Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965)
WORDS AT WAR
Sir Winston Churchill
and perhaps Great Britain's finest hour
"Never in the field of human conflict
was so much owed by so many to so few."
"...To form an administration of this scale and complexity
is a serious undertaking in itself, but 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 an in Holland, that we
have to be prepared in the Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous
and that many preparations have to 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 this 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 with 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."
to the House of Commons on May 13, 1940 in his first
address as the newly appointed Prime Minister.
"
...We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall
fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing
confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island
whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds,
in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and
even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large
part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the
seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle
until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might,
sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old."
The Retreat from Flanders
WE SHALL DEFEND OUR ISLAND WHATEVER THE COST
Before the House of Commons, June 4, 1940
 
"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 now. 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 say, "This was their finest hour."
CHURCHILL ANTICIPATES
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
by WINSTON CHURCHILL, Prime Minister of Great Britain
Before the House of Commons, June 18, 1940
"Churchill
and Roosevelt"
by Sir Isaiah Berlin
"Churchill is acquainted with darkness as well as light. Like
all inhabitants and even transient visitors of inner worlds, he
gives evidence of seasons of agonised brooding and slow recovery.
Roosevelt might have spoken of sweat and blood, but when Churchill
offered his people tears, he spoke a word which might have been
uttered by Lincoln or Mazzini or Cromwell..."
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