Comment by kergonath
10 hours ago
> it's so famous and moving because the agency of everyday Englishmen saved the war effort
The day was more saved by lots of French soldiers who fought heroically, quite a few of them to end up stranded and then utterly forgotten in the British collective memory. Had they not held the Germans for so long, there would not have been that many British to send across the channel. The standard British vision of Dunkirk is highly misleading.
Besides the point. Human agency shaped the fate of the nation. Yes the French were necessary, but they also caused the encirclement in large part. The situation can obviously not be summed up in a single line. The relevant point though is that the example doesn't make much sense in context of the belief that men are powerless to shape their fate.