We shall never surrender
Winston Churchill inspired Britain; he can inspire Ukraine, and he could inspire us
Russia’s gas won’t endanger Europe, we were assured. Well, it did. So much for assurances. An assurance is no guarantee, that much diplomats know. It sounds like one: that they also know. But it isn’t one. If you like, an assurance is a guarantee, without any assurance. Earlier this year, I wrote about assurances. It’s here, if you care. I’ll paraphrase:
Assurances are only a step towards settlement, but they’re a step that there’s no diverting around. That said, assurances are one thing. Rhetoric about what is in Putin’s mind is another. The problem is not the nature or otherwise of what assurances are. The problem lies in accepting them and subsequently failing to deal sternly with the party who flaunts their terms. Because that makes the offended party look like a wussie. In that respect, the diplomatic assurance is much like dealing with recalcitrant children; without, of course, treating anyone like a child, rattles ejected from prams included. And a political assurance, rather than a diplomatic one, is a gamble; usually on the part of him to whom it’s given.
There is a speech – a widely acclaimed, great speech made on 4 June 1940 to the UK House of Commons by Winston Churchill – known as Fight them on the beaches. Mr Zelenskiy, the President of Ukraine, has quoted from it in one of his own. In the words of Josiah Wedgewood MP, Churchill’s was “worth a thousand guns and the speeches of a thousand years.” Forceful, defiant and uplifting, it warned of the terrible struggle and sacrifices that lay ahead for Britain in 1940. A fortnight later, Churchill made his Finest hour speech; it was to become one of his. Their extensive citation in February would have been presumptuous; as the new year turns, their citation is worthy: because Ukraine has demonstrably fulfilled virtually all of the conditions that Churchill cited as being needed for victory. That is, in the case of Ukraine, as it was in the Britain of 1940, an assurance, but no guarantee, of victory.
Stirring and all as they were and their place in the history books duly merited, could substantially the same speeches, if slightly amended, be made by Zelenskiy today? I believe so. They could be transposed in large part to the Ukraine situation. Except that Churchill made his speeches in the hope they would hit their mark. Zelenskiy would know for certain that their sentiments hold true, though he may have but hope they’d result in their ultimate aim: that of winning.
Victory may remain elusive but, of the UK and Ukraine, one was fortunate in the fortitude of its air force, and much that Churchill forewarned Britons could happen never came to pass; Ukraine, on the other hand, is denied an air force of note, yet has done much, none of which it was ever forewarned of, till the noise of Putin’s sabre-rattling came to its ears last January: it has not flagged or failed; Ukrainians will go on to the end, defending their homes, riding out the storm of war, outliving the menace of tyranny, if necessary alone; they’ve fought on the sea and, with requisite means, they’d fight in the air; they have defended their land, whatever the cost might be; they have fought in fields and streets; they’ve fought in their hills and some only surrendered when their steely spirit proved braver than the steel plant that was their last bastion. It has tried to, and it has fulfilled, its duty and more. Ukraine’s aim, too, is victory, before which lie many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. It will be a victory at all costs. What a victory! What a cost.
We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manœuvre. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye.
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do.
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight on the sea, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our land, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that NATO can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.
A response, maybe from the ghosts of the Few. Few were the young pilots of the RAF at the Battle of Britain. And few are the heroic troops of Ukraine at the Battle for Ukraine. The RAF fought with daunting weakness of numbers in the name of saving millions of their countrymen. And Ukraine is doing exactly that as well, not solely for millions of Ukrainians, but for millions of Europeans, even Africans and so many others who depend on Ukraine, and on a victory in Ukraine, more than they perhaps know, who, one might imagine, if they do not earnestly hope to, might address this answer to that nation:
“However matters may go in Ukraine, we will never lose our sense of comradeship with the Ukrainian people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils, they shall share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own. Upon the battle of Ukraine depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depend our own lives, and the long continuity of our institutions. If Ukraine can stand up to Putin, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if they fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if Ukraine last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’
The gratitude of every home in Europe, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the Ukrainians who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, have turned and will turn the tide of the war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Ukraine in 2022, like Britain in 1940, is fighting not for itself alone, but for all of Europe. It’s a fact I don’t truly believe much of Europe has fully comprehended. And, even if the RAF served in Britain’s finest hour in 1940, Ukraine has already by far and will in 2022, even if it loses, have surpassed the service of the Few.
The war of 1914-1918 was dubbed the Great War. That of 1939-1945 has been called the People’s War: it was the first British war to have such a widespread effect on the nation’s people. Ukraine’s is a people’s war, if not in Russia at least in Ukraine, which bears a brunt that inspires wonderment. Borne by their homes, their livelihoods, their property, their lives. By their futures. Never do eyes look so longingly at the future as in wartime. Richard Collins (The World in Flames) writes of the British Expeditionary Force’s low morale upon its return from Dunkirk: “This is not our war – this is a war of the high-up people who use long words and have different feelings.”
This is different. This is Ukraine’s war. A war forced upon them by the high-up people of Russia, and defended by the high-up and low-down of Ukraine. Long words aside, a difference of feelings is palpable. Not between the high-up and low-down, but between one people cognisant in its role, another ignorant at best or complicit at worst, condoning a leader of whom they know but little, and of whom Ukraine has learned too much. Between the high people of one nation that care for their people; and those of another, who care not a whit for theirs.
Certain is this: had the UK failed in the Battle of Britain, its war would have been lost. Skills in the air, coupled to superior air power, if weaker numbers, were crucial to securing the onward war effort. Air power thwarted Hitler’s invasion plans. It could repulse Putin’s. Where is it?
The Battle of Britain lost, Germany’s tactic shifted from air invasion to aerial blitz. Its missiles, unguided, random and wanton, caused much damage and loss of life, but lacked precision. It was a saving grace of little comfort to those who perished. Russia’s missiles wreak much damage and much loss of life: guided, targeted and yet still wanton in their precise destruction. Could Ukraine yet lose? What harm could upping Ukraine’s air power do to its war effort?
Quite a lot. For one, it could escalate the war beyond Ukraine. Some view that as bad - at least, for those beyond Ukraine. There’s a chain of inevitability: air power for Ukraine gives Putin the lead to attack elsewhere. His army may be weakened, but is still to be reckoned with. Stretching Russia’s forces would in any event aid Ukraine, and a divided front would stretch them (even if they’ve been stretched at times by today’s single, narrow one). Failing a home front in Russia, I believe only a second front or air power on the existing one can give Ukraine an edge; only a third party can provide it. Third parties have already succoured to Ukraine’s aid in other ways, why not in air power? They say that they want to finesse their moves to avert Putin’s wrath, but they surely cannot silently skirt the ogre’s eyes. Ultimately, it’s about the red button: what would push him to push it?
NATO hopes that supplying Ukraine with arms (which, admittedly, does the munitions industry no harm) will enable Ukraine to win. I don’t know how many members believe that to be anything but a non-starter without corresponding air power, but it’s current policy. The adapted citations above, nonetheless, omit one significant passage of Churchill’s:
We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.
Air power can be locally exercised in Ukraine; all too locally. Ukraine just needs to have it so that it can exercise it. I don’t know all that Ukraine needs to win. But, if Winston Churchill were here today, he’d say they could sure do with air power. As assurance; no guarantee.
I came into a free world that, but for the Few, might not have existed at my birth. It’s my earnest prayer that I depart from a world equally free that, but for Ukraine and barring its possible demise, may otherwise not exist come mine.