December 4, 2022

Churchill’s Remarks on the War Situation, December 1942

By WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

On 5 December 1942, Prime Minister Winston Churchill traveled to Bradford for the first time since 1914 to speak to the people of the city from the steps of the Town Hall. He summarized the recent successful actions of Anglo-American armies in North Africa before directly addressing what he believed to be the primary objective of the war.

We have broken into North Africa, with our American Allies, and now we have, in a short time, advanced from the Atlantic Ocean almost to the centre of the Mediterranean, a distance of nearly 900 miles; but there are still twenty miles to go, and very hard fighting will take place before that small distance is overcome and the violence and military power of the enemy there has been beaten down and driven into the sea. I do not doubt the result, but I cannot leave you to suppose that it will be easily achieved.

Away on the other side of North Africa, our armies are advancing, taking thousands of prisoners and driving the enemy before them; but here again hard fighting is to be expected. But during this month, when so much fighting has been carried on by the British and Americans, there has been a feeling of gladness that we, too, are engaging the enemy closely and not leaving the entire burden to be borne by the Russians, who have carried this immense struggle through the whole of this year and a large part of last year.

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They are defending their own country; we are defending our own country; but we are all of us defending something which is, I won’t say dearer, but greater than a country, namely, a cause. That cause is the cause of freedom and justice; that cause is the cause of the weak against the strong; it is the cause of law against violence, of mercy and tolerance against brutality and iron-bond tyranny. This is the cause that we are fighting for. That is the cause which is moving slowly, painfully but surely, inevitably and inexorably forward to victory.

And when the victory is gained, you will find that you are, I will not say in a new world, but a better world; you are in a world which can be made more fair, more happy, if only all the peoples will join together to do their part, and if all classes and all parties stand together to reap the fruits of victory as they are standing together to bear, and to face, and to cast back the terrors and menaces of war.

The current issue of Finest Hour focuses on the eightieth anniversary of what Churchill called “The Hinge of Fate” and includes articles specifically about the major events of late 1942 and early 1943, including the battles of El Alamein and Stalingrad, the TORCH landings in North Africa, and the naval wars in both the Pacific and the Atlantic.