P.O.D: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1940, is killed during first month of the Blitz in September 1940.
1940
The death of Churchill in the September 1940 to the hands of the Luftwaffe came as an unexpected shock to both the leadership and public of the British Empire and her Commonwealth. Tributes poured in from all over the world, from Chiang Kai-Shek of the Republic of China to FDR in the White House. Official declarations of condolences became synonymous with an announcement of support for the British Empire in the ensuing struggle with Hitler.
The procedure for the swift replacement of Churchill was devised by the late Prime Minister's private secretary Sir John Colville. Named the "Colville Plan", the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, Jan Smuts, was summoned to Windsor Castle within the day at the behest of His Majesty George VI. Here in a quickly assembled ceremony Smuts was made Baron Natal and appointed the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The opening speech of Smuts to the House of Commons was a short affair. The Daily Telegraph reported that "[Smuts] appeared full of a vigor, aggression, and drive that masked his age". In the midst of controversy at Smuts history as a combatant against the British in the Second Boer War. Nevertheless the inaugural speech of this new face of the Empire would become known as the "Speech of the Humble Subject".
| “ | I come before this ancient pillar of democracy as a humble subject. A subject of a community that is the greatest force for decency and advancement this species has ever produced...
This Empire of Britons is facing a paramount challenge. At stake is the future of humanity, if we alone perish, so does the work from countless generations of great men and women before us... The rage that fills all of us when we see in the film reels and newspapers the actions of the Nazis will we channel into unprecedented violence until all strains of fascism is purged from the planet. No more will drop mere leaflets on the Reich, we shall only deliver to them cold steel and hellish fire. It shall be God's work to have mercy upon them, we will give none." |
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