Background Material

The following material should be read carefully before writing your essay. Your reading should also include, inter alia, the short biography of Churchill that appears under the “About Churchill” topic at the web site.

In the material below, the words summarizing what was happening at the time are italicized, while the words of Churchill are not.

1919. World War I, 1914-1918, ended with Germany’s surrender. In the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the victorious countries – France, Great Britain and the United States – compelled Germany to pay an enormous amount in “reparations”, surrender some territory, surrender its colonies, have no more than a very modest army, no air force and no submarines, and place no German armed forces in the Rhineland (western Germany).

1925. By now many in Britain regretted that Germany had been so humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. To assure Germany that despite its weakness its territory (and that of its neighbors) would be secure, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Belgium sign the treaty of Locarno stipulating that the borders as fixed by the Treaty of Versailles are inviolate. Also, France ends its military occupation of the Rhineland. American and British loans have enabled Germany to pay its reparation bills.

1928-1932.Hitler rises to power, using the Storm Troops, or Brownshirts, to intimidate opponents. Britain pushes for a policy of disarming France and Britain, and allowing Germany to reach equality of arms with the other two. Germany, however, was already rearming far beyond the limitations of the Versailles treaty. Meanwhile, during this period and ending only in 1939, Winston Churchill, although a continuing Member of Parliament and belonging to the party in power, held no position in Government. His views on several subjects, including Germany’s aggressive plans, were unwelcome to his party.

Nov. 23, 1932. Speech in the House of Commons

On the other side is Germany, the same mighty Germany which so recently withstood almost the world in arms….I have respect and admiration for the Germans, and desire that we should live on terms of good feeling and fruitful relations with them; but we must look at the fact that every concession which has been made-many concessions have been made-and many more will be made and ought to be made-has been followed by a fresh demand. Now the demand is that Germany should be allowed to rearm.

Do not delude yourselves that all that Germany is asking for is equal status. That is not what Germany is seeking. All these bands of Teutonic youths, marching through the streets and roads of Germany, with the light of desire in their eyes to suffer for their Fatherland, are not looking for status. They are looking for weapons, and, when they have the weapons, believe me they will ask for the return of lost territories and lost colonies…We must not forget that we have disarmed.

Alone among the nations we have disarmed while others have rearmed.

1933-34. Thanks to the efforts of Germany’s military leadership, Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. He soon consolidates his power by slaughtering thousands of Brownshirts. Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.

February 7, 1934. Speech in the House of Commons

This development of war from the air has revolutionized our position. We are not the same kind of country we used to be when we were an island, only 20 years ago… It is a question of safety and independence. I cannot conceive how, in the present state of Europe and of our position in Europe we can delay in establishing the principle of having an Air Force at least as strong as that of any Power that can get at us.

November 16, 1934. Radio Broadcast

As we go to and fro in this peaceful country, with its orderly people going about their business under free institutions, and with so much tolerance and fair play in their laws and customs, it is startling and fearful to realize that we are no longer safe in our island home. For nearly a thousand years England has never seen the camp fires of an invader. The stormy seas and our Royal Navy have been our sure defense…

Only a few hours away by air there dwells a nation of nearly seventy millions of the most educated, industrious, scientific, disciplined people in the world, who are being taught from childhood to think of war and conquest as a glorious exercise, and death in battle as the noblest fate for man.

There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective strength, a nation which is in the grip of a group of reckless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by Parliament or by public opinion. It is but twenty years since these neighbors of ours fought almost the whole world, and almost defeated them. Now they are rearming with the utmost speed, and ready to their hands is this new lamentable weapon of the air, against which our Navy is no defense, before which women and children, the weak and the frail, the pacifist and the jingo, the warrior and the civilian, the front-line trenches and the cottage home, lie in equal and impartial peril…

There are some who say—indeed it has been the shrill cry of the hour—that we should run the risk of disarming ourselves in order to set an example to others. We have done that already for the last five years, but our example has not been followed. On the contrary, it has produced the opposite result. All the other countries have armed only the more heavily.

1935. The British government acknowledges that German air power has reached parity with the British. Germany establishes mandatory military service, and no longer even pretends to be complying with the Versailles Treaty. Upon discovering that Germany had been building forbidden battleships, Britain agreed that Germany could further greatly expand its naval forces, including submarines, provided that Germany agreed never to use the submarines against commercial vessels.

May 31, 1935. Speech in the House of Commons

What a transformation has taken place in the last two or three years! Two or three years ago it was considered sentimental, intellectual, liberally minded, to speak words of encouragement and compassion, and even to speak patronizingly of the German people, and to set opportunities of making gestures to raise them up to more and greater equality with other countries. Now we see them with their grievances unredressed, with their ambitions unsatisfied, continuing from which the lo strengthen heads of the German nation. It is a woeful transformation which has taken place.

It would be folly for us to act as if we were swimming in a halcyon sea, as if nothing but balmy breezes and calm weather were to be expected and everything were working in the most agreeable fashion. By all means follow your lines of hope and your paths of peace, but do not close your eyes to the fact that we are entering a corridor of deepening and darkening danger, and that we shall have to move along it for many months and possibly for years to come. While we are in this position, not only have we our own safety to consider, but we have to consider also whether the Parliamentary Governments of Western Europe, are going to be able to afford to their subjects the same measure of physical security, to say nothing of national satisfaction, as is being afforded to the people of Germany by the dictatorship which has been established there. It is not only the supreme question of self-preservation that is involved in the realization of these dangers, but also the human and the world cause of the preservation of free Government and of Western civilization against the ever-advancing forces of authority and despotism.

October 24, 1935. Speech in the House of Commons

I bear no grudge, I have no prejudice against the German people. I have many German friends, and I have a lively admiration for their splendid qualities of intellect and valor, and for their achievements in science and art. The re-entry into the European circle of a Germany at peace within itself, with a heart devoid of hate, would be the most precious benefit for which we could strive, and a supreme advantage which alone would liberate Europe from its peril and its fear.

But that is not the position which exists today. A very different position exists today. We cannot afford to see Nazidom in its present phase of cruelty and intolerance, with all its hatreds and all its gleaming weapons, paramount in Europe at the present time.

1936. Germany occupies the Rhineland, against the advice of Hitler’s generals, who feared the French army, which was much stronger at that time. France fails to try to make Hitler go back.

March 1936. Speech to a committee of the House of Commons

For 400 years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent, and particularly to prevent the Low Countries falling into the hands of such a Power. Viewed in the light of history, these four centuries of consistent purpose amid so many changes of names and facts, of circumstances and conditions, must rank as one of the remarkable episodes which the records of any race, nation, state or people can show.

Moreover, on all occasions England took the more difficult course. Faced by Philip II of Spain, against Louis XIV under William III and Marlborough, against Napoleon, against William II of Germany, it would have been easy and must have been very tempting to join with the stronger and share the fruits of conquest. However, we always took the harder course, joined with the less strong Powers, made a combination among them, and thus defeated and frustrated the Continental military tyrant whoever he was, whatever nation he led. Thus we preserved the liberties of Europe, protected the growing free vivacious and varied society, and emerged four terrible struggles with an ever-growing fame and widening empire, and with the Low countries safely protected in their independence. Here is the wonderful unconscious tradition of British foreign policy…

. Everyone knows France wants to be left alone, and that with her it is only a case of self-preservation. Everyone knows that the French are peaceful and overhung by fear. They are at once brave, resolute, peace-loving, and weighed down by anxiety… Germany, on the other hand, fears no one. She is arming in a manner which has never been seen in German history. She is led by a handful of triumphant desperadoes.

March 26, 1936. Speech to the House of Commons

The violation of the Rhineland is serious from the point of view of the menace to which it exposes Holland, Belgium and France… In spite of the seriousness which I attach to this reoccupation of the Rhineland, I must say that it seems to me the smallest part of the whole problem. What is the real peril? It is not the reoccupation of the Rhineland, but this enormous process of the rearmament of Germany. There is the peril. My Friend opposite says that in the election I seemed to be haunted by this idea. I confess that I have been occupied with this idea of the great wheels revolving and the great hammers descending day and night in Germany, making the whole industry of that country an arsenal, making the whole of that gifted and valiant population into one great disciplined war machine.. There is fear in every country, all round… What is the fear and what is the question which arises from that fear? It is, How are we going to stop this war which seems to be moving towards us in so many ways?’…

In my view, all the nations and states that are alarmed ought to combine for mutual aid, in pacts of mutual assistance. I am looking for peace. I am looking for a way to stop war, but you will not stop it by pious sentiments and appeals. You will only stop it by making practical arrangements. When you have linked up the forces for defense, then is the first moment when you should address Germany collectively, not only upon the minor question of the Rhine but upon the supreme question of German rearmament in relation to other countries. At that moment you must invite Germany to state her grievances, and let us have it out. But do not let us have it out as if we were a rabble flying before forces we dare not resist. Let us have it out on the basis that we are negotiating from strength and not from weakness; that we are negotiating from unity and not from division and isolation; that we are seeking to do justice, because we have power.

April 6, 1936. Speech to the House of Commons

Herr Hitler has torn up treaties and has garrisoned the Rhineland. His troops are there, and there they are going to stay. This means that the Nazi regime has gained a new prestige in Germany and in all the neighboring countries.

I do not doubt that the whole of the German frontier opposite to France is to be fortified as strongly and as speedily as possible. The creation of a line of forts opposite to the French frontier will enable the German troops to be economized on that line, and will enable the main forces to swing round through Belgium and Holland… But then, look East. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Austria, and other countries are affected very decisively the moment that this great work of construction has been completed. Some of these nations are now balancing in deep perplexity, what course they should take. Should they continue in their association with the League of Nations? Or should they make the best terms they can with the one resolute warlike Power which is stirring in Europe at the present time?

November 12, 1936. Speech to the House of Commons

I have, with some friends, put an Amendment on the Paper. It is the same as the Amendment which I submitted two years ago. I thought it would be a good thing to remind the House of what has happened in these two years. Our Amendment in November 1934 was the culmination of a long series of efforts by private Members and by the Conservative party in the country to warn His Majesty’s Government of the danger to Europe and to this country which were coming upon us through the vast process of German rearmament then already in full swing. The speech which I made on that occasion was much censured as being alarmist by leading Conservative newspapers, and I remember that Mr. Lloyd George congratulated the Prime Minister on having so satisfactorily demolished my extravagant fears.

What would have been said, I wonder, if I could two years ago have forecast to the House the actual course of events? Suppose we had then been told that Germany would spend for two years £800,000,000 a year upon warlike preparations; that her industries would be organized for war, as the industries of no country have ever been; that by breaking all Treaty engagements she would create a gigantic air force and an army based on universal compulsory service, which by the present time, in 1936, amounts to upwards of 39 divisions of highly equipped troops, including mechanized divisions of almost unmeasured strength, and that behind all this there lay millions of armed and trained men, for whom the formations and equipment are rapidly being prepared to form another 80 divisions in addition to those already perfected. Suppose we had then known that by now two years of compulsory military service would be the rule, with a preliminary year of training in labor camps; that the Rhineland would be occupied by powerful forces and fortified with great skill, and that Germany would be building with our approval a large submarine fleet…Suppose all that had been forecast-why, no one would have believed in the truth of such a nightmare tale. Yet just two years have gone by and we see it all in broad daylight. Where shall we be this time in two years? I hesitate now to predict…

But it seems certain that during the year 1937 the German Army will become more numerous than the French Army, and very much more efficient than it is now. It seems certain that the German air force will continue to improve upon the long lead which it already has over us… The efforts of rearmament which France and Britain are making will not by themselves be sufficient. It will be necessary for the Western democracies, even at some extension of their risks, to gather round them all the elements of collective security or of combined defensive strength against aggression…

His Majesty’s Government were very slow in accepting the unwelcome fact of German rearmament. They still clung to the policy of one-sided disarmament. It was one of those experiments, we are told, which had to be “tried” out, just as the experiment of non-military sanctions against Italy had to be tried out. Both experiments have now been tried out, and they prove conclusively that the policies subjected to the experiments were all wrong, utterly foolish, and should never be used again…

The First Lord of the Admiralty in his speech the other night said, We are always reviewing the position. The Government simply cannot make up their minds, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be resolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

November 25, 1936. Speech at a Luncheon in London

If it is true, as the Prime Minister stated last week in a deplorable utterance, that ‘democracy is always two years behind the dictator’, then democracy will be destroyed. In the Great War it was the Parliamentary nations that conquered, and the autocratic Empires that fell to pieces. If democracy in Great Britain and in other countries is in danger now, as perhaps as might be, it is not democracy that is at fault but the leadership that it has received… I ask all who are concerned with peace to rise to the level of events, and to trifle no more on the edge of the abyss, but to embrace the sacrifices and discipline of mind and body which the cause requires.

1937.

Germany continues to build up its army, air force and navy. The Rhineland border with France is fortified in 1938.

1938.

In March, after years of threats and planning, Germany invades Austria, faces little resistance and seizes the German-speaking country. In September, Nazis among the German-speaking people of Sudetenland (western Czechoslovakia) make trouble and Germany threatens war. But Hitler hesitates to attack, seeing France strong to the west, Czechoslovakia itself well-armed and fortified, and the Russians opposed to the east. But the British and France give him what he wants by agreeing not to defend the Sudetenland in return for Germany’s promise to leave the rest of Czechoslovakia alone.

March 14, 1938. Speech to the House of Commons

The gravity of the event of the 11th of March cannot be exaggerated. Europe is confronted with a program of aggression, nicely calculated and timed, unfolding stage by stage, and there is only one choice open, not only to us, but to other countries which are unfortunately concerned either to submit like Austria, or else to take effective measures while time remains to ward off the danger…

The public mind has been concentrated upon the moral and sentimental aspects of the Nazi conquest of Austria-a small country brutally struck down, its Government scattered to the winds, the oppression of the Nazi party doctrine imposed upon a Catholic population…But there are some things which I have not seen brought out in the public Press, and they are practical considerations of the utmost significance.

This mastery of Vienna gives to Nazi Germany military and economic control of the whole of the communications of south-eastern Europe, by road, by river and by rail. To English ears, the name of Czechoslovakia sounds outlandish. No doubt they are only a small democratic State, no doubt they have an army only two or three times as large as ours, but still they are a virile people, they have their treaty rights, and they have a strongly manifested will to live freely.

Czechoslovakia is at this moment isolated, both in the economic and the military sense…If a number of States were assembled around Great Britain and France in a solemn treaty for mutual defense against aggression; if they had their forces marshalled in what you may call a grand alliance; if they had their Staff arrangements concerted; if all this rested, as it can honorably rest, upon the Covenant of the League of Nations; and if it were done in the year 1938–and believe me, it may be the last chance there will be for doing it—then I say that you might even now arrest this approaching war.

March 24, 1938. Speech to the House of Commons

Let me give a warning drawn from our recent experiences. Very likely this immediate crisis will pass, will dissipate itself and calm down. After a Boa constrictor has devoured its prey it often has a considerable digestive spell. It was so after the revelation of the secret German air force. There was a pause. It was so after the Rhineland was forcibly occupied. German conscription was proclaimed in breach of the treaty. Now after Austria has been struck down, we are all disturbed and alarmed, but in a little while there may be another pause. Then People will be saying, “See how the alarmists have been confuted; Europe has calmed down, it has blown over, and the war scare has passed away. The Prime Minister will perhaps repeat what he said a few weeks ago, that the tension in Europe is greatly relaxed. The Times will write a leading article to say how silly those people look who on the morrow of the Austrian incorporation raised a clamor for exceptional action in foreign policy and home defense, and how wise the Government were not to let themselves be carried away by this passing incident.

All this time the vast degeneration of the forces of Parliamentary democracy will be proceeding throughout Europe. Every six weeks another corps will be added to the German army all this time important countries and great rail and river communications will pass under the control of the German General Staff. All this time the forces of conquest and intimidation will be consolidated, towering up soon in real and make-believe strength and superiority. Then presently there will come another stroke. Upon whom?.. What I dread is that the impulse now given to active effort may pass away when the dangers are not diminishing, but accumulating and gathering …

For five years I have talked to the House on these matters-not with very great success. I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little farther on there are only flagstones, and little farther on still these break beneath your feet…If mortal catastrophe should overtake the British Nation and the British Empire, historians a thousand years hence will be baffled by the mystery of our affairs. They will never understand how it was that a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered themselves to be brought low, and to cast away all that they had gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory-gone with the wind!

Now, those who threw down their arms in the field and sued for an armistice are striding on to world mastery…I rejoice to hear from the Prime Minister that a further supreme effort is to be made to place us in a position of security. Now is the time at last to rouse the nation. Perhaps it is the last time it can be roused with a chance of preventing war, or with a chance of coming through to victory should our efforts to prevent war fail. We should lay aside every hindrance and endeavor by uniting the whole force and spirit of our people to raise again a great British nation standing up before all the world; for such a nation, rising in its ancient vigor, can even at this hour save civilization.

October 5, 1938. Speech to the House of Commons

I will begin by saying the most unpopular and unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget, but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat… The most the Prime Minister has been able to secure by all his immense exertions, the utmost he has been able to gain for Czechoslovakia has been that the German dictator, instead of snatching victuals from the table, has been content to have them served to him course by course…I believe the Czechs, left to themselves and told they were going to get no help from the western Powers, would have been able to make better terms than they got. All is over, Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness… i venture to think that in future the Czechoslovak State cannot be maintained as an independent entity. You will find that in a period of time which may be measuring years, but may be measured only by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi regime. We cannot consider the abandonment and ruin of Czechoslovakia in the light only of what happened only last month. It is the most grievous consequence which we have yet experienced of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years five years of futile good intention, five years of uninterrupted retreat of British power, five years of neglect of our air defenses… We have been reduced from a position of safety and power power to do good, power to be generous to a beaten foe, power to make terms with Germany reduced to where we stand now…

The Prime Minster desires to see cordial relations between this country and Germany. There is no difficulty at all in having cordial relations with the German people. Our hearts go out to them.

But there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi Power, the power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That Power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy…

I have been casting about to see how measures can be taken to protect us from this advance of the Nazi Power, and to secure those forms of life which are so dear to us. The sole method that is open is for us to regain our old island independence by acquiring that supremacy in the air which we were promised, that security in our air defenses which we were assured we had, and thus to make ourselves an island once again…

I do not grudge our loyal, brave people, who were ready to do their duty no matter what the cost— I do not grudge them the natural, spontaneous outburst of joy and relief when they learned that the hard ordeal would no longer be required of them at the moment; but they should know the truth.

They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defenses; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war…And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

October 16, 1938. Broadcast to the United States

The American people have, it seems to me, formed a true judgment upon the disaster which has befallen Europe… We must arm. Britain must arm. America must arm…Is this a call to war? Does anyone pretend that preparation for resistance to aggression is unleashing war? I declare it to be the sole guarantee of peace.

1939. Germany seizes the rest of Czechoslovakia in March. The British and French governments agree to resist any effort by Germany to annex its next target, Poland. On September 1, Germany invades Poland, and the Second World War begins.

August 8, 1939. Broadcast to the United States

There is a hush over all Europe. What kind of a hush is it? Alas! It is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! I think I hear something-yes, there it was quite clear.

It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the parade-grounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers- “going on maneuvers”. After all, the Dictators must train their soldiers. They could scarcely do less in common prudence, when the Danes, the Dutch, the Swiss, the Albanians-and of course the Jews-may leap upon them at any moment and rob them of their living-space. Only last year they liberated Austria from the horrors of self-government. It was only in March they freed the Czechoslovak Republic from the misery of independent existence. No wonder there is a hush among all the neighbors of Germany while they are wondering who will be ‘liberated’ next.