"The front in the Sedan area was stormed, and there were some defeat......s," and then wept silently. Dominic tried to encourage George: "There will always be such a thing in war, let's look at the map and think about what to do."

In London, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army summed it up in his diary: So far the Germans seem to have done nothing but move their mechanized troops forward!

The German armored torrent was unstoppable, and all Britain and France were in a panic, and Li Mo also seized the opportunity to let his armored troops rush towards the English Channel, and the British and French forces couldn't stand it and hurriedly shrank their forces, because Britain had the largest navy in the world, and there was a precedent in Greece before for organizing troops to retreat from the sea.

Now the British were going to do it again, and they had laid out a huge semi-circular defensive ring around Dunkirk, the largest port in the English Channel, and Dunkirk was also an alluvial plain, and the land was too soft to be suitable for large-scale armored operations.

As the German army advanced on Dunkirk from the west, south and east, the nearest German tank was only 10 miles from the port.

On May 24, however, Limer received an order from Hitler himself to halt his advance. Ordered all German troops to stop attacking, which almost did not make Li Mo vomit blood urgently, Li Mo knew that Hitler was unwilling to lose a large number of tanks for the Anglo-French forces in Dunkirk, and Hitler also had illusions about Britain, hoping that Germany and Britain could make peace. In the end, in addition to the instigation of the group of grandsons in the high command, Hitler gave this most stupid order to Limer.

It is certain that there will be losses in the war, but Hitler had illusions about Britain, which at this time was the world leader and owned more than 80 percent of the world's colonies. How could Britain negotiate peace with Germany or surrender, as soon as Britain surrendered, it would lose most of its colonies. Britain, an island nation with few resources, will fall from heaven to hell in an instant. From the world's number one power to a third-rate country, the national interests of Germany and Britain determine that Germany and Britain will always be in competition, and there is no possibility of the slightest compromise.

If Li Mo wants to resolve this huge crisis, he must find the problem, and now Rommel is not around, and there is not even a person to discuss, Li Mo made himself a pot of tea. While carefully recalling the entire process of the historical Dunkirk retreat, and then finding a solution to the crisis.

Historically, Hitler ordered the German army to stop attacking, and this order later caused controversy, which was considered by many military historians to be a stupid order for Hitler to arbitrarily interfere with military command.

In fact, Hitler's order was based on his considerations, and it could not be reduced solely to his own responsibility. First of all, after the war in northern France became clear, the German army needed to preserve the strength of the armored forces for the next combat operation, and the German General Command had planned to unify Army Group B to complete the final encirclement operation. Second, although the piecemeal counterattacks of the coalition forces were not effective, they increased the concern of some senior German commanders about the attrition of the armored forces, because the rapidly advancing armored forces left the infantry units far behind.

Hitler after visiting the headquarters of Army Group A. considered it necessary to stop the advance of the armored forces in front of the breakthrough and prevent the enemy from breaking through; At the same time, the commander of the Luftwaffe, Goering, assured that the Air Force could take on the task of destroying the coalition forces in the encirclement.

Another reason that may have been thought to have contributed to Hitler's order was the fear that the armoured forces would be trapped in the river strip outside Dunkirk and would be bogged down in positional warfare. As a result, it was impossible to quickly intercept the retreat of the British and French troops. In addition, there are also those who believe that Hitler had a political intention to withdraw part of the British army to Britain, which would be politically conducive to negotiating peace with Britain. However, this decision was opposed by some people, including the commander of the front-line armoured forces, who believed that it should be moved forward.

As a result of this order, the Anglo-French forces retreated to Dunkirk under the pressure of the German Army Group B in front of them, while Army Group A, which had cut off their retreat, was closer to Dunkirk and stopped its offensive in the canal area west of Dunkirk. There was no build-up of forces to outflank the coast, which gave the Anglo-French army a glimmer of life. At that time, the coalition forces were fighting for survival. So the defensive positions close to Dunkirk were strengthened.

Although the German armoured forces resumed their offensive on 27 June to prevent the Anglo-French retreat from Dunkirk, they were unable to break through in the face of an organized enemy line. The Anglo-French forces succeeded in delaying the German offensive. And to buy more time for the troops to evacuate Dunkirk.

On 20 June, the German armoured forces cut off the Anglo-French forces from their southern flank, and about 40 divisions of the three Anglo-French armies were surrounded in the Flanders region on the Franco-Belgian border. The Germans then reached the coast of the English Channel, and the allied forces were compressed in the coastal area around Dunkirk, 60 kilometers wide. As early as June 20, the commander of the British expeditionary force, Lord Gott, began to raise the possibility of retreat. Britain began to prepare for a retreat from the sea, and the Navy developed a plan to organize the retreat, hoping to evacuate 10,000 people a day. On June 26, the British Navy ordered a retreat operation codenamed "Dynamo".

Britain's retreat plan faced several difficulties. First, the Luftwaffe sank many ships in the port area of Dunkirk, making it very difficult to get in and out of the waterways. U-submarines in the vicinity of the sea also pose a great threat to any surface vessels. The beach area west of Dunkirk is not deep enough for Royal Navy destroyers and transports to be anchored just 1.6 kilometres from the coast, and the most serious problem is that the number of ships at Britain's disposal is too small.

The execution of the retreat plan was carried out by the Dover-based Bertram? Commanded by Vice Admiral Ramsay, the first step was to move transport vehicles, food and medical facilities to Dover to cope with the incoming arrival of a large number of troops. He then set up a very effective communication network to keep the operation running smoothly.

On the first day, the Luftwaffe bombarded Dunkirk, bombing the harbor into ruins and preventing the Allied forces from retreating, and the British Navy warships were unable to get close to the beach due to the draft, and the retreat was slow, and on June 27 only more than 7,000 people were evacuated. The most optimistic estimate was that the British would be able to successfully withdraw 46,000 troops before the Germans occupied the beach area, but in terms of the efficiency of the first day, it would take the British 40 days to evacuate all the personnel. If Britain were unable to bring most of the expeditionary force back to their homeland, it was likely that their basic defense capability on land would be destroyed in the face of a possible German ground offensive that would break out later.

Vice Admiral Ramsay made an urgent appeal to civilians to provide any available vessels, mobilizing all available warships and civilian vessels, as well as numerous amateur sailors and private boat owners, who drove more than 1,860 barges, freighters, motorboats, fishing boats, and even fancy yachts and even river vessels.

…… (To be continued) R861

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