19401776 Club
Chamberlain quits; Churchill is summoned to the Palace as Germany crosses three borders
Labour refused to serve under Chamberlain, Halifax ruled himself out, and the King sent for the man who spent the decade calling appeasement a catastrophe in the making.
Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands on the morning of May 10, 1940 — the same morning Neville Chamberlain went to Buckingham Palace to resign. Labour had refused to serve under him; the Norway Debate had stripped away his parliamentary majority; and Halifax, the other candidate, had ruled himself out by noting that a prime minister in the House of Lords could not govern effectively. Chamberlain advised the King to send for Winston Churchill, and the man who had spent the decade warning that appeasement would end in catastrophe was now the one who had to prevent it…
