Loyal readers of this journal will need no instruction on its proud title, Finest Hour. The allusion, of course, is to the historic speech that Winston Churchill delivered as wartime Prime Minister on 18 June 1940. Its context was grim, with the collapse of effective resistance to the German invasion of France, which had necessitated the evacuation of Allied forces from the port and beaches of Dunkirk a couple of weeks previously.
At that juncture Churchill—little more than a month in office as Prime Minister of a coalition government—had urged caution in celebrating the unexpected success of rescuing as many as 335,000 troops. “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory,” he had warned on 4 June.1But his central message was that “we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.…”2
Here were resounding words that went around the world, not least the New World, as Churchill fully intended. The experience of Dunkirk thus prepared the ground for a further historic declaration from the Prime Minister. He was now fortified with an unexpected surge of public support at home when he made his speech on 18 June 1940, after the fall of France had become inevitable. Speaking first to the House of Commons, and later on BBC radio, Churchill projected resolute defiance in the existential struggle that he foresaw, so that “if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”3
Though much of this is well known, it still needs emphasis that, in the context of Churchill’s speech, it was not Britain but the British Empire that now stood “alone.” Indeed he had already, in his Dunkirk speech two weeks previously, made this into his peroration: “even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the sea, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and liberation of the old.”4
But what exactly did these resounding phrases imply? In his subsequent “Finest Hour” oration, Churchill duly elaborated on what he meant. “We have fully informed and consulted all the self-governing Dominions, these great communities far beyond the oceans who have been built up on our laws and on our civilization, and who are absolutely free to choose their course, but are absolutely devoted to the ancient Motherland, and who feel themselves inspired by the same emotions which lead me to stake our all upon duty and honour.” Churchill
