In his speech, Churchill justified the low level of support it had been possible to give to France since the Dunkirk Evacuation, and reported the successful evacuation of most of the supporting forces. He resisted pressure to purge the coalition of appeasers, or otherwise indulge in recrimination. He reviewed the forces still available to prevent or repel any attempted invasion, summing up the review as follows:
I have thought it right upon this occasion to give the House and the country some indication of the solid, practical grounds upon which we base our inflexible resolve to continue the war, and I can assure them that our professional advisers of the three Services unitedly advise that we should do so, and that there are good and reasonable hopes of final victory.
He reported messages of support from the Dominions and justified confidence in victory, even if it was not yet clear how that victory could be achieved.
In casting up this dread balance-sheet, contemplating our dangers with a disillusioned eye, I see great reason for intense vigilance and exertion, but none whatever for panic or despair. During the first four years of the last war the Allies experienced,...nothing but disaster and disappointment, and yet at the end their morale was higher than that of the Germans, who had moved from one aggressive triumph to another. During that war we repeatedly asked ourselves the question, "How are we going to win?" and no one was able ever to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, our terrible foe collapsed before us.
Peroration
The peroration, even at a moment of great apparent danger to British national survival, talks not only of national survival and national interest but also of noble causes for which Britain was fighting and for which Churchill thought the United States should and eventually would fight. The War Illustrated published the speech with the title "'If the Empire lasts a thousand years men will say, this was their finest hour'".
Preparation and delivery
The speech was delivered to the Commons at 3:49 pm, and lasted 36 minutes. Churchill, as was his habit, made revisions to his 23-page typescript right up to and during the speech. The final passage of his typescript was laid out in blank verse format, which Churchill scholars consider reflective of the influence of the Psalms on his oratory style.
