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‘Hitler had scored a crushing victory at Dunkirk.’ Is this a valid interpretation?

 

With the forced evacuation of over 300,000 troops from the Normandy beaches, Hitler proclaimed himself ruler of Western Europe. Yet the fact that well over a quarter of a million troops had escaped from under the Nazis’ noses showed that he was not quite the master of all Europe, as one small island defiantly held out against Germany’s new-found might: Britain. However, in the short-term it was certainly true that Hitler’s victory was complete and crushing: France was overrun, a puppet government set up at Vichy, and the great British army had been forced to run away! They had even been forced to sink their own ally’s ships in order to prevent them from falling into German hands, a treachery the French have never quite forgiven. Hitler’s forces took 40,000 British prisoners alone; from just the British forces 1,200 field guns, 1,250 anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, 11,000 machine guns and 75,000 vehicles were taken as victory spoils. It seemed as though an invasion of Britain was imminent, and from this point Britain had no allies other than her commonwealth and overseas territories, while Germany was allied with Italy, Russia and Japan.

In the long run, however, Dunkirk looks somewhat more promising. The army evacuated from Dunkirk formed the nucleus around which the rest of the British forces were formed. Without them, Britain might well have been forced to ask Germany for terms since it would have had no way to resist the Nazis. Men rescued from Dunkirk went on to help win victories in the Battles of Britain, the Atlantic and El Alamein, and to form part of the D-Day invasions. Britain rallied behind them, perversely choosing to view Dunkirk as a victory as their new Prime Minister, Churchill, swore to fight on and never surrender. His inspiring speeches and the use of endless propaganda about Dunkirk ensured morale remained high, without which it is unlikely Britain could have won WWII.

On the one hand, Dunkirk was a crushing victory for Germany because, after all, the BEF had been beaten and forced to run away. George Fisher’s eyewitness account (source M5) states that British soldiers had ‘been marching 40 miles a day and it seemed like it was all cobblestones’. This is an eyewitness account so it is likely to be reliable as to the impressions of the soldiers and what it was really like, but it won’t tell the whole story and the facts may be inaccurate, though corroborated by Private Alf Leggett on the BBC TV documentary ‘Britain’s Finest Hour’. Even those rescued were totally demoralised with morale at rock bottom. Ivan Daunt’s account in source M2 says that ‘[the soldiers] were just so demoralised and humiliated… they [the Germans] were prepared for war and we weren’t.’ His account is back up by the article in source D9, showing that it was true for at least some of the soldiers on the beaches; however, none of the sources above put Dunkirk in context with what happened later- they just tell it as it was at the time- and as such fail to tell the whole story since after Dunkirk the British and their allies went on to win many crucial battles. The British Government, too, had their morale at an all time low, apart from the irrepressible Churchill: one Cabinet minister actually obtained suicide pills for himself and his family, he believed the Germans were so near to victory. The British people too felt the closeness of war for the first time as the noise of the gunfire at Dunkirk could be heard in Dover.

On the other hand, while the Germans may have technically been the victors at Dunkirk, their victory was certainly not completely crushing. The use of civilians in the Dunkirk evacuations was a masterstroke of publicity by the British Government, as individuals felt they had taken on Hitler and won, while the troops went on, as source B6 says, ‘to fight another day’. This is a cartoon of the time, and so shows the general mood of the public in its united optimism and defiance, though it may not give the whole story.

The RAF had lost fewer bombers in the skies over Dunkirk than the Luftwaffe had, so it was not a total victory for the Germans. Had the RAF lost here it is unlikely it would have had the resources and manpower to go on to win the crucial Battle of Britain and so repel the German invasion of Britain.

Most of the sources which show Dunkirk as a crushing victory for the Germans, such as D1, and D9, show only behaviour and feelings at the time of Dunkirk, and so do not put it in its proper context. After it, the British began to turn to turn the tide of war for the first time, winning the Battles of Britain, El Alamein and the Atlantic. It also has to be remembered that, after all, the British eventually won WWII- so they couldn’t have been that crushed by Dunkirk! And without the men that had been rescued from the Normandy beaches, they definitely couldn’t have fought on and done so.

In any case, not all the soldiers were demoralised after their rescue from Dunkirk. Eric Pemberton in source M1 states that “everybody helped everybody. On the beaches there was no panic.” This is an eyewitness account so is likely to be true to the spirit of the time, but as a single person speaking it is unlikely to be true for everyone and does not give the whole story of the feeling on the beaches. However, Stanley Allen, a seaman who help ferry soldiers across the Channel, corroborates M1 in sources M5, saying that “They [the soldiers] were tired and very, very, thirsty, but they hadn’t lost their spirit. On the contrary, some of them wondered why they were being taken off.” While an eyewitness account and so being unable to tell the whole story, Allen made five trips to Dunkirk taking off 800-900 men at a time, and so would have seen a large cross-section of soldiers and been well-placed to judge their general mood.

By simply hanging on in the crisis year of 1940, Britain proved to America that sending aid would not be wasted even though the America Ambassador Joseph Kennedy had been telling Roosevelt that all US aid would be wasted as Britain would be under German control within a few short weeks. This resulted in a lend-lease agreement between Britain and America, wherein the US pumped millions of dollars of money, arms and much-needed food into Great Britain, with Roosevelt proclaiming that ‘all aid short of war’ would be sent.

Dunkirk also showed weaknesses in the Nazis’ armour for the first time as bungles made by the commanders that resulted in an almost-complete evacuation came to light. Hitler’s strange and stupid order for the Panzer tanks to halt allowed many British troops to escape that would otherwise not have done so. Despite Churchill’s blatant contempt for the Nazi leader, Hitler believed that leaving the Allied troops trapped but alive in Normandy would persuade the British PM to make a deal with him that would conserve Nazi troops. He was very wrong, as Churchill swore never to surrender (source M6). Hitler also wanted to show off the prowess of his Luftwaffe as Goering rashly promised that he could obliterate the BEF and its allies from the air. However the skill and reckless daring of the RAF pilots who knew that they were fighting for their country’s survival, aided by unexpectedly bad weather, prevented the promised Luftwaffe victory, leaving the RAF with soaring morale preparatory for the Battle of Britain. By the time Hitler realised his mistakes and ordered the tanks to start moving again, it was too late: over a third of a million British, French and Belgian troops were safe on British soil. German losses as British troops fought ‘a fierce rearguard action’ (Source B1) and Luftwaffe losses over Dunkirk meant that Hitler was forced to call off any prospective invasion of Britain to conserve troops until the Luftwaffe had gained control of the skies above Britain and the Channel, giving Britain vital breathing space necessary to gear up for ‘total war’ as Churchill proclaimed, and so taking the pressure off Britain so that it, like its soldiers, could ‘live to fight another day’.

In conclusion, while many sources agree that Dunkirk was a crushing victory for Germany, they are always only focusing on the time itself and don’t put it in context, especially as they tend to be contempory of primary sources who wouldn’t have known the whole story. However, the sources which put Dunkirk in a better light for Britain are more numerous (as my internet searches revealed) and are mainly secondary sources written by historians who will have well-researched the topic and put Dunkirk in context as a pivotal event where the tide first began to turn for Britain.