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Dunkirk   Listen
proper noun
Dunkirk  n.  The name of a town and a battle fought there, in World War II (1940) when 330,000 Allied troops had to be evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk in a desperate retreat under enemy fire. Most of the forces were safely evacuated to England.
Synonyms: Dunkerque.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dunkirk" Quotes from Famous Books



... mismanagement. "Two of ours were lost in the storm [chasing that SOLEIL and HEROS], but the crews saved. Lord Howe, who attacked LA FORMIDABLE, bore down on her with such violence, that her prow forced in his lower tier of guns. Captain Digby, in the DUNKIRK, received the fire of twelve of the enemy's ships, and lost not a man. Keppel's was full of water, and he thought it sinking: a sudden squall emptied his ship; but he was informed all his powder was wet; 'Then,' said he, 'I am sorry I am safe.' They came ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... first new lace-band: and so neat it is, that I am resolved my great expense shall be lace-bands, and it will set off anything else the more. I am sorry to hear that the news of the selling of Dunkirk is taken so generally ill, as I find it is among the merchants; and other things, as removal of officers at Court, good for worse; and all things else made much worse in their report among people than they are. And this night, I know not upon what ground, the gates ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... ruined toon, that had gi'en a new glory to British history in November o' the year before, micht ha' been ta'en that day. And, aye, the way was open further than that. The Germans micht ha' gone on. Calais would ha' fallen tae them, and Dunkirk. They micht ha' cut the British army awa' frae it's bases, and crumpled up the whole line ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... defend those ports or even the Yser, and the fresh German armies advancing through Belgium were not intended to waste their strength on the ridges in front of Ypres or floods around Dixmude. The Germans hoped, if not to turn the Entente flank, at least to seize Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne; and Joffre and French were planning to make La Basse, Lille, and Menin the pivot of a turning movement which should liberate Brussels, isolate Von Beseler in Antwerp, and threaten the rear of ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... daughter, and a respectable young wumman; the Miss Grants think so—the Lord Advocate's daughters—so there can't be anything really wrong. Pretty soon we all go to Holland, and be hanged; thence to Dunkirk, and be damned; and the tale concludes in Paris, and be Poll-parrotted. This is the last authentic news. You are not a real hard-working novelist; not a practical novelist; so you don't know the temptation to let your characters maunder. Dumas did it, and lived. But it is not war; it ain't ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... amusements at Lambeth, where he resided, was to mortify Dr. Tenison, the archbishop, by a public festivity on the surrender of Dunkirk to Hill; an event with which Tenison's political bigotry did not suffer him to be delighted. King was resolved to counteract his sullenness, and at the expense of a few barrels of ale filled the neighbourhood ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... get over that feeling, Rod," said the lanky boy called Josh, taking the alarm at once, for he seemed perfectly contented to stay where he was; "just wait till we're spinning along on our bully machines down through Ostend, Dunkirk, and Calais to Boulogne, where we may take a steamer to the U. S. ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... Dunkirk to meet him," says she. The Sapphire had a cargo of jute for Dunkirk. Of course, I had to escort the dear lady in the quality of her "ingenious friend." She calls me "our ingenious friend" to this day; and I've observed some people—strangers—looking ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... negotiating with France and Spain. From the latter he arrogantly asked wholly unreasonable terms, whilst Mazarin, on the part of France, offered Dunkirk as a bribe. News opportunely arriving that certain Spanish possessions in America were feebly armed, Cromwell at once declared war: and now, supplementing unscrupulous policy by false theology, announced 'the Spaniards to be the natural and ordained enemies of England, whom to fight was ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... the Importants; and when the Duke of Beaufort was imprisoned, Mazarin said, "Of what use to cut off the arms while the head remains?" Ten years from her first perilous escape, she made a second, dashed through La Vendee, embarked at St. Malo for Dunkirk, was captured by the fleet of the Parliament, was released by the Governor of the Isle of Wight, unable to imprison so beautiful a butterfly, reached her port at last, and in a few weeks was intriguing at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... Three Great Lakes Lake Erie Dunkirk, Erie, Conneaut Cleveland Amherstburg Detroit River City of Detroit Lake St Clair River St Clair Port Huron, Sarnia Lake Huron Sand Beach Beacon Saginaw Bay, Tawas City, Alpena Rock-bound on Gull Island Ledge False Presqu'ile, Cheboygan ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... importance of success in this region was appreciated by both sides. The Germans north of the Lys planned to cross the Comines-Ypres, Yperlee, and Yser Canals, capture Ypres, take all of the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats, and then continue west and take Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne. The Allies in their plan included an advance south of the Lys on two sides of Lille, the taking of the Aubers Ridge, and the turning from the north the German salient at La Bassee. This much of the Allies' plan was to be executed by the British. The work of the French was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... Medina's Broker's medal (at that time the few Jewish brokers admitted had to pay an extraordinarily high fee for the privilege); he is engaged in his financial transactions with Mr N. M. Rothschild, and goes, in the interest of the latter and in his own, to Dunkirk and Yarmouth. On his return he frequently attends the meetings of the representatives of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogues; checks and signs the synagogue books, as treasurer, and is present at the meetings of a committee, representing ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... French. This was our continual duty till the Castle was re-fortified, and all danger of quitting that station secured.' Retracing his steps to Rotterdam, Delft, the Hague and Leyden, he also visited Haerlem, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and various other towns before returning by way of Ostend, Dunkirk and Dover to Wotton, where he ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... reached London, we were off again to the front. This time our objective was Furnes, a little town fifteen miles east of Dunkirk, and about five miles from the fighting-line. The line of the Belgian trenches ran in a circle, following the course of the River Yser, the little stream which has proved such an insuperable barrier to the German advance. Furnes lies at the centre ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... managed it without going myself. But we had not been out of sight of England many hours before the weather began to change; the winds whistled and made a noise, and the seamen said to one another that it would blow hard at night. It was then about two hours before sunset, and we were passed by Dunkirk, and I think they said we were in sight of Ostend; but then the wind grew high and the sea swelled, and all things looked terrible, especially to us that understood nothing but just what we saw before us; ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... scratching his head like a country-lout, but) stroking his hair back from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division,—I think, quoth Trim, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little forwards,—and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of Dunkirk, which was pinned against the hangings,—I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour's better judgment,—that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... flag wherever they should meet it on the seas. A war undertaken in alliance with France against Spain was equally successful. Jamaica was taken as a permanent possession by the British fleet, and France, in return for Cromwell's assistance, reluctantly gave the town of Dunkirk to England (1658), and the flag of the English Commonwealth was planted on the French coast. But a few years later (1662), the selfish and profligate Charles II sold Dunkirk back to Louis XIV in order to get money to waste on ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... by the Dunkirkers, who stripped them of all their property. They now settled at Bideford in Devonshire, and here or near by were born Elizabeth and the rest of the family. At a later period St. Michel served against the Spaniards at the taking of Dunkirk and Arras, and settled at Paris. He was an unfortunate man throughout life, and his son Balthasar says of him: "My father at last grew full of whimsies and propositions of perpetual motion, &c., ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... slave galley, to Archenholtz's Tableau d'Italie of 1788, to Stirling Maxwell's Don John of Austria (1883, i. 95), and more pertinently to passages in the Life of a Galley Slave by Jean Marteilhe (edited by Miss Betham-Edwards in 1895). After serving in the docks at Dunkirk, Marteilhe, as a confirmed protestant, makes the journey in the chain-gang to Marseilles, and is only released after many delays in consequence of the personal interest and intervention of Queen Anne. If at the peace of Utrecht in 1713 we had only been as tender about ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... North the Allies were being given powerful aid by a strong British fleet, which hurled its shells upon the Germans infesting that region, thus checking at the same time the threatened advance of the Kaiser's legions upon Nieuport and Dunkirk, which the Germans planned to use as naval bases ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... on Philip's side at least these negotiations were simply delusive. The Spanish pride had been touched to the quick. Amidst the exchange of protocols Parma gathered seventeen thousand men for the coming invasion, collected a fleet of flat-bottomed transports at Dunkirk, and waited impatiently for the Armada to protect his crossing. The attack of Drake however, the death of its first admiral, and the winter storms delayed the fleet from sailing. What held it back even more effectually was the balance of parties in France. ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... between the two stacades a space of more than six hundred paces through which a whole fleet of transports could sail with ease. This intervening space the prince designed to close by a bridge of boats, for which purpose the craft must be procured from Dunkirk. But, besides that they could not be obtained in any number at that place, it would be difficult to bring them past Antwerp without great loss. He was, therefore, obliged to content himself for the time with having ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... camp at New Castle ferry we crossed the Pamunkey, marched between Aylett's and Dunkirk on the Mattapony River, and on the 8th of June encamped at Polecat Station. The next day we resumed the march along the North Anna—our advance guard skirmishing with a few mounted men of the enemy, who proved to be irregulars—and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... 1737-1815.] who in some sixty years hence will become dreadfully celebrated in the streets of Paris, as "Austrian Coburg." The Austrian Coburg of Robes-Pierre and Company. An immeasurable terror and portent,—not much harm in him, either, when he actually comes, with nothing but the Duke of York and Dunkirk for accompaniment,—to those revolutionary French of 1792-1794. This is point FIRST. Point SECOND is perhaps still more interesting; this namely: That Franz Josias has an Eldest Son (boy of six when Friedrich Wilhelm makes his visit),—a GRANDSON'S GRANDSON ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... ten years after George Green (for he adopted his master's name) arrived in England, he visited France, and spent some days at Dunkirk. It was towards sunset, on a warm day in the month of October, that Mr. Green, after strolling some distance from the Hotel de Leon, entered a burial ground, and wandered along, alone among the silent dead, gazing upon the many green graves and marble tombstones ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... again. He pretended to be looking at the window of the Little Dunkirk, over the way, but with cautious glances towards our house. Only, as he did not know what storey we live on, he failed to discover me behind my curtain, where I was but ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... Between the country of the lakes and the point of Wady Halfa, on the Nile, extends a vast region, measuring twenty degrees of latitude, or 2000 kilometres, that is, more than the breadth of Western Europe from Gibraltar to Dunkirk. In this region there is at this moment, perhaps, not a single European; in any case, there does not exist any power derived, by any title, from a European authority. It is the country of the Mahdi! Now, gentlemen, it is the future of this country which fills with an uneasiness, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... Charles I. had no temptation to part with it—it might, indeed, have been shuffled out of our hands during the Civil wars, but Noll would have as soon let monsieur draw one of his grinders; then Charles II. would hardly have dared to sell such an old possession, as he did Dunkirk; and after that the French had little chance till the Revolution. Even then, I think, we could have held a place that could be supplied from our own element, the sea. Cui bono? None, I think, but to plague the rogues.—We dined at Cormont, and being stopped ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... came in sight of Plymouth, Recalde, one of the victors of Lepanto, and Oquendo, whose name lasted as long as the Spanish navy, for the ship of the line that bore it was sunk in Cervera's action, demanded to fight. But the orders were peremptory to sail for Dunkirk and to transport Farnese to Margate. The Armada made the best of its way to Gravelines, where they were attacked before Farnese could embark, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... therefore before any one in England, not even Nathan Rothschild himself, was aware that there had been a battle fought at Waterloo), contained the following piece of news from Ramsgate: "A heavy and incessant firing was heard from this coast on Sunday evening in the direction of Dunkirk." Dunkirk lies in nearly a straight line between Waterloo and the coast of Kent. What makes the matter still more extraordinary is the fact that Colville's Division, which, on the 18th, was posted in front of Hal, about ten miles to the west ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... reliable source that large numbers of men were on their way from the southern part of Pennsylvania. Ohio. Indiana. Kentucky, Tennessee and other places, travelling as ordinary passengers, and that they would rendezvous at Erie. Dunkirk. Buffalo, Niagara Falls and other places along the border, where they were to receive their equipment. This news I duly communicated to my friends at home (St. Catharines) and gave them notice that ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... sex." Presenting a daring petition from Kent in favour of the king, the Cavalier poet was thrown into prison by the Long Parliament, and was released only to waste his fortune in Royalist plots. He served in the French army, raised a regiment for Louis XIII., and was left for dead at Dunkirk. On his return to England, he found Lucy Sacheverell—his "Lucretia," the lady of his love—married, his death having been reported. All went ill. He was again imprisoned, grew penniless, had to borrow, and fell into a consumption from despair for love and loyalty. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... every public act excited discontent. Charles had taken to wife Catharine Princess of Portugal. The marriage was generally disliked; and the murmurs became loud when it appeared that the King was not likely to have any legitimate posterity. Dunkirk, won by Oliver from Spain, was sold to Lewis the Fourteenth, King of France. This bargain excited general indignation. Englishmen were already beginning to observe with uneasiness the progress of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... for tickets—in very English French—and, at eleven o'clock at night, entered Brussels. Here their troubles were over. A good night's rest, in a good hotel, completely set them up again and, the next morning, they left by train for Dunkirk. ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... huge armada was making ready in the southern ports of the Spanish dominions, the Prince of Parma, with almost incredible toil and skill, collected a squadron of war-ships at Dunkirk, and his flotilla of other ships and of flat-bottomed boats for the transport to England of the picked troops, which were designed to be the main instruments in subduing England. Thousands of workmen were employed, night and day, in the construction of these ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... re-established. It is acknowledged throughout the empire, and not a single drop of blood has been spilt. The Count de Lille, the Count d'Artois, the Duke de Berri, the Duke of Orleans, have passed our northern frontier, and sought an asylum among foreigners. The tricoloured flag waves on the towers of Calais, Dunkirk, Lille, Valenciennes, Conde, &c. A few bands of Chouans had attempted to form themselves in Poitou and La Vendee: popular opinion, and the march of a few battalions, were sufficient to disperse them. The Duke of Bourbon, who came to excite disturbances in the provinces, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... two systems is well suited to the defence of an open frontier. The former is applied to the side of France towards Belgium, and the latter, with certain modifications, to the defence of Western Germany. The first line of fortifications on the northern frontier of France consists of Dunkirk, Lille, Valenciennes, Conde, Quesnoy, Rocroi, Charlemont, Mezieres, and Sedan; the second line, of Calais, Andres, St. Omer, Bethune, Arras, Douai, Chambrai, Landrecies, and Avesnes; the third line, of Boulogne, Montreuil, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... state-crime; all the evils in the nation, which were then numerous, pestilence, conflagration, war, and defeats, were discovered to be in some way connected with Clarendon House, or, as it was popularly called, either Dunkirk House, or Tangier Hall, from a notion that it had been erected with the golden bribery which the chancellor had received for the sale of Dunkirk and Tangiers.[119] He was reproached with having profaned the sacred stones dedicated to the use of the church. The ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... placing her jewels in his hands for safety, as she had formerly done in those of La Rochefoucauld,[1] she embarked with her daughter in the depth of winter at St.-Malo, on board a small vessel bound for Dartmouth, whence she purposed crossing over to Dunkirk and entering Flanders. But the English parliamentarian men-of-war were cruising in the Channel. They fell in with and captured the wretched little bark, and carried her into the Isle of Wight. There Madame de Chevreuse was recognised; and as she was known to be a friend of the ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... sure succession to the day of doom; He names the price for every office paid, And says our wars thrive ill, because delayed; Nay hints, 'tis by connivance of the Court, That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk's still a port. Not more amazement seized on Circe's guests, To see themselves fall endlong into beasts, Than mine, to find a subject staid and wise Already half turned traitor by surprise. I felt the infection slide from him to me, As in the —— some give it to ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... lord-admiral, with the principal fleet stationed off Plymouth, prepared to engage the armada in its passage up the Channel, sir Henry Seymour, youngest son of the protector, was stationed with a smaller force, partly English partly Flemish, off Dunkirk, for the purpose of intercepting the duke of Parma, who was lying with his veteran forces on the coast, ready to embark and co-operate in the conquest ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... the streets by means of rollers and ropes worked by men who were enclosed within the effigy. The figure was armed as a knight with lance and sword, helmet and shield. Behind him marched his wife and his three children, all constructed of osiers on the same principle, but on a smaller scale. At Dunkirk the procession of the giants took place on Midsummer Day, the twenty-fourth of June. The festival, which was known as the Follies of Dunkirk, attracted multitudes of spectators. The giant was a huge figure of wicker-work, occasionally as much as forty-five feet high, dressed in a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... from Ostend around to Etaples lay a French army of 130,000 men, ready to invade us if for a few hours it could catch our fleets napping. To transport them Napoleon had collected in the ports of Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Ambleteuse, Vimereux, Boulogne and Etaples, 954 transports and 1339 armed vessels—gun-brigs, schooners, luggers, schuyts and prames; and all these light vessels lay snug in their harbours, protected by shoals and sandbanks which our heavier ships of war, by reason ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Cause of Human Liberty, whatever follow. From early Spring there were symptoms: Camps on Lexden and other Heaths, much reviewing in Hyde-Park and elsewhere; from all corners a universal marching towards the Kent Coast; the aspects being favorable. 'We can besiege Dunkirk at any rate, cannot we, your High Mightinesses? Dunkirk, which, by all the Treaties in existence, ought to need no besieging; but which, in spite of treatyings innumerable, always does?' The High Mightinesses answer nothing articulate, languidly ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... ships that had been held in commission after Drake's return had been so long neglected that they could hardly keep the sea without repair; the rest lay unrigged in the Medway. But the delay gave England fresh time for preparation. Parma's army was lying in readiness for the invasion under canvas at Dunkirk, and their commander had received no information from Spain that the sailing of the ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... safety of England, as it was too weak for any enterprise on land, without the assistance of the Prince of Parma and his army in Flanders, she therefore appointed thirty ships of the Hollanders to lie at anchor off Dunkirk, where the prince and his army were to have embarked in flat bottomed boats, which were built on purpose and all in readiness for the expedition to England. Thus by the wise precautions of the queen, the prince was effectually prevented from putting to sea with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... "avisos" (dispatch-boats), with their long, narrow flamme, which marks them as war vessels, streaming out in the wind. Their sailors looked very picturesque in white jerseys and blue berets with red pompons. Small steamers that run along the coast from Calais to Dunkirk—others, cargo boats, broad and deep in the water, that take fruit and eggs over to England. The baskets of peaches, plums, and apricots look most appetizing when they are taken on board. The steamers look funny when they come back with empty baskets, quantities of them, piled up on the ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... general. All afternoon it raged, and then, terribly battered, the Armada would fight no more; but, "gathering into a roundel" set all sail for Calais, where Medina hoped to find a force from the French to help him and then to Dunkirk to join with Parma and the great flotilla of ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... therefore most probable (for it is certainly proper to believe the French are coming to attack London, and therefore to be prepared) that from Boulogne, Calais, and even Havre, that the enemy will try and land in Sussex, or the lower part of Kent, and from Dunkirk, Ostend, and the other Ports of Flanders, to land on the Coast of Essex or Suffolk; for I own myself of opinion that, the object being to get on shore somewhere within 100 miles of London, as speedily as ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... On reaching Dunkirk, the Duchess of Orleans embarked for England with her maid-of-honour and a small but chosen retinue, and met Charles at Dover, where this secret negotiation was initiated. The result anticipated came to pass, and proved that Louis had not miscalculated the power of his sister-in-law over ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... his shameless mistresses and unworthy favourites. In that quaint room over Temple Bar the firm still preserve the dusty books of the unfortunate alderman, who fled to Holland. There, on the sallow leaves over which the poor alderman once groaned, you can read the items of our sale of Dunkirk to the French, the dishonourable surrender of which drove the nation almost to madness, and hastened the downfall of Lord Clarendon, who was supposed to have built a magnificent house (on the site of Albemarle Street, Piccadilly) with some of the very money. Charles II. himself banked here, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... hemispheres, to a contemptible rank among maritime powers. The king was fitting out a powerful fleet to carry the war to the coasts of Sweden, and for its equipment had commanded a reinforcement of men and provisions to be sent from Dunkirk. A fleet accordingly set sail, but were attacked by Von Tromp, some captured, the remainder forced to retire within the harbor again. Soon after, Tromp seized three English [neutral] ships carrying 1070 Spanish ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... elder brothers, one of which was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father or mother did know what was become ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... the landing of English troops in France, is now fully established by the annexed documents. They show that these conversations were also held with Belgium, that plans had been concerted to invade Belgium with an army of 100,000 men by way of three French ports—viz., Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne—and that the British plans even considered a landing by way of the Scheldt, thus ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... with Louis XV. France had posed hitherto as an auxiliary, her officers in Germany had worn the Bavarian cockade, and only with England was she officially at war. She now declared war direct upon Austria and Sardinia (April 1744). A corps was assembled at Dunkirk to support the cause of the Pretender in Great Britain, and Louis in person, with 90,000 men, prepared to invade the Austrian Netherlands, and took Menin and Ypres. His presumed opponent was the allied army previously under King George and now composed of English, Dutch, Germans and Austrians. On ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... was to sail. By incredible exertions, Bonaparte had rendered its harbour and roads capable of containing two thousand vessels of various descriptions. The smaller sea-ports of Vimereux, Ambleteuse, and Etaples, Dieppe, Havre, St. Valeri, Caen, Gravelines, and Dunkirk, were likewise filled with shipping. Flushing and Ostend were occupied by a separate flotilla. Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort, were each the station of as strong a naval squadron as France, had still the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various

... in France, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, fitted out a cruiser called the Surprise. She sailed from Dunkirk on May 1, 1777, and the next week was back with a British packet as a prize. For this violation of French neutrality she was seized. But another ship, the Revenge, was quickly secured, which scoured the British waters, and actually entered ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... in their hands to bring it to him; and by the other dissolves the union between England and Scotland. But all this is not the worst! Notice came yesterday, that there are ten thousand men, thirty transports, and ten men-of-war at Dunkirk. Against this force we have—I don't know what—scarce fears! Three thousand Dutch we hope are by this time landed in Scotland; three more are coming hither. We have sent for ten regiments from Flanders, which ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... remaining to examine, I next visited a humble adventurer, who is trying his fortune here. James Ruse, convict, was cast for seven years at Bodmin assizes, in August 1782. He lay five years in prison and on board the 'Dunkirk' hulk at Plymouth, and then was sent to this country. When his term of punishment expired, in August 1789, he claimed his freedom, and was permitted by the governor, on promising to settle in the country, to take in December following, an uncleaned ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... treaty, their oils flowed in, and over-stocked the market. The light duty they were liable to under the treaty, still lessened by false estimates and aided by the high premiums of the British government, enabled them to undersell the French and American oils. This produced an outcry of the Dunkirk fishery. It was proposed to exclude all European oils, which would not infringe the British treaty. I could not but encourage this idea, because it would give to the French and American fisheries a monopoly of the French ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... foreign countries, are, in their commerce with the other provinces of France, subjected to the same duties as other foreign countries. These are Alsace, the three bishoprics of Mentz, Toul, and Verdun, and the three cities of Dunkirk, Bayonne, and Marseilles. Both in the provinces of the five great farms (called so on account of an ancient division of the duties of customs into five great branches, each of which was originally the subject of a particular ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... permission, been some consumption of it there, yet the whole did not exceed nine thousand barrels, and they have received from Turkey so much rice of the present year's growth, as to make that commodity five shillings per 100 lb. cheaper at Marseilles than here, and even at Dunkirk it is one shilling and sixpence per 100 lb. cheaper than here; so that there is not any prospect of a demand for Carolina rice in France, even if liberty could be obtained for sending the same to any port of ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... determined upon consisted of two distinct but co-operative movements. A formidable army of invasion, under the Duke of Parma, the most experienced and skillful commander in Europe, was stationed at the several ports of the Low Countries, opposite the British coast, from Dunkirk east. Innumerable transports were provided to convey this host across the Channel, and, once on English ground, an easy and triumphant march to London was expected. The second part of the grand expedition consisted of an immense fleet of the largest vessels ever built, under the command ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... Dunkirk fisherman, rose by his courage and naval skill, to the rank of commodore of a squadron in the navy of France. When he was ennobled by Louis XIV. the king said to him, "John Barth, I have made you a commodore." John replied, "you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various

... lake view and its cool breeze on their way to Silver Creek, Dunkirk and Erie, and a rough way ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... and so she loaded our belongings on the wagon and we started alone. I was only eleven years old, and well I remember how great an undertaking it seemed to me to leave our pleasant home and all my playmates and start without father on such a long trip. But when we arrived at Dunkirk, where we took boat to cross Lake Erie, we found father, and so made our journey without mishap. We arrived by boat in St. Paul in August '55 and started at once for Hasson, stopping that first night at the home of Mr. Longfellow, at a place called Long Prairie. We were most cordially ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... this last qualification to a greater height than any of his fellows: but he hath, in my opinion, failed a little in point of politeness from the original which he affects to imitate. If I should say to a prime minister, "Sir, you have sufficiently provided that Dunkirk should be absolutely demolished and never repaired; you took the best advantages of a long and general peace to discharge the immense debts of the nation; you did wonders with the fleet; you made the Spaniards ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... by a French Lieutenant. "Under Shell-Fire at Dunkirk," by an American Nurse. "The Winter's War," by a British Captain. "The Bitter Experience of Lorraine," by the Prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... BARTH, JEAN, a distinguished French seaman, born at Dunkirk, son of a fisherman, served under De Ruyter, entered the French service at 20, purchased a ship of two guns, was subsidised as a privateer, made numerous prizes; having had other ships placed under his command, was captured by the English, but escaped; defeated the Dutch admiral, De Vries; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... north, or in the 51st parallel of latitude, where the limits of the loess have been traced out by MM. Omalius D'Halloy, Dumont, and others, running east and west by Cologne, Juliers, Louvain, Oudenarde, and Courtrai in Belgium to Cassel, near Dunkirk in France. This boundary line may not indicate the original seaward extent of the formation, as it may have stretched still farther north and its present abrupt termination may only show how far it was cut back at some former ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... but the feeling of the people was strong in favour of a man who was selling goods for the benefit of poor prisoners, and, of course, he always had some plausible story ready to account for its absence. At last he came to Dunkirk. He had saved money as he went, and on his arrival there had eight louis in his pocket. He took up a lodging at a little cabaret, and, leaving his box, which was now almost empty, strolled down to the harbour. ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... was from the southward. A boy of sixteen stood at the helm. He was well bronzed by exposure to the elements; was sturdy and strong. His dark hair waved luxuriantly about a face in which keenness and shrewdness were easily to be seen. His name was Jean Bart and he had been born at Dunkirk in France. ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... perilous and vital service, was a squadron of Dutch vessels of all sizes, lining both the inner and outer edges of the sandbanks off the Flemish coasts, and swarming in all the estuaries and inlets of that intricate and dangerous cruising-ground between Dunkirk and Walcheren. Those fleets of Holland and Zeeland, numbering some one hundred and fifty galleons, sloops, and fly-boats, under Warmond, Nassau, Van der Does, De Moor, and Rosendael, lay patiently blockading every possible egress ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... so he would force them to submit. The people of Artois, however, who were French rather than Flemings, took the matter in their own hands, and twelve thousand men, under some knights from Nieuport and other towns, marched to Dunkirk and then to Mardyck, a large ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... guard of the colonists destined for the new Louisiana lay in the roads at Dunkirk, their anchors ready to weigh,—three thousand men, three thousand horses, for the Man did things on a large scale. The anchors were ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... these pecuniary troubles came a more terrible trial—the loss of her favorite son, the brave and handsome Guy de Laval, who, after a brilliant career in the campaigns of Conde, was killed at the siege of Dunkirk, in 1646, when scarcely four-and-twenty. The fine qualities of this young man had endeared him to the whole army, and especially to Conde, had won him the hand of the Chancellor Seguire's daughter, and had thus opened to him the prospect ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... within easy range of the German batteries, which could eliminate it with neatness and despatch, it has, singularly enough, never been bombarded, nor has it been subjected to any serious air raids. This is the more surprising as all the neighboring towns, as well as Dunkirk, a dozen miles beyond, have been repeatedly shelled and bombed. The only explanation of this phenomenon is that the Germans do not wish to kill the Queen of the Belgians—she was Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, remember—who lives with the King at La Panne. It ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... remember the black-eyed little one—with her pride in Batthyany, and her hatred in Gorgey, and all the rest of it. The little Empress!—with her proud eyes, and her black eyelashes. Do you remember at Dunkirk, when old Anton Pepczinski met her for the first time? 'Little Natalushka, if I wait for you, will you marry me when you grow up?" Then the quick answer, "I am not to be called any longer by my nursery name; but if you ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... try to work it over. James was at Dunkirk ordering post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona did have her suspicions aroused by the letter, and, careless gentleman, I told you so - or she did at least. - Yes, the blood money, I am bothered about the portmanteau; it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... again. When she had at last settled in the old chateau, and after my son and nephew had made their first campaign at the siege of Lille, we had to join in the progress of the Court to Dunkirk and Lille to see the King's new fortifications. A strange progress it was to me, for Mademoiselle was by this time infatuated by her unfortunate passion for the Duke of Lauzun, and never ceased confiding to me her admiration ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... section, of course. I used to see fellows from my own section occasionally, but I don't recall any one named Blythe. He probably was sent up while I was at Toul,—or it may have been during the time I was with a section in the Vosges. I was up near Dunkirk too for a while,—only for a few weeks. When did you say ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... banks were lined with bathers, our Transport was situated at La Lacque, a village a few miles west of Aire. Not far off stood the tall chimneys of the Isbergues steel works—a large factory, which, like Cassel and Dunkirk, had in the early days of the war attracted occasional shells from German long-range guns. Now that the line was only a few leagues distant the steel works became the almost daily target for 'high velocities.' Once the tiles had been shaken ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... regime of Mr. Herrick, and as such lived through the first exciting months of the great war. During the months of September, October, and November, I made four different trips to the front, covering territory which extended along the battle-line from Vitry-le-Francois in the east to a point near Dunkirk in the west. I saw parts of the battles of the Marne and the Aisne, and ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... not until 1658 that Turenne finally defeated Conde and Don John of Austria, and opened the way to the Peace of the Pyrenees, and the marriage with the Infanta. Oliver Cromwell aided the King with six thousand of his soldiers in this battle, and seized upon Dunkirk to repay himself,—only three years before. No wonder Louis was anxious to place the throne beyond the reach of danger and insult, and to crush the only man who seemed to have the power ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... for the report so I could count the time to find out how far away they were ranging, but I noticed a very strange thing. I could hear no report from the explosion of the shell. Evidently it was falling too far away for me to hear it. A few days later we learned that they had been shelling Dunkirk, ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... really was, although ostensibly Sheridan was merely playing the part of a friendly escort to a distressed lady, whatever deeper scheme, unknown to her, may have been in his mind. After a brief stay in London a boat was taken to Dunkirk, and the journey ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... been booming for thirty months. This gives you food for thought at the front. Finally, we came to Dunkirk, and there enjoyed uninterrupted repose after our long ride in the biting weather. Next morning I was up early, and before I had breakfast I watched a seaplane turning and twisting, riding first tail downward and then head downward, dropping a thousand ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall

... replied Bog, not looking at her, but studying the pattern of his left boot. "The day after I called here last, Mr. Fink he got a job to stick up bills for a new hair dye, all the way from here to Dunkirk, on the Erie Railroad. Well, he couldn't go, cos he had lots o' city posting, ye see; so he hires me to do it for ten dollars a week and expenses. The pay was good, he said, because the work was extry hard. The bills was to be posted on new whitewashed ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... ports, though contrary winds have prevented him making a descent on Marseilles or at Toulon, though he has had regiments of soldiers on board for that purpose. Then we have another fleet in our Channel, ready to bombard the French coast. They have destroyed Gronville, and have made an attack upon Dunkirk, but they failed in that, I am sorry to say. But the worst matter, however, is, that the Marquis of Carmarthen, with a squadron under him, which lay off the islands of Scilly to protect our trade, fancying that a superior French fleet was coming out to attack him, when it was only a fleet ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... capturing many before they escaped into port. The Dutch, after this, knowing that Admiral Blake was waiting for them, did not for some time put again to sea. While he was cruising in the Channel, expecting their appearance, news was brought him that the Spaniards were besieging Dunkirk, but that the French king had sent a fleet for its relief. Believing it was to the interests of England that it should fall, lest the Dutch admiral should make it the basis of operations against the towns on the opposite coast of England, he ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... two wives, four sons, of whom the eldest, Alastair Ruadh, was Pickle. Alastair held a captain's commission in the Scots brigade in the French service. In March 1744, he and the Earl Marischal were at Gravelines, meaning to sail with the futile French expedition from Dunkirk. In June 1745, Glengarry went to France with a letter from the Scotch Jacobites, bidding Charles NOT to come without adequate French support. Old Glengarry, in January 1745, had 'disponed' his lands to Alastair his son, for weighty reasons to him known. {149b} Such deeds were common ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... rewarded by her. How he goes in command of an expedition against Channel freebooters, and finally ends up as an agent of the British Intelligence Department, finding out things about the army of His Grace of Parma, then at Dunkirk awaiting conveyance by the Spanish fleet. He seems, however, to have been something of a failure in the way of intelligence, as by lack of this the hero managed to get himself and his companion imprisoned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... change in the German plan of strategy had been recognized by the Allies, and a new English army from Havre was hurried to the line Bethune-Dunkirk to extend the allied left wing to the coast and block the road to Calais. It reached West Flanders on Oct. 13, and on Oct. 16 it came in contact with the German Army that approached from Antwerp. The latter ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... that while I was on the admiral's ship I should see and take my part in a good set battle between our squadron and the French; but in this I was disappointed. Admiral Benbow was on his way to Dunkirk, to lie in wait for the French admiral Du Bart and pursue him if he should put to sea. We cruised off the port for upwards of a month without any encounter with the enemy; and when at last, towards the end of August, we gave chase to some of their vessels which had slipped out, we ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... very well," Norgate assented. "It might be our fair share on paper, and yet it might not be enough. What about our navy if Antwerp, Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, and Havre were all German ports, as they certainly would be in an unassisted conflict between the ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... at this place that could speak a word of English, and that all masters that could speak English grammatically attend at the places that are frequented by the English, which is, St Omer, Lisle, Dunkirk, and Boulogne, to the northward of Paris, and as I had no intention of travelling to the south of France till the spring, at any rate, I determined, with Mac's advice, to steer for St Omer, where we arrived last Tuesday; and I own I was surprised to find, that instead of a dirty, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... learned that John Brown's body passed through Dunkirk, a few miles from this place, yesterday. A funeral sermon is to be preached in this place one week from next Sabbath, for ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... sailer on the English coast, built at Dunkirk, and as sound as a bell. She could show her taffrail, in light weather, to any British cruiser in the Channel. She could run a fine cargo of French cognac and foreign ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... of the English. The Dutch offer to negotiate. Second victory. Progress of the negotiation. Articles of peace. Secret treaty with Holland. Negotiation with Spain. Negotiation with France. Negotiation respecting Dunkirk. Cromwell comes to no decision. The new parliament meets. Is not favourable to his views. Debates respecting the Instrument. The protector's speech. Subscription required from the members. Cromwell ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... to do precisely that which he desires we should do, and it happens by the fact, but against our intentions, that we work for him." That the date written on this MS. is erroneous appears by an allusion to the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk in the closing paragraph: "There are three distinct parties in England at this moment: the government party, the revolutionary party, and an intermedial party,—which is only opposed to the war on account of the expense it entails, and the harm it does ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... a child, twelve years of age, my father accompanied me on one of my pilgrimages of spiritual work to western New York, our former home. During that visit or tour a circle for investigation and experiment was formed in Dunkirk, N. Y. After we returned to our then home in Wisconsin, I was one evening entranced,—as was usual,—and while in that state was distinctly conscious of being in Dunkirk, of seeing every member of the circle, with all of whom I was acquainted except one lady. She proved to be the seer ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... and a room adjoining. It is under the superintendence of M. Descamps, son of the author of two very useful works, La Vie des Peintres Flamands and Le Voyage Pittoresque. The father was born at Dunkirk, in 1714, but lived principally at Paris, till an accidental circumstance fixed him at Rouen, in 1740. On his way to England, he here formed an acquaintance with M. de Cideville, the friend of Voltaire, who, anxious ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... careful seneschal was heard above the tumult, "Oh, stop sirs, stop—turn bridle, for the luve of Mercy; add not loss of lives to the loss of warld's gean! Thirty barrels of powther, landed out of a Dunkirk dogger in the auld lord's time—a' in the vau'ts of the auld tower,—the fire canna be far off it, I trow. Lord's sake, to the right, lads—to the right; let's pit the hill atween us and peril,—a wap wi' a corner-stane o' Wolf's Crag wad defy ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... desired to leave the country, I should go north instead of south. I should go in the first place to Paris, stay there in quiet lodgings for a little time until you became known, and you might then get your papers visaed to enable you to continue your journey to Calais or Dunkirk. Money will go just as far among the incorruptibles of Paris as it will here. You might obtain a passage down the ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Dunkirk" :   France, evacuation, World War II, Dunkerque, Second World War, amphibious operation, port, crisis, town, World War 2, French Republic



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