largest tank battle in ww2 miracle of dunkirk

On May 28, when the feckless Belgian king surrendered to Hitler, Churchill wrote in a telegram: “Our only hope is victory and England will never quit the war whatever happens till Hitler is beat or we cease to be a state.” That was a misreading of Churchill, if not a self-serving revision of history. In 1945, as Hitler faced his own end, he complained that in 1940 he had given Churchill “a sporting chance” that Churchill had failed to reciprocate.

Without the successful evacuation of what was left of the British Expeditionary Force, BEF, Churchill might well have been out-maneuvered by colleagues ready to do a deal with Hitler.Īs it was, few leaders in history have been saved so dramatically in such a marginal situation as Churchill was in those few hours in May. His position, like that of Britain, was tenuous. Twelve days before the panzers were halted, Winston Churchill had become prime minister. Instead, the allied forces gained just enough time to be evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in the epic action now graphically recreated in Christopher Nolan’s movie, Dunkirk. What is not disputed is that if the panzers had been allowed to roll onward during those two days they could have driven the opposing British and French forces into the sea. Just why this happened, and on whose orders, has been disputed for decades by historians. His panzer corps-fast-moving tank-led army divisions-had ripped through the defenses of France and Belgium and had trapped the British in a shrinking enclave around the French port of Dunkirk.īut then, on May 22, the panzers were halted by orders from above, and again on May 23.

So it was in northern France in May 1940.Īt this moment Adolf Hitler was in a position to deliver such a devastating military defeat to the British that they might never have recovered. When the outcome of a war is decided in a matter of hours, years before it actually ends, those involved rarely know it.

Largest tank battle in ww2 miracle of dunkirk