The year is 1940. The place is London, England. The man of the hour is Winston Churchill. His task is to stop the pending invasion of Great Britain by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Army. Hitler’s aggression is fueled by the Treaty of Versailles. A treaty that codified peace terms between the victorious Allies and Germany. The treaty held Germany responsible for starting World War I. It also imposed upon Germany server penalties, which angered Hitler. These penalties included loss of territory, massive reparations payments and demilitarization.
Churchill was not thought to be of leadership quality. In fact no one inside the House of Commons, let alone the citizens of Great Britain, wanted him to be Prime Minister in 1940. In fact Churchill himself said, the people and his opponents “made me Prime Minister out of sure revenge, I suppose.”
However, once Prime Minister, Churchill was determined not to appease Hitler. Churchill believed that appeasing Hitler would be destroying democracy. When the fight came to London during the Battle of Britain, Churchill did everything to rally the British people in the defeat of Nazism.
When France fell, Chamberlin and others sought to make peace with Hitler through the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. However, Churchill would not capitulate. On June 4, and again on June 18, 1940, during speeches before the House of Commons, Churchill spoke the following words to rally the British people. Today, they are considered some of the best speeches ever given by a leader to prepare a nation for war.
In drafting these speeches, Churchill believed that Britain was the firewall. If Hitler invaded Britain, or if Britain capitulated, Churchill truly believed the Western Hemisphere and democracy would be next. He consistently asked President Roosevelt for, weapons, ships, and supplies. Because of a Congress and county that wished to remain neutral, President Roosevelt had to decline each request.
Churchill, feeling alone, had to unite the people because the cause was too great to lose. It was these speeches that tied the British together and made Churchill one of the most unlikely greatest leaders of the 20th Century.
“We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and 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 beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the 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, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.” June 4, 1940
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years men will still say, ‘this was their finest hour’.” June 18, 1940
The year is 2022. The place Kyiv, Ukraine. The man of the hour is Volodymyr Zelensky. His task is to stop the Russian Army and Vladimir Putin from overthrowing a democratic government in Ukraine. On February 21, 2022, Putin holding on to the belief that the collapse of the Soviet Empire (the old Union of Socialist Soviet Republics) was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” invaded Ukraine. Putin’s believed that once the Soviet Empire was dismantled on December 26, 1991, too many of the satellite Republics were ceded to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Ukraine would be the last Republic he would cede to NATO. However, this was only his belief, delusional or not.
On May 20, 2019, Zelensky was sworn in as president. He was a very different politician. In fact, he was not a politician at all but a comedian. At the time of his inauguration, Zelensky would have no idea that he would face a Russian invasion. However, in late 2021, Russia began a massive buildup of military troops and material along its border with Ukraine. The Russian invasion was imminent. On February 21, 2022, Putin announced publicly that a “special military operation” had begun. Then Russian cruise missiles began to come down on targets in Ukraine. Once more in Europe, the world changed forever.
From the page book of Winston Churchill, Zelensky rallied support from the international community. World leaders announced tough economic sanctions against Russia, falling short of providing military aid. Zelensky then warned that a “new Iron Curtain” was descending on Europe; indeed a page right out of Churchill’s book.
“The question for us now is to be or not to be,” he said, according to a translation of his speech, which was delivered in Ukrainian and broadcast live from Kyiv. “Oh no, this Shakespearean question. For 13 days this question could have been asked but now I can give you a definitive answer. It’s definitely yes, to be.”
Echoing Churchill’s famous June 1940 speech, following the miraculous evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, Zelensky said to the British House of Commons: “And I would like to remind you the words that the United Kingdom has already heard, which are important again. We will not give up, and we will not lose. We will fight till the end — at sea, in the air, we will continue fighting for our land whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”
Good leaders in history are like prime numbers in mathematics. They standout because they are one of a kind; divisible only by how they changed the course of history. Like Churchill, Zelensky is providing courage to the Ukrainian people. He shows no signs of capitulation and no signs of desperation. As Churchill did, Zelensky is framing the invasion as a battle between democracy and oligarchy. A war Europe cannot lose.
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