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On 18 June 1940, barely a month after taking office, Winston Churchill delivered the famous "this was their finest hour" speech.

It was the third of three speeches made during the Battle for France in the early period of the Second World War.

The others were the "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech of 13 May 1940, and the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech of 4 June 1940.

• Listen to an exerpt of the speech - mp3

Recording taken, with permission, from the British Library CD 'Voices Of History'. ISBN 0-7123-4325-3. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London on behalf of The Estate of Winston Churchill.

Read the Transcript:

"During the last four years....during the...I should say during the first four years of the last war - 1914 to 1918 - the Allies experienced nothing but disaster and disappointment. That was our constant fear: one blow after another ;and terrible losses; and frightful danger; and everything miscarried.

And yet at the end of those four years the morale of the Allies was higher than that of the Germans, who had moved from one aggressive triumph to another, and who stood everywhere triumphant invaders of the lands into which they had broken. During that war we repeatedly asked ourselves this question: 'How are we going to win?'. And I do not remember that anyone was able to answer it with much precision' until at the end quite suddenly and unexpectedly our terrible foe collapsed before us. And were so gourged and glutted with victory that in our folly we threw it all away.

We do not know, yet, what will happen in France. Or whether the French resistance will be prolonged, both in France and in the French Empire overseas. Or whether it will only be prolonged in the French Empire overseas. The French Government will be throwing away great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not continue the war in accordance with their treaty obligations for which we have not felt able to relieve them.

I dare say you saw in the newspapers this morning the historic declaration, in which, at the desire of many Frenchmen and of our own hearts, we have proclaimed our willingness, at this darkest hour in French history to conclude a union of common citizenship in this struggle. However matters may go in France or with the French Government or other French Governments, we in this island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people.

If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage. And if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gain. Aye, more freedom shall be restored to all; we abate nothing of our just demands, not one jot of tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch and Belgians shall join the causes with our own. All these shall be restored.

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our constitutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

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 freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. 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, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, 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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