Battle of Dunkirk

1. Battle of Dunkirk Also known as the Dunkirk Evacuation and Operation Dynamo May 27 to June 4, 1940 The Battle of Dunkirk was located in the northern part of France in a place called Dunkerque. And across the English Channel.

2. No actual fighting occurred, Dunkirk was an evacuation of the British troops caused by a German attempt to attack the British. The German‘s equipment was far superior to the French, British, and Belgian governments. So the British were forced to flee across the English channel.

3. Events Leading up to Dunkirk: The border between France and Germany was defended by an series of forts on the Maginot Line. If Germany wanted to invade France it couldn't do it through there. England and France thought Germany would invade south through the Netherlands and Belgium. The British and French piled up against the Belgium border, waiting for the Germans. The German's waited until almost all the Allied armies had passed northward, then launched the real invasion. As a result, the British and French armies were cut off, with the whole German army lying between them and France. The British were left trying to make their way back to the coast as best they could before they were destroyed by the Germans. Which lead them to the evacuation of Dunkirk.

4. The Germans failed to overwhelm the allies so a rescue plan was launched to save the hundreds of thousand soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk.

5. Not only large ships were used to rescue the troops, but also small privately owned ones.

6. About 338,000 soldiers were rescued.

7. Britain thought Dunkirk was a success because the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) evacuated most of the troops there. British soldiers that were rescued were then able to fight again. It gave the British and their Allies time to regroup, retrain, re-arm and go back and win the war. If the Germans had captured all the troops at Dunkirk, we might not have won the war.

8. Hitler thought it was a disaster because all those soldiers got away, and he didn’t successfully complete his blitzkrieg. But it was also a win for him because the British left behind tanks and guns that the German forces then captured.

9. Works cited: • http://www.harborheroes.org/dunkirk.html • http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/kent/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8692000/8692901.stm • http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/765004.stm • http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/dunkirk.htm • http://www.dover-kent.co.uk/history/ww2b_dunkirk.htm • http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/maginot_line.htm

10. Occupation of France • France and Britain assisted the Polish military by doing absolutely nothing • After Poland’s fall, there was no major military activity for eight months except for a Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway. In May 1940 they steamrolled into the Low Countries (Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg) and France, and crushed the Allied armies in a stunning six-week campaign. The Germans achieved in 6 weeks what they couldn't do in 4 years in WWI • The French lost for many reasons, but cowardice was not one of them. Hitler threw the manpower and industrial resources of over 80,000,000 Germans against 40,000,000 Frenchmen. The French did not have, and could not have had, the military and industrial power to beat Germany.

11. France was beaten because Germany was enormously superior to France in manpower, equipment, resources, armament, and strategy. Germany had the incalculable advantage of having planned an offensive, Blitzkrieg war - while France devoted its energies and training entirely to defensive measures.

12. Vichy France: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity Work, Family, Fatherland • After being defeated, the French government signed an armistice with the Germans. The north of France would be under German military control. The south would be a “free zone” where there would be limited self-rule. • Vichy France, formally known as the “French State”, would rule in the south (although technically it had jurisdiction in the occupied north). Most of France’s overseas colonies remained loyal to Vichy. • The government was an authoritarian state, headed by Marshal Philippe Petain, a much beloved war hero from WWI. Other (in)famous figures in the government includes Pierre Laval, a very controversial figure who signed orders to deport foreign Jews from France to the death camps

14. Collaboration • Headed by Petain, state collaboration at the highest levels was common, and was sometimes done in shameful levels • An example of this is the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. Under demand by the Nazis, French police initiated a mass arrest and raid of 13,000 people in Paris and held them in the Winter Veldrome under horrible conditions. The 13,000 people were sent to an internment camp at Drancy, then shipped to Auschwitz. Only 400 returned after the war. • State collaboration came in many other forms: economic (requiring workers to serve in Germany; quite a few of these workers would refuse and flee to join the Resistance), military (French volunteers would fight on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union), and socially (Vichy aligned its racial policies similar to Nazi Germany's, and its participation in the Holocaust is well known).

17. Resistance: Myth, Reality • Resistance started as soon as the Occupation began, but the Resistance would not be a unified movement until much later in the war • People from all walks of life joined the Resistance: conservative Roman Catholics, including priests; members of the Jewish community; citizens from the ranks of liberals, anarchists, and communists; anti-fascist Germans and Spaniards; the list goes on • The Resistance, far too often warped as a “heroic” or “romantic” movement, was in fact plagued by many problems including Nazi/Vichy sympathizers or spies. Life, in general, was often grim and sometimes even bleak • The Germans destroyed 344 communities (62 completely) for "crimes" not connected with military operations.

18. What did the Resistance contribute to the war? • They sabotaged war production and power plants • They organized armed groups which harassed the German police, the Gestapo, and the Vichy militia. • They acted as a great spy army for the Allies in London. They transmitted as many as 300 reports a day to the Allies • Hid, clothed, fed, and smuggled over 4000 American and British pilots out of France. Every Allied airman rescued meant half a dozen French lives were risked.

19. The Free French Forces • Often confused with the Resistance, the Free French was the military arm of Charles de Gaulle's “Free France” government in exile. They were French military forces who continued to fight with the Allies. • In 1940, as German armies overran France, Charles de Gaulle, a brigadier general in the army, fled the country to Britain. There he called for all Frenchman to continue fighting, and said in his famous radio broadcast, “France has lost the battle, but not the war!” De Gaulle was tried in absentia in Vichy France and sentenced to death for treason • De Gaulle was one of the few French advocates for mobile, offensive warfare, but his theories were applied far too late. He actually won a few minor victories during the fall of France, which was significant in an ocean of French defeats

20. The Free French contribution • Fought in Africa, in Sicily, liberated Corsica, fought in Italy, took part in the invasion of Europe and fought through the battles of France and Germany -- from Normandy to Munich. • The Free French Army was largely made up of soldiers from France's colonies. Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Chad, etc. Most of the Free French Navy, Air Force and commando units were from metropolitan France • Even after France was liberated, colonial soldiers would make up a good chunk of the French military