VE-Day, or day of victory in Europe, 8 May 1945. On the balcony of Buckingham palace, the king, the royal family and Prime minister Winston Churchill face a cheering crowd. From left to right: princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), the queen mother Elizabeth, Winston Churchill, King George VI and princess Margaret. The reign of Queen Elizabeth II (1952-2022) was the longest in British history. The late queen was devoted to her country. She presided over the deep transformations of the British nation from the aftermath of WW2 to the dawn of the 21^st century, while doing her best to uphold the democratic institutions of the realm and the unity of the Commonwealth in an age of major upheavals, from the end of decolonisation to the Cold War and globalisation.

TG4/5 on 9 September 2022; TG2 on 14 September.

➣ Homework for next week (September 16 for TG54/5, September 21 for the TG2s): prepare the first subject “Their finest hour”.

TG4/5 on 2 September 2022; TG2 on 7 September.

What should pupils do ?

In class, listen, read the documents and participate as often as you can. According to several surveys, more than 80% of an individual pupil's efficiency depends on what is done (or not done!) in class.
At home, read the documents and classroom notes again. The learning of new words and new grammatical skills deserves top priority. Visit the links and watch the proposed videos, prepare the subject for the next class.
The evaluation grid is used at the final exam. Look at it to understand what is expected. The grid is based on three independent scales: the first one (6 points) relates to the knowledge in history and geography ; the second one (6 points) to understanding questions and answering them ; the last one is about linguistic skills (8 points).
In the final exam, you'll choose one of two subjects, each one based on a different part of the syllabus. Once your choice is made, you have got twenty minutes to prepare a speech of ten minutes: using the documents and your knowledge, answer the question. The second part of the exam consists in Q&As, independent from the subject. It's a conversation in English.

Part One: Britain in WW2

➣ Read: How Churchill led Britain to victory in the Second World War, at the Imperial War Museum.

➣ Watch: How Churchill's speeches boosted the morale of the Britons. The example of Maria Blewitt, who served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

1 | “Their finest hour” ?

➣ Why was Britain in such a dire situation in June 1940 ?

Britain’s first reaction was to appease Hitler. Neville Chamberlain, the conservative Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940, decided to abandon Czechoslovakia when Hitler threatened to attack it at the Munich conference in the summer of 1938. The idea was to prevent another world war from happening. Neville Chamberlain came back triumphantly, saying that it was “peace for our time”. The crowd was cheering, because they had feared a new war. It was relief after anxiety. Hitler, however, was not appeased in the least. Once he had got Czechoslovakia, he would ask for more. His next move was to invade Poland in September 1939.
Then, France and the UK declared war to Germany. But while Hitler invaded Poland, nothing happened on the western front. It was the “phony war”. The allies feared the clash with the Germans, and they did not have a strategy to take the offensive. The French had put all their efforts into the Maginot line, a fixed defensive system which prevented them from attacking the Germans.
Keywords
- Appeasement: the policy through which the British government tried to “appease” Hitler in the late 1930s. This policy eventually failed, and was later remembered with contempt. In its time, however, it was following two very understandable political aims: to avoid a repetition of the WW1 slaughters, and to preserve the existence of the British Empire.
- Phony war: the first part of WW2 on the Western front. Following the invasion of Poland (September 1939) and the German onslaught on Belgium, the Netherlands and France (10 May 1940), there was no significant action and the armies stood idle.
- Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940): British Conservative statesman, prime minister 1937–40. He pursued a policy of appeasement with Germany, signing the Munich Agreement (1938), but was forced to abandon this policy following Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Having cancer, he resigned in May 1940 and was replaced by Winston Churchill, who had been the staunchest critic of appeasement.
On May 10, 1940, the German armour (the “Panzer”) took the offensive and made a breakthrough. The western front soon collapsed. France asked for a ceasefire on June 17, with a new government led by Pétain.
Also on May 10, Chamberlain resigned. King George VI, who believed Halifax would be the right man to succeed Chamberlain, heard the former reject his proposal, so that the king had to appoint Churchill instead. Winston Churchill built a national union government, with the Labour party (led by Attlee), whose first task would be to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. This succeeded between June 1 and June 4. However, to put it in Churchill’s own words “wars are not won by evacuations!”
“Never surrender!”

This is the end of Churchill's speech on 4 June 1940, following the successful evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk. It is in that speech that Churchill said “wars are not won by evacuations”. Note Churchill's insistence on the eventual US involvement in the war.

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight 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 the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a 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, would carry on the struggle, until in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
The very idea of the “finest hour” (doc. 2) is in the desperate situation of Britain in June 1940. Britain had suffered a severe defeat, had been deprived of her main ally (France, the US was still neutral at that time), and Churchill said he would “never surrender”. And through his rhetoric, the British people had a feeling a grandeur. The UK would fight alone against Nazi tyranny, against all odds.
Churchill knew that Nazi Germany could hardly invade England : the Germans would have to destroy the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force before landing. Besides, the Germans lacked landing craft and their air force didn’t have any capability for strategic bombing.
To call June 1940 the “finest hour” of Britain was quite a paradox. But Churchill succeeded in mobilizing the English language, which was the best thing he could do. Thus, he strengthened the unity of the nation, and he managed to impress the Americans, so that some day they would enter the war and shift the balance in favour of democracies.