Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leader?

BBC News ^ | 30th September 2013 | Robert Self

[the scotsman]

'Seventy-five years after the Munich Agreement signed with Hitler, the name of Neville Chamberlain, British prime minister at the time, is still synonymous with weakness and appeasement. Is this fair, asks historian Robert Self.'

[Nifster]

I read this revisionist piece of crap. It is a way to make Chamberlain seem brilliant rather than calling him out for being the weak kneed lilly livered coward he trull was

[Graewoulf]

Is there any truth to the rumor that Boehner is a distant relative of ol’ “Peace in our time” Nellie C?

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Was the Marquis de Sade really a sodomite?

[the scotsman]

Yes, I am not buying it.

Read any biography of, say, Eden or Churchill, and you will see that old Nev tried to deliberately discredit men like Eden especially, who opposed him and were younger politicians whom he thought would be the men of the future.

[Paladin2]

Substitute McConnell for Chamberlain.

[luvbach1]

There are few parallels to the Chamberlain obsequiousness. Chamberlainesque Kerry seems all a-quiver at the prospect of "peace in our time" with the Iranian terrorists, er, leaders.

[Venturer]

He was a Naïve fool IMO.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leader?

Yes.

He was also stuck in "gentleman politician" mode long after it should have been clear to anyone with a working brain that he was not dealing with gentlemen.

He was probably a nice guy. And once the bombs started dropping he took his place on the battlements like a gentleman. I give him credit for that.

[GraceG]

The Progressive are really F*****G good at UN-Learning from past mistakes...

Sorry for my french, but I took John Kerry’s advice...

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

I agree that Chamberlain was no war time consiglieri, when one was desperately needed. Thankfully Churchill came along at the right moment.

But the fact remains that both England and France were effectively eliminated as great powers following WWI-—the losses both nations suffered in that war were devastating.

The one thing England had that France did not have was a body of water separating it from the European mainland.

[edpc]

I am willing to concede Chamberlain and those who were like-minded had witnessed the human and material costs of WWI. You can see why they were eager to delude themselves into thinking peace was achievable.

If they think WWI had exacted a heavy toll, their naivete' much had larger consequences.

[2ndDivisionVet]

You’re going to see a bunch of these. Here’s another:

Neville Chamberlain Was Right
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/09/neville_chamberlain_was_right_to_cede_czechoslovakia_to_adolf_hitler_seventy.html

[Ticonderoga34]

Interesting that these revisionist articles about Chamberlain come along at the same time that Obama back down on Syria and is talking to Iran.

I’m sure there’s no connection. /s

[Little Ray]

His government supported the development and acquisition of the Spitfire and Hurricane, and the development and emplacement of the Chain Low radar stations that defended the UK.
Unlike Obama, he was not a complete waste of skin.

[RJS1950]

Of course he was a weak, useless, appeasing POS who emboldened the enemies of civilization. He has been outclassed in recent years by subsequent British Prime Ministers of the Labor persuasion and our own Quislings like Carter, Clinton, and most especially Der Fuehrer obama.

[Bidimus1]

To me I see “Peace in OUR time” statement as hey you younger people YOU will have to fight them later we are too tired and timid to do it now.. good luck.

[wbill]

"Yes."

Really not much need to waste more bandwidth than that.

[KC Burke]

The only thing that is often not noted is that the lack of will caused by the revulsion to the carnage of WWI and expressed as “appeasement” was considered a positive force or sensible stance.

The program that Chamberlain was part of was a heartfelt attitude of all of the European government majority parties. It is a fact that while the denotation of the word “appeasement” did not change, the word itself did not bear such a negative connotation until after this period of time.

As often happens, the public, soon reflected in the press, reacted before the office holders reacted. The cries for Churchill began while they were still thinking that they would form a government with Halifax taking the place of Chamberlain.

[Billthedrill]

I think the perception is perfectly fair, given the hyperbole surrounding the Munich agreement. There naturally was very little counter-hyperbole around his later genuine actions to support the British war effort. The indelible impression left is of a man who was made a thorough fool of; he was, at least at the time of Munich, a man in a position of high power who had drastically mistaken the intentions of Adolf Hitler. And there can be little question of how much that did cost his country.

If "fair" is the criterion, I would judge that he did his best to make up for a very public humiliation. Whether anything he could have done at that point would make up for it completely I'll let others judge.