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'The Few'
August 20, 1940
House of Commons
On August 15, the crisis of the battle of Britain was reached. All
the resources of Fighter Command in the South were used. The most
difficult and dangerous period of the Battle of Britain was between
August 24 and September 6, when the German attack was directed
against the R.A.F airfields in the South of England with considerable
success. In this speech Churchill coined the phrase "The
Few" to describe the R.A.F fighter-pilots. The phrase stuck. The
final sentence of this speech, including the use of the word
"benignant," is a good example of Churchill's choice of
unexpected and assertive adjectives to make a phrase memorable.
Almost a year has passed since the war began, and it is natural for
us, I think, to pause on our journey at this milestone and survey the
dark, wide field. It is also useful to compare the first year of this
second war against German aggression with its forerunner a quarter of
a century ago. Although this war is in fact only a continuation of
the last, very great differences in its character are apparent. In
the last war millions of men fought by hurling enormous masses of
steel at one another. "Men and shells" was the cry, and
prodigious slaughter was the consequence. In this war nothing of this
kind has yet appeared. It is a conflict of strategy, of organization,
of technical apparatus, of science, mechanics and morale. The British
casualties in 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, and
of these a large proportion are alive as prisoners of war. Looking
more widely around, one may say that throughout all Europe, for one
man killed or wounded in the first year perhaps five were killed or
wounded in 1914-15.
The slaughter is only a small fraction, but the consequences to the
belligerents have been even more deadly. We have seen great countries
with powerful armies dashed out of coherent existence in a few weeks.
We have seen the-French Republic and the renowned French Army beaten
into complete and total submission with less than the casualties
which they suffered in any one of half a dozen of the battles of
1914-18. The entire body-it might almost seem at times the soul-of
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.
There is another more obvious difference from 1914. 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. There seems
to be every reason to believe that this new kind of war is well
suited to the genius and the resources of the British nation and the
British Empire; and that, once we get properly equipped and properly
started, a war of this kind will be more favorable to us than the
somber mass slaughters of the Somme and Passchendaele. If it is a
case of the whole nation fighting and suffering together, that ought
to suit us, because we are the most united of all the nations,
because we entered the war upon the national will and with our eyes
open, and because we have been nurtured in freedom and individual
responsibility and are the products, not of totalitarian uniformity,
but of tolerance and variety. 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 practiced only by Nazi Germany.
Hitler is now sprawled over Europe. Our offensive springs are being
slowly compressed, and we must resolutely and methodically prepare
ourselves for the campaigns of 1941 and 1942. Two or three years are
not a long time, even in our short, precarious lives. They are
nothing in the history of the nation, and when we are doing the
finest thing in the world, and have the honor to be the sole champion
of the liberties of all Europe, we must not grudge these years or
weary as we toil and struggle through them. It does not follow that
our energies in future years will be exclusively confined to
defending ourselves and our possessions. Many opportunities may lie
open to amphibious power, and we must be ready to take advantage of
them. One of the ways to bring this war to a speedy end is to
convince the enemy, not by words, but by deeds, that we have both the
will and the means, not only to go on indefinitely, but to strike
heavy and unexpected blows. The road to victory may not be so long as
we expect. But we have no right to count upon this. Be it long or
short, rough or smooth, we mean to reach our journey's end.
It is our intention to maintain and enforce a strict blockade, not
only of Germany, but of Italy, France, and all the other countries
that have fallen into the German power. I read in the papers that
Herr Hitler has also proclaimed a strict blockade of the British
Islands. No one can complain of that. I remember the Kaiser doing it
in the last war. What indeed would be a matter of general complaint
would be if we were to prolong the agony of all Europe by allowing
food to come in to nourish the Nazis and aid their war effort, or to
allow food to go in to the subjugated peoples, which certainly would
be pillaged off them by their Nazi conquerors.
There have been many proposals, founded on the highest motives, that
food should be allowed to pass the blockade for the relief of these
populations. I regret that we must refuse these requests. The Nazis
declare that they have created a new unified economy in Europe. They
have repeatedly stated that they possess ample reserves of food and
that they can feed their captive peoples. In a German broadcast
oL27th June it was said that while Mr. Hoover's plan for relieving
France, Belgium and Holland deserved commendation, the German forces
had already taken the necessary steps. We know that in Norway when
the German troops went in, there were food supplies to last for a
year. We know that Poland, though not a rich country, usually
produces sufficient food for her people. Moreover, the other
countries which Herr Hitler has invaded all held considerable stocks
when the Germans entered and are themselves, in many cases, very
substantial food producers. 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. At this season of the year and for some months to come, there
is the least chance of scarcity as the harvest has just been gathered
in. The only agencies which can create famine in any part of Europe,
now and during the coming winter, will be German exactions or German
failure to distribute the supplies which they command.
There is another aspect. 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. 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. Meanwhile, we can and we will arrange in
advance for the speedy entry of food into any part of the enslaved
area, when this part has been wholly cleared of German forces, and
has genuinely regained its freedom. We shall do our best to encourage
the building up of reserves of food all over the world, so that there
will always be held up before the eyes of the peoples of Europe,
including-I say deliberately-the German and Austrian peoples, the
certainty that the shattering of the Nazi power will bring to them
all immediate food, freedom and peace.
Rather more than a quarter of a year has passed since the new
Government came into power in this country. What a cataract of
disaster has poured out upon us since then! The trustful Dutch
overwhelmed; their beloved and respected Sovereign driven into exile;
the peaceful city of Rotterdam the scene of a massacre as hideous and
brutal as anything in the Thirty Years' War; Belgium invaded and
beaten down; our own fine Expeditionary Force, which King Leopold
called to his rescue, cut off and almost captured, escaping as it
seemed only by a miracle and with the loss of all its equipment; our
Ally, France, out; Italy in against us; all France in the power of
the enemy, all its arsenals and vast masses of military material
converted or convertible to the enemy's use; a puppet Government set
up at Vichy which may at any moment be forced to become our foe; the
whole western seaboard of Europe from the North Cape to the Spanish
frontier in German hands; all the ports, all the airfields on this
immense front employed against us as potential springboards of
invasion. Moreover, the German air power, numerically so far
outstripping ours, has been brought so close to our Island that what
we used to dread greatly has come to pass and the hostile bombers not
only reach our shores in a few minutes and from many directions, but
can be escorted by their fighting aircraft. Why, Sir, if we had been
confronted at the beginning of May with such a prospect, it would
have seemed incredible that at the end of a period of horror and
disaster, or at this point in a period of horror and disaster, we
should stand erect, sure of ourselves, masters of our fate and with
the conviction of final victory burning unquenchable in our hearts.
Few would have believed we could survive; none would have believed
that we should today not only feel stronger but should actually be
stronger than we have ever been before.
Let us see what has happened on the other side of the scales. The
British nation and the British Empire, finding themselves alone,
stood undismayed against disaster. No one flinched or wavered; nay,
some who formerly thought of peace, now think only of war. Our people
are united and resolved, as they have never been before. Death and
ruin have become small things compared with the shame of defeat or
failure in duty. We cannot tell what lies ahead. It may be that even
greater ordeals lie before us. We shall face whatever is coming to
us. We are sure of ourselves and of our cause, and that is the
supreme fact which has emerged in these months of trial.
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. As I explained to the House
in the middle of June, 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 in 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 defense is the enemy's ports." Now air
reconnaissance and photography have brought to an old principle a new
and potent aid.
Our Navy is far stronger than it was at the beginning of the war. The
great flow of new construction set on foot at the outbreak is now
beginning to come in. We hope our friends across the ocean will send
us a timely reinforcement to bridge the gap between the peace
flotillas of 1939 and the war flotillas of 1941. There is no
difficulty in sending such aid. The seas and oceans are open. The
U-boats are contained. The magnetic mine is, up to the present time,
effectively mastered. The merchant tonnage under the British flag,
after a year of unlimited U-boat war, after eight months of intensive
mining attack, is larger than when we began. We have, in addition,
under our control at least 4,000,000 tons of shipping from the
captive countries which has taken refuge here or in the harbors of
the Empire. Our stocks of food of all kinds are far more abundant
than in the days of peace, and a large and growing program of food
production is on foot.
Why do I say all this? Not, assuredly, to boast; not, assuredly, to
give the slightest countenance to complacency. The dangers we face
are still enormous, but so are our advantages and resources. I
recount them because the people have a right to know that there are
solid grounds for the confidence which we feel, and that we have good
reason to believe ourselves capable, as I said in a very dark hour
two months ago, of continuing the war "if necessary alone, if
necessary for years." I say it also because the fact that the
British Empire stands invincible, and that Nazidom is still being
resisted, will kindle again the spark of hope in the breasts of
hundreds of millions of down-trodden or despairing men and women
throughout Europe, and far beyond its bounds, and that from these
sparks there will presently come cleansing and devouring flame.
The great air battle which has been in progress over this Island for
the last few weeks has recently attained a high intensity. It is too
soon to attempt to assign limits either to its scale or to its
duration. We must certainly expect that greater efforts will be made
by the enemy than any he has so far put forth. Hostile air fields are
still being developed in France and the Low Countries, and the
movement of squadrons and material for attacking us is still
proceeding. It is quite plain that Herr Hitler could not admit defeat
in his air attack on Great Britain without sustaining most serious
injury. If after all his boastings and bloodcurdling threats and
lurid accounts trumpeted round the world of the damage he has
inflicted, of the vast numbers of our Air Force he has shot down, so
he says, with so little loss to himself; if after tales of the
panic-stricken British crushed in their holes cursing the plutocratic
Parliament which has led them to such a plight-if after all this his
whole air onslaught were forced after a while tamely to peter out,
the Fuhrer's reputation for veracity of statement might be seriously
impugned. We may be sure, therefore, that he will continue as long as
he has the strength to do so, and as long as any preoccupations he
may have in respect of the Russian Air Force allow him to do so.
On the other hand, the conditions and course of the fighting have so
far been favorable to us. I told the House two months ago that,
whereas in France our fighter aircraft were wont to inflict a loss of
two or three to one upon the Germans, and in the fighting at Dunkirk,
which was a kind of no-man's-land, a loss of about three or four to
one, we expected that in an attack on this Island we should achieve a
larger ratio. This has certainly come true. It must also be
remembered that all the enemy machines and pilots which are shot down
over our Island, or over the seas which surround it, are either
destroyed or captured; whereas a considerable proportion of our
machines, and also of our pilots, are saved, and soon again in many
cases come into action.
A vast and admirable system of salvage, directed by the Ministry of
Aircraft Production, ensures the speediest return to the fighting
line of damaged machines, and the most provident and speedy use of
all the spare parts and material. At the same time the splendid-nay,
astounding-increase in the output and repair of British aircraft and
engines which Lord Beaverbrook has achieved by a genius of
organization and drive, which looks like magic, has given us
overflowing reserves of every type of aircraft, and an ever-mounting
stream of production both in quantity and quality. The enemy is, of
course, far more numerous than we are. But our new production
already, as I am advised, largely exceeds his, and the American
production is only just beginning to flow in. It is a fact, as I see
from my daily returns, that our bomber and fighter strength now,
after all this fighting, are larger than they have ever been. We
believe that we shall be able to continue the air struggle
indefinitely and as long as the enemy pleases, and the longer it
continues the more rapid will be our approach, first towards that
parity, and then into that superiority, in the air upon which in a
large measure the decision of the war depends.
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed
throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to
the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their
constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the
World War by their prowess and b~ their devotion. Never in the field
of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts
go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our
own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time,
night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far
into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest
navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire,
often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and
inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and
war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air
Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the
daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of
invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the
meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain.
We are able to verify the results of bombing military targets in
Germany, not only by reports which reach us through many sources, but
also, of course, by photography. I have no hesitation in saying that
this process of bombing the military industries and communications of
Germany and the air bases and storage depots from which we are
attacked, which process will continue upon an ever-increasing scale
until the end of the war, and may in another year attain dimensions
hitherto undreamed of, affords one at least of the most certain, if
not the shortest, of all the roads to victory. Even if the Nazi
legions stood triumphant on the Black Sea, or indeed upon the
Caspian, even if Hitler was at the gates of India, it would profit
him nothing if at the same time the entire economic and scientific
apparatus of German war power lay shattered and pulverized at home.
The fact that the invasion of this Island upon a large scale has
become a far more difficult operation with every week that has passed
since we saved our Army at Dunkirk, and our very great preponderance
of sea power enable us to turn our eyes and to turn our strength
increasingly towards the Mediterranean and against that other enemy
who, without the slightest provocation, coldly and deliberately, for
greed and gain, stabbed France in the back in the moment of her
agony, and is now marching against us in Africa. The defection of
France has, of course, been deeply damaging to our position in what
is called, somewhat oddly, the Middle East. In the defense of
Somaliland, for instance, we had counted upon strong French forces
attacking the Italians from Jibuti. We had counted also upon the use
of the French naval and air bases in the Mediterranean, and
particularly upon the North African shore. We had counted upon the
French Fleet. Even though metropolitan France was temporarily
overrun, there was no reason why the French Navy, substantial parts
of the French Army, the French Air Force and the French Empire
overseas should not have continued the struggle at our side.
Shielded by overwhelming sea power, possessed of invaluable strategic
bases and of ample funds, France might have remained one of the great
combatants in the struggle. By so doing, France would have preserved
the continuity of her life, and the French Empire might have advanced
with the British Empire to the rescue of the independence and
integrity of the French Motherland. In our own case, if we had been
put in the terrible position of France, a contingency now happily
impossible, although, of course, it would have been the duty of all
war leaders to fight on here to the end, it would also have been
their duty, as I indicated in my speech of 4th June, to provide as
far as possible for the Naval security of Canada and our Dominions
and to make sure they had the means to carry on the struggle from
beyond the oceans. Most of the other countries that have been overrun
by Germany for the time being have persevered valiantly and
faithfully. The Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Dutch, the
Belgians are still in the field, sword in hand, recognized by Great
Britain and the United States as the sole representative authorities
and lawful Governments of their respective States.
That France alone should lie prostrate at this moment is the crime,
not of a great and noble nation, but of what are called "the men
of Vichy." We have profound sympathy with the French people. Our
old comradeship with France is not dead. In General de Gaulle and his
gallant band, that comradeship takes an effective form. These free
Frenchmen have been condemned to death by Vichy, but the day will
come, as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, when their names will
be held in honor, and their names will be graven in stone in the
streets and villages of a France restored in a liberated Europe to
its full freedom and its ancient fame. But this conviction which I
feel of the future cannot affect the immediate problems which
confront us in the Mediterranean and in Africa. It had been decided
some time before the beginning of the war not to defend the
Protectorate of Somaliland. That policy was changed in the early
months of the war. When the French gave in, and when our small forces
there, a few battalions, a few guns, were attacked by all the Italian
troops, nearly two divisions, which had formerly faced the French at
Jibuti, it was right to withdraw our detachments, virtually intact,
for action elsewhere. Far larger operations no doubt impend in the
Middle East theater, and I shall certainly not attempt to discuss or
prophesy about their probable course. We have large armies and many
means of reinforcing them. We have the complete sea command of the
eastern Mediterranean. We intend to do our best to give a good
account of ourselves, and to discharge faithfully and resolutely all
our obligations and duties in that quarter of the world. More than
that I do not think the House would wish me to say at the present time. |
