Tags: Churchill's Speeches and Writings Speeches. The position of the B. F had now become critical As a result of a most skillfully conducted retreat and German errors, the bulk of the British Forces reached the Dunkirk bridgehead. The peril facing the British nation was now suddenly and universally perceived. The seas remained absolutely calm. The Royal Air Forceβbitterly maligned at the time by the Armyβfought vehemently to deny the enemy the total air supremacy which would have wrecked the operation.
At the outset, it was hoped that 45, men might be evacuated; in the event, over , Allied troops reached England, including 26, French soldiers.
On June 4, Churchill reported to the House of Commons, seeking to check the mood of national euphoria and relief at the unexpected deliverance, and to make a clear appeal to the United States. From the moment that the French defences at Sedan and on the Meuse were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat to Amiens and the south could have saved the British and French Armies who had entered Belgium at the appeal of the Belgian King; but this strategic fact was not immediately realised.
The French High Command hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the Armies of the north were under their orders.
Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian Army of over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgium. Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration were realised and when a new French Generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French and British Armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French Army which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it.
