By: Shariq Khan.
“We shall fight on the beaches,”
said Sir Winston Churchill in the second speech he delivered to the House of
Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 4 June 1940. By the time
that Churchill stopped speaking, several Labour members had broken into tears.
He was speaking to describe a great military disaster and to warn of a possible
Nazi invasion but the tears were not of grief or fear, Churchill’s eloquence
and oratorical prowess moved the audience.
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| Winston Churchill's 'We shall fight on the beaches' is one of the three famous speeches he delivered during the battle of France. |
A miscalculation of the German
Wehrmacht offensive by the British Expeditionary Forces weakened the Allied
forces. The Wehrmacht offensive began on 10th May with the invasions
of Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Churchill, also appointed Prime
Minister of the house on 10th May spoke on 13th May to
announce the formation of the new government. In that speech, famously titled
‘Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat’, Churchill did not talk about the military
situation in France and the Low Countries.
Situations worsened with the
progression of the month of May. On 13th May, the Wehrmacht crossed
through the Meuse River at Sedan and broke through the defences of the French
Army. By 20th May, the Wehrmacht armoured divisions successfully
reached the coast of the English Channel causing a split in the British
Expeditionary Forces and the French First Army from the main French forces.
Operation Dynamo landed a heavy
blow on the Allied Forces as the rescued BEF and French troops left all of
their equipment behind. On 28th May, after 18 days of ceaseless
German bombardment, the king of Belgium surrendered unconditionally.
The same day, Churchill asked the
House of Commons to ‘prepare itself for hard and heavy tidings’. He promised to
make a further statement on June 4.
Keeping his promise, Churchill
spoke to the Commons again on June 4. By this time, it was almost evident that
the French forces will not be able to hold the German offensive. The French
were short on fighter planes and their defensive line along Aisne and Somme
would have been ineffective against any major attack according to the British
military evaluation. Consequently, the French asked for more British Fighter
squadrons to be sent to France.
While Churchill was in favour of
sending the squadrons, The British War cabinet, on advice of the Royal Air
Force and the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, decided that
it was more important to strengthen the defences back home.
At a time when
observers reported that ‘everyone looked suicidal’, it was now upon Churchill
to describe the military disaster of Belgium, to warn of a possible German
invasion, to prepare the house for a fall of the French, and most importantly,
to keep the morale high despite the adverse military conditions.
Churchill
managed to do all of it. Through beautiful oration, Churchill greatly motivated
the house to believing that the British could still win the war. Another job
that Churchill had was to move America, still neutral at this point, to support
the British in the war. Historians claim that Churchill managed to do this as
well.
Unlike he would
on his next ‘This was their finest hour’ speech; Churchill did not broadcast
this speech on radio himself. Instead, a newsreader read extracts of the speech
on that evening’s BBC news broadcast.
Regardless of
not being in Churchill’s voice, the impact of the broadcast on populace was
profound and Churchill’s ‘We shall fight them on the beaches’ was inscribed in
history as one of the finest oratorical pieces.
Listen to the broadcast here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N89Cpc4vl60
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