22 Ducere Est Servire: THE LEADERSHIP JOURNAL OF DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”43 On June 4, 1940, Churchill reported to the House of Commons on the miraculous evacuation of troops at Dunkirk. Once again calling for courage in the face of overwhelming odds, Churchill told the people: We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be. 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 . . . .44 A few months later, Churchill’s connection with the former king would be even more evident. In a speech to the House of Commons on August 20, 1940, Churchill echoed Henry’s St. Crispin’s Day’s appeal to “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”: The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.45 The British people, educated from an early age in Shakespeare, would have clearly heard Churchill’s echo of Henry as he spoke of so much owed by so many to “so few.” Churchill had learned from his reading of history and Shakespeare the importance of appealing to family and homeland when arousing cour-
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