Figure 1.--Here are vehivcles the BEF left on the beachess at Dunkirt=k. Vehicles abd heavy weapons were abandoned all along the roads leading to Dunkirk. Many of the abandoned vehicles and equipmebt were destroyed before being abandoned. We are not sure how much of this material the Germans were able to actually use.

World War II images show vast quantities of vehicles and equipment lining the roads into Dunkirk and lining the beaches. All the attention at the time and even today was getting the men to safety. But the vehicles and equipment are important as well. The Brutish Army at the time of World War I was the only fully mobilized army in the world, including the U.S. Army. The French First Army was fighting with the BEF was the most motorized formalin in the French Army. They also left vehicles and equipment behind. The Germany Army was not nearly as mechanized despite a few powerful armored divisions as all of Göebells propaganda films. Most of the German Army was unmotorized infantry using horse-drawn carts. This did not show up in the quick victories achieved in the narrow dimensions in the West. But even before the War, Hitler's mind was focused on the East and soon after the Battle of Britain (July-September 1940) he ordered planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union--Operation Barbarossa. And for Barbarossa vehicles would be needed. As the Germans had been so successful in the West and had such disdain fir the Soviets, they largely ignored the obvious. But they were not unaware of the problem. They used vehicles obtained in the West. And Barbarossa would be the decisive campaign of the War. Thus the question of arises as to how much of the BEF's equipment and vehicles were left in usable condition. We know that much of it was destroyed but we do not have a good feel for how much. The French Army was not as motorized as the British, but they had large numbers of tanks, artillery and vehicles and three weeks after Dunkirk, they signed as armistice, basically a surrender. Much of this equipment and material was turned over to the Germans was of great value. The NAZI-Soviet alliance agreed to by Stalin was based on hiss cynical calculation that the Germans and Allies would fight a debilitating war on the Western Front again as they did in World War I. This would allow him to pick up the pieces. Stalin even supplied Hitler with the oil and critical natural resources needed to fight the battles in the West. When he did not expect was for the Germans to gain easy victories in only weeks and emerge much stronger and now he faced the Germans without a continental western front. As it worked out Hitler would have to divert huge resources to the War in the West, but the Soviet people would play a huge price for Stalin's flirtation with Hitler.

Created: 8:01 PM 3/23/2022
Last updated: 8:01 PM 3/23/2022