The Battle of Dunkirk was a conflict between French and British allies and German forces in 1940 during the Second World War.
Battle of Dunkirk, Raid on Dunkirk or Siege of Dunkirk may also refer to:
The Battle of Dunkirk was fought around the French port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) during the Second World War, between the Allies and Nazi Germany. As the Allies were losing the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defence and evacuation of British and other Allied forces to Britain from 26 May to 4 June 1940.
Dunkirk is a commune in Nord, a French department in northern France. It lies 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the Belgian border. It has the third-largest French harbour. The population of the commune at the 2016 census was 91,412.
The military history of the United Kingdom in World War II covers the Second World War against the Axis powers, starting on 3 September 1939 with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France, followed by the UK's Dominions and Crown colonies, on Nazi Germany in response to the invasion of Poland by Germany. There was little, however, the Anglo-French alliance could do or did do to help Poland. The Phoney War culminated in April 1940 with the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. Winston Churchill became prime minister and head of a coalition government in May 1940. The defeat of other European countries followed – Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France – alongside the British Expeditionary Force which led to the Dunkirk evacuation. Britain and its Empire continued the fight alone against Germany. Churchill engaged industry, scientists and engineers to advise and support the government and the military in the prosecution of the war effort. Germany's planned invasion of the UK was averted by its failure to establish air superiority in the Battle of Britain, and by its marked inferiority in naval power. Subsequently, urban areas in Britain suffered heavy bombing during the Blitz in late 1940 and early 1941. The Royal Navy sought to blockade Germany and protect merchant ships in the Battle of the Atlantic. The Army counter-attacked in the Mediterranean and Middle East, including the North-African and East-African campaigns, and in the Balkans.
The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week Battle of France. In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called this "a colossal military disaster", saying "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. In his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a "miracle of deliverance".
The European theatre of World War II was the main theatre of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the Western Allies conquering most of Western Europe, the Soviet Union conquering most of Eastern Europe and Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. The Allied powers fought the Axis powers on two major fronts as well as in a strategic bombing offensive and in the adjoining Mediterranean and Middle East theatre.
Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB, KBE, MVO was a Royal Navy officer. He commanded the destroyer HMS Broke during the First World War. In the Second World War, he was responsible for the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 and planning and commanding the naval forces in the invasion of France in 1944.
The Battle of the Mediterranean was the name given to the naval campaign fought in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, from 10 June 1940 to 2 May 1945.
The Free Belgian forces were soldiers from Belgium and its colonies who fought as part of the Allied armies during World War II, after the official Belgian surrender to Nazi Germany. It is distinct from the Belgian Resistance which existed in German-occupied Belgium.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to World War II:
The Siege of Dunkirk in World War II began in September 1944, when Allied units of the Second Canadian Division surrounded the fortified city and port of Dunkirk. The siege lasted until after the official end of the war in Europe. German units within the fortress withstood probing attacks and as the opening of the port of Antwerp was more important, the 21st Army Group commander, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, decided to contain but not capture Dunkirk with the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade. The fortress, commanded by Admiral Friedrich Frisius, eventually surrendered unconditionally to Brigadier General Alois Liška, the commander of the Czechoslovak brigade group, on 9 May 1945, a day after the surrender of Nazi Germany took effect.
The siege of Lille, or Lille pocket, took place during the Battle of France in the Second World War. The siege around the city of Lille took place between the French IV Corps and V Corps of the First Army and four German infantry divisions supported by three panzer divisions.
The Flanders Campaign was conducted from 6 November 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the French Revolutionary Wars. A Coalition of states representing the Ancien Régime in Western Europe – Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Hanover and Hesse-Kassel – mobilised military forces along all the French frontiers, with the intention to invade Revolutionary France and end the French First Republic. The radicalised French revolutionaries, who broke the Catholic Church's power (1790), abolished the monarchy (1792) and even executed the deposed king Louis XVI of France (1793), vied to spread the Revolution beyond France's borders, by violent means if necessary.
Battle of Alexandria, Raid on Alexandria, or Siege of Alexandria may refer to one of these military operations fought in or near the city of Alexandria, Egypt:
The Battle of Boulogne in 1940 was the defence of the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer by French, British and Belgian troops in the Battle of France during the Second World War. The battle was fought at the same time as the Siege of Calais, just before Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk. After the Franco-British counter-attack at the Battle of Arras on 21 May, German units were held ready to resist a resumption of the attack on 22 May. General der Panzertruppe (Lieutenant-General) Heinz Guderian, the commander of XIX Corps, protested that he wanted to rush north up the Channel coast to capture Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk. An attack by part of XIX Corps was not ordered until 12:40 p.m. on 22 May, by which time the Allied troops at Boulogne had been reinforced from England by most of the 20th Guards Brigade.
The Siege of Dunkirk in 1658 was a military operation by the allied forces of France and Commonwealth England intended to take the fortified port city of Dunkirk, Spain's greatest privateer base, from the Spanish and their confederates: the English royalists and French Fronduers. Dunkirk was a strategic port on the southern coast of the English Channel in the Spanish Netherlands that had often been a point of contention previously and had changed hands a number of times. Privateers operating out of Dunkirk and other ports had cost England some 1,500 to 2,000 merchant ships in the past year. The French and their English Commonwealth allies were commanded by Marshal of France Turenne. The siege would last a month and featured numerous sorties by the garrison and a determined relief attempt by the Spanish army under the command of Don Juan of Austria and his confederate English royalists under Duke of York and rebels of the French Fronde under the Great Condé that resulted in the battle of the Dunes.
Siege of Antwerp may refer to: