Five-minute digest

Their Finest Hour

Winston Churchill

Summary

Churchill gave this speech to the House of Commons on the afternoon of 18 June 1940 and read it again over BBC radio that evening. He had been prime minister for just over five weeks. In that time the German offensive had broken through in the west, the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated from Dunkirk, and on 17 June the new French government under Marshal Pétain had asked Germany for an armistice. Britain now faced the prospect of fighting on alone. The speech is long and largely a sober report. Churchill reviews the disaster in France without trying to minimize it and declines to open an inquiry into blame for the years before the war, warning that a Parliament busy settling old accounts would throw away the chance of winning the war still ahead. He then sets out the reasons for confidence: the large number of troops now in the island, the Royal Navy's power to break up a seaborne invasion, the performance of the Royal Air Force over Dunkirk, and the support pledged by the Dominions. He does not hide that heavy air attack is likely and asks the country to endure it. Turning to France, Churchill expresses sympathy for the French people, regret at their government's decision, and confidence that the cause of France will be restored if Britain wins. He speaks of the exiled governments and forces of the occupied nations who had joined Britain. The peroration gathers the argument into a single choice. The Battle of France, he says, is over, and the Battle of Britain is about to begin; the enemy must break Britain or lose the war. If Britain stands, Europe may be freed; if it falls, the whole world, the United States included, will sink into a new dark age. He ends by asking his hearers to bear themselves so that, should the Commonwealth and Empire last a thousand years, people will still call this their finest hour. The speech gave its name to the summer's air battle and became, with the Dunkirk speech two weeks earlier, the best known of Churchill's 1940 addresses.

Top Lessons

Hope founded on an honest reckoning
Most of the speech is arithmetic: divisions in Britain, ships in the Channel, aircraft and pilots. Churchill earns the right to his famous ending by first telling Parliament the worst. Courage in this speech rests on clear facts rather than on denial of danger.
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Refusing to quarrel with the past
Many in Parliament wanted to blame the men who had governed before the war. Churchill, who had been their sharpest critic, refuses, arguing that the urgent task is survival. He puts the common danger ahead of his own vindication.
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Living for the judgment of history
The peroration asks a people to imagine how they will look to those who come a thousand years later and to act accordingly. Churchill makes posterity a moral audience, turning an hour of defeat into a test of character that future generations will remember.
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Their Finest Hour

Summary

Top Lessons

Hope founded on an honest reckoning

Refusing to quarrel with the past

Living for the judgment of history

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