Talk:1940 British war cabinet crisis

What is an "outer cabinet"?
The article doesn't explain what an "outer cabinet" is.148.75.173.19 (talk) 02:51, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Correction or clarification about Labour coalition needed
The implication is that Attlee consulted the Labour conference at Bournemouth in order to get their authority to go into coalition. But the conference wasn't in session as currently stated; it didn't start till 13th May. Elsewhere I read that Attlee spoke only to some leading Labour figures at Bournemouth, who had presumably come down early. I think this needs clarifying but am not sure whether there's a mistake in the Roy Jenkins biography of Churchill, which is the cited reference for all this. The article on Lord Halifax has the same issue. asnac (talk) 09:46, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Jenkins page 586: "The Labour Party was about to hold its annual conference at Bournemouth. The full conference was not to meet until the Monday. But the National Executive Committee, in those days a very powerful body, assembled early for a series of intensive pre-conference meetings. The Labour party, an organization devoted to maintaining the rules of procedure, was not going to allow its habits to be upset by matters like defeat in Norway or the beginning of a Blitzkrieg a little more than a hundred miles away across the Channel. Attlee and his party took the 11.34 a.m. train from Waterloo Station to Bournemouth, duly assembled in a basement room of the Tollard Royal Hotel and, according to Dalton, although some members talked too much through over-excitement, an unanimous decision was reached with reasonable expedition. Attlee telephoned his bulletin to Downing Street at 5.00 p.m. Labour would serve in a coalition government, but not under Chamberlain. They would accept another Conservative Prime Minister, but they expressed no formal preference between Halifax and Churchill, the only effective possibilities. Upon receipt of the message Chamberlain went to Buckingham Palace, tendered his resignation and advised the King to send for Churchill, who was Prime Minister by six o'clock on the evening of Friday, 10 May." DuncanHill (talk) 13:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Jenkins has it right, Andrew Roberts has it wrong and says that the Labour Conference was in session (a minor error, in the great scheme of things) in his biography of Halifax. So I suspect it came from the latter. However, 9 May 1940 is a very confused day with lots of discrepancies between primary accounts as to the timings of meetings (and I don't just mean Churchill's embellished account, misdated to the following day).Paulturtle (talk) 13:08, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Colville in his diary entry for 10 May says that Attlee and Greenwood had made it clear (previous day) that they thought it unlikely their executive would agree to their serving under the PM. He later says Attlee phoned Chamberlain at about 4.45. Colville therefore verifies Jenkins. The NEC met on the Friday and the conference on the Monday. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:04, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * And it is further verified by Nicholas Shakespeare in his Six Minutes in May. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:24, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Bad article
Bits and pieces. Complete lack of co-ordination and of thorough research. I suspect it has been "hit" by people who have picked up the aforesaid bits and pieces from the Gary Oldman film. Needs a complete rewrite. No Great Shaker (talk) 22:52, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, NGS (above unsigned!). It has need a complete overhaul for years. A good job for someone with the energy to do it. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:43, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I must have mis-hit the signature. Thank you for confirming my views about this article. No Great Shaker (talk) 22:52, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I think the main problem is misuse of the Roberts book used in isolation for the whole period of 25 to 28 May. Other sources need to be consulted and the narrative re-written in these sections. No Great Shaker (talk) 19:59, 7 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Nothing wrote with Roberts (1991) so long as his arguments are treated with caution. It is a scholarly book, using a wide range of primary sources, and praised by Roy Jenkins (before "fame and ideology went to Roberts's head", he says). However, the article was butchered in summer 2018 in one of the worst feeding frenzies of ignorant and lazy drive-by editors I've ever seen. Still, we are where we are.Paulturtle (talk) 15:20, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Informal review
In response to a request on my talk page, I'd like to offer some comments on this article.
 * The first para in the lead isn't very 'punchy' - start by making it clear that the Cabinet was split on whether Britain should make terms with Germany or keep fighting. Agreed and done.
 * " that government would have sought terms, similar to those imposed on France" - is this true? I doubt a Halifax Government would have agreed to Germany occupying most British territory, for example. Good point. That was a bit speculative so I've made it more realistic around what might have happened with us out of the war.
 * The background section probably needs to start earlier, to note the pre-war and early war differences on whether the UK should resist or accommodate Germany - in particular, regarding the views held by Churchill, Halifax and the Labour Party. Yes, I'll look at that and mention appeasement, etc.
 * It would also be helpful for the background section to make the UK's military position clear - while the Army was small and at great risk in France, the UK remained a military superpower with very powerful naval and air forces, and a huge industrial base. Will need some good sources but it's certainly useful.
 * The article is much too reliant on primary sources as references. Given that there's a large and high quality secondary literature on this topic, there should be little need to cite primary sources. This will need a bit of work but can do.
 * Doing so could also help to reduce the length of the article, which is too long due to the amount of detail on who said what. This leads to the nature of the crisis and how it was resolved being obscured. As above.
 * The description of the Battle of France in the 'War situation to Friday, 24 May' section is a bit too patchy - it would be better to say that the Allies were outmanoeuvred, and the British and French forces in Belgium and Northern France were forced back but (just) managed to maintain coherence. Yes, good point. Will do.
 * The material on the post-war historiography of these events is rather brief. And that can easily be expanded. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Nick-D, and thank you for your comments above. I should have more time for the site now so I'll start looking at these points in detail and see if I can knock this difficult, but interesting, article into shape. Thanks again. No Great Shaker (talk) 15:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I've made a start, Nick, and will work towards the rest in due course. Thanks again for all your help. No Great Shaker (talk) 09:27, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

This review, as with the PR review just concluded was done with an WP:FAC application in mind but I think that a GA review would also be useful so I am placing the article at GA for the time being. No Great Shaker (talk) 18:59, 15 December 2019 (UTC)


 * A lot of work done, obviously. However, still a lot needs to be said and done about other (primary) sources and historians. Annoyingly, my computer is off at the repair shop at the moment (I'm writing this in a public library after catching up on some other stuff!) which makes it a bit hard for me to post but will post some comments as soon as I can, even if I have to write them up by hand first.Paulturtle (talk) 16:44, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Further Development
OK, I’m still computerless and in the public library, so I apologise for the slightly scrappy and disorderly nature of these comments, which I did indeed write out longhand first. I’ve tried to discuss both books which I am happy to help incorporate and themes which ought to be at least touched on. I’m also a bit mindful of the fact that – in my experience – when people start banging on about “scholarship” and “primary sources” on talk pages they usually either don’t know what they are talking about or are out-and-out cranks. So bear with me, please. Besides, I find the “process” of history, and the vagaries of human memory and eyewitness accounts, absolutely fascinating.

It’s going to be a long and detailed article, with a lot of detail about “who said what” in any event. Nothing wrong with that, although I take the point that summaries need to be included for the general reader.

There is enough material in the 2017 Shakespeare book to pull out the change of premier on 8-10 May into a separate article. More on that anon.

At the moment the article relies heavily on the work of pop historians (Roy Jenkins, Beevor, Hastings, David Owen) which are fine as far as they go, but I mention below some more heavyweight historians whose analysis could take the article up a notch or two. The article is also relying a bit too much on the official minutes. There is nothing wrong with mentioning these, quoting them and including the links – they are interesting to read – but a lot of historians stress that the official minutes simply can’t be taken at face value and construct their narrative from a wider range of sources. Halifax’s and Cadogan’s diaries are uncontroversial and were made available to Churchill’s ghostwriting team as long ago as the late 1940s. However, we also have Neville Chamberlain’s colourful diary, diplomatic records which make clear what would have been on the table in talks with Italy, and Paul Reynaud’s memoirs (don’t think he left a contemporary diary but I’m happy to be corrected). One of NGS’s few errors, incidentally, was to remove as a “false quote” Churchill’s comment to Reynaud that they WOULD be approaching Italy – I think it’s actually in Reynaud’s account, and if not there in one of the others.

David Reynolds “In Command of History”, his celebrated analysis of Churchill “History of the Second World War” is well worth reading, and a few months ago I noted the relevant chapter with a view to incorporating into this article. He discussed how Churchill and his ghostwriting team laundered the historical record (but left a smoking gun in the documentary appendices, as with all the best coverups) but how some of the whitewashing of Halifax was done with some reluctance on Churchill’s part. He discusses how Churchill’s public rhetoric, like that of any politician, cannot be taken at face value and highly confidential documents (and notes for unrecorded secret sessions of the House) indicate that the door was kept open to peace talks with a future German military junta if Hitler was overthrown (a democratic Germany would have been nice but was perhaps a bit much to wish for) – remember Unconditional Surrender was not an Allied War Aim until Jan 1943. He also discusses how Churchill spent far more time on the invasion scare in his postwar memoirs than he did at the time, and downplayed the degree to which he was hoping, even in 1940, to bring about German economic collapse through strategic bombing and SOE (economic sabotage). The latter point cropped up throughout the late May talks - “if we can hang on for 3-6 months Nazi Germany will implode” – and is not quite as silly as it sounds: the recent work of Adam Tooze stresses how the Nazi economy was a lot more rickety than people used to think when I was younger.

David Reynolds also wrote a celebrated essay on May 1940 called “Right Decision, Wrong Reasons”. I haven’t managed to get hold of a copy. Maybe it’s on JSTOR or something.

Roberts (1991 – The Holy Fox, his biography of Halifax) is well worth reading and comprehensively researched into a range of sources. He is pushing two lines very hard. The first is that Halifax was “only” wanting to make inquiries about possible terms, and later turned staunchly against peace talks. Roberts overdoes this and in his more recent books has moved back to a more orthodox position that Halifax wanted to make peace, and continued to want to do so until Churchill exiled him to Washington. The second – which I confess I “didn’t like” when I first read it – was that Churchill was nowhere near the bulldog of public myth and public rhetoric, and really was only ruling out peace talks “at that time”. Roberts is right about that, as is confirmed by David Reynolds research. In his 2018 biog of Churchill, also well worth reading, Roberts takes a more orthodox view of Halifax but – I think a little to his discredit – glosses over the second point, perhaps because he wanted to make sure his book was a non-controversial bestseller.

Just as the Watergate Tapes had their mysterious gap of just over quarter of an hour, which has been the subject of every conspiracy theory in every Watergate film ever made (Nixon wiped it because “It was the real truth about the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Exiles and JFK’s assassination” etc etc), so there is a mysterious 15 minute gap in our story here, while they were waiting for Edward Bridges and Archie Sinclair (or maybe it was Greenwood) to get to a meeting. It’s probably innocent – Neville Chamberlain’s diary says something like “we briefed him when he got there”, however, some non-silly historians have commented “yeah, well, that’s the official explanation anyway”. For what it’s worth, the recent Gary Oldman film contains a scene in which Churchill sends the bespectacled young secretary “Edward” out of the room so that he can have his climactic shouting match with Halifax, unrecorded by the official typewriter. Partly, I guess, inspired by the 15 minute gap and also making the point in a fictionalised, dramatic licency sort of way that historians only know what the incomplete historical record tells us – not the whole story.

Some historians have pointed out that the expert reports (“Certain Eventuality” etc) may well have been slanted to nudge the War Cabinet to the answer Churchill wanted.

Some non-silly historians have posited that there might have been some kind of discreet peace plot going on in mid-June, based on some redactions in the official record and a mysterious comment “No reply from the Germans” in Cadogan’s diary. Probably nothing much – he may well have been referring to the French peace talks going on at the time – but you never know, and this was when the mysterious Prytz Affair was going on (covered in the article on Rab Butler in the 1930s, written by me). (There was also Hitler’s public peace offer in July 1940, which was rejected with contempt by the British Government).

Ian Kershaw’s essay on May 1940 in “Fateful Choices” is absolutely superb and covers all the bases and sources. If you just read one thing on this topic, that essay should be it.

John Charmley “The End of Glory” (1993) remains one of the best biographies of Churchill ever written – scholarly but (deliberately) mildly critical. Plenty of good analysis in there.

Robin Prior’s recent book on 1940 (Saving the West or something) has some useful analysis

I read Lucaks (?sp) years ago but don’t have a copy to hand.

Graham Stewart Burying Caesar (1999) has one or two interesting observations.

John Kelly – No Surrender – is worth looking at. Ostensibly a work of pop history, it goes into Reynaud’s changing position in quite a bit of detail.

I have Martin Gilbert on Churchill (Vol VI is the relevant volume).

I have Cadogan’s Diary

Somebody, and I can’t for the life of me remember who, commented that Churchill used every dirty trick of a ruthless new chairman (inviting random cronies like Sinclair to attend committee meetings on dubious pretexts, refusing to allow a formal decision until he had won the argument, swaying the argument with biased “expert reports”, throwing the decision open to a wider group who were dead chuffed to be involved with decisions above their pay grade and were easily swayed by rhetoric and a desire to “do the right thing”) that it is a bit surprising that a politician of Halifax’s guile and experience allowed himself to be outplayed so comprehensively.

Now, I've exhausted my 2 hour time slot at the library ...Paulturtle (talk) 15:16, 21 December 2019 (UTC)


 * - The David Reynolds "Right Decision, Wrong Reasons" would presumably be "Churchill and the British ‘Decision’ to Fight on in 1940 Right Policy, Wrong Reasons" which appears in From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s, (Oxford 2006). The chapter originally appeared in Richard Langhorne, ed., Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World War: Essays in Honour of F.H. Hinsley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). In From World War to Cold War Reynolds says "The essay aroused considerable comment when first published, including a wonderfully apoplectic blast from Lord Annan in the London Review of Books, 1 Aug. 1985, p. 5. Since then the Cabinet debates of May 1940 have become better known. For a dramatic portrayal see John Lukacs, Five Days in London, May 1940 (New Haven, 1999); cf. the more nuanced picture of Halifax in Andrew Roberts, ‘The Holy Fox’: A Life of Lord Halifax (London, 1991), chs 22–4. Neither has altered the essence of my argument, but for further reflections see David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (London, 2004), ch. 11". DuncanHill (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I have bought a new laptop whilst waiting so should be able to start some work soon.Paulturtle (talk) 01:17, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 23 August 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 09:55, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

War cabinet crisis, May 1940 → 1940 British war cabinet crisis – Follows typical naming convention of Wikipedia articles as per WP:MOS, as per almost every other event and government crisis, constitutional crisis and other articles. Could also go with 1940 British cabinet crisis, 1940 United Kingdom cabinet crisis or 1940 United Kingdom war cabinet crisis. Arcahaeoindris (talk) 09:26, 23 August 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per nomination. There's also no need to include the month for disambiguation. Graham (talk) 02:36, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom, on WP:CONSISTENT and WP:NCEVENTS grounds. Pilaz (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2022 (UTC)