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After the Nazis drove the British army from the European continent at Dunkirk and obtained France’s surrender in June of 1940, the Germans were certain that victory in Europe was at hand and that Great Britain would seek a peace agreement. France also believed that was true. French General Maxime Weygand told Charles de Gaulle, who was a colonel at the time, ‘When I’ve been beaten there, England won’t wait a week before negotiating with the Reich.”

But the Germans and French underestimated the commitment of Winston Churchill, who had become England’s prime minister in May, and the resolve of the British people. Churchill knew what was at stake in the conflict, as evidenced by his remarks at the time:

"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'”

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