The Minister for Co-ordination of Defence was a

British Cabinet The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the senior decision-making body of His Majesty's Government. A committee of the Privy Council, it is chaired by the prime minister and its members include secretaries of state and other senior ministers. ...

-level position established in 1936 to oversee and co-ordinate the rearmament of Britain's defences. It was abolished in 1940.

History

The position was established by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in response to criticism that Britain's armed forces were understrength compared to

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. This campaign had been led by

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

, and many expected him to be appointed as the new minister, though nearly every other senior figure in the National Government was also speculated upon by politicians and commentators. Despite this, Baldwin's choice of the Attorney General Sir Thomas Inskip provoked widespread astonishment. A famous remark was "This is the most cynical appointment since Caligula made his horse a consul".This quote has been made on many occasions and the original source is unclear. The highly influential

polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...

Guilty Men ''Guilty Men'' is a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. A classic denunciation of the former government policy, i ...

'' (which relevant chapter is titled "Caligula's Horse") attributes it to a "great statesman" (page 74), whom some have surmised was Churchill. However Stewart, Graham ''Burying Caesar: Churchill, Chamberlain and the Battle for the Tory Party'' (London; Phoenix, 1999) (), page 487 attributes the originator of the quote to Churchill's non-politician friend Professor Frederick Lindemann. The appointment is now regarded as a sign of caution by Baldwin, who did not wish to appoint someone like Churchill who would have been interpreted by foreign powers as a sign of the United Kingdom preparing for war, as well as a desire to avoid taking on board a controversial and radical minister. In 1939 Inskip was succeeded by

First Sea Lord The First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff (1SL/CNS) is the military head of the Royal Navy and Naval Service of the United Kingdom. The First Sea Lord is usually the highest ranking and most senior admiral to serve in the British Armed Fo ...

Lord Chatfield. When the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

broke out, the new Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain formed a small

War Cabinet A war cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war to efficiently and effectively conduct that war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers, although it is quite common for a war cabinet to have senio ...

, and it was expected that Chatfield would serve as a spokesperson for the three service ministers, the Secretary of State for War, the

First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...

and the Secretary of State for Air; however political considerations resulted in all three posts being included in the Cabinet, and Chatfield's role proved increasingly redundant. In April 1940 the position was formally wound up and the functions transferred to other Ministers. The following month Chamberlain was succeeded as Prime Minister by Churchill, who took the additional title of "

Minister of Defence A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

"; this was, however, a separate office from Minister for Coordination of Defence, though the two titles were frequently used interchangeably.

Ministers for Co-ordination of Defence

Notes

{{reflist Defence Coordination Defunct ministerial offices in the United Kingdom