Churchill's slashing attack on Nazis, Hitler called a 'cornered maniac' (1939)

It had been his second broadcast since hostilities had commenced.

The First Lord of the Admiralty predicted that “if we come through the winter without any large or important event occurring that Britain will have gained the first campaign of the war” and “we shall be able to set about our task in the spring far stronger, better organised, and better armed than ever before”.

He added: “We are far stronger now than we were ten weeks ago,far better prepared to endure the worst malice of Hitler than at the beginning of September”.

Churchill noted that: “Important events have moved in our favour - Italy has preserved a strict neutrality; no quarrel has developed between Britain and Japan; no one can underrate the importance of the Franco-British treaty with Turkey. The left paw of the Russian bear bars Germany from the Black Sea and the right paw disputes with her the control of the Baltic. They must conquer the British Empire and the French Republic or perish.”

Now, he added, “these boastful and bullying Nazis” had turned their fierce but also “rather, as it seemed hesitating”, glare upon Holland and Belgium.

He said: “I shall not attempt to prophesy whether the frenzy of a cornered maniac will drive Herr Hitler into the worst of all his crimes, but this I will say without a doubt, that the fate of Holland and Belgium, like that of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria, will be decided by the victory of the British Empire and the French Republic.”

He added: “If we are conquered all will be enslaved, and the United States will be left single-handed to guard the rights of man.

"If we are not destroyed, all these countries will be rescued and, after being rescued, be restored to life and freedom.

“The whole world is against Hitler and Hitlerism,” declared Mr Churchill. “The Nazis have not one friendly eye.”