Winston Churchill :: essays research papers

Those eleven burning words summed up the character of Britains war, turned Britains back on the weaknesses of the past, set her face toward the unknown future. Because of them the remain of that speech has been forgotten. It should not be forgotten, for it is not only a great(p) example of Winston Churchills eloquence, but the epitome of the movement which he leads. After a brief report on the formation of his Government, Winston Churchill said "You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air--war with totally our skill and with all the strength God has given us--and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable inventory of hu opus crime. That is our policy. "You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in bingle word. It is victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terrors. Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory in that respect is no survival. "Let that be realized . No survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge, the pulse rate of the ages, that mankind shall move forward toward his goal." December 31, 1940, was not only the stop over of a family it was the end of a ten-spot--the most terrifying of the twentieth Century. The decade which ended in 1920 had seen a war that was to prove inconclusive. It had seen a revolution that was to lie quiescent after establishing itself in the largest country of the orb. The decade which ended in 1930 was one of confusion and wasted push--the wasted energy of gambling and gin-drinking in the U.S., of civil war in the Far East, of misdirected radical effort from the U.S.S.R., of the attempt in Europe to hold resurgent peoples in check. The decade which ended this week saw the failure of that attempt and the unleashing of unmerciful war. It saw the Far Easts battle of warlords turn into a war for the success of one people. It saw the U.S. turn to a feverish effort to hold dear itself and its neighbors. It saw, in the Battle of Britain, the life-&-death struggle of the greatest empire the world has ever known. The Candidates of 1940. No artist, no athlete, no scientist, only a man whose place was on the stage of world politics, could be Man of 1940--last and stormiest year of a stormy decade.