Their Finest Hour

In rhetoric, “logos” is an appeal to logic. In making his case for Patriotism in Dark Times, Churchill relies partly on data and reasoned argumentation to persuade listeners that his call to fight on against one of the largest and best-equipped modern armies is well founded and that victory is possible. For example, he notes exactly how many troops Britain managed to rescue from Dunkirk: “[T]he seven-eighths of the troops we have sent to France since the beginning of the war—that is to say, about 350,000 out of 400,000 men—are safely back in this country” (Paragraph 4). These hard numbers both testify to the success of the campaign and seek to reassure listeners that Britain has many troops at its disposal. Similarly, he speaks of the preparations Britain has made to protect the country’s shores by installing a system of minefields along the beaches—a fact that gives listeners reason to believe an invasion of the island would be difficult.

Churchill at times walks listeners through his own logic to make his argument more compelling. For example, after describing the success British pilots enjoyed during the evacuation at Dunkirk, he lays out the reasons why they will likely be even more successful fighting over England itself: