less possible to stop the British from retreating. At present, the German Navy has only 10 small destroyers and about 30 torpedo boats capable of conducting intensive operations in the coastal waters, while the British can assemble at least twice as many frigates near Dunkirk and lay a large number of mines to prevent German warships from approaching the strait. If the German navy rashly threw this force into the Strait battlefield to confront the British, not only would it not be able to sink many transport ships, but it would have consumed its limited strength in vain.

While submarines may seem more suitable, and there is no need to worry about seeking out the enemy near the relatively narrow English Channel, British escort ships are not vegetarians, and it is almost life-threatening to risk their lives to get through their intensive search and into the center of the convoy. In addition, the current German Navy is unable to assemble enough submarines in a short period of time. About three-quarters of the sea wolves are on the hunt or on the way to and fro, and Fang Yan estimates that Dönitz can squeeze out 15 submarines to sail to the strait in one week, which is already the limit. And this amount is far from enough.

Therefore, there was only one way to stop the British from escaping, and that was to cut off their contact with the beach, and to turn the three sides into a siege. Only in this way can the coalition army completely become a turtle in an urn, with nowhere to escape. While the capture of the coastal areas by the German armoured forces was highly likely to be met with a frantic counterattack by the Allied forces for their lives, the latter were more likely to end up with demoralization and an avalanche of arms laid down en masse.

Fang Yan clearly remembered that in history, the French army only began to resist stubbornly after retreating to Dunkirk and having the hope of escaping, and their will to fight was as weak as sheep. As for the Belgian army, it surrendered on 28 May. Therefore, the only one who can really have a strong will to fight in a desperate situation is the British Expeditionary Force, even if they are shipwrecked, the German army has the ability to deal with it!

After some thought, Fang Yan found that the final key point still fell on Hitler. The former corporal had the seven Panzer Divisions of Army Group A halted for two full days between 24 and 26 May for reasons of caution or absurdity, which allowed the coalition forces to quickly retreat inland to the beaches and begin to flee by boat on the 27th.

When Guderian approached Dunkirk on the 29th, Hitler ordered him to halt his advance and leave the offensive to the infantry who had not yet caught up. If it weren't for these two calls, especially the previous one, the coalition forces would have been surrounded on all sides, and it would have been impossible for so many troops to slip out.

Although there was no Goering to disturb the situation in this plane, Fang Yan still did not have the slightest optimism in his heart. For no other reason, Hitler's order to stop advancing had already been issued as early as 24 May, and it was only after learning of this order that Goering "stepped forward" and took over the follow-up combat mission. Therefore, Fang Yan had to persuade Hitler to change his mind, otherwise all ideas of retaining the British Expeditionary Force would be empty talk.

"You want to change Hitler's decision......" Fang Yan muttered to himself, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but show a wry smile. In order to reverse the national glory of Germany, Fang Yan always had to face all kinds of difficulties or troubles, and now it was his turn to find a way to take the helm of the ship, so that the German giant ship would avoid sailing to the vicious course of the wind and waves. In dealing with Hitler, Fang Yan has already had a relatively complete experience through the previous ten years of understanding and contact, as well as the successful experience of Speer in history. What Fang Yan needs to understand now is Hitler's inner thoughts when he gave the order to stop the offensive.

After repeated thinking, Fang Yan gradually developed a rudimentary cognition of Hitler's brain circuit.

By 23 May, after Rommel had defeated the allied counterattack at Arras, the defeat of France on land was assured. Because the 60 divisions of the Northern Front could not afford to lose the Coalition forces in any case: after the destruction of this main army, the defeat of France was only a matter of time. At that time, there was only one Britain left in front of Germany, and by this time the situation between Germany and Britain had become delicate.

As we all know, Britain in 1940 was still the world's premier colonial hegemon. Gibraltar, Egypt, South Africa, India, Singapore, ANZ, Canada...... More than 30 million square kilometers of land are fluttering red and white rice flags. These overseas territories, which were either rich in goods or of great strategic importance, were far from Germany, and Germany, which had lost all its overseas colonies after World War I, was simply beyond its reach.

If Germany had conquered Britain by force, these overseas territories would have become terra nullius, and the surrounding countries would certainly not have missed this opportunity for expansion. At that time, the United States will fully occupy Canada and include Australia and New Zealand in its own "protection"; Japan, on the other hand, will extend its tentacles all the way south to Singapore, annexing Malaysia and even Dutch Indonesia. The Soviet Union will move south from Kazakhstan into Iran and India, embracing the "warm ocean" that the Slavs have dreamed of for thousands of years, and even Italy will be able to occupy Egypt and the Middle East and become the undisputed absolute dominance of the Mediterranean and Red Sea basins.

In other words, Germany fought desperately to defeat Britain in Europe, but in the end it was a wedding dress for other countries, and it had very little to gain. As a politician, this was undoubtedly something that Hitler tried to avoid. In contrast, it is clearly in Germany's interest to keep a Britain that is subservient to Germany: what I can't get, you can't think of, and even more so I can get enough indirect benefits from Britain!

To be sure, there was nothing wrong with Hitler's considerations, but the point was that Hitler decided that Britain would bow to Germany after the surrender of France.

In Hitler's view, it was inconceivable for Britain to continue its war against Germany, which occupied all of Europe—its gains were completely disproportionate to its gains, and above all, there was no prospect of victory. Therefore, in order to give the British enough steps to go down, so that their weakened and irritable hearts after defeat could accept peace talks with the enemy, Hitler deliberately released water on the battlefield, hoping that the British would not become irrational because of the loss of a mess.