T is not only for posterity that the author of this book has
performed a great service. Contemporary memories are short,
and we ourselves, no less than our Allies of to-day and our enemies
of yesterday, are in danger of forgetting Britain in her finest hour.
It is to be hoped that not only the British public but the Englishspeaking world as a whole will find it worth while to recall from
the printed page those glowing words which were broadcast from
London during the war. It will be good for us British to remember
in the hard and troublesome times ahead how we faced up to far
worse danger and privation in the years which have passed. Our
kinsmen in the Dominions will be reinforced or renewed in their
faith in us, in their affection for their mother country and their
willingness to accept her leadership by this reminder of Britain's
greatness of spirit when all seemed lost. Our American friends
will perhaps recapture as they read the generous sympathy and
eagerness to help which they felt for us when we struggled virtually
alone against such great odds.
Nor should this historic anthology be confined to those who can
read English. Editions in many languages should in due course
be forthcoming, not only so that men and women of all nations
shall be able to recall the British as they admired and respected
them most—and so be inclined to make allowances for any latterday shortcomings—but also because the spirit which breathed into
the words recorded in this book was something universal and
common to all mankind at its best, the very essence of militant
civilisation fighting for survival against the forces of barbaric evil,
the soul of the common man of all lands resolved to dare and
suffer all to save his inheritance of freedom and progress.
To all of us who lived at close quarters with the deadly peril
through the darkest days the broadcasts of the early days of the
war must be profoundly moving. This is so not only of those
tremendous orations in which, speaking for Britain, Winston
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