British Expeditionary Force

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British Expeditionary Force ( BEF ; German  British Expeditionary Corps ) was the name of the British Army contingent deployed in France and Belgium both in World War I from 1914 to 1918 and in World War II in 1939/40 .

see also → List of British Expeditionary Forces in August 1914

origin

The founding of a rapid reaction force for the British Army called the British Expeditionary Force goes back to Richard Haldane in his work as Minister of War. During his tenure, two possible war scenarios for a war between the Entente and Germany were discussed in Great Britain . Contrary to the view of the navalists , who believed that Great Britain should wage a pure sea ​​war with Germany and leave the land war to the French, Haldane had an expeditionary force put together to be relocated to the continent at the beginning of the war. From 1911, British troops would be deployed on the continent to support France in the event of war.

First World War

On August 4, 1914, German troops marched into neutral Belgium. Great Britain ordered its army to be mobilized on the same day . Herbert Kitchener was appointed Secretary of War. Kitchener was one of the first to predict a multi-year war and on August 5th issued the order to enlarge the army. By army order 324 of August 21, 1914, six new divisions were initially set up from recruited volunteers . In total, more than 40 divisions could be built up as Kitchener's Army or New Army for use on the Western Front by 1915 .

After the first units of the BEF landed in Le Havre on August 11th, the British Expeditionary Force in France consisted of four infantry divisions and one cavalry division until autumn 1914. It was led by Sir John French. The infantry divisions were divided into two army corps under Major General Douglas Haig and James Grierson. The cavalry division was led by Edmund Allenby. The use of the British Expeditionary Force decided the battles on the Marne and Aisne in September 1914 . As part of the race to the sea , the BEF was relocated from the Aisne to Flanders and from October 1914 was organized into five corps groups:

Sir John French
King George V and the BEF Army Commanders, from left to right: Sir William Birdwood (5th Army), Sir Henry Rawlinson (4th Army), Sir Herbert Plumer (2nd Army), King George V, Sir Douglas Haig ( GOC ), Sir Henry Horne (1st Army) and Sir Julian Byng (3rd Army), November 1918

Commander in Chief : Lieutenant General Sir John D. French

Chief of Staff : Lieutenant General Sir Archibald J. Murray

I. Corps (Lieutenant General Douglas Haig )

  • 1st Division (Major General Samuel H. Lomax)
  • 2nd Division (Major General Charles Monro )

II Corps (Lieutenant General Horace Smith-Dorrien )

III. Corps (Lieutenant General William Pulteney )

  • 4th Division (Major General Henry Wilson )
  • 6th Division (Maj. Gen. John L. Keir)

IV Corps (Lieutenant General Henry Rawlinson )

  • 7th Division (Major General Thompson Capper)
  • 8th Division (Major General Francis J. Davies)

Cavalry Corps (Lieutenant General Edmund H. Allenby )

After the First Battle of Flanders subsided , the British Expeditionary Force was supplemented by the newly established Kitchener divisions of the Territorial Force. At the end of 1914, the BEF was therefore reorganized into 1st Army under Haig and 2nd Army under Smith-Dorrien, later Herbert Plumer .

Because of his indecisive leadership, French was blamed for the British failures and high losses and replaced in December 1915 by his deputy and commander in chief of the 1st Army Haig. Lieutenant General Launcelot E. Kiggell was appointed Chief of Staff of the BEF . The British headquarters were located at Château de Beaurepaire near Montreuil from the beginning of April 1916 until it was dissolved in April 1919. General Haig only moved his command post to Beauquesne during the Battle of the Somme .

Other armies were set up as follows:

  • the 3rd Army in July 1915 under Charles Monro
  • the 4th Army in February 1916 under Henry Rawlinson
  • the Reserve Army in May 1916, renamed 5th Army under Hubert Gough in October 1916

Other British expeditionary forces in the First World War were deployed in the Mediterranean ( Mediterranean Expeditionary Force ), Mesopotamia, Egypt / Palestine, on the Salonika Front in the Balkans and in Italy . These were partially supported by expeditionary forces from the British Dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Second World War

Lord John Gort
A BEF Ordnance QF-18 pounder

After the so-called smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic by Nazi Germany in March 1939, France and Great Britain ended the appeasement policy and declared war on Germany after the attack on Poland on September 3, 1939.

A new British Expeditionary Force was equipped and sent to France, and General Lord Gort was appointed Commander-in-Chief . Due to the danger of German submarines, the British troops were not unloaded directly at the canal ports, but were mostly directed via Cherbourg , the formations of the rear services landed in Brest and St. Nazaire . The BEF headquarters was initially set up in Le Mans on September 14, 1939 , and the first two corps were concentrated between Le Mans and Laval by September 21. Due to the defensive strategy of the Western Allies, there was no offensive against Germany in the first months of the war; one was only planned for 1941. Therefore, from the late summer of 1939 to the spring of 1940, no major battles took place on the Franco-German border, so that this phase was also referred to as the seat war in Germany , the Phoney War in Great Britain and the Drôle de Guerre in France . At the beginning of October 1939, I Corps took over the Maulde-Gruson front section, and on October 12 the II Corps took over the section from Bouvines to Lannoy. In January 1940 the 48th Division, in February the 51st and 50th Divisions arrived on the mainland. At the end of March 1940 the III. Corps (42nd, 44th and 51st divisions) landed, finally in April the 12th, 23rd and 46th divisions arrived in northern France.

Organization of the British Expeditionary Force in May 1940

I. Corps Lieutenant General Michael Barker

  • 1st Infantry Division - Major General HRLG Alexander
  • 2nd Infantry Division - Major General HC Loyd
  • 48th (South Midland) Infantry Division - Major General AFAN Thorne

II Corps Lieutenant General Alan Brooke

III. Corps Lieutenant General Sir RF Adam

More army troops

  • 1st Armored Division - Major General Roger Evans
  • 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division - Major General JS Drew
  • 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division - Major-General RL Petre
  • 23rd (Northumbrian) Infantry Division - Major General AE Herbert
  • 46th (West Riding) Infantry Division - Major General HO Curtis

On May 10, 1940, the German Wehrmacht began the campaign in the west . The BEF occupied planned positions in Belgium; after the German breakthrough near Sedan , however, it had to withdraw from Belgium. The German advance made unexpectedly rapid progress, so that the British War Cabinet was already considering deporting the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) on May 19. The British troops were evacuated in Operation Dynamo . As part of the operation, from May 26 to June 4, 1940, almost the entire British expeditionary force in France and parts of the French army , which were surrounded by German troops near Dunkirk, were evacuated to Great Britain by sea. By June 4, a total of 338,226 Allied soldiers, 110,000 of them French, had been transferred.

literature

  • Arthur Hodges: Kitchener. Vanguard Verlag Schlegel, Berlin 1937.
  • Hugh Sebag-Montefiore : Dunkirk. Fight to the last man. Penguin, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-14-102437-0 .
  • Nick Smart: Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War. Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley 2005, ISBN 1-84415-049-6 .