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A review by ruthieduthie
Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister by Nicholas Shakespeare
5.0
I found this detailed account of the events leading up to Churchill's assumption of the premiership really riveting, with some eerie echoes of the recent events in the UK Parliament. It is quite difficult to believe that at a time when Hitler was on the verge of over-running Western Europe, and maybe the UK too, MP's were intent on their own internal power struggles rather than concentrating on the prosecution of the war, but so it seems from this account.
The Norway campaign and ensuing debate in Parliament are described practically minute by minute, and I must confess I got bogged down in the military part but it is of huge importance in assessment of how the person behind the mess-up (Churchill) was able to overcome the consequent reservations. To some extent this was balanced by Lord Halifax's evident reluctance to assume the premiership, and the author goes into this in great detail too.
There are some passages in the book that really bring you up short, especially the description of the events of Friday 10th May 1940 when the news arrived of the invasion of Holland and Belgium, with rumours that Canterbury had already been bombed. You suddenly realise how incredibly bleak the future must have looked. But in spite of this, all the main players took time off to have lunch. A different world!
The Norway campaign and ensuing debate in Parliament are described practically minute by minute, and I must confess I got bogged down in the military part but it is of huge importance in assessment of how the person behind the mess-up (Churchill) was able to overcome the consequent reservations. To some extent this was balanced by Lord Halifax's evident reluctance to assume the premiership, and the author goes into this in great detail too.
There are some passages in the book that really bring you up short, especially the description of the events of Friday 10th May 1940 when the news arrived of the invasion of Holland and Belgium, with rumours that Canterbury had already been bombed. You suddenly realise how incredibly bleak the future must have looked. But in spite of this, all the main players took time off to have lunch. A different world!