User blog comment:Disturbedfan1100/Diplomatic talk and stuff/@comment-6138112-20131209160839/@comment-6138112-20131210112345

The Soviets couldn't retreat because Stalin was so dead set on revenge that he forced his men to advance at the expense of many, many lives. The British and French knew that France would fall to the Germans regardless of wether the Brits stayed or went, and because of that, the British would have to leave France anyway once the Germans took over, though many more would die during the evacuation.

In actuality, the idea that cowardice means death is a very flawed idea. During the First World War, if an Entente soilder refused to cross no-man's land if told, then they would be executed the next day. But that didn't change much, since crossing it would mean certain death anyway, thanks to German machine guns and flamethrowers. And of course, in the case of the Soviets, if they didn't have so much manpower, then they probably would've been killed off because of the fact that they couldn't reteat.