Today's Article - We Shall Fight on the Beaches

This article is for quizzes on Thursday July 9th, 2015...

We Shall Fight on the Beaches is a common title given to a speech delivered by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 4 June 1940. This was the second of three major speeches given around the period of the Battle of France, with the others designated as the Blood, toil, tears, and sweat speech of 13 May, and the This was their finest hour speech of 18 June. Events developed dramatically over the five-week period, and although broadly similar in themes, each speech addressed a different military and diplomatic context.
In this speech, Churchill had to describe a great military disaster, and warn of a possible invasion attempt by Nazi Germany, without casting doubt on eventual victory. He also had to prepare his domestic audience for France's falling out of the war without in any way releasing the French Republic to do so, and wished to reiterate a policy and an aim unchanged – despite the intervening events – from his speech of 13 May, in which he had declared the goal of "victory, however long and hard the road may be".

It is said that immediately after giving the speech, Churchill muttered to a colleague, "And we’ll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got!"

Nonetheless, Churchill impressed his listeners and the speech was immediately recognised to be historic. One of Churchill's secretaries noted in his diary "A magnificent oration, which obviously moved the House". A Conservative MP wrote in his diary "he was eloquent and oratorical and used magnificent English; several Labour members cried". A Labour MP, friend and admirer of Churchill since the Dardanelles wrote to him "My dear Winston. That was worth 1,000 guns and the speeches of 1,000 years"

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