Following the First World War, Europe experienced 15 years of peace. In 1933, Adolf Hitler rose to power in the National German Workers Party. Hitler soon began to ignore the Treaty of Versailles and took the rest of Czechoslovakia and then invaded Poland in 1939. On 3rd September 1939, Britain and France declared war and Britain started preparing at home by issuing gas masks, food and evacuating kids to the countryside. However, for 6 months Hitler did Meanwhile, Hitler was quickly taking over Europe due to his ‘Blitzkrieg’ tactic. Blitzkrieg is a German term for ‘Lightning war’ which was designed to create disorganization among enemy forces and locally concentrated firepower. Blitzkrieg was based on speed, co-ordination and movement; the major science of this approach was the ability to get large mobile forces through weak points in the enemies’ defences and then cause damage when behind static lines. With large formations cut off from communication and logistics, pressure is then put on interior defences. This resulted in panic amongst the civilian population.
Moreover, numerous historians believe that the evacuation at Dunkirk should be viewed as a success as British troops were stuck at Dunkirk in between the German army who were advancing. The British army could have been wiped out, however 340 000 troops were rescued and the event also raised British morale. Despite this, alternatively several historians also believe that Dunkirk was a failure because 68 000 soldiers were either dead or missing and a disproportionate numbers of equipment, horses and ammunition were left