Blood, sweat and tears

Great Britain officially entered the war on September 3, 1939 after the German invasion of Poland. On the same day, Winston Churchill was invited to take the post of First Lord of the Admiralty in the Chamberlain government. On May 8, 1940, despite a formal vote of confidence, Chamberlain decided to resign due to sharp criticism of the cabinet’s policies and a small (81 vote) vote advantage. The most suitable candidates were Churchill and Lord Halifax . On May 9, at a meeting attended by Chamberlain, Churchill, Lord Halifax, and parliamentary coordinator of the government, David Margesson, Halifax resigned, and on May 10, 1940, George VI officially appointed Churchill as Prime Minister.

Churchill was determined to continue the war until victory, despite the fact that a number of members of his cabinet, including the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lord Halifax, advocated an attempt to reach agreements with Nazi Germany. On May 13, 1940, he delivered a speech in the House of Commons, outlining his future policies.

The following is an excerpt from the concluding part of the speech.

To form an Administration of this scale and complexity is a serious undertaking in itself, but it must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many other points in Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous and that many preparations, such as have been indicated by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, have to be made here at home. In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: " I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. "

Quoted from : Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat (Neopr.) . The Churchill Center.

There is an audio version of Churchill's speech, slightly different from the above transcript ^{[1] [2]} . In particular, the following introduction is missing:

I beg to move, That this House welcomes the formation of a Government representing the united and inflexible resolve of the nation to prosecute the war with Germany to a victorious conclusion.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears is the first of three speeches delivered by Winston Churchill to the British Parliament during the French Axis campaign . On June 4, 1940, he delivered his second speech, “ We will fight on the beaches ” ( Eng. We shall fight on the beaches ), and on June 18, with the speech “ Their Finest Hour ” ( Eng. Their Finest Hour ). The latter is considered among them the most striking ^[3] .

The expression, taken as the heading of speech, in various forms has been encountered before. For example, the phrase “sweat and blood” was used by Cicero , similar lines are found in the poem of John Donne in 1611, and in Byron , and repeatedly in Churchill himself, for example, in an article on the war in Spain ^{[4] [5] [6]} . John Lukas suggests that Churchill borrowed the phrase from Garibaldi , whose biography he was going to write in his youth ^[7] , and Martin Walker calls it a direct quotation of the speech of Theodore Roosevelt to the cadets of the Naval College on June 2, 1897 ^{[8] [9]} .

• The Churchill Center: Speeches