Chamberlain in Rehab - Simon Heffer

British Foreign Policy between the Wars - Chamberlain in Rehab
Simon Heffer took a PhD in modern history at Cambridge. His previous books include: The Age of Decadence; Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle; Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell; Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII; and Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England. In a thirty-year career on Fleet Street, he has held senior editorial positions on The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator and is now a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. He lives in London.
Neville Chamberlain, in full Arthur Neville Chamberlain, (born March 18, 1869, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England-died November 9, 1940, Heckfield, near Reading, Hampshire), prime minister of the United Kingdom from May 28, 1937, to May 10, 1940, whose name is identified with the policy of “appeasement” toward Adolf Hitler’s Germany in the period immediately preceding World War II.
The son of the statesman Joseph Chamberlain and younger half brother of Sir Austen Chamberlain, he managed his father’s sisal plantation on Andros Island, Bahamas, and then prospered in the metalworking industry in Birmingham. Chosen lord mayor of that city in 1915, he organized in 1916 a municipal savings bank, the only one in Great Britain. In December 1916 he joined David Lloyd George’s World War I coalition government as director general of national service, but, having insufficient powers, he resigned in August 1917. A Conservative member of the House of Commons from December 1918, Chamberlain served as postmaster general (1922-23), paymaster general of the armed forces (1923), minister of health (1923, 1924-29, and 1931), and chancellor of the Exchequer (1923-24 and 1931-37). He became prime minister on May 28, 1937.
In a futile attempt to sway Fascist Italy away from German influence, he agreed (April 16, 1938) to recognize Italian supremacy in Ethiopia and kept Great Britain out of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), in which Italy was deeply involved. A few days later (April 25) he also undertook to abandon British naval bases in Ireland, a move opposed by some as weakening Britain’s defense capability.
On three occasions in September 1938, Chamberlain went to Germany in efforts to prevent the outbreak of a general European war over Hitler’s demand that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland to Germany. By the Munich Agreement of September 30, he and Premier Édouard Daladier of France granted almost all of Hitler’s demands and left Czechoslovakia defenseless. He returned to England a popular hero, speaking of “peace with honour” (echoing an earlier prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli) and “peace for our time.” Nonetheless, he immediately ordered the acceleration of the British rearmament program. When Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia (March 10-16, 1939), Chamberlain definitely repudiated appeasement, and he soon published Anglo-French guarantees of armed support for Poland, Romania, and Greece in the event of similar attacks. The next month, peacetime military conscription was instituted for the first time in British history.
The Soviet-German nonaggression treaty (August 23, 1939), frustrating Chamberlain’s plan for a mutual assistance agreement among Great Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R., was followed by an Anglo-Polish pact (August 24). When the Germans attacked Poland (September 1, 1939), Chamberlain countered with a British declaration of war (September 3). He remained prime minister during the “phony war” period of sporadic military action, taking into his war cabinet his foremost critic, Winston Churchill, as first lord of the Admiralty.
After the failure of a British expedition to Norway in April 1940, Chamberlain lost the support of many Conservatives in the House of Commons. He resigned on May 10, the day of the German invasion of the Low Countries. In Churchill’s coalition government he served loyally as lord president of the council until September 30, 1940, when ill health forced him to resign that office and the Conservative Party leadership. He died a few weeks later.
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[@adagietto2523]

A tremendous talk; I had long appreciated how hypocritical much of the attack on Chamberlain's policy toward Germany had been, and had suspected that he was probably doing his best in very difficult circumstances, but this made a lot of things much clearer, I was especially struck by the miltary advice that he had received before the Munich meeting.

[@philipbrooks402]

Fascinating and compelling. I think Simon blows away the notion that Chamberlain was a weak and naive figure. Even RAC Parker, author of the highly critical 'Chamberlain and Appeasement' acknowledges that Chamberlain was a very strong figure. However, there were two Chamberlains, Chamberlain the domestic politician, Health Secretary and Chancellor, in which he performed admirably and Chamberlain the statesman in which his performance is more open to question. Unfortunately for Chamberlain it is the latter on which he has been judged and I would argue, found wanting. Much of what Simon stated was true. Chamberlain did urge greater rearmament during the 1935 general election and was overruled by Baldwin. He did prioritise the RAF, and Fighter Command in particular, something that was to have important consequences in the summer of 1940. It was true that the Chiefs of Staff did argue that Britain could not fight three adversaries, Japan, Germany and Italy, of which the most threatening was Germany, which Chamberlain accepted. However, he was culpable for thinking that he could establish a rapport with Hitler rather than recognise him for the fanatic which he was. And the evidence was there to behold: Britain's ambassador to Germany at the time of Hitler's accession to power in 1933 was Sir Horace Rumbold, who had read 'Mein Kampf' in the original and recognised the threat posed by Hitler's Germany. The journalist Stephen Roberts had written a book 'The House that Hitler Built' in which he arrived at the same conclusions as Rumbold and Churchill; that Hitler could not be reasoned with and has aims could only be met by war. Chamberlain ignored them all and in the case of Roberts was quite disdainful. Also, he was completely disdainful of overtures from Roosevelt, which, whilst in some respects were pie in the sky, would have brought American engagement into European matters and created a healthier relationship between the two countries. Ironically, Chamberlain did establish a good relationship with the US Ambassador, Joseph P Kennedy, a man who became despised by the professional diplomats within the US Embassy in London and back home in Washington DC. Perhaps the best that can be said of Chamberlain was said by Duff Cooper, the only minister to resign in the aftermath of Munich, to paraphrase: Chamberlain was an honourable and reasonable man who thought that the dictators were reasonable people too. 'The motive was not dishonourable, the method was not unreasonable. His mistake was only that of the little boy who played with a wolf under the impression that it was a sheep - a pardonable zoological error - but apt to prove fatal to the player who makes it.' As RAC Parker asked, could there have been a worse outcome than that which transpired?

[@markbateman9222]

Chamberlain's foreign policy from 1937 onwards was not about "gaining Britain time" or anything along those lines. To Chamberlain, "appeasement" meant the solving of European problems, the resolution of difficult issues that might lead to flashpoints that could threaten peace. In this he, quite simply, failed. If he did buy time for rearmament it was an accidental by product of his policy. Let's not forget that if Britain became militarily stronger, so did Nazi Germany - in spades! To be fair to old Neville, until March 1939 he was working with the grain of public opinion and the most significant act of "appeasement" came in March 1936 - before Chamberlain became PM. I refer to Hitler's remilitarisation of the Rhineland which all Hitler's biographers agree had a very marked effect on the Nazi leader and his opinion of the willingness of the democracies to defend the post war settlement.

[@lawrieflowers8314]

‘Chamberlain's foreign policy from 1937 onwards was not about "gaining Britain time" or anything along those lines…If he did buy time for rearmament it was an accidental by product of his policy.’ That’s simply not true, and flies in the face of the facts. It’s also not clear how he was expected to ‘solve European problems’, with a madman like Hitler rampaging on the continent. Who was becoming steadily more belligerent & menacing month by month. From his time as Chancellor in the early 30s Chamberlain steadily increased defence expenditure and, as demonstrated, was instrumental in hugely reinforcing the capabilities of the RAF, and at the expense of the other services too. Given the events of 1940, he deserves enormous credit, because without the two modern fighters he put investment into, we would have been soundly beaten by the Luftwaffe. The extra resources also enabled Dowding to build up a crucial radar network too. Far from rearmament being ‘an accidental by product’, it was a result of very definite and hard-headed decisions made by Chamberlain.