<P> 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 . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> The peroration--quoted below--even at a moment of great apparent danger to British national survival talks not only of national survival and national interest, but of noble causes (freedom, Christian civilisation, the rights of small nations) for which Britain was fighting and for which Churchill thought the United States should--and given time 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"'. </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikisource has original text related to this article: Their Finest Hour </Td> </Tr> </Table>

They will say this was their finest hour