Chamberlain resigns Sept 3rd 1939

WI Chamberlain resigns Sept 3rd 1939 or he has a heart attack and Churchill takes over. Will his tough personality be able have much influence on Daladier and / or Weygand.
I would think that even if he cant get the french to move into the Rhineland
if the battle of Norway occurs in April 1940 or sooner ? the RN will be free to take much more preemptive and effective actions to the point that Weserbung is defeated.
 
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Cook

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WI Chamberlain resigns Sept 3rd 1939 or he has a heart attack and Churchill takes over.
Churchill only got asked to join the cabinet on the 3rd of September after ten years in the wilderness, sorrybut there was no chance that anyone would have trusted him with the reins of power in 1939.
 
Churchill only got asked to join the cabinet on the 3rd of September after ten years in the wilderness, sorrybut there was no chance that anyone would have trusted him with the reins of power in 1939.

Agreed, and in a scenario where their choosing a new PM as the war starts, Churchill likely doesn't get any cabinet in the near term. Stability, national (read parliamentary) unity are going to be driving force. And the PM with resigning, I can't see any one in leadership bring Winston up till the cabinet has settled in.

I'd said Lord Halifax or Sir Samuel Hoare, Eden is likely to "young"
 

katchen

Banned
And if Lord Hailfax or Samuel Hoare are PM in 1940 will they resign and let Churchill be PM or negotiate a peace with Germany after the Battle of France is lost? And if they negotiate a peace with Germany, what then? What do Churchill and FDR do? What a TL that will make!
 
John Simon would be a contender for PM; he was Chancellor in 1939 and as a "Liberal" (use the term loosely, as many considered him a Conservative towards the end of his career), he could have been a unifying head of government.
 
John Simon would be a contender for PM; he was Chancellor in 1939 and as a "Liberal" (use the term loosely, as many considered him a Conservative towards the end of his career), he could have been a unifying head of government.

Yea, I considered him too. 1st, didn't think they would be looking at a War Cabinet (even a "lite" version) yet, having not had a major failure, or defeat in the field yet.

2nd, I was thinking leadership would be looking at as little changing of chairs as possible at that time. And Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to be critical in the early months...

But you may be changing my mind, especially, if keeping Winston out, at least of the inner cabinet is a secondary goal (which for Halifax is likely).
 
Churchill wasn't popular ever, he only got power in 1940 because Halifax would not take the reigns, granted the situation for the POD is different.
Well is there not some alternative to Chamberlain who will act more effectively ?.
 
It is a nice one.

However, with Chamberlain gone in September 1939, there are very little movement really. The war is on.

What now if he resigns in March 1939 after the German occupation of the rest of Czech?

Then we don't have Chamberlain to go to the other extrme and issuing guarantees to Poland and all and sundry.

Who will head for the hot chair? Churchill will be even more removed at that time.

What will be the consequences of and what type of foreign policy will be pursued against Germany and also with France?

Ivan
 
I'd said Lord Halifax or Sir Samuel Hoare, Eden is likely to "young"

It is a well-known fact that George VI wanted Lord Halifax to be the successor of Chamberlain, but the latter was very skeptical of the idea of a Prime Minister ever being able to govern from the House of Lords again after the events of the Parliament Act.
 

Cook

Banned
It is a well-known fact that George VI wanted...
The wishes of the Monarch were not relevant.

John Simon would be a contender for PM; he was Chancellor in 1939 and as a "Liberal" (use the term loosely, as many considered him a Conservative towards the end of his career), he could have been a unifying head of government.
Liberalis not a term in British politics, it is a political party. Simon did start his career as a Liberal, but left the party in 1931 and formed the Liberal Nationals.

The problem with Simon is the same as with Halifax; he was a member of the House of Lords, which is a problem common to many of Chamberlain’s inner cabinet.

The exceptions are:

Churchill, who we can rule out because he’d only been in cabinet one day,

Hore-Belisha, who can be ruled out because he is a Liberal National rather than a Conservative and, more significantly, a Jew.

And Kingsley Wood, the highly effective Secretary of State for Air; member of parliament for twenty years, cabinet member for six years and the man who had turned British aircraft production around, taking them from a country producing eighty aircraft a month to producing over five hundred a month. Wood was a good friend of Chamberlain and well trusted; it was he that told Chamberlain that he had to resign following the Norway debacle.

So there I think you have your man: Kingsley Wood.
 
Liberal is not a term in British politics, it is a political party. Simon did start his career as a Liberal, but left the party in 1931 and formed the Liberal Nationals.

Quite so. He was nominally a "Liberal", using his own variant of the party label, but served in Conservative governments and was not opposed by Conservative candidates in his constituency; that is, a Conservative in all but name.

The problem with Simon is the same as with Halifax; he was a member of the House of Lords...

Simon was not raised to the peerage till 1940.
 
If Chamberlain resigned in March 1939 the next Prime Minister would presumably also be leader of the Conservative Party. Would there be one more than one candidate? At that time the Conservative Party did not elect its leader, who rather 'emerged' after a process of consultation with its leading figures.

I think Kingsley Wood would be a possible, but unlikely choice, as Tory leader and Prime Minister. Before he became Secretary of State for Air in May 1938, he was Minister of Health and also responsible for housing since June 1935. He had disadvantages as described in this extract from his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37002):
He was a far from imposing personality: short, plump, and bespectacled. One experienced observer described him as an 'appalling speaker' [John Colville]; his voice was thin and high, and he often delivered speeches from manuscript notes.

Of the holders of the three chief offices of state, Viscount Halifax was in the House of Lords, Sir John Simon was a Liberal National, that left Sir Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary. So I think he would be the most likely choice.
 
Why is Churchill being ruled out so definitively? Chamberlain's resignation is de facto recognition that the policy of appeasement pursued by himself AND his Government was wrong and thoroughly discredited. A change of leadership in such circumstances should be more than just shuffling chairs. Churchill has credibility here as being one of the few voices in the Conservative Party to speak out consistently against Hitler. (If Austen Chamberlain lived longer he would have been a fantastic candidate but that's another POD).

What I'm saying is that a backbench revolt may in fact force a game changing PM, not one who is so closely associated with Chamberlain and the failed policy of appeasement. (For Australian political followers it would be like replacing Gillard with Swan at present - ie, achieves absolutely nothing of significance other than a different figurehead at the top).
 

Cook

Banned
Why is Churchill being ruled out so definitively?
Because at the time, Churchill was seen as a cross between an aging l’enfant terrible and Don Quixote, perpetually launching himself futilely into the next lost cause; he'd spent more than a dosen years raging from the back benches against the decisions made by each succeeding government, and it did not particularly help that on this occasion he just happened to be right.
 
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