On 18 June, 1940 Winston Churchill made his famous This was their finest hour speech to the House of Commons of the British Parliament, shortly after taking over as Prime Minister in the first year of World War II.
It was given as France continued to reel from the stunning and massive German breakthrough at Sedan, France; it was shortly to be overcome, and sued for peace a week later, on June 22. In it he tried to give a confident overview of the military situation, and thereby aid his second goal, to rally his people for what he probably knew was going to be a tremendous struggle:
- 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."
This speech and others by Churchill, including the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech of 4 June were a great inspiration to the embattled United Kingdom.
External links
