National Unity in Times of Crisis, Part 1: World War 2 | By Vikrant Sharma
National Unity in Times of Crisis, Part 1: World War 2 By Vikrant Sharma Founder-Editor, The Global Telescope The United Kingdom in 1940 was standing at the gates of defeat and German occupation. On May 11, Neville Chamberlain was forced to resign, and Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was chosen to lead a coalition government that was stitched together to survive the war. In the month of May 1940, Germany successfully invaded Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium. France fell the following month. USA had not yet entered the war and wouldn’t do so for another year and a half. Germany was at Britain’s doorstep. Britain was alone, and Germany looked unstoppable. One of the last frontiers in France was the seaside town of Dunkirk, where British and French troops had been pushed back. The land had ended, and with Germany advancing, they had no where to go. It was a disaster. More than 400,000 Allied men were stuck in Dunkirk, with nowhere to go. Lying between Dunkirk and Engl