(* Actually, this battle is strictly called the Battle of Dunes, which took place in the east of Dunkirk, but the beach is still there, and the Spitfire fighter may land here at the end of the movie).
Cromwell and Louis XIV, one is lord protector who shouted revolution and put the king on the guillotine, and the other is Sun King who tried his best to strengthen the centralization of monarchy and later invaded Britain militarily. Two seemingly incompatible rulers came together because of the interests of * * *.
1648 After the Thirty Years' War, the conflict between France and Spain continued, and the conflict between England and Spain also broke out. At that time, Spain sheltered and supported charles ii in exile, while Louis XIV was busy suppressing the rebellion of Spanish-supported stone throwers. 1657, Cromwell reached an agreement with Louis XIV, and Britain sent 6,000 new troops to fight a fleet under the command of Du Lunni (Marshal Touraine), then commander-in-chief of the French army. In return, Du Lunni should seize Dunkirk under Spanish control at that time and hand it over to Britain.
Historically, Britain did not completely break away from the blood spilled on the European continent as we imagined, but concentrated on developing its own colonial cause. This is a very unrealistic idea in Britain. In fact, Britain participated in most European wars to some extent. Cromwell wanted Dunkirk not to get the bridgehead of Europe, but because Dunkirk was the base of Spanish privateers at that time, and these Spanish privateers caused great losses to the British merchant fleet. Cromwell must pull out a threat in front of this door.
Cromwell put his new model army under the command of the French. After Li Sailiu, France has the most advanced military technology (such as detachable bayonets) and the most advanced military ideas (mostly from Gustav Adolphus, Sweden), as well as the two greatest strategists in Europe at that time-Du Lunni and Prince Conte (when Prince Conte joined the stone-throwing party to rebel against Louis XIV ...). Nothing can compare with the French army of 1940.
1658 in may, the British fleet blocked the port of Dunkirk. It is impossible for the Spaniards not to know such an obvious siege signal, but they think that Dunkirk is invulnerable as long as the floodgate is opened and the flood flows into the nearby lowlands. They still believe that Du Lunni will not attack this hard bone, but will attack Cambre in the south. Therefore, when Du Lunni broke through Dunkirk's peripheral defense and dug trenches at the edge of the city, the Spaniards were taken aback. Don Juan, the illegitimate son of King Philip IV, led the Spanish army to rescue Dunkirk. In order to hurry, the Spanish army didn't even bring artillery.
By the time Don Juan reached the periphery of Dunkirk, the British and French allied forces had already completed the siege of Dunkirk. Du Lunni left 6000 infantry to continue the siege of Dunkirk and turned against the Spanish. On June 14, the two sides fought on the beach in the northeast of Dunkirk. In addition to the 6,000 soldiers left by the French army to attack the city, Du Lunni also has15,000 British and French allied forces (including 6,000 new troops), 10 cannons for deployment, and can be supported by 12 British naval warships. The Spanish army has almost 15000 men, but its composition is quite mixed, including 2000 British royalist soldiers under the command of the Duke of York (later James II), German mercenaries, stone-throwing rebels and so on. These troops were under the unified command of Don Juan and supervised by Prince Conte who took refuge in Spain.
The armies of the two sides are arranged perpendicular to the coastline, soldier to pawn, horse to horse, reserve to reserve, and all phalanx troops are arranged neatly on the beach to face the enemy. The two fronts look impeccable, and the battle seems to be a hard tug-of-war. Only the wily Du Lunni had discovered the flaw of the Spanish front-the right wing, which was the weakness of the whole Spanish army. The right wing of the Spanish army faces the sea and is directly exposed to the gunfire of British warships at sea. Most importantly, after the ebb tide, the right wing of the entire Spanish army will no longer be near the sea, but will reveal a wide beach! Excellent regional awareness has helped a lot, and low tide is the key to success. Neither Tang Juan nor Conte realized this.
The battle began at about eight in the morning.
After the artillery fire was ready, the two sides began to compete for the commanding heights of the sand dunes on the right side of the center (the Spanish right wing and the French left wing). The British new model army rushed to the front, "everyone put on new red clothes and new shoes", and directly stormed the 46-meter-high sand dune, incredibly knocking down the Spanish phalanx defending the sand dune, showing Superman's fighting skills and fighting will. However, because it was too prominent, the two wings of the new model army were also exposed to the enemy. Duke of York led the British royalist cavalry to storm the flank of the new model army. The new model army and the royalist army met again in a foreign land, and soon they became red-eyed and anxious. Royalist cavalry slaughtered musketeers on the flank of the new model army, and Du Lunni dispatched French cavalry to support and defeated Spanish cavalry. The main French infantry also attacked the center of the Spanish front line from the middle road. The two fronts are like two ropes at the moment, tightly twisted together, and no one can escape.
The stalemate did not last long. As Du Lunni expected, the low tide came, and the situation soon became favorable to the French army. Due to the low tide, an empty beach appeared on the right wing of the Spanish army. Du Lunni decisively ordered the cavalry reserve to detour from this clearing to the right wing of the Spanish army. The cavalry marched on the wet beach, attacked along the coastline and swept across the Spanish front. Prince Conte of the left wing of the Spanish army repelled many attacks and even counterattacks by the right-wing French army with his excellent military talent. When it was discovered that the French cavalry had bypassed the right wing of the Spanish army, Conte decided to lead the cavalry to storm the front line of the French army in an attempt to break through the front line and reach Dunkirk City for guarding city. But this attack was turned back by Du Lunni, and he had expected it. In the fierce battle, Conte's mount was killed and almost captured.
Two hours after the fighting started, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, the Spanish right wing had been completely defeated, Conte's counterattack had all failed, Du Lunni's cavalry began to hunt down the remnants of the army from various hills, and the British-French Coalition forces won an all-round victory. The British and French allied forces killed only over 400 people, while Spain killed 1000 people (mostly British) and captured 5,000 people.
A few days later, Dunkirk fell, and Dunkirk's failure forced Spain to make peace with France and signed the Pyrenees Treaty. Two months after the battle, Cromwell died, and the restored charles ii sold Dunkirk back to Louis XIV for 400,000 pounds. Later, Louis XIV was hostile to Britain, and Dunkirk became the base of French privateers, once again becoming a thorn in the side of the British.
History favors dramatic people and things, as well as great and dramatic people and things.
1658, the same battle on the beach in Dunkirk, was ingenious and well planned. Napoleon praised this battle as "the most wonderful battle in Du Lunni's life", but compared with the dramatic retreat in 1940, he was unknown to the world.