The Unrelenting Struggle [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S speeches from November 12, 1940, to December 30, 1941, have been collected together in this book. They form a history of the war during some of its most momentous phases, and carry the story of the unrelenting struggle from the death of Neville Chamberlain, Mr. Churchill's predecessor, to the Prime Minister's visit to the United States and Canada. Major Randolph Churchill, M.P., who collected his father's speeches into book form in "Arms and the Covenant" and " Into Battle, " is now on active service in the Middle East, and in his absence I have compiled the present volume. On the day that Neville Chamberlain passed from the scene, in the sixty-second week of the war, Germany stood triumphant in Europe. Her armies held the Continent from Norway to the borders of Spain, from Poland to the Atlantic. Only Britain still stood as " a strong and resolute foe." The Germans' attempt to smash this country and its people by mass air raids had been beaten back, but up to that day more than 14,000 civilians had been killed and 20,000 seriously wounded. Invasion was a menace, possibly to be faced at any hour. A rapidly-expanding Army and 1,700,000 Home Guards were ready to meet it. The U-Boat War against all ships sailing to these islands was growing again in its intensity and was being bitterly fought. Fifty destroyers received from the United States in exchange for naval bases in the Western Hemisphere were then rapidly coming into service. Britain, despite grievous losses, still had nearly as much merchant shipping tonnage as she had at the outbreak of the War. Across the Atlantic Franklin Delano Roosevelt had three days earlier been elected President of the United States for the third time. British hopes of American aid rose as trans-Atlantic industry was steadily becoming geared for war production. In Africa an Italian Army stood on the eastern frontier of Libya, a constant threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal, but on the borders of Greece and Albania their troops had been shamed and flung