How Churchill Came to Save Christian Civilization

On May 10, 1940, Britain’s King George VI summoned Winston Churchill to Buckingham Palace to form a government. The immediate impetus for this move was Britain’s failures in the Norway campaign, especially the failure to hold Narvik. Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was the minister most responsible for that failure. But, as historian Andrew Roberts has noted, the debate “was as much about appeasement as about Norway, about the past as about the future,” and Churchill had long been right about the failures of appeasement. There was a strong sense in Parliament that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had to go, but members were divided over who should replace him. Whoever was chosen would not only become the defender of the realm, but also the defender of Western, that is, Christian civilization.