"THE
GOVERNMENT
IS THE SERVANT
OF THE PEOPLE
AND NOT ITS MASTER"
Winston
Churchill
Oslo 1948
Why Churchill?
By Robert O'Brien
Volume 14 Issue 1 Spring 2002
The following is an excerpt from an address given to The Rotary Club of Toronto on Friday March 15, 2002 at the Royal York Hotel by Robert A. O’Brien a vice chairman of the Churchill Society and a past president of the Rotary Club of Toronto.
Today gives me an opportunity to share with you my admiration for a true hero: Sir Winston Churchill. I happen to speak for a generation that did not live during the Second World War but has been the beneficiary of that great epic struggle. As such I can tell you 37 years after Churchill’s death, that although he was a man of the 20th century, his life, his writings, his principles and his example are universal, relevant and speak not just to my generation but to all of us as we head into the 21st century and as we move beyond the 6th month anniversary mark of September 11 this past Monday.
But if we were to travel back in time through a time machine and visit another September 11. A September 11th 61 years ago—September 11, 1940 to be precise - we would find a world that had been at war for a year. During that dark period Hitler had overrun the entire continent of Europe, and the full force of Nazi Germany was directed against England – the lone holdout.
On the very evening of September 11 1940 Churchill addressed the nation by radio broadcast. During the one week immediately preceding that radio address alone, 1,200 civilians had been killed in aerial bombings. During the month of September 1940 alone there were 6,900 civilian casualties - a human toll which more than doubled the 3,100 killed in the World Trade Centre and Pentagon last September.
Against this backdrop on September 11, Churchill addressed the nation and his words that evening resonate today as much as they did 61 years ago.
Churchill spoke that evening of: “cruel wanton indiscriminate bombings, being part of a larger plan to kill large numbers of civilians, women and children, to terrorize and cow the people of this mighty City.” He spoke of “the wickedness of the perpetrators, the repository and embodiment of soul-destroying hatred, the monstrous product of former wrongs.” He spoke of the “spirit and the tough fibre of the nation and the tough
fibre of Parliamentary democracy and the value of freedom.” He spoke “of the kindling of a fire in our hearts, here and all over the world which will glow long after all traces of this conflagration have been removed.”
Powerful words. And if you close your eyes and consider Churchill’s message these are words that were in fact spoken in parallel tones by world leaders on September 11th.
Rudy Giuliani — Time Magazine’s Man of the Year — reported that when he returned to his home in the early hours of September 12th he pulled out and found refuge in Lord Roy Jenkins’ recent biography of Churchill. President George Bush has also attested to a similar inspiration which motivated him in the days after September 11. Certainly Tony Blair’s presence last September when President Bush spoke to Congress and Bush’s recent reference to the “Axis of Evil” are throwbacks to the Second World War. As well the controversy surrounding where the War against Terrorism will next be fought beyond Afghanistan is reminiscent of the debate about where and when the Second Front would be opened during World War II.
There are of course differences between 2001 and 1940, but I believe that the differences are even more awe-inspiring. In 1940 England was cornered and invasion from Nazi Germany was imminent at any time.
The bombings were repeated and systematic on a nightly basis. The targets were unknown but the knowledge that there would be bombings each night followed by death and destruction was a certainty. The British military had been weakened. There was no powerful force at that time to come to Britain’s rescue. The U.S. would not be in the war for another fifteen months. There was no Afghanistan that could reasonably be invaded in September 1940, no Northern Alliance, no organized internal opposition within Germany. Of course we all know the end result but the truth is that the result was never assured.
One of the great “what if” questions in history is to speculate what if Churchill had not taken command of the crisis and rallied the British people in resisting Hitler during those dark and bleak days in 1940, or if Hitler had been able to develop the atomic bomb first as he was positioning himself to do then we might all be living in a totally different world today.