Lessons from "The Darkest Hour"

My wife and I don’t go to many movies.  Nonetheless, we went out of our way to see The Darkest Hour.  We were not disappointed.  Not only was it well-crafted and riveting entertainment, but it highlighted lessons the current generation ought to learn.

The film is about the beginning of World War II.  The Nazis had already invaded Poland, which triggered England into declaring war.  Yet for months, very little happened.  In the west, the allies faced off against the Germans at the Maginot Line, with few shots fired.  This was the so-called “phony war.”

In the east, Germany and the Soviet Union carved up Poland.  Their non-aggression pact then foreclosed further hostilities.  One of the few acts of war was a British expeditionary force to Norway, which had also been invaded by Hitler.

The following May, the logjam broke.  In a Blitzkrieg strike, the Nazis sliced through Belgium and threatened to flank the French defenses.  Their tanks and planes could not be stopped.  Much to the surprise of the British, their own forces were no match for these furious assaults. 

In this emergency, the English Parliament turned to Winston Churchill.  He had been one of the few voices to sound the alarm as Hitler rose to power.  While First Lord of the Admiralty, his Norway initiative was likewise one of the few acts of UK aggressiveness.

As a result, the Labor Party demanded that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resign.  His administration had been so inept that he was not trusted to run the war.  Churchill’s belligerence seemed better suited to this task.

Despite the hesitation of most Conservatives, there seemed little choice.  And so, in the face of imminent defeat, Churchill took over.  He was immediately confronted with a crisis.  Nearly the entire British army was in danger of being surrounded and wiped out.

The question was what to do?  Chamberlain and his ally Lord Halifax wanted to sue for peace.  They were prepared to accept nearly any Hitlerian condition that might prevent a bloody trouncing.  Indeed, they insisted that Churchill comply with their desires.

Chamberlain had learned nothing from Munich.  When he allowed the Germans to march unopposed into the Czech Sudetenland, he assumed he had brokered “peace in our times.”  When Hitler soon gobbled up the rest of Czechoslovakia and then Poland, his position remained essentially unchanged.

Chamberlain believed in appeasement.  He believed in placating aggression at Munich.  He believed in doing so as British forces fell back in Belgium.  Only allowing the assailants to get what they wanted could presumably prevent further tragedies.

Although Churchill was inclined to fight, he too had doubts.  What if England lost?  What if the casualties became catastrophic?  Might it not be better to accept defeat and struggle on under the Nazi yoke?  In the end, of course, he decided that standing up to tyranny was the only honorable recourse.

So what about us?  We too are threatened by hostile powers.  Even puny North Korea warns that it will reduce us to ashes.  Many Americans therefore insist that we not adopt a military option.  Violence, they claim, is more dangerous than accepting nuclear blackmail.

In fact, Barack Obama had a penchant for appeasement.  Not only did he do nothing to stop the North Koreans, he was passive in his response to Russian aggression in Syria and the Ukraine.  Nor did he interfere with the Chinese asserting their primacy in the South China Sea.

Even more distressingly, he capitulated to Iranian truculence.  He eagerly sought an agreement that would enable the mullahs to become a nuclear power in little more than a decade.  This was to be his “legacy.”

Furthermore, not only did Obama circle the globe to apologize for American power, he crippled our military.  He would make sure we could not begin any wars by leveling our capacity to that of our enemies.  If we were weak, we could not arrogantly assert our might.

Now Trump is challenging this appeasement mentality.  Will Churchill’s example do anything to aid him in this quest?  When my wife and I were in the theater, it was packed.  And yet almost all of those in attendance were older folks.  Do the up-coming generations, I wonder, have any idea about the perils of excessive international conciliation?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University