The ensuing forty-eight hours was a time of high tension and acute frustration. When Churchill saw Chamberlain early on Friday afternoon, the Prime Minister told him that the die was cast: he could see no hope of avoiding conflict with Germany and invited his rival to become a member of the small War Cabinet he intended to form. It was a moment of personal vindication for the younger man, who had warned of the Nazi danger for so long and been ignored, but the call to arms did not follow this meeting as he expected.
