Churchill Takes Command: Britain Faces Nazi Threat Alone

Winston Churchill became Prime Minister on the worst possible day. On May 10, 1940, as he accepted King George VI's invitation to form a government, German forces launched their invasion of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The man who had spent a decade warning about Hitler from the political wilderness assumed power at the precise moment his warnings came true. Neville Chamberlain resigned after a disastrous parliamentary debate on the failed British campaign in Norway. The Norway Debate, held May 7-8, saw Chamberlain's majority collapse from over 200 to just 81 as Conservative backbenchers revolted. Leo Amery hurled Cromwell's words at the prime minister: "In the name of God, go!" Chamberlain tried to retain power by forming a national coalition, but the Labour Party refused to serve under him. The choice came down to Churchill or Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary favored by the Conservative establishment. Halifax, recognizing that a prime minister in the House of Lords would be ineffective during wartime, withdrew his candidacy in a meeting at 10 Downing Street on May 9. Churchill later described the long silence that followed Chamberlain's question about who should succeed him. Halifax spoke first, ruling himself out. Churchill, for once, said nothing. The next morning, the king summoned him. Churchill was 65 years old and had been excluded from government for most of the 1930s, considered a brilliant but erratic figure whose judgment could not be trusted. His warnings about German rearmament had been dismissed as warmongering. His record included the Gallipoli disaster of 1915, an authoritarian response to the General Strike of 1926, and fierce opposition to Indian self-governance. Three days after taking office, Churchill delivered his first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." Within six weeks, France had fallen, the British army had been evacuated from Dunkirk, and Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany. Churchill's refusal to consider a negotiated peace, overruling Halifax and others in the War Cabinet, was the single most consequential decision of the Second World War.