Churchill's sentence, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat", has been called a paraphrase of one uttered on 2 July 1849 by Giuseppe Garibaldi when rallying his revolutionary forces in Rome: "I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battle, and death." As a young man, Churchill had considered writing a biography of Garibaldi.[4] The circumstances under which Garibaldi made that speech—with the revolutionary Roman Republic being overwhelmed and Garibaldi needing to maintain the morale of his troops towards a highly hazardous retreat through the Apennine mountains—was in some ways comparable to Britain's situation with France being overwhelmed by the German offensive.