The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

General Jodl, OKW Chief of Staff, told Gerhard that Göring had bitten off
more than he could chew.
Hermann did not think so, however. ‘Our air force,’ he told Milch, ‘is to
mop up the British. I’ve persuaded the Führer to hold the army back.’ Milch
immediately expressed his concerns: the Channel ports were at the limit of
most of the fighter units’ range, and they had already been involved in
heavy and continual fighting since the offensive began. Furthermore, there
was still a job to do supporting the army. Göring brushed aside such
worries. ‘The army always wants to act the gentleman. They round up the
British as prisoners with as little harm to them as possible. The Führer
wants them to be taught a lesson.’ General Kesselring was as concerned as
Milch about these new orders, and also pointed out the difficulty of such a
task. Bombing Rotterdam into the ground had been one thing; destroying
the Channel ports and the British was quite another. ‘I pointed out to Göring
that the modern Spitfires had recently appeared,’ Kesselring noted, ‘making
our air operations difficult and costly.’ Kesselring’s misgivings also fell on
deaf ears. Sadly for the Germans, Göring was revealing a lack of military
acumen to match that of Hitler.
Nor did he help matters two days later when he visited the Führer. The
two men went for a stroll around Felsennet, Hitler followed by his army
adjutant, Gerhard Engel. ‘Impression,’ Gerhard jotted later in his diary, ‘G.
successfully stirred it up against Army. F[ührer] emphasised repeatedly the
political reliability of the Luftwaffe in contrast to the Army.’
Now that both French and British commanders had accepted the inevitable,
they began being more co-operative with one another again. Early on the
26th, Gort saw Blanchard, who was not only reconciled to the decision to
fall back towards the coast, but positively helpful in drawing up lines of
withdrawal to the north. The two agreed that certain roads should be used
exclusively by the BEF. On the night of the 26th/27th, I and II Corps,
having left rearguards at the frontier defences, were to swing back into the
centre of the corridor while the French First Army prolonged the line. The
following night, the bulk of the BEF was to fall behind the River Lys, with
rearguards protecting the new line until the night after that. Thus his men
were to fight by day and fall back under the cover of darkness. He did not
have enough men to hold a continuous line along the southern flank along