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// Darkness Descending 
// Story: Equestria at War: The Voices of War 
// by Phantom Wing 
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Darkness Descending

A new war has started for one of the allies of Equestria. The Griffish Isles regained their independence from Equestria some time ago and have since become a vast empire. However, that empire is now threatened. Germaney has conquered Belgian, the Witherlands, and Prance. The Griffish Isles tried to assist Prance when the invasion happened, but they were quickly pushed back to the sea. 400,000 ponies of the Griffish Expeditionary Force were trapped and were nearly destroyed in Prance. Yet, thanks to the bravery of many civilian ponies, almost all of them were rescued.
However, troubles were not over yet for the Griffish Isles. The leader of Germaney's Third Reich, Schwert Eifer, demanded the complete and total surrender of the Griffish Isles. The Prime Minister of the Griffish Isles, Winter Quill, in response to the evacuation of the army and in response to Eifer, responded in a public broadcast to the world from the House of Commons. The entire world is listening.
"From the moment that the Prench defenses were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat could have saved the Griffish and Prench Armies who had entered Belgian at the appeal of the Belgian King; but this strategic fact was not immediately realized. The Prench High Command hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the Armies of the north were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian Army of over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgian. Therefore, when the force and scope of the Germane penetration were realized and when a new Prench Generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the Prench and Griffish Armies in Belgian to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created Prench Army which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it.

However, the Germane eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the right and rear of the Armies of the north. Eight or nine armored divisions, each of about four hundred armored vehicles of different kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into small self-contained units, cut off all communications between us and the main Prench Armies. It severed our own communications for food and ammunition. Behind this armored and mechanized onslaught came a number of Germane divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary Germane Army and Germane ponies, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own.

I have said this armored scythe-stroke almost reached Dunkirk-almost but not quite. Boulogne and Calais were the scenes of desperate fighting. The Guards defended Boulogne for a while and were then withdrawn by orders from this country. The Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the Queen Rifles, with a battalion of Griffish tanks, and 1,000 Prench ponies, in all about four thousand strong, defended Calais to the last. The Griffish Brigadier was given an hour to surrender. He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street fighting passed before silence reigned over Calais, which marked the end of a memorable resistance. Only 30 unwounded survivors were brought off by the Navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain. At least two armored divisions, which otherwise would have been turned against the Griffish Expeditionary Force, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to the glories of the light divisions, and the time gained enabled the Graveline water lines to be flooded and to be held by the Prench troops.

Thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open. When it was found impossible for the Armies of the north to reopen their communications with the main Prench Armies, only one choice remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The Belgian, Griffish, and Prench Armies were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a single port and to its neighboring beaches. They were pressed on every side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the air.

When, a week ago today, I asked the House to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I thought-and some good judges agreed with me-that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 ponies might be re-embarked. But it certainly seemed that the whole of the Prench First Army and the whole of the Griffish Expeditionary Force north of the Amiens-Amberville gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the House and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the Griffish Army, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great Griffish Armies in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving captivity.

That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The King of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this Ruler and his Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the Prench and Griffish Armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgian but perhaps even Polend. Yet at the last moment, when Belgian was already invaded, the King of Belgian called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the Germane Command, surrendered his Army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.

I asked the House a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the Griffish at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest Army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anypony who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the Griffish and two out of the three corps forming the First Prench Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast.

The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous Air Force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of hostile aircraft, sometimes more than a hundred strong in one formation, to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the sand dunes upon which the troops had their only shelter. Their U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense struggle reigned. All their armored divisions-or what was left of them-together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix within which the Griffish and Prench Armies fought.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the Griffish and Allied troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our ponies carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always ponies whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage. The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of Griffish and Prench wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the stallions and mares on board them never faltered in their duty.

Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the Germane bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment-but only for the moment-died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy was hurled back by the retreating Griffish and Prench troops. He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously. The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the Germane Air Force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the Navy, using nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, Prench and Griffish, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the Air Force. Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the Air Force at work; they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it.

This was a great trial of strength between the Griffish and Germane Air Forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germanes in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands? Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the Army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted.

When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the air above this Island against an overseas attack, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young airstallions. The great Prench Army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armored vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airstallions? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that:

Every morn brought forth a noble chance
And every chance brought forth a noble knight,
deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave stallions who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and 	continue ready to give life and all for their native land.

Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in Prance and Belgian is a colossal military disaster. The Prench Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy’s possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at Prance. We are told that Herr Eifer has a plan for invading the Griffish Isles. This has often been thought of before. 

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The Griffish Empire and the Prench Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Prance, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Griffish Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Faust’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
The entire hall erupted with monstrous cheers of applause. Across every nation who heard the speech it was the same. Allied nations were cheering for them. There was a different feeling in Germaney. In Berglin, Schwert Eifer was furious and determined to see the Griffish Isles fall. But he was at the same time nervous. 
While Equestria was remaining neutral at this time, many cheers of support were heard in their cities. In Canterlot, Celestia and Luna knew that Mr. Quill meant what he said and they provide  whatever support they could for him.