Winston Churchill delivered an international radio address on this date.
Five months have passed since I spoke to the British nation
and the Empire on the broadcast. In wartime there is a lot to be said for the
motto: “Deeds, not words.” All the same, it is a good thing to look around from
time to time and take stock, and certainly our affairs have prospered in
several directions during these last four or five months, far better than most
of us would have ventured to hope.
We stood our ground and faced the two Dictators in the hour
of what seemed their overwhelming triumph, and we have shown ourselves capable,
so far, of standing up against them alone. After the heavy defeats of the
German air force by our fighters in August and September, Herr Hitler did not
dare attempt the invasion of this Island, although he had every need to do so
and although he had made vast preparations. Baffled in this mighty project, he
sought to break the spirit of the British nation by the bombing, first of
London, and afterwards of our great cities. It has now been proved, to the
admiration of the world, and of our friends in the United States, that this
form of blackmail by murder and terrorism, so far from weakening the spirit of
the British nation, has only roused it to a more intense and universal flame
than was ever seen before in any modern community.
The whole British Empire has been proud of the Mother
Country, and they long to be with us over here in even larger numbers. We have
been deeply conscious of the love for us which has flowed from the Dominions of
the Crown across the broad ocean spaces. There is the first of our war aims: to
be worthy of that love, and to preserve it.
All through these dark winter months the enemy has had the
power to drop three or four tons of bombs upon us for every ton we could send
to Germany in return. We are arranging so that presently this will be rather
the other way round; but, meanwhile. London and our big cities have had to
stand their pounding. They remind me of the British squares at Waterloo. They
are not squares of soldiers; they do not wear scarlet coats. They are just
ordinary English Scottish and Welsh folk men, women and children-standing
steadfastly together. But their spirit is the same, their glory is the same;
and, in the end, their victory will be greater than far-famed Waterloo.
All honour to the Civil Defense Services of all
kinds-emergency and regular, volunteer and professional who have helped our
people through this formidable ordeal, the like of which no civilized community
has ever been called upon to undergo. If I mention only one of these services
here, namely the Police, it is because many tributes have been paid already to
the others. But the Police have been in it everywhere, all the time, and as a
working woman wrote to me: “What gentlemen they are!”
More than two-thirds of the winter has now gone, and so far
we have had no serious epidemic; indeed, there is no increase of illness in
spite of the improvised conditions of the shelters. That is most creditable to
our local, medical and sanitary authorities, to our devoted nursing staff, and
to the Ministry of Health, whose head, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, is now going to
Canada in the important office of High Commissioner.
There is another thing which surprised me when I asked about
it. In spite of all these new war-time offenses and prosecutions of all kinds;
in spite of all the opportunities for looting and disorder, there has been less
crime this winter and there are now fewer prisoners in our jails than in the
years of peace.
We have broken the back of the winter. The daylight grows.
The Royal Air Force grows, and is already certainly master of the daylight air.
The attacks may be sharper, but they will be shorter; there will be more
opportunities for work and service of all kinds; more opportunities for life.
So, if our first victory was the repulse of the invader, our second was the
frustration of his acts of terror and torture against our people at home.
Meanwhile, abroad, in October, a wonderful thing happened.
One of the two Dictators – the crafty, cold-blooded, blackhearted Italian, who
had thought to gain an Empire on the cheap by stabbing fallen France in the
back – got into trouble. Without the slightest provocation, spurred on by lust
of power and brutish greed, Mussolini attacked and invaded Greece, only to be
hurled back ignominiously by the heroic Greek Army; who, I will say, with your
consent, have revived before our eyes the glories which, from the classic age,
gild their native land.
While Signor Mussolini was writhing and smarting under the
Greek lash in Albania, Generals Wavell and Wilson, who were charged with the
defense of Egypt and of the Suez Canal in accordance with our treaty
obligations, whose task seemed at one time so difficult, had received very
powerful reinforcements of men, cannon, equipment and. above all, tanks, which
we had sent from our Island in spite of the invasion threat. Large numbers of
troops from India, Australia and New Zealand had also reached them. Forthwith
began that series of victories in Libya which have broken irretrievably the
Italian military power on the African Continent. We have all been entertained,
and I trust edified, by the exposure and humiliation of another of what Byron
called
“Those Pagod things of sabre sway
With fronts of brass and feet of clay.”
Here then, in Libya, is the third considerable event upon
which we may dwell with some satisfaction. It is just exactly two months ago,
to a day, that I was waiting anxiously, but also eagerly, for the news of the
great counter-stroke which had been planned against the Italian invaders of
Egypt. The secret had been well kept. The preparations had been well made. But
to leap across those seventy miles of desert, and attack an army of ten or
eleven divisions, equipped with all the appliances of modern war, who had been
fortifying themselves for three months – that was a most hazardous adventure.
When the brilliant decisive victory at Sidi Barrani, with
its tens of thousands of prisoners, proved that we had quality, manoeuvring
power and weapons superior to the enemy, who had boasted so much of his
virility and his military virtues, it was evident that all the other Italian
forces in eastern Libya were in great danger. They could not easily beat a
retreat along the coastal road without running the risk of being caught in the
open of our armoured divisions and brigades ranging far out into the desert in
tremendous swoops and scoops. They had to expose themselves to being attacked
piecemeal.
General Wavell – nay, all our leaders, and all their lithe,
active, ardent men, British, Australian, Indian, in the Imperial Army – saw
their opportunity. At that time I ventured to draw General Wavell’s attention
to the seventh chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, at the seventh verse,
where, as you all know-or ought to know- it is written: “Ask, and it shall be
given; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The
Army of the Nile has asked, and it was given; they sought, and they have found;
they knocked, and it has been opened unto them. In barely eight weeks, by a
campaign which will long be studied as a model of the military art.
An advance of over 400 miles has been made. The whole
Italian Army in the east of Libya, which was reputed to exceed 150,000 men, has
been captured or destroyed. The entire province of Cyrenaica – nearly as
big as England and Wales – has been conquered. The unhappy Arab tribes, who
have for thirty years suffered from the cruelty of Italian rule, carried in
some cases to the point of methodical extermination, these Bedouin survivors
have at last seen their oppressors in disorderly flight, or led off in endless
droves as prisoners of war.
Egypt and the Suez Canal are safe, and the port, the base
and the airfields of Benghazi constitute a strategic point of high consequence
to the whole of the war in the Eastern Mediterranean.
This is the time, I think, to speak of the leaders who, at
the head of their brave troops, have rendered this distinguished service to the
King. The first and foremost, General Wavell, Commander-in-Chief of all the
Armies in the Middle East has proved himself a master of war, sage, painstaking,
daring and tireless. But General Wavell has repeatedly asked that others should
share his fame.
General Wilson, who actually commands the Army of the Nile,
was reputed to be one of our finest tacticians -and few will now deny that
quality. General O’Connor, commanding the 13th Corps, with General Mackay,
commanding the splendid Australians, and General Creagh, who trained and
commanded the various armoured divisions which were employed these three men
executed the complicated and astoundingly rapid movements which were made, and
fought the actions which occurred. I have just seen a telegram from General
Wavell in which he says that the success at Benghazi was due to the outstanding
leadership and resolution of O’Connor and Creagh, ably backed by Wilson.
I must not forget here to point out the amazing mechanical
feats of the British tanks, whose design and workmanship have beaten all
records and stood up to all trials; and show us how closely and directly the
work in the factories at home is linked with the victories abroad.
Of course, none of our plans would have succeeded had not
our pilots, under Air Chief Marshal Longmore, wrested the control of the air
from a far more numerous enemy. Nor would the campaign itself have been
possible if the British Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Cunningham, had not
chased the Italian Navy into its harbours and sustained every forward surge of
the Army with all the flexible resources of sea power.
How far-reaching these resources are we can see from what
happened at dawn this morning, when our Western Mediterranean Fleet, under
Admiral Somerville, entered the Gulf of Genoa and bombarded in a shattering
manner the naval base from which perhaps a Nazi German expedition might soon
have sailed to attack General Weygand in Algeria or Tunis. It is right that the
Italian people should be made to feel the sorry plight into which they have
been dragged by Dictator Mussolini, and if the cannonade of Genoa, rolling
along the coast, reverberating in the mountains, reached the ears of our French
comrades in their grief and misery, it might cheer them with the feeling that
friends-active friends-are near and that Britannia rules the waves.
The events in Libya are only part of the story: they are
only part of the story of the decline and fall of the Italian Empire that will
not take a future Gibbon so long to write as the original work. Fifteen hundred
miles away to the southward a strong British and Indian army, having driven the
invaders out of the Sudan, is marching steadily forward through the Italian
Colony of Eritrea, thus seeking to complete the isolation of all the Italian
troops in Abyssinia. Other British forces are entering Abyssinia from the west,
while the army gathered in Kenya in the van of which we may discern the powerful
forces of the Union of South Africa, organized by General Smuts is striking
northward along the whole enormous front.
Lastly, the Ethiopian patriots, whose independence was
stolen five years ago, have risen in arms; and their Emperor, so recently an exile
in England, is in their midst to fight for their freedom and his throne. Here,
then, we see the beginnings of a process of reparation, and of the chastisement
of wrongdoing, which reminds us that, though the mills of God grind slowly,
they grind exceeding small.
While these auspicious events have been carrying us stride
by stride from what many people though! a forlorn position, and was certainly a
very grave position in May and June, to one which permits us to speak with
sober confidence of our power to discharge our duty, heavy though it be in the
future while this has been happening, a mighty tide of sympathy, of good will
and of effective aid, has begun to flow across the Atlantic in support of the
world cause which is at stake. Distinguished Americans have come over to see
things here at the front, and to find out how the United States can help us
best and soonest.
In Mr. Hopkins who has been my frequent companion during the
last three weeks, we have the Envoy of the President, a President who has been
newly re-elected to his august office. In Mr. Wendell Willkie we have welcomed
the champion of the great Republican Party. We may be sure that they will both
tell the truth about what they have seen over here, and more than that we do
not ask. The rest we leave with good confidence to the judgment of the
President the Congress and the people of the United States.
I have been so very careful, since I have been Prime
Minister, not to encourage false hopes or prophesy smooth and easy things, and
yet the tale that I have to tell today is one which must justly and rightly
give us cause for deep thankfulness, and also, I think, for strong comfort and
even rejoicing. But now I must dwell upon the more serious, darker and more
dangerous aspects of the vast scene of the war. We must all of us have been
asking ourselves: What has that wicked man whose crime-stained regime and
system are at bay and in the toils what has he been preparing during these
winter months? What new devilry is he planning? What new small country will he
overrun or strike down? What fresh form of assault will he make upon our Island
home and fortress; which let there be no mistake about it is all that stands
between him and the dominion of the world?
We may be sure that the war is soon going to enter upon a
phase of greater violence. Hitler’s confederate, Mussolini, has reeled back in
Albania, but the Nazis- having absorbed Hungary and driven Rumania into a
frightful internal convulsion- are now already upon the Black Sea. A
considerable Nazi German army and air force is being built up in Rumania, and
its forward tentacles have already penetrated Bulgaria.
With – we must suppose – the acquiescence of the Bulgarian
Government, airfields are being occupied by German ground personnel numbering
thousands, so as to enable the German air force to come into action from
Bulgaria. Many preparations have been made for the movement of German troops
into or through Bulgaria, and perhaps this southward movement has already
begun.
We saw what happened last May in the Low Countries, how they
hoped for the best: how they clung to their neutrality: how woefully they were
deceived, overwhelmed, plundered, enslaved and since starved. We know how we
and the French suffered when, at the last moment, at the urgent belated appeal
of the King of the Belgians, we went to his aid. Of course, if all the Balkan
people stood together and acted together, aided by Britain and Turkey, it would
be many months before a German army and air force of sufficient strength to
overcome them could be assembled in the southeast of Europe. And in those
months much might happen.
Much will certainly happen as American aid becomes
effective, as our air power grows, as we become a well-armed nation, and as our
armies in the East increase in strength. But nothing is more certain than that,
if the countries of southeastern Europe allow themselves to be pulled to pieces
one by one, they will share the fate of Denmark, Holland and Belgium. And none
can tell how long it will be before the hour of their deliverance strikes.
One of our difficulties is to convince some of these neutral
countries in Europe that we are going to win. We think it astonishing that they
should be so dense as not to see it as clearly as we do ourselves.
I remember in the last war, in July 1915, we began to think that Bulgaria was
going wrong, so Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law, Sir F. E. Smith and I asked
the Bulgarian Minister to dinner to explain to him what a fool King Ferdinand
would make of himself if he were to go in on the losing side. It was no use.
The poor man simply could not believe it, or could not make his Government
believe it.
So Bulgaria, against the wishes of her peasant population,
against all her interests, fell in al the Kaiser’s tail and got sadly carved up
and punished when the victory was won. I trust that Bulgaria is not going to
make the same mistake again. If they do, the Bulgarian peasantry and people,
for whom there has been much regard, both in Great Britain and in the United
States, will for the third time in thirty years have been made to embark upon a
needless and disastrous war.
In the Central Mediterranean the Italian Quisling, who is
called Mussolini, and the French Quisling, commonly called Laval, are both in
their different ways trying to make their countries into doormats for Hitler
and his New Order, in the hope of being able to keep, or get the Nazi Gestapo
and Prussian bayonets to enforce, their rule upon their fellow countrymen. I
cannot tell how the matter will go, but at any rate we shall do our best to
fight for the Central Mediterranean.
I dare say you will have noticed the very significant air
action which was fought over Malta a fortnight ago. The Germans sent an entire
Geschwader of dive-bombers to Sicily. They seriously injured our new aircraft
carrier Illustrious, and then, as this wounded ship was sheltering in Malta
harbour, they concentrated upon her all their force so as to beat her to
pieces. But they were met by the batteries of Malta, which is one of the
strongest defended fortresses in the world against air attack; they were met by
the Fleet Air Arm and by the Royal Air Force, and. in two or three days, they
had lost, out of a hundred and fifty dive-bombers, upwards of ninety, fifty of
which were destroyed in the air and forty on the ground. Although the
Illustrious, in her damaged condition, was one of the great prizes of the air
and naval war, the German Geschwader accepted the defeat; they would not come
any more. All the necessary repairs were made to the Illustrious in Malta
harbour, and she steamed safely off to Alexandria under her own power at 23
knots. I dwell upon this incident, not at all because I think it disposes of
the danger in the Central Mediterranean, but in order to show you that there,
as elsewhere, we intend to give a good account of ourselves.
But after all, the fate of this war is going to be settled
by what happens on the oceans, in the air, and – above all – in this Island. It
seems now to be certain that the Government and people of the United States intend
to supply us with all that is necessary for victory. In the last war the United
States sent two million men across the Atlantic. But this is not a war of vast
armies, firing immense masses of shells at one another. We do not need the
gallant armies which are forming throughout the American Union. We do not need
them this year, nor next year; nor any year that I can foresee. But we do need
most urgently an immense and continuous supply of war materials and technical
apparatus of all kinds. We need them here and we need to bring them here. We
shall need a great mass of shipping in 1942, far more than we can build
ourselves, if we are to maintain and augment our war effort in the West and in
the East.
These facts are, of course, all well known to the enemy, and
we must therefore expect that Herr Hitler will do his utmost to prey upon our
shipping and to reduce the volume of American supplies entering these Islands.
Having conquered France and Norway, his clutching fingers reach out on both
sides of us into the ocean. I have never underrated this danger, and you know I
have never concealed it from you. Therefore, I hope you will believe me when I
say that I have complete confidence in the Royal Navy, aided by the Air Force
of the Coastal Command, and that in one way or another I am sure they will be
able to meet every changing phase of this truly mortal struggle, and that
sustained by the courage of our merchant seamen, and of the dockers and workmen
of all our ports, we shall outwit, outmanoeuvre, outfight and outlast the worst
that the enemy’s malice and ingenuity can contrive.
I have left the greatest issue to the end. You will have
seen that Sir John Dill, our principal military adviser, the Chief of the
Imperial General Staff, has warned us all that Hitler may be forced, by the
strategic, economic and political stresses in Europe, to try to invade these
Islands in the near future. That is a warning which no one should disregard.
Naturally, we are working night and day to have everything ready. Of course, we
are far stronger than we ever were before, incomparably stronger than we were
in July, August and September. Our Navy is more powerful, our flotillas are
more numerous; we are far stronger, actually and relatively, in the air above
these Islands, than we were when our Fighter Command beat off and beat down the
Nazi attack last autumn. Our Army is more numerous, more mobile and far better
equipped and trained than in September, and still more than in July.
I have the greatest confidence in our Commander-in-Chief.
General Brooke, and in the generals of proved ability who, under him, guard the
different quarters of our land. But most of all I put my faith in the simple
unaffected resolve to conquer or die which will animate and inspire nearly four
million Britons with serviceable weapons in their hands. It is not an easy
military operation to invade an island like Great Britain, without the command
of the sea and without the command of the air, and then to face what will be
waiting for the invader here.
But I must drop one word of caution; for, next to cowardice
and treachery, overconfidence, leading to neglect or slothfulness, is the worst
of martial crimes. Therefore, I drop one word of caution. A Nazi invasion of
Great Britain last autumn would have been a more or less improvised affair.
Hitler took it for granted that when France gave in we should give in; but we
did not give in. And he had to think again. An invasion now will be supported
by a much more carefully prepared tackle and equipment of landing craft and
other apparatus, all of which will have been planned and manufactured in the
winter months. We must all be prepared to meet gas attacks, parachute attacks,
and glider attacks, with constancy, forethought and practiced skill.
I must again emphasize what General Dill has said, and what
I pointed out myself last year. In order to win the war Hitler must destroy
Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States; he may tear great
provinces out of Russia, he may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates
of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spread his curse more widely
throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month
that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by
brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the
Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men
before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire-nay,
in a certain sense, the whole English-speaking world- will be on his track,
bearing with them the swords of justice.
The other day, President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the
late Presidential Election [Mr. Wendell Willkie] a letter of introduction to
me, and in it he wrote out a verse, in his own handwriting, from Longfellow,
which he said, “applies to you people as it does to us.” Here is the verse:
. . .Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
There was more than a little bravado in the closing lines. The speech itself acknowledged that things were set to get worse, and Churchill no doubt knew that was true. For the time being, however, combat action was largely going the British way.
British forces continued to advance in Libya but their commanders decision to carry on to Tripoli will be overridden.
British naval forces bombarded Genoa.
“Beau and young Morgan stallion at Lamar Ranger Station, February 9, 1941.” Based on the date, the horse is either Wakefield Duke or Black Baron. Photo: Ernest R. Augustin, Jr., Photographs, #YELL 185380.3177, Yellowstone National Park Archives"
