{"id":10436,"date":"2017-08-03T15:44:34","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T22:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=10436"},"modified":"2017-08-03T15:44:34","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T22:44:34","slug":"miracle-at-dunkirk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/miracle-at-dunkirk\/","title":{"rendered":"Miracle At Dunkirk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
by <\/span>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Defining Ideas<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
Wednesday, August 2, 2017<\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

A quarter-million troops of the British Expeditionary Force, together with about 140,000 French and Belgian soldiers, were safely evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk, France between May 26 and June 4, 1940, in one of the largest successful maritime evacuations of trapped armies in military history. Most other marooned armies would likely have surrendered or been slaughtered on the beach by the seasoned German Panzers.<\/p>\n

The amazingly successful withdrawal allowed Britain to remain actively in the war, and gave inspiration for another quarter-million trapped British and French soldiers to escape across the channel in the next three weeks. Churchill, in the Periclean fashion of mixing encouragement with realist caution, reminded the beleaguered British people that such defiance presaged successful British resistance to Hitler\u2014while also reminding them that victory is never won through retreats.<\/p>\n

There is much to be said for the current blockbuster movie Dunkirk<\/em>, directed by Christopher Nolan. The cinematography of battle is excellent. The themes of confusion, paradox, irony, and unintended consequences in war are well captured through the mostly visual daylong odyssey of \u201cTommy\u201d (Fionn Whitehead). In near continual silence (dialogue is scant in Dunkirk<\/em>), Tommy seems to escape one disaster only to fall into another, in his Odysseus-like effort to get across the water to home.<\/p>\n

To read more: http:\/\/www.hoover.org\/research\/miracle-dunkirk?utm_source=hdr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017-08-03<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Defining Ideas Wednesday, August 2, 2017 A quarter-million troops of the British Expeditionary Force, together with about 140,000 French and Belgian soldiers, were safely evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk, France between May 26 and June 4, 1940, in one of the largest successful maritime evacuations of trapped armies in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1093,168,1,307],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2Ik","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12417,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/remembering-d-day-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":10436,"position":0},"title":"Remembering D-Day","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion in history since King Xerxes\u2019 480\u00a0bc\u00a0combined sea and land descent into Greece. The Americans, especially General George Marshall, had wanted to invade France as early as spring 1943, still confident from their World War I experience that they\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10859,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/civilizations-darkest-hour-hits-the-silver-screen\/","url_meta":{"origin":10436,"position":1},"title":"Civilization\u2019s \u2018Darkest Hour\u2019 Hits the Silver Screen","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/National Review A masterful new film shows how Churchill saved the world from Nazi Germany in May of 1940. \u00a0 The new film Darkest Hour offers the diplomatic side to the recent action movie Dunkirk. \u00a0 The story unfolds with the drama of British prime minister\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Churchill"","block_context":{"text":"Churchill","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/churchill\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9335,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/remembering-d-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":10436,"position":2},"title":"Remembering D-Day","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online \u00a0 D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion in history since King Xerxes\u2019 480 bc combined sea and land descent into Greece. The Americans, especially General George Marshall, had wanted to invade France as early as spring 1943, still confident from their World\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10260,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/remembering-d-day-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":10436,"position":3},"title":"Remembering D-Day","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson National Review's \"The Corner\" D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion in history since King Xerxes\u2019 480 BC combined sea and land descent into Greece. The Americans, especially General George Marshall, had wanted to invade France as early as spring 1943, still confident from their World War\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "U.K."","block_context":{"text":"U.K.","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/u-k\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5399,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bateman-encore\/","url_meta":{"origin":10436,"position":4},"title":"Bateman Encore","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media And on and on and on and on from the increasingly unhinged LTC Bateman\u2026. I devoted many thousands of words, in systematic fashion debunking one LTC Robert Bateman\u2019s charges and slurs (\u201cI take down\u201d, \u201cworst sort\u201d, \u201cfeces\u201d, \u201cpervert\u201d, \u201cdevil\u201d, etc). His first two attempts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2007"","block_context":{"text":"November 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/november-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8473,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/could-world-war-ii-have-ended-sooner-than-it-did\/","url_meta":{"origin":10436,"position":5},"title":"Could World War II Have Ended Sooner than It Did?","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Seventy-one years ago, the British, Canadians, and Americans landed on the Normandy beaches to open a second ground front against Nazi Germany. Operation Overlord \u2014 the Allied invasion of Western Europe \u2014 proved the largest amphibious operation in military history, dwarfing even Xerxes\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"George S. Patton (Library of Congress)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/pic_giant_072413_George-Patton-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10437,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10436\/revisions\/10437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}