Customer Reviews

Dunkirk - Fight to the Last Man

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For well over sixty years, British and American readers have been presented with the view that the successful evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk between 26 May and 3 June 1940 was a tremendous triumph and "a morale victory" that allowed Britain to stay in the war. Most historical accounts have focused primarily on the actual evacuation and the role of "the small ships" that came to rescue Britain's hard-pressed troops before Dunkirk fell to the approaching German forces. In Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, the author takes a decidedly different approach and instead focuses more on the series of tactical actions fought to maintain the Dunkirk perimeter, particularly the desperate rearguard actions fought by units that were later all but forgotten in the post-war histories. This book falls somewhere between a somewhat comprehensive history and a collection of first-person tactical accounts, but it succeeds in painting a portrait of two desperate weeks of ground fighting in the early stages of the Second World War that most readers will find unfamiliar. Overall, the book is well-written - even exciting at times - punchy and impeccably researched. There is a whiff of British biases in this book (particularly against the French) that some readers will resent, but it provides insights into the campaign that rarely, if ever, appear in other accounts.

Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man consists of 36 sequential chapters, divided into two main sections, the German attack and the Evacuation. The first section is meant to put the evacuation in context but it is oddly put together and does not altogether succeed. In the second chapter, the author discusses the arrival of the BEF in France in late 1939 and the numerous equipment and training deficiencies. However, the author misses his chance to introduce the main British players (Lord Gort, Brooke, Montgomery) or to even sketch the BEF's order of battle. This will confuse many readers later on, as leaders and generals just begin to "appear" when the action begins. The author then shifts to spend a couple chapters on the Mechelen Affair and Dutch intelligence efforts to provide early warning on the up-coming German offensive. Among other things, this book reinforces the impression that Dutch and Belgian stupidity and their unwillingness to cooperate with the Anglo-French staffs until their borders were crossed contributed greatly to the disaster that followed. The author then shifts gears to cover the German breakthrough at Sedan and the French collapse, which is very similar to material presented in Karl-Heinz Frieser's The Blitzkrieg Legend (2005). I found these chapters gratuitously anti-French and unconnected to the main narrative - it was as if the author made a detour to flog the poor performance of the French 9th Army in order to make the BEF's last-stands appear all the more heroic. This first section concludes with the failed counterattacks at Arras (very well done, with excellent tactical detail on British Matilda tanks) and the BEF's retreat to the coast.

The second section begins with the German panzers reaching the coast and the futile Anglo-French defenses of Boulogne and Calais. However, the real meat in this section consists of detailed tactical vignettes covering key delay actions at places like Cassel, Le Paradis and Wormhout. Many readers will cringe as they read about one British battalion after another that was crushed with 50-70 percent losses merely to hold a village or a bridge for a few hours. While there are plenty of heroics and a few VCs on these pages, it is also apparent that many BEF units fought poorly for a variety of reasons (lack of proper equipment, limited ammunition, poor leadership) and some units did fight pretty much "to the last man" while others bolted to the rear. The author recounts several incidents of British officers having to shoot other BEF soldiers who refused to stand and fight. British tactical leadership was stolid and unflappable, but sometimes bordered on imbecility, as the author recounts instances of several British battalion commanders who refused to believe that the Germans could arrive so quickly until shells started exploding around them. There was also a "country-club" mentality among many of these BEF officers, not yet blooded in combat, and it is distressing to read about British officers dining on sandwiches and champagne while their troops went unfed for days. Indeed, one gets the impression that the BEF's quartermaster's efforts fell apart as quickly as their troops were some of the first to evacuate. Noticeably, British artillery played little role in the fighting.

Most accounts of Dunkirk tend to emphasize that 338,000 troops were evacuated with little further explanation, but the author provides an appendix with detailed break-down by day and nationality. About 122,000 French troops were evacuated (most of whom were then shuttled back to Le Havre just in time to surrender), leaving barely 100,000 unwounded BEF soldiers evacuated. Many of the infantry divisions, such as the 2nd, were all but destroyed and many of the best battalions made it back to England with only 100 or so troops and few officers. From this book, the magnitude of the Dunkirk disaster is much more apparent and stripped of wartime British propaganda intended to put a good `spin' on what was, in fact, a catastrophe. The author concludes with chapters on the 2nd BEF in June 1940, focusing on the loss of most of the 51st Highland Division and the sinking of SS Lancastria with up to 3,500 British troops aboard. By the time that France fell, Britain's army was well and truly wrecked for months to come. This book is well stocked with maps, although their location at the back of the book requires constant page flipping.

I saw this book in the local bookstore, and picked it up because I have always been interested in the early part of WWII. Paging through it, I was impressed to find that it did not only cover Operation Dynamo (the rescue of British and French troops from the Dunkirk area) but covered the entire scope of the fall of France, including some of the post Dunkirk operations (such as the surrender of the 51st Division at St Valery).

I have just finished reading the book. It is outstanding - I have quite a few books on the fall of France, including Horne's "To Lose a Battle" and Schirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic", but this, from a military history point of view, is the best I have ever seen.

The author covers the action down to about Battalion level; in many cases, down to company level. He is outstanding on the events surrounding the breakthrough along the Muese at Sedan and Dinant. Reading Horne, one misses the fine grained detail of what happens : this author explains the events very well indeed.

In "To Lose a Battle", Horne points out that the official French version of the events of May 1940 had not been released when he wrote the book, and that it was difficult or impossible to consult French military sources. Sebag-Montefiore seems to have had unprecedented access to French military archives, as well as rooting out accounts in such strange places as Czechoslovakia and Russia.

Sebag-Montefiore has also made excellent use of primary sources, conducting many interviews with participants of the events he writes about. The book is very extensively footnoted (or rather, end noted) - probably enough to satisfy the most rigorous investigation.

There are a few small niggles - in the beginning of the book, Sebag-Montefiore disparages the French 25mm AT gun, which I understand was pretty good at the time; he also makes the comment that the "raison d eitier" for armoured divisions was to fight other armoured divisions, which conclusion I disagree with most strenuously. Fortunately though, there is none of the old complaints about "how useless the 2 pounder" (British anti - tank gun) was.

An outstanding book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the period and the theater.

Scores of books have appeared on evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk. So why this one? Well, focus of this book is different. author goes to great extent in showing that apart from naval dimension to Dunkirk evacuation there is equally another important side to the story.

Montefiore has argued that stubborn rear guard actions fought by British troops slowed down the advance of Wehrmacht.This gave Royal Navy sufficient time to mobilise assets which made extrication of beleaguered Allied troops possible. Evacuation was an incredible feat of daring,organisation and skill executed brilliantly under German fire. Only blemish was British failed to rescue 51st Highland division which was surrounded by Rommel's panzers at St Valery.

Book discusses ground combat in detail. But emphasis on tactical/unit level combat. Tommies excel in positional defence.Author narrates the actions fought by British troops at Ghent,Arras,Calais,Boulogne,Cassel,Ypres-Comines canal,Ledringham and Dunkirk perimeter.

Author has made some caustic comments on France holding it responsible for the ensuing debacle.Firstly,French failed to adopt suitable precautionary measures prelude to German invasion.Mechlen incident on January 10 1940 is case in point.German plan for the coming invasion of West was brought to the notice of Allied High Command by Belgian police. Consequently,Germans were bound to alter their plan.Author argues French ought to have anticipated this move and make suitable changes in force dispositions to counter it.Similarly, warnings from German traitor Hans Oster about impending German attack were ignored. But to be fair , French thought Oster association with Abwehr made his warnings lack credibility.

Actually,French were demoralised lot when German invasion opened.. These men had no will to fight.Their resistance melted when Germans attacked.Defence of Meuse river crossings Near Sedan speaks volumes of their military prowess.German High Command further managed to fool Allies.Wehrmacht feinted in the north which pulled the cream of Allied armies to Belgium and Holland. By doing so Allies unbarred defences in the south where Germans launched their principal assault.Train of events stemmed from the misconception that hilly,wooded Ardennes terrain was unsuitable for large scale movement of armour.Massed armour [7 panzer divisions] attacked weakest point in Allied defence and crashed through.Within a week Allied front sundered into two halves by German armoured penetration to Channel coast.

Author has interviewed [while researching for this book] scores of Dunkirk veterans .These men jogged memory to recall details of events which happened six decades ago.As a result Montefiore has uncovered facts which lay concealed for a long time.For instance, massacre conducted by SS troops at Le Paradis and Wormhout. I think unexpected stubborn resistance aroused German fury which prompted them to carry out such reprisals.

The book is very detailed with text running into more than 500 pages.Though written in a simple language there is tendency to get bogged down. Maps are located on the rear section that reader has to frequently flip pages backwards to have a look. This was a trifle inconvenient.

The attention to detail and copious cross-referencing of notes and maps is superb. 506 pages of text, 21 maps (including a detailed map drawn up in a prisoner-of-war camp of the defense of Cassel, 26-27 May), 4 pages of appendices, 96 pages of hundreds of detailed notes (almost a book in themselves), 16 pages of sources and bibliographic notes, 24 pages of 93 photos, in 36 chapters and an epilogue that follows key players, some through to the end of their lives.

And the narrative is all the more powerful, much of it drawn from diaries from various military units, British and German. The basic story is well-known by any student of (military or British) history, yet the details are worthy of another telling. "Dunkirk: covers about eight weeks, as it opens with confusing and discarded intelligence, German recovered plans, and spies before German invasion in May 1940 and closes with the "worst naval disaster" in English history, the sinking of the packed SS Lancastria on 17 June. Sebag-Montefiore records the ruthless massacres of Belgian civilians and British soldiers, the horrid conditions faced by the wounded, the gallant defense of absolutely hopeless but effective rearguard actions, the gallantry of Victoria Cross winners. Most of the tension is in the incriminations between the British and the French, the former trying to salvage something for its later defense (including its air force) and the latter having no hope for tomorrow, hoping against hope. There are heroes and cowards, doctors and nurses, "common" soldiers and "gentlemen", and mostly there is the absolute chaos of France, May 1940, leading up to one of the greatest rescue efforts of all time, with about 300,000 BEF and French troops pulled off Dunkirk mostly at night in late May and early June and another 150,000 rescued before the fall of France by the end of June. By recovering its troops and husbanding its air force for the soon-to-arrive Battle of Britain, Britain surrendered much of its equipment and left thousands of British (and French, Dutch, Belgian, and German) dead on the fields of France, to be able to fight - and win - another day.

Yes, the chaos and volume of history makes the reading difficult to follow at times - so many men, so many details, so many directions - but it is a style worthy of the story and rewarding to the persistent reader.

The amount of research done to produce the book is staggering indeed. It seems as if every British unit has been displayed, most in favorible, even heroic, terms, but a few do show up in disgrace. The French Army, from its chain of command to its troops actually facing the Germans, receives far fewer compliments. The author has placed his maps at the back of the book, requiring the reader to flip back and forth which sometimes results in a loss of place in the vast array of pages. It would have helped to have sketch maps throughout the text, especially for readers not that familiar with the geography of the battle zone. Some other terms were confusing to an American reader. The "carrier" referred to often was finally discovered to be a brother to the Bren Gun Carrier, just not ready-equipped with the Bren Gun. The Boys Anti-Tank Rifle is also a weapon with which Americans are not easily familar, especially for fending off heavily armored tanks. Among the watercraft, the "Drifter" is still a mystery, even in its common role in carrying troops out to larger vessels. Another mystery was the "Fairey Battle" fighter-bomber about which American readers would have heard very little since it was already obsolete when it was inserted into the fighting. This is not a book to undertake lightly. It details a number of the massacres done by German troops not only of surrounded and even surrendered soldiers, but also villagers uninvolved in the fighting. Overall, however, the picture painted by the author draws on extensive research of both old and newly discovered sources, It contributes much to a fuller picture of how close the Dunkirk Evacuation was to a complete disaster, and how many risked their lives to salvage enough of the Allied Forces to ultimately face-down Hitler and the Whermacht.

This book is a well written collection of individual British soldiers' accounts of combat actions throughout the 1940 campaign in France and Belgium. It is not restricted to the actions around Dunkirk, instead covering the initial landing of the BEF in France, the phoney war winter, the initial movements to the Escaut line, and the initial encounters with the Germans along the Escaut. The book also highlights the actions of scratch units protecting the western flank of the BEF as it retreated to the coast at Dunkirk. The evacuation itself is covered in the same anecdotal style but is not a focus of the book. Over 20 maps are also provided.

The book is written almost entirely from the British perspective - once again, the activity of the French and Belgian armed forces don't get much coverage.

This is not really a comprehensive military history, as the focus is on individuals and their part in the dramatic events of May and June 1940. Discussions of the larger strategic and operational picture are provided in places, but not comprehensively, and often seemed to break the flow of the book. For example, several pages are devoted to the British cabinet discussion of a French proposal to use Mussolini in a mediation role, followed by more individual platoon level combat action.

Two chapters are devoted to British actions during the remainder campaign after Dunkirk, including the trapping and surrender of the 51st Highland Division at St. Valery and the sinking of the Lancastria. The book suffers from a lack of focus on strategic vs individual discussion here as earlier.

Still, overall, this is an entertaining read. Serious readers of military history might want to read this for the coverage given to the BEF prior to and after Dunkirk, which even if limited, far exceeds the coverage given in most histories.

I would suggest that Seabag-Montefiore's excellent history of the men who fought to the death, in many cases, so that every single British or French soldier who could, had a chance to be evacuated to Britain, could do so, is an excellent book. Frankly, I would have never known just how tenacious and determined these British Army units were to fight to the death, and fight so effectively, as well. I continued to marvel at the horror they endured, fighting against German forces which almost always outnumbered them, and often, had superior equipment. It was clear that the British forces in France and Belgium, were poorly equipped. The RAF was under strength, both in pilots and planes, and every loss of a Spitfire or Hurricane was a grievous one, indeed.
Having been wounded badly in Vietnam, I marveled at the stamina and willingness to fight among the wounded often caused a later death, or more severe wound, one all of that could have been avoided by just asking to be evacuated as quickly as possible. I know that because I'd been given two shots of morphine, I was pumped up, and ready to keep fighting. I don't know whether I could have picked up a rifle, or grenades, and kept going. I certainly would NOT have been able to use my right arm for firing, which would have made my using my M-16 impossible.
Grenades, though, I could have thrown. But, my experience might have been, get up, start up the trail where I'd been shot, throwing grenades as I went ... only to falter quickly from the large loss of blood. In many cases, these British soldiers somehow managed to get up, and walk out of pockets surrounded by Germans, or, drag themselves along, continuing to stay in their respective unit engagements, blood loss be damned.
I have gained a huge surge of respect for these British soldiers at Dunkirk. They really DID fight to the last bullet, the last man, before either being killed, wounded, overrun and captured, or, escaping back to another line of defense, only to do the same thing again ... and again. How so many were evacuated when the beaches were often being shelled by German artillery and the Luftwaffe, I do not know.
The French appeared to be near worthless, in many cases. At the higher ranks, they were prickly, ostentatious, and pretentious. There were wholesale flights by larege bodies of French soldiers, and the breakdown of discipline among many French units was depressing to read about. The overall quality of French troops, and many officers, clearly played a huge role in the quick conquest of that country by the Germans.
Had the French fought as well as nearly every British unit, I have to wonder how hard it would have been for the Germans to even take Franch.
The book does not cover all the detail of the stirring evacuation fleet. Just enough to let the reader know what happened, by providing antecdotes on those who served among the quickly put together fleet. Seabag-Montefiore makes no bones about his book's intention to not get into that part of the story in detail He makes it clear that there is as equally important story to tell about the men who held the line in order to permit the greatest evacuation in modern history to occur. In that regard, he did a fantastic job. Yes, there were times when the style and detail were more than needed. But, I will never be able to hold my misconceptions about the quality of the British troops in WW II again. This book proved these soldiers, in the main, were truly brave and determined. I salute them. The maps are excellent. As is the bibliography and the detailed notes, which are worth reading on their own. I cant say enough about the maps. Being a map freak, I found them very relevant, and Seabag-Montefiore refers to them hundreds of times, so that the reader can know precisely to what the narrative refers.
I bought mine used, as always, and it was in excellent condition, and arrived very timely.

There are two things right off that I have to thank Hugh Sebag-Montefiore for, 1) In every case, any town that is mentioned in the fighting is located somewhere on one of the books maps, 2) The marvelous maps that are included in this study, they are detailed without being overly messy.

The book itself does something that most historical books don't and that is to give the 'fighting' soldiers a chance to have their say. Not just those in control or leadership positions, but the poor 'grunts' who end up being canon fodder for the idiot ideas of those far away from the actual fighting. It's one thing to tell some poor second-lieutenant that he has to hold "to the last man, the last bullet", it's another to be the poor sod who is sitting in a trench half-filled with water, who hasn't had a nights sleep in three days, hot food in over a week, and witnessed friends being blown to pieces right next to him.

The true horror of war is having to put a bullet in your friends head rather than leaving him to dies on some god-forsaken field after both his legs have been blown off by an artillery shell. Only John Wayne never got dirty fighting a battle, everyone else ended up looking like something your dog wouldn't want to pee on. HS-M may make it a little gross at times, but war is not pretty; it's dirty and makes vomit smell like cologne.

The one thing you learn above all from reading this book (besides how little the French did to protect their country) is that the average British middle officer (below the General level) spent a lot of time doing the actual fighting armed only with a revolver and a whistle. That takes real courage (or a grand level of stupidity, your choice).

Unlike a lot of the current history books, this doesn't read like a novel. You have to take your time to wade through a lot of the info, but in the end it's worth it.

Sebag-Montefiore's book is a tedious chronology of the events leading up through (and a bit beyond) the evacuation of the BEF from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. I would have thought that a press like Harvard would be more discerning, but apparently not.

History is the critical assessment and analysis of past events. It seeks to explain why things happened. This book is not history, but merely chronology. This too can be useful, if one needs a reference source to look up dates, names, places, and things. But reading a list of events that runs 500 pages is a long slog.

It does not help that Sebag-Montefiore's writing style is frustrating. There is no continuity whatsoever to the story. This is probably the result of not having a theme or point he is trying to make. Literally, the reader can skip entire pages of every chapter and not miss important developments or assessments. Any explanation of events that would provide some context are buried in the end notes, some of which are several paragraphs long. Explanations of locations and setting are dismissed with a brief command to the reader to look at the maps. The maps themselves are excellent, but no map can ever stand in for text.

In the end, the book reads as a vehicle for the author to quote the source material he found. What we're left with is 500 pages of diary entries and anecdotes with no obvious point to be made. The true contribution of the Sebag-Montefiore is indeed to have collected this material. Now all we need is another author to use it and write a better book.

This is a well-written book of 1001 ancedotes strung together to make a story. It's a difficult read, jumps around a lot, but does give the reader a feeling of what happened in the BEF. The author lauds personalities like Brooke and Montgomery unnecessarily and in a somewhat overwrought fashion, but, after all, this is strictly a British book. The Belgians are bit players, and the French get short shrift. Still, I recommend reading this book, although it will not do well on the shelf for reference.