XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: no.spam@no.spam   
      
   A few comparisons between Winston Churchill's "Their Finest Hour"   
   speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940 and some wisdom   
   from RotK:   
      
   C: What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over.   
   I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.   
      
   G: ...it cannot be doubted that when Denethor saw great forces   
   arrayed against him in Mordor, and more still being gathered,   
   he saw that which truly is.   
      
      
   C: The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us   
      
   G: Hardly has our strength sufficed to beat off the first great   
   assault. The next will be greater.   
      
      
   C: Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose   
   the war.   
      
   G: Now Sauron knows all this, and he knows that this precious thing   
   which he lost has been found again   
      
      
   C: If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life   
   of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.   
      
   G: If it is destroyed, then he will fall; and his fall will be so low   
   that none can foresee his arising ever again... And so a great evil   
   of this world will be removed.   
      
      
   C: But if we fail, then the whole world... will sink into the abyss   
   of a new Dark Age   
      
   G: If he regains it, your valour is vain, and his victory will   
   be swift and complete: so complete that none can foresee the end   
   of it while this world lasts.   
      
      
   C: During the first four years of the last war the Allies experienced   
   nothing but disaster and disappointment. That was our constant fear:   
   one blow after another, terrible losses, frightful dangers.   
   Everything miscarried. And yet at the end of those four years   
   the morale of the Allies was higher than that of the Germans,   
   who had moved from one aggressive triumph to another, and who   
   stood everywhere triumphant invaders of the lands into which   
   they had broken. During that war we repeatedly asked ourselves   
   the question: How are we going to win? and no one was able ever   
   to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly,   
   quite unexpectedly, our terrible foe collapsed before us, and we   
   were so glutted with victory that in our folly we threw it away.   
      
   G: His doubt will be growing, even as we speak here. His Eye   
   is now straining towards us, blind almost to all else that is moving.   
   So we must keep it. Therein lies all our hope. This, then,   
   is my counsel. We have not the Ring. In wisdom or great folly   
   it has been sent away to be destroyed, lest it destroy us.   
      
      
   C: We may now ask ourselves: In what way has our position worsened   
   since the beginning of the war? It has worsened by the fact that   
   the Germans have conquered a large part of the coast line   
   of Western Europe, and many small countries have been overrun   
   by them...   
      
   If Hitler can bring under his despotic control the industries   
   of the countries he has conquered, this will add greatly to his   
   already vast armament output. On the other hand, this will not   
   happen immediately, and we are now assured of immense, continuous   
   and increasing support in supplies and munitions of all kinds   
   from the United States; and especially of aeroplanes and pilots   
   from the Dominions and across the oceans coming from regions   
   which are beyond the reach of enemy bombers.   
      
   I do not see how any of these factors can operate to our detriment   
   on balance before the winter comes; and the winter will impose   
   a strain upon the Nazi regime, with almost all Europe writhing   
   and starving under its cruel heel, which, for all their ruthlessness,   
   will run them very hard...  In the meanwhile, however, we have   
   enormously improved our methods of defense, and we have learned   
   what we had no right to assume at the beginning, namely, that   
   the individual aircraft and the individual British pilot have   
   a sure and definite superiority. Therefore, in casting up this   
   dread balance sheet and contemplating our dangers with   
   a disillusioned eye, I see great reason for intense vigilance   
   and exertion, but none whatever for panic or despair.   
      
   G: listen to the words of the Steward of Gondor before he died:   
   _You may triumph on the fields of the Pelennor for a day,   
   but against the Power that has now arisen there is no victory_.   
   I do not bid you despair, as he did, but to ponder the truth   
   in these words.   
      
   C: I am not reciting these facts for the purpose of recrimination.   
   That I judge to be utterly futile and even harmful. We cannot   
   afford it. I recite them in order to explain why it was we did not   
   have, as we could have had, between twelve and fourteen British   
   divisions fighting in the line in this great battle instead of   
   only three. Now I put all this aside. I put it on the shelf,   
   from which the historians, when they have time, will select their   
   documents to tell their stories. We have to think of the future   
   and not of the past. This also applies in a small way to our own   
   affairs at home. There are many who would hold an inquest in   
   the House of Commons on the conduct of the Governments - and of   
   Parliaments, for they are in it, too - during the years which   
   led up to this catastrophe. They seek to indict those who were   
   responsible for the guidance of our affairs. This also would be   
   a foolish and pernicious process. There are too many in it.   
   Let each man search his conscience and search his speeches.   
   I frequently search mine.   
      
   Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between   
   the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost   
   the future.   
      
   D: 'If I had! If you had!' he said. 'Such words and ifs are vain.   
   It has gone into the Shadow, and only time will show what doom   
   awaits it and us. The time will not be long. In what is left,   
   let all who fight the Enemy in their fashion be at one, and keep   
   hope while they may, and after hope still the hardihood to die free.'   
      
   SQ   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)