British Hearts Calm, Resolution Firm

Northern Advocate, 29 May 1940, Page 6

British Hearts Calm, Resolution Firm

Dark Days Of 1914 Lesson For Today (Received 1.80 p.m.) RUGBY, May 28. THE MINISTER FOR INFORMATION (MR. A. DUFF COOPER), IN A BROADCAST, RECALLED HOW A WEEK AGO HE HAD SPOKEN OF THE DANGER IN WHICH THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE STOOD, AND HOW HE HAD CONTENDED THAT EVEN IF THE ALLIES LOST THIS BATTLE THEY WOULD NOT HAVE LOST THE WAR. He recalled these words tonight- when Hie danger of the British Expeditionary Force was great indeed, and he would recall also other dark days in the last war. They would all remember the retreat from Mons, when, day after day, weary British forces staggered down th# roads of France with the German Army pressing on their heels. They would all remember in the following year how the Germans first used poison gas, and the Allied soldiers had no defence against it. and it seemed the enemy would carry all before him.

All Prelude to Victory. ] They could remember the submar-1 ine campaign of 1917, when the enemy were sinking one out of every four j ships that sailed from, or to, Britain, j They could remember, too, the last | great offensive of March, 1918, which j for many days drove all before it. j “On each of these occasions it J seemed to many of the fainthearted that the war was lost, but it never was —and all these events which seemed disastrous at the time proved but a prelude to victory,” he said. After warning the public against Nazi propaganda, which still sought to divide the British and French, Mr Duff Cooper turned to the military position. “The enemy have succeeded in forcing their way through the lines of the Allies, and have reached the sea, but the armies of the Allies have not been defeated, and whenever we have met the enemy, whether on land or sea or in the air, we have proved our superiority. “It will be necessary to do our utmost to withdraw our army from the position they now occupy, but it will not be a defeated army we shall withdraw. Army Hungry to Fight. “It will be an army whose courage is still high and whose confidence is still unshaken, and in which every officer and man is still burning with the desire to meet the enemy in combat. “The army knows how we have driven the German ships from the sea, and how the German Air Force repeatedly; although in superior numbers, turned tail before us in the air, and the army is hungry for an opportunity of meeting the German soldiers on the field. “That opportunity will come in due course.” Standard of Liberty. The Minister concluded: “The standard of liberty is still flying high, and under it are the massed armies of the British Commonwealth and the French Republic. “Towards the same standard are flocking the remnants of the fighting forces of those unhappy countries upon whom has descended -the horror of German tyranny—Czechs and Poles, Norwegians and Dutch—yes, and Belgians, too—are still desperately desirous of fighting for the freedom that their countries have lost. “And on that flag of liberty are fixed the anxious eyes of all free men all over the world. “They know it is their emblem as much as it is ours, and they tremble to think it could ever be pulled down. They weed not tremble. Their cause is safe. “We are not vain-glorious and will not boast, but our hearts are calm and our resolution firm.” The Minister will attend meetings of the War Cabinet, in order that he may be informed of high decisions, says a Press Association message.