What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over.
The Battle of Britain is about to begin.
Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.
Upon it depends our own British life,
And the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.
The whole fury and might of the enemy
Must very soon be turned on us.
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island
Or lose the war.
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.
But if we fail, then the whole world,
Including the United States,
Including all that we have known and cared for,
Will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age
Made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted,
By the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties
And so bear ourselves that,
If the British Empire and its Commonwealth
Last for a thousand years, men will still say,
'This was their finest hour.'