July 9, 2013

FINEST HOUR 128, AUTUMN 2005

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“I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil, and sweat.
Now, however, we have a new experience.
We have victory—a remarkable and definite victory.
The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers,
and warmed and cheered all our hearts….
Rommel’s army has been defeated. It has been routed.
It has been very largely destroyed as a fighting force….
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning…
I recall to you some lines of Byron,
which seem to me to fit the event, the hour, and the theme:
‘Millions of tongues record thee, and anew
Their children’s lips shall echo them, and say
“Here, where the sword united nations drew,
Our countrymen were warring on that day!”
And this is much,
and all which will not pass away.’

—WSC, LORD MAYOR’S BANQUET, GUILDHALL, LONDON, 10 NOVEMBER 1942