Defeat, Deliverance or Victory? Which one of These Best Describes Dunkirk?

Defeat, Deliverance or Victory? Which one of these best describes Dunkirk?

On the 11th of May, 1940 German Wehrmacht unexpectedly evaded the Maginot line and burst through the Ardennes region of Southern Belgium based on the idea of Blitzkrieg, Ð''Lightening War' in which German panzers played the largest part. By 14th May of 1940, German tanks led by Heinz Guderian had crossed the River Meuse and had cut a fifty mile gap in the Allied front. Six days later they had reached the Channel. When the news broke out, Churchill, having realised German forces were too strong, ordered the implementation of "Operation Dynamo", a plan to evacuate the fully trained and equipped British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the Northern French port of Dunkirk, originally formulated by Vice Admiral Ramsey. German halt orders of the panzers facilitated a large part of the evacuation with troops helplessly trapped in a small pocket of land. The operation was put into action on the 27th May, 1940, lasting nine tireless days. The allied forces hugely underestimated the strength of Hitler's army; it resulted in a hasty retreat of the BEF where there seemed to be no other option but to evacuate the troops from the port or simply witness it get captured in its entirety.

Using any relevant evidence and my own background knowledge to suggest why Dunkirk was a Defeat for the British.

At an allied viewpoint Dunkirk can be described as a defeat in three different ways

1) The number of soldiers either killed or captured in action emphasising the disorderly and panicked nature of evacuation.

2) A visible decrease in morale and demoralisation amongst British armed forces and the British public as a result of the events at Dunkirk.

3) Military defeat, described as the large loss of craft i.e. planes, vehicles and ships, along with many thousands of tonnes of weaponry and equipment taking into account tanks, ammunition and guns, either lost or destroyed.

Many ships, equipment, troops, and ammunition were lost as a result of Dunkirk. This aspect of a military defeat also meant that the manner of evacuation wasn't so successful but rather disorderly, panicked and rushed. It had a big part to play in the escape of allied troops. Source 3 fails to criticise these aspects of defeat as it provides us with two snapshot images of sunken ships, along with murdered soldiers, and a numerable loss of equipment and vehicles. This image exposes the manner of withdrawal as desperate by British forces, with the devastation of troops at the time. Dunkirk was once used as a holiday resort area which had now turned into a war torn port in a matter of days. The source mentions "What had once been a seaside pleasure area turned into a deserted landscape". However, these 2 images only provide interpreters with a snapshot of what actually took place at Dunkirk and therefore we begin to question the sources' reliability. Furthermore, these images were most likely taken by the German forces as they are quite sad, dismal and unheroic. I believe the images were used as German propaganda to boost morale of German troops, as the source fails to show change within each image, this lack of change leads us to believe the source is not an accurate reflection of Dunkirk at the time. However, the evidence of this source rightly fit into my background knowledge of the topic, such as the accurate representation of ships and equipment lost during Dunkirk raids. The fact that this source is actually photographic evidence eliminates means of fabrication so the source is not lying and is less likely to be misinformed. The BEF fought a stubborn, if somewhat disorderly retreat and evacuation.

Source 2 is also very similar in stressing the desperate manner of evacuation as it may also have been taken by the Germans after the evacuation took place. It hints at the poor organisation and the lack of planning which meant that troops were doing everything they could to escape the formidable force of the Germans, this included building piers as a way to climb onto boats, ships and yachts. This signalled the tremendous loss of equipment, and the scale of the panicked and the disorderly nature of evacuation, "Queeues were now waiting in the waterÐ'... with increased panic by the minute". Source 8 is an artist's impression of Dunkirk. Troops are shown scattered around beaches with no orderly lines of troops (unlike soldiers photographed in source 6). Small boats were overcrowded and suffered as a result. Black plumes of smoke shrouded skies stressing the devastation caused by the German Luftwaffe which resulted in the disorderly and panicked nature of evacuation with the huge losses of equipment.

The defeat in terms of morale was very much widespread. Many were being sprayed with bullets which left troops frustrated because there was nothing they could do apart from "shoot their rifles at the planes" (source 19). The unstoppable Luftwaffe inflicted pain as soldiers witnessed their friends shot without being able to do anything about it which was mentally draining for many. This aspect of defeat for the British at Dunkirk is spoken about in source 7. The source describes a scene on the beach of Dunkirk at the night of 27th May, 1940 by a Private in the B.E.F. It rightly informs us of how men panicked while being bombed. The source also mentions how soldiers were fighting amongst each other to scramble onto evacuation boats, "I could see men swimming, fighting for boats" and the need of "naval officers using their revolvers". This statement optimises the scale of desperation so much so that soldiers began fighting for their lives, and scrambling for saviour. The Private doesn't forget to mention how soldiers "crouched into little pits" they had dug. This explains morale was extremely dented as soldiers had to fight one another to escape the living hell surrounding Dunkirk. To my knowledge the fact that the source is dated the 27th May does make the source less effective because this was the first day of evacuation where the operation was most likely to be panicked and disorderly. However the source agrees with my knowledge that overall morale was damaged. Blood stained soldiers were packed on to ships, no room for manoeuvre but it was to become the greatest rescue in Britain of all time.

Demoralisation is an aspect of defeat