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by
Tim Bouverie
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August 22 - October 15, 2020
In the afternoon, Hitler disclaimed any intention of violating Austrian independence, before linking the restitution of Germany as a major power, including the return of her colonies, with Britain’s own place in the world.
Britain was desirous of good relations with Germany, but these could not come at the expense of her relations with France. The British wished not to substitute one friend for another but “to be loyal friends to all,” explained the Foreign Secretary.
After dinner, the French Ambassador hurried over to the Lord Privy Seal to ask if it was true that he had been opposite Hitler in March 1918. Eden replied that it appeared so. “And you missed him?” exclaimed the Frenchman. “You ought to be shot!”
Eden and Cranborne were thoroughly depressed. “I am afraid that there is no doubt that the German Govt is pursuing a policy which they know very well may lead to war, and that they would not shrink from it,” wrote Cranborne to his Conservative colleague Billy Ormsby-Gore.
The French and Italians were, therefore, justifiably furious when the British themselves unilaterally repudiated Versailles by signing the Anglo-German Naval Treaty ten weeks later on June 18.
Though less concerned over the fate of the League, both Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain were similarly convinced that war with Germany could have no positive outcome.
France “might succeed in crushing Germany with the aid of Russia,” mused the Prime Minister, “but it would probably only result in Germany going Bolshevik.”25 When
In retrospect, the remilitarization of the Rhineland was seen as a watershed in the interwar years: the last chance of stopping Hitler without a major war.
Churchill was desperate for a return to power. On February 13, 1936, Victor Cazalet found him “furious at not being ‘in’ [government]—contemptuous of [the] present regime, and overwhelmed with German danger—v unbalanced I thought.”
Churchill was disappointed but stoical. Within a few weeks he had renewed his warnings about the German danger along with his criticism of the Government’s lethargy over defense.
What Chamberlain and the Treasury failed to appreciate was that spending on rearmament could help revive the economy as it had in Germany after
1933 and would in the United States after 1941. Indeed, when Britain did begin to spend serious amounts on arms between 1936 and 1939, the benefits for both employment and productivity were plain to see.
has already been noted, there were a number of reasons why members of the British ruling class felt sympathetic toward fascism, the most important of which was fear of communism.
while in May 1938 Harold Nicolson came across three young peers in Pratt’s club who admitted that “they would prefer to see Hitler in London than a Socialist administration.”
This trend was encouraged by the well-known sympathies of the Prince of Wales, or King Edward VIII as he became on January 20, 1936. Lacking both intelligence and a sense of constitutional propriety, the Prince made his views clear when he told Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, in July 1933, that it “was no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else” and that “dictators were very popular these days and that we might want one in England before long.”
My friends on the right wing seem to me to be insane in their fear of communism.”23
The ordinary Englishman does not realise that the German is an invariable Oliver Twist. Give him something and it is jumping off ground for asking for something else.
Vain, arrogant, and shallow, Joachim von Ribbentrop had been trying to foster ties between the British and the Nazis since 1933. Born into the officer class of the old Wilhelmine Germany—though without the “von,” which he later bought—he had made his fortune by marrying the daughter of the largest German producer of sparkling wine, before going on to become the agent for such well-known brands as Green and Yellow Chartreuse, Johnnie Walker whiskey, and Pommery champagne. Having played a minor role in Hitler’s accession to power, the highly ambitious and, by now, devoted Ribbentrop managed to
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Neville Chamberlain did not invent the policy of appeasement. A strategy which some historians have detected in British diplomacy as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, it had become the guiding principle in British foreign policy by the early 1920s.
the menace of attack from Germany is as imminent as Winston [Churchill] would have us believe, there is nothing we could do which would make us ready to meet it. But I do not believe that it is imminent. By careful diplomacy I believe we can stave it off, perhaps indefinitely, but if we were now to follow Winston’s advice and sacrifice our commerce to the manufacture of arms we should inflict a certain injury upon our trade from which it would take generations to recover.
In short [he] feels himself to be in a strong position and is not going to run after us. He
General Göring, who showed us his toys like a big, fat, spoilt child:
Goebbels asked the Lord President to try to stop the attacks on Hitler in the British press, claiming that “nothing caused more bitter resentment in Germany.” In particular, he complained about cartoons lampooning Hitler and seemed to have singled out for special criticism the Evening Standard’s David Low, whose depictions of the Führer were already famous.*3,
don’t see why we shouldn’t say to Germany give us satisfactory assurances that you won’t use force to deal with the Austrians and Czecho-Slovakians and we will give you similar assurances that we won’t use force to prevent the changes you want if you can get them by peaceful means.”
fact, the most important and influential British titles were already on side. “I do my utmost, night after night, to keep out of the paper anything that might hurt their [the Germans’] susceptibilities” and drop in “little things which are intended to soothe them,” confessed the Lord President’s close friend, the editor of The Times, Geoffrey Dawson, in a letter from May 1937.41
The Evening Standard’s David Low was not so easily fixed. Widely regarded as the greatest cartoonist of the age, Low had a freedom of action such that he was even allowed to parody his proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook. Indeed, with clairvoyant timing, his cartoon of November 28, 1937, showed the editors of The Times (Dawson) and the Observer
Halifax, however, was determined to curb him and, following the suggestion of his close friend Lady Alexandra “Baba” Metcalfe, arranged to have lunch with the Standard’s chairman, Michael Wardell. Wardell, a “fascist sympathizer” according to the Beaverbrook journalist Michael
Foot, was understanding but said there was nothing that he could do since Low’s contract guaranteed him editorial freedom.
Meeting in Wardell’s Bayswater flat, Halifax asked Low to tone down his cartoons since they were having a detrimental effect on the Government’s quest to secure a lasting peace. Put like this, Low could hardly refuse. “Very well, I don’t want to be responsible for a world war,” the cartoonist replied, but “it’s my duty as a journalist to report matters faithfully…And
And I think this man is awful. But I’ll slow down a bit.”*4,
to raise a finger and the whole face of Europe is changed!”15
don’t think Chamberlain knows the technique of dealing with dictators, who are necessarily bullies,” the former Ambassador continued. “The more you truckle to them the more arrogant they become.”
While Eden had been a reluctant appeaser, fundamentally hostile to dictators, Halifax was committed to Chamberlain’s policy and had no such prejudices.
As Halifax explained to Harold Nicolson in May 1938, for all their bravado the Nazis were extremely sensitive. In particular, they hated the idea of being mocked abroad as a bunch of vulgarians and parvenus.
Henderson left the Reich Chancellery thoroughly discouraged. Writing to Halifax, he lamented that Hitler’s “sense of values is so abnormal that argument seems powerless…His capacity for self-deception and his incapacity to see any point which does not meet his own case are fantastic, and no perversion of the truth seems too great for him to accept the gospel of Hitler and of Germany.”
Ribbentrop returned to the German Embassy, where he answered an urgent letter from Hitler, asking what Britain would do if Germany invaded Austria. “I am convinced,” replied the Foreign Minister, “that England of her own accord will do nothing in regard to it at present, but that she would exert a moderating influence on the other powers.”22 When Hitler read these words he was exultant. “It’s exactly as I thought,” he told Reinhard Spitzy. “We needn’t fear any complications from over there.”
The former Colonial Secretary Leo Amery lamented the disappearance of the “last home of German culture, the last citadel in which the true soul of the German race could still find a refuge,”
the Soviet Ambassador, Ivan Maisky, could hardly believe what he had witnessed. “Never in my life have I seen so reactionary a gathering as this House of Lords. The mould of the ages lies visibly upon it…The men sitting on these red benches are historically blind, like moles, and are ready to lick the Nazi dictator’s boots like a beaten dog. They’ll pay for this, and I’ll see it happen!”62
The contrast with Churchill’s speech in the Commons, five days earlier, could not have been greater. The “rape of Austria,” he stated, had significantly increased the might of Nazi Germany, whose appetite would now grow along with her stature. There could be no complacency, no relaxation while the “boa constrictor” digested its latest victim. Britain must assemble the greatest range of deterrents against future acts of aggression. As such, he called for a full military alliance with France, a public commitment to defend Czechoslovakia, and the most speedy acceleration of
On the contrary, horrified at how close things had gotten, the Government became even more determined to force the Czechs to satisfy the Sudeten German demands before another crisis could occur.
The leader the anti-appeasers craved was Anthony Eden.
Despite Kennedy’s cool reception at the Pilgrims Society, it was the appeasers who remained in the ascendant during the first half of 1938. Not only did the small band of anti-appeasement Tories lack leadership and cohesion, but the chances of any serious opposition to Chamberlain developing from within were rendered all the harder by the power of the Conservative Party machine.
the other hand, it is notable how many of the prominent anti-appeasers—Churchill, Eden, Cooper, Nicolson, Spears, Vansittart, Austen Chamberlain—were Francophiles with a strong sense of British history as linked to the Continent. The leading appeasers, by contrast, had little attachment to France and had, traditionally, understood foreign affairs from the perspective of the Empire and the English-speaking dominions.
in war there were no victors, only losers, before going on to proclaim his confidence that there was not a soul in the country who did not wish him to continue his efforts for peace.17 There
Chamberlain was an incorrigible optimist, always searching for positive signs.
Alas, a cloud of uncertainty overhangs all plans at the present time…[and] I cannot pretend to be at all hopeful of the outcome. Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later on even more adverse terms than at present.
travel writer and aesthete Robert Byron.
“Every now and then we are unfortunate enough to be led by a Chamberlain—but that’s only temporary. Don’t be misguided. In the end we always rise up and oppose the tyrannies that threaten Europe. We have smashed them before, and I warn you we will smash them again.”
Among the anti-appeasers there was a desperate search for leadership. Eden remained the preferred candidate, but, beyond publishing a letter in The Times, the former Foreign Secretary refused to take a public stand. This led people, even on the left, to turn to Churchill.
Not one of these people had anything to do with the direction of the last war. They are babies, if not cowards. You, or God, will have to help if this country is now to be saved.
