After the Dunkirk evacuation, British Prime Minister Churchill delivered a speech in the House of Commons:

We must be extremely careful not to cast this evacuation as a victory. The war is not based on victory. Retreat to win. …The Germans desperately tried to sink thousands of ships on the sea full of warriors, but they were driven back, they were defeated, and we withdrew the expeditionary force! …

He explained Britain’s determination to keep fighting:

Large tracts of Europe and many ancient and famous countries have fallen, or may fall, into the evils of the secret police and Nazi rule. Even in the clutches of the government, we remain unwavering and undeterred. We will fight to the end. We will fight in France, we will fight at sea and in the oceans, we will fight in the air with ever-increasing confidence and ever-increasing power; we will defend our islands at any cost. We will fight on the beaches; we will fight where the enemy has landed; we will fight in the fields and in the streets; we will fight in the mountains; and we will never surrender. Even if this island, or most of it, were conquered and starved, which I do not believe for a minute, our imperial subjects abroad would still have to fight on, under the armed protection of the British fleet, until the New World God sees fit to use all his power and power to save and liberate this old world. ……