# Did Churchill help win WWII? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 20, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032 "2019-10-20T04:12:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/1 "2019-10-20T04:12:04Z")
There have been several recent movies, and god knows how many bios written, most of them hagiographiers. I read one. And we all know the speech - We shall fight…we shall never surrender etc. We also know that he was a total racist who supported colonialism and the British domination of India because those brown people needed the white man to take care of them. We also know he was an opportunist, first he is a liberal, then a conservative, whatever it took to get elected. I’ve always forgiven him for all that shit because he rallied the British people with his speeches. Just like Rudy in NYC after 9/11. I lived about half a mile from ground zero. And Rudy went on TV and said be strong, keep going to restaurants, don’t let the terrorists win. And at the time I sort of bought the America’s Mayor stuff. But he didn’t do anything, he made the same speeches that any mayor would have made. Do we think if there would have been a different mayor he would have said we are all fucked? So when I ask if Churchill helped win WWII, I’m not talking about military strategy and such. I’m asking if the speeches really made a difference. Would the Battle of Britian been lost without him? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/2 "2019-10-20T04:20:01Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > I’m asking if the speeches really made a difference. Would the Battle of Britian been lost without him? Yeah, I think they did. The BoB very well may have been lost without the early warning radar and intelligent deployment of the limited resources. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/3 "2019-10-20T04:45:05Z")
When you’re asking people to go into battle with a high probability of death, it surely makes _all_ the difference whether they believe that their cause is just, worth fighting for, and ultimately winnable. That if they die it means something. His speeches still give me goosebumps, so I have to believe that during actual war they would have made a difference. The significant of morale also depends on the type of war being fought. If we’re firing rockets at ISIS camps from drones, all that matters it intelligence and technical superiority. If we asking men to jump out of landing craft under heavy fire, morale is everything. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/4 "2019-10-20T05:21:33Z")
Churchill’s most famous speech (well, one of two) was a rather sombre after-action report about Dunkirk given in the House of Commons. Here’s the whole thing > [@](#): > > From the moment that the French defenses at Sedan and on the Meuse were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat to Amiens and the south could have saved the British and French Armies who had entered Belgium at the appeal of the Belgian King; but this strategic fact was not immediately realized. The French High Command hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the Armies of the north were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian Army of over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgium. Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration were realized and when a new French Generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French and British Armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French Army which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it. > However, the German eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the right and rear of the Armies of the north. Eight or nine armored divisions, each of about four hundred armored vehicles of different kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into small self-contained units, cut off all communications between us and the main French Armies. It severed our own communications for food and ammunition, which ran first to Amiens and afterwards through Abbeville, and it shore its way up the coast to Boulogne and Calais, and almost to Dunkirk. Behind this armored and mechanized onslaught came a number of German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German Army and German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own. > > I have said this armored scythe-stroke almost reached Dunkirk-almost but not quite. Boulogne and Calais were the scenes of desperate fighting. The Guards defended Boulogne for a while and were then withdrawn by orders from this country. The Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the Queen Victoria’s Rifles, with a battalion of British tanks and 1,000 Frenchmen, in all about four thousand strong, defended Calais to the last. The British Brigadier was given an hour to surrender. He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street fighting passed before silence reigned over Calais, which marked the end of a memorable resistance. Only 30 unwounded survivors were brought off by the Navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain. At least two armored divisions, which otherwise would have been turned against the British Expeditionary Force, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to the glories of the light divisions, and the time gained enabled the Graveline water lines to be flooded and to be held by the French troops. > > Thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open. When it was found impossible for the Armies of the north to reopen their communications to Amiens with the main French Armies, only one choice remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The Belgian, British and French Armies were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a single port and to its neighboring beaches. They were pressed on every side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the air. > > When, a week ago today, I asked the House to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I thought-and some good judges agreed with me-that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men might be re-embarked. But it certainly seemed that the whole of the French First Army and the whole of the British Expeditionary Force north of the Amiens-Abbeville gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the House and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the British Army, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great British Armies in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving captivity. > > That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The King of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this Ruler and his Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British Armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his Army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat. > > I asked the House a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest Army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast. > > The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous Air Force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of hostile aircraft, sometimes more than a hundred strong in one formation, to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the sand dunes upon which the troops had their eyes for shelter. Their U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense struggle reigned. All their armored divisions-or what Was left of them-together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix within which the British and French Armies fought. > > Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and Allied troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage. The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the men and women on board them never faltered in their duty. > > Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment-but only for the moment-died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy was hurled back by the retreating British and French troops. He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously. The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German Air Force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the Navy, using nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, French and British, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the Air Force. Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the Air Force at work; they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it. > > This was a great trial of strength between the British and German Air Forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands? Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the Army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted. Very large formations of German aeroplanes-and we know that they are a very brave race-have turned on several occasions from the attack of one-quarter of their number of the Royal Air Force, and have dispersed in different directions. Twelve aeroplanes have been hunted by two. One aeroplane was driven into the water and cast away by the mere charge of a British aeroplane, which had no more ammunition. All of our types-the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the new Defiant-and all our pilots have been vindicated as superior to what they have at present to face. > > When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the air above this Island against an overseas attack, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young airmen. The great French Army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armored vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that: > > Every morn brought forth a noble chance > And every chance brought forth a noble knight, > deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their native land. > > I return to the Army. In the long series of very fierce battles, now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once, battles fought by two or three divisions against an equal or somewhat larger number of the enemy, and fought fiercely on some of the old grounds that so many of us knew so well-in these battles our losses in men have exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I take occasion to express the sympathy of the House to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious. The President of the Board of Trade [Sir Andrew Duncan] is not here today. His son has been killed, and many in the House have felt the pangs of affliction in the sharpest form. But I will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this fight it is inevitable that many have been left in positions where honor required no further resistance from them. > > Against this loss of over 30,000 men, we can set a far heavier loss certainly inflicted upon the enemy. But our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns — nearly one thousand-and all our transport, all the armored vehicles that were with the Army in the north. This loss will impose a further delay on the expansion of our military strength. That expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped. The best of all we had to give had gone to the British Expeditionary Force, and although they had not the numbers of tanks and some articles of equipment which were desirable, they were a very well and finely equipped Army. They had the first-fruits of all that our industry had to give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make in this Island. An effort the like of which has never been seen in our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and week days. Capital and Labor have cast aside their interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock. Already the flow of munitions has leaped forward. There is no reason why we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss that has come upon us, without retarding the development of our general program. > > Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster. The French Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy’s possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone. “There are bitter weeds in England.” There are certainly a great many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force returned. > > The whole question of home defense against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this Island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to our Ally. We have to reconstitute and build up the British Expeditionary Force once again, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our defenses in this Island into such a high state of organization that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realized. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the House, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session. Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the enemy; and the Government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the House by Members with their knowledge of so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His Majesty’s Government. > > We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and correction of the House, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out. > > Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised. > > I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. 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, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. To finish on that note is a masterpiece of rhetoric. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/5 "2019-10-20T05:35:09Z")
I would think that speeches would not be much important considering the choices Churchill actually made. In this case, this example is about what Churchill wrote: > **[QI Series I, Episode 13 - Intelligence - British Comedy Guide](https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/qi/episodes/9/13/)** > > A guide to Intelligence, Episode 13 from Series I of QI. > [@](#): > > According to General (later US President) Eisenhower, cracking the Enigma code shortened the war by two years. [-added- Saving hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives]… > > … > > Some politicians [and bean counters] during the war wondered why Bletchley Park was being given such a large budget, so Churchill went there to see what they did. Afterwards Churchill wrote a hand-written memo reading: > **[Bletchley Park](https://www.s10probus.co.uk/Bletchley%20Park/)** > > A Visit To Bletchley Park > **[Awesome Stories](https://www.awesomestories.com/Login)** [https://bletchleypark.org.uk/news/episode-50-action-this-day](https://bletchleypark.org.uk/news/episode-50-action-this-day) > [@](#): > > Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/6 "2019-10-20T06:06:55Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > So when I ask if Churchill helped win WWII, I’m not talking about military strategy and such. I’m asking if the speeches really made a difference. Would the Battle of Britian been lost without him? Why have you limited it to just speeches? Why don’t his policy decisions and efforts toward coalition-building count? It’s not so much that you’ve asked the wrong question as you’ve asked people to ignore the things that really would be necessary to properly answer your question. FWIW, I think we have good evidence that, no, not all politicians will say the right thing, and some who should be leaders in trying times might just get out there and say (or convey via other means, perhaps with limited characters) the most boneheaded thing imaginable, completely undercutting the morale of fighting forces and sowing division rather than unifying people towards a singular end (be it peace or war). ETA: So, to be clear, I wouldn’t take it for granted that anyone could have said the right words in Churchill’s place. I suspect there were others who could have plugged the gap if he hadn’t been available, but how they would have fared will be forever unknowable. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/7 "2019-10-20T07:56:20Z")
Try reading John Lukacs’s “Five Days in May”, all about the debate in the War Cabinet about possible peace moves\*, given the impending defeat in France. Churchill was hardly single-handed in the decision to fight on, but his leadership was decisive in pulling the mood together to see it through. Had it not been, the war would have been lost, and Hitler given a free hand with the Soviet Union and in due course with the USA once Japan decided to attack. \*And take the movie “Darkest Hour” with a bucket of salt. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/8 "2019-10-20T12:17:55Z")
There may have been other people who wanted to continue the war after France fell but Churchill was the only person who was plausibly in a position to become Prime Minister and actually make this the official policy. So without Churchill, there almost certainly would have been a negotiated surrender around 1940. Churchill also realized that Britain wasn’t going to be able to win the war without help from the United States and/or the Soviet Union so he cultivated relationships with both of those powers. But while doing so, he was able to maintain Britain’s reputation as a great power that should be seen as an equal to the United States and the Soviet Union. Would Germany have won the war if Britain had sought peace? I think it probably would have. I think Britain could have negotiated a peace that would have kept Britain independent and in control of its empire but Britain would have had to acknowledge German control of the continent. If Britain stopped fighting, America would have lost its focus on Europe; resisting Japan would have become the main foreign policy. Germany would have been free to turn its undivided military strength against the Soviet Union and the Soviets would have been fighting without American and British aid. I think a stronger German attack could have defeated a weaker Soviet defense. I think we would have ended up in a Cold War situation like we historically had except America’s opponent would have been the German Reich instead of the Soviet Union. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/9 "2019-10-20T12:20:33Z")
Just want to point out that Rudy did noting on 9/11. Nice of him to attend the funerals afterward, but as was pointed out after the fact, the best thing Rudy did after 9/11 was stay out of the way. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/10 "2019-10-20T14:15:31Z")
Sounds like the OP doesn’t really understand how the pen can be mightier than the sword. A well-crafted speech or pamphlet can do astonishing things. Some historians think that America would have lost the Revolutionary War if not for the inspired pen of Thomas Paine. It takes a terrifically strong motivation to make people **willing** to die for a cause, and not many things are capable of producing such a motivation. Well-crafted rhetoric is one of those things. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/11 "2019-10-20T14:28:53Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Yeah, I think they did. The BoB very well may have been lost without the early warning radar and intelligent deployment of the limited resources. I’m not sure what radar or the RAF’s strategy had to do with Winston Churchill, whose speeches were responsible for neither. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/12 "2019-10-20T20:30:38Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Why have you limited it to just speeches? Why don’t his policy decisions and efforts toward coalition-building count? It’s not so much that you’ve asked the wrong question as you’ve asked people to ignore the things that really would be necessary to properly answer your question. > > FWIW, I think we have good evidence that, no, not all politicians will say the right thing, and some who should be leaders in trying times might just get out there and say (or convey via other means, perhaps with limited characters) the most boneheaded thing imaginable, completely undercutting the morale of fighting forces and sowing division rather than unifying people towards a singular end (be it peace or war). > > ETA: So, to be clear, I wouldn’t take it for granted that anyone could have said the right words in Churchill’s place. I suspect there were others who could have plugged the gap if he hadn’t been available, but how they would have fared will be forever unknowable. You are right, I made the question too narrow. Unlike Rudy, Churchill did more than make speeches. Reading all the posts I do remember some now, especially he and Roosevelt working together. Lend Lease was it? I did not know Britian would have probably surrendered without him ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/13 "2019-10-20T20:46:49Z")
Honestly, I think my abhorrance for a lot of Churchill’s beliefs had me looking for reasons to diminish his contributions in the war. And that is not a very honest approach to history, is it? I pride myself on being objective and looking at all sides. Is there a good movie I should see, one that doesn’t lionize him and shows his faults as well as strengths? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/14 "2019-10-20T21:37:27Z")
Dizzy Gillespie was asked once about Satchmo. Dizzy said “No him, no me!” The same could be said of Churchill and Roosevelt. If Churchill hadn’t kept Britain in the war, it’s highly doubtful that Roosevelt could have ever led the US to enter the war in Europe. The war likely would have been over before Pearl Harbour, and American neutrality would never have been tested. Churchill’s grand strategic goal was to seek allies: “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable mention of Satan in the House of Commons.” In his memoirs, he wrote that after December 7, 1941, he slept easily, because he knew that with the US in the war, Britain would survive. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/15 "2019-10-20T21:56:09Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > … > We also know that he was a total racist who supported colonialism and the British domination of India because those brown people needed the white man to take care of them… > > So when I ask if Churchill helped win WWII, I’m not talking about military strategy and such. I’m asking if the speeches really made a difference. Would the Battle of Britian been lost without him? I dispute this poisoning of the well. Why say crap like that? was it necessary to make your point? But in any case, other than his speeches, there are two other things that Churchill did that helped win the war: 1. He wouldnt give up and the nazis’ knew it. 2. If you read \* Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare \*by Giles Milton, it will be clear that the entire idea of a resistance and a sabotage dept run and funded by the brits would not have occurred if it wasnt for Churchill. Everyone else was against it. An example if given of saboteurs slowing the Das reich Division from getting to the D-Day beaches, they destroying the heavy water plants, and so forth. Not to mention invented the shaped charge and the hedgehog anti-sub weapon. Those brave commandos certainly lessened allied casualties and quite possibly shortened the war. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/16 "2019-10-20T22:05:42Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > So when I ask if Churchill \*\*helped \*\*win WWII, I’m not talking about military strategy and such. I’m asking if the speeches really made a difference. **Would the Battle of Britian been lost without him**? On other forums there are endless “what if” battles where the viewers hypothetically usually ask “if you were in control of the Nazi High Command at \, how would you go on to win”. Or, alternately, they are hypotheticals like 'what if the Nazis had nukes sooner, or a nuclear submarine fully loaded with nuclear-tipped ICBMs, or a stargate, or". Some of these hypotheticals give the allies a similar advantage, but generally this isn’t interesting, because we historically already know it wasn’t anywhere close. Giving the allies a bigger advantage just means they win even faster. Anyways, one trend here is generally it’s thought that the material and numerical advantage was so drastically in favor of the allies that almost nothing the Germans could have done, and almost no sequence of mishaps and defeats for the Allies, would have changed the ultimate outcome. So if you hypothetically have a silenced pistol with 10 shots and can teleport and shoot in the head up to 10 allied leaders - it wouldn’t be enough. It would be disruptive. Might drag ww2 out another few months but it still wouldn’t change the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/17 "2019-10-20T22:10:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I dispute this poisoning of the well. Why say crap like that? was it necessary to make your point? > > But in any case, other than his speeches, there are two other things that Churchill did that helped win the war: > > 1. He wouldnt give up and the nazis’ knew it. > > 2. If you read \* Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare \*by Giles Milton, it will be clear that the entire idea of a resistance and a sabotage dept run and funded by the brits would not have occurred if it wasnt for Churchill. Everyone else was against it. An example if given of saboteurs slowing the Das reich Division from getting to the D-Day beaches, they destroying the heavy water plants, and so forth. Not to mention invented the shaped charge and the hedgehog anti-sub weapon. Those brave commandos certainly lessened allied casualties and quite possibly shortened the war. You might be interested in a TV program where a bunch of modern people were given the training of the SOE. [Wiki Entry.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill%27s_Secret_Agents:_The_New_Recruits) I’ve seen it, and it includes lots of interesting history. In addition to what others have said, Churchill had to make the tough choice of sacrificing some of Britain, like Coventry, to keep Enigma a secret. Churchill was very much against giving independence to India, but that does not reduce what he did for England in the war. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/18 "2019-10-20T22:23:23Z")
I have to point out the absurdity of the comparison of a war time leader, who dealt continuously with an on-going threat which required leadership to actually manage the military strategies and battles, inspire and rally civilians, and manage foreign policy and alliances, with someone who happened to be mayor of a one-time surprise attack over which he had no warning or control, which had no reasonable expectation of being an ongoing situation, where there were no follow up attacks or continued threat, whose accomplishments in your eyes were telling people to go back to restaurants. Even within the limits of your OP - not talking about military strategy or anything - Britain had to survive an ongoing assault by a military power that was shockingly powerful, who had been winning battles all over Europe, who was starving Britain of food and supplies with a u-boat campaign, who were bombing Britain on a daily basis with no apparent end and sight, whereas NYC had to survive one isolated attack. Britain had to stay strong against an extended campaign against a foreign power that could’ve forced their surrender. New York… how would they have lost? Surrendered to nobody and abandoned the city over one attack with no ongoing threat? ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/19 "2019-10-20T22:24:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I dispute this poisoning of the well. Why say crap like that? was it necessary to make your point? You are right, and I addressed it above. Well, it is not crap to say he was a racist, but that is beside the point. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032/20 "2019-10-20T22:47:03Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > Is there a good movie I should see, one that doesn’t lionize him and shows his faults as well as strengths? Don’t watch movies for history. Movies are entertainment. A good one-volume comparative book is “The Warlords” by AJP Taylor: aricles about Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, from their role as war-leaders. See also the Lukacs book recommended by **PatrickLondon** , and also Lukacs’ earlier book _The Duel: May 10 - July 31 1940_. You could also read the wiki article: War Cabinet Crisis, 1940 > **[1940 British war cabinet crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_cabinet_crisis,_May_1940)** > > In May 1940, during the Second World War, the British war cabinet was split on the question of whether to make terms with Nazi Germany or to continue hostilities. The main protagonists were the prime minister, Winston Churchill, and the foreign secretary, Viscount Halifax. The dispute escalated to crisis point and threatened the continuity of the Churchill government. > With the British Expeditionary Force in retreat to Dunkirk and the fall of France seemingly imminent, Halifax believed that t... (Lukacs once joked that given the narrowing of focus, his third book after “The Duel” and “Five Days in May” would have to be “Cabinet Room, May 26 1940”). Churchill’s speeches were important, but asking if Churchill “helped” win WWII is a remarkable question. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-churchill-help-win-wwii/842032.md?page=2)