In May 1940, the British War Cabinet debated over the course of nine meetings a simple question: Should Britain fight on in the face of overwhelming odds, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives, or seek a negotiated peace? Using Cabinet papers from the United Kingdom’s National Archives, David Owen illuminates in fascinating detail this little-known, yet pivotal, chapter in the history of World War II. Eight months into the war, defeat seemed to many a certainty. With the United States still a year and half away from entering, Britain found itself in a perilous position, and foreign secretary Lord Halifax pushed prime minister Winston Churchill to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Hitler, using Mussolini as a conduit. Speaking for England is the story of Churchill’s triumph in the face of this pressure, but it is also about how collective debate and discussion won the day—had Churchill been alone, Owen argues, he would almost certainly have lost to Halifax, changing the course of history. Instead, the Cabinet system, all too often disparaged as messy and cumbersome, worked in Britain’s interests and ensured that a democracy on the brink of defeat had the courage to fight on.
Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the cataclysm that swept the world remains the definitive history of the Second World War. Their Finest Hour recounts key events and battles from May...
Throughout these volumes, we listen as strategies and counterstrategies unfold in response to Hitler’s conquest of Europe, planned invasion of England, and assault on Russia, in a mesmerizing account of the crucial decisions made as the ...
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'1536 These were 'only words', Churchill later ...
Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939-1941
From “a master at explaining complex historical issues in an admirably clear way,” this is a “fascinating account of Churchill’s career . . . a very human portrait” (Alexander McCall Smith). “Covers his heroic exploits in India, ...
I've never felt a fighter in a fight — except, perhaps, in the moment of victory, when I experienced a savage, primitive exaltation. It's not very pleasant." Sunday, May 19, was Paul Richey 's last day of flying.
The former British prime minister describes his first year in office in 1940 and the problems he faced with World War II
After the defeat of France in May 1940, only one nation stood between Nazi Germany and total domination of Europe – Britain. This is the gripping story of Winston Churchill’s...
In this gripping day-by-day, often hour-by-hour account of how an often uncertain Churchill turned Britain around, the celebrated Bafta-winning writer Anthony McCarten exposes sides of the great man never seen before.
Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill 1939-41