Dunkirk is just one of many tragic defeats, retreats and Pyrrhic victories commemorated in Britain: retreat to Corunna, retreat from Kabul, Charge of the Light

Dunkirk is just one of many tragic defeats, retreats and Pyrrhic victories commemorated in Britain: retreat to Corunna, retreat from Kabul, Charge of the Light Brigade, Cawnpore, Gallipoli, Ypres, Somme, Crete, Narvik, Dieppe, Cassino, Arnhem ('A Bridge Too Far'), Imjin River... As well as some desperate sieges following earlier incompetence: Lucknow, Mafeking, Rorke's Drift ('Zulu'), Malta, Myitkyina, Tobruk ('Tobruk'), more recently Sangin and Lashkar Gah. But we do ignore the truly embarrassing ones: Yorktown, Maiwand, Isandlwana ('Zulu Dawn'), Spion Kop, Kut Al Amara, sinking of the Repulse & Prince of Wales, Singapore, Suez and more recently Basra.