SOLD – Churchill Defines His Task: “Prosecuting the War to a Victorious End.”

“We are engaged upon the Herculean labour of rescuing Europe and saving ourselves from the unspeakable ‘New Order’ and all the abominations that go with it.”

For six years, Churchill’s had been a voice in the wilderness, crying out against the mortal danger posed by Hitler’s Nazi Germany. However, and Churchill was ignored and even scorned. Then the first wave of German military might overwhelmed Poland in September 1939. After a quiet winter, in April 1940 the Nazi juggernaut smashed into Denmark and Norway, followed shortly by invasions of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In early May 1940, as Norway tottered and the prospects for Britain became worse than bleak, elements in all the country’s major parties revolted against Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s management of the war, and he resigned. As the only leader not tainted by the disastrous appeasement policies of the 1930’s, it was obvious that Churchill alone could unite the nation. He was named Prime Minister and formed a coalition government that included all elements save the far left and right and the nationalist parties. From this point, his life and career became one with Britain’s story and its survival.

Churchill’s task was to inspire resistance at all costs, to organize the defense of the island, and to make it the bastion for an eventual return to the continent of Europe. To do this, he needed to breathe a new spirit into the government and a new resolve into the people. His magnificent oratory, his immense confidence, and his stubborn refusal to accept anything but total victory, did just that, and rallied the nation, particularly during the dark days between 1940 and the turn of the tide in 1943. The speeches he made in accomplishing this are classics and among the most moving and important ever written in the English language. From his first blunt talk to the House of Commons on May 13, 1940, in which he warned “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”; to his pledge to resist – “We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!”; to his memorable plea for strength and courage – “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour'” – through his remarks on the futility of the U.S. trying to avoid involvement in European problems – ‘There was no use in saying “We don’t want it; we won’t have it; our forebears left Europe to avoid these quarrels; we have founded a new world which has no contact with the old.” There was no use in that;” his words effectively inspired the people and led ultimately to victory over Nazi tyranny.

Britain’s situation in the year 1941 was extremely perilous. The Blitz – the bombing of British cities – tapered off after May 1941, but continued nonetheless with Buckingham Palace and the House of Commons set ablaze. The Germans were winning the Battle of the Atlantic and choking off supplies to the island nation. Rommel was dominant in North Africa and Greece fell to the Nazis. The Germans broke their non-aggression treaty with Russia, and on June 22 German forces invaded Russia, an invasion that looked successful at the time. In August Churchill met with Franklin Roosevelt and laid the groundwork for the Atlantic Alliance, but the United States did not come into the war until December, and in November there was no assurance it ever would.

At this precarious moment, Sir Isidore Salmon, a member of Parliament representing Harrow, died. The Conservative Party nominated Norman Bower to run in a special election for the open seat. Churchill had attended Harrow School as a youth, and he retained a close connection to it the rest of his life, so the race to succeed Salmon was of special interest to him. And with national unity and persistence until victory on his mind, Churchill wrote Bower.

Inspiring Typed Letter Signed on 10 Downing Street letterhead, November 17, 1941, London, to Bower. “As leader of the government, which is supported by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties, I call on the electors to support you at the poll. I await, with especial eagerness, the verdict that, through you, Harrow will deliver, for my associations with the town and the school on the hill go back to my early youth and have always been very close and cordial. I hope and believe that Harrow will seize the opportunity given by this by-election to express its unflinching support of the national effort as reflected in the National Government. We are engaged upon the Herculean labour of rescuing Europe and saving ourselves from the unspeakable ‘New Order’ and all the abominations that go with it. Against totalitarian thoroughness we have to oppose the total effort of a free and united nation. Any vote not given to you in this election will be a vote for party strife and divided councils. Constructive criticism is good for all governments, but in the midst of the grave crisis that threatens us from without, it is idle to pretend that political sniping is an asset to the national effort. Your return will be an endorsement of the country’s unshakable loyalty to the principle of national unity, which we regard as the foundation of our strength in prosecuting the war to a victorious end. I trust that the electors of Harrow, so far from assuming that the result of the election is a foregone conclusion, will appreciate the importance of going early to the poll and giving you not only a substantial but an overwhelming victory.” Wartime letters of Churchill making inspiring statements similar to the words in his great speeches very seldom appear on the market, this being just the second we have had in all our years in business.

This letter reads like one of his grand, portentous speeches, with its characterization that the task before the nation was a ‘Herculean,’ that despite all difficulties the goal was nothing less than “rescuing Europe and saving ourselves,” its derogation of his arch-foe Hitler’s malignant “new order” (as Hitler himself had dubbed it) and its “abominations” and “totalitarian thoroughness,” – his call for a “free and united nation,” and his articulation of his ultimate goal: “prosecuting the war to a victorious end.”  Churchill did not employ a speechwriter and dictated letters himself, so we can be sure that these words are his. It is interesting to note that Bower won, thus affirming the confidence of the people in that constituency in Churchill’s leadership.