The Second World War, Volume 4: The Hinge of Fate

The "Hinge" refers to the direction of continuous defeats changing into winning. Just before the hinge point people in Britain had gotten so fed up with bad news that a motion of censure was presented in parliament. If it had passed Churchill would have had to leave. The motion was presented by important members of parliament. To survive Churchill faced the challenge of making a speech to turn the tide. One of the many interesting aspects of his speech is, that it was built around the concept of responsibility. He started with the responsibility of Parliament and ending with his own responsibility as Prime Minister, Chairman of the War Cabinet and Minister of Defense. He said that parliament should be the basis of stability in the country. The members of parliament were probably flattered by that idea , even though in parliament the members of the opposition try to bring the government down. Of course the situation was unusual in that the government was a coalition government with members of the conservative and labour party. Churchill presented in a very clear way which organizations carried what kind of responsibilities, the role of the war cabinet , of the central military staffs staffs, of the commanders in the field. Lincoln won the vote on the censure overwhelmingly. Churchill's book is especially interesting because he describes in equal detail the political action and the military action and how these interact.