The British people have taken for themselves this motto—“Business carried on as usual during alterations on the map of Europe.”
1914, 9 November. Guildhall, London.
(CS III, 2340.)
No demand is too novel or too sudden to be met. No need is too unexpected to be supplied. No strain is too prolonged for the patience of our people. No suffering nor peril daunts their hearts. Instead of quarrelling, giving way as we do from time to time to moods of pessimism and of irritation, we ought to be thankful that if such trials and dangers were destined for our country we are here to share them, and to see them slowly and surely overcome.
1918, 25 April. Ministry of Munitions, London.
(CS III, 2610.)
When the British people make up their minds to go to war they expect to receive terrible injuries. That is why we tried to remain at peace as long as possible.
1940, 5 September.
I go about the country whenever I can escape for a few hours or for a day from my duty at headquarters, and I see the damage done by the enemy attacks; but I also see side by side with the devastation and amid the ruins quiet, confident, bright and smiling eyes, beaming with a consciousness of being associated with a cause far higher and wider than any human or personal issue. I see the spirit of an unconquerable people. I see a spirit bred in freedom, nursed in a tradition which has come down to us through the centuries, and which will surely at this moment, this turning-point in the history of the world, enable us to bear our part in such a way that none of our race who come after us will have any reason to cast reproach upon their sires.
1941, 12 April, Bristol. (Unrelenting, 87.)
They [the British] are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worsts
1941, 10 June.
War is a hard school, but the British, once compelled to go there, are attentive pupils.
1944, 2 August.
The British people do not, as is sometimes thought, go to war for calculation, but for sentiment.
1945, 2 April. (WW2 VI, 431.)
WSC to Marshal Stalin; one of their last communications.
It is a curious fact about the British Islanders, who hate drill and have not been invaded for nearly a thousand years, that as danger comes nearer and grows they become progressively less nervous; when it is imminent they are fierce; when it is mortal they are fearless. These habits have led them into some very narrow escapes.
1948. (WW2 I, 310.)
World History
