SPC 3271

Lori Maguire

Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2014, pp. 255-286 (Article)

DOI: 10.1353/rap.2014.0025

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“WE SHALL FIGHT”: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF CHURCHILL'S FAMOUS SPEECH

LORI MAGUIRE

Winston Churchill is commonly considered to have written some of the greatest speeches of the twentieth century, yet few of them have been analyzed in any depth. This essay attempts to examine in detail one of the most famous and, indeed, most important of these speeches, the “we shall fıght” oration, given in the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, at the end of the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk. It considers the differing audi- ences that Churchill was writing for and the message he was attempting to give to each. It also studies the different levels that the prime minister sees to the conflict: the concrete one in which he describes the actual combat and the abstract one in which Good battles Evil on a cosmic stage. On the fırst level, Dunkirk is a disaster that cannot be denied or hidden from the British people. On the second, however, it is a victory—a moral one only but one that has its own importance for Churchill. The context of the time is also examined. In particular, the famous last paragraph is given an in-depth analysis that leads to some rather surprising results.

LORI MAGUIRE is Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Paris 8 (Vincennes-St. Denis) and at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). She received her doctorate in modern history at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford and her habilita- tion (advanced doctorate) at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris 4).

© 2014 Michigan State University. All rights reserved. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 17, No. 2, 2014, pp. 255–286. ISSN 1094-8392.

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Winston Churchill is commonly considered to have written someof the greatest speeches of the twentieth century and perhaps ofall time. His war speeches, especially those of 1940–41, have been singled out for particular praise. The American journalist Edward R. Murrow, a contemporary, said that Churchill “mobilized the English lan- guage and sent it into battle.”1 The Nobel Committee cited “his brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values” to explain their decision to award him the literature prize in 1953.2 Historians (and many others) continue to recognize the power of his words. As David Cannadine has commented, “In 1940 Churchill fınally became the hero he had always dreamed of becoming, and his words at last made the historic impact he had always wanted them to make.”3 According to Geoffrey Best, “It became possible for Britons to believe in themselves as he portrayed them: a valiant and valuable people and nations.”4 Churchill himself was always careful to downplay his own impact, and more particularly that of his speeches, insisting that he was only giving expression to the collective spirit of the British people. He explained, “It was a nation and a race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.”5 More prosaically, he told Lord Moran in 1945: “People say my speeches after Dunkirk were the thing. That was only a part, not the chief part. . . . They forget I made all the main military decisions.”6

Strangely enough, although the influence of Churchill’s oratory is widely attested to, there has been little effort to make a close analysis of individual speeches.7 The goal of this essay is to make such an analysis and examine in detail one of the greatest examples of this “roar,” the “we shall fıght” speech given to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, at the end of the evacua- tion of British and French troops from Dunkirk. This event, and Churchill’s speech, have attained a near-legendary status among the British and, in- deed, throughout the English-speaking world. Even at the time people spoke of the “Dunkirk spirit”—the idea that the whole nation was pulling together in the face of intense danger, ready to face and resist anything the enemy might offer.8

I shall examine fırst the historical context in which the speech was made, then look at its language and structure before considering the speech in more detail—in particular the famous last paragraph. Churchill faced an incredibly complicated task. He had to give an accurate presentation of events—although not in enough detail to reveal anything important to the

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enemy. He had to stress the positive side of things (what little there was) without denying the critical situation in which the British found themselves. If he overemphasized the successes of Dunkirk he risked making people complacent when what was needed was an all-out effort to defend the nation. On the other hand, if he played up the peril too much, he might stimulate those, especially in France but in Britain too, who wanted an armistice. At the same time he had to convince the Germans and the Americans that Britain could and would fıght on and that they were a credible military power. Churchill achieved this delicate balancing act bril- liantly in this speech.

THE CONTEXT

In September 1939, the Germans invaded Poland, provoking a declaration of war from France and Britain. Over the next few months, the Allies avoided fıghting in what is popularly known as the “Bore War” or “Phony War.” However, in April of 1940, the Nazis attacked Norway, and the Allies made some attempt at assisting that nation. The failure of this intervention caused the fall of Neville Chamberlain in May and the appointment of Churchill as prime minister on May 10. He found a situation that could hardly have been more grave.

The German blitzkrieg of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands had begun on the very day Churchill took offıce. This invasion took place in two main stages. In the fırst, the Germans attacked the Netherlands and Bel- gium, and, in response, the Allies, expecting a repeat of World War I tactics, advanced into Belgium, where they coordinated with the Belgian Army along the Dyle River. This, however, did not turn out to be the main German attack, which actually came where the Allies had believed themselves ade- quately protected by the Maginot Line and the Ardennes (most French leaders had believed the latter to be impenetrable by tanks). By May 12, the Germans had captured Sedan in France. Two days later they were able to cross the Meuse River and head toward the English Channel. The Allies were trapped in a pincer movement between the two German forces, al- though they did not realize this at fırst.

Once the Allies understood what was happening, their only choice was to fall back toward France and try to break through the German lines. On May 16, the Allies began their withdrawal to the coast, facing complicating

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political factors. Neither France nor Britain wished to give the impression they were completely abandoning the Belgians. This problem would be solved only by the decision of King Leopold of Belgium to order on May 27 the surrender of his nation’s army; however, while the Allies were thus relieved of the moral imperative of showing support for Belgium, the result was a dangerous breach in Allied lines and a perilous exposure of their troops. The withdrawal was aided, though, by the German decision to halt and consolidate their forces from May 24 to 26.

The evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo, began on May 26, and its initial results were small. It continued until June 4 in often horrifying conditions: soldiers waiting for hours in water sometimes up to their necks, often in bad weather and exposed to enemy air power along the beach. The rain actually worked to their advan- tage, for it hampered the Luftwaffe’s ability to attack. The evacuation fınally ended on June 4 with nearly 340,000 British and French troops having been removed to England. However, by now it was clear that France was in serious danger. The British were already beginning to fear that France would make a separate peace with the Nazis, leaving them to continue alone in Europe.

Furthermore, the obviously critical situation in France was provoking a political crisis in Britain. A number of newspapers and members of Parlia- ment, especially from the Labour Party, were calling for someone to be punished for the debacle. Their target was obviously not Churchill since he had just taken power, but, rather, they were calling for the resignation of anyone associated with the old, discredited appeasement policy—this meant especially Neville Chamberlain and his foreign minister, Lord Hali- fax, both still occupying prominent roles in the government. At the same time, Churchill was to some extent a man without a party, for many Conservatives still supported Chamberlain and resented his deposition. Churchill himself sought to defuse the situation, as he wanted unity within the government.9 The nation had to have a united leadership to fıght effectively.

The immediate audience for this speech was the House of Commons. Although the speech was not broadcast to the nation, it was repeated on the news (which was probably for the best, as Churchill’s speaking voice was not particularly good); and, in this way, it reached the wider audience of the British population.10 It is, thus, a report on events in France both to

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Parliament, according to the prime minister’s constitutional duty, and to the nation. But this was not its only purpose, for Churchill also seeks to temper the euphoria that had broken out over the rescue of the army—to bring people back to reality while reassuring them about Britain’s military capabilities—and to incite them to continue the fıght while subtly preparing them for future adversity—notably the armistice between France and Ger- many, which would open the way to a possible invasion of Britain.11

But Churchill is also addressing the world at large, for he knew that the speech would be reproduced (in whole or part) by the foreign press and studied by other governments.12 Quite obviously, he is warning the Ger- mans that Britain is not fınished and that, even if France is reeling, the United Kingdom will continue the fıght. Less clearly, he is cautioning the Italians, who were threatening to declare war to gain some spoils in France, that such a course would not be wise. This speech is also addressed to the French government and people, as he wants to keep them in the war and hopes to reassure them of continued British support and of an eventual American participation.13 Furthermore, Churchill is also speaking to the Dominions, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, who have already sent troops to join the battle in Europe and were planning to dispatch more. He fears that they might stop providing troops and equipment if they start to think that Britain is failing in its resolve and considering an armistice, so he insists repeatedly that Britain will fıght to the end—no matter how bitter it may be. Finally, he is speaking to the U.S. government and to the American people. He wants American assistance and, ideally, an American decla- ration of war, but he does not want to beg for it. Churchill fırmly believed that this was the beginning of a world war and not the end of a European one: that the United States would enter the fıght and win.14 Certainly he is here trying to convince the Americans that, whatever France may do, Britain will remain in the war to the bitter end.

The conflict portrayed in the speech takes place on two levels. On the one hand, there is the perfectly factual level in which Churchill describes the fıghting in detail, even giving statistics to support his statements.15 On the other hand, there is the cosmic level, present in all Churchill’s war speeches, in which Good and Evil are battling for control of the world.16 Ultimately, the conflict is a moral one. Churchill consistently presents the Allies as defending “civilisation” or, as he sometimes states more specifıcally, “Chris- tian civilisation” against the Nazi barbarians. On the purely factual level, the

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fıghting has been disastrous so far: Belgium, the Netherlands, and northern France have all been lost; the Allied armies are in a state of total disarray; Great Britain is threatened with invasion and, although he does not publicly say it, Churchill hints that the French might soon make a separate peace with the Germans. Of course, things are not entirely hopeless: the French could regroup their army farther to the south and hold off the Germans there, and the Royal Air Force, in particular, had performed outstandingly. But the situation is undeniably grim. On the cosmic level, however, Dunkirk represents a moral victory, for the nation’s people have managed to escape from a predicament that could have led to their annihilation, thanks pri- marily to their fırm belief in the rightness of their cause, their unity, and their determination not to give up the fıght.

LANGUAGE

Robert Rhodes James observed that Churchill “had the capacity to take very complex themes and topics, and reduce them not to simplicities and clichés but to terms that others could understand without being talked down to.”17

This speech illustrates James’s point well, for Churchill is speaking to be understood by the general public. His vocabulary is relatively simple, and technical military terms are generally avoided.18 Churchill preferred shorter words of Anglo-Saxon origin, and he tends to balance Latinate words, notably in this speech, with simpler, Anglo-Saxon ones.19 This preference does not mean, though, that he avoids longer words, for fairly common four- or fıve-syllable words appear frequently. They are, however, all regular English usage; and in this way, Churchill thus avoids both talking down to people and sounding pretentious.

It should be noted, and it is interesting, that a number of people at the time used terms like “Elizabethan” or “Shakespearean” to describe the speech.20 Obviously Churchill used modern English or he would have sounded completely ridiculous. So how do these terms apply to the speech? Quite probably, people automatically associated it with Shakespeare’s fa- mous patriotic speeches, notably those in Henry V. But beyond such asso- ciations, they were also recognizing its poetic dimension, for a number of literary devices usually associated with poetry, such as meter, rhyme, and anaphora (such as the famous “we shall fıght” sequence), are present there. These devices are so strong that some writers have analyzed the musical

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dimension of his best speeches.21 Indeed, the composer Drew Schnurr has even written a piece called Churchill’s War for Orchestra with the express aim of highlighting his vocal performance during his war speeches. Signif- icantly, the fırst movement is entitled “We Shall Fight.”

Churchill himself clearly understood the importance of sound, writing in his youth that

The great influence of sound on the human brain is well known. The sen- tences of the orator when he appeals to his art become long, rolling and sonorous. The peculiar balance of the phrases produces a cadence which resembles blank verse rather than prose.22

Of course, although he talks here about “long, rolling and sonorous” sen- tences, Churchill is perhaps best known for his staccato sentences or phrases such as “we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end.” Meter and rhythm are an important element in all his speeches.

An important aspect of the speech is its drama, which makes the factual presentation extremely lively. The description of fıghting is vivid, and the speech begins en medias res, at the key moment when French defenses were broken on the Meuse that, in retrospect, brought about the subsequent disaster for the Allies. There is a strong visual element and many active verbs, such as “hold,” “sweep,” “cut,” “sever,” “run,” “plod,” “defend,” “seek,” “build,” or “expand.” Occasionally Churchill compares the current conflict with World War I in an effort to make the situation more intelligible to the average listener. For example, he explains at one point: “We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns.” Here he both summons and dispels the dark memories of the bloodshed of that earlier conflict—showing that this has been avoided because of the success of the evacuation. However, he clearly acknowledges that the material losses have been immense.

Literary devices such as personifıcation add to this drama, as when he describes the Dyle Line: “an effort was made by the French and British Armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French Army.”23 Furthermore, a phrase such as “shore its way up the coast” plays on both its literal meaning—the use of the archaic past tense of the verb “shear” to mean to cut

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or remove—and the usual meaning of “shore” for the land along an ocean or river. The earlier use of terms “scythe,” “cut,” and “sever” makes the archaic word comprehensible, while the word itself reinforces the idea of “coast.”

Churchill is also highly conscious of the fact that this is an oral text. Alliteration is common with numerous phrases, such as “rapid retreat” or “suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder.” Assonance is not neglected either, in cases such as “ran fırst to Amiens and afterward through Abbeville.” One can even observe both devices in this sentence: “A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fıdelity, is manifest to us all.” In addition, the “m” of “miracle” echoes the word “moment,” a term used twice in the previous sentence. Repetition is important, too, most famously in the concluding paragraph with its “we shall fıght” structure. However, it occurs in a number of other places, such as “on which and around which we were to build, and are to build.” Rhyme and near rhyme also appear at times: “sharp scythe around the right” and “never surrender.”

It is very diffıcult to know how Churchill delivered the speech since it was not recorded at the time. Extracts from it were broadcast on the BBC by a presenter. Churchill recorded it after the war and one thing noticeable about it is how calm his voice is—perhaps in part to illustrate the difference between himself as democratic leader and the histrionics of Hitler.24 It is only at the end that his voice rises—fırst when he talks about the air war and then when he states “we shall never surrender.” Of course, a number of years had intervened since his fırst delivery, so it is impossible to know if that is exactly how he delivered the speech in the House of Commons.

CHURCHILL'S PRESENTATION OF THE SITUATION

Churchill generally followed the classical organization of a speech, although he takes some liberties.25 To begin, there is no introduction because he has no need to present himself or his subject to his audience. Indeed, his fırst sentence plunges us immediately into the midst of the battle: “From the moment that the French defences at Sedan and on the Meuse were bro- ken . . . ” From here the listener is carried along by the flow of words and actions. Thus we are already in the second part of a classical discourse—the narration, which continues through most of the speech, and which makes

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perfect sense in that the main purpose is to inform the nation about what has happened at Dunkirk.

Churchill begins by briefly explaining how the German blitzkrieg had isolated the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and part of the French Army and had trapped hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers at Dunkirk. Churchill shows how the Allies got into a position where they could be trapped, avoiding invective and—with one exception—harsh criticism. Mistakes are freely admitted. As he explains, once the French lines had been broken, both the British and the French should have retreated south. They did not for three reasons: fırst, they did not realize immediately what was happening; second, when they did, they hoped to repair the breach; and, third, they did not want to abandon the Belgian Army to its annihilation. Interestingly enough, Churchill uses some form of the word “Belgium” six times in the opening paragraph, and he will return and develop this theme later. He ends this paragraph with a dramatic presentation of the Dyle Line, as the British and French armies in Belgium hold the “right hand” of the Belgian Army and offer their own right hand to a newly formed French Army. This is a highly effective way of portraying the Allied front, but it is also clearly a vision of friendship and even peace—and will serve as an important background image later in the speech.

Churchill then turns to the German attack that led to the crisis, and his presentation of it is memorable. The image of friendship described earlier is brutally cut as the “German eruption swept like a sharp scythe”—a mixed metaphor but a highly effective one, too. Note the unconventional use of the word “eruption” which brings to mind a volcano or a disease. Note also the use of alliteration. He describes the waves of the German invasion as follows:

Behind this armoured and mechanized onslaught came a number of German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German army and German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own.

The humanity of the Germans here is expressly denied: they have no individuality and do not think. They are something less than human. The fırst wave is more machine than human: “armoured and mechanised.” The

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second wave is described only as coming in lorries—once again the machine image—while the third wave, the “dull brute mass,” seems to consist of little more than cattle—and, like cattle, they trample things down. Not having known liberty or comfort in their own country, they blindly set about destroying it elsewhere. The German Army and people are a dehumanized war machine that brings disaster in its wake. Notice, too, that he does not mention the halt of the German Army from May 24 to 26.

Having painted this singularly destructive force, Churchill then pays tribute to the sacrifıce of Allied soldiers at Calais and Boulogne—a sacrifıce that made possible the retreat to Dunkirk. Unfortunately, still, Allied forces found themselves trapped there, unable to go farther on land. The serious- ness of the situation for the British cannot be exaggerated. The BEF was, in fact, practically the only fully armed terrestrial unit that the nation pos- sessed at the time. It was, as Churchill puts it later in this speech, the “root and core and brain of the British Army.” If France asked for an armistice, which seemed more and more likely, and if the BEF was lost, Great Britain would be practically defenseless against a German invasion. With the Allied armies effectively beaten on land, there was no choice but to try to save as many troops as possible by sea—a choice that Churchill describes as “for- lorn.” The diffıculties they faced were enormous. When the evacuation had begun, a week earlier, Churchill states that he feared this would be the greatest military disaster in British history. Certainly the situation looked nearly hopeless as the Germans focused their power on Dunkirk: the Panzer divisions battered the city; there was cannon fıre against the beaches, mines in the Channel, U-boats attacking ships, and waves of aircraft bombing the one remaining pier and the troops who were sheltered in the sand dunes. Churchill succeeds well in dramatizing the long ordeal that Dunkirk be- came. He does this for several reasons. First, he must prepare the British population for air raids and possible fıghting on their own soil. Second, he wants to limit criticism of the troops and to heighten the British people’s faith in their armed forces.

But in the middle of this dramatic story, Churchill suddenly returns to the Belgians and more particularly to that nation’s king. Leopold is one of the few people actually named and the only one to be discussed at any length in this speech. After the German invasion, Leopold had asked for Allied assistance, which he had received in spite of serious errors of judgment and of rank ingratitude on the part of the Belgians. Churchill insists:

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Had not this Ruler and his Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what has proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British Armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland.

We have already seen Churchill’s presentation of the Dyle Line as the extension of the Allies’ hand of friendship toward the Belgians. The blind fear of the Belgians led them to their own destruction, but it is Leopold alone who is responsible for behaving in a truly ignoble fashion: “without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal act” he surrendered the Belgian Army and trapped Allied forces in Dunkirk. For Churchill, the magnanimity and honor of the British and French were repaid by treachery.

Then he returns in dramatic fashion to the battlefıeld:

The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fıerceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous air force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches.

Details are given about the extent of German forces and their activity that make them seem unbeatable and the French and British armies doomed. However, against this nightmare, each of the forces continued to function and, indeed, to act with heroic distinction, and Churchill pays tribute to each of them in turn (while never forgetting the French). The prime minis- ter praises fırst the Royal Navy assisted by merchant seamen, who made the incredibly dangerous trip across the Channel to rescue the trapped soldiers. To assist the evacuation, every available boat, including those in private civilian ownership, was called out; and many at the time, notably J. B. Priestley, made a great deal of that fact. In his radio broadcast on the same day as Churchill’s speech, Priestley spoke of the “pleasure-steamers” used primarily by the working class for their vacations; these vessels were sent to rescue soldiers at Dunkirk.26 In particular he dramatized the sinking of the Gracie Fields, which, he says, made it “immortal.” For Priestley, this was the most important aspect of Dunkirk: “how the little holiday steamers made an excursion to hell and came back glorious,” and, of course, his emphasis on the working class shows his own political views. Interestingly enough,

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Churchill does not refer to this aspect of Dunkirk in his speech. He presents only the contributions of the offıcial forces.

The prime minister then gives even more lavish praise to the Royal Air Force (RAF). The fıghting, he notes, was “protracted and fıerce,” but thanks to the actions of the RAF, the “scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment—but only for the moment—died away.” Churchill has been describing the action in a highly theatrical, even cinematographic, way, and here he uses actual terminology from these media. The RAF has caused the war to stop briefly by making possible the evacuation of the army. It is “a miracle of deliverance.”

This is a key term. Certainly, Dunkirk could not be considered a victory, for the Germans had beaten the Allies into the sea. Their armies had been saved (and World War II continued) only by a timely evacuation, and, as Churchill puts it, “wars are not won by evacuations.” However, the phrase “miracle of deliverance” takes us from the purely military plane and places us on the cosmic level, for it is full of religious signifıcance. The word “miracle” obviously implies divine intervention, while the word “deliver- ance” hints at the Israelite deliverance from bondage in Egypt. There, too, had been a body of water to cross, and there, too, the body of water had been crossed miraculously. Certainly, Churchill was fond of using Old Testament imagery, frequently assuming, during the 1930s, the role of Old Testament prophet attacking the government’s policy of appeasement. Churchill seems to imply that divine intervention has allowed the BEF to escape and fıght another day. Of course, this divine intervention came about through human agents. It was, as Churchill puts it, “achieved by valour, by persever- ance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fıdelity.” The British had performed magnifıcently at Dunkirk. However, even divine intervention could not secure a “victory”— there were too many mistakes on the Allied side and too many successes for the Germans—but only a “deliverance.” The British and the French were simply too weak to achieve a military victory.

CONFIRMATIO

The next section serves as a kind of confırmatio, for it presents the advan- tages that Britain possesses in the conflict. In spite of everything, the prime minister does contend that there was a sort of “victory” within the “deliver-

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ance” that was won by the RAF. Many returning soldiers had not seen the RAF at work and, therefore, had criticized it.27 Churchill could not allow this criticism to stand, both because it was incorrect and because it could destroy civilian morale. He therefore asserts that Dunkirk was “a great trial of strength between the British and German Air forces.” The Germans wanted to prevent the evacuation and sink the Royal Navy, but they were unable to do so. British airplanes were thus shown to be superior to German ones. Against the might of the German military machine, Churchill sets a “few thousand” airmen. He pays tribute to these pilots who are, for him, romantic heroes, greater than the Knights of the Round Table or the Crusaders. Indeed, they are the new knights, the new defenders of civilization, and Churchill uses the vocabulary of chivalry to describe these twentieth- century soldiers, even misquoting Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur.”28 At Dunkirk, against all odds, they achieved a sort of victory by inflicting heavier losses on the Germans than they themselves suffered.29 However powerful the Germans may appear, Churchill concludes, there is cause for hope: Britain can and will be defended. And the defense of Britain means the defense of civilization. The word “civilisation” is very important, for, as we have seen, Churchill sees World War II in moral terms. The United King- dom, and in particular the RAF, are part of a long tradition of those who have fought to protect that which is best in the world.

After paying tribute to the RAF, Churchill returns to the army. He admits that Britain has taken sizable losses with many killed, wounded, or missing. Dramatically, he brings home this fact (and at the same time shows that all levels of British society are suffering from the war, even in the government) by offering his condolences to the president of the Board of Trade on the death of his son. But, as so often in the speech, he balances bad news with cause for hope, insisting that the enemy has experienced even greater losses. There is, however, no escaping the calamity caused by the necessary abandonment of heavy weap- ons and transport vehicles at Dunkirk. So much has been lost that the nation has little to protect itself in case of attack. Once again, however, Churchill frames this disastrous news in positive terms, saying that it will only delay “the expan- sion of our military strength.” The British Army is weak and small with few arms, but it will inexorably become great. Its growth has been only deferred, not ended. The big question for Churchill is how long the delay will be, and this, he insists, can be decided only by the British people: “How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make in this island.” But here,

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once again, there is cause for hope since the British are throwing themselves into the war effort:

An effort the like of which has never been seen in our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and week- days. Capital and labour have cast aside their interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock.

All differences, even those of social class that have fıgured so prominently in the nation’s history, have been put aside. The country is united and its citizens are working tirelessly together. Although he does not use the term “Dunkirk spirit,” it is here exemplifıed.

REFUTATIO

The refutatio part of classical discourse takes a strange form in this speech, for Churchill essentially acknowledges that the situation is extremely grave and admits candidly that the Allied cause has suffered “a colossal military disaster.” Ultimately he cannot hide the fact that Britain is now threatened with invasion, and this will hang over the rest of the speech. The fınal section is devoted to that possibility and what the government is doing to deal with it. The situation is indeed dire:

The French Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortifıed lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy’s possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck immediately at us or at France.

Added to this, of course, the British Army has lost most of its weapons and is disorganized, a situation to which he only refers briefly.

There is, however, an undoubted bravado in certain statements, referring, for example, to Napoleon being told, “There are bitter weeds in England”—and asserting that there are many more now with the return of the BEF. He insists that the United Kingdom will not abandon its ally and even states, “We shall not be content with a defensive war.” Knowing the result of World War II we may

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fail to see how extraordinary that statement is: in the midst of a “colossal military defeat” Churchill is threatening to attack the Nazis. Still, even at his most defıant, Churchill never forgets to refer to how dire things are—evoking, for example, the specter of enemy parachute landings. At this point the fırst priority is organizing the defense of the homeland or there will be no future offensive. To begin this discussion, he suggests a secret session.

The prime minister also announces the internment of enemy aliens as well as of a number of British subjects who might potentially pose a danger. The possibility that a Fifth Column exists within the nation is effectively admitted by Churchill, which he describes as a “malignancy in our midst.” He argues that in such a desperate situation no risks can be taken and that, therefore, the govern- ment must err on the side of caution. He admits that some opponents of the Nazis will almost certainly be unfairly interned but insists there is no remedy for this action, because the security of the nation is paramount. Signifıcantly, Churchill does not dwell on this issue; fears of a Fifth Column were certainly not good for morale.

He ends this section, therefore, on a brighter note, in preparation for the peroration. Churchill, who had written a number of history books, tries to place the events of 1940 in the longer context of British history. He contends that Britain has never had absolute protection from invasion: “There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imagination of many Continental tyrants.” By pointing out that this situation has occurred before, Churchill seeks to de-dramatize it.30 An examination of Churchill’s historical works, notably his life of Marlborough and his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, shows that he saw a pattern of tyrants arising on the continent and seeking to gain dominance over Europe. He viewed it as Britain’s task to make sure they did not succeed and to defend liberty. Hitler is worse than the others, though, for Nazi Germany shows a real “originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression;” therefore the British people must prepare themselves for “every kind of brutal and treacherous manoeuvre.” But they must not forget that they have “solid assurances of sea power” and “air power.”

PERORATIO

The concluding paragraph of this speech is justly one of the most famous in the English language:

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I have, myself, full confıdence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government—every man of them. That is the will of Parlia- ment and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. 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 fıght in France, we shall fıght on the seas and the oceans, we shall fıght with growing confıdence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fıght on the beaches, we shall fıght on the landing grounds, we shall fıght in the fıelds and in the streets, we shall fıght 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.

Extremely moving and highly uplifting, this passage is patriotic but not jingoistic. Churchill never glorifıes the physical strength of Great Britain but, in fact, does quite the contrary. He admits Britain’s weakness and clearly states that she cannot win the war on her own: the intervention of another nation is necessary for victory. All that Britain can do, thanks to the strength of its people, and only if all of them “do their duty,” is to “defend [their] island.” They can, as he puts it, “ride out the storm of war and . . . outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone”: they can survive, but they cannot win. They cannot liberate Europe alone. He emphasizes that, even though this is the case, the government, Parliament, and the nation are determined to continue the struggle. He also adds that the British Empire and the French Republic are united and will remain so to defend their lands.

Here we come to the heart of the problem, for with the phrase “if necessary alone,” Churchill has admitted his fear that France will fall—in

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biblical terms—and make peace with the devil. Churchill is, in fact, treading a very fıne line. He desperately wants to keep France in the battle, even if it means that the government must flee metropolitan France and operate from North Africa. He wants to keep them from selling their soul. But since he fears that this might occur, he must prepare the British public for such an eventuality while doing his best not to appear to do so. Churchill had announced at a cabinet meeting on May 28, early in the evacuation, that

He was determined to prepare public opinion for bad tidings, and it would of course be said, with some truth, that what was now happening would be the greatest military defeat for many centuries. We must now be prepared for the sudden turning of the war against this island, and prepared also for other events of great gravity in Europe. No countenance should be given publicly to the view that France might soon collapse, but we must not allow ourselves to be taken by surprise by any events.31

It is also interesting to note that he used the “we shall fıght” structure, at least according to Hugh Dalton, during a speech at this cabinet meeting.

But, as I noted earlier, Churchill is also addressing the French. By stating so clearly how much Britain is ready to suffer, he is hoping to encourage the French to resist. By envisioning the struggle being continued in the British Empire, after the defeat of the Mother Country, he is pointing the way to the French, who might have to do this in a much nearer future. Churchill expressed his ideas on the subject in a letter to General Ismay:

The BEF in France must immediately be reconstituted, otherwise the French will not continue in the war. Even if Paris is lost, they must be adjured to continue a gigantic guerrilla. A scheme should be considered for a bridgehead and area of disembarkation in Brittany, where a large army can be developed. We must have plans worked out which will show the French that there is a way through if they will only be steadfast.32

In this speech, he tries to give them the blueprint. The famous “we shall fıght” anaphora is much more than a call to arms,

for in it Churchill actually envisions the Nazi conquest of Europe. He begins by noting that, although much of Europe may be defeated, “we shall not flag or fail.” It is noteworthy that he uses the pronoun “we” to state that this is the

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collective will of the people.33 The British will “go on to the end,” no matter how dark things may appear. And then he turns to envision the worst. Each “we shall fıght” phrase represents another step in the Nazi conquest, al- though, interestingly enough, there is no direct object given. Churchill never says whom they will fıght, although from the context it is obvious.34

As he stresses the act of fıghting rather than the actual enemy, his audience may infer that Nazi Germany represents a kind of abstract evil.

Churchill begins by saying that “we shall fıght in France,” for the battle of France is not yet over, and it could end happily. But, if the battle does not end happily, then Churchill is prepared to resist a Nazi invasion of Britain, and he illustrates this resolve in the next stage of the speech, for the British shall fıght on the seas and oceans and in the air: the exact places from which a German invasion would come. He insists that they will defend their “island, whatever the cost may be.” Then Churchill actually presents the phases in a German conquest of Britain. First, there will be the landings, on the beaches and the landing grounds, then, as the Nazis progress, they will reach British cities and towns and the fıghting will take place in the fıelds and streets. Finally, when the conquest is complete, the British will have no choice but to fıght a guerrilla war in the hills. In retribution for this guerrilla war, the Nazis might make Britain “subjugated and starving,” but if this is the price to be paid for supporting the Good, the British are ready to pay it. They would still continue to fıght from the outposts of their empire. They will, according to Churchill “never surrender.”35 He is doing no less than envisioning the total defeat of his country. In fact, given the future it evokes, this speech is profoundly depressing—but in the genius of Churchill’s oratory this is hardly noticed.

Nor is this just hyperbole to motivate the listeners. Churchill had earlier told the French at the Supreme War Council meeting of May 31:

The British Government were prepared to wage war from the New World if, through some disaster, England herself was laid waste. It must be realised that if Germany defeated either Ally, or both, she would give no quarter: they would be reduced to the status of vassals and slaves forever. It would be better far that the civilisation of Western Europe, with all its achievements, should come to a tragic but splendid end, than that the two Democracies should linger on, stripped of all that made life worth living.36

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Churchill is once again stressing the moral dimension: he believes that the West, and especially Britain, is superior because it has developed democracy and the rule of law.37 For Churchill the contrast is stark: Nazi Germany is evil, and, therefore, to try realpolitik would not only be fruitless (Nazi Germany has never respected its agreements); to attempt an arrangement with pure evil would destroy the moral basis of the nation. Therefore, it is better for the nation to be destroyed physically than to lose its soul.

This belief has led Churchill to be attacked by a number of critics who argue that his refusal to seek accommodation with Germany after the defeat of France exhausted Britain, leaving it a second-rate power after the war. One of the most famous exponents of this idea, John Charmley, wrote in his book, Churchill: The End of Glory, that

Churchill’s rhetoric was creating a climate in which, unless the fınal disaster overtook the nation, the expression of the contrary point of view looked not only treasonable, which was bad enough—but, cowardly, which was worse.38

Charmley attacks Churchill’s oratory for persuading the public to support his ultimately destructive (according to Charmley) view that Britain had to continue the war at all costs.39 This is certainly giving a great deal of power to a few speeches, no matter how persuasive. Other scholars have argued that Churchill’s views on a possible peace were more nuanced than Charm- ley allows.40 Certainly, as David Reynolds insists, “Churchill’s public rhet- oric is not an exact guide to his private policy in 1940” and that “his best hope at this time was a negotiated peace with some kind of German government.”41 At a meeting on May 27, when pressed by Neville Cham- berlain and Lord Halifax, the foreign minister (both of whom had been noted appeasers), Churchill undeniably said that “He would not join France in asking for terms; but if he were told what the terms offered were, he would be prepared to consider them.”42 One could argue, though, that Churchill sought to pacify Chamberlain and Halifax more than anything else.

In fact, the prime minister and other members of the British government had, as they saw it, solid reasons to remain in the war. The fırst was a belief that Germany was not as strong as she appeared and had overstretched herself. Clement Attlee thought on May 26 that “Herr Hitler was working to a time limit, and he had to win by the end of the year.”43 Chamberlain agreed, saying: “He would have to win by the beginning of the winter.” On

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May 31, at the Supreme War Council, Churchill stated that “the Germans were being very hard pressed. In spite of their great successes they had, behind the technical troops so largely responsible for the recent advance, an army which was very far from the standard of 1914.”44 He also had great confıdence in the BEF, who were hardened veterans.45 Churchill, further- more, argued that Britain would gain nothing from signing a peace treaty with the Germans: “If we were beaten, we should be no worse off than we should be if we were now to abandon the struggle.”46

Yet another reason fıgures largely at the end of the speech, where Churchill again skillfully blends the cosmic and the prosaic levels. Although Churchill was not particularly religious, he did fırmly believe that, no matter how dark things may seem, no matter how many defeats the Allies may suffer, God had destined them to win in the end. When this victory might be, Churchill does not know (it will be “in God’s good time”), but he does know how it will come about: one day the United States will enter the war and defeat Nazi Germany. The Americans then will be God’s instrument for righting the wrongs of the Old World. This is a key point, for it represents more than just Churchill’s love for his mother’s nation. Here he shows his acceptance of the reality of Britain’s decline on the world stage. Britain had a major role to play as moral leader and would later contribute a great deal concretely to the fınal defeat of the Axis powers, but Churchill is fully aware that Britain cannot, in military terms, conquer Nazi Germany. But Britain had been responsible for the creation of another, now more powerful country, one that had inherited her values, one that had the strength to win the war.47 Churchill was thus very much aware of his nation’s decline and realized that an American intervention would be necessary for victory.48

Furthermore, he was convinced that this intervention would occur. He had told the French on May 31: “An invasion of England, if it took place, would have a still profounder effect on the United States, especially in those many towns in the New World which bore the same names as towns in the British Isles.”49 Here we see a striking example of Churchill’s belief in a certain, almost mystical link between the English-speaking nations.50

But this should not lead one to think that Churchill had an idealized vision of the United States. He was a hard-nosed politician who thought in realistic terms and who wanted to protect British interests and place Britain in the best possible position after the war (provided this did not, of course, compromise her values). The Americans, at the time, were

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trying to get His Majesty’s Government to let them use British bases (notably in the Caribbean). Churchill was fırmly opposed to doing this unless the Americans offered something in exchange. He told members of the war cabinet:

The Prime Minister said that he would be opposed to a proposal that we should offer such facilities except as part of a deal. The United States had given us practically no help in the war, and now that they saw how great was the danger, their attitude was that they wanted to keep everything which would help us for their own defence.51

Churchill displays quite a bit of cynicism about American motives in this passage. And, indeed, he won his point, for the destroyers for bases deal was announced shortly afterward. Certainly, he did not want to beg from the Americans. It was noted in a meeting of the war cabinet on May 28:

The Prime Minister thought that an appeal to the United States at the present time would be altogether premature. If we made a bold stand against Ger- many, that would command their admiration and respect; but a grovelling appeal, if made now, would have the worst possible effect. He therefore did not favour making any approach on the subject at the present time.52

It seems certain that Churchill was ready to fıght until the end. He stated this both publicly and privately during the period in question. He told the war cabinet on May 26:

We were not prepared to give in on any account. We would rather go down fıghting than be enslaved to Germany. But in any case we were confıdent that we had a good chance of surviving the German onslaught.53

On May 28, he put it even more succinctly: “Nations which went down fıghting rose again, but those which surrendered tamely were fınished.”54

Clearly, we are once again in the cosmic dimension. There is a moral obligation on Great Britain never to surrender, for it would destroy the nation’s soul. For Churchill, they were an example to the world and a light shining in darkness. At all costs, they must not voluntarily put out that light.

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REACTIONS TO THE SPEECH

The response to the speech was immense. Inside Parliament, many members were overwhelmed, and press reports show that they repeat- edly cheered. He received a long ovation at the end.55 Henry Channon, who had been a staunch supporter of Chamberlain, wrote, “he was eloquent, and oratorical, and used magnifıcent English; several Labour members cried.”56 Hugh Dalton of the Labour Party called it “a grand speech . . . very grim and determined.”57 Harold Nicolson wrote to his wife that it was “the fınest speech that I have ever heard.”58 Her reply contained even more praise:

I wish I had heard Winston making that magnifıcent speech! Even repeated by the announcer it sent shivers (not of fear) down my spine. I think that one of the reasons why one is stirred by his Elizabethan phrases is that one feels the whole massive backing of power and resolve behind them, like a great fortress: they are never words for words’ sake.59

Churchill’s private secretary, John Colville, was also moved listening to it, calling it “a magnifıcent oration which obviously moved the House.”60

The British press also responded enthusiastically to the speech. The Times said of it: “The proud peroration of the Prime Minister’s speech breathed the spirit of Shakespeare’s England.”61 The Daily Mirror described it on page 1 as “the greatest speech ever made by a Prime Minister of Britain,” and in its editorial said it was “a speech to be praised simply by saying that it was worthy of the brave leader of a brave race.”62 The Manchester Guardian took a more reflective approach in an editorial:

He [Churchill] acknowledges what we have won, what justly encourages us to face the future, but he does not shirk what is painful in the truth nor evade its implications, however grave, nor mince words about defeat, if it is defeat that we have suffered. There is no other road to safety because thus only can we know the magnitude of the effort that we must make to retrieve what we have lost, thus only can we realize the dangers that lie immediately ahead, and be determined, to face everything and endure everything until we come through at last. Mr. Churchill told the country yesterday what we had feared, what we had snatched from utter defeat, how great is the military disaster, for it is no

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less, that the Allies have sustained, and what spirit of industry and of resolu- tion we must summon to the gigantic task that now awaits us.

The editorial went on to add that Churchill “spoke for the whole country when he said that, whatever the odds, we should go on to the end against the power that threatens us with utter destruction.”63

It is more diffıcult to know how ordinary people reacted, but there is much evidence that points toward their fınding the speech highly moving. Nella Last, Mass Observation’s Housewife 49, wrote of the impact of Dunkirk on herself: “somehow I felt everything to be worthwhile, and I felt glad I was of the same race as the rescuers and rescued.”64 Another Mass Observation housewife, Tilly Rice, was carried away:

The Premier’s speech—which I thought was the fınest bit of rhetoric I had ever heard, and the like of which I thought was never produced nowadays— seems to have been received everywhere with enthusiasm. It’s what the country has been wanting for years, and I am reminded of Auntie’s remark of some months back, while inveighing against the hopelessness of the Cham- berlain administration. She said, “The time will produce the man . . . ” and by George it has in Churchill.65

The fact that the speech is still remembered today in Britain by so many people points toward the profound impact it had at the time.

The Dunkirk evacuation and subsequent events also made a deep im- pression in the United States. The Battle of France actually provoked a panic there, for Americans began to fear that their own nation might be invaded. The press and public, however, generally reacted positively to Churchill’s speech. The great journalist Edward R. Murrow, then in London, told the American people:

I have heard Mr. Churchill in the House of Commons at intervals over the last ten years. I heard his speech on the Norwegian campaign, and I have some knowledge of his writings. Today, he was different. There was little oratory; he wasn’t interested in being a showman. He spoke the language of Shake- speare with a direct urgency such as I have never before heard in that House. There were no frills and no tricks. Winston Churchill’s speeches have been prophetic. He has talked and written of the German danger for years. He has

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gone into the political wilderness in defense of his ideas. Today, as Prime Minister, he gave the House of Commons a report remarkable for its honesty, inspiration and gravity.66

Here we see him also contributing to the legend of Churchill, the prophet of the 1930s. The New York Times wrote of Churchill’s “moral heroism” for his ability to “look at facts without flinching,” and then went on to show very real admiration for the British people:

He believes in telling the grim truth in this dark hour because he knows his British people. He knows that they will respond, with all they have and all they are, if they see that their heritage is in mortal danger.67

The Washington Post called Churchill a “fıghting premier” and said that his words “had the ring of unvarnished truth.”68 The Associated Press, whose report was carried in a great many American newspapers, said that Churchill “gave the British Commons and people ‘the measure of defeat and the epic of rescue.’” Like other American sources, it noted the reference to the New World and observed that Churchill held out “hope of help” from “America, if Britain is broken by invasion.”69 Life did a detailed article on the subject with photos and talked of Churchill’s “eloquent voice.” The magazine gloried in the episode, exclaiming that “free men are always the world’s most terrible fıghters.”70

By this point all French newspapers had been reduced to two pages. Still, a substantial part of those two pages was dedicated to Churchill’s speech in the major national newspapers. Le Figaro, Le Temps, and Le Matin all quoted extensively from it, including its fınal paragraph. They all stressed similar parts—notably Franco-British unity, the actions of the Belgian king (which Le Temps in particular underlined), and the reference to the United States (indeed, that country fıgured frequently in the French press at the time, with clear hints at a possible future American participation). On the other hand, Le Figaro and Le Matin were notably less enthusiastic about the evacuation than was Le Temps. If Le Figaro and Le Matin seemed content just to give extensive quotes from the speech, Le Temps described the evacuation as “one of the most glorious and at the same time one of the most remarkable episodes in all of military history.”71 Interestingly enough, Le Matin did entitle its article “Mr. Churchill Exalts the Heroism of the

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Northern Armies,” which gave the speech much more of a French emphasis than it actually contained. However, although they were not allowed to publish such ideas, many French people at the time viewed the Dunkirk evacuation as abandonment by their ally—however much Churchill may have tried to say otherwise.72

Finally, according to Politika, published in Yugoslavia, the speech made a profound impression on the Germans too.73 Of course, their press em- phasized its negative aspects, calling it “a sober, unvarnished, manly con- fession of defeat.”74 They presented it as an admission that Churchill and the British knew that Germany would ultimately win the war. However, there was little of the usual ridicule of Churchill—with the very important exception of the fınal part of the speech. Here they predictably criticized the reference to America, and an offıcial statement by the German Foreign Offıce said:

Not yet satisfıed with having baited the European Continent into the present war, its aspiration is now openly to espouse a program calculated to misuse the peoples of the American continents for its lust for power.75

We see here a common element of Nazi propaganda—the ascribing to other nations of their own desires. The British, they argued, were responsible for the war, and had started it through their own aggressive spirit. Now fınding themselves in diffıculties, they were trying to expand it to other continents. Of course, one could hardly expect the Germans to praise the quality of Churchill’s speech.

The “we shall fıght” speech was immediately recognized throughout the English-speaking world as a masterpiece and a classic of that language, and this reputation has continued until today. It would be pointless here to try to list all the famous and influential people who have praised it in the inter- vening years. Its continuing importance, though, can be seen from the fact that when the Guardian newspaper decided in 2007 to publish the great speeches of the twentieth century, this was the fırst one chosen. Further- more, in April 2013, Sony and the Radio Academy commissioned a poll in the United Kingdom to fınd the top ten moments in radio history, and this speech topped the list.76 Terry Wogan of the BBC commented in the same announcement that “Winston Churchill’s magnifıcent speeches that rallied

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this country in the darkest days of World War Two have been etched into the fabric of our society.”77

It was the peculiar genius of Churchill that a speech that envisioned the total destruction of his country could inspire a nation to greater resistance and self-sacrifıce. He transformed a shocking defeat into a moral victory that continues to live in the collective consciousness of the English-speaking world. He crystallized the feelings of hope, despair, and defıance of an entire nation while never denying the desperate reality of the situation.

NOTES

1. Edward Bliss, ed., In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow (London:

Macmillan, 1968), 237.

2. See Nobelprize.org, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1953/ (accessed

July 28, 2013).

3. David Cannadine, In Churchill’s Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain

(London: Penguin, 2003), 104.

4. Geoffrey Best, Churchill: A Study in Greatness (London: Hambledon and London, 2001),

187.

5. Speech in the House of Commons, November 30, 1954, in Complete Speeches, ed. Robert

Rhodes James (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974), 8:8608. The downplaying

was relative, though. See John Ramsden, Man of the Century: Winston Churchill and His

Legend (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), which discusses how he worked

to create his own legend and his continuing impact in the (especially English-speaking)

world.

6. September 2, 1945, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston, MA:

Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 314. As David Reynolds has observed, Churchill used his war

memoirs to make this point. See In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing

the Second World War (London: Penguin, 2004), 181.

7. Among the exceptions to this rule are James W. Muller, ed., Churchill’s “Iron Curtain”

Speech Fifty Years Later (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999); Richard Toye,

“Winston Churchill’s ‘Crazy’ Broadcast: Party, Nation and the 1945 Gestapo Speech,”

Journal of British Studies 49 (2010): 655–80; and Jonathan Charteris-Black, Politicians

and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,

2005). The latter is a linguistic study, somewhat marred by the author consistently

referring to Churchill’s “Blood, Sweat and Tears” speech when Churchill used the phrase

“Blood, toil, tears and sweat.” See also Manfred Weidhorn, Churchill’s Rhetoric and

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Political Discourse (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987); and John Lukacs,

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Dire Warning (New York: Basic Books, 2008).

8. The classic interpretation is perhaps that of Charles Loch Mowat, Britain between the

Wars, 1918–1945 (London: Methuen, 1955), 657. He described Dunkirk, at the end of

his book, as the start of a new period in British history. It was, he said, “an epic of

courage and improvisation.” An interesting overview can be found in the chapter on

Dunkirk in Paul Addison, The Road to 1940, 2nd ed. (London: Pimlico, 1994).

Reassessments and reevaluations, often less positive, are too numerous to mention, but

for a differing view see Angus Calder, The People’s War (London: Panther, 1971) and

The Myth of the Blitz (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991); or Nicholas Harmon, Dunkirk:

The Necessary Myth (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980).

9. For more on the political outcry at the time see Addison, The Road to 1940, 107–12; or

Kevin Jefferys, The Churchill Coalition and Wartime Politics (Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1995), 43–48. For background on the Conservative Party’s attitude to

Churchill and Chamberlain see Graham Stewart. Burying Caesar, Churchill,

Chamberlain and the Battle for the Tory Party (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,

1999).

10. Herbert Leslie Stewart commented that “neither his style nor his delivery at the

microphone would have aroused popular enthusiasm” in Sir Winston Churchill as

Writer and Speaker (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1954), 43.

11. With regard to this “euphoria,” Malcolm Smith, Britain and 1940: History, Myth and

Popular Memory (London: Routledge, 2000), 39, points out that the tone of the British

press was not triumphalist at the time and that even the Daily Mirror’s “Bloody

Marvellous” editorial expressed primarily relief.

12. David Cannadine makes similar points in In Churchill’s Shadow: Confronting the Past

in Modern Britain, 105–6, where he talks about the “three different purposes” of

Churchill’s oratory: “In the fırst place he reported regularly to the Commons about the

progress of the war. . . . The second purpose of these speeches was to rally and reassure

the British people as a whole. . . . The third . . . to convince the world—and especially

American—opinion, both of the plight of Britain’s position and of the strength of

Britain’s resolve.”

13. In these fınal days of the Third French Republic, much hope was put in a possible

American war declaration. It had formed part of the discussion of the Supreme War

Council of May 31, 1940, with Churchill assuring the French Président du Conseil,

Paul Reynaud, that “The United States has been roused by recent events.” The

Churchill War Papers: Never Surrender, May 1940 –December 1940, ed. Martin Gilbert

(London: Norton, 1995), 217.

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14. In fact, at this critical juncture, discussions with the French revolved around this

question. It may seem strange to us now, but it was not yet clear to everyone that what

was happening was a world war. Many people in France, and Pétain notably, were

arguing that this was simply the end of a European war: France was beaten, the British

could not continue, and the Germans were certain to win. They might as well make the

best of a bad situation and try to get the best peace terms possible. Paradoxically, given

what we know about his later career, the only relatively major fıgure in France who was

consistently arguing otherwise was Charles de Gaulle. See G. E. Maguire,

Anglo-American Policy towards the Free French (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995).

15. The concrete and practical level of Churchill’s speeches is often forgotten. Paul

Addison, Churchill, the Unexpected Hero (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), has

commented that Churchill’s speeches “pierced the fog of rumour and speculation with

vivid and authoritative commentaries on the military and strategic situation. Although

there was a strong propaganda element in his presentation of the facts, and many

secrets lay concealed, they were the speeches of a great parliamentary democrat,

leading, informing, and instructing a nation” (169).

16. Martin Gilbert, Continue to Pester, Nag and Bite: Churchill’s War Leadership (London:

Pimlico, 2004), put it another way: “The main vehicle by which Churchill sustained

that confıdence was through his speeches and broadcasts. The twin pillars of his

oratory were realism and vision. One complimented the other” (37).

17. Robert Rhodes James, “Churchill the Parliamentarian, Orator and Statesman,” in

Churchill, ed. Robert Blake (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 514.

18. A much more detailed linguistic analysis of the speech was done by Simon Humphries,

“A Metafunctional Analysis of Sir Winston Churchill’s We Shall Fight on the Beaches

Speech,” Research Reports: Kinki University Technical College 22 (2006): 75–81.

http://www.academia.edu/1569347/A_metafunctional_analysis_of_Sir_Winston_

Churchills_We_shall_fıght_on_the_beaches_speech (accessed July 24, 2013).

19. Bill Stott, in what is generally considered a standard work on writing, Write to the Point

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), develops this in some detail in relation

to the “we shall fıght” sequence (83–84).

20. Several such examples are quoted in the last section of this essay.

21. Richard Dimbleby observed: “The most familiar musical phrase that recurs in

Churchill’s war-time speeches is one that he used, probably unconsciously, as a young

man. Translated on the piano, it represents approximately the notes G . . . A

(below) . . . C sharp (above),” in Churchill by His Contemporaries, ed. Charles Eade

(London: Hutchinson, 1953), 411.

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22. “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric,” unpublished article written in 1897,

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/images/pdfs/for_educators/

THE_SCAFFOLDING_OF_RHETORIC.pdf (accessed July 25, 2013).

23. All quotations from the speech are taken from the offıcial record of the House of

Commons Debates, 5th series, vol. 361, cols. 787–96. It is now available on the web at

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/jun/04/war-situation (accessed

March 15, 2012).

24. Simon Schama suggests this in his article on the speech: “To hear the recording of the

speech is to be amazed all over again at the fıne-tuning of the performance since

Churchill deliberately lowers his pitch for much of the ‘we shall fıght’ repetitions, in

softly heroic lament, a reproach, perhaps, to the unhinged vocal histrionics of his

arch-enemy.” See “The Lost Art of Great Speechmaking,” Guardian, April 20, 2007,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/20/greatspeeches (accessed July 28,

2013).

25. For more on Churchill’s ideas on rhetoric see Weidhorn, Churchill’s Rhetoric and

Political Discourse.

26. J. B. Priestley, “Postscript to the News,” broadcast on BBC radio, June 5, 1940. The

complete speech can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/dunkirk/14310.shtml

(accessed October 24, 2013).

27. The Ministry of Information noted much criticism of the RAF by the recently returned

troops. See INF 1/264, June 3, 1940, Report of Home Intelligence, Ministry of

Information, fıles of correspondence, National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom.

28. Churchill says: “Every morn brought forth a noble chance/And every chance forth a

noble knight.” The actual quotation by Tennyson is “When every morning brought a

noble chance/And every chance brought out a noble knight.” Tennyson’s Poetry, ed.

Robert W. Hill (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), 428.

29. Churchill actually overestimated the losses that the RAF had inflicted on the Germans.

For more on this see Robert Jackson, Dunkirk (London: Cassell, 1976), 130.

30. Manfred Weidhorn comments: “Invading Britain, he reminded everyone, was an old

idea, and she had come through similar peril before.” Sword and Pen: A Survey of the

Writings of Sir Winston Churchill (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,

1974), 139.

31. Entry for May 28, 1940, The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton, ed. Ben Pimlott

(London: Jonathon Cape, 1986), 27.

32. Churchill to Ismay, June 2, 1940, in The Churchill War Papers, ed. Martin Gilbert

(London: Norton, 1995), 2:227.

“WE SHALL FIGHT” 283

33. Manfred Weidhorn has commented that this was “the reverse of Hitler’s procedure”

and thus “submerged the leader in his people and engaged the collective spirit in its

fıght against a crazed nation governed by individuals rather than laws.” “Churchill the

Phrase Forger,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972): 165.

34. Humphries makes this point too on page 3.

35. It has been observed that “surrender” is the only word in this sequence not of

Anglo-Saxon origin. See Stott, Write to the Point, 84.

36. Gilbert, Never Surrender, 218.

37. The unattractive side of this is that Churchill did not really see a conflict between his

belief in democracy and his support for imperialism, although his opinion was more

nuanced than generally supposed.

38. John Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory—A Political Biography (London: Hodder

and Stoughton, 1993), 412.

39. His verdict on the Dunkirk speech: “It was sublime—nonsense—but sublime

nonsense.” Charmley, Churchill, 411.

40. See, for example, R. A. C. Parker, Churchill and Appeasement (London: Macmillan,

2000); or Bernd Martin, “Churchill and Hitler, 1940: Peace or War?” in Winston

Churchill: Studies in Statesmanship, ed. R. A. C. Parker (London: Brassey’s, 1995),

83–96.

41. Reynolds, In Command of History, 173.

42. War Cabinet: Confıdential Annex, May 27, 1940, 65/13, Cabinet Offıce Papers,

National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom.

43. Cabinet Papers, 65/13, Cabinet Offıce Papers.

44. Cabinet Papers 99/3. See also Churchill to Ismay, May 27, 1940, in Gilbert, Never

Surrender, 166

45. Entry for June 3, 1940, Dalton, The Second World War Diary.

46. War Cabinet: Confıdential Annex, May 27, 1940, 65/13.

47. Smith, Britain and 1940: “Even for Churchill, it seems, the bottom line was the USA,

not Britain” (54).

48. Corelli Barnett, “Afterward: Churchill—Achievement and Legacy,” in Winston

Churchill: Studies in Statesmanship, comments: “Yet it surely can be seen that such a

deal must have left a militarily and economically enfeebled Britain dependent on

Hitler’s continued goodwill: the off-shore island of a Nazi Europe. If in Britain’s plight

a degree of dependence on a superpower there had to be, then English-speaking and

democratic America seemed to Churchill then, and must seem to us in retrospect

today, the only choice” (218–19).

49. Minutes of the Supreme War Council, Gilbert, Never Surrender, 218.

284 RHETORIC & PUBLIC AFFAIRS

50. Churchill would, of course, develop this idea on the subject and suggest a “special

relationship” between the two nations in the “iron curtain” speech of 1946. For more

on this see Muller, Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech.

51. War Cabinet Minutes, May 27, 1940, 65/7.

52. War Cabinet: Confıdential Annex, May 28, 1940, 65/13.

53. War Cabinet: Confıdential Annex, May 26, 1940, 65/13.

54. War Cabinet: Confıdential Annex, May 28, 1940, 65/13.

55. Times, “Mr. Churchill Surveys the War,” June 5, 1940, 6, issue 48634 col. A.

56. Entry for June 4, 1940, Henry Channon, Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, ed.

Robert Rhodes James (Harmondworth: Penguin, 1967), 256.

57. Entry for June 4, 1940, Dalton, The Second World War Diary, 35.

58. Harold Nicolson, letter to Vita Sackville-West, June 4, 1940, The War Years:

1939–1945, ed. Nigel Nicolson (New York: Atheneum, 1996), 93.

59. Vita Sackville-West to Harold Nicolson, June 5, 1940, The War Years, 93.

60. Entry for June 4, 1940, John Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries

(New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), 147.

61. Times, “A Miracle of Deliverance,” June 5, 1940, 7, col. B.

62. Daily Mirror, June 5, 1940, “We Never Surrender,” 1 and “We Shall Not Flag or Fail,”

7. Both headlines, of course, referred to the speech.

63. Manchester Guardian, “The Premier’s Speech,” June 5, 1940, 4.

64. Entry for June 5, 1940, Nella Last’s War: A Mother’s Diary 1939–45, ed. Richard Broad

and Suzie Fleming (London: Sphere Books, 1981), 62.

65. Simon Garfıeld, We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in

Extraordinary Times (London: Ebury Press, 2006), 249.

66. Broadcast on June 4, 1940, in Edward R. Murrow, In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of

Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961, ed. Edward Bliss (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1967), 29.

67. “A Brave Speech,” New York Times (1923–Current fıle); June 5, 1940; ProQuest

Historical Newspapers: New York Times (1851–2009), 24.

68. Signifıcantly the editorial was entitled “To the Bitter End,” Washington Post

(1923–1954); June 5, 1940; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Washington Post

(1877–1996), X10.

69. The title is signifıcant here too: “Navy Will Never Surrender, Even if England Falls,

Churchill Vows,” by the Associated Press, Washington Post (1923–1954); June 5, 1940;

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Washington Post (1877–1996), X1.

70. Life, June 17, 1940, 19.

71. “M. Churchill fait aux Communes le récit épique de la campagne des Flandres.” Le

Figaro 157, June 5, 1940; “M. Winston Churchill exalte l’héroïsme des armées du

“WE SHALL FIGHT” 285

Nord,” Le Matin 20,527, June 5, 1940; “Importante Déclaration de M. Churchill” and

“L’Exposé de M. Winston Churchill,” Le Temps 28754, June 6, 1940.

72. The French vision of Dunkirk, ultimately, differed (and differs as much as it is

remembered today) substantially from that of the English. For many of them, Dunkirk

was yet another betrayal by the English. Beatrice Heuser discusses this in “Dunkirk,

Dien Bien Phu, Suez or Why France Does Not Trust Allies and Has Learnt to Love the

Bomb,” in Haunted by History: Myths in International Relations, ed. Cyril Buffet and

Beatrice Heuser (Providence: Berghahn, 1998), 162–65.

73. The Times reports that this information came from the Berlin correspondent of

Politika. See “Mr. Churchill’s Speech Impresses Germans from Our Balkans

Correspondent,� June 7, 1940, 5, issue 48636, col. E.

74. Guido Enderis, “Germans Applaud Candid Churchill,” New York Times (1923–Current

fıle); June 6, 1940; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times (1851–2009), 2.

75. Enderis, “Germans Applaud.”

76. “Churchill’s Iconic War Speech Heralded as Most Memorable Moment in Radio,” Sony

press release, April 15, 2013, http://presscentre.sony.eu/content/

Detail.aspx?ReleaseID�8447&NewsAreaID�2 (accessed July 25, 2013). Of course, the

speech was not originally broadcast on the radio.

77. Terry Wogan quoted in “Churchill’s Iconic War Speech.”

286 RHETORIC & PUBLIC AFFAIRS