Shakespeare and Churchill at War

Henry V and Hamlet were often invoked by the English, French and Germans during the First World War. The plays were performed by troops, read by officers before a battle, and even featured in political cartoons. 

During World War I, Henry V in particular was re-imagined as a play showing the long relationship between England and France, especially as 1915 marked the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt fought by Henry V. English troops performed scenes from the play in France, highlighting the union of the two countries by the marriage of Henry with French princess Katherine. They also performed Hamlet, rousing the audience of soldiers with an appearance of Henry V at the end reciting “Once more unto the breach, dear friends.” In an odd coincidence, both the English and German presses reported that their officers read Hamlet to satirize both Churchill and American President Woodrow Wilson. And Churchill himself cites Hamlet against what he saw as delaying tactics employed by the Admiral of the Fleet in 1915. 

The notion of the world as a stage is older than Shakespeare, but he immortalized the thought in this famous speech given by Jacques in As You Like It. Churchill’s speeches in World War II often echo the theme of one person having many parts to play. 

During the darkest days of 1941, when the Royal Air Force was heavily attacking German cities but losing many pilots, Churchill spoke to students at Harrow. He asked to change a line in the school song from “Nor less we praise in darker days,” to “sterner days.” “These are not dark days,” he said, “these are great days,” and we should be thankful “that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part.” Again, in December of 1941, Churchill echoed the idea of everyone playing a part in the war effort in a speech to the Canadian Parliament: “The mine, the factory, the dockyard … the chair of the scientist, the pulpit of the preacher – from the highest to the humblest tasks, all are of equal honour; all have their part to play.” 

At the height of the Battle of Britain in August 1940, Churchill pronounced some of his most famous speeches of the war. His moving and defiant words were reminiscent of the speech by Shakespeare’s Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt. 

Churchill was very moved during a visit to the operations room at Uxbridge, which was tracking the course of the Battle of Britain. He said to General Ismay, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” A few days later he used the phrase in a speech to the House of Commons, making it one of his most famous speeches of the war. 

Another famous speech occurred two months earlier, after the rescue of British forces from Dunkirk. Churchill rallied the nation with defiant words worthy of Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt on St. Crispin’s day. Henry said, “And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, / From this day to the ending of the world,/ But we in it shall be rememberèd” (Act 4, Scene 3, Lines 59-61). Churchill echoed him: “if the British Empire … lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” 

As World War II ground on, the British Ministry of Information called on Churchill’s friend and famous actor, Laurence Olivier, to help make films that supported the morale of the British people in those dark hours. The most well-known of these films is Henry V, which opened right after the D-Day landings in 1944. Olivier later said, “I don’t think we could have won the war without ‘Once more unto the breach …’ somewhere in our soldiers’ hearts.” The film was dedicated “To the Commandos and Airborne Troops of Great Britain,” and was admired by Churchill, who saw himself as a kind of modern Henry V, leading Britain to victory. Churchill watched the film at his official country home, Chequers, in November 1944 and “went into ecstasies about it,” according to his private secretary.