Walking with Destiny: The Prophecy and Perseverance of Winston Churchill

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At the age of 16 in July 1891, Winston Churchill professed to a friend, “I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world, great upheavals, terrible struggles; wars such as one cannot imagine. . . .” In those turbulent times ahead, Churchill emphasized that London and England would be in grave danger. He believed that he would occupy a high position of leadership during that dark hour and that it would fall to him “to save the capital and save the [British] Empire.”

Forty-eight years later, the dark hour that Churchill had foreseen was at hand. On May 10, 1940, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi war-machine continued its merciless drive to conquer Europe, unleashing its powerful Blitzkrieg, a German word meaning “Lightning War,” on France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. That very same day, just as he also had predicted, destiny came calling for Winston Churchill.

After many years of trials and tribulations, including crushing political failures, the horrors of the trenches as an army officer during the First World War, the painful losses of loved ones, intense struggles with depression, and more, 65-year-old Winston Churchill had been steeled for the unparalleled turbulence unleashed by Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, which ignited the European phase of World War II. After one failure too many in the buildup to the war and across its early stages, Neville Chamberlain resigned as British prime minister after losing the support of the House of Commons. Great Britain’s King George VI thus turned to Churchill, who was serving as First Lord of the Admiralty, asking him to become prime minister and take the reins of government. As Churchill later described his feelings on being appointed prime minister on the tenth of May 1940, “I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”

For the man who had been warning about the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany long before the rest of the world realized what an existential threat they were, Winston Churchill was instantly thrust into what one newspaper described as “the greatest ordeal to which the nation has ever been subjected.” Within a month of his becoming prime minister, France and most of Europe had fallen to Hitler, leaving Britain largely alone in a fight for its very existence - the last man standing in the way of Nazi Germany’s drive to become undisputed master of the European continent. For Churchill, there was only one way forward. As he said in his first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons on May 13, “We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Winston Churchill believed it was his destiny to save his nation, and he went on to fulfill that destiny. Even during some of the most desperate hours in British history, with Hitler’s troops poised to invade and German planes menacing the skies over England, Churchill never veered from that calling, fully accepting the immense responsibilities that came with it, becoming the embodiment of his nation’s refusal to bend or break, and using the power of his words to rally his countrymen to stand and fight. As Churchill famously said during the dark summer of 1940, “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. . . .” Under Churchill’s leadership, surrender was truly never an option. His perseverance and spirit became a major driving force that ultimately propelled Great Britain and the Allies to victory in World War II, saving “the whole world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny and in defense of all that is most sacred to man.”

Bibliography:

“Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat, 1940.” America’s National Churchill Museum | Winston Churchill Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat Speech, www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/blood-toil-tears-and-sweat.html.

“Gathering Storm.” America’s National Churchill Museum | Winston Churchill and the Gathering Storm, www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/winston-churchill-and-the-gathering-storm.html.

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill: Walking with Destiny. Viking, 2018.

“We Shall Fight on the Beaches, 1940.” America’s National Churchill Museum | Winston Churchill We Shall Fight on the Beaches Speech, www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches.html.

Photo Credit: Winston Churchill as Prime Minister 1940-1945 | Wikimedia Commons