military-history-of-the-united-kingdom

"At the battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon's cavalry had charged again and again upon the unbroken squares of British infantry, at last they were giving up the attempt, and going off in disorder, when some of the officers in mere vexation and complete despair fired their pistols at those solid squares."

"Waterloo: I was defeated, you won the war."

"We wait, like war-horse chafing To burst the fetters through, The word—"Up guards and at them" Of the Duke at Waterloo."

"The episode of the Falklands war will be seen as important because it convinced many people in and outside the country that we were not played out as a nation... I saw the Falklands invasion as a test of the country's confidence, a test of how the British lion still should behave when somebody really twisted its tail. The great bulk of opinion in the House of Commons reflected opinion in the country. This was a time to stand and, if need be, fight. We should be grateful for that: imagine how this country would feel now if General Galtieri was crowing in Buenos Aires and the Argentinians were still in occupation of the Falklands. What happened was a triumph for a solid British virtue which knows when to say, "Up with this I will not put"."

"What really thrilled me, having spent so much of my lifetime in Parliament, and talking about things like inflation, Social Security benefits, housing problems, environmental problems and so on, is that when it really came to the test, what's thrilled people wasn't those things, what thrilled people was once again being able to serve a great cause, the cause of liberty."

"The battle of the Falklands was a remarkable military operation, boldly planned, bravely executed, and brilliantly accomplished. We owe an enormous debt to the British forces and to the Merchant Marine. We honour them all. They have been supported by a people united in defence of our way of life and of our sovereign territory."

"The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb."

"But when you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the Queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was prime minister."

"What an unlikely pair of antagonists! The British have always fought, to be sure. No nation on Earth can be taken seriously in historical circles unless it has had at least one war with the British; it's like not having an American Express card. And yet the very idea of Britain in a contemporary war is a shock. Britain, one feels, fights in history books and not on TV."

"The Falkland Islands are once more under the government desired by their inhabitants. God save the Queen."

"The significance of the Falklands War was enormous, both for Britain's self-confidence and for our standing in the world...We had come to be seen by both friends and enemies as a nation which lacked the will and the capability to defend its interests in peace, let alone in war. Victory in the Falklands changed that. Everywhere I went after the war, Britain's name meant something more than it had. The war also had real importance in relations between East and West: years later I was told by a Russian general that the Soviets had been firmly convinced that we would not fight for the Falklands, and that if we did fight we would lose. We proved them wrong on both counts, and they did not forget the fact."

"With Christian faith I pray that those who are today our adversaries may understand their error in time and may deeply reflect before persisting in a stance which is rejected by all the free peoples in the world and by all those who had their territory mutiliated and endured colonialism and exploitation."

"The Empire Strikes Back."