The book of the English military historian Devine explores the course of operations in the West in 1940, which led to the defeat of the Allied armies in Flanders, as well as the subsequent events in the Dunkirk area (Operation Dynamo). The author used official documents of both parties, diaries and letters of participants in the events. Devine disputes some of the versions common in Western historiography about the reasons that allowed the English expeditionary forces to avoid complete defeat in the Dunkirk area, and puts forward his point of view on this issue. The extensive factual material contained in Devine's book will allow the Soviet reader to get acquainted in detail with one of the periods of active operations of the Second World War in the West.