We shall fight on the beaches

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Churchill in 1941
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"We shall fight on the beaches" was a speech delivered by the British Prime Minister

House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 4 June 1940. This was the second of three major speeches given around the period of the Battle of France; the others are the "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech of 13 May 1940, and the "This was their finest hour
" speech of 18 June 1940. Events developed dramatically over the five-week period, and although broadly similar in themes, each speech addressed a different military and diplomatic context.

In this speech, Churchill had to describe

France
's falling out of the war without in any way releasing France to do so, and wished to reiterate a policy and an aim unchanged – despite the intervening events – from his speech of 13 May, in which he had declared the goal of "victory, however long and hard the road may be".

Background

Winston Churchill took over as

Allied evacuation of Southern Norway.[1]

Coincidentally, the German Wehrmacht offensive in the Low Countries and France had begun on 10 May with the invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Churchill had spoken to the House of Commons as Prime Minister for the first time on 13 May, to announce the formation of the new administration:

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."[2]

In that speech, he mentioned nothing about the military situation in France and the Low Countries.

Expecting that the German offensive would develop along much the same lines

French First Army from the main French forces.[3]

The Wehrmacht next moved against the cut-off Allied forces, moving along the seacoast with only small Allied forces to resist them. After the capitulation of Belgium on 28 May, a gap had also appeared on the eastern flank of the Allied forces, which had been

Operation Dynamo, but these troops had left behind virtually all of their heavy equipment (transport, tanks, artillery and ammunition). The French First Army had most of its units pocketed around Lille. Those of its units evacuated from Dunkirk were relanded in France, but saw no further action; they were still being reorganised in Brittany at the fall of France.[4]

Churchill had made a brief statement to the Commons on 28 May reporting the Belgian capitulation, and concluding:

Meanwhile, the House should prepare itself for hard and heavy tidings. I have only to add that nothing which may happen in this battle can in any way relieve us of our duty to defend the world cause to which we have vowed ourselves; nor should it destroy our confidence in our power to make our way, as on former occasions in our history, through disaster and through grief to the ultimate defeat of our enemies.

He had promised a further statement of the military situation on 4 June, and indeed the major part of the speech is an account of military events – so far as they affected the BEF – since the German breakthrough at Sedan.

The German breakthrough had not been exploited southwards, and the French had improvised a relatively thinly held defensive line along the

Archibald Sinclair, that the British priority must be to prepare its own defences. The three squadrons present in France would be kept up to fighting strength, but no further squadrons could be spared for the Battle of France.[5]

Despite relief that the bulk of the BEF had made it back to Britain, Mass-Observation reported civilian morale in many areas as zero, one observer claiming that everyone looked suicidal. Only half the population expected Britain to fight on, and the feelings of thousands were summed up as:

This is not our war – this is a war of the high-up people who use long words and have different feelings.[6][7]

Therefore, when talking about the future course and conduct of the war in this speech, Churchill had to describe a great military disaster, and warn of a possible German invasion attempt, without casting doubt on eventual victory. He needed to prepare his domestic audience for France's departure from the war without in any way releasing France to do so. In his subsequent speech of 18 June, immediately after the French had sued for peace, Churchill said:

The military events which have happened during the past fortnight have not come to me with any sense of surprise. Indeed, I indicated a fortnight ago as clearly as I could to the House that the worst possibilities were open, and I made it perfectly clear then that whatever happened in France would make no difference to the resolve of Britain and the British Empire to fight on, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Finally, he needed to reiterate a policy and an aim unchanged – despite the intervening events – from his speech of 13 May, in which he had said:

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.

Possible inspiration

Douglas Haig:[8]

You aren't fighting? I would fight without a break. I would fight in front of Amiens. I would fight in Amiens. I would fight behind Amiens. I would fight all the time. I would never surrender.

Another source of inspiration might have been Georges Clemenceau who said, in June 1918:

Yes, the Germans can take Paris, that won't prevent us from making war. We will fight on the Loire, then on the Garonne if necessary and even in the Pyrenees. If at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea and in Africa, but as for making peace, never! They don't count on me for that.[9]

Peroration

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The

peroration
is widely held to be one of the finest oratorical moments of the war and of Churchill's career.

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon, of which I was speaking just now, the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manœuvre. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence 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 more 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 Parliament 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 fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.[10]

It is often said that in the sentence that begins "We shall fight on the beaches" and ends in "surrender", only the last word – "surrender" – does not have Old English roots.[11][12]

Reception

It is said that immediately after giving the speech, Churchill muttered to a colleague, "And we'll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got!"

Dardanelles campaign, wrote to him, "My dear Winston. That was worth 1,000 guns and the speeches of 1,000 years."[16]

Unlike his subsequent "This was their finest hour" speech, Churchill's 4 June speech in the House of Commons was not repeated by him as a live radio broadcast that evening. Rather, as with his earlier "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech, extracts were read by the newsreader on that evening's BBC news broadcast.[17][18] They made a great impression on Vita Sackville-West:

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.[19]

The next year American journalist

H. R. Knickerbocker wrote that its words "deserve to be memorized by us all", observing that "With Churchill's picture these words are placarded in homes and offices throughout the British Empire."[20]

No audio record was made at the time of the original speech; Churchill only produced an audio recording in 1949, by repeating his previous oration.

Fool's Overture", the closing track of Supertramp's 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments..., some excerpts of the speech are heard along with London's Big Ben chiming.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ History.com Staff (2010). "Winston Churchill Becomes Prime Minister". History.com. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  2. ^ "His Majesty's Government", House of Commons Debates, vol. 360, Hansard, cc1502, 13 May 1940
  3. ISBN 9781472804426
    – via Google Books.
  4. ISBN 9781135812423
    .
  5. ISBN 9780953806157
    .
  6. ISBN 9780140053418
    .
  7. ^ More nuanced accounts of how people subsequently recalled their feelings to be can be found at "The Spitfire site: Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Dunkirk Over: Triumph or Defeat?". Retrieved 19 January 2013.
  8. ^ Marshall, S.L.A., "World War I", pg. 357
  9. ^ "Oui, les Allemands peuvent prendre Paris, cela ne m’empêchera pas de faire la guerre. Nous nous battrons sur la Loire, puis sur la Garonne s’il le faut et même sur les Pyrénées, Si enfin nous sommes chassés des Pyrénées on continuera la guerre sur mer et en Afrique, mais quant à faire la paix, jamais ! Qu’ils ne comptent pas sur moi pour cela." Albert Lebrun, "Témoignage", p. 116
  10. ^ Hansard HC Deb 04 June 1940 vol 361 cc787-98
  11. ^ Lacey, Robert. "The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium" – via Goodreads.
  12. ^ Bragg, Melvyn (2004). The Adventure of English. p. 7.
  13. ISBN 9781854795298
    . – other sources give other occasions for the remark
  14. ISBN 0434291870
    – via Archive.org.
  15. ^ "Chips" (Sir Henry Channon) diary entry 4 June 1940 in Robert Rhodes James, ed. (1967). Chips: the Diaries of Sir Henry Channon. London. p. 256.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  16. ^ Josiah Wedgwood, letter of 4 June 1940, quoted in Gilbert, Martin (1983). Finest Hour Winston S Churchill 1939–1941. London: Book Club Associates. p. 468.
  17. ^ James, Robert Rhodes (Autumn 1996). "Myth Shattering: An Actor Did Not Give Churchill's Speeches" (PDF). Finest Hour (92). The International Churchill Societies: 23–25. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  18. The Churchill Centre
    . Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  19. ^ Sackville-West, Vita (1967). "letter of 4 June 1940 to Harold Nicolson". In Nicolson, Nigel (ed.). Harold Nicolson Diaries and Letters 1939–1945. London. p. 93.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  20. ISBN 9781417992775
    .
  21. ^ Hunt, Kristin (21 November 2017). "Winston Churchill's Historic 'Fight Them on the Beaches' Speech Wasn't Heard by the Public Until After WWII". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  22. ISBN 9780857523327
    .
  23. ^ Starting from "We shall go on to the end" up to "We shall never surrender".
  24. ^ Fools's Overture 02:27 Accessed on 10 May 2021

Further reading

  • Yergensen, Brent. "Sovereignty, Brexit, and Dunkirk: Winston Churchill's 'Fight Them on the Beaches' Speech as Nationalist Memory." Film & History 53.1 (2023): 31-44. As used in recent British politics.

External links

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