The Written Word
for May 10, 2000

This is an interesting day in history. 60 years ago the Wermacht poured over the German borders with France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. This happened in the midst of a great debate in the British House of Commons on the conduct of the war by the Chamberlain Tory government. The evening before there had been a confidence vote which was carried by the huge Tory majority but with over 80 Tory abstentions. It had seen a staunch Tory supporter and sometime cabinet Minister Leo Amery use Cromwell’s cry to the Rump Parliament "For the sake of God go’. When Labour frontbencher Arthur Greenwood got up to speak it was the same Amery who shouted "speak for England, Arthur."

The exercise was not without its irony for the main bone of contention was the campaign in Norway, prodded on by Winston Churchill, who would be the beneficiary of the debate so very critical of this effort. Tory MP Sir Roger Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet, attended the session in full dress uniform and fully medaled to castigate the government - it was quite a show.

The day of May 10, 1940, started with the German invasion and ended with the appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister.

Not only was this choice inspired, it was also mildly incredible. All his life Churchill had fought socialism and the Labour Party yet, in another of life’s delicious ironies, it was the Labour Party that made him Premier and sustained him in office in the terrible weeks that followed.

Churchill was hated by the rank and file Labourites who believed, quite wrongly that as Home Secretary before World War I he had sent troops in the Welsh of Tonypandy and had brutally suppressed a coal miners’ strike. To the contrary, Churchill with considerabl skill brought order through using the Metropolitian London Police, holding the army some miles away, in reserve.

During the General Strike in 1926 Churchill published and edited, on behalf of the government, the British Tribune which did much to turn public opinion away from the strikers.

The Tories disliked Churchill with even greater venom. It was he, after all, who had switched from the Tories to the Liberals at the turn of the century and whose re-entry into government in the 20s as Chancellor of the Exchequer left many bitter tastes in many Tory mouths. He was seen by the "peace party" as the cause of the war because of what they saw as bellicose speeches leading up to the war’s beginning. He also, against parliament, his party and the people generally had supported King Edward VIII in the national crisis caused by his wish to marry a twice divorced American. Most of all, many Tories despised Churchill because he’s been right about Hitler, Germany and the Nazia and while you’ll be forgiven for being wrong, seldom if ever for being right.

As German troops poured into France and the Lowlands, the Tories were searching for a solution to the badly disunited Tory party and Chamberlain, after finally admitting he had to go, then had to advise the King whom to send for.

The King’s preference was Lord Halifax, an appeaser whose second handicap was that he was a member of the House of Lords and no one had been Prime Minister from the Upper Chamber since the Marquis of Salisbury in Victorian times. But it all came down to the Labour Party which, under Clement Attlee, refused to join a coalition under Halifax. They would, however, support Churchill not because they cared much for the man but they saw in him a winner and a man of enormous courage and energy.

When Churchill went into the House of Commons the next day for the first time as Prime Minister he received a great ovation and waving of order papers from the Labour benches but cold silence from the government side.

The rest is history. Churchill saw the great evacuation at Dunkirk, a deliverance nigh unto a miracle and then had to fight the efforts of his divided cabinet to make peace with Hitler. He did make that peace, of course, but it was 5 years later almost to the day and it was with Grand Admiral Doenitz who had replaced Hitler and the peace was on Churchill’s terms.

May 10, 1940 – probably the pivotal day of the 20^th century as the man who was to save the free world with his courage, example and leadership was reluctantly pushed into #10 Downing Street,*

* This is not quite accurate for Churchill let the ill and soon to be dead Neville Chamberlain stay at #10 while he and Clemmy stayed on at Admiralty House, a generosity of spirit for which Churchill was rightly so famous.