Posted on 03/09/2008 8:14:15 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The motives of Mr. Chamberlain and the British Conservatives in this quest are threefold: First is the obvious one of trying to stave off a war a little longer, perhaps avert it altogether. The second is to win a general election next Autumn or Winter, for the Conservative leaders honestly believe that an agreement with Italy and Germany will win them more votes with pacifist British subjects than all the “principles” for which Anthony Eden, former Foreign Minister, resigned a fortnight ago.
The most important of all is that Mr. Chamberlain and his colleagues are convinced that their present policy will give Great Britain a moral case in the eyes of her dominions and potential allies. In case a war comes, Mr. Chamberlain wants to be able to say that he did everything humanly possible to satisfy legitimate grievances while there was time.
Gotta keep the pacifists happy.
An ambulance purchased for the Spanish Loyalists with funds raised through Federated Faculty Committees for Aid to Spain was displayed yesterday on the City College campus. Seventy-five students attended a noon-hour meeting in behalf of the fund and donated $6.
The vehicle, which is painted blue, has appeared on many of the college campuses in the metropolitan area and is scheduled to visit Sarah Lawrence College today.
John K. Ackley, recorder of the college, and Seymour Copstein of the Department of English urged the student body to support the Loyalist cause in Spain. Student speakers sounded the same keynote.
BERLIN, March 8 (AP). – Alarm against the continued prosperity of Jewish firms in Germany, despite four years of Nazi effort to crowd them out, was sounded today by the Stuermer, weekly organ of Julius Striecher, Germany’s No. 1 Jew-baiter.
The Stuermer demanded to know if aristocrats deliberately were trying to support Jews.
It printed a long list of regular customers of a large Jewish-owned Berlin department store containing many names of aristocratic families and government employees.
Reply #2 has two shorties from 3/9/38.
Oops. I forgot to paste in the names.
Thank you very much for these ‘time capsules’. They serve to remind us of our own limitations.
“The ruling Conservatives believe that if Great Britain refuses to negotiate with the dictators now, she will lack a moral case, such as that which she found so helpful in the United States and elsewhere in 1914. The dominion Prime Ministers apparently feel that same way, for as long ago as last June they urged the British Government to “conciliate” to the utmost.”
I consider this statement extraordinary, but it makes sense.
In the First World War, Britain’s own army was more than doubled in size by contributions from its empire, and from the US. So Chamberlain’s concern to make absolutely certain that these folks would be on board once again, when war finally came, would be more than understandable.
And if that required Neville to play the fool to Adolf... well, so be it.
On the other hand, I think most historians strongly suspect that Neville really LIKED being a fool.
Has anyone ever argued otherwise?
Our future with Obama as President.
So English departments have been hotbeds of Communism since the 1930s.
Chamberlain played the fool so well that he became one. But it is not exclusively his fault — a lot of people believed in wishful thinking rather than in the unpleasant facts. Some things never change.
I feel a certain amount of sympathy for poor old Neville. In 1938 we were not quite twenty years past the World War. In 2008 we are over thirty years past our Vietnam experience. Now compare the casualties from those two events. Our 58,000 dead in Vietnam over ten years or so would have amounted to a fairly good month for the Allies in WWI. Yet the anti-war types are still using Vietnam as a rallying issue to this day. If I was a Brit in 1938 I would have required a lot of convincing before I would be willing to go to the continent of Europe to fight the Hun. Threats to Austria and Czechoslovakia would not have done it. I realize it is a leader's job to anticipate emerging problems and convince the people of the need to take painful steps when necessary, but for Chamberlain it would have been a tall order. Especially in a democracy, where the leader first has to be elected. Hitler and Stalin didn't have such constraints.
I recently read Radical Son, David Horowitz's autobiography. The way he tells it public schools were hotbeds of communism in the 1930s. They still thought Marx/Lenin/Stalin represented a happy future for the working stiff.
3/9/38 is also the day Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg of Austria called for a plebiscite on March 13th to determine whether Austria should remain independent or join Austria. Hitler didn’t think that was a good idea on such short notice.
Added to which, the year’s delay bought time for Britain to build at least the foundation of credible war-fighting forces, especially the air force - without which, in 1938, war might have been near suicical. Perhaps not quite such a fool after all.
So how did the talks go?
Ironically Ribbentrop was an agent for Johnnie Walker whisky (a product born in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire) before becoming a Nazi...
"On March 9, Ribbentrop, the new German Foreign Minister, had arrived in London to wind up his affairs at the embassy, where he had been ambassador. He had long talks with Chamberlain, Halifax, the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury. His impressions of the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, he reported back to Berlin, were "very good." After a long conference with Lord Halifax, Ribbentrop reported directly to Hitler on March 10 as to what Britain would do "if the Austrian question cannot be settled peacefully." Basically he was convinced from his London talks "that England will do nothing in regard to Austria.""
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Pg 344
And Heinrich Himmler was a chicken farmer. Goering was a pilot for a Swedish airline, or something like that. They were a bunch of amateurs.
“Added to which, the year’s delay bought time for Britain to build at least the foundation of credible war-fighting forces, especially the air force - without which, in 1938, war might have been near suicical. Perhaps not quite such a fool after all.”
I’ve seen this argued both ways. Some say the Germans actually gained more from that extra year, and were more formadable in 1939 than they would have been in 1938.
Niall Ferguson, in his 2006 book, “The War of the World” paints a picture of the British government almost literally quaking in their boots at the thought of possibly provoking Hitler.
On page 323, he notes, for example:
“Incredibly, the army’s budget was actually cut in the wake of the Austrian Anschluss. Things were no better by the time of the Munich crisis. It was not until February 1939 that the idea of a European expeditionary force was revived, and even at that late juncture it was to be composed of just six regular and four territorial divisions.”
— At a time when Hitler was preparing over 100 divisions for Poland.
Next Ferguson heaps scorn on ideas for the new British air force, and caps it off with:
“In 1938 the [British] Chiefs of Staff ruled out even ‘staff conversations’ with the French, since the very term ‘has a sinister purport and gives an impression ... of mutually assumed military collaboration.’ Perish the thought!” Says Ferguson.
Sorry, Winnie, but historians are not kind, not kind at all to Neville boy.
Wow - peace in our time! I can hardly wait for the Obamanation to get to work.
It is easy for historians with hindsight to condemn Chamberlain’s appeasement policy. But I agree with Homer J’s assessment and sympathy.
You single out Chamberlain as the fool, but he was not the only national leader who could have stood up to German/Italian/Japanese aggression and failed to do so.
Millions of people around the world in the 1930s wanted like Chamberlain to avoid another world war. After all, it kept the USA out of the war until attacked by Japan late in 1941.
You could at least give Chamberlain some credit for declaring war in September 1939 when he finally realised that something had to be done to stop Hitler.
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