History Year 11 Dunkirk

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Anna Woodall  11pf

‘Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster.’’ (AJP Taylor). Is there sufficient evidence in sources A to G to support this interpretation? Use the sources and knowledge from your studies to explain your answer.

There are many points to support both deliverance and disaster for Dunkirk. Sources A to G all show different things, some emphasizing deliverance, some disaster. Some of the sources may be regarded as inaccurate or biased. But each was made to convey a certain meaning.

Source A, for example, is a painting of Dunkirk beaches under attack. It is a composite painting, by official British war artist, Charles Cundall. As mentioned previously, the painting is a composite, meaning that the event portrayed never actually happened, rather it is a mixture of many different events, put together to show a certain atmosphere or to show the type of events which happened, through only one scene. Although the painting is useful in this effect, it also proves to be a drawback. Because the event pictured didn’t actually occur, we cannot use the ‘event’ as evidence, rather than the picture itself. Through the picture, we can gather a certain sense of either deliverance or disaster. From my point of view, I would say it emphasises disaster, rather than deliverance. Another point worth noting is the origin of the painting. It was painted by a British artist, this could indicate that this artist may have wanted to show Great Britain in a good light.

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Source B is a photograph, showing the men waiting to be rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk. In a certain aspect, it agrees with Taylor, because it would seem to be a disaster for the British as they are shown in retreat, and also, it shows that the men will be rescued, and they are all ok, which is positive for the British. The photograph may show these two points, but, as a photograph, it only shows one split second in time. It only shows one scene, and straight after the photo was taken, something could have happened to ...

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