1 | “Their finest hour” ?

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

❑ Subject discussed in class: № 1. “Their finest hour”. See the annotated version.

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 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.”

• 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 managed to impress the Americans, so that some day they would enter the war and shift the balance in favour of democracies.

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. In both cases, this entailed (entails) the risk of a world war.