British popular culture glorifies the Dunkirk evacuation as a miracle, a moment of national pride, but was it really like that? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The question of whether the evacuation was a miracle is based on the false assumption that miracles exist in the first place. To a large extent, it was truly a humiliation. To claim that it was a miracle is to deify it; attribute an element of superstition and attempt to veil the rather chaotic and humiliating circumstances that led to the great escape in the first place. In this essay, the key debate surrounding this issue will be addressed by analyzing contemporary views on the evacuation through the lens of primary sources, the details of the rather chaotic and humiliating evacuation itself, and the perspective of British popular culture and modern historians . the Dunkirk performance was hyped and highly censored. He used unifying and emotional titles to mask the humiliation. The national media (under strict instructions) used clearly propagandistic headlines such as "335,000 troops saved by this miracle" and "4000 chose death over surrender" as a deliberate ploy that played on the "spirit of Dunkirk" to rile a nation that he was on his knees. However, Churchill bluntly described the Battle of France as “a colossal military disaster” and famously reminded citizens that wars are not won by evacuations. However, he also considered the evacuation a "miracle of liberation" and attention was focused on the incredible number of troops saved. Of course, if taken at face value, the evacuation can be seen as a "miracle" for this reason and highlights the ingenuity of the British in accomplishing this feat in just eight days. Taylor complements this view, regarding Dunkirk as "both a great liberation and a great disaster" at the same time, highlighting the difficulty of the debate over how to classify it. A clear appeal was made to the public to get behind the war effort, as seen in the emphasis on the role played by "little ships" and the stories of ordinary people who became heroes. Furthermore, following the fall of Belgium and France soon after the evacuation, this was seen as the “miracle” needed to ensure that Britain continued to stand alone as a bastion of freedom and civilization in Europe. Therefore, for contemporaries, the evacuation was largely seen as a miracle simply because of the emotional reaction of the return of loved ones from such a terrible situation. The humiliation was subordinated to the sense of national unity; a duty to defend our defeated but not conquered nation from the clutches of tyranny. However, when we are not blinded by emotion, it is clear that the evacuation was an absolute military humiliation. Once again, I refer to Churchill's speech in the House of Commons that "wars are not won by evacuations". The Battle of Dunkirk was chaotic, and the evacuation itself (which on the surface seems so miraculous) was fraught with great humiliation. The War Cabinet, for example, harshly criticized the French in their reports on the evacuation. It notes the "inability of the French navy to assist in the evacuation", their failure to respect the agreement of the British and French soldiers evacuated on their own ships, and the chaotic failure of the French High Command to issue evacuation orders. Such disagreement and tension between the English and the French is absent in popular knowledge of the event and adds to the chaotic and humiliating nature of the’.