alt=An old, wrinkled man with a turtle-like appearance wearing a helmet that is more of a sombrero|thumb|294x294px|[[Winston Churchill|Churchill, protected by a military helmet, in 1940]]

"Blood, toil, tears and sweat" was a phrase made famous in a speech given by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 13 May 1940; the speech itself is sometimes known by that name.

Background

This was Churchill's first speech since becoming prime minister. It was made on 13 May 1940 to the House of Commons after having been offered the King's commission the previous Friday, to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the first year of World War II. Churchill had replaced Neville Chamberlain on 10 May, and in this speech he asked the House to declare its confidence in his Government. The motion passed unanimously. and "new structures of national life erected upon blood, sweat, and tears" in 1939. The circumstances under which Garibaldi made that speech—with the revolutionary Roman Republic being overwhelmed and Garibaldi needing to maintain the morale of his troops towards a highly hazardous retreat through the Apennine Mountains—was in some ways comparable to Britain's situation with France being overwhelmed by the German offensive.

Theodore Roosevelt had uttered a phrase similar to Churchill's in an address to the United States Naval War College on 2 June 1897, following his appointment as federal Assistant Secretary of the Navy: "Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph." Churchill's line has been called a "direct quotation" from Roosevelt's speech. Churchill, a man with an American mother and a keen soldier, was likely to have read works by Theodore Roosevelt, who was a widely published military historian; it is also possible he read the speech after being appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, a position similar to Roosevelt's.

Other versions of the phrase are "It [poetry] is forged slowly and painfully, link by link, with blood and sweat and tears" (Lord Alfred Douglas, 1919), "Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions" (Lord Byron, 1823), and "... mollifie/ It with thy teares, or sweat, or blood" (John Donne, 1611).

Excerpts

Reaction

Churchill had not been the preferred choice of most Conservatives to succeed Chamberlain, but the motion on 13 May "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" passed unanimously.

Churchill himself, however, subsequently held that many Conservative MPs had still regarded him with reserve and it was not until his speech of 4 July 1940 announcing British action against the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir that he could feel he had the full support of the whole House. Other great speeches followed, including the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech of 4 June and the "This was their finest hour" speech of 18 June.

Legacy

On 26 April 2013, the Bank of England announced that beneath a portrait of Churchill the phrase "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" was to adorn the new 5-pound note. It was issued in September 2016.

See also

  • "We shall fight on the beaches"
  • "Never was so much owed by so many to so few"

References

Further reading

  • John Lukacs, Five Days in London: May 1940 (Yale University, New Haven, 2001) is a good look at the political situation in the British government when Churchill made this speech
  • The Churchill Centre: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat , with a short introduction
  • Transcription and MP3 recording