Authors: Winston Churchill
Never Give In! (14 page)
We have got all we want in territory, but our claim to be left in undisputed enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, largely acquired by war and largely maintained by force, is one which often seems less reasonable to others than to us. Further, we have intervened regularly, as it was our duty to do, and as we could not help doing, in the affairs of Europe and of the world, and great advantage to European peace has resulted, even in this last year, from our interference. We have responsibilities in many quarters today. We are far from being detached from the problems of Europe. We have passed through a year of continuous anxiety, and, although His Majesty’s Government believe the foundations of peace among the Great Powers have been strengthened, yet the causes which might lead to a general war have not been removed and often remind us of their presence. There has not been the slightest abatement of naval and military preparation. On the contrary, we are witnessing this year increases of expenditure by Continental Powers in armaments beyond all previous experience. The world is armed as it was
never
armed before. Every suggestion or arrest or limitation has so far been ineffectual. From time to time awkward things happen, and situations occur which make it necessary that the naval force at our immediate disposal, now in this quarter, now in that, should be rapidly counted up. On such occasions the responsibilities which rest on the Admiralty come home with brutal reality to those who are responsible, and unless our naval strength were solidly, amply, and unswervingly maintained, the Government could not feel that they were doing their duty to the country.
‘THE WAR WILL BE LONG AND SOMBRE’
11 September 1914
National Liberal Club, London
On 25 July word reached London of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. The next day orders were signalled to the Home Fleet not to disperse following the test mobilisation in which, fortuitously, they had been engaged. By 1 August the Royal Navy was at its battle stations. The critical event came on 3 August with Germany’s invasion of Belgium and France. The British Government issued an ultimatum to Germany to respect Belgian neutrality. When the ultimatum expired at midnight on 4 August, the order was flashed from the Admiralty to the British Fleet: ‘Commence hostilities against Germany!’
We meet here together in serious times, but I come to you tonight in good heart (
cheers
), and with good confidence for the future and for the task upon which we are engaged. It is too soon to speculate upon the results of the great battle which is waging in France. Everything that we have heard during four long days of anxiety seems to point to a marked and substantial turning of the tide.
We have seen the forces of the French and British Armies strong enough not only to contain and check the devastating avalanche which had swept across the French frontier, but now at last, not for an hour or for a day, but for four long days in succession, it has been rolled steadily back. (
Cheers.
) With battles taking place over a front of 100 or 150 miles one must be very careful not to build high hopes on results which are achieved even in a great area of the field of war. We are not children looking for light and vain encouragement, but men engaged upon a task which has got to be put through. Still, when every allowance has been made for the uncertainty with which these great operations are always enshrouded, I think it only fair and right to say that the situation tonight is better, far better, than cold calculation of the forces available on both sides before the war should have led us to expect at this early stage. (
Cheers.
)
It is quite clear that what is happening now is not what the Germans planned (
laughter
), and they have yet to show that they can adapt themselves to the force of circumstances created by the military power of their enemies with the same efficiency that they have undoubtedly shown in regard to plans long preferred, methodically worked out, and executed with the precision of deliberation.
The battle, I say, gives us every reason to meet together tonight in good heart. But let me tell you frankly that if this battle had been as disastrous as, thank God, it appears to be triumphant, I should come before you with unabated confidence and with the certainty that we have only to continue in our efforts to bring this war to the conclusion which we wish and intend. (
Cheers.
)
Winston visits Clementine’s munition workers’ canteen, Enfield, North London, 1915.
We did not enter upon the war with the hope of easy victory; we did not enter upon it in any desire to extend our territory, or to advance and increase our position in the world; or in any romantic desire to shed our blood and spend our money in Continental quarrels. We entered upon this war reluctantly after we had made every effort compatible with honour to avoid being drawn in, and we entered upon it with a full realisation of the sufferings, losses, disappointments, vexations, and anxieties, and of the appalling and sustaining exertions which would be entailed upon us by our action. The war will be long and sombre. It will have many reverses of fortune and many hopes falsified by subsequent events, and we must derive from our cause and from the strength that is in us, and from the traditions and history of our race, and from the support and aid of our Empire all over the world the means to make this country overcome obstacles of all kinds and continue to the end of the furrow, whatever the toil and suffering may be.
But though we entered this war with no illusions as to the incidents which will mark the progress, as to the ebb and flow of fortune in this and that part of the gigantic field over which it is waged, we entered it, and entered it rightly, with the sure and strong hope and expectation of bringing it to a victorious conclusion. (
Cheers.
) I am quite certain that if we, the people of the British Empire, choose, whatever may happen in the interval, we can in the end make this war finish in accordance with out interests and the interests of civilisation. (
Cheers.
) Let us build on a sure foundation. Let us not be the sport of fortune, looking for victories here and happy chances there; let us take measures, which are well within our power, which are practical measures, measures which we can begin upon at once and carry through from day to day with surety and effect. Let us enter upon measures which in the long run, whatever the accidents and incidents of the intervening period may be, will secure us that victory upon which our life and existence as a nation not less than the fortune of our Allies and of Europe absolutely depends. (
Cheers.
)
5 June 1915
Dundee
Appalled at the prospect of British soldiers dying in their hundreds of thousands to gain a few hundred yards on the Western Front, where the trenches stretched from the Swiss Alps to the North Sea, Churchill was convinced there must be some better way of attacking Germany than ‘chewing barbed wire’ in Flanders. Accordingly he set his naval experts to work to devise a plan for seizing the Dardanelles on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Eastern Mediterranean with the aim of knocking Germany’s ally, Turkey, out of the war, linking up with Russia and mounting a joint attack on Germany from the east. However, due to inadequate military support by the War Office, the attack stalled and Churchill’s deputy, the volatile Admiral Lord Fisher, resigned in May 1915, triggering a ministerial crisis. The Government was reconstituted as a coalition, including the Conservatives. Their price was the removal of the First Lord from his post at the Admiralty. Churchill was devastated. He later remarked, ‘At a moment when every fibre of my being was inflamed to action, I was
forced to remain a spectator of the tragedy.’
I thought it right to take an opportunity of coming here to my constituency in view of all the events which have recently taken place, and also of the fact that considerably more than a year has passed since I have had the opportunity of speaking in Dundee. I have not come here to trouble you with personal matters, or to embark on explanations or to indulge in reproaches or recriminations. In wartime a man must do his duty as he sees it, and take his luck as it comes or goes. I will not say a word here or in Parliament which I cannot truly feel will have a useful bearing upon the only thing that matters, upon the only thing I care about, and the only thing I want you to think about – namely, the waging of victorious war upon the enemy. (
Cheers.
)
I was sent to the Admiralty in 1911, after the Agadir crisis had nearly brought us into war, and I was sent with the express duty laid upon me by the Prime Minister to put the Fleet in a state of instant and constant readiness for war in case we were attacked by Germany. (
Cheers.
) Since then, for nearly four years, I have borne the heavy burden of being, according to the time-honoured language of my patent, ‘responsibile to Crown and Parliament for all the business of the Admiralty’, and when I say responsible, I have been responsible in the real sense, that I have had the blame for everything that has gone wrong. (
Laughter and cheers.
) These years have comprised the most important period in our naval history – a period of preparation for war, a period of vigilance and mobilisation, and a period of actual war under conditions of which no man has any experience. I have done my best – (
cheers
) – and the archives of the Admiralty will show in the utmost detail the part I have played in all the great transactions that have taken place. It is to them I look for my defence.
I look also to the general naval situation. The terrible dangers of the beginning of the war are over. The seas have been swept clear: the submarine menace has been fixed within definite limits; the personal ascendancy of our men, the superior quality of our ships on the high seas, has been established beyond doubt or question. (
Cheers.
) Our strength has greatly increased, actually and relatively from what it was In the beginning of the war, and it grows continually every day by leaps and bounds in all the classes of vessels needed for the special purpose of the war. Between now and the end of the year, the British Navy will receive reinforcements which would be incredible if they were not actual facts. Everything is in perfect order. Nearly everything has been foreseen, all our supplies, stores, ammunition, and appliances of every kind, our supplies and drafts of officers and men – all are there. Nowhere will you be hindered. You have taken the measure of your foe, you have only to go forward with confidence. (
Cheers.
) On the whole surface of the seas of the world no hostile flag is flown. (
Loud cheers.
)
In that achievement I shall always be proud to have had a share. My charge now passes to another hand, and it is my duty to do everything in my power to give to my successor loyal support in act, in word, and in thought. (
Cheers.
)
. . .
The Army of Sir Ian Hamilton, the Fleet of Admiral de Robeck, are separated only by a few miles from a victory such as this war has not yet seen. When I speak of victory, I am not referring to those victories which crowd the daily placards of any newspapers. I am speaking of victory in the sense of a brilliant and formidable fact, shaping the destinies of nations and shortening the duration of the war. Beyond those few miles of ridge and scrub on which our soldiers, our French comrades, our gallant Australians, and our New Zealand fellow-subjects are now battling, lie the downfall of a hostile empire, the destruction of an enemy’s fleet and army, the fall of a world-famous capital, and probably the accession of powerful Allies. The struggle will be heavy, the risks numerous, the losses cruel; but victory when it comes will make amends for all. There never was a great subsidiary operation of war in which a more complete harmony of strategic, political, and economic advantages has combined, or which stood in truer relation to the main decision which is in the central theatre. Through the narrows of the Dardanelles and across the ridges of the Gallipoli Peninsula lie some of the shortest paths to a triumphant peace.