Wk. 10 Winston Churchill, The Few Speech in the House of Commons, 20 August 1940

Question 1

Winston Churchill, The Few Speech in the House of Commons, 20 August 1940

Answer 1

Winston Churchill, The Few Speech in the House of Commons, 20 August 1940 – Winston Churchill (1874-1965) became Prime Minister of Great Britain in May 1940, just before the German invasion of France. By the time he gave this speech in August, France had surrendered and the Battle of Britain, in which the German air force bombed military and civilian targets, had begun. In this speech, which was broadcast on radio, Churchill explained the nature of the war and why he believed Britain would win.

How did Churchill think World War II differed from all preceding wars, including World War I?

• In WWII, EVERYONE was engaged, not just the soldiers.
  
  • “The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women, and children. The fronts are everywhere. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. The workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage. These are great and distinctive changes from what many of us saw in the struggle of a quarter of a century ago.”
• The war was fought with strategy, not so much purely brute force.
  
  • See quotes below.
• The war has a much lower death toll over a similar period.
  
  • See quotes below.

What did he think Britain needed to do to win the war?

• They must endure.

How did he think they would defeat Germany?

• By this time, England has regained it’s footing and is now receiving resource assistance from America. They have healed and fortified the British Isles, daring the Germans to attack, knowing that with each attack, the Germans will pay a higher price as the aggressor.
  
  • “Meanwhile, we have not only fortified our hearts but our Island. We have rearmed and rebuilt our armies in a degree which would have been deemed impossible a few months ago. We have ferried across the Atlantic, in the month of July, thanks to our friends over there, an immense mass of munitions of all kinds, cannon, rifles, machine-guns, cartridges, and shell, all safely landed without the loss of a gun or a round. The output of our own factories, working as they have never worked before, has poured forth to the troops. The whole British Army is at home. More than 2,000,000 determined men have rifles and bayonets in their hands tonight and three-quarters of them are in regular military formations. We have never had armies like this in our Island in time of war. The whole Island bristles against invaders, from the sea or from the air.”
  • “the stronger our Army at home, the larger must the invading expedition be, and the larger the invading expedition, the less difficult will be the task of the Navy in detecting its assembly and in intercepting and destroying it on passage; and the greater also would be the difficulty of feeding and supplying the invaders if ever they landed, in the teeth of continuous naval and air attack on their communications. All this is classical and venerable doctrine. As in Nelson’s day, the maxim holds, “Our first line of defence is the enemy’s ports.” Now air reconnaissance and photography have brought to an old principle a new and potent aid.”
• Whereas WWI was a war of “Men and Shells” which favored those with primitive aggression, WWII was a different sort of war that favored the strengths of Britain.
  
  • “In this war nothing of this kind has yet appeared. It is a conflict of strategy, of organisation, of technical apparatus, of science, mechanics, and morale.”
  • “If all these qualities are turned, as they are being turned, to the arts of war, we may be able to show the enemy quite a lot of things that they have not thought of yet. Since the Germans drove the Jews out and lowered their technical standards, our science is definitely ahead of theirs. Our geographical position, the command of the sea, and the friendship of the United States enable us to draw resources from the whole world and to manufacture weapons of war of every kind, but especially of the superfine kinds, on a scale hitherto practised only by Nazi Germany.”
• Points out that WWII is a war where win or loss is determined by calculation of the probability of the outcome rather than by merely killing until one side loses by attrition, regardless the odds against the loser when the fighting first began. This has greatly diminished the number of dead, but also resulted in great and immediate losses on a sovereign level.
  
  • “France has succumbed to physical effects incomparably less terrible than those which were sustained with fortitude and undaunted will power 25 years ago. Although up to the present the loss of life has been mercifully diminished, the decisions reached in the course of the struggle are even more profound upon the fate of nations than anything that has ever happened since barbaric times. Moves are made upon the scientific and strategic boards, advantages are gained by mechanical means, as a result of which scores of millions of men become incapable of further resistance, or judge themselves incapable of further resistance, and a fearful game of chess proceeds from check to mate by which the unhappy players seem to be inexorably bound.”
• Churchill highlights the difference in casualties between WWI and WWII, which serves as a symbolic proxy for the difference in the nature of the two wars.
  
  • “the first 12 months of the Great War amounted to 365,000. In this war, I am thankful to say, British killed, wounded, prisoners, and missing, including civilians, do not exceed 92,000”
  • “The slaughter is only a small fraction”
• Churchill refuses to remove blockades to allow food to get to Nazi-controlled Europe because Hitler will simply use that food to feed his armies as well as to produce munitions.
  
  • “Many of the most valuable foods are essential to the manufacture of vital war material. Fats are used to make explosives. Potatoes make the alcohol for motor spirit. The plastic materials now so largely used in the construction of aircraft are made of milk. If the Germans use these commodities to help them to bomb our women and children, rather than to feed the populations who produce them, we may be sure that imported foods would go the same way, directly or indirectly, or be employed to relieve the enemy of the responsibilities he has so wantonly assumed.”
  • “If all this food is not available now, it can only be because it has been removed to feed the people of Germany and to give them increased rations - for a change - during the last few months.”
• Churchill also asserts that the blockade will motivate the populace to rise up against Hitler’s forces.
  
  • “Let Hitler bear his responsibilities to the full and let the peoples of Europe who groan beneath his yoke aid in every way the coming of the day when that yoke will be broken.”

POWERPOINT:

Churchill, “The Few”

• How was this war different from WWI?
  
  • This war is more scientific and technological (new developments all the time)
  • This war is more strategic (less about throwing men against trenches)
    
    • Therefore less deadly (at in the first year)
  • But the consequences are more serious
    
    • France has already been knocked out of this war
      
      • Not because of greater physical destruction or deaths
      • They’ve been outmaneuvered strategically
      • This was a loss of morale (no longer believed they could win)
  • In this war, everyone is part of the war (not just the soldiers)
    
    • “The front line runs through the factories”
    • Germans are bombing cities and other targets in Britain
• How did he think Britain would win the war?
  
  • Able to bring in resources from the USA and other parts of the world
    
    • This is tied to geography (island defensiveness and control overseas)
  • Blockade of German-occupied Europe: to prevent them from bringing in resources
  • Scientific advantages, esp. b/c Germans have driven out Jewish scientists
  • Morale: have the determination to keep fighting no matter what
  • Army and navy to protect the country and strike back
  • Air Force (“the few”)
    
    • Fighter pilots who are protecting them from German bombers
      
      • The other reason they’re going to win the Battle of Britain is production and salvage
    • Bombers who are attacking targets in Germany (military and industrial targets)
      
      • The goal is to shatter the German war economy

Destruction of WWII vs. WWI

• Churchill was very wrong about WWII being less deadly
• WWI: 16 million dead (almost all military)
• WWII: 60 million dead (20 million military, 40 million civilians)
  
  • USSR alone had 24 million dead (15% of the 1939 population)
• Largely due to the type of total war Churchill described
  
  • Bombing, deliberate starvation, genocide

Why the Allies won

• Churchill was right about most of the rest of what he said
• Economic warfare (targeting the enemy’s ability to produce)
• Production and “war socialism” or “war communism”
• WWII was an even higher level of Total War than WWI