The eightieth anniversary of two of the greatest speeches ever, passed by earlier this month with little notice. With the pandemic, economic upheaval and societal fraying, it would’ve been easy to skip by these epic works of art. This isn’t a good enough answer though, because these speeches are still relevant to us, because both embody the heroism and perseverance we all desire in times of crisis, and they are speeches that in part laid the cornerstone of where members of Western society sit today.
Also earlier this month, a moment of disgrace occurred in the United Kingdom. The great man who gave both the ‘We Shall Fight on the Beaches’ and ‘Finest Hour’ speeches, Sir Winston Churchill, had his statue in Parliament Square attacked by Black Lives Matter protestors and vandals. Spray painting the words ‘was a racist’ and other crude words on the base forced authorities to put a box around the statue, and later was part of the focus of protesting and rioting between pro-Churchill and anti-Churchill forces. This isn’t to cast blame or favor upon either side’s motives, noble or otherwise, but that the most famous Briton was the focal point in one of these racially-tinged skirmishes is a disgrace, and is a far cry from the regard he was held in 1940, the greatest of heroes in World War II. This moment of shame shouldn’t take away from all the man accomplished in those desperate months eighty years ago.
With Britain on the ropes against the German Army and Luftwaffe in the late spring of 1940, Churchill, only recently been made Prime Minister, was preparing for the utter annihilation of British fighting capacity. Dunkirk was being prepped to become a mass grave or a mass surrender spectacle for the British Expeditionary Force, as the German panzers and troops drew the noose around the port ever tighter. Fortunately for both Britain and the Free World, Churchill’s guts (along with that of the planners, civilian sailors, the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and the stranded troops), incompetence by the German High Command, and the ‘miracle of deliverance’ as Churchill put it, all led to the evacuation of almost the entire force.
While Churchill spoke of this ‘miracle’ in the House of Commons on June 4th, 1940, he reminded the public, that ‘wars are not won by evacuations’ (a lesson that could be potentially applied during the ever-harsher calls for widespread, unthoughtful economic lock-downs in the name of public health). With the loss of most of the tanks, artillery and other equipment and stores on the shores of Dunkirk, the situation was beyond difficult for the British people. Hitler was poised to do something Napoleon and the Spanish Armada had failed to do; invade the island of Britain and impose Nazi rule.
Undaunted, Churchill finished the military assessment of the situation, paying homage to the sacrifices and gallantry of the British armed services in nearly impossible circumstances. It was here that that the Prime Minister unfurled his finest command of the English language, which President John F Kennedy would later say was one of Churchill’s mobilizations of the English language, sending it into battle.
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
Facing defeat on land, hardship at sea, and impending onslaught from the air, Churchill never flagged, nor gave Hitler any intimation of backing down. Despite the odds stacked against a now ill-equipped Britain, the struggle would carry on for another five bloody years, with freedom’s greatest champion preparing for the ultimate death-match between liberty and totalitarianism.
Two weeks later, Churchill would follow up his ‘Fight on the Beaches’ speech with another triumph. The situation in Europe though had taken a turn for the worse. Paris had been taken, and the French Army was preparing to quit the war. War production in Britain was nowhere near able to replace the losses sustained at Dunkirk. Hitler was now on the cusp of another coup, which the Germans had failed to do in 1914; defeat the French in a quick and decisive series of engagements.
Nevertheless, Churchill stuck to his guns, lamenting the loss of so many allies to the German war machine, but adamant there would be a prolonged resistance to Hitler. In his ‘Finest Hour’ speech, Churchill prophesied (correctly) that Hitler would have to destroy the British resolve and ability to fight, or the war would be lost for the Fuhrer’s Thousand Reich. Again, Churchill would save his best for last as the speech drew to a close, with both a warning, and a call to fight in the upcoming glorious conflict, for both the sake of freedom and for posterity.
If we can stand up to him [Hitler], all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
Returning to today, even though Hitler is dead, these speeches and words should still be inspiring Britons, Americans and all those who value freedom as much, if not more, than life. However, with the torrent of recrimination against Western civilization, and against the defenders of that noble ideal, our heroes begin to fade, and in their place, false demi-villains supplant them. If we truly care about the West, if we truly care about freedom, liberty and all the other tenets which liberal Western society promotes, we must continually defend them, and that same effort must be extended to persons who gave it a chance to survive and later flourish.
As Fidel Castro once said, without Churchill, the Nazis likely would’ve won, and though Castro was a Communist, he was smart enough, and even slightly humble enough to admit that an old-school liberal British imperialist was the world’s champion. This should be a lesson to Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and any others who say they are merely fighting against the forces of white supremacy, fascism and injustice. Well, Churchill did all of that, even before it was popular, and did so when it was truly hazardous for his own health.
For without Churchill, not only would Castro have been nothing or a mere minor footnote in history, but inspirational leaders in their own right, such as MLK, Malcolm X, Obama and countless other black and brown leaders, and those of countless other backgrounds of today and yesterday would likely never have had the ability or the privilege of carrying their messages to the world. They all have the Right Honourable Sir Winston Churchill to thank for that.
Sincerely, your humble servant,
Winston Publius
The Classical (Trumpian) Liberal 