(First Paragraph) Hugh Sebag-Montefiore correctly notes that multitudes of books already have been written about the evacuation of the British and French troops from Dunkirk in May and June 1940. He argues, however, that these accounts generally have neglected the crucial role of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in making this escape possible. He agrees that great credit must go to Adm. Bertram Ramsay, the Royal Navy, and almost one thousand small boat owners who actually moved the beleaguered troops from France to England. Nevertheless, he asserts, without the BEF, there would have been no evacuation, or at least a much smaller number of troops would have escaped from the jaws of the Wehrmacht. The evacuation is a well-examined incident. What distinguishes this volume from its many predecessors, however, is the inclusion of hundreds of first-hand, sharp-end-of-the-stick reports by members of the BEF

Koch, James V.

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Old Dominion University

Old Dominion UniversityODU Digital CommonsEconomics Faculty Publications Department of Economics5-2009Review of Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh, Dunkirk: Fightto the Last ManJames V. KochOld Dominion UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/economics_facpubsPart of the European History Commons, and the Nonfiction CommonsThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Economics at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Economics Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contactdigitalcommons@odu.edu.Repository CitationKoch, James V., "Review of Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man" (2009). Economics Faculty Publications. 14.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/economics_facpubs/14Original Publication CitationKoch, J. V. (2009). Review of Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man. H-Net Reviews, 1-3.Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 2006. xvii + 701 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-02439-7.Reviewed by James V. Koch (Old Dominion University)Published on H-German (May, 2009)Commissioned by Susan R. BoettcherDefinitely a Fight, But Not to the Last ManHugh Sebag-Montefiore correctly notes that multi-tudes of books already have been written about the evac-uation of the British and French troops from Dunkirk inMay and June 1940. He argues, however, that these ac-counts generally have neglected the crucial role of theBritish Expeditionary Force (BEF) in making this escapepossible. He agrees that great credit must go to Adm.Bertram Ramsay, the Royal Navy, and almost one thou-sand small boat owners who actually moved the belea-guered troops from France to England. Nevertheless,he asserts, without the BEF, there would have been noevacuation, or at least a much smaller number of troopswould have escaped from the jaws of the Wehrmacht.The evacuation is a well-examined incident. What dis-tinguishes this volume from its many predecessors, how-ever, is the inclusion of hundreds of first-hand, sharp-end-of-the-stick reports by members of the BEF.Sebag-Montefiore, who trained as a barrister andwhose brother, Simon, is a highly respected historian ofRussia and Joseph Stalin, jumped into the crowdedWorldWar II history market in 2000 with an esteemed book onEnigma code-breaking. His current book is a lengthy,first-rate account of the Dunkirk evacuation that focusesintently on an undeniably bitter defeat, one that wassoon to transmogrify nearly into a victory in the Britishimagination. This “miracle of deliverance” (as WinstonChurchill famously put it) boosted British morale. Yet, itwould not have been possible without the efforts of theBEF and the willingness of many on its roster to die, orbecome prisoners of war, in order to save their comrades.Sebag-Montefiore traces how the 338,226 individu-als were evacuated from Dunkirk between May 26 andJune 4, 1940. British ships rescued more than 200,000 ad-ditional Allied troops from other French ports such asCherbourg and Brest, but as he notes, these later evac-uations have never penetrated the public imagination.John Vereker Lord Gort, the head of the BEF, was oneof the evacuees and soon came to be regarded as a herodespite the disaster that had afflicted the BEF under hiscommand. Churchill had to restore a sense of perspec-tive to the tragic, but strangely uplifting situation, witha further admonitory aphorism: “Wars are not won byevacuations.” Even so, along with the Charge of the LightBrigade, Dunkirk has become one of Britain’s favoritemilitary disasters.The accounts of the events leading up to the evacu-ation are detailed in the book, especially where Britishtroops are concerned. We learn of a British officer blow-ing his fox-hunting horn as a signal for his troops to fire;a private who lost an arm in the battle ending up scrub-bing floors after the war because he was pushed out ofhis old job; the Duke of Northumberland waving his ashstick to urge his troops forward, but in so doing beingkilled because he rashly exposed himself to fire; a popularand sometimes incorrigible Welsh Guards officer bring-ing two greyhounds with him to France and later win-ning the Victoria Cross posthumously. Often, these arestories that have not been told before. First-hand tes-timony pervades the 496 pages of history and analysis,supplemented by an interesting section entitled “What1H-Net Revie in the Humanities & Social H-Net ReviewsHappened to … after the War? ”, plus a set of twenty-one detailed maps, statistical appendices, and ninety-five pages of admirably discursive and useful footnotes.One might contest Sebag-Montefiore’s interpretation ofevents, but there is seldom doubt about the sources of hisinformation.Sebag -Montefiore is hard on the French, whom hescores repeatedly for pusillanimous fighting, inadequatetraining, and bad decision-making. Indeed, the authorconcludes that the evacuation and surrounding events“were the consequence of mistakes made by French gen-erals and politicians” (p. xi). He lambastes French lead-ership for not reacting properly to the Mechelen incidenton January 10, 1940, when the Belgians retrieved from acrashed German military plane a copy of what on thatdate was the German invasion plan for western Europe.He argues that the French should have concluded thatthe Germans would abandon what was in many ways arewrite of theWorldWar I Schlieffen Plan and in its steaddevelop something new. This is one of several placeswhere he plows a bit of new historical territory, in thiscase by means of discussing previously overlooked Ger-man, Belgian, and Czech files on the issue. Related tothis issue are newly obtained interviews relating to Ab-wehr Colonel Hans Oster’s warnings to the Allies aboutthe forthcoming German invasion. Ultimately, both theFrench and British could not eliminate the possibility thatthe Mechelen crash was altogether too convenient andtherefore constituted an elaborate hoax. Their inabilityto decide also led them to discount Oster’s pointed warn-ings of the impending German attack.Other historians have covered most portions of theMay 1940 Anglo-French-Belgian-Dutch debacle in detail,notably Gregory Blaxland from the British point of viewand Karl-Heinz Frieser from the German side.[1] Wor-thy of note here is that Sebag-Montefiore’s explanation ofthe famous German “stop order” outside of Dunkirk doesnot coincide with Frieser’s more detailed research, whichbackstops the argument that it actually was Adolf Hitlerrather than his generals who bears primary responsibil-ity for the most important stop order–without which themiracle at Dunkirk never would have occurred.Sebag-Montefiore skewers Churchill for his poten-tially disastrous, changing, and sometimes contradictorymilitary advice, and notes that within the space of a fewhours, Churchill sometimes serially ordered the BEF tostand on defense, and counterattack, and withdraw. Hepoints out that the vacillating and politically sensitiveprime minister actually sent portions of the 1st CanadianDivision to France via Brest even after the Dunkirk evac-uation, when it was abundantly clear that most Britishtroops in France either were going to be killed or madeprisoners of war. The author’s presentations of BritishWar Cabinet discussions on such matters, and the cabi-net’s explorations of the requirements of British honor,along the possibility of peace overtures, are detailed andilluminating.Nor surprisingly, therefore, Sebag-Montefiore eas-ily demonstrates that both BEF commanders and theirFrench counterparts received confusing and sometimesconflicting messages from the British command on fight-ing, evacuating, and negotiating. Some of this confusionwas due to the inevitable fog of war, of course, but otherinstances occurred because a portion of BEF troops hadbeen placed under French command. However, for a va-riety of reasons (including inferior and frequently elusiveFrench leadership), the British chose not to obey Frenchorders. While Sebag-Montefiore exhibits little sympathyfor the French, it is small wonder that the French wereembittered by the events surrounding Dunkirk, thoughalmost 140,000 French troops were evacuated along withapproximately 200,000 British.Representative of the author’s “let’s get the storydirectly from participants” approach is his coverage ofthe Le Paradis and Wormhout massacres perpetrated onBritish POWs by theWaffen-SS. As a rareWormhout sur-vivor reported, “they made us turn around so we wereactually shot in the back … the shot went right throughmy body. I thought I was dead and I suppose I passedout” (p. 360). Another remembered, “the Germans beganthrowing grenades in. I had my right arm shattered byone of the first explosions” (p. 359).I do have an important reservation about the book,however, and it relates to a significant fundamental:its title, which, however stirring, is quite misleading.Whether the “last man” in question was Belgian, British,or French, there was relatively little fighting to the lastman in western Europe in spring 1940. Only in a fewcases did members of the BEF, Sebag-Montefiore’s fo-cus, fight to the death. In reality, approximately 300,000BEF members escaped to Britain (from all ports, includ-ing Dunkirk) and another 30,000 surrendered, while only11,010 died. These numbers reveal that fighting to thedeath was seldom. A succession of “stop” orders issuedto the Wehrmacht saved the BEF, not the BEF fightingto the last man. Sebag-Montfiore’s actual presentationof the May 1940 events confirms this stance, but the ti-tle chosen for his book does not. If, however, Sebag-2H-Net ReviewsMontefiore actually wished the title to convey a sensethat the BEF fought to its last man in France in 1940, thenunfortunately the evidence does not support this view.Even though the gallant and productive Oxfordshire andBuckinghamshire regiment (the “Ox and Bucks”) was in-structed to fight to the last man, it did not do so. Allthings considered, that probably was a good thing.Sebag-Montefiore set out to illuminate the sometimesheroic contribution of the BEF to the Dunkirk evaluationand succeeds in doing so. Nevertheless, if one is look-ing for dramatic new interpretations of the 1940 battles,this is not the book to purchase. Even so, the author’sclarification and spotlight on the role of the BEF are bothwelcome and appropriate.Note[1]. Gregory Blaxland,Destination Dunkirk: The Storyof Gort’s Army (London: Kimber, 1973); and Karl-HeinzFrieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in theWest (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005). First pub-lished as Blitzkrieg-Legende: Der Westfeldzug 1940 (Mu-nich: Oldenbourg, 1995).If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:https://networks.h-net.org/h-germanCitation: James V. Koch. Review of Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man. H-German, H-NetReviews. May, 2009.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24055This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.3

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