He becomes seen as “yesterday’s man and not the man to take forward.” On top of that, Bishop says, “He didn’t have the temperament” to lead the nation through a world war, and was mainly a peacetime leader. The failures of a campaign meant to stop the German advance in Norway caused a “huge uproar in Parliament and blame was generally thrust at Chamberlain,” says Reed.
That’s why the evacuation - dubbed “Operation Dynamo” - is also known as the “Miracle of Dunkirk.” Why did Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain step down?
Though war cabinet members prepared to consider peace talks with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, in the end - with the help of civilian boats - more than 300,000 British troops ended up getting rescued.
After a failed British attempt earlier that spring to prevent a German advance and a surprise blitzkrieg bombarding Holland and the French-Belgian border, Belgium and Holland surrendered and British troops in France were driven to the beach at the port of Dunkirk. 4 speech to Parliament about it -”we shall fight on the beaches…we shall never surrender” - the point at which Brits realized they could win the war. If you’ve already seen Dunkirk then you know why that May mattered, and historians consider Churchill’s Jun. “It was really the moment when Hitler could have won the war.” “It’s the most important moment in Churchill’s life and career and the most important historical turning point of the 20th century,” Bishop argues. Here’s a look at that pressure, and other historical context for other key scenes in the film, compiled with the help of the film’s historical advisor Phil Reed, director emeritus of the Churchill War Rooms, and Michael Bishop, Executive Director of International Churchill Society: Of all moments to focus on in Churchill’s 90-year life, what’s significant about the period of May and June 1940?
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