Two Men Who Never Shook Hands

On the morning of 10 May 1940, German forces poured into the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. It was the latest and most dramatic escalation of a war that had begun the previous September, when Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany following Hitler's continued aggression despite the 1938 Munich Agreement and the March 1939 Anglo-Polish military alliance. Chamberlain, the architect of appeasement, had hoped his diplomacy might restrain Hitler. It had not.

By the spring of 1940, confidence in Chamberlain's leadership was collapsing. Germany's successful invasion of Norway triggered the Norway Debate in the House of Commons from 7 to 9 May, and when the Labour opposition forced a vote that amounted to a no-confidence motion, Chamberlain's usual majority of 213 shrank to just 81 — a survivable but shattering result.

On 9 May, Chamberlain met at Downing Street with Viscount Halifax and Winston Churchill, signaling he was ready to resign if it would bring Labour into a national coalition. Labour's Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood said they would need to consult their party's National Executive Committee, then meeting in Bournemouth, but doubted they could serve under Chamberlain himself — though another Conservative might be acceptable.

The question then became who that Conservative would be. Churchill's own account suggests Chamberlain favored Halifax, and that a long silence followed before Halifax demurred, saying he could not lead effectively from the House of Lords rather than the Commons. Halifax's own version, recorded later, said much the same: without control over war operations or a voice in the Commons, he would be 'a cypher' — and he believed Churchill 'a better choice'. Government Chief Whip David Margesson reportedly confirmed that Commons opinion was shifting toward Churchill, a sentiment echoed in a letter Bob Boothby wrote to Churchill that night, citing Liberal MP Clement Davies. Not everyone agreed — Labour's Hugh Dalton noted in his diary that Attlee still preferred Halifax, though he considered either 'tolerable'.

Then came the invasion. On the morning of 10 May, as German troops crossed into the Low Countries, Chamberlain briefly wondered whether a change of government amid such crisis was wise. But once it was clear Labour would not serve under him, he went to Buckingham Palace and resigned. King George VI, initially inclined toward Halifax as the obvious successor, instead summoned Churchill and asked him to form a government — with no requirement, in Churchill's telling, that it be a coalition. That night at nine o'clock, Chamberlain announced the change of leadership over the BBC.