Winston Churchill addressed a joint session of Congress, the first British Prime Minister to do so. He stated:
Members of the Senate
and of the House of Representatives of the United States, I feel greatly
honored that you should have thus invited me to enter the United States Senate
Chamber and address the representatives of both branches of Congress. The fact
that my American forebears have for so many generations played their part in
the life of the United States, and that here I am, an Englishman, welcomed in
your midst, makes this experience one of the most moving and thrilling in my
life, which is already long and has not been entirely uneventful. I wish indeed
that my mother, whose memory I cherish, across the vale of years, could have
been here to see. By the way, I cannot help reflecting that if my father had
been American and my mother British instead of the other way around, I might
have got here on my own. In that case this would not have been the first time
you would have heard my voice. In that case I should not have needed any
invitation. But if I had it is hardly likely that it would have been unanimous.
So perhaps things are better as they are.
I may confess, however, that I do not feel
quite like a fish out of water in a legislative assembly where English is
spoken. I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father's
house to believe in democracy. "Trust the people." That was his
message. I used to see him cheered at meetings and in the streets by crowds of
workingmen way back in those aristocratic Victorian days when as Disraeli said
"the world was for the few, and for the very few."
Therefore I have been in full harmony all my
life with the tides which have flowed on both sides of the Atlantic against
privilege and monopoly and I have steered confidently towards the Gettysburg
ideal of government of the people, by the people, for the people.
I owe my advancement entirely to the House of
Commons, whose servant I am. In my country as in yours public men are proud to
be the servants of the State and would be ashamed to be its masters. The House
of Commons, if they thought the people wanted it, could, by a simple vote,
remove me from my office. But I am not worrying about it at all,
As a matter of fact I am sure they will
approve very highly of my journey here, for which I obtained the King's
permission, in order to meet the President of the United States and to arrange
with him for all that mapping out of our military plans and for all those
intimate meetings of the high officers of the armed services in both countries
which are indispensable for the successful prosecution of the war.
I should like to say first of all how much I
have been impressed and encouraged by the breadth of view and sense of
proportion which I have found in all quarters over here to which I have had
access. Anyone who did not understand the size and solidarity of the
foundations of the United States, might easily have expected to find an
excited, disturbed, self-cantered atmosphere, with all minds fixed upon the
novel, startling, and painful episodes of sudden war as they hit America. After
all, the United States have been attacked and set upon by three most powerfully
armed dictator states, the greatest military power in Europe, the greatest
military power in Asia-Japan, Germany and Italy have all declared and are
making war upon you, and the quarrel is opened which can only end in their
overthrow or yours.
But here in Washington in these memorable days
I have found an Olympian fortitude which, far from being based upon
complacency, is only the mask of an inflexible purpose and the proof of a sure,
well-grounded confidence in the final outcome. We in Britain had the same
feeling in our darkest days. We too were sure that in the end all would be
well.
You do not, I am certain, underrate the
severity of the ordeal to which you and we have still to be subjected. The
forces ranged against us are enormous. They are bitter, they are ruthless. The
wicked men and their factions, who have launched their peoples on the path of
war and conquest, know that they will be called to terrible account if they
cannot beat down by force of arms the peoples they have assailed. They will
stop at nothing. They have a vast accumulation of war weapons of all kinds.
They have highly trained and disciplined armies, navies and air services. They
have plans and designs which have long been contrived and matured. They will
stop at nothing that violence or treachery can suggest.
It is quite true that on our side our
resources in manpower and materials are far greater than theirs. But only a
portion of your resources are as yet mobilized and developed, and we both of us
have much to learn in the cruel art of war. We have therefore without doubt a
time of tribulation before us. In this same time, some ground will be lost
which it will be hard and costly to regain. Many disappointments and unpleasant
surprises await us. Many of them will afflict us before the full marshalling of
our latent and total power can be accomplished.
For the best part of twenty years the youth of
Britain and America have been taught that war was evil, which is true, and that
it would never come again, which has been proved false. For the best part of
twenty years, the youth of Germany, of Japan and Italy, have been taught that
aggressive war is the noblest duty of the citizen and that it should be begun
as soon as the necessary weapons and organization have been made. We have performed
the duties and tasks of peace. They have plotted and planned for war. This
naturally has placed us, in Britain, and now places you in the United States at
a disadvantage which only time, courage and untiring exertion can correct.
We have indeed to be thankful that so much
time has been granted to us. If Germany had tried to invade the British Isles
after the French collapse in June, 1940, and if Japan had declared war on the
British Empire and the United States at about the same date, no one can say
what disasters and agonies might not have been our lot. But now, at the end of
December, 1941, our transformation from easy-going peace to total war
efficiency has made very great progress.
The broad flow of munitions in Great Britain
has already begun. Immense strides have been made in the conversion of American
industry to military purposes. And now that the United States is at war, it is
possible for orders to be given every day which in a year or eighteen months
hence will produce results in war power beyond anything which has been seen or
foreseen in the dictator states.
Provided that every effort is made, that
nothing is kept back, that the whole manpower, brain power, virility, valor and
civic virtue of the English-speaking world, with all its galaxy of loyal,
friendly or associated communities and states-provided that is bent
unremittingly to the simple but supreme task, I think it would be reasonable to
hope that the end of 1942 will see us quite definitely in a better position
than we are now. And that the year 1943 will enable us to assume the initiative
upon an ample scale.
Some people may be startled or momentarily
depressed when, like your President, I speak of a long and a hard war. Our
peoples would rather know the truth, somber though it be. And after all, when
we are doing the noblest work in the world, not only defending our hearths and
homes, but the cause of freedom in every land, the question of whether
deliverance comes in 1942 or 1943 or 1944, falls into its proper place in the
grand proportions of human history. Sure I am that this day, now, we are the
masters of our fate. That the task which has been set us is not above our
strength. That its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we
have faith in our cause, and an unconquerable willpower, salvation will not be
denied us. In the words of the Psalmist: "He shall not be afraid of evil
tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."
Not all the tidings will be evil. On the
contrary, mighty strokes of war have already been dealt against the enemy-the
glorious defense of their native soil by the Russian armies and people; wounds
have been inflicted upon the Nazi tyranny and system which have bitten deep and
will fester and inflame not only in the Nazi body but in the Nazi mind. The
boastful Mussolini has crumpled already. He is now but a lackey and a serf, the
merest utensil of his master's will. He has inflicted great suffering and wrong
upon his own industrious people. He has been stripped of all his African
empire. Abyssinia has been liberated. Our Armies of the East, which were so
weak and ill-equipped at the moment of French desertion, now control all the
regions from Teheran to Bengazi, and from Aleppo and Cyprus to the sources of
the Nile.
For many months we devoted ourselves to
preparing to take the offensive in Libya. The very considerable battle which
has been proceeding there the last six weeks in the desert, has been most
fiercely fought on both sides. Owing to the difficulties of supply upon the
desert flank, we were never able to bring numerically equal forces to bear upon
the enemy. Therefore we had to rely upon superiority in the numbers and
qualities of tanks and aircraft, British and American. For the first time,
aided by these-for the first time we have fought the enemy with equal weapons.
For the first time we have made the Hun feel the sharp edge of those tools with
which he has enslaved Europe. The armed forces of the enemy in Cyrenaica
amounted to about 150,000 men, of whom a third were Germans. General Auchinleck
set out to destroy totally that armed force, and I have every reason to believe
that his aim will be fully accomplished. I am so glad to be able to place
before you, members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, at this
moment when you are entering the war, the proof that with proper weapons and
proper organization, we are able to beat the life out of the savage Nazi.
What Hitlerism is suffering in Libya is only a
sample and a foretaste of what we have got to give him and his accomplices
wherever this war should lead us in every quarter of the Globe.
There are good tidings also from blue water.
The lifeline of supplies which joins our two nations across the ocean, without
which all would fail,-that lifeline is flowing steadily and freely in spite of
all that the enemy can do. It is a fact that the British Empire, which many
thought eighteen months ago was broken and ruined, is now incomparably stronger
and is growing stronger with every month.
Lastly, if you will forgive me for saying it,
to me the best tidings of all-the United States, united as never before, has
drawn the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard.
All these tremendous facts have led the
subjugated peoples of Europe to lift up their heads again in hope. They have put
aside forever the shameful temptation of resigning themselves to the
conqueror's will. Hope has returned to the hearts of scores of millions of men
and women, and with that hope there burns the flame of anger against the
brutal, corrupt invader. And still more fiercely burn the fires of hatred and
contempt for the filthy Quislings whom he has suborned.
In a dozen famous ancient states, now
prostrate under the Nazi yoke, the masses of the people, all classes and
creeds, await the hour of liberation when they too will once again be able to
play their part and strike their blows like men. That hour will strike. And its
solemn peal will proclaim that night is past and that the dawn has come.
The onslaught upon us, so long and so secretly
planned by Japan, has presented both our countries with grievous problems for
which we could not be fully prepared. If people ask me, as they have a right to
ask me in England, "Why is it that you have not got an ample equipment of
modern aircraft and army weapons of all kinds in Malaya and in the East
Indies?"-I can only point to the victory General Auchinleck has gained in
the Libyan campaign. Had we diverted and dispersed our gradually-growing
resources between Libya and Malaya, we should have been found wanting in both
theaters.
If the United States has been found at a
disadvantage at various points in the Pacific Ocean, we know well that that is
to no small extent because of the aid which you have been giving to us in
munitions for the defense of the British Isles and for the Libyan campaign, and
above all because of your help in the Battle of the Atlantic, upon which all
depends and which has in consequence been successfully and prosperously
maintained.
Of course, it would have been much better, I
freely admit, if we had had enough resources of all kinds to be at full
strength at all threatened points. But considering how slowly and reluctantly
we brought ourselves to large-scale preparations, and how long these
preparations take, we had no right to expect to be in such a fortunate
position.
The choice of how to dispose of our hitherto
limited resources had to be made by Britain in time of war, and by the United
States in time of peace. And I believe that history will pronounce that upon
the whole, and it is upon the whole that these matters must be judged, that the
choice made was right. Now that we are together, now that we are linked in a
righteous comrade-ship of arms, now that our two considerable nations, each in
perfect unity, have joined all their life-energies in a common resolve-a new
scene opens upon which a steady light will glow and brighten.
Many people have been astonished that Japan
should in a single day have plunged into war against the United States and the
British Empire. We all wonder why, if this dark design with its laborious and
intricate preparations had been so long filling their secret minds, they did
not choose our moment of weakness eighteen months ago. Viewed quite
dispassionately, in spite of the losses we have suffered and the further
punishment we shall have to take, it certainly appears an irrational act. It is
of course only prudent to assume that they have made very careful calculations
and think they see their way through. Nevertheless, there may be another
explanation.
We know that for many years past the policy of
Japan has been dominated by secret societies of subalterns and junior officers
of the army and navy, who have enforced their will upon successive Japanese
cabinets and parliaments by the assassination of any Japanese statesmen who opposed
or who did not sufficiently further their aggressive policy. It may be that
these societies, dazzled and dizzy with their own schemes of aggression and the
prospect of early victories, have forced their country-against its better
judgment-into war. They have certainly embarked upon a very considerable
undertaking.
After the outrages they have committed upon us
at Pearl Harbor, in the Pacific Islands, in the Philippines, in Malaya and the
Dutch East Indies, they must now know that the stakes for which they have
decided to play are mortal. When we look at the resources of the United States
and the British Empire compared to those of Japan; when we remember those of
China, which have so long valiantly withstood invasion and tyranny-and when
also we observe the Russian menace which hangs over Japan-it becomes still more
difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What
kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible that they do not realize
that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught
a lesson which they and the world will never forget?
Members of the Senate, and members of the
House of Representatives, I will turn for one moment more from the turmoil and
convulsions of the present to the broader spaces of the future. Here we are
together, facing a group of mighty foes who seek our ruin. Here we are
together, defending all that to free men is dear. Twice in a single generation
the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us. Twice in our lifetime has the
long arm of fate reached out across the oceans to bring the United States into
the forefront of the battle.
If we had kept together after the last war, if
we had taken common measures for our safety, this renewal of the curse need
never have fallen upon us. Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, to
tormented mankind, to make sure that these catastrophes do not engulf us for
the third time?
It has been proved that pestilences may break
out in the Old World which carry their destructive ravages into the New World,
from which, once they are afoot, the New World can not escape. Duty and
prudence alike command first that the germ-centers of hatred and revenge should
be constantly and vigilantly served and treated in good time, and that an
adequate organization should be set up to make sure that the pestilence can be
controlled at its earliest beginnings, before it spreads and rages throughout
the entire earth.
Five or six years ago it would have been easy,
without shedding a drop of blood, for the United States and Great Britain to
have insisted on the fulfilment of the disarmament clauses of the treaties
which Germany signed after the Great War. And that also would have been the
opportunity for assuring to the Germans those materials-those raw
materials-which we declared in the Atlantic Charter should not be denied to any
nation, victor or vanquished. The chance has passed, it is gone. Prodigious
hammer-strokes have been needed to bring us together today.
If you will allow me to use other language, I
will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great
purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to
be the faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of
the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the
days to come the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and
for the good of all, walk together in majesty, in justice and in peace.
MacArthur declared Manila an open city.
British commandos landed in the Lofeten Islands in Operation Anklet. The raid was successful in its own right, although it was actually a diversion for a raid to take place the following day.
A German offensive that would run into May was commenced on the Kerch Peninsula in Crimea.
Both of my parents would have had this as a day off from school, but for my mother's parents it would also have been the holiday of Boxing Day.
