Britian has existed as a country for over a thousand years, and has achieved things no other country has ever achieved, or proably ever will.

It has gone through many triumpths, such as the astounding long bowman victories in France, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the Battle of Marnes in World War 1, and the Battle of Britian in World War 2.

During the latter engagement, Winston Churchil proclaimed: "If the British Empire should last a thousand years, men will still say! This was out finest hour."

Do you think he was right? If not, when do you think was Britian's finest hour?

Depends what you mean by "finest hour." You seem to be talking only about the greatest battles of British history, but you said "it has achieved things no other country has ever achieved," so I'll take the question to mean any accomplishment. I'd rather pick something that advanced the humam race, so I'll say Newton's three laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation, the basis for modern physics. Of course, it's extremely difficult to pick one event or discovery, but this one is uniquely British and a huge leap forward.

When do you think was Britian's finest hour?

Britain's finest hour was, unquestionably, at Amritsar on April 13, 1919: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amritsar_massacre

But there are so many glorious pages of British history from which to choose:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

http://www.cdli.ca/beaumont/somme.htm

.............never mind

As an aside:
-The defeat of the Spanish Armada was almost entirely due to the weather which wrecked 5 times as many ships as the British did;
-The Battle of the Marne was almost entirely a French operation, the BEF was one fifth the size of the French force committed to the battle, and only half the BEF actually engaged.

However, though it imposible to determine what the 'finest hour' of the British Empire is without specifying the criteria for this decision, one has to be astonished by the success of the British in the Battle of Britain.

Far too many people tend to look upon history with 20/20 hindsight, as though the final defeat of germany was inevitable. But at the time Germany had just conquered almost all of Europe, and crushed the French military in 6 weeks, a feat nobody in the world, including Hitler, has thought was possible.

The retreat at Dunkirk, which was in fact a spectacular defeat but was rebranded as a heroic victory, meant that again the might Wehrmacht, the UK has a few unequipped divisions with no armour or heavy equipment, a bunch of 50+ year old home guard with WW1 Lee-Enfields, and a single Armed and ready Canadian division defending its shores.


Most nations at the time, including the US, wrote off the British as done. So did many British; the stores of government gold and documents were all evacuated to Canada so they would not fall into German hands...

The victory, won by a combination of British courage and innovation, and German foolishness and lack of innovation, was astonishing in the annals of history...

My Great uncle fought in the Battle of Britain, he was a pilot flying a Hurricane. He was later killed over the Atlantic when he went out on a mission and never returned. My maternal Grandfather also fought in the Battle of Britain, he was an AA gunner in London.

Given the family stories and pride, its hard to not think of the Battle of Britain as Britains finest hour, but looking back over the course of Britains history another far greater victory springs to mind and that is when Wellington finally put an end to Napoleon at Waterloo.

By and large, the Napoleonic wars are almost forgotten and eclipsed by the far bloodier world wars, but given the length of the Napoleonic wars and the many years which Britain had to stand isolated with only its navy defending its global interests, then I'd have to say that the threat to Britain from Napoleon was much greater than the threat from Hitler.

In this post ww2 era its also more convenient for many people to disregard the Napoleonic wars because their own nations took a side against Britain and were all to happy to appease Napoleon. Its compelling, for me at least, that in the same period that Britain was desperately fighting the tyranny of Napoleon, it was also putting an end to the slave trade out of Africa and it is during this same period that the USA chose to attempt to invade Canada in 1812 in the mistaken belief that the UK would not be able to defend its Canadian territories.

If any 'hour' was Britains finest, then it was surely the two decades of the Napoleonic period.

Instructive reading on the subject of Britain's glorious past and present:

http://www.hindu.com/2005/12/28/stories/2005122804961100.htm

http://abw.netfirms.com/destruct1.htm

http://www.signsofthetimes.org.uk/curtis%5Bfulltext%5D.html

http://www.earthside.com/earthside/2006/02...sh_atrocit.html

Yes yes, assorted hardly unbiased accounts of evil things the British Empire did 140 years ago, or in the case of the Boer war, only 100 years ago.

Your point being? name me a country on the planet, and country over 50 years old and if you give me a few minutes I will provide a list of nasty things they did in their distant past. Possibly because they were evil, but ossibly because the distant past was just a nastier time.


Oh, and when referring to the nasty distant past of any country, do you not think it is the least bit hypocritical Vladimir to have your party affiliation of Communist and name and picture of Comrade Ulyanov himself? That man could teach the British Empire even in its hayday a thing or two about atrocity...


Oh, and by the way, its also ALL entirely and utterly off topic.

Dear me, before this, I had thought that the Spanish Armada and the Napoleonic Wars, examples of British glory mentioned here, were in the distant past. But it isn't as if I have taken Britain to task for the sack of Verulamium or the murder of Joan of Arc. The things to which I have pointed shed a definite light on the actual role played by Britain in modern history, which by and large was that of a colonizer, occupier and armed oppressor -- a role which it ardently sought at Suez and continues in its occupation of Iraq. Apart from its being courageously fought, the Battle of Britain hardly stands to Britain's moral credit; what was the alternative, watching the 12th SS Division parade in front of Buckingham Palace?

I hardly think it's off-topic, in a thread devoted to Britain's supposed glory, to say that in modern times, Britain hasn't been very glorious at all, but in fact, quite the opposite.

The Soviet Union did, of course, teach Britain a thing or two; I am only sorry that it didn't have a chance to teach it more. One of the very best things that may be said about the USSR was that with reasonable effectiveness, it resisted capitalist imperialism throughout the world. I am quite certain that Britain and the United States would not be in Iraq today, for example, if the Soviet Union still existed. What a blessing that would be, and not only for Iraq.

Since this thread is not about Stalin, I will forbear to rejoin on that point.

I apologize for posting mainly links before, but I thought it would be more credible than recounting these facts myself. I did not seek unbiased accounts but merely accounts, my purpose being to show that there is more than one side to the question of Britain's glory. There is much more that I could have referenced; Britain in Kenya, for example; Britain in Palestine for another; Britain in Ireland for another.

Go to Dublin and ask about Britain's glory.

I am forced to repeat myself:

Your point being? name me a country on the planet, and country over 100 years old and if you give me a few minutes I will provide a list of nasty things they did in their distant past. Possibly because they were evil, but ossibly because the distant past was just a nastier time.

This thread is and was never about 'has the hostory of Britain ever been moral', nor anything close to it. No it has not. Nor has that of France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, India, United States, Australia, China, Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Romania, Japan, Chile, Mongolia... I can go on if you like, there are a LOT of countries in the world, and I could list them all here.

Though of course, it is impossible to deny that in scale of atrocity in the modern age, few could ever hope to rival China, Germany and the USSR. So what?

None of that is relevant or even remotely on topic.




Well, you'd be mistaken. The thread is asking the question, is the Battle of Britain the finest hour of the United Kingdom? Have you made any effort at all to address that question?



Well, yes it resisted capitalist imperialism, of course it could also be said that the west resisted the far more briutal and savage communist imperialism, except that the West did not feel the need to tyrannise a subject population devoid of basic rights or freedoms. (not to mention killing 20+ odd million of them)

Were the USSR still around, yes it might be better for Iraqis to be under soviet supported Husein then embroiled in the current civil war... but would it be better for the 600 odd million people in Russia, the former Soviet states and the former Warsaw pact? I think not.



It wasn't about 1900s cocentration camps in south Africa either, that didnt hold you back. And I was not talking about Stalin, but Lenin, his tutor in the art of savage brutality and state terror.




OK, mission accomplished. We now understand that according to some not-unbiased accounts there is a dark side to Britain's distant past. I don't think thats news to anyone here, nor is it surprising or different from any other nations, nor is it relevant in the slightest.

I will say this.... I wish Mr. Blair " would run for Presisident of the U.S.
Beyond that....well I'm Irish, a decendent of the King of Munster. I'd have to say that I'm realy not a big fan of British rule back then, It was a little ...ummm..."harsh"...but consider the source...being a "pagan" and all...or is that "witch"....I get them so confused.

I think a lot of the responses are totally missing the meaning of Mr. Churchill's remark. I don't think he was referring to the victory as much as how the British people pulled together during the Battle of Britain. I just reread the biography of Rear Admiral(ret.) Daniel V. Gallery. In it he (Adm. Gallery) talks about just this thing, how the people of Britain pulled together like never before.

Yes the British had had victories before and yes they had been invaded before but never before had they needed to pull together like they did. When the time came they did what was needed. Not just the military or the government or various organizations but the country as a whole pulled together and didn't fold when they had every right to do so. That is why it was their finest hour.

So yes, I believe it was their finest hour.

I agree, Syfir.

To illustrate, just a year before, in 1939, British Air Staff determined that casualties from future potential bombing raids on London would be 1,700 killed and 3,300 wounded in the first day of bombing, 1,275 killed and 2,475 wounded in the second day, and 850 killed and 1,650 wounded every day after that, which would lead to three million Londoners driven out into the countryside in terror from the bombs and gas, and the total breakdown of law and order.

The 1940-1941 bombing raids on London were even worse than those cataclysmic predictions, taking the lives of 20,000 Londoners, and with no collapse of authority. Far from it, the Brits pulled together as never before. It was their finest hour.

Do you think he was right? If not, when do you think was Britian's finest hour?

As the only regularly posting resident Brit here at , I wasn't sure whether posting here would be a necessary & valuable addition to the debate or vainglorious boasting of the first water. But then it's probably also the case that only a Brit would see such a dilemma.

Yes, I think he was right, at least in the context of what he was talking about. There are many things to admire about the British (where's the damned flag icon? ), and many more to condemn or criticise (current and historic).

Vladimir isn't being completely churlish when he says that we should remember the massacres, enforced famines, death, disease and bloodshed for which Britain has and continues to prepetrate.

But I'd say the the behaviour of the British nation - and Empire; many of the Battle of Britain pilots were from British colonies overseas - as whole in WW2, particularly in the first two or three years was possibly the only truly noble and selfless national act in the modern history of any nation anywhere.

That doesn't reflect in any way on me - I can't take any credit for something that started and ended more than a generation before I was born.

And even then, it would be a rose-tinted mistake to think that there was national unity - there were Nazi sympathisers and fellow travellers in British politics; there were riots, there was crime and disorder in the bombed cities against austere wartime policies.

On the whole, though, yes, the Battle of Britain era was Britain's finest hour in terms of being really tough time that was admirably dealt with.

On a different note, in terms of being a good time to be alive and British, our finest hour is probably happening right now. Despite our many problems here and abroad, we're in pretty good shape as a nation.

I think future historians might look back on late 20th / early 21st century Britain as something of a high point, and not just for the British. If the world somehow escapes political, economic or environmental disaster, perhaps - just perhaps - some of the ideas that are now, or are rapidly becoming, routine in the UK (e.g. if globalisation means anything it must be a two-way street and that protectionism is pointless posturing and ultimately counter-productive; that the mixing of money and politics is generally a bad thing; that a large, and largely effective and efficient, public sector can go hand-in-hand with a dynamic economy; that even if Kyoto-style environmental targets are missed, the effort is worthwhile in itself, to name only a few areas where I'm increasingly noticing a difference between the British and almost everyone else).

Well, I'd have to respond by pointing to the saving of the Danish Jews... I think if you look hard enough you'll find there are great selfless national acts in almost every country. I don't think Britain stands out on this account.

Also the British do not seem to have learned anything from the discovery of the Holocaust except how to use the same methods themselves, as new released information in Britain now reveals. Link.

One has to wonder, upon what foundation does 'greatness' rest? Churchill was speaking of a rallying together rather than any military endevour, but Churchill was also very good at blowing his own trumpet and it was in his own best interests to paint as patriotic a picture as possible.

For my part, its worth noting that in the immediete aftermath of this British unity, whilst the British were secretly starving and torturing Germans to death in anticipation of a war with the USSR, George Orwell was inspired to write '1984'.

My dad was in the RAF (not a pilot though) and my mum spent nights during the blitz hiding in an Anderson shelter in the backyard, so memories of these events are still ingrained in the survivors of that generation, and by proxy in their children of my generation. Even into the '70s, I walked to work in the Barbican through bombed out debris from the blitz.

But to make the distinction here, the Battle of Britain was a purely military battle lasting a couple of weeks during which the Luftwaffe set out to destroy the RAF by attacking its airfields. The public were not directly affected and due to wartime censorship were not even that aware of it until it was over. The Blitz that immediately followed is what is really remembered as the time when civilian Britons came together.

Churchill was referring to the Battle of Britain in that speech, it was indeed a stunning military victory given the odds, but I'd say it was Britain's finest hour in living memory as opposed to in the last (or next) thousand years.

In resonse to Vermillion, I can only say that if this thread had asked instead, "What was Germany's finest hour?" or "What was Japan's finest hour?" it would have drawn some rather pointed remarks on the character of the actual contributions these nations have made to modern history. Considering also that the thread topic outrageously begs a number of similar questions about Britain, I don't think I was offbase at all to come here with my view that Britain's principal role in modern history has been that of colonialist oppressor. Fundamentally, the labor of entire nations was expropriated at the point of a gun. The opposition was not usually very well organized, but when it was, the British reaction was immediate and ruthless. If you recognize that that whole system spanned 250 years or so, it probably caused significantly more human misery in total than Hitler's attempt to wipe out European Jewry.

It is rather peculiar to talk about these events as if they somehow popped out of the back closet, as bad events are, apparently, wont to do in the pasts of great nations. That perspective is totally ahistorical. It ignores that these events were all part of a great international system of oppression that vastly benefitted the British at home while impoverishing wide regions of the globe occupied by people of less fortunate skin color -- and scant endowment of battleships.

And it really is magnificently outrageous that you have the British in Iraq today, albeit under American aegis, doing exactly what they have done for hundreds of years, and with exactly the same lame, self-serving excuses.

I cannot agree at all with Julian that there was anything particularly selfless or noble about Britain's defense of itself against Germany. As I said before, what was the alternative? It is not to Britain's credit that it was attacked by a particularly evil enemy. Actually if you look at sacrifice and heroism, that of the British in that case was probably exceeded by several orders of magnitude by that of the Soviet people during the same period and, for that matter, by that of the Germans themselves as they vainly struggled to defend their country during its last days of, as they saw it at the time, independence.

Two main problems:



Firstly, no I think you are wrong. If asked what the finest hour of Germany was, I dont think the answer to that question would have been "germany was really evil under Hitler". The reason that would not have ben the answer to the question is that it is NOT an answer to the question, and is in fact entirely irrelevant. Just as your comments were.




While that statement might be considered to be on the cynical side of accurate, it is of course not wholely inaccurate either. (irrelevant, yes, but not inaccurate). However that brings me to the second problem, your repeated suggestion that this is in some way special or unique. In fact the issue is not at all what Britain did in the 17th to 19th centuries, but what humanity did.

In fact if you compare the British Empire to other expanding wealthy states and their empired at the time, though yes there are plenty of horrors to lay at the british doorstep, you will also find that Britain still compares quite favourably with pretty much every other nation on the planet, all of whom were involved in ruthless expansion if they could afford it. France, Russia, China, Japan (later) Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, even the US within its Continental boundaries.

The issue is not 'Oh look, the British were mean', but rather, 'Oh look, humanity was mean, in a stage where the wealthy saw it as their right to exploit the poor.' Britain, as I said, while not minimising the acts of violence they perpetrated, were on the whole a lot more 'civilised' with most of their worldly counterparts.


In the 20th century, the status of Britain has been a chagable one as time went on, but in this century they compare FAR better than many other nations, some of which were just hitting the full swing of horror. The main brutal colonial power of this century was the USSR, followed closely by Japan and Germany, though the latter two had their empires violently curtailed after a handful of years, The USSR has been the main bastion of horror and brutality, perhaps twinned with post-war China, though they were not colonial (with a few exceptions) and inflicted their horrors on their OWN population...


So if you ant to speak of being 'ahistorical', then look in the mirror. The horrors of the British Empire, and nobody denies there were to be sure, need to be placed within the framework of humanity at the time, when comparatively Britain comes out quite well. And in the last century, Britain is generally on the side of the angels when faced with levels of horror and brutality in colonial expansion and exploitation unlike anything the world has ever seen at the hands of Soviet Russia, and Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.


Lastly, while I do not approve of or condone the presence of the US and the UK in Iraq, it is absurdity to characterise the presence of UK forces in a corner of the nation as equivalent to the actions of the British in the height of their colonial days. I'm as anti-Iraq-war as anyone, but lets try and keep our comments about it at least slightly reasonable shall we?

Oh yeah, and as I have said and bears repeating... NONE of this is even vaguely related to the original topic.

I'm sorry, but in a thread baldly constructed to elicit praise for Britain, I think it is entirely apropos to come with the opposite of praise. By your account, if someone posted a thread entitled, "All the good things done by Adolf Hitler," only admirers of Hitler could legitimately post under it.

Imperialism is not, unfortunately, something that is past, but is being rapidly revived now that the Soviet Union has left the scene. In that vein, I think you perhaps misunderstand the nature of the Iraq war, which essentially repeats imperialist excursions of the past -- but with vastly increased destructive power in the hands of the oppressors. I do not think that British participation in Iraq is comparable, in scale, to past British imperialism, but do I think it is fully comparable in character, purpose and, for that matter, in lofty excuse-making. The purpose is to establish a "Coalition" Middle-Eastern military base on top of an enormous oil field, which is an imperialist reckoning on both accounts. That is not, I am aware, considered a "slightly reasonable" view by the owners of any major U.S. news and opinion-making outlet, but it is true, nonetheless. Indeed, I don't think it is possible to mount a very successful critique of the Iraq war unless the myth of U.S. benignity is questioned.

I fully agree that Britain's destructiveness of human welfare was not of a very different character than that of the other nations you mention, and I do not agree that it was any more benign. But thanks to Britain's might during most of the relevant period, its destructiveness was much vaster. And I fail entirely to see why, just because such evils are outgrowths of definite historical circumstances, anyone should refrain from criticising them, particularly since these same evils are fully manifest at present.

[Parenthetically, "human nature" can explain nothing in human history that is not the same in all periods and circumstances. And on that basis, the variety of human experience would seem to attest, it can hardly explain anything. It is more useful to look to the circumstances and see how they explain the very different things that, in various times and places, have been called "human nature." That, of course, was one of Marx's main points.]