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Originally Posted by Stephen The allies should have occupied the channel coast and apart from a token gesture to hold the Germans up and inflict some casualties on them stayed out of Belgium. |
I quite understand what you're saying about the Belgian Government's attitude but I think that you have to bear in mind how the country suffered during WW1 and that neutrality worked for Holland in the first lot.
I have often pondered the wisdom of the British advance to the Dyle Line, with the French defending the open country further south. It does not seem logical to leave well prepared defensive positions. On the other hand, I believe that it would have been politically impossible for Britain, as allies of the French, to have defended only the Channel coast in September 1939. Look at the problems Gort had with the French when he realised that evacuation was inevitable.
I wonder what the consequences would have been, had the BEF stayed in their defensive positions in Northern France. Bearing in mind that the French line broke at Sedan and that the German forces would have been held up even less in Belgium I fear that the result would have been an early pincer encirclement cutting off the entire force. Perhaps the battle was lost before it started and the move into Belgium was a blessing in disguise which lead the way to the area around Dunkirk remaining in allied hands long enough for evacuation.
Another imponderable is what the course of the war would have been had the BEF not been sent to France but had remained in Britain in a defensive role, perhaps supplying the French with support. Would Britain have then subsequently become involved in a European ground war. Would there have been the motivation to mount an invasion in 1944 if the BEF had not been so humiliated in 1940 ?