[Kiwiwriter]

If the British Army had not been successfully evacuated from Dunkirk, the loss of manpower and morale would have been fatal. Dunkirk brought the entire British people into what had been a very "phoney" and distant war. They were in the finals now, and they knew it. The determination displayed carried over into "Spitfire Summer." Saving the army gave them the men they needed, if not the arms, to hold on. It also strengthened Churchill's position with his own party and cabinet members who sought to negotiate a peace with Hitler. Such a peace would have been no peace at all, and merely given Hitler what Germany planned for...to fight a series of short, aggressive victorious wars. The Germans would have had time to regroup, without being bombed nightly, and prepare to launch a well-organized invasion of Britain, against a weakened Britain, led by a defeatist government. I think the British would have lost the war.