[22] As of August 2019, approximately 5% of 2000 people surveyed had used the free bus service to completely replace their cars.[23]. Understand []. [11] On 1 January 1918, the United States Navy established a naval air station to operate seaplanes. Dunkirk, along with the rest of Flanders, was incorporated into the Habsburg Netherlands and upon the 1581 secession of the Seven United Netherlands, remained part of the Southern Netherlands, which were held by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands) as Imperial fiefs. He did take me to see the original film with Sir John Mills which he thought was a fairly close description of events and also years later took me and my brother to Dunkirk where we walked his battlefield. [10] The bombardment killed nearly 600 people and wounded another 1,100, both civilian and military, while 400 buildings were destroyed and 2,400 damaged. First mentioned in 1067 as Dunkerk (Flemish: “Church of the Dunes”), the town was besieged and sacked six times during the Middle Ages and was in the centre of conflicts between France, Spain, England, and Holland in the 16th and 17th centuries before it was finally recovered by France in 1662. The population of the commune at the 2016 census was 91,412. The Dunkirkers briefly lost their home port when the city was conquered by the French in 1646 but Spanish forces recaptured the city in 1652. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/place/Dunkirk-France, Dunkirk - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Nevertheless the general concept about Dunkirk is an evocative name that is synonymous to the Second World War. The surrounding wetlands were drained and cultivated by the monks of nearby Bergues Abbey. As a strategic point, Dunkirk has always been exposed to political greed, by Duke Robert I of Bar in 1395, by Louis de Luxembourg in 1435 and finally by the Austrian archduke Maximilian I of Habsburg, who in 1477 married Mary of Burgundy, sole heiress of late Duke Charles the Bold. England and France 1658–1659 The name Dunkirk derives from West Flemish "dun" (Dune) and "Kerke" (Church). Dunkirk is an American city. [17], On 14 December 2002, the Norwegian car carrier MV Tricolor collided with the Bahamian-registered Kariba and sank off Dunkirk Harbour, causing a hazard to navigation in the English Channel. Dunkirk, and the evacuation associated with the troops trapped on Dunkirk, was called a “miracle” by Winston Churchill. German occupation 1940–1945. To seize the now strategically insignificant town would consume too many Allied resources which were needed elsewhere. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, ordered any ship or boat available, large or small, to collect the stranded soldiers. However, Hitler exercised restraint at Dunkirk, halting his panzer tanks short of the seaport only days before the evacuation. [9][13] These decorations now appear in the city's coat of arms.[14]. Forced by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 to demolish the fortifications, France was not allowed to rebuild them until the late 18th century. Pop. Dunkirk contains intense and realistic sequences of war violence with many casualties by shooting, drowning, burning, and explosion shown. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Dunkirk’s great artificial port was largely rebuilt after 1945 and subsequently expanded to form a deepwater port and industrial zone to the west of the town. However, the film never lingers on the deaths and avoids showing blood and gore almost entirely. Dunkirk is a census-designated place (CDP) in Calvert County, Maryland, United States. The simple reason is that it was from Dunkirk and its 10-mile stretch of beaches that Britian evacuated a plethora of soldiers after the collapse of Belgium and eventually the collapse of France. [citation needed] The fortress, under the command of German Admiral Friedrich Frisius, eventually unconditionally surrendered to the commander of the Czechoslovak forces, Brigade General Alois Liška, on 9 May 1945. Dunkirk is located in the county of Staffordshire, West Midlands, two miles south-west of the town of Kidsgrove, five miles north-west of the major town of Newcastle-under-Lyme, 116 miles north of Cardiff, and 141 miles north-west of London. The principal exports are refined oil products and cereals. This clause was overturned in the subsequent Treaty of Versailles of 1783. The gap left by the Belgian Army stretched from Ypres to Dixmude. Dunkirk (2017) Movies, TV, Celebs, and more... Oscars Best Picture Winners Best Picture Winners Golden Globes Emmys STARmeter Awards San Diego Comic-Con New York Comic-Con Sundance Film Festival Toronto Int'l Film Festival Awards Central Festival Central All Events Forty thousand Allied soldiers (some who carried on fighting after the official evacuation) were captured or forced to make their own way home through a variety of routes including via neutral Spain. Until the middle of the 20th century, French Flemish (the local variety of the Dutch language) was commonly spoken in Dunkirk; it has largely been forsaken, although it can still be heard. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk is likely to be the most widely seen or read depiction of history released in 2017. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Dunkirk has a marine west coast climate, abbreviated "Cfb" on climate maps. Check if it is available to stream online via "Where to Watch". For the World War II evacuation, see, Subprefecture and commune in Hauts-de-France, France, (Description of contents of carte papers), Levine, Joshua (2017) Dunkirk, Harper Collins, New York, List of twin towns and sister cities in France, "Répertoire national des élus: les maires", "Correspondence and papers of the first Duke of Ormonde, chiefly on Irish and English public affairs: ref. Dunkirk's position in the North Sea and its proximity to the rich region of Flanders meant the town inevitably changed hands several times: in 1659 it belonged to the English; in 1662 it was bought back by Louis XIV. It took over 900 vessels to evacuate the BEF, with two-thirds of those rescued embarking via the harbour, and over 100,000 taken off the beaches. The following is an excerpt from TIME-LIFE’s new special edition, World War II: Dunkirk, available on Amazon. As most will know, Dunkirk was a famous Second World War evacuation effort of Allied troops from the beaches in and around the Northern French commune, which took place over 10 … Dunkirk (French: Dunkerque) is a small town on the coast of northern France.It is the northernmost city in France, lying about 6.2 miles from the Belgian border and was the scene of a massive miliary campaign during Word War Two. These shows were our lifeline this year. The eighteenth-century Swedish privateers and pirates Lars Gathenhielm and his wife Ingela Hammar, are known to have sold their gains in Dunkirk. However, according to the Official War Diary of Army Group A, its commander, Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, ordered the halt to allow maintenance on his tanks, half of which were out of service, and to protect his flanks which were exposed and, he thought, vulnerable. The Tour du Leughenaer (Tour du Leughenaer [fr]) (the Liar's Tower), The remains of the East Mole of Dunkirk harbour, pictured in 2009. It has the third-largest French harbour. 5 – date: 26 December 1662", http://www.professionalmariner.com/March-2008/The-Tricolor-Kariba-Clary-Incident/, http://www.lemonde.fr/nord-pas-de-calais-picardie/nord,59/dunkerque,59183/elections/presidentielle-2002/, http://www.worldshipping.org/about-the-industry/global-trade/ports, "French city of Dunkirk tests out free transport – and it works", "Dunkerque, France Köppen Climate Classification (Weatherbase)", "Normes et records 1961–1990: Dunkerque (59) – altitude 11m", "Canicule : la France a connu hier une chaleur record au niveau national", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dunkirk&oldid=1000681421, Port cities and towns on the French Atlantic coast, Recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom), Articles containing West Flemish-language text, Articles with Czech-language sources (cs), Short description is different from Wikidata, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Pages using infobox settlement with image map1 but not image map, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2011, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2007, Articles with French-language sources (fr), Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz area identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, 1970: Merger with Malo-les-Bains (which had been created by being detached from Dunkirk in 1881), 1980: Fusion-association with Mardyck (which became an, 1980: A large part of Petite-Synthe is detached from Dunkirk and included into, 2010: After a failed fusion-association attempt with, This page was last edited on 16 January 2021, at 05:42. Diese leben zumeist von der brachialen Action, den zahlreichen Gefechten und Kampfszenen und der Mission, der sich die Protagonisten stellen müssen. The British Expeditionary Force being surrounded by invading Germans at Dunkirk and evacuated from France by a motley rescue fleet of military ships and private boats; from. Dunkirk was again contested in 1944, with the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division attempting to liberate the city in September, as Allied forces surged northeast after their victory in the Battle of Normandy. Dunkirk Rebels 1577–1583 It has the third-largest French harbour. [15] Hitler merely validated the order several hours later. Several weeks after the scheme had been introduced, the city's mayor, Patrice Vergriete, reported that there had been 50% increase in passenger numbers on some routes, and up to 85% on others. Using this measurement and the latitudes of the two cities they could calculate the distance between the North Pole and the Equator in classical French units of length and hence produce the first prototype metre which was defined as being one ten millionth of that distance. Many wounded who were unable to walk were abandoned. The main character (and possible real prisoner) in the famous novel Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas was arrested at Dunkirk. It came under French rule when King Charles II of England sold it to France for £320,000[6] on 17 October 1662. However, the archduke defeated the French troops in 1479 at the Battle of Guinegate. Dunkirk Dunkirk is a town in the region of Hauts-de-France in France.The town is a historic resort, 10 km from the border with Belgium.If you're coming from the UK, it's a great place to start your journey further into the Continent, but also a great holiday… The artillery siege of Dunkirk was directed on the final day of the war by pilots from No. Dunkirk (UK: /dʌnˈkɜːrk/, US: /ˈdʌnkɜːrk/;[3][4] French: Dunkerque [dœ̃kɛʁk] (listen); French Flemish: Duunkerke; Dutch: Duinkerke(n) [ˈdœynkɛrkə(n)] (listen)) is a commune in Nord, a French department in northern France. Fighting in Belgium and France, the BEF and a portion of the French Army became outflanked by the Germans and retreated to the area around the port of Dunkirk. (1999) 97,957; (2014 est.) However, German forces refused to relinquish their control of the city, which had been converted into a fortress. Where is Dunkirk. 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