Estimated total casualties 20,000 killed or wounded Luxembourg The Netherlands Belgium France Britain 1941–1943 1944–1945 Germany Strategic campaigns The Battle of Dunkirk (French: Bataille de Dunkerque) was fought around the French port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) during the Second World War, between the Allies and Nazi Germany.

The army was to halt for three days, which gave the Allies sufficient time to organise the Dunkirk evacuation and build a defensive line.

To the dictator the rapid movement of the Army, whose risks and prospects of success he did not understand because of his lack of military schooling, became almost sinister.

The day's entry concludes with the remark: "The task of Army Group A can be considered to have been completed in the main"—a view which further explains Rundstedt's reluctance to employ his armoured divisions in the final clearing-up stage of this first phase of the campaign.

The bad weather has grounded the Luftwaffe and we must now stand and watch countless thousands of the enemy get away to England right under our noses.

General Hans Jeschonnek overheard Hitler explaining his halt before Dunkirk: "The Führer wants to spare the British a humiliating defeat."

Von Rundstedt advised him the infantry should attack the British forces at Arras, where the British had proved capable of significant action, while Kleist's armour held the line west and south of Dunkirk to pounce on the Allied forces retreating before Army Group B. Hitler, who was familiar with Flanders' marshes from the First World War, agreed.

One theory is that Von Rundstedt and Hitler agreed to conserve the armour for Fall Rot ("Case Red"), an operation to the south.

True, in his political testament dated 26 February 1945 Hitler lamented that Churchill was "quite unable to appreciate the sporting spirit" in which he had refrained from annihilating [the] British Expeditionary Force, at Dunkirk, but this hardly squares with the contemporary record.

The three days thus gained gave a vital breathing space to the Royal Navy to arrange the evacuation of the British and Allied troops.

[17] On 26 May, Anthony Eden told Gort that he might need to "fight back to the west", and ordered him to prepare plans for the evacuation, but without telling the French or the Belgians.

The Le Paradis massacre took place that day, when the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf machine-gunned 97 British and French prisoners near the La Bassée Canal.

[23] Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, commanding II Corps, was to conduct a holding action with the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 50th Divisions along the Ypres-Comines canal as far as Yser, while the rest of the BEF fell back.

A confused battle followed, where visibility was low because of forested or urban terrain and communications were poor because the British at that time used no radios below battalion level and the telephone wires had been cut.

[27] The route back from Brooke's position to Dunkirk passed through the town of Poperinge (known to most British sources as "Poperinghe"), where there was a bottleneck at a bridge over the Yser canal.

Although completely cut off and heavily outnumbered, the French fought on for four days under General Molinié in the Siege of Lille, thereby keeping seven German divisions from the assault on Dunkirk and saving an estimated 100,000 Allied troops.

[32] In recognition of the garrison's stubborn defence, German general Kurt Waeger granted them the honours of war, saluting the French troops as they marched past in parade formation with rifles shouldered.

The situation grew so desperate that two British battalion commanders manned a Bren gun, with one colonel firing and the other loading.

A few hours later, the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards of the 3rd Division, rushed to reinforce the line near Furnes, where the British troops had been routed.

Strangely, von Küchler ignored a radio intercept telling him the British were abandoning the eastern end of the line to fall back to Dunkirk itself.

Enduring concentrated German artillery fire and Luftwaffe strafing and bombs, the outnumbered French and British stood their ground.

In the nine days from 27 May to 4 June 338,226 men escaped, including 139,997 French, Polish, and Belgian troops, together with a small number of Dutch soldiers, aboard 861 vessels (of which 243 were sunk during the operation).

[39][41][43] The docks at Dunkirk were too badly damaged to be used, but the east and west moles (sea walls protecting the harbour entrance) were intact.

[45] Following the events at Dunkirk, the German forces regrouped before commencing operation Fall Rot, a renewed assault southward, starting on 5 June.

Although the French soldiers who had been evacuated at Dunkirk returned to France a few hours later to stop the German advance and two fresh British divisions had begun moving to France in an attempt to form a Second BEF, the decision was taken on 14 June to withdraw all the remaining British troops, an evacuation called Operation Aerial.

Officers told troops falling back from Dunkirk to burn or otherwise disable their trucks (so as not to let them benefit the advancing German forces).

The evidence of God's intervention was clear for those who wished to see it; papers had written of calm seas and the high mist which interfered with the accuracy of German bombers.A marble memorial to the battle stands at Dunkirk.

[citation needed] A considerable number of British troops remained in France after Dunkirk to the south of the River Somme.

[50] After learning that most of the 51st Division had surrendered, having been cut off at St Valery-en-Caux on the Channel coast, Brooke spoke to Churchill by telephone on 14 June and persuaded him to allow the evacuation of all the remaining British forces in France.

In Operation Aerial, 144,171 British, 18,246 French, 24,352 Polish and 1,939 Czech troops were embarked in ships at several major ports along the west coast of France and returned to England, along with much of their equipment.