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4.

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
Germany 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 the same danger for her today. I find
some comfort in that recollection.

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 refuse d to
make peace until tyranny had been defeated: and we won.

The truth is that we have come through many bad times,
and often many able and public-spirited men have lost heart.
Early in last century William Wilberforce thought the outlook for
the country so dark that he refused to marry. In the 'forties
Lord Shaftesbury, the great philanthropist, declared that "nothing
could save the British Empire from shipwreck". And the Duke of
Wellington just before his death thanked God that "he would be
spared from seeing the consummation of ruin that was gathering
round". But the ordinary citizen - the plain man who matters most -