Page "Robert Menzies" Paragraph 15

From 24 January 1941 Menzies spent four months in Britain discussing war strategy with Churchill and other Empire leaders, while his position at home deteriorated.

The Australian historian Professor David Day has suggested that Menzies might have replaced Churchill as British Prime Minister, and that he had some support in Britain for this.

This support came from the British press in the form of Viscount Astor, Lord Beaverbrook and former WW1 Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who were trenchant critics of the autocratic style of Winston Churchill and favoured replacing Winston with Menzies.

He also had some public support for his staying on in the War Cabinet for the duration, which was strongly backed by Sir Maurice Hankey, former WW1 Colonel and member of both WW1 & WW2 War Cabinets.

One Australian writer Gerard Henderson has rejected this theory, yet others such as Australian history Professors Judith Brett Latrobe Uni.

& Joan Beaumont ANU support David Day, as indeed does Menzies ' daughter Heather Henderson.

She even goes on to state that Lady Nancy Astor ' even offered all her sapphires if he would stay on in England '.

When Menzies came home, he found he had lost all support, and was forced to resign on 27 August.

The UAP was so bereft of leadership that it was forced to then turn to former Prime Minister Billy Hughes as its new leader.

However, the nearly 78-year-old Hughes decided to let the Country Party leader, Arthur Fadden, become Prime Minister even though the Country Party was the nominal junior partner in the Coalition.

Menzies was very bitter about what he saw as this betrayal by his colleagues, and almost left politics before being persuaded to become Minister for Defence Co-ordination in the Fadden government.