Winston Churchill
London, 18 June 1940
‘This was their finest hour’
The crumbling French resistance to Hitler could not be maintained
much longer. On 10 June, the government left Paris; on 16 June
Marshal Petain formed a new government. The next day France
sued for peace. As Churchill predicted in this House of Commons
speech, the Battle of France was over and the Battle of Britain had
begun. Britain, he declared, was now resolved to fight on alone.
The defiant words were heard by millions when it was
broadcasted four hours later and it is probably the best remembered
Churchill speech of the war, particularly for the magnificent
peroration. Even so, as Churchill wrote later, rhetoric was no
guarantee of survival.
We do not yet know what will happen in France or whether the
French resistance will be prolonged, both in France and in the French
Empire overseas. The French Government will be throwing away
great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not
continue the war in accordance with their Treaty obligations, from
which we have not felt able to release them. The House will have
read the historic declaration in which, at the desire of many
Frenchmen – and of our own hearts – we have proclaimed our
willingness at the darkest hour in French history to conclude a union
of common citizenship in this struggle. However matters may go in
France or with the French Government, or other French
Governments, we in this island and in the British Empire will never
lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now
called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall
emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall
share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate
nothing of our just demands: not one jot or title do we recede.
Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes
to our own. All these shall be restored.
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I
expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle
depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our
own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our
Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be
turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island
or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free
and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit
uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world,
including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into
the abyss of a new Dark Age made more
sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by
the lights of perverted science. Let us
therefore brace ourselves to our duties and
so bear ourselves that, if the British
Empire and its Commonwealth last for a
thousand years, men will still say, “This
was their finest hour”.
Winston Churchill
London, 13 May 1940
‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat’
On becoming prime minister, Churchill mobilized the language and
made it fight, on the first occasion only three days
after he accepted office and had formed his coalition
Cabinet. It was Whit Monday and Churchill made a
short speech to the House of Commons. Yet on
entering the chamber it was Chamberlain who got
more cheers than Churchill, whose support was
mostly on the Labour benches.
The speech by Churchill that day was the
first of many that have since become world-famous
for their bulldog spirit, their refusal even to
acknowledge the prospect of defeat, and the
memorable phrases they often contained. The
speeches to the Commons, often repeated on BBC
radio at night, rallied the British at a period of the
war when Hitler was advancing on the French coast
and threatening to invade England.
Churchill’s war speeches were rhetorical
and cheeky at the same time, Macaulay and
contemporary slang missed together, according to
A. J. P. Taylor, the English historian. ‘The English welcomed his
romantic utterances, though themselves still speaking in more
prosaic tones.’
It must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of one of
the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many points in
Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the
Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous and that many
preparations have to be made here at home. In this crisis I hope I
may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I
hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues,
who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make all
allowance for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary
to act. I would say to the house, as I said to those who have joined
the Government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and
sweat.’
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We
have before us many, many long months of struggle
and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will
say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all
our might and with all the strength that God can give
us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never
surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human
crime. That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim?
I can answer in one word: Victory – victory at all
costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however
long and hard the road may be; for without victory,
there is no survival. Let that be realized; no survival
for the British Empire has stood for, no survival for
the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will
move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task
with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will
not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel
entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, ‘Come then,
let us go forward together with our united strength.’