The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

election, a National Labour MP. Like Eden and Duff Cooper, he was an
anti-appeaser and a supporter of Churchill. Married to the Bloomsbury poet
and author Vita Sackville-West, he was also both well-off and wellconnected.
The previous Friday, he had gone to bed believing the Germans might
invade at any moment; he and his wife had agreed that should the country
be overrun by Germany they would both rather die and were preparing
lethal pills with which to kill themselves. As one of those trying to force
Chamberlain out, he had also been struck by the dignity with which
Chamberlain had made his resignation broadcast. ‘All the hatred I have felt
for Chamberlain,’ he noted, ‘subsides as if a piece of bread were dropped
into a glass of champagne.’
He was not alone in such thoughts. Indeed, many Conservatives were
appalled by what had happened – and by what they had done – and on that
Monday afternoon, three days into the German offensive, Chamberlain had
been cheered, not booed, as he re-entered the House. The applause for
Churchill had been muted. The Prime Minister stood up and asked the
House to approve the new Government. ‘I have nothing to offer but blood,
toil, tears, and sweat,’ he told them. ‘We have before us an ordeal of the
most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and
suffering.’ What was now their aim, he asked them rhetorically. ‘I can
answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs – Victory in spite of all
terrors – Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without
victory there is no survival.’
The House was hardly swept away by Churchill’s rhetoric. ‘Winston
makes a very short statement,’ noted Harold Nicolson, ‘but to the point.’
The formal backing of the new Government was passed without incident,
but there was no doubting the anxiety in the Commons. There were many
who now had a horrible sinking feeling that the revolution to oust
Chamberlain might have been a terrible mistake, while few doubted that
making Churchill leader in this moment of deep crisis was a massive risk
and fraught with uncertainty; it was not only the Germans who were
gambling at this time. Across the corridor in the House of Lords,
Chamberlain’s name was received with cheers and Churchill’s with silence.
Gossiping and griping was already rife amongst the corridors of Parliament,
with the new appointments being heavily criticized by many. After the vote,
Harold Nicolson talked to another Churchill supporter, Harold Macmillan,