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The famous 1949 recording of the speech. The original 1940 speech was never recorded; this is a retake for a Decca Records vinyl album containing Churchill’s greatest speeches.
Churchill in 1941

“We shall fight on the beaches” was a speech delivered by the British Prime Minister 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 by Churchill around the period of the Battle of France; the others are the “Blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech of 13 May 1940, and the “This was their finest hour” speech of 18 June 1940. 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 France 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”.

Background

Winston Churchill took over as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, eight months after the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He had done so as the head of a multiparty coalition government, which had replaced the previous government (led by Neville Chamberlain) as a result of dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war, demonstrated by the Norway debate on the Allied evacuation of Southern Norway.[1]

Coincidentally, the German Wehrmacht offensive in the Low Countries and France had begun on 10 May with the invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Churchill had spoken to the House of Commons as Prime Minister for the first time on 13 May, to announce the formation of the new administration:

Peroration

The peroration is widely held to be one of the finest oratorical moments of the war and of Churchill’s career.

[10]

It is often said that in the sentence that begins “We shall fight on the beaches” and ends in “surrender”, only the last word – “surrender“ – does not have Old English roots.[11][12]

Reception

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!”[13] Nonetheless, Churchill impressed his listeners and the speech was immediately recognised to be historic. Jock Colville, one of Churchill’s secretaries, noted in his diary “A magnificent oration, which obviously moved the House.”[14] Chips Channon, a Conservative MP, wrote in his diary “he was eloquent and oratorical and used magnificent English; several Labour members cried.”[15] A Labour MP, Josiah Wedgwood, friend and admirer of Churchill since the Dardanelles campaign, wrote to him, “My dear Winston. That was worth 1,000 guns and the speeches of 1,000 years.”[16]

Unlike his subsequent “This was their finest hour” speech, Churchill’s 4 June speech in the House of Commons was not repeated by him as a live radio broadcast that evening. Rather, as with his earlier “Blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech, extracts were read by the newsreader on that evening’s BBC news broadcast.[17][18] They made a great impression on Vita Sackville-West:

[19]

The next year American journalist H. R. Knickerbocker wrote that its words “deserve to be memorized by us all”, observing that “With Churchill’s picture these words are placarded in homes and offices throughout the British Empire.”[20]

Recordings

No audio record was made at the time of the original speech; Churchill only produced an audio recording in 1949, by repeating his previous oration.[21] Despite this, many people after the war misremembered that they had heard Churchill speaking on the radio in 1940 when all there had been were BBC news reports that quoted his words.[22]

In 1984, English heavy metal band Iron Maiden mixed a section of this recording[23] at the beginning of the video for their song “Aces High“, which is inspired by the Battle of Britain, also using the recording as the introduction to the song when performed on stage. Iron Maiden also use this section as a beginning for many live shows namely during their 1984 World Slavery Tour. In “Fool’s Overture“, the closing track of Supertramp‘s 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments…, some excerpts of the speech are heard along with London’s Big Ben chiming.[24]

Two popular myths are commonly propagated in newspapers and blogs. In 1972, actor Norman Shelley claimed to have recorded the speech impersonating Churchill.[25][26] They featured in a 1994 book, 2000 Economist article, and an Atlantic article from 2002 by Christopher Hitchens,[27] containing the following claims:

Myth 1: It is often claimed that the speech was delivered by Norman Shelley, likely by virtue of Churchill being inebriated. Despite Shelley creating a phonograph recording in 1942 of a different speech, he did not impersonate Churchill during the actual oration.[28]

Myth 2: The most remembered part of the speech was supposedly inspired by a radio address by former British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, which included the following sentences:

If the enemy does try to invade this country we will fight him in the air and on the sea; we will fight him on the beaches with every weapon we have. He may manage here and there to make a breakthrough: if he does we will fight him on every road, in every village, and in every house, until he or we are utterly destroyed.

This frequently cited Chamberlain quote is found in the 1946 book The Life of Neville Chamberlain by Keith Feiling;[29] however, referring to a “June 30 […] broadcast”, which would date it subsequent to Churchill’s original oration, which took place in 1940.

See also

References

  1. ↑ History.com Staff (2010). “Winston Churchill Becomes Prime Minister”. History.com. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  2. ↑ “His Majesty’s Government”, House of Commons Debates, vol. 360, Hansard, cc1502, 13 May 1940
  3. ↑ Brayley, Martin (2013) [2001]. The British Army 1939–45 (1): North-West Europe. Men at Arms No. 354 (ebook (pdf) ed.). Osprey Publishing. pp. 6–7. ISBN 9781472804426 – via Google Books.
  4. ↑ David T. Zabecki (2015). World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 1493. ISBN 9781135812423.
  5. ↑ Philip Birtles (2003). Hurricane Squadrons. Red Kite. p. 44. ISBN 9780953806157.
  6. ↑ Collier, Richard (1980). 1940: The World in Flames. Harmondsworth: Penguin. p. 129. ISBN 9780140053418.
  7. ↑ More nuanced accounts of how people subsequently recalled their feelings to be can be found at “The Spitfire site: Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Dunkirk Over: Triumph or Defeat?”. Archived from the original on 21 July 2021. Retrieved 19 January 2013.
  8. ↑ Marshall, S.L.A., “World War I”, pg. 357
  9. ↑ “Oui, les Allemands peuvent prendre Paris, cela ne m’empêchera pas de faire la guerre. Nous nous battrons sur la Loire, puis sur la Garonne s’il le faut et même sur les Pyrénées, Si enfin nous sommes chassés des Pyrénées on continuera la guerre sur mer et en Afrique, mais quant à faire la paix, jamais ! Qu’ils ne comptent pas sur moi pour cela.” Albert Lebrun, “Témoignage”, p. 116
  10. ↑ Hansard HC Deb 04 June 1940 vol 361 cc787-98
  11. ↑ Lacey, Robert. “The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium” – via Goodreads.
  12. ↑ Bragg, Melvyn (2004). The Adventure of English. p. 7.
  13. ↑ Enright, Dominique (2001). The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill. Michael O’Mara. p. 45. ISBN 9781854795298. – other sources give other occasions for the remark
  14. ↑ Jock Colville, diary entry 4 June 1940, quoted in Gilbert, Martin (1983). ““I Expect Worse to Come…”“. Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill 1939-1941. London: Heinemann. p. 468. ISBN 0434291870 – via Archive.org.
  15. ↑ “Chips” (Sir Henry Channon) diary entry 4 June 1940 in Robert Rhodes James, ed. (1967). Chips: the Diaries of Sir Henry Channon. London. p. 256.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  16. ↑ Josiah Wedgwood, letter of 4 June 1940, quoted in Gilbert, Martin (1983). Finest Hour Winston S Churchill 1939–1941. London: Book Club Associates. p. 468.
  17. ↑ James, Robert Rhodes (Autumn 1996). “Myth Shattering: An Actor Did Not Give Churchill’s Speeches” (PDF). Finest Hour (92). The International Churchill Societies: 23–25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 January 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  18. ↑ James, Robert Rhodes (n.d.). “Myths – An actor read Churchill’s wartime speeches over the wireless”. The Churchill Centre. Archived from the original on 26 March 2017. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  19. ↑ Sackville-West, Vita (1967). “letter of 4 June 1940 to Harold Nicolson”. In Nicolson, Nigel (ed.). Harold Nicolson Diaries and Letters 1939–1945. London. p. 93.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  20. ↑ Knickerbocker, H. R. (1941). Is Tomorrow Hitler’s? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind. Reynal & Hitchcock. pp. 152–53. ISBN 9781417992775. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  21. ↑ Hunt, Kristin (21 November 2017). “Winston Churchill’s Historic ‘Fight Them on the Beaches’ Speech Wasn’t Heard by the Public Until After WWII”. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  22. ↑ Stourton, Edward (2015). Auntie’s War. Doubleday. pp. 129–131. ISBN 9780857523327.
  23. ↑ Starting from “We shall go on to the end” up to “We shall never surrender”.
  24. ↑ Fools’s Overture 02:27 Accessed on 10 May 2021
  25. ↑ Ponting, Clive (1994). Churchill. London : Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 978-1-85619-270-5.
  26. ↑ “His master’s voice?”. The Economist.
  27. ↑ Hitchens, Christopher, “The Medals of His Defeats”
  28. ↑ Toye, Richard. “‘We shall fight on the beaches’: 3 things you never knew about Churchill’s most famous speech”.
  29. ↑ Feiling, Keith., “The life of Neville Chamberlain”, pg. 449

Further reading