Daily Times

It was England’s darkest hour. The enemy stood on the doorstep. After invading Poland on the 1st of September, 1939, Hitler’s armies had conquered much of Europe including most of France. The only thing that stood in the way of their hoisting the Swastika on Buckingham Palace was the English Channel.

King George VI appointed Winston Churchill on May 10th, 1940 as Prime Minister, replacing Neville Chamberlain. The King did so with some reluctance, since Churchill was remembered as much for his failures as for his successes. But as Chamberlain told the King, Churchill was the only member of the Tory party who would be acceptable to Labor.

Much of what happened next is well known. Quotes from Churchill’s speeches during the Second World War are known to just about every schoolboy. And his “V for Victory” sign is ubiquitous.

So how does one inject new life into such a well-worn topic? The movie, “Darkest Hour,” does so by casting Gary Oldman as the “bulldog” warrior. It opens with an aging Churchill, who is corpulent, drinking heavily and puffing
on a cigar.

In his first speech as Prime Minister, he promises victory at all cost but says: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” He flies to France and meets his counterparts at an airport hanger. He begins speaking in French, only to be asked to speak in English. The French tell him they have no plan to fight back. The meeting ends inconclusively and he flies off to England. One of the Frenchmen comments to the other, “Churchill is delusional,” to which the other responds, “Well, he is English.”

Some 300,000 English troops, forming the bulk of the army, are trapped by the sea on one side and by the advancing forces of the Wehrmacht on the other. The Luftwaffe has complete control of the skies. Their position is precarious.

Sensing their imminent doom, Churchill calls US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He asks for delivery of the transportation aircraft that England has purchased with US aid. But Roosevelt says a treaty prevents him from making the transfer.

He offers to move the aircraft close to the Canadian border and says that Churchill can send some horses over to tow them to the Canadian side. Churchill can hardly believe what he is hearing and asks: “Did you say horses?” The president says, “Yes, but if you wish, you can just push them over the border.”

In desperation, he turns to the English navy. He asks them to seize all English civilian boats and send them to Dunkirk to rescue the trapped soldiers. At this point, even his compatriots are beginning to think that he is delusional. Yet he pulls off the rescue mission. Just about all of the soldiers make it home.

The House of Commons is jam packed and the atmosphere tense as he stands up to speak. He will deliver a speech that would go down in history: ‘We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, 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; we shall never surrender, and 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 seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old’

In his war cabinet, he has included his bitter rivals, Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain. They begin to turn the pressure on him to negotiate a settlement with Hitler using the good offices of the Italian dictator Mussolini. The King shows up at his house at a late hour and wants to know if he should flee to Canada.

There seems to be no way out of the morass. The pressure to negotiate a settlement with Herr Hitler builds on Winston. Halifax and Chamberlain threaten to resign if negotiations are not pursued. Churchill tells them: “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its jaw.”

Then the unexpected happens. Churchill finds himself on a train in the London Underground, heading to Westminster, talking to common people. He asks them what they want to do in the face of the German threat.

None of them want to negotiate a peace that will bargain away their civil liberties. Even a child speaks up and says one word: “Never.” As he gets off the train, Churchill had heard a clear message from the English people. They would rather starve to death than surrender to the Nazis.

He arrives at Westminster and meets with several parliamentarians. They listen to him with rapt attention as he recites what he heard on the train. He dictates his speech to a young woman typist and storms into the House of Commons.

The house is jam packed and the atmosphere tense as he stands up to speak. He will deliver a speech that would go down in history.

The typist is seated in the gallery. As he speaks, she murmurs the words, one by one. She had lost her brother at Dunkirk and is every bit as excited about the prospect of victory as he. He concludes with a declaration.

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, 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; we shall never surrender, and 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 seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

He flies to France and meets his counterparts at an airport hanger. He begins speaking in French, only to be asked to speak in English. The French tell him they have no plan to fight back. The meeting ends inconclusively and he flies off to England. One of the Frenchmen comments to the other, ‘Churchill is delusional,’ to which the other responds, ‘Well, he is English’

The film is based on a book by Anthony McCarten in which he says that 42 years earlier, at the age of 23, Churchill had written that the orator wields a power more durable than a king.

Churchill had been Prime Minister for just 25 days when he gave this speech to Parliament. McCarten says that the response to the speech was rapturous and some of the MPs were in tears. He had now acquired “power greater than a king.”

In the years to come, more memorable speeches would follow. Later, the US would join the war. Resistance movements would develop in Europe. Hitler would blunder into invading the Soviet Union, fail to take Moscow and surrender at Stalingrad. Russia would repulse him just as surely as it had repulsed Napoleon.

Five years later, the Red Armies would sweep into Berlin. The corporal, as Churchill called him, who had been holed up in the Fueherbunker for months, would commit suicide. Months later, Churchill would lose the elections and go on to write a six volume history of the war.

In 1951, he would be elected Prime Minister again. In 1953, he would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

There is little to argue with in the film. It is a superb rendition of an immensely inspiring chapter in human history.

Yet, it won’t appeal to several in the subcontinent, who only view Churchill as an imperialist. They need to open their minds and see the film. It is an amazing story of how good trumped evil.

Ahmad Faruqui writes on military history and can be reached at ahmadfaruqui@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, January 24^th 2018.