The Biblical Churchill, Part 3
“Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour…”
Continued from Part 2…
On 19 June 1940, Churchill made his first broadcast as Prime Minister, a speech which lifted the hearts even of his former and current critics. “A tremendous battle is raging in France and Flanders,” he said, adding forthrightly that the Germans, “by a remarkable combination of air bombing and heavily armoured tanks, have broken through the French defences.”
In assuring his listeners that Britain would fight on, Churchill chose a majestic coda, an obscure Biblical allusion, for the first and only time in all his writings and speeches.…