223. Blood, toil, sweat and tears

223. Blood, toil, sweat and tears

This episode includes several extracts from recordings of speeches by Churchill, so that we can enjoy listening to his actual voice – on the other hand, I apologise for the background noise on the recordings, but they sound inauthentic if I try to remove it.

We also meet a number of people who will continue to have a significant role later: a man who deserves to be better-known, the brilliant theoretician and practitioner of armoured warfare (sadly on the German side), Heinz Guderian; Erwin Rommel; Charles de Gaulle; Friedrich Pauls, attending an enemy’s surrender now though better known for offering his own later; and Bertram Ramsay, another man who deserves to be far better known than he now is.

All this is against the background of the devastating defeat of British and French forces in France, once Germany decided to end the phoney war (which had already started to be a lot less phoney in Norway) and, using the Blitzkrieg tactics favoured by Guderian, of rapidly-advancing armoured forces backed by air support and followed by infantry, broke though the French defences and rounded on the British Expeditionary Force and French troops in Northeastern France, pinning them against the Channel coast.

Those Allied troops were caught in a vice that was closing on them. It was only the extraordinary ability of the man Churchill chose to organise their evacuation from Dukirk, Admiral Bertram Ramsay, and Churchill’s own leadership, that allowed Britain to save the core of its army from destruction.



Illustration: Troops waiting to be taken off the beaches at Dunkirk. Photo: EPA.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License


Avsnitt(275)

234. Fall of an iron curtain and of a jewel from the crown

234. Fall of an iron curtain and of a jewel from the crown

It was a strange world that emerged from the Second World War.Both genocide and the mass killing of civilians, above all through bombing, culminating with the A-bombs dropped on Japan, had become some...

9 Mars 202514min

233. Shocks and surprises at the war’s end

233. Shocks and surprises at the war’s end

Following the German surrender in May 1945, the ‘Big Three’ – the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain – met for the third and last time in conference. And this time, appropriately, they met on...

2 Mars 202514min

232. Bickering allies win in Europe

232. Bickering allies win in Europe

At the Yalta conference, between the US, the Soviet Union and Britain, the tensions between the Allies became increasingly obvious. Representing Britain, Churchill wanted the Allies’ war effort to be ...

23 Feb 202514min

231. Nazis facing defeat

231. Nazis facing defeat

By the time of the Yalta conference in February 1945, between the USA, Soviet Union and Britain, the latter still being treated as a great power though its decline was already clear, there could be li...

16 Feb 202514min

230. From Husky to Overlord, Sicily to the D-Day beaches

230. From Husky to Overlord, Sicily to the D-Day beaches

In 1943, Britain didn’t feel the Western Allies were ready yet for an invasion of France, and with its influence at the highest point it ever reached, it was able to persuade the Americans reluctantly...

9 Feb 202514min

229. The tide turns

229. The tide turns

The tide turned against the Axis and in favour of the Allies in the course of 1943. Victories at Stalingrad in Russia, in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in North Africa, came on top of American advan...

2 Feb 202514min

228. Turning points: 1943

228. Turning points: 1943

This is an episode for turning points. The year’s 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad, where the unstoppable German offensive into Russia was finally stopped and turned around, with Soviet forces essentia...

26 Jan 202514min

227. Tough times: 1941 and 1942

227. Tough times: 1941 and 1942

The years 1941 and 1942 were tough ones… Things were going badly in the Battle of the Atlantic, with Germany threatening to strangle Britain by sinking more merchant ships than the British could bear ...

19 Jan 202514min

Populärt inom Historia

kod-katastrof
massmordarpodden
historiska-brott
p3-historia
motiv
historiepodden-se
rss-historiska-brottslingar
olosta-mord
rss-historien-om
rss-seriemordarpodden
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
krigshistoriepodden
rss-massmordarpodden
mannen-utan-spar
nu-blir-det-historia
obskyr-historia
bedragare
rss-folkets-historia
militarhistoriepodden
harrisons-dramatiska-historia