A rusted-on Turnbull supporter noted ruefully at the start of the week in which one of the parties of government in Australia suddenly snapped in two while the voters watched on in astonishment, the problem with the prime minister is his willingness to “coddle his enemies”.

After the prime minister refused to accept the resignations of the ministers who had lined up behind Peter Dutton in Tuesday’s snap leadership ballot, the government man noted ruefully: “Malcolm has always coddled his enemies and not the people who save his arse.

“It’s been olive branch after olive branch. Eventually they will shove that olive branch up his arse.”

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As premonitions go, it was apposite. That is precisely what happened, and then some. By Thursday, the government had collapsed, and the Australian parliament was in the throes of a meltdown unparalleled even by the standards of the past decade, when chaos established itself as the new normal of politics.

Australian politics had found new depths to plumb.

The eruption of the Liberal party’s civil war has crept up for weeks but, by Wednesday, the Dutton camp knew it was game on. They knew they had the support of the critical figure with the power to deliver the challenger the leadership: Mathias Cormann.

Dutton supporters were telling nervous colleagues there would be a serious strike against Turnbull on Wednesday night, with mass resignations the trigger for a second leadership spill.

Accounts of the events of Wednesday night differ. Some MPs say Cormann confessed to Scott Morrison he was in the Dutton column, but not Turnbull when he met him late in the afternoon.

This version has Morrison telling Turnbull about Cormann’s defection, Turnbull then calling in the finance minister to explain and Cormann insisting he hadn’t shifted. Cormann also told journalists on Wednesday night he had not resigned.

Others flatly dispute this version of events.

The alternative version has Cormann telling Turnbull he was in the Dutton column on Wednesday afternoon, then Morrison later in the evening. This version of events has Cormann, Mitch Fifield and Michaelia Cash all advising Turnbull on Wednesday afternoon they had decided to support Dutton – and Cormann offering to resign on the spot, an offer the prime minister declined.

Whatever the truth of Wednesday night, early on Thursday morning Dutton phoned Turnbull to call for a second leadership spill.

Cormann resigned his position on Thursday morning and then, according to colleagues, went into overdrive canvassing for Dutton. He hit the phones. He, with Cash in tow, walked the Dutton petition around from office to office, attempting to persuade MPs to sign.

MPs were being urged to join the challenge for the good of the country. Some of the response to the appeal was derision, and fury. One backbencher told Cormann he would not be signing. “No Mathias, you did this, you brought this on, perhaps you should have considered whether you had the numbers first.”

Over the course of Wednesday, and Thursday, stories began to surface of bullying and intimidation on the part of the Dutton camp. MPs reported organisational figures, not only in Queensland but also in Victoria, threatening preselections in an effort to persuade reluctant people to offer their signatures.

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The Western Australian Liberal Linda Reynolds, a tough-minded, no nonsense political operator, was so exercised by the behaviour she took herself to the Senate chamber to raise the alarm. She said that, during the first 24 hours of the frenzy, she had been distressed and concerned by the backroom tactics. “And I’ve got to say what’s happened since yesterday – I’m even more greatly distressed and disturbed by what has been happening ... In fact, some of the behaviour is behaviour I simply do not recognise and I think has no place in my party or this chamber.

“So whatever happens over the next 24 hours, I cannot condone and I cannot support what has happened to some of my colleagues on this side, in this chamber, in this place. The tragedy of what has been happening, the madness of what has taken hold of a number of my colleagues is this has been a very good government, and a government is always more than a leader, and the leader is only ever the sum of those he or she serves with.”

The level of intensity was elevated because Turnbull had finally come to the end of the road of coddling his enemies.

As possibly his final act in the top job, the stakes were being raised. At lunchtime on Thursday, the prime minister appeared his courtyard, calmly, quietly, lethally, to elaborate what was going to happen next.

It was going to be scorched earth. The Dutton camp would need to produce 43 signatures, names on a page, or there would be no party room meeting. In any case, there would be no meeting before Friday lunchtime.

If the challengers succeeded in rolling their tanks into his prime ministership, he would quit politics, forcing a byelection, handing Dutton a snap election the Liberal party is not ready to fight. He also explicitly questioned whether Dutton was eligible to sit in the parliament, noting he would wait for advice from the solicitor general before making a determination.

Before the declaration of war in the courtyard, there was an agreement in the prime minister’s office that Morrison would contest the leadership in an effort to stop Dutton taking The Lodge. Delaying the party room meeting until Friday was about playing for time, allowing Morrison and his numbers men (aren’t they always men) to build the requisite level of support.

Some say the deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, agreed at that meeting to run on a ticket with Morrison as deputy. So some were blindsided later when Bishop surrogates began sounding out colleagues on her behalf during the afternoon. Should she run? Would she get support?

There was concern in the moderate camp that if Bishop finished second in any three-way ballot behind Dutton, forcing Morrison out of the race – votes would flow Dutton’s way in a final run-off, handing him the leadership.

Concerns or not, by later in the afternoon Bishop was campaigning full-tilt, with some Victorian MPs encouraging her on the basis that she is neither Dutton, nor Morrison, and that might just work in the most progressive state in the country. Bishop was appealing to marginal seats holders: she was the person to save the furniture.

Josh Frydenberg and Steve Ciobo were also on the phones, campaigning to be the deputy Liberal leader.

MPs were scattered in groups, drinking, eating and caucusing after the House of Representatives adjourned on Thursday because the government was not in a fit state to command it.

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The Dutton camp claimed by the evening they had 40 signatures. The moderates begged to differ. The view was Dutton’s push had stalled, and possibly rolled marginally backwards, in part because of the strong-arming.

Morrison was faring better than Bishop but it was a three-way race.

So where do things sit? MPs don’t know whether or not there will be a party room meeting on Friday, or whether the crisis will roll without resolution until parliament resumes in September.

Worse than that, they don’t know if they are handmaidens to the destruction of the modern Liberal party.

There is fury, incomprehension, sadness, mild hysteria, gallows humour.

“This is a fight for the heart and the soul of the Liberal party,” says one moderate MP. “These people surrounding Dutton – these people are not Liberals, they are not conservatives, they are fucking reactionaries, and I have nothing but contempt for them.”