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warspite1 -> RE: New Dunkirk Trailer (7/29/2017 6:20:40 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: radic202
.....when you come to think about it, absolutely nobody from either side can claim any kind of victory in Dunkirk!
warspite1
I must say I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement.
You say no one can claim any kind of victory? But victory was survival. Sure, what was achieved at Dunkirk was not a Midway or a Bagration type victory, it was not a Jena-Auerstadt or a Trafalgar type victory. But in getting the army back home, it ensured the war would go on, it ensured the UK and the Commonwealth were not going to come to some accommodation with Adolf Hitler.
Germany
Case Yellow was a stunning victory for the Germans (and Case Red completed that victory) but that victory was marred by the fact that the British – its army intact – stayed in the game, and so the seeds sowed at Dunkirk helped lead to ultimate Allied victory.
France
The reason that Dunkirk is not so significant to the French (and this comment in no way undermines their heroism in the defence of Dunkirk and their naval efforts during the evacuation too – which need to be remembered) is that it was an evacuation of circa 120,000 men yes, but the vast majority of those men returned to France and sadly, within a short space of time, to surrender, to Vichy and to prisoner of war camps. Understandably France doesn’t see Dunkirk in the same way therefore.
United Kingdom/Commonwealth
Even if we forget for a moment the high level strategic arguments, given the situation that all sides were presented with at the end of May 1940, tactically Dunkirk must be seen as a defeat for the Germans. In that period they actually lost more aircraft than the British. No way, should the Allies have been able to evacuate that number of men - many plucked from the beaches and taken to waiting ships by the 'small boat flotilla'. Why wasn't the significance of the Mole - and there was just one of them - realised? Put the Mole out of action and Dunkirk ends very differently - but they never managed it. Incredible. And in a foretaste of what was to come, Dunkirk saw the in-fighting between the army and air force that was to afflict the German war machine again as the war progressed (not to mention the air force / navy shenanigans)...
But with the Germans having encircled the Allies, the worst was expected – even by those in the know. Getting 30,000 men back was seen as optimistic initially. Would the Government survive this? How does one fight on without an army? And at times like this it is important to remind oneself what a Nazi victory would mean; the plunging of Europe into a new Dark Age. But through heroic efforts of the British and their Allies, over 200,000 soldiers made it home. The success of Dunkirk made Sea Lion for all intents and purposes impossible, made continuation of the war possible, meant that Hitler would soon engage in a two front war that, as Napoleon found before him, is a really rather short-sighted thing to do. So yes, let’s be clear victory was Survival – and survival lead to Victory.
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