The Duel

On 10 May 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister - on 31 July 1940, the United States finally agreed to send desperately needed military aid. During the intervening 80 days, possibly the most critical of the entire war, the future of Britain and Western Europe was to an extraordinary degree in the hands of just two men whose personalities and ambitions stood in direct opposition. Churchill was not yet the commanding political figure he was soon to become; Hitler was in an infinitely stronger military position. Yet at the end of those 80 days - during which German armies swept across the Low Countries and Northern France, and might (had Hitler chosen to) have destroyed a significant part of the British Army at Dunkirk - the balance shifted decisively. How and why this happened is the subject of this book, a narrative account of the relationship between Churchill and Hitler at what historian John Lukacs regards as the turning point of the war.