context+document

Context of Winston Churchill’s “Our Finest Hour Speech” At 5:30 a.m. on May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany began a massive attack against Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Defending those countries were soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force along with the French, Belgian, and Dutch (Allied) armies. The Germans relied on an aggressive battle plan, utilizing modern communications such as radio to direct troops in the field. The Allies, for their part, assumed a defensive posture, just as they had done at the start of World War I, and in many cases still relied on hand-delivered messages. As a result, the German Blitzkrieg (lightning attack) caught the Allies off-guard. German Panzer tanks staged a surprise attack through the 'impassable' Ardennes Forest then turned northward and soon surrounded the bulk of the Allied armies in Belgium. The "Miracle at Dunkirk" occurred next as 338,000 British and French soldiers were hurriedly evacuated from the coastline by Royal Navy ships and a flotilla of civilian boats of every shape and size. After just a few weeks of battle, Hitler's armies had conquered Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. Paris fell on June 14th. Three days later, the French requested an armistice. The following day, June 18th, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons about the disastrous turn of events in Europe amid the stark realization that Britain now stood alone against the seemingly unstoppable might of Hitler's military machine. Source: http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/churchill-hour.htm