The fate of the Channel Islands

With the fall of France, the Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark), possessions of the British Crown off the Norman coast, found themselves indefensible: too close to a continent now in German hands, and without strategic value to justify a major military commitment.

The British government had to decide their fate, and that of their tens of thousands of inhabitants. To defend them militarily would cost precious forces for an objective lost in advance and would expose the population. To demilitarise and abandon them without a fight would spare lives but would deliver to the enemy, for the first time, British territory. There remained the question of the evacuation of civilians, partial and heart-rending.

London could demilitarise the islands and organise a partial evacuation of the inhabitants. To attempt to defend them on principle, at the cost of needless losses. Or to abandon them without any announcement, exposing the population to the German arrival. It was also a symbolic decision: to accept the occupation of British soil.