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On May 9th 1940, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and the co-leaders of the Labour Party, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill was not informed of the meeting, having met earlier in the day with Anthony Eden and Kingsley Wood to discuss maneuvering himself into the position of Chamberlain's successor. Whether he went into the meeting still loyal to his old patron Chamberlain or had a change of heart during or after, we cannot know, but Wood informed Chamberlain of the discussion, warning him of Churchill's intentions and allowing the doomed Prime Minister to come up with a plan.

On the way from the meeting with Labour, Halifax informed Chamberlain his condition for being his successor would be the removal of Churchill from the government; as he feared the other man would dominate defense matters and leave him nearly powerless as Prime Minister.

Despite having no confirmed support from the Labour leaders that they could continue to support the National Government with another Tory MP in the premiership, Chamberlain advised the King later that day, when asked, to request Halifax to take the reigns of the government. The King took his advice and called upon Lord Halifax, asking him to lead the government; which he accepted, having been assured by Chamberlain earlier that his condition would be met.

While Halifax was meeting with the King, Chamberlain was meeting with the government MP's; the majority of whom supported the Halifax for Prime Minister. On his final day as Prime Minister on the 10th, Chamberlain dismissed Churchill from his post as Lord of the Admiralty and arranged with the government MP's a temporary system for Halifax, a peer, to function as Prime Minister until a proper procedure could be worked out. Arrangements were made for a Tory MP to stand as the future Prime Minister's proxy in the Commons, with Conservative and Labour leaders agreeing that power could be concentrated in the National Government for the time being without them losing control of their backbenchers.

That same day Germany invaded France and the Low Countries.

On May 11th, Lord Halifax became Prime Minister. By the 15th it was clear to both Halifax and French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud that France had lost the battle. Flying to Paris on the 16th, Halifax met with Reynaud in person and drafted a plan to keep their remaining military forces relatively intact, the French government intact, and the French colonial empire outside of German hands. On the 17th this plan went into effect, with the highest ranking British commander in the cut off coastal enclave North of the German bulge taking command of an early evacuation of Allied troops and officials there, and French high command doing the same in the South. The cut off troops were well across the channel by the time the German army seized the coastal ports, and the French government had bought enough time to evacuate themselves, most of their remaining forces, and as much personnel and infrastructure as possible over the Mediterranean to Algeria.

The British public were shocked, the French public were outraged beyond belief (with General Charles de Gaulle and his troops dying in an unordered counterattack on the German forces) and France fell without much more of a fight after that. Divided into occupation zones by Germany and Italy, the exodus and resulting widespread public resentment of the government, which refused to surrender, led the majority of French civilians to cooperate with their occupiers and even direct their anger towards their own former leaders rather than the enemy.

However, French Africa remained in Allied hands; as did Syria. And the fall of France gave Britain and the French exile government time to redirect their preserved forces to defend their African and Middle-Eastern possessions from intact. A War of Empires was promised in the House of Commons.

...Which brings me to the next step as I think out this outline to a future timeline. Should the War of Empires be fought, or should Halifax make peace to buy time for a military build up? Should Admiral Darlan stage a coup against the evacuated government to console the exiled military, civilian evacuees, and Pied Noirs and take advantage of their anger at the government? And if so should Halifax use that as an excuse to broker a separate peace with Germany, or work with Darlan to win a war fought with the full might of the British and French empires?
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