cooperation. In order to achieve that position you will have to make up your minds to spend year after year your money, and month after month to pay your toll in precious lives. The keenest eye, the surest hand, the most undaunted heart, must be offered and risked and sacrificed in order that we may attain – as we shall undoubtedly attain – that command and perfection in aerial warfare which will be an indispensable element, not only in naval strength, but in national security. ( Loud cheers. )
‘UNCONQUERABLE AND INCOMPARABLE’
4 March 1914
Royal Aero Club dinner, Savoy Hotel, London
At a time that the British War Office’s principal thinking still revolved around sending men to war on horseback, the First Lord of the Admiralty, with his boundless energy, was driving forward military aviation and encouraging the development of what he called his ‘Land Battleships’, later to be known as the ‘Tank’. Indeed it was to the tank that Field Marshal Ludendorff was to credit the defeat of the German Armies in 1918.
The progress which has been made in this country in the last few years, and especially in the last year, has been very great. Though we started last we have profited to the full by all that has been discovered in other lands, and we have contributed ourselves, in some important particulars, to the sum of knowledge. Not only with aeroplanes but with airships things are done today which nobody would have thought right or prudent to do twelve months or even nine or six months ago. . . . This new art and science of flying is surely one in which Great Britain ought to be able to show herself – I do not say supreme in numbers, but supreme in quality. Perhaps flying is one of the best tests of nationality which exists. It is a combination of science and skill, of organisation and enterprise. The forces in our country are unconquerable and incomparable if they are only properly directed. It has been reserved for us to see flying a commonplace and ordinary event. That is a great fact, because no one can doubt that the development and discovery of the flying art definitely enlarges the boundaries of human activity. One cannot doubt that flying, to judge from the position which it has reached even today, must in the future exercise a potent influence, not only upon the habits of men, but upon the military destinies of states. ( Cheers. )
‘THE WORLD IS ARMED AS IT WAS NEVER ARMED BEFORE’
17 March 1914
House of Commons
This speech, introducing the Naval Estimates, lasted for over two hours. It was remarkable for its detail its power and for Churchill’s complete mastery both of the subject and the House. The Tory Daily Telegraph, no friend to the First Lord, described it as ‘the longest and perhaps also the most weighty and eloquent speech to which the House of Commons have listened during the present generation’.
We must begin by recognising how different is the part played by our Navy from that of the navies of every other country. Alone among the great modern States, we can neither defend the soil upon which we live nor subsist upon its produce. Our whole Regular Army is liable to be ordered abroad for the defence of India. The food of our people, the raw material of our industries, the commerce which constitutes our wealth, have to be protected as they traverse thousands of miles of sea and ocean from every quarter of the globe. Here we must consider the disparity of risks and stakes between us and other naval Powers. Defeat to Germany at sea means nothing but loss of the ships sunk or damaged in battle. Behind the German ‘Dreadnoughts’ stand four and a half million soldiers, and a narrow sea-front bristling with fortresses and batteries. Nothing we could do, after a naval victory, could affect the safety or freedom of a single German hamlet.
Behind the British line of battle are the long, light-defended stretches of the East Coast, our endless trade routes and food routes, our small Army and
‘UNCONQUERABLE AND INCOMPARABLE’
4 March 1914
Royal Aero Club dinner, Savoy Hotel, London
At a time that the British War Office’s principal thinking still revolved around sending men to war on horseback, the First Lord of the Admiralty, with his boundless energy, was driving forward military aviation and encouraging the development of what he called his ‘Land Battleships’, later to be known as the ‘Tank’. Indeed it was to the tank that Field Marshal Ludendorff was to credit the defeat of the German Armies in 1918.
The progress which has been made in this country in the last few years, and especially in the last year, has been very great. Though we started last we have profited to the full by all that has been discovered in other lands, and we have contributed ourselves, in some important particulars, to the sum of knowledge. Not only with aeroplanes but with airships things are done today which nobody would have thought right or prudent to do twelve months or even nine or six months ago. . . . This new art and science of flying is surely one in which Great Britain ought to be able to show herself – I do not say supreme in numbers, but supreme in quality. Perhaps flying is one of the best tests of nationality which exists. It is a combination of science and skill, of organisation and enterprise. The forces in our country are unconquerable and incomparable if they are only properly directed. It has been reserved for us to see flying a commonplace and ordinary event. That is a great fact, because no one can doubt that the development and discovery of the flying art definitely enlarges the boundaries of human activity. One cannot doubt that flying, to judge from the position which it has reached even today, must in the future exercise a potent influence, not only upon the habits of men, but upon the military destinies of states. ( Cheers. )
‘THE WORLD IS ARMED AS IT WAS NEVER ARMED BEFORE’
17 March 1914
House of Commons
This speech, introducing the Naval Estimates, lasted for over two hours. It was remarkable for its detail its power and for Churchill’s complete mastery both of the subject and the House. The Tory Daily Telegraph, no friend to the First Lord, described it as ‘the longest and perhaps also the most weighty and eloquent speech to which the House of Commons have listened during the present generation’.
We must begin by recognising how different is the part played by our Navy from that of the navies of every other country. Alone among the great modern States, we can neither defend the soil upon which we live nor subsist upon its produce. Our whole Regular Army is liable to be ordered abroad for the defence of India. The food of our people, the raw material of our industries, the commerce which constitutes our wealth, have to be protected as they traverse thousands of miles of sea and ocean from every quarter of the globe. Here we must consider the disparity of risks and stakes between us and other naval Powers. Defeat to Germany at sea means nothing but loss of the ships sunk or damaged in battle. Behind the German ‘Dreadnoughts’ stand four and a half million soldiers, and a narrow sea-front bristling with fortresses and batteries. Nothing we could do, after a naval victory, could affect the safety or freedom of a single German hamlet.
Behind the British line of battle are the long, light-defended stretches of the East Coast, our endless trade routes and food routes, our small Army and
Similar Books
