1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:09,460 In May 1940, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi war machine were sweeping across the European continent. 2 00:00:09,460 --> 00:00:13,040 The future of the free world hung in the balance. 3 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:17,220 An isolationist-leaning United States was an ocean away. 4 00:00:17,220 --> 00:00:24,320 There was one man who stood between Hitler’s seemingly invincible army and crushing defeat. 5 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:27,680 That one man was Winston Churchill. 6 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:31,120 He was born on November 30, 1874. 7 00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:36,160 Though we think of him as the quintessential Englishman, he was actually half American. 8 00:00:36,160 --> 00:00:41,120 His mother, Jennie, was the daughter of a wealthy New York stock speculator. 9 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:47,300 His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was of English nobility and a major political figure. 10 00:00:47,300 --> 00:00:52,040 From his early school days, Churchill recognized the power of words. 11 00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:55,220 Throughout his life, he used them with consummate skill. 12 00:00:55,220 --> 00:00:57,160 They never let him down. 13 00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:03,140 He first made a name for himself as a war correspondent in the 1890s, covering conflicts 14 00:01:03,140 --> 00:01:08,080 in Cuba, Northern India, the Sudan, and South Africa. 15 00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:13,200 Though he never abandoned journalism, and became one the greatest historians of his age, 16 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:19,400 Churchill used his family connections and his own fame to launch himself into politics. 17 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:25,180 His confident manner and matchless oratory marked him as a natural leader. 18 00:01:25,180 --> 00:01:31,800 1914 and World War I found him in the key position of First Lord of the Admiralty 19 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:34,580 where he did much to modernize Britain’s navy. 20 00:01:34,580 --> 00:01:40,639 In 1915, Churchill thought he could bring a speedy end to the war by opening a new front 21 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:45,900 in Turkey, which he perceived as the weak link in the German alliance against the allies. 22 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:49,540 This led to the infamous Gallipoli campaign. 23 00:01:49,540 --> 00:01:55,640 Badly underestimating the fighting strength of the Turks, thousands of British, Australian 24 00:01:55,640 --> 00:02:00,939 and New Zealand soldiers were killed in battles that proved to be every bit as indecisive 25 00:02:00,939 --> 00:02:05,369 and bloody as the campaigns on Europe’s Western front. 26 00:02:05,369 --> 00:02:07,480 Churchill took the blame. 27 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,160 This was perhaps the low point of his life. 28 00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:14,600 Dismissed from the war cabinet, five months later he enlisted in the army, 29 00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:17,340 where he saw action in France. 30 00:02:17,340 --> 00:02:23,000 He rose again in British politics throughout the 1920s, making money—as he always did— 31 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,340 through his writing and speaking. 32 00:02:25,340 --> 00:02:30,780 As Adolph Hitler took power in Germany in the 1930s, Churchill was one of the first 33 00:02:30,780 --> 00:02:35,140 and certainly the loudest voice in England sounding the alarm. 34 00:02:35,140 --> 00:02:38,980 But it was an alarm few in England wanted to hear. 35 00:02:38,980 --> 00:02:43,880 The English had been traumatized, as had all of Europe, by the shocking amount of death 36 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:46,860 and destruction of the First World War. 37 00:02:46,860 --> 00:02:50,680 No one wanted to face the possibility that it could happen again. 38 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:56,480 Churchill, however, saw that a new confrontation with Germany was inevitable. 39 00:02:56,480 --> 00:03:02,360 And when the inevitable arrived with the stunning German attack on France in May 1940, 40 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:05,700 a desperate nation turned to him. 41 00:03:05,700 --> 00:03:07,300 He was ready. 42 00:03:07,300 --> 00:03:11,680 His weapons were his pen, his voice and his words. 43 00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:18,500 “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” he told the House of Commons 44 00:03:18,500 --> 00:03:20,840 in his first speech as Prime Minister. 45 00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:23,820 Things quickly turned from bad to worse. 46 00:03:23,820 --> 00:03:29,500 France collapsed, Belgium surrendered, and a quarter of a million British soldiers barely 47 00:03:29,500 --> 00:03:32,160 managed to escape from Dunkirk. 48 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:39,880 Even as the war news moved from dangerous to desperate to disastrous, Churchill never wavered. 49 00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:44,700 In speech after speech, he infused the British with the spirit to fight on 50 00:03:44,700 --> 00:03:47,420 against Hitler’s monstrous tyranny. 51 00:03:47,420 --> 00:03:51,140 “We shall not flag or fail,” he said after Dunkirk. 52 00:03:51,140 --> 00:03:52,920 “We shall go on to the end. 53 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:58,420 We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be…we shall never surrender.” 54 00:03:58,420 --> 00:04:03,060 The point about Churchill in 1940 is not that he stopped a German invasion, 55 00:04:03,060 --> 00:04:06,600 but that he stopped the British Government making peace. 56 00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:10,820 If Churchill had not been Prime Minister, the pro-appeasement foreign secretary 57 00:04:10,820 --> 00:04:13,320 Lord Halifax would have been. 58 00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:17,000 We know that Halifax was open to negotiating with Hitler. 59 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:22,400 We’d be mistaken to assume that the German Fuhrer’s terms would not have been reasonable; 60 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:27,190 they would probably have been very reasonable, as Hitler wanted to fight a one-front war 61 00:04:27,190 --> 00:04:28,740 against Russia. 62 00:04:28,740 --> 00:04:33,480 And an agreement with Britain would have allowed him to do just that. 63 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:36,200 Churchill made this impossible. 64 00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:41,120 Had he not rallied the British people in the face of defeat after defeat, preventing Hitler 65 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:46,720 from concentrating his full efforts on Russia, the entire history of the free world 66 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:48,740 would have been much different. 67 00:04:48,740 --> 00:04:52,360 And, undoubtedly, much darker. 68 00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:56,960 Because of Churchill’s efforts and the marvelous resilience of the British people, the United 69 00:04:56,970 --> 00:05:02,970 States had an unsinkable “aircraft carrier” —Britain— from which to mount the liberation 70 00:05:02,970 --> 00:05:07,050 of the European continent in June of 1944. 71 00:05:07,050 --> 00:05:13,540 For this and so much more, free people everywhere can thank the greatest man of his age 72 00:05:13,540 --> 00:05:15,940 —Winston Churchill. 73 00:05:15,940 --> 00:05:19,520 I’m Andrew Roberts for Prager University.