16 fev 1939 ano - The Dunkirk Evacuation

Descrição:

The Allies had fully realised the Northern front is fighting an unwinnable battle in Dunkirk and Calais so, they started to plan Operation Dynamo so they can evacuate the Allied forces from Flanders. During this, the British didn't inform the French of their intentions.

The soldiers that were fighting the Germans in Calais were under siege-

Under the cover of various ships from the British fleet and the remains of the RAF, they escorted 539 small civilian vessels from the city of Dover in southern England were all driven by a few retired naval officers, private civilians and the most unlikely of saviours who all began their dangerous and difficult mission to retrieve over 300,000 soldiers from the French city of Dunkirk to return home and that plan, by any account, was a resounding success.

Over 278,000 British and French troops were saved from certain capture by the Reich.

If it had not been for German Generals Kleist and Halder's paranoia that the Allies would break out to the east of Arras, Germany would have almost certainly captured the vast bulk of these forces.

Back at the home front as Prime Minister Halifax praised the effort by the British Navy and RAF - Winston Churchill would be the true star for the moment when he proclaimed to the House of Commons that this United Kingdom must "...go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..."
His speech was met with applause by many of his fellow Parliamentarian loyalists.

But for the Prime Minister, however, shared different views.

This was unquestionably a vast defeat in the eyes of Lord Halifax, and the tensions of a split in the Conservative and Unionist Party began between Halifax and Churchill as this growing battle would soon begin quietly in the back rooms of the Palace of Whitehall.

It won't be long till these two effective groupings of the Conservative and Unionist Party would be formed with Churchill's supporters seeking to avoid a surrender at all cost (as inspired by Churchill's leadership) while all supporters to Halifax (with the backing of the King) proclaimed that they recognised the clear reality of the situation that there was no way they could win this war while trying to protect their overseas colonial empire from attacks or financial ruin.

But the first battle of the Churchill-Halifax 'war' would be won decisively only days after its conception with the beginning of the renewed German offensive to be named Fall Rot.

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