5 September 2025

Britain in WW2

On 16 March 2022, shortly after Putin's attack on Ukraine (February 24, 2022), the American cartoonist Michael Ramirez represented President Zelensky as Churchill and Vladimir Putin as a weasel : a deceitful or treacherous person. Ramirez was paying homage to Zelensky's courage and statesmanship. But we could also argue that Zelensky, just like Churchill, has one obvious interest, which is to drag the US into the war with Russia. Neither Britain in the 1940s, nor Ukraine in the 2020s could possibly win its war without a full commitment of the USA. Churchill did not get it before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Zelensky may never get it, because Russia is a nuclear power, maybe too because Ukraine is not as important for America today as the British Empire was back in 1940.

1 | “Their finest hour” ?

 

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

 

➪ Subject discussed in class: № 1. “Their finest hour”.

➪ For Sep 12 : present the subject. What is it about ? Put the documents in historical context. What are the standpoints ? Propose your plan based on the question asked in the subject. You should also look at the how-tos.

12 September 2025

➪ Ordre de passage pour les oraux en classe du premier trimestre qui commenceront le 19 septembre. Les sujets possibles seront indiqués à partir du 12 septembre.

 

In the dark early days of the Second World War Churchill had few real weapons. He attacked with words instead. The speeches he delivered then are among the most powerful ever given in the English language. His words were defiant, heroic and human, lightened by flashes of humour. They reached out to everyone in Britain, across Nazi-occupied Europe, and throughout the world. As journalist Beverley Nichols wrote, 'He took the English language and sent it into battle.' (Picture and comments: © Imperial War Museum)

“Never surrender!”

This is the end of Churchill's speech on 4 June 1940, following the successful evacuation of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) 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, to which he alluded again on 18 June in his “Finest hour” speech (document 2 of subject № 1).

“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.”