Although buoyed by the retreat, Winston Churchill also countered with a dose of reality that hard fighting was still ahead, saying “we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory … Wars are not won by evacuations.”
The greatest aid in the ally’s escape strangely came from Adolf Hitler himself, who, likely fearing an Allied counterattack, halted Nazi armored forces bearing down on Dunkirk for two days. Those 48 hours were vital in the Allied effort to rescue the soldiers cornered on the European continent. Although buoyed by the retreat, Winston Churchill also countered with a dose of reality that hard fighting was still ahead, saying “we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory … Wars are not won by evacuations.”