Person
Lord Gort
Commander-in-Chief, British Expeditionary Force
Life: 1886–1946
The commander who, facing an order that would consume his army, rewrote the objective instead.
On 25 May 1940 he declined to execute the attack southwards pressed on him and swung two divisions north instead, plugging the gap on his flank and holding the corridor to the coast. It is better read not as heroism but as the moment the objective was rewritten from winning to keeping the army. To the French it looked like leaving first, and the resentment outlasted the war.
Strategic signature — choose the army over the order
Gort commanded the British Expeditionary Force. On 25 May he did not execute the attack southwards that had been pressed on him and instead swung two divisions north to plug the gap on his flank and hold the corridor to the coast14. Without that, the pocket very likely closes earlier.
It is better read not as a heroic decision but as the moment the objective was switched from winning to surviving. Faced with an order whose execution would consume the army, he rewrote the aim instead. A design of what to lose begins with exactly this rewriting.
Recurring patterns
Rewrite the objective
From winning to keeping. Unless somebody makes that switch explicitly, an organisation goes on assuming victory right up to its disappearance.
Read the situation over the order
The plan from above did not see the gap he was looking at. When an order's premise has broken, the order is the older information.
Leave last
He left on 1 June, under direct orders from home. The order in which people withdraw bears directly on the credibility of the decision.
Strengths and weaknesses
Can collapse the decision onto one point: keep the army.
To an ally, that collapse looks like leaving first. French resentment about it outlasted the war.
Can decline an order whose premise has collapsed.
The same act, with the premise intact, is simply disobedience. The distinction is only available afterwards.
Connection to Dunkirk
Of the 338,226 men taken off, the possibility of any evacuation at all was secured by the decision of 25 May. Ships and procedures come after that.
Lord Gort, 1939, Imperial War Museum. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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