- Hardcover: 720 pages
- Publisher: Viking; First Edition First Printing edition (1 Jun 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0670910821
- ISBN-13: 978-0670910823
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 4.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
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- #35 in Books > History > Military History > World War II > Dunkirk
Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man
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More About the Author
Product Description
Tim Gardam, The Times
‘A searing story . . . both meticulous military history and a deeply moving testimony to the extraordinary personal bravery of individual soldiers’
Richard Overy, Telegraph
‘Sebag-Montefiore tells [the story] with gusto, a remarkable attention to detail and an inexhaustible appetite for tracking down the evidence’
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A strong account of individual bravery,
By RogerTheCat (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man (Hardcover)
I inherited an interest in WW2 from my history teacher father and have read many factual accounts from both the Allied and German perspective over the years. This book stands up well against the more recognised military historians like Holmes, Keegan or Beevor.
After the introducions and background are completed this volume concentrates quite rightly on the tales of each beleagured BEF battalion as they fought a desperate rearguard action back to the French and Belgian coast. Tales of individual heroism and leadership are intermingled with corroborative texts from both British and German archives and extracts that give the bigger picture as events unfolded. The Dunkirk evacuation ended a huge defeat for the British Army and this book does not seek to hide or diminish that fact. However what it does do is demonstrate the resolute attitude of the Officers and Soldiers on the ground that took huge casualties and made great personal sacrifiuces in order to help ensure that as many men as possible could be extracted to fight another day.
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating and enthralling account,
By Pillboxer1940 (Walmington-on-Sea, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man (Paperback)
Popular history recalls the Dunkirk story with a chin-up, shiny spirit of resilience and crafty British guile - the first `Great Escape'. `Dunkirk spirit' has now become a tabloid byword for cheery, bulldog tenacity in the face of adversity.
But Sebag-Montefiore's incisive history pulls no punches and wipes the grin off the face of popular myth. He shows how one of Britain's landmark historical moments of the last century was actually tarnished by desperate, bloody fighting with no quarter spared. Accepted history concentrates on what happened on the beaches. However the author says the battles that really counted occurred several miles inland on the Dunkirk town perimeter. Here, British troops fought a dwindling rearguard last stand, giving their lives so other troops could live. For each soldier's life lost, precious minutes were gained to aid the evacuation and ensure the British Army could live to fight another day. And the battle didn't end with the last bedraggled Tommy boarding the last departing ship from Dunkirk. For a further fortnight, stranded British troops retreated in the face of dive-bombers and SS massacres, culminating with a final evacuation from St. Nazaire and the hushed-up sinking of the Lancastria, with the loss of 3,500 men. In-depth research gathered from archives as far away as Russia and Czechoslovakia, together with detailed maps, fascinating photographs and stark first-hand accounts from the remaining handful of veterans, do the Dunkirk story justice. This weighty tome is masterly and scholarly, yet its fast, clear pace makes this definitive work highly readable.
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Detailed But Limited,
By Jon Latimer (Wales) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man (Paperback)
The `miracle' of Dunkirk, as Churchill styled our most famous military disaster, is one surrounded by myths. This book sets out to dispel some of them, but for readers unfamiliar with the story of the fall of France in 1940, it might not be the best place to start, as it does not convey the broad picture very clearly. An entertaining opening of British soldiers visiting French brothels, like children let loose in a sweet shop, is followed later by a detailed account of the `Mechelen incident', when German plans were captured in January 1940. But the implications are less well dealt with, and Colonel-General Gerd von Rundstedt, whose forces performed the decisive German attack through the Ardennes called 'sichelschnitt', or sickle-cut, does not make an appearance until chapter 11.
The use of first-hand accounts conveys the confusion and desperation of the fighting, and the narrative is sometimes intensely personal. There are French and German voices early on, but thereafter it relies on British ones as the book concentrates on the efforts of the soldiers holding the defensive ring while the `little boats' and the Royal Navy set about the work of evacuation. In this it succeeds in creating a vivid impression of what it was like for those desperate men. The book's best sections are those dealing with set pieces, such as the defence of the village of Cassel, the massacres of British prisoners by SS men at Le Paradis and Wormhout, but this is at the expense of the evacuation itself which is covered in much less detail. The book finishes describing the capture of two-thirds of 51st (Highland) Division at St Valery-en-Caux, and the tragic sinking of the Lancastria with over 3,500 lives lost, but it skates quickly over the further evacuations that brought 144,000 British servicemen back from France from points south of the River Somme.
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