“Dunkirk was a great deliverance and a great disaster” - (AJP Taylor)Is there sufficient evidence in sources A to F to support this interpretation? Use sources and knowledge from your studies to explain your answer. AJP Taylor cited this quote from his book “English History” published in 1965. It says that Dunkirk was a great deliverance; it involves how the troops were rescued and successfully delivered to the advancing German army. But the disaster undeniably refers to the most hidden details of Dunkirk, such as the great military defeat, the thousands of pieces of equipment and the 1.2 million prisoners taken by the Germans. The sources come from a wide range of media, with Source A being a painting and therefore less reliable as it is simply an artistic impression of the events. Sources B and C are images from the battle, which means they will show a more accurate picture, even if they only show a single example in time. Source D is an extract from a speech by the Minister of War, source E is an article from the Daily Express and is therefore likely to contain information gathered about the event. Source F is an extract from a book by AJP Taylor encompassing the quote making up the title, useful for seeing the context in which the quote was made. Some sources are certainly more valuable than others, due to their informative nature and lack of bias, for example source F is written by a historian more than twenty years after the event, which allows us to gather and to compile a large body of research for such work. However, Source D has a tremendous amount of bias and difficult vocabulary, thus limiting its usefulness in supporting Taylor's claim. Another determining factor...... middle of paper ...... which would increase the morale of the troops and the population. He also uses metaphor and emotive language to slightly exaggerate the forces' victory, but this makes the evacuation appear to be an extreme success with language emphasizing the men's ability to maintain their morale; which was shown in source C where the men were shooting at enemy planes. It also focuses on men's lives rather than major losses of equipment, which although mentioned is subsumed mid-sentence as it is not considered a failure as much as life men saved is a success, it is important because it is the major deliverance that Taylor was talking about in his quote. He also claims that the forces refused to accept defeat, but this claim is entirely artificial since evacuation was a last resort after defeat by German forces in Europeaspirant.