Winston Churchill

From the moment that the French defenses at Sedan and on the Meuse

## Winston Churchill

### Age

∞

were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat
to Amiens and the south could have saved the British and French Armies
who had entered Belgium at the appeal of the Belgian King; but this
strategic fact was not immediately realized. The French High Command
hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the Armies of the north
were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have
involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian Army of
over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgium.
Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration were
realized and when a new French Generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed
command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French
and British Armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the
Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French Army
 which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp
it.

However, the German eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the
 right and rear of the Armies of the north. Eight or nin

e armored
divisions, each of about four hundred armored vehicles of different
kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into
small self-contained units, cut off all communications between us and
the main French Armies. It severed our own communications for food and
ammunition, which ran first to Amiens and afterwards through Abbeville,
and it shore its way up the coast to Boulogne and Calais, and almost to
Dunkirk. Behind this armored and mechanized onslaught came a number of
German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded
comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German Army and
 German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other
 lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their
own.

I have said this armored scythe-stroke almost reached
Dunkirk-almost but not quite. Boulogne and Calais were the scenes of
desperate fighting. The Guards defended Boulogne for a while and were
then withdrawn by orders from this country. The Rifle Brigade, the 60th
Rifles, and the Queen Victoria’s Rifles, with a battalion of British
tanks and 1,000 Frenchmen, in all about four thousand strong, defended
Calais to the last. The British Brigadier was given an hour to
surrender. He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street
fighting passed before silence reigned over Calais, which marked the end
 of a memorable resistance. Only 30 unwounded survivors were brought off
 by the Navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their
sacrifice, however, was not in vain. At least two armored divisions,
which otherwise would have been turned against the British Expeditionary
 Force, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to
 the glories of the light divisions, and the time gained enabled the
Graveline water lines to be flooded and to be held by the French troops.

Thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open. When it was
found impossible for the Armies of the north to reopen their
communications to Amiens with the main French Armies, only one choice
remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The Belgian, British and French
Armies were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a
single port and to its neighboring beaches. They were pressed on every
side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the air.

When, a week ago today, I asked the House to fix this afternoon
as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to
announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I
thought-and some good judges agreed with me-that perhaps 20,000 or
30,000 men might be re-embarked. But it certainly seemed that the whole
of the French First Army and the whole of the British Expeditionary
Force north of the Amiens-Abbeville gap would be broken up in the open
field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition.
These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the House
and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core
 and brain of the British Army, on which and around which we were to
build, and are to build, the great British Armies in the later years of
the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an
ignominious and starving captivity.

That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might
well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The King of the Belgians
 had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this Ruler and his
Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country
 from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what
 was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British Armies
might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even
Poland. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King
Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment
we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong,
 guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to
the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible
notice, without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal
act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his
Army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.

I asked the House a week ago to suspend its judgment because the
facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why
we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The
surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest
notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length.
Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the
fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest Army his country had
 ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who
 followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between
the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French
Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed
impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast.

The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and
fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous
Air Force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk
and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east
and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches
by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed
magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of
hostile aircraft, sometimes more than a hundred strong in one formation,
 to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the
sand dunes upon which the troops had their eyes for shelter. Their
U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll
 of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense
struggle reigned. All their armored divisions-or what Was left of
them-together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled
themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix
within which the British and French Armies fought.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless
merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and Allied
troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had
to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an
almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of
artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from
mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men
carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making
trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always
men whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the
measure of their devotion and their courage. The hospital ships, which
brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so
plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the men and
women on board them never faltered in their duty.

Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been
intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home
bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and
struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers
protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the
scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment-but only for
 the moment-died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by
perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource,
by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy
was hurled back by the retreating British and French troops. He was so
roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously. The
Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German Air Force, and
inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the Navy, using
nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, French and
British, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to
 the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to
assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won
 by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which
should be noted. It was gained by the Air Force. Many of our soldiers
coming back have not seen the Air Force at work; they saw only the
bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its
achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my
 way to say this. I will tell you about it.

This was a great trial of strength between the British and German
 Air Forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the
 air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink
all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands?
 Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and
significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried
hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We
got the Army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they
 have inflicted. Very large formations of German aeroplanes-and we know
that they are a very brave race-have turned on several occasions from
the attack of one-quarter of their number of the Royal Air Force, and
have dispersed in different directions. Twelve aeroplanes have been
hunted by two. One aeroplane was driven into the water and cast away by
the mere charge of a British aeroplane, which had no more ammunition.
All of our types-the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the new Defiant-and all
 our pilots have been vindicated as superior to what they have at
present to face.

When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in
defending the air above this Island against an overseas attack, I must
say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and
reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young
airmen. The great French Army was very largely, for the time being, cast
 back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armored
vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will
be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There
never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war,
such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the
Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic;
these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and
all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of
colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that:

Every morn brought forth a noble chance
And every chance brought forth a noble knight,
deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and
on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all
 for their native land.

I return to the Army. In the long series of very fierce battles,
now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once,
battles fought by two or three divisions against an equal or somewhat
larger number of the enemy, and fought fiercely on some of the old
grounds that so many of us knew so well-in these battles our losses in
men have exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I take occasion to
 express the sympathy of the House to all who have suffered bereavement
or who are still anxious. The President of the Board of Trade [Sir
Andrew Duncan] is not here today. His son has been killed, and many in
the House have felt the pangs of affliction in the sharpest form. But I
will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded
come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that
 there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some
day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this fight it is
inevitable that many have been left in positions where honor required no
 further resistance from them.

Against this loss of over 30,000 men, we can set a far heavier
loss certainly inflicted upon the enemy. But our losses in material are
enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the
opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly
as many guns — nearly one thousand-and all our transport, all the
armored vehicles that were with the Army in the north. This loss will
impose a further delay on the expansion of our military strength. That
expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped. The best of
all we had to give had gone to the British Expeditionary Force, and
although they had not the numbers of tanks and some articles of
equipment which were desirable, they were a very well and finely
equipped Army. They had the first-fruits of all that our industry had to
 give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it
 will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we
make in this Island. An effort the like of which has never been seen in
our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and
day, Sundays and week days. Capital and Labor have cast aside their
interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock.
Already the flow of munitions has leaped forward. There is no reason why
 we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss that
 has come upon us, without retarding the development of our general
program.

Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so
many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must
not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is
 a colossal military disaster. The French Army has been weakened, the
Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon
which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining
districts and factories have passed into the enemy’s possession, the
whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic
consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to
be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr
Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been
thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his
flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone. “There
are bitter weeds in England.” There are certainly a great many more of
them since the British Expeditionary Force returned.

The whole question of home defense against invasion is, of
course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being
in this Island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have
ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not
continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty
 to our Ally. We have to reconstitute and build up the British
Expeditionary Force once again, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief,
Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our
defenses in this Island into such a high state of organization that the
fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and
that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realized.
 On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the
desire of the House, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session. Not
 that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great
detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free,
without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the
next day by the enemy; and the Government would benefit by views freely
expressed in all parts of the House by Members with their knowledge of
so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request
is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His
 Majesty’s Government.

We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing
stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of
other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a
danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United
Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders
which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am
very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the
present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If
 parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon
them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the
way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another
 class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has
given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong
hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and
correction of the House, without the slightest hesitation until we are
satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst
has been effectively stamped out.

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 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 maneuver. 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 again 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.