Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England » (First Edition)

Lynne Olson, former White House correspondent for The Sun (Baltimore), is the author of Freedom's Daughters, and co-author, with her husband, Stanley Cloud, of A Question of Honor and The Murrow Boys. She lives in Washington, D.C.

A riveting history of the daring politicians who challenged the disastrous policies of the British government on the eve of World War II

On May 7, 1940, the House of Commons began perhaps the most crucial debate in British parliamentary history. On its outcome hung the future of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government and also of Britain—indeed, perhaps, the world. Troublesome Young Men is Lynne Olson's fascinating account of how a small group of rebellious Tory MPs defied the Chamberlain government's defeatist policies that aimed to appease Europe's tyrants and eventually forced the prime minister's resignation.

Some historians dismiss the "phony war" that preceded this turning point—from September 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Germany, to May 1940, when Winston Churchill became prime minister—as a time of waiting and inaction, but Olson makes no such mistake, and describes in dramatic detail the public unrest that spread through Britain then, as people realized how poorly prepared the nation was to confront Hitler, how their basic civil liberties were being jeopardized, and also that there were intrepid politicians willing to risk political suicide to spearhead the opposition to Chamberlain—Harold Macmillan, Robert Boothby, Leo Amery, Ronald Cartland, and Lord Robert Cranborne among them. The political and personal dramas that played out in Parliament and in the nation as Britain faced the threat of fascism virtually on its own are extraordinary—and, in Olson's hands, downright inspiring.

The Washington Post - David Cannadine

…vivid and compelling…Troublesome Young Men describes and celebrates the efforts of Chamberlain's opponents within his own Conservative Party. These Tory rebels finally succeeded in bringing the prime minister down after a famous debate in the House of Commons in early May 1940 in which Leo Amery ended his powerful speech by quoting the terrible words that Oliver Cromwell had used to dismiss the Long Parliament 300 years before: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing! Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" Chamberlain grudgingly resigned, and Winston S. Churchill succeeded him, convinced that destiny had nurtured him and prepared him for what would soon be his finest hour. Yet while this may all seem inevitable in retrospect, there was nothing predestined about it at the time.

Contents

Introduction............................................................3
1. "We May Be Going to Die".............................................8
2. Playing the Game.....................................................21
3. "Troublesome Young Men"..............................................36
4. "Dictators Are Very, Popular These Days".............................61
5. "I Lack the 'Spunk'".................................................84
6. "Quite Simply, He Told Lies".........................................107
7. "Our Own Soul Is at Stake"...........................................126
8. "'Terrible, Unmitigated, Unparalleled Dishonor'".....................143
9. Retribution..........................................................158
10. "Waiting for a Stirring Lead".......................................176
11. "Here Is the Testing"...............................................192
12. "Speak for England".................................................202
13. Playing at War......................................................219
14. "The Misery of Doing Nothing".......................................240
15. "He Is Absolutely Loyal"............................................261
16. "Gambling with the Life of the Nation"..............................275
17. "'In the Name of God, Go!'".........................................289
18. "Victory at All Costs"..............................................306
19. A Question of Loyalty...............................................322
20. A Son's Betrayal....................................................339
21.Aftermath...........................................................347
Notes...................................................................365
Bibliography............................................................403
Acknowledgments.........................................................413
Index...................................................................417