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II.

First, as a student of history I want to remind you that
in our long history we have lived under skies equally dark, and our
forefathers did not lose heart. There are one or two special cases
to remember. In March 1918 Germany had no eastern front to fight
on, for Russia was in chaos, Rumania and Serbia were prostrate,
and Bulgaria and Turkey were on her side. She could move every man
from the east against the Allies in the west. She could get supplies
of food and oil from the east, certainly as easily as she
can get them today. Her people had been living for more than
three years under a heavy war strain, on narrow rations and with an
insufficient supply of war material. She was, indeed, very much in
the position then in which she has begun the present war. What happened?
Well, she attacked violently in the west, and Britain and France
went through a very trying time. Presently the American armies were
in the field beside us, and in seven months Germany was beaten to
the ground. The situation of course is not quite the same today: today Germany has a powerful army of young men, and America is not in the field.
But it was not only the pressure in the field that defeated
her in 1918; it was even more the fact that the long strain had told
upon her internal morale, and that the nerve of her people broke. There
is precisely the same danger for her today.

Then cast your mind back to the beginning of last century
after the battle of Austerlitz, when the dying Pitt said, "Roll up
the map of Europe". Russia had "run out" and was an ally of our
enemies. The whole of Europe was against us and
it was under the iron heel of a great genius, Napoleon, compared to
whom the present German leaders are the merest pygmies. But Britain did
not lose heart. We stuck to our cause, we refused to make peace
until tyranny had been defeated, and we won.