"Ең жарқын сәттері"

1940 speech by Winston Churchill

"This was their finest hour" was a speech delivered by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 18 June 1940, just over a month after he took over as Prime Minister at the head of an all party coalition government. It was the third of three speeches which he gave during the period of the Battle of France, after the "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech of 13 May and the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech of 4 June. "This was their finest hour" was made after France had sought an armistice on the evening of 16 June.

In his speech, Churchill justified the low level of support it had been possible to give to France since the Dunkirk evacuation, and reported the successful evacuation of most of the supporting forces. He resisted pressure to purge the coalition of appeasers, or otherwise indulge in recrimination. He reviewed the forces still available to prevent or repel any attempted invasion, summing up the review as follows:

He reported messages of support from the Dominions and justified confidence in victory, even if it was not yet clear how that victory could be achieved.

The peroration, even at a moment of great apparent danger to British national survival, talks not only of national survival and national interest but also of noble causes (freedom, Christian civilisation and the rights of small nations) for which Britain was fighting and for which Churchill thought the United States should and eventually would fight. The War Illustrated published the speech with the title If the Empire lasts a thousand years men will say, this was their finest hour.

The speech was delivered to the Commons at 3:49 pm, and lasted 36 minutes. Churchill, as was his habit, made revisions to his 23 page typescript right up to and during the speech. The final passage of his typescript was laid out in blank verse format, which Churchill scholars consider reflective of the influence of the Psalms on his oratory style.