The following speech was given by Winston Churchill on
11 September 1940 regarding the bombings of London.
Winston Churchill
September 11, 1940
Broadcast to London
When I said in the House of Commons the other day that I thought it improbable that the enemy’s air attack in September could be more than three times as great as it was in August, I was not, of course, referring to barbarous attacks upon the civil population, but to the great air battle which is being fought out between our fighters and the German Air Force......
Every man and woman will therefore prepare himself to do his duty, whatever it may be, with special pride and care. Our fleets and flotillas are very powerful and numerous; our Air Force is at the highest strength it has ever reached, and it is conscious of its proved superiority, not indeed in numbers, but in men and machines. Our shores are well fortified and strongly manned, and behind them, ready to attack the invaders, we have a far larger and better-equipped mobile Army than we have ever had before.
Besides this, we have more than a million and a half men of the Home Guard, who are just as much soldiers of the Regular Army as the Grenadier Guards, and who are determined to fight for every inch of the ground in every village and in every street.
It is with devout but sure confidence that I say: Let God defend the Right.
These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler’s invasion plans. He hopes, by killing large numbers of civilians, and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty imperial city, and make them a burden and an anxiety to the Government and thus distract our attention unduly from the ferocious onslaught he is preparing.
Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners, whose forbears played a leading part in the establishment of Parliamentary institutions and who have been bred to value freedom far above their lives. This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatred, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame, has now resolved to try to break our famous island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction.
What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the conflagration he has caused in London have been removed. He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe, and until the Old World—and the New—can join hands to rebuild the temples of man’s freedom and man’s honour, upon foundations which will not soon or easily be overthrown.
This is a time for everyone to stand together, and hold firm, as they are doing. I express my admiration for the exemplary manner in which all the Air Raid Precautions services of London are being discharged, especially the Fire Brigade, whose work has been so heavy and also dangerous. All the world that is still free marvels at the composure and fortitude with which the citizens of London are facing and surmounting the great ordeal to which they are subjected, the end of which or the severity of which cannot yet be foreseen.
It is a message of good cheer to our fighting Forces on the seas, in the air, and in our waiting Armies in all their posts and stations, that we sent them from this capital city. They know that they have behind them a people who will not flinch or weary of the struggle—hard and protracted though it will be; but that we shall rather draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival, and of a victory won not only for ourselves but for all; a victory won not only for our own time, but for the long and better days that are to come.
Provided by kind permission of Mr. Winston S. Churchill.
Copyright Mr. Winston S. Churchill
The full speech can be here
Very appropriate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Reading this makes you feel that what we had then was a leader who had conviction but was also backed by people who did not fear the media backlash should they stand and be defined as British and the defenders of the "Island race"
ReplyDeleteIf you were to make comparisons between this speech and the "war" that is being fought against an almost unseen enemy you would fall short in my opinion. We had a common foe in the 2nd world war in Hitler and the 3rd reich however Islam takes many forms and is open to the interpretation of each iman, and so although the followers of any Jihad have the same goal to wipe out the west and the infidel and create a state of Islam they all come from different stand offs and fight and kill each other.
The nazi's were all of the same mind and therefore if you took out the leader they would have lost heart. Take out many Islamic leaders and a new one will take his place.
Churchill was a leader backed by the right people, we do not have his like anymore, someone so sure of the enemy and how to defeat him.
With islam you are dealing with a tribal religon that spread, it was built on violence and conversion of the defeated, it became a great source of learning and peace but has stuck in the 13th century and sees the west as the reason for its failure to move on. you cannot win against a group with no true aim but destruction.
You can only second guess them and hope we one day get a leader that understands that you cannot please Sunni's and apease another group as they hate each other.
Part of the Islamic religion is to reinstate the caliphate. If the caliphate was taken out of the equation would Islam lose heart?
ReplyDeleteOr would the caliphate only be instated when Islam has enough control over the infidel?
Conventional wars are fought with territory and nations as reference points. Islam as a religion does not adhere to this principle.
Islam is fighting a war of culture and beliefs not politics.