Neville Chamberlain's European Policy

Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...

's European Policy was based on a commitment to "peace for our time."

Commitment to peace

As with many in Europe who had witnessed the horrors of the First World War and its aftermath, Chamberlain was committed to peace. The theory was that dictatorships arose where peoples had grievances, and that by removing the source of these grievances, the dictatorship would become less aggressive. It was a popular belief that the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

was the underlying cause of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's grievances. Chamberlain, as even his political detractors admitted, was an honourable man, raised in the old school of European politics. His attempts to deal with Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

through diplomatic channels and to quell any sign of dissent from within, particularly from Churchill, were called by Chamberlain "The general policy of appeasement

Appeasement

The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...

" (30 June 1934).

Rearmament

A major structural problem that Chamberlain confronted at the beginning of his Prime Ministership, and which was a major factor in development of his foreign policy was the problem of worldwide defense commitments coupled with an insufficient economic-financial basis to sustain those commitments. A report by the British Chiefs of Staff in 1937 that had much influence on Chamberlain read:

"Even today we could face without apprehension an emergency either in the Far East or the Mediterranean, provided that we were free...to concentrate sufficient strength in one or other of these areas...But the outstanding feature of the present situation is the increasing probability that a war started in any one of these three areas [the third being Western Europe] may extend to one or both of the other two...we cannot foresee the time when our defense forces will be strong enough to safeguard our territory, trade, and vital interests against Germany, Italy and Japan simultaneously. We cannot, therefore, exaggerate the importance, from the point of view of Imperial defense, of any political or international action that can be taken to reduce the numbers of our potential enemies or to gain the support of potential allies".

Chamberlain himself expressed his concerns about the possibility of a three-front war with insufficient resources in October 1937 when he told the Cabinet: “If this country were to become involved [in a war with Japan] in the Far East the temptation to the dictator states to take action whether in Eastern Europe or in Spain would be irresistible”.

Moreover, the economic capability to provide for a sufficient military force to meet all these worldwide defense commitments did not exist, which meant a greater reliance on diplomacy would be needed to reduce potential enemies. As such, there were two options, not mutually exclusive that were open to Chamberlain: 1) reduce potential enemies by appeasing their grievances (as long as these grievances were understood to be limited in nature and justified) and 2) augment Britain's strength by forming alliances with other states. In 1937-38, a greater emphasis was placed upon the former and in 1939-40 upon the latter. A necessary adjunct to this strategy was rearmament, which was intended to ensure that Britain could negotiate from a position of strength, deter a potential enemy from choosing war as an option, and finally for the worst case scenario of war breaking out, to ensure that Britain was prepared. In particular, Chamberlain put great emphasis upon the RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

. In October 1936, as Chancellor of the Exchequer Chamberlain had told the Cabinet "Air power was the most formidable deterrent to war that could be devised". As both Chancellor and Prime Minister, Chamberlain greatly expanded the R.A.F's budget. The importance of the R.A.F. to Chamberlain can be seen when we consider that its budget rose from £16.78 million pounds in 1933 to £105.702 million pounds in 1939, surpassing the Army's budget in 1937 and the Royal Navy's in 1938. By the 1930s, a long economic decline accelerated by the Great Slump had led to the British economy contracting to such a point that there were simply not enough factories, machine tools, skilled workers and money to build up simultaneously a larger R.A.F., a Royal Navy of such size to fight two wars in two oceans at once, and an Army capable of fighting a major European power, which led to Chamberlain favoring the R.A.F at the expense of both the Royal Navy, and even more so the Army. In 1937, Chamberlain introduced the strategic doctrine of "limited liability", in which Britain would avoid the supposed mistakes of the First World War by limiting her efforts to war on the sea and the air.

Under the "limited liability" doctrine, the Army suffered massive cuts while the Navy, and above all the RAF experienced a massive expansion. Rearmament entailed major problems for the British economy. The huge increase in military spending in the late 1930s threatened the balance of payments, reserves of American dollars and gold, inflation, and ultimately the government's creditworthiness. Because of a lack of indigenous sources, much of the steel, instruments, aircraft, and machine tools needed for rearmament had to be purchased abroad while at the same time, increased military production reduced the number of factories devoted to exports, leading to a serious balance of payments problem. Moreover, the increased taxes to pay for rearmament hampered economic growth, while heavy borrowing to pay for rearmament damaged perceptions of British credit, leading to strong pressure being put on the pound sterling. By 1939 Chamberlain's government was devoting well over half of its revenues to defense. Chamberlain's policy of rearmament faced much domestic opposition from the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, which favored a policy of disarmament and until late 1938 always voted against increases in the defence budget (afterwards Labour merely switched towards a policy of abstention on defence votes). Labour repeatedly condemned Chamberlain for engaging in an arms race with Germany, and instead urged that Britain simply be disarmed out of the expectation that this example would inspire all of the other powers to do likewise. Throughout the 1930s, Labour frequently disparaged Chamberlain as a crazed war-monger who preferred high levels of military spending to high levels of social spending.

Diplomatic efforts

A major problem for Chamberlain was that Britain lacked the industrial infrastructure and financial strength to win an arms race

Arms race

The term arms race, in its original usage, describes a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation...

with Germany, Italy and Japan at once. Provided that one or two of the Axis states could be persuaded to re-align themselves from the Axis, Britain could win the arms race with the remaining members of the Axis. Hence, Chamberlain attached great importance to detaching either Germany or Italy (Japan was considered to be hopelessly intransigent). Chamberlain was indifferent to whether Italy detached from Germany, or Germany from Italy, just as long as the list of potential enemies was shortened to enable Britain to win the arms race with the remaining members of the Axis. In a letter written in June 1937, Chamberlain summed up his views when he wrote: "If only we could get on terms with the Germans I wouldn't care a rap for Musso [Benito Mussolini]". Later, Chamberlain was to write in his diary in January 1938: "From the first I have been trying to improve relations with the two storm centres Berlin & Rome. It seemed to me that we were drifting into worse & worse positions with both with the prospect of having ultimately to face 2 enemies at once".

Potential allies

Further reinforcing Chamberlain’s initial determination to focus on attempting to win over potential enemies as opposed to building alliances that might augment British power was a pessimistic assessment of potential allies. Chamberlain was consistently advised by Britain's top military experts that the Red Army was a fighting force of dubious value, which led him to place a low value on the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

as a potential ally. The series of Neutrality Acts passed by the American Congress in the mid-1930s had the effect of convincing Chamberlain that no help could be expected from the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

in the event of a war. As part of an effort to engage the United States into world politics, in October 1937, Chamberlain instructed the British delegation being sent to Washington to negotiate an Anglo-American free trade agreement, that for “political" reasons, it was critical to reach an agreement with the Americans no matter what. Even before the talks began, Chamberlain had ordered the British delegation to accept the American "essentials" as the U.S. deemed certain pre-conditions. The tendency of Sir Eric Phipps

Eric Phipps

Sir Eric Clare Edmund Phipps, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC was a British diplomat.-Family and early life:Phipps was the son of Sir Constantine Phipps, later British Ambassador to Belgium, and his wife Maria Jane...

, the British Ambassador to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

to offer a highly negative assessment in his dispatches of his host country led to a downgrading of France as a potential ally.

Germany

As part of the process of winning German acceptance of the existing European order with suitable modifications and concessions to the Reich was the idea of the "general settlement". A major goal of Chamberlain’s early foreign policy was to seek a “general settlement” that would settle all of Germany’s grievances that he considered justified, and thus guarantee the peace of Europe. In May 1937, during the talks with Reichsbank President Dr. Hjalmar Schacht

Hjalmar Schacht

Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht was a German economist, banker, liberal politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic...

during his visit to London the British drew up a paper listing their demands as a German return to the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

, a non-aggression pact for Western Europe, a treaty limiting armaments, and "Measures by Germany, in treaty form or otherwise, which will satisfy the governments of Central and Eastern Europe with regard...to respect the territorial integrity and sovereign independence of all Central and Eastern European states". Most importantly, the general settlement was to be negotiated from position of strength, and thus for Chamberlain, it was preferable to complete British rearmament before undertaking such talks. The emphasis was put on Germany because as a the Defense Requirements Committee (DRC) (which Chamberlain had helped to write as Chancellor of the Exchequer) report of February 28, 1934 called Germany "the ultimate potential enemy against whom our `long-range' defense policy must be directed". The emphasis upon Germany was due to an assessment of German power and had nothing to do with friendly feelings towards Germany on Chamberlain's part; Chamberlain's feelings towards Germans were well summarised in a letter he wrote to one of his sisters in 1930 where he stated ""On the whole I hate Germans".

Italy

As part of his policy of reducing potential enemies, Chamberlain laid great stress in using the Anglo-Italian Gentlemen’s Agreement of January 1937 as the basis of winning Italy back to the Western fold Chamberlain believed if that was the Spanish Civil War that tied Italy and Germany together, and if Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

could be persuaded to withdraw his troops from Spain

Second Spanish Republic

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

, then Italy would orbit back to the policy of the Stresa Front

Stresa Front

The Stresa Front was an agreement made in Stresa, a town on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Italy, between French foreign minister Pierre Laval, British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, and Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini on April 14, 1935...

. Since the Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden

Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...

was less enthusiastic about the prospects of winning Italy away, Chamberlain starting in the summer of 1937 chose to circumvent the Foreign Office, and used as couriers Sir Joseph Ball of the Conservative Party Research Department, and the Maltese lawyer Adrian Dingli to contract the Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano

Galeazzo Ciano

Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari was an Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law. In early 1944 Count Ciano was shot by firing squad at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini under pressure from Nazi Germany.-Early life:Ciano was born in...

The prospect of Anglo-Italian talks was interrupted in August 1937 by Italian submarine attacks on neutral ships carrying supplies for the Spanish Republic Following strong pressure from Eden, the Nyon Conference

Nyon Conference

The Nyon Conference, held in Nyon, Switzerland, in September 1937, addressed international piracy in the Mediterranean Sea, especially piracy aimed at intervention in the Spanish Civil War...

was called in September 1937 where the British and French navies agree to patrol the Mediterranean to surpass “piracy” as the Italian attacks were called The Anglo-French patrols put an end to the "pirate" submarine attacks, and even included the Italian Navy which patrolled a zone in the Mediterranean to put a stop to its own attacks on ships bound for Republican Spain.

United States

The first foreign policy crisis of Chamberlain’s government occurred in December 1937 when the Japanese attacked and damaged a British gunboat, HMS Ladybird

HMS Ladybird (1916)

HMS Ladybird was an Insect-class gunboat of the Royal Navy, launched in 1916. This class are also referred to as "Large China Gunboats"....

on the Yangtze

Yangtze River

The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...

river in China, and injured Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen

Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen

Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen KCMG was a British diplomat, civil servant and author.-Background and education:...

, the British Ambassador to China by strafing his car Coming as it did at the same time as Japanese planes sank an American gunboat on the Yangtze, the USS Panay, Chamberlain hoped to use the Far Eastern crisis caused by the Panay incident

Panay incident

The USS Panay Incident was a Japanese attack on the American gunboat while she was anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanking , China on December 12, 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the American flags painted on the deck...

to bring the United States out of isolationism, and proposed a joint Anglo-American protest to be backed up by concentrating both the British and U.S. fleets in the Far East with the threat of a blockade should Japan refuse to make amends for its attacks Chamberlain instructed the Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden

Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...

to inform the Americans that Britain was prepared to send 8-9 capital ships to the naval base at Singapore to threaten Japan if the Americans were to do likewise The American refusal of Chamberlain’s offer, and the decision to accept the Japanese apology for sinking the Panay instead did much to disillusion him concerning the prospects of American support if a major war were to occur. In a letter to one of his sisters, Chamberlain expressed the view:

"I am trying to jolly them [the Americans] along with a view to making some sort of joint (or at least "parallel") naval action. They are incredibly slow and have missed innumerable busses...I do wish the Japs would beat up an American or two! But of course, the little d--v--ls are too cunning for that, & we may eventually have to act alone & hope the Yanks will follow before it's too late."

The most that Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

was prepared to agree to was the opening of secret Anglo-American naval talks in London in January 1938 as a contingency measure should another "incident" occur in the Far East

1938: Early negotiations

Because of the very noisy agitation of the Reichskolonialbund
Reichskolonialbund
The Reichskolonialbund was a collective body that absorbed all German colonial organizations during the time of the Third Reich...

(Reich Colonial League) for the return of the former German colonies in Africa, Chamberlain had concluded by 1937 that it was the colonial issue that was Germany's most important grievance. In January 1938 Chamberlain informed the Foreign Policy Committee that he intended to place the colonial issue "in the forefront", though Chamberlain noted "the examination of the colonial question could only be undertaken as a part and parcel of a general settlement". Chamberlain's scheme called for an international regime comprising all of the leading European powers to administer a vast area of central Africa. In exchange for participating in the proposed African administration, Hitler was to promise never to use violence to change the frontiers of Germany. Chamberlain's plan foundered on 3 March 1938 when Sir Nevile Henderson

Nevile Henderson

Sir Nevile Meyrick Henderson, KCMG , was the third child of Robert and Emma Henderson and was born at Sedgwick Park near Horsham, West Sussex. Ambassador of Great Britain to Germany from 1937 to 1939, he believed that Adolf Hitler could be controlled and pushed toward peace and cooperation with...

, the British Ambassador in Berlin presented the Chamberlain's proposal to Hitler, the Führer rejected the idea under the grounds that Germany should not have to negotiate at all for any piece of Africa, and announced that he was prepared to wait ten years or longer for a unilateral return of the former colonies. Chamberlain's African scheme was intended to the first act towards achieving a "general settlement" that would comprehensively resolve all of Germany's grievances, and Hitler's rejection of Chamberlain's plan largely threw the latter's scheme for orderly talks for a general settlement off the rails.

In March 1938, the Anglo-Italian talks were resumed for the working out a procedure for the withdrawal of the Italian forces from Spain On April 16, 1938 the Anglo-Italian Easter Agreement

Easter Pact

The Easter Pact also called Easter agreement was an agreement between the United Kingdom and Italy signed April 16, 1938...

was signed in Rome, which appeared to settle all of the outstanding Anglo-Italian disputes However, the prospect of having the Easter Agreement come into force were hampered when Mussolini, despite his promises sent more troops to Spain As part of the policy of trying to win Italy away from Germany by reducing that country's involvement in Spain, Chamberlain's cabinet slowly dismantled the powers of the Non-Intervention Committee

Non-Intervention Committee

During the Spanish Civil War, several countries followed a principle of non-intervention, which would result in the signing of the Non-Intervention Agreement in August 1936 and the setting up of the Non-Intervention Committee, which first met in September...

for the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

in 1937, and was silent in relation to the gradual ostracism of leftist Juan Negrín

Juan Negrín

Juan Negrín y López was a Spanish politician and physician.-Early years:Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Negrín came from a religious middle-class family...

's government from the organisation.

1938: The Anschluss and the Sudetenland crisis

The first crisis of Chamberlain's tenure in Europe was over the annexation of Austria. The Nazi regime had already been behind the assassination of one Chancellor of Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...

, and was pressuring another to surrender. Informed of Germany's objectives, Chamberlain's government decided it was unable to stop events, and acquiesced to what later became known as the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

.

The second crisis came over the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

area of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

, which was home to a large German minority. Under the guise of seeking self-determination for the ethnic Germans of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, Adolf Hitler planned to launch a war of aggression under the codename of Fall Grün
Fall Grün
Fall Grün was a pre-World War II German plan for an aggressive war against Czechoslovakia. The plan was first drafted late in 1937, then revised as the military situation and requirements changed...

(Case Green) on October 1, 1938. Though Chamberlain would have preferred to avoid a war over the Sudeten issue, and Britain had no defense obligations to Czechoslovakia beyond the Covenant of the League of Nations

Covenant of the League of Nations

-Creation:Early drafts for a possible League of Nations began even before the end of the First World War. A London-based study group led by James Bryce and G. Lowes Dickinson made proposals adopted by the British League of Nations Society, founded in 1915. Another group in the United States—which...

, the Franco-Czechoslovak alliance of 1924 meant any German attack on Czechoslovakia would automatically become a Franco-German war, and since it was an unacceptable change in the balance of power to have France defeated by Germany, Britain would have no other choice, but to intervene to avoid a French defeat. In addition, the vague British statement of March 19, 1936 issued following the Rhineland remilitarisation

Remilitarization of the Rhineland

The Remilitarization of the Rhineland by the German Army took place on 7 March 1936 when German military forces entered the Rhineland. This was significant because it violated the terms of the Locarno Treaties and was the first time since the end of World War I that German troops had been in this...

linking British and French security would created a strong moral case for France to demand British intervention should a Franco-German war begin.

In an effort to defuse the looming crisis, Chamberlain followed a strategy of pressuring Prague to make concessions to the ethnic Germans, while warning Berlin about the dangers of war. The problems of the tight wire act were well summarised by the Chancellor the Exchequer, Sir John Simon

John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon

John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second. He is one of only three people to have served as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer,...

in a diary entry during the May Crisis of 1938: “We are endeavoring at one & the same time, to restrain Germany by warning her that she must not assume we could remain neutral if she crossed the frontier; to stimulate Prague to make concessions; and to make sure that France will not take some rash action such as mobilization (when has mobilization been anything but a prelude to war?), under the delusion that we would join her in defense of Czechoslovakia. We won’t and can’t-but an open declaration to this effect would only give encouragement to Germany’s intransigence” (emphasis in the original). In a letter to his sister, Chamberlain wrote that he would contact Hitler to tell him “The best thing
you [Hitler] can do is tell us exactly what you want for your Sudeten Germans. If it is reasonable we will urge the Czechs to accept and if they do, you must give assurances that you will let them alone in the future”.

In July 1938, another crisis occurred when the Anglo-American free trade talks threatened to break down following further American demands for British concessions Chamberlain ordered the British delegation to do nothing that might scuttle the talks, and make the necessary concessions Chamberlain told the Cabinet that "that the practical results of the agreement might not be very great, but that the psychological effect on the world was of great importance. The more the impression could be created in Europe that the United Kingdom and the United States were getting together, the less would have to be spent on armaments"

Preparations for war

As part of the preparations for a possible, if undesired war over the Sudetenland conflict, Chamberlain ordered the Bomber Command of the RAF was told to start drawing up a list of possible targets in Germany, and a two-division force was to start preparing for a possible deployment to France. A major factor that influenced Chamberlain's conduct of the Czechoslovak crisis in 1938 were highly exaggerated fears which were both promoted and endorsed by leading military experts of the effects of a German bombing offensive against British cities. In early 1938, the Committee of Imperial Defence

Committee of Imperial Defence

The Committee of Imperial Defence was an important ad hoc part of the government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire from just after the Second Boer War until the start of World War II...

(C.I.D) informed Chamberlain that if a German strategic bombing offensive was launched against Britain that it could be reasonably expected that German bombing would result in half-million civilian deaths within the first three weeks. For the first week alone, the CID's estimated death rate from bombing was 150,000 dead (in fact, the 150,000 dead were close to the entire British dead from bombing during all of World War II). In 1938, General Sir Edmund Ironside

Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside

Field Marshal William Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside GCB, CMG, CBE, DSO, was a British Army officer who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the first year of the Second World War....

wrote in his diary of a government whose chief fear was, "of a war being finished in an few weeks by the annihilation of Great Britain. They can see no other kind of danger than air attack." Ironside himself shared these fears as he noted in diary in September 1938 that "We have not the means of defending ourselves and he [Chamberlain] knows it...We cannot expose ourselves to a German attack. We simply commit suicide if we do" (emphasis in the original). At the same time, General Sir Hastings Ismay

Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay

General Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay, KG, GCB, CH, DSO, PC was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat, remembered primarily for his role as Winston Churchill's chief military assistant during the Second World War and his service as the first Secretary General of NATO from 1952...

of the C.I.D. informed the government in September 1938 that "From the military point of view, time is in our favor...if war with Germany has to come, it would be better to fight her in say 6-12 months' time than to accept the present challenge". In Ismay's opinion, more time to rearm would leave Britain better prepared to fight a possible war with Germany.

The attitude of the Dominions towards war in Europe

Another factor that influenced Chamberlain's policy during the Czechoslovak crisis was the attitude of the Dominion

Dominion

A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...

s. With the partial exception of New Zealand, all of the Dominions, particularly Canada and South Africa were entirely in favor of concessions to avert a war in Central Europe that they felt did not concern them, and were quietly critical of Chamberlain for running what they regarded as unacceptable risks of war for a cause that they did not care about. The Dominion attitudes had great influence with Chamberlain, as he believed that Britain could not fight, let alone win a war without the support of the entire Commonwealth. Ever since the Chanak Crisis

Chanak Crisis

The Chanak Crisis, also called Chanak Affair in September 1922 was the threatened attack by Turkish troops on British and French troops stationed near Çanakkale to guard the Dardanelles neutral zone. The Turkish troops had recently defeated Greek forces and recaptured İzmir...

of 1922, it had understood in London that Britain could not count on the automatic support of the Dominions, and it was quite possible for a situation to occur where the Dominions might declare neutrality rather than fight for Britain. The editor of The Times, Geoffrey Dawson

Geoffrey Dawson

George Geoffrey Dawson was editor of The Times from 1912 to 1919 and again from 1923 until 1941. His original last name was Robinson, but he changed it in 1917.-Early life:...

, later recalled that: "No one who sat in this place, as I did during the autumn of '38, with almost daily visitations from eminent Canadians and Australians, could fail to realize that war with Germany at that time would have been misunderstood and resented from end to end of the Empire. Even in this country there would have been no unity behind it".

German opposition plans for a putsch

During the summer of 1938, the British government received several messages from members of the anti-Nazi opposition in Germany such as Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin

Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin

Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin was a lawyer, a conservative politician, resistance fighter in Nazi Germany and a member of the July 20 Plot.- Biography :...

seeking to use the Czechoslovak crisis as the pretext for a putsch. Chamberlain was generally indifferent to these proposals, and refused British support for the proposed putsch. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg

Gerhard Weinberg

Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg is a German-born American diplomatic and military historian noted for his studies in the history of World War II. Weinberg currently is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a member of the...

, has argued that the three visits to London in the summer of 1938 by three different messengers from the opposition, each bearing the same message that if only a firm British stand was made in favor of Czechoslovakia, then a putsch would remove the Nazi regime, and each ignorant of the other messengers' existence presented a picture of a group of people apparently not very well organised, and that it is unreasonable for historians to have expected Chamberlain to stake all in the crucial questions of war and peace upon the uncorroborated words of such a badly disorganised group.

Plan Z

Starting in August 1938, information reached London that Germany was beginning to mobilise reservists, together with information leaked by anti-war elements in the German military that the war against Czechoslovakia was scheduled for sometime in September. Finally, as a result of intense French, and especially British diplomatic pressure, President Edvard Beneš

Edvard Beneš

Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...

unveiled on September 5, 1938, the “Fourth Plan” for constitutional reorganisation of his country, which granted most of the demands for Sudeten autonomy made by Konrad Henlein

Konrad Henlein

Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a leading pro-Nazi ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists...

in his Karlsbad speech of April 1938, and threatened to deprive the Germans of their pretext for aggression. Henlein’s supporters promptly responded to the offer of “Fourth Plan” by having a series of violent crashes with the Czechoslovak police, culminating in major clashes in mid-September that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten districts. In a response to the threatening situation, in late August, Chamberlain had conceived of Plan Z, namely to fly to Germany, meet Hitler, and then work out an agreement that could end the crisis. At the time when the airplane was a relatively new invention, the prospect of the Prime Minister, who had never flown before, flying on a dramatic peace mission to Germany was a gesture that was seen as highly bold and daring. As a public relations move, Plan Z was a great success, though it deprived the British delegation of expert advice and advance preparation.

What finally led to Chamberlain making his offer to fly to Germany on September 13, 1938 was erroneous information supplied by the German opposition, that the invasion of Czechoslovakia was due to start anytime after September 18. Through Adolf Hitler was not happy with Chamberlain’s offer, he agreed to see the British Prime Minister, most probably because to refuse Chamberlain’s offer would put to the lie his repeated claims that he was a man of peace driven reluctantly to war because of Beneš’s intractability.

In a summit at the Berghof at Berchtesgaden

Berchtesgaden

Berchtesgaden is a municipality in the German Bavarian Alps. It is located in the south district of Berchtesgadener Land in Bavaria, near the border with Austria, some 30 km south of Salzburg and 180 km southeast of Munich...

, Chamberlain promised to pressure Prague into agreeing to Hitler's publicly stated demands about allowing the Sudetenland to join Germany, in return for a reluctant promise by Hitler to postpone any military action until Chamberlain had been given the chance to fulfill his promise. Under very heavy Anglo-French pressure, Beneš agreed to ceding the Sudetenland region to Germany. Hitler had agreed to the postponement out of the expectation that Chamberlain would fail to secure Prague’s consent to transferring the Sudetenland, and was by all accounts, most disappointed when Franco-British pressure secured just that. Most damaging to Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had implicitly agreed to Hitler’s demand that all districts with an 50% or more ethnic German population should be transferred, as opposed to the 80% ethnic German bar the British had previously been willing to consider, thus considerably widening the area to be transferred to Germany. The talks between Chamberlain and Hitler in September 1938 were made difficult by their innate differing concepts of what Europe should look like, with Hitler aiming to use the Sudeten issue as a pretext for war and Chamberlain genuinely striving for a peaceful solution.

Bad Godesberg negotiation

Upon his return to London after his Berchtesgaden summit, Chamberlain told his Cabinet though Hitler’s aims were “strictly limited” to the Sudetenland, he felt it was quite possible to avoid war provided everyone played their part. When Chamberlain returned to Germany on September 22, 1938 to present his peace plan for the transfer of the Sudetenland at a summit with Hitler at Bad Godesberg, the British delegation were most unpleasantly surprised to have Hitler reject his own terms which he had presented at Berchtesgaden as now unacceptable. To put an end to Chamberlain’s peace-making efforts once and for all, Hitler demanded the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany no later then September 28, 1938 with no negotiations between Prague and Berlin and no international commission to oversee the transfer; no plebiscites to be held in the transferred districts until after the transfer; and for good measure, that Germany would not forsake war as an option until all the claims against Czechoslovakia by Poland and Hungary had been satisfied. The differing views between the two leaders was best symbolised when Chamberlain was presented with Hitler’s new demands, protested at being presented with an ultimatum, leading Hitler in his turn to state that because the document stating his new demands was entitled “Memorandum”, it could not possibly be an ultimatum. Though Chamberlain was inclined to give the most hopeful impressions on the post Bad Godesberg situation, the majority of the Cabinet led by the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, , known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and as The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was one of the most senior British Conservative politicians of the 1930s, during which he held several senior ministerial posts, most notably as...

, who was himself influenced in his Damascene Road conversion by the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office, Sir Alexander Cadogan, by now alienated by the German response to concessions by upping their demands, were for rejecting the Bad Godesberg ultimatum as unacceptable, which it formally was on September 25, 1938. To further underline the point, Sir Horace Wilson, the British government’s Chief Industrial Advisor, and a close associate of Chamberlain was dispatched to Berlin to inform Hitler that if the Germans attacked Czechoslovakia, then France would honor her commitments under the Franco-Czechoslovak treaty of 1924 and “then England would feel honor bound, to offer France assistance.”. Thus, as Chamberlain himself noted after September 25, 1938 the world was about to be plunged into war over the question of the timing of the change-over of the frontier posts. Hitler insisted in his Bad Godesberg ultimatum that the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany no later then October 1, 1938 whereas the Anglo-French plan Chamberlain had presented, and Hitler had rejected called for the ceding of the Sudetenland within the next six months. In reference to question of the timing of the turnover of the Sudetenland and trenches being dug in a London central park, Chamberlain infamously declared in a radio broadcast on 27 September 1938:

"How horrible, fantastic it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing. I am myself a man of peace from the depths of my soul".

The Munich Agreement

While he was initially determined to continue with Fall Grün
Fall Grün
Fall Grün was a pre-World War II German plan for an aggressive war against Czechoslovakia. The plan was first drafted late in 1937, then revised as the military situation and requirements changed...

(the attack against Czechoslovakia planned for October 1, 1938), sometime between September 27 and September 28 Hitler changed his mind, and asked to take up a suggestion of Mussolini for a conference to be held in Munich on September 30 to be attended by himself, Chamberlain, Mussolini, and the French Premier Edouard Daladier

Édouard Daladier

Édouard Daladier was a French Radical politician and the Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck and large shoulders and determined...

to discuss the Czechoslovak situation. Since London had already agreed to the idea of a transfer of the disputed territory, the Munich Conference mostly comprised discussions in one day of talks on technical questions about how the transfer of the Sudetenland would take place, and featured the relatively minor concessions from Hitler that the transfer would take place over a ten day period in October overseen by an international commission and Germany could wait until Hungarian and Polish claims were settled. At the end of the conference, Chamberlain had Hitler sign a declaration of Anglo-German friendship, to which Chamberlain attached great importance and Hitler none at all.

The Munich Agreement

Munich Agreement

The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...

, engineered by the French and British governments, effectively allowed Hitler to annex the country's defensive frontier, leaving its industrial and economic core within a day's reach of the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

. Chamberlain flew to Munich to negotiate the agreement, and received an ecstatic reception upon his return to Britain on 30 September 1938. At Heston Aerodrome

Heston Aerodrome

Heston Aerodrome was a 1930s airfield located to the west of London, UK, operational between 1929 and 1947. It was situated on the border of the Heston and Cranford areas of Hounslow, Middlesex...

, west of London, he made the now famous "Peace for our time" speech and waved the Anglo-German Declaration to a delighted crowd. When Hitler invaded and seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain felt betrayed by the breaking of the Munich Agreement and decided to take a much harder line against the Nazis, declaring war against Germany upon their invasion of Poland.

1938: Appeasement and its alternatives

The repeated failures of the Baldwin

Stanley Baldwin

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...

government to deal with rising Nazi power are often laid, historically, on the doorstep of Chamberlain, since he presided over the final collapse of peace. However, it is also true that by the time of his premiership, dealing with the Nazi Party in Germany was an order of magnitude more difficult. Germany had begun general conscription previously, and had already amassed an air arm. Chamberlain, caught between the bleak finances of the depression era, his own abhorrence of war, and Hitler who would not be denied a war, gave ground and entered history as a political scapegoat for what was a more general failure of political will and vision which had begun with the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

in 1919.

The policy of keeping the peace had broad support; had the Commons wanted a more aggressive prime minister, Winston Churchill would have been the obvious choice. Even after the outbreak of war, it was not clear that the invasion of Poland need lead to a general conflict. What convicted Chamberlain in the eyes of many commentators and historians was not the policy itself, but his manner of carrying it out and the failure to hedge his bets. Many of his contemporaries viewed him as stubborn and unwilling to accept criticism, an opinion backed up by his dismissal of cabinet ministers who disagreed with him on foreign policy. If accurate, this assessment of his personality would explain why Chamberlain strove to remain on friendly terms with the Third Reich long after many of his colleagues became convinced that Hitler could not be restrained.

Chamberlain believed passionately in peace for many reasons (most of which are discussed in the article Appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...

), thinking it his job as Britain's leader to maintain stability in Europe; like many people in Britain and elsewhere, he thought that the best way to deal with Germany's belligerence was to treat it with kindness and meet its demands. He also believed that the leaders of people are essentially rational beings, and that Hitler must necessarily be rational as well. Most historians believe that Chamberlain, in holding to these views, pursued the policy of appeasement far longer than was justifiable, but it is not exactly clear whether any course could have averted war, and whether the outcome would have been any better had armed hostilities begun earlier, given that France, as well, was unwilling to commit its forces, and there were no other effective allies: Italy had joined the Pact of Steel

Pact of Steel

The Pact of Steel , known formally as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was an agreement between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany signed on May 22, 1939, by the foreign ministers of each country and witnessed by Count Galeazzo Ciano for Italy and Joachim von Ribbentrop...

, the USSR had signed a non-aggression pact

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...

, and the United States was still officially isolationist.

Fall 1938: Attitudes towards Italy and Germany

On November 2, 1938, Chamberlain made another effort to win Italy away from Germany by announcing that his government would soon bring the Easter Agreement into effect, following the news that Italy were pulling 10,000 troops out of Spain On November 16, the Easter Agreement was declared to be in effect, and Britain recognized King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy as Emperor of Ethiopia. Shortly there afterwards on November 30, 1938 the Italians laid claim to parts of France, causing an acute Franco-Italian crisis which nearly scuttled Chamberlain's planned trip to Rome

During the winter of 1938-39, Chamberlain's attitude to Germany noticeably hardened. In part this was due to the violent anti-British propaganda campaign Hitler launched in November 1938, and in part due to information supplied by anti-Nazis such as Carl Friedrich Goerdeler

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a monarchist conservative German politician, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime...

that German armament priorities were being shifted towards preparing for a war with Britain. In particular, Chamberlain was concerned with information that Hitler regarded the Munich Agreement

Munich Agreement

as a personal defeat, together with hints from Berlin in December 1938 that the Germans were planning to renounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement

Anglo-German Naval Agreement

The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June 18, 1935 was a bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and German Reich regulating the size of the Kriegsmarine in relation to the Royal Navy. The A.G.N.A fixed a ratio whereby the total tonnage of the Kriegsmarine was to be 35% of the total tonnage...

, regarded in London as the "barometer" of Anglo-German relations in the near-future. An additional factor that influenced Chamberlain was the reports relayed by the German opposition of Hitler’s secret speech of November 10, 1938 to a group of German journalists complaining that his peace propaganda of the previous five years had been too successful with the German people, and what was required was a new phrase of propaganda intended to promote hatred of other countries, and Britain in particular. In response to the worsening relations with Berlin, Chamberlain decided in a major volte-face that it was now too dangerous for Britain to accept the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

as an exclusive German economic zone, and ordered a British "economic offensive" in the winter of 1938-39 intended to subsidise Balkan economics to resist German economic supremacy. The plans for an “economic offensive” in which Britain would subsidise the purchase of products that would otherwise be bought by the Germans was not without its comic aspects. There was a considerable debate within Whitehall about whatever or not it was right to have British smokers having to use Greek tobacco (regarded as inferior in Britain); finally Chamberlain ruled that the sake of keeping Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

out of the German economic sphere of influence that British smokers would just have to endure Greek tobacco. Another major economic event in November 1938 was the signing of the Anglo-American free agreement The signing of the Anglo-American free agreement marked the beginning of an increasing co-operation in world economic affairs between Washington and London

A trivial incident that reflected the deteriorating state of Anglo-German relations occurred in December 1938 when Chamberlain addressed the correspondents of the German News Agency at a formal dinner in London, and warned of the "futility of ambition, if ambition leads to the desire for domination". The implied rebuke to Hitler led to Herbert von Dirksen

Herbert von Dirksen

Herbert von Dirksen was a German diplomat who is best remembered as the last German Ambassador to Britain before World War II.- Biography :...

, the German Ambassador to Court of St. James walking out of the dinner in protest. Moreover, reports from the Chiefs of Staff (COS) in late 1938 that within a year's time, British air defenses would be strong enough due to increased fighter production and the completion of the Home Link radar chain to resist and repel any German attempt at a "knock-out blow" from the air, the fear of which was a major factor in British policy in 1938. The assurances provided by the COS that Britain could repel and survive a German attempt at "knock out blow" in 1939 played a more significant role in the change in emphasis in Chamberlain's foreign policy that year. At the same time, in late 1938 the Chancellor the Exchequer Sir John Simon

John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon

reported to the Cabinet that the increased military spending Chamberlain had brought through in 1937-38 was leading to inflation, high interest rates, a balance of payments crisis, and the danger that British financial reserves (the so-called “Fourth arm of the defense) would be used up, leading to a situation where "we should have lost the means of carrying on a long struggle altogether. At same time, Simon expressed concern to Chamberlain about the international repercussions of where "...defense plans should be openly seen to have been frustrated by the financial and economic situation".

1939: The "Dutch War Scare" and the German coup of Czecho-Slovakia

In late January 1939, the British government was thrown into a state of panic by the so-called "Dutch War Scare". The Chief of the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...

, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris

Wilhelm Canaris

Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral, head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944 and member of the German Resistance.- Early life and World War I :...

planted false information that the Germans were planning to invade the Netherlands in February 1939 with the aim of using Dutch airfields to launch a strategic bombing offensive intended to achieve a "knock-out blow" against Britain by razing British cities to the ground. Since France was the only country capable of stopping a German offensive from overrunning the Netherlands, and the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet

Georges Bonnet

Not to be confused with the French Socialist Georges MonnetGeorges-Étienne Bonnet was a French politician and leading figure in the Radical-Socialist Party.- Early career :...

had indicated that France would do nothing to stop such an offensive unless Britain made a major step for his country, Chamberlain was reluctantly forced to make the "continental commitment" (i.e. commit to sending a large expeditionary force to Europe). Chamberlain's response to the "Dutch war scare" was to order full Staff talks with France, issuing a public declaration that any German move into the Low Countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

would be regarded as grounds for an immediate declaration of war, and ordering a major expansion to the size of the Army with the idea of peace-time conscription being seriously considered for the first time. On 6 February 1939 Chamberlain informed the House of Commons that any German attack on France would automatically be regarded as an attack on Britain. Besides this guarantee of France, between January 26 and February 20, 1939, Chamberlain also issued guarantees of Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, believing through such diplomatic devices he could block Hitler from waging aggression in Western Europe. In February 1939, Chamberlain announced that the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

's size was to be massively increased, the Territorial Army (reserve army) was increased in size from 13 to 26 divisions, and in April 1939, peaceful conscription for the first time in British history was ordered with the first conscripts to be called up in the summer. Chamberlain's reluctant embrace of the "continental commitment" in February 1939 meant the end of the “limited liability" doctrine, and massively increased the economic problems of British rearmament. However, given the concerns caused by anti-British propaganda campaign unleashed by Hitler in November 1938 coupled with reports from intelligence sources of the huge increase in Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

construction caused by the Plan Z

Plan Z

Plan Z was the name given to the planned re-equipment and expansion of the Nazi German Navy ordered by Adolf Hitler on January 27, 1939...

, plus the fears caused by the "Dutch War Scare", and reports from the Paris Embassy that Georges Bonnet was attempting to achieve a Franco-German understanding left Chamberlain in a situation where he felt he had no other choice then to make the "continental commitment".

The German coup of 15 March 1939 that saw the destruction of the rump state of Czecho-Slovakia led in part to a change of emphasis on Chamberlain's part, and led to the "containment" strategy being adopted. On 17 March 1939 Chamberlain gave a speech in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

where he stated Britain would oppose any German effort to dominate the world, by war if necessary. Speaking before the Cabinet on 18 March 1939, the minutes record that:

"The Prime Minister said that up till a week ago we had proceeded on the assumption that we should be able to continue with our policy of getting on to better terms with the Dictator Powers, and that although those powers had aims, those aims were limited...He had now come definitely to the conclusion that Herr Hitler's attitude made it impossible to continue on the old basis...No reliance could be placed on any of the assurances given by the Nazi leaders...he regarded his speech [in Birmingham of March 17] as a challenge to Germany on the issue whether or not Germany intended to dominate Europe by force. It followed that if Germany took another step in the direction of dominating Europe, she would be accepting the challenge".

1939: The "guarantee" of Poland

In mid-March 1939, Chamberlain's government was rocked by the so-called "Romanian War Scare" (also known as the "Tilea Affair"). The Romanian minister in London, Virgil Tilea reported falsely to the British government that his country was under the verge of an immediate German attack, which led to a U-turn on British policy of resisting commitments in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

. In fact, there was no German attack planned on Romania in March 1939, but major delays within the German synthetic oil program had vastly increased the importance of Romanian oil, and the German delegation from Hermann Göring

Hermann Göring

Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...

's Four Year Plan organisation conducting talks in Bucharest was applying strong pressure on the Romanians to essentially turn over control of the Romanian oil

Oil

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....

industry to Germany. Faced with troops from Romania's arch-enemy Hungary concentrating on the border, and German efforts to secure control of their country's oil industry, the Romanian government had concluded that there was a danger of a Hungarian-German invasion, and had exaggerated the danger level in order to secure British support. Whether Tilea was deliberately exaggerating the German threat to Romania as a way of gaining British support against the German demands to surrender the control of their oil industry as claimed by the British historian D.C. Watt, or if the Romanians genuinely believed that their country was under the verge of a German invasion in March 1939 as claimed by the American historian Gerhard Weinberg is still unclear.

From Chamberlain's point of view, it was desirable to keep Romania and its oil out of German hands; since Germany had hardly any natural supplies of oil, the ability of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

to successfully impose a blockade represented a British trump card both to deter war, and if necessary, win a war. For Chamberlain, the "guarantee" of Polish independence he issued on 31 March 1939 was intended both to tie Poland to the West (the Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Józef Beck

Józef Beck

' was a Polish statesman, diplomat, military officer, and close associate of Józef Piłsudski...

was widely, if mistakenly believed to be pro-German), and of ensuring a pro quid quo thereby Poland would commit itself to protecting Romania and its oil from a German attack. The decision to announce the “guarantee” of Poland in March 1939 was a momentous change in British foreign policy as it was the first time that a British government had made a direct security commitment in Eastern Europe. Ever since 1919, it had been British policy to refuse any security commitments in Eastern Europe as the region was regarded as too unstable, and hence likely to involve Britain in unwanted wars. In 1925, Chamberlain’s half-brother, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Austen Chamberlain

Austen Chamberlain

Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain, KG was a British statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and half-brother of Neville Chamberlain.- Early life and career :...

had famously stated in public that the Polish Corridor

Polish Corridor

The Polish Corridor , also known as Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia , which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from the province of East...

was "not worth the bones of a single British grenadier".

Historic views of appeasement and the guarantee of Poland

A major historiographical debate about Chamberlain's foreign policy was triggered in 1976 by the American historian Simon K. Newman's book March 1939. Newman denied there was ever a policy of appeasement as popularly understood. Newman maintained that British foreign policy under Chamberlain aimed at denying Germany a "free hand" anywhere in Europe, and to the extent that concessions were offered they were due to military weaknesses, compounded by the economic problems of rearmament. Most controversially, Newman contended that the British guarantee to Poland in March 1939 was motivated by the desire to have Poland as a potential anti-German ally, thereby blocking the chance for a German-Polish settlement of the Danzig (modern Gdańsk

Gdansk

Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...

, Poland) question by encouraging what Newman claimed was Polish obstinacy over the Danzig issue, and thus causing World War II. Newman argued that German-Polish talks on the question of returning Danzig had been going well until Chamberlain's guarantee, and that it was Chamberlain's intention to sabotage the talks as a way of causing an Anglo-German war. In Newman's opinion, the guarantee of Poland was meant by Chamberlain as a "deliberate challenge" to start a war with Germany in 1939. In this way, Newman argued that World War II, far from being a case of German aggression was really just an Anglo-German struggle for power. Newman wrote that World War II was not "Hitler's unique responsibility..." and rather contended that "Instead of a German war of aggrandizement, the war become one of Anglo-German rivalry for power and influence, the culmination of the struggle for the right to determine the future configuration of Europe". The "Newman controversy" caused much historical debate about what were Chamberlain's reasons for the "guarantee" of Poland in March 1939, with some reviewers arguing that Newman had failed to support his case with sufficient evidence, whilst the Polish historian Anna Cienciala described Newman's views as wrong, and argued the British and French wanted to avoid war by pressuring the Poles to make concessions Recently, Newman’s book was cited by the American journalist Patrick Buchanan in his 2008 book Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War" to lend support to his assertion that the British guarantee of Poland in March 1939 was an act of folly that caused an “unnecessary war” with Germany

Other historians expressed differing views on the reasons for the "guarantee" of Poland. The British historians Martin Gilbert

Martin Gilbert

Sir Martin John Gilbert, CBE, PC is a British historian and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. He is the author of over eighty books, including works on the Holocaust and Jewish history...

and Richard Gott

Richard Gott

Richard Willoughby Gott is a British journalist and historian, who has written extensively on Latin America...

asserted in their 1963 book The Appeasers that the guarantee was given only in response to domestic objections to appeasement following the German destruction of Czecho-Slovakia on 15 March 1939. Wesley Wark has maintained that the guarantee was an intermediate stage between the commitments Chamberlain made to defend Western Europe in early 1939 for reasons of British national security and the moral crusade to destroy National Socialism that began with the outbreak of war in September 1939. The American historian Anna M. Cienciala

Anna M. Cienciala

Anna M. Cienciala is a Polish-American historian and author. She specializes in modern Polish and Russian history. Graduating with a history doctorate in 1962, she taught at two Canadian universities for a few years before joining the history faculty at the University of Kansas in 1965. She...

contended the guarantee was merely another form of appeasement, arguing that Chamberlain's motive in making the guarantee was to apply pressure on the Poles to consent to return of the Free City of Danzig

Free City of Danzig

The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and surrounding areas....

to the Reich. D.C. Watt, Andrew Roberts and Anita J. Prazmowska

Anita J. Prazmowska

Anita J. Prazmowska is a Professor in International History at the London School of Economics. Her main fields of research interests lie in the Cold War, communism, contemporary history, Eastern Europe, fascism and Poland. She has published several books, and journals...

maintained that the guarantee was only an ineffectual and ill-thought out deterrent meant to discourage Hitler from aggression. Maurice Cowling

Maurice Cowling

Maurice John Cowling was a British historian and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.-Life:Cowling was born in Norwood, South London, to a lower middle-class family. His family then moved to Streatham, where Cowling attended an LCC elementary school, and from 1937 the Battersea Grammar School...

made a Primat der Innenpolitik ("primacy of domestic politics") argument by claiming the guarantee reflected domestic British party maneuvering between the Conservatives and Labour parties, and had nothing to do with the foreign policy considerations

Additional reasons for the guarantee were suggested by the Canadian historian Bruce Strang. Strang argued that Chamberlain was increasing convinced by March 1939 that, much as he disliked the prospect, a war with Germany was appearing increasing inevitable, which meant that Britain would need at minimum massive American economic support. Hints from the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

suggested that he would only consider revising American neutrality laws if Britain were seen be carrying out a more confrontational foreign policy. Simultaneously, the French, especially the Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet skillfully gave the impression of an country whose morale was rapidly collapsing and needed an firmer British commitment to restore it, while at the same time the British were attempting to persuade the French to make concessions to Italy to move Mussolini away from Hitler. A major crisis in Franco-Italian relations had started on 30 November 1938 when Benito Mussolini ordered the deputies in the Italian Chamber of Deputies to stage "spontaneous" demonstrations demanding that France cede Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

, Corsica

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

, Tunisia

Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

and French Somaliland

French Somaliland

French Somaliland was a French colony in the Horn of Africa. Established after the French signed various treaties between 1883 and 1887 with the then ruling Somali Sultans, the colony lasted from 1896 until 1946, when it became an overseas territory of France....

. To remove a potential enemy from the Axis camp, Chamberlain had generally urged the French to give in to the Italian demands, and met much opposition from the French Premier Édouard Daladier

Édouard Daladier

on this point. For Chamberlain, the Polish guarantee tied the French towards opposing Germany and allowed freedom to continue pressure on the French to make concessions to the Italians. In addition, Strang argued that widespread rumors in March 1939 of an imminent German move somewhere in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

led to the need for some sort of dynamic British counter-move to forestall another German coup like those of 15 March against Czecho-Slovakia and 23 March that saw a German ultimatum to Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

to return the Memelland

Klaipėda Region

The Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors...

at once. Finally, Strang noted that the most important reasons for the Polish guarantee were the exaggerated reports of German plans for an invasion of Romania spread by Tilea, which led to fears that the seizure of oil-rich Rumania would uncut any British blockade of Germany, and that a Poland tied to both Britain and Romania would deter a German move into the Balkans. Chamberlain was much influenced by advice from the British military experts that Poland had the strongest army in Eastern Europe, and could pose a major block on German expansionism.

1939: The containment policy

Confirming Chamberlain on his "containment" policy of Germany in 1939 was information supplied by Carl Friedrich Goerdeler

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a monarchist conservative German politician, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime...

to the effect that the German economy under the weight of heavy military spending was on the verge of collapse. In addition, Goerdeler reported Hitler could be deterred from war by a forceful British diplomatic stand in favour of Poland. According to Goerdeler's analysis's, provided Hitler was deterred from war, his regime would collapse on its own accord when the German economy disintegrated. Goerdeler's arguments had much influence on Chamberlain when dealing with Hitler in 1939. In the so-called "X documents" (Goerdeler's codename was "X") detailing the German economic situation, Goerdeler painted a dire picture. In a typical report, Goerdeler told his contact with British intelligence, the industrialist A.P. Young that: "Economic and financial situation gravely critical. Inner situation desperate. Economic conditions getting worse". In February 1939, Goerdeler's assessement of the German economic situation was contradicted by Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, the Foreign Office's economic expert who reported to the Cabinet after visiting Germany that through Germany was suffering from serious economic problems, the situation was nowhere near as desperate as portrayed by Goerdeler in the "X documents". As the British historian Richard Overy

Richard Overy

Richard Overy is a British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich. In 2007 as The Times editor of Complete History of the World he chose the 50 key dates of world history....

observed, Chamberlain much preferred Goerdeler's assessement of German economic problems over Ashton-Gwatkin's, whose views were ignored by the Prime Minister in 1939. Just how accurate was Goerdeler's information has been the subject of much historical debate, with some historians arguing that Goerdeler exaggerated the extent of German economic problems while other historians have maintained that Goerdeler's information was correct, and that it was Soviet economic support together with plundering occupied countries that saved the German economy from collapse in 1939-41.

The "containment" strategy comprised building a "peace front" of alliances linking Western and Eastern European states to serve as a "tripwire" meant to deter any act of German aggression. The essence of the "containment" strategy was a policy of deterrence, which comprised firm warnings against aggression, and an attempt to form interlocking network of alliances that would block German aggression in any direction. Initially beginning with a proposal by Chamberlain in March 1939 following advice from the Chiefs of Staff for talks between Britain, the Soviet Union, Poland and France to offer support for any state that felt its independence threatened by Hitler, at French suggestion, the proposal was stiffened to include action. The Poles were invited into the proposed Four Power Pact as the state best placed to aid Romania, and the East European state Romania was most likely to accept aid from. Poland was at first conceived as merely one part of the anti-German East European bloc, but rumors presented by the newspaperman Ian Colvin, most likely planted by anti-Nazi elements within the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...

of an impending German attack against Poland in late March led to the specific unilateral guarantee of Poland. Pointedly, the guarantee was of Polish independence, not frontiers, leaving open the possibility of territorial revision in Germany's favor. Though it was not practical for Britain to offer any aid to Poland in the event of a German attack, the principle motive was to deter a German attack against Poland, and if such an attack should come, as a means of tying down German troops. Through Chamberlain envisioned the return of Danzig as the part of the ultimate solution to the German-Polish dispute, he also made very clear that the survival of a Polish state, albeit within truncated borders were seen as part of the solution. Moreover, statements from the various Dominion

Dominion

governments in the summer of 1939 (with the exception of the Irish Free State

Irish Free State

The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

) that unlike in 1938, they would go to war if Britain was a further factor that encouraged risking a war over Poland. A additional factor that influenced Chamberlain's conduct of foreign policy in 1939 was the state of the British economy and the financial problems of paying the colossal costs of rearmament. By May 1939, Simon was warning the Cabinet that under the economic strain of rearmament that "We shall find ourselves in a position, when we should be unable to wage any war other than a brief one". Given the economic strains caused by rearmament, Chamberlain very much wanted an end to the endless crises gripping Europe before the arms race bankrupted Britain.

Summer 1939: The Tientsin Incident

A major crisis which preoccupied Chamberlain in the summer of 1939 was the Tientsin Incident

Tientsin Incident

was an international incident created by a blockade by the Imperial Japanese Army's Japanese Northern China Area Army of the British settlements in the north China treaty port of Tianjin in June 1939...

. Following the British refusal to hand over to the Japanese four Chinese nationalists accused of murdering a Japanese collaborator, the British concession in Tianjin

Tianjin

' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...

, China was blockaded by the Japanese Army on June 14, 1939. In particular, reports in the British press of the maltreatment by the Japanese of British subjects wishing to leave or enter the concession, especially the strip-searching in public of British women at bayonet-point by Japanese soldiers enraged British public opinion, and led to much pressure on the government to take action against Japan. Chamberlain considered the crisis to be so important that he ordered the Royal Navy to give greater attention to a possible war with Japan than to a war with Germany. On June 26, 1939 the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

reported that the only way of ending the blockade was to send the main British battle fleet to the Far East, and that given the current crisis in Europe with Germany threatening Poland that this was militarily inadvisable. In addition, Chamberlain faced strong pressure from the French not to weaken British naval strength in the Mediterranean, given the danger that Benito Mussolini might honor the Pact of Steel

Pact of Steel

should war break out in Europe. Following an unsuccessful effort to obtain a promise of American support (who informed the British that the United States would not risk a war with Japan for purely British interests), Chamberlain ordered Sir Robert Craigie

Robert Craigie (diplomat)

Sir Robert Craigie GCMG, CB was the British ambassador in Japan from 1937 through 1941.-Career as Ambassador:In July 1939 took part in negotiations with Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Hachiro Arita, leading to the acceptance of the Craigie-Arita formula, by which the British government...

, the British Ambassador in Tokyo to find any way of ending the crisis without too much loss of British prestige. The crisis ended with the British handing over the Chinese suspects to be executed by the Japanese in August 1939, through Craigie did succeeded in persuading the Japanese to drop their more extreme demands such as the British turning over all Chinese silver in British banks to the Japanese.

Summer 1939: Last attempts at peace

By the summer of 1939, if Chamberlain did not welcome the prospect of war, there was a feeling then was the best time to have either forced Hitler into a settlement, and if that proved impossible and that war was inevitable, then now was the best time to wage one because the economic problems associated with rearmament meant from the British point of view, 1939 was the best time for a war. The Board of Trade's Oliver Stanley

Oliver Stanley

Oliver Frederick George Stanley MC, PC was a prominent British Conservative politician who held many ministerial posts before his early death when it was expected he would soon assume higher office....

advised his Cabinet colleagues in July 1939 that "There would, therefore, come a moment which, on a balance of our financial strength and strength in armaments, was the best time for war to break out". Through being firm in the determination to resist aggression, the prospect of appeasement and peaceful revision had not been abandoned by Chamberlain; in the talks in London between the British Government's Chief Industrial Advisor, Sir Horace Wilson (who was a close friend and associate of Chamberlain) and Helmut Wohlat of the Four Year Plan Office in July 1939, Wilson made clear that provided Hitler abandoned his aggressive course against Poland, London would be willing to discuss the peaceful return of Danzig and the Polish Corridor

Polish Corridor

, colonial restoration, economic concessions, disarmament and an Anglo-German commitment to refrain from war against one another, all of which was of absolutely no significance to Hitler. In the summer of 1939, there were desperate attempts to avert a war by various amateur diplomats such as Göring's deputy Wohltat, Chamberlain's friend the Chief Industrial Advisor Sir Horace Wilson, the newspaper proprietor Lord Kemsley

Viscount Kemsley

Viscount Kemsley, of Dropmore in the County of Buckingham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1945 for the press lord Gomer Berry, 1st Baron Kemsley...

, together with would-be peace-makers like the Swedish businessmen Axel Wenner-Gren

Axel Wenner-Gren

Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren was a Swedish entrepreneur and one of the wealthiest men in the world during the 1930s....

and Birger Dahlerus

Birger Dahlerus

Johan Birger Essen Dahlerus was a Swedish businessman, amateur diplomat, and friend of Hermann Göring who tried through diplomatic channels to prevent the Second World War...

, who served as couriers between Hermann Göring

Hermann Göring

(who had some private doubts about the wisdom of Hitler's policies, and was anxious to see a compromise solution) and various British officials. All efforts at a compromise solution were doomed because Chamberlain demanded as the precondition that Hitler abandon war against Poland as an option, and Hitler was absolutely determined to have a war with Poland. For Chamberlain, war remained the worst case outcome to the Polish crisis, but he was determined to make a forceful British stand in favor of Poland, leading hopefully to a German resort to a negotiated settlement of the Danzig crisis, which would result in a British diplomatic victory that would hopefully deter Hitler from a policy of force.
At the same time as Chamberlain attempted to broker a German-Polish compromise, he also struck to his deterrence strategy of repeatedly warning Hitler that Britain would declare war on Germany if he attacked Poland. On August 27, 1939, Chamberlain sent the following letter to Hitler intended to counter-act reports Chamberlain had heard from intelligence sources in Berlin that the German Foreign Joachim von Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...

had convinced Hitler that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

would ensure that Britain would abandon Poland. In his letter to Hitler, Chamberlain wrote:

“Whatever may prove to be the nature of the German-Soviet Agreement, it cannot alter Great Britain’s obligation to Poland which His Majesty’s Government have stated in public repeatedly and plainly and which they are determined to fulfill.

It has been alleged that, if His Majesty’s Government had made their position more clear in 1914, the great catastrophe would have been avoided. Whether or not there is any force in that allegation, His Majesty’s Government are resolved that on this occasion there shall be no such tragic misunderstanding.

If the case should arise, they are resolved, and prepared, to employ without delay all the forces at their command, and it is impossible to foresee the end of hostilities once engaged. It would be a dangerous illusion to think that, if war once starts, it will come to an early end even if a success on any one of the several fronts on which it will be engaged should have been secured”

Chamberlain, who was nicknamed "Monsieur J'aime Berlin" (French for Mr. I love Berlin) just before the outbreak of hostilities, remained hopeful up until Germany's invasion of the Low Countries that the war could be ended without serious fighting. It was Chamberlain's hope that the British blockade would cause the collapse of the German economy, and hence the Nazi regime. Once a new government was installed in Germany, it would be possible to make peace over issues "that we don't really care about". This policy was widely criticised both at the time and since; but given that the French General Staff was determined not to attack Germany but instead remain on the strategic defensive, what alternatives Chamberlain could have pursued are not clear. It is true that he used the months of the Phoney War to complete development of the Spitfire

Supermarine Spitfire

The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries throughout the Second World War. The Spitfire continued to be used as a front line fighter and in secondary roles into the 1950s...

and Hurricane

Hawker Hurricane

The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force...

, and to strengthen the RDF or Radar

Radar

Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

defense grid in Britain. Both of these priorities would pay crucial dividends in the Battle of Britain

Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...

Outbreak of war

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Once it become clear that it was an invasion, and not the outbreak of border fighting (as it was by the middle of September 1), Chamberlain wished to declare war on Germany at once. For the sake of Allied concord, Chamberlain wanted the British declaration of war to be linked to a French one. The outbreak of war caused a serious crisis within the French Cabinet: a ferocious power struggle broke out between those in the French Cabinet led by the Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, who were opposed to going to war with Germany, versus those led by Premier Édouard Daladier who were in favour. France's intentions were unclear at that point as the Bonnet-Daladier power struggle played out, and the government could only give Germany an ultimatum

Ultimatum

An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests...

: if Hitler withdrew his troops within two days, Britain would help to open talks between Germany and Poland. When Chamberlain announced this in the House on 2 September, there was a massive outcry. The prominent Conservative former minister Leo Amery, believing that Chamberlain had failed in his responsibilities, famously called on the acting Leader of the Opposition Arthur Greenwood

Arthur Greenwood

Arthur Greenwood CH was a prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s. He rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department from 1920 and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the short-lived Labour government of 1924...

to "Speak for England, Arthur!". Chief Whip

Chief Whip

The Chief Whip is a political office in some legislatures assigned to an elected member whose task is to administer the whipping system that ensures that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires.-The Whips Office:...

David Margesson

David Margesson, 1st Viscount Margesson

Henry David Reginald Margesson, 1st Viscount Margesson PC was a British Conservative politician most popularly remembered for his tenure as Government Chief Whip in the 1930s. His reputation was of a stern disciplinarian who was one of the harshest and most effective whips...

told Chamberlain that he believed the government would fall if war was not declared. After bringing further pressure on the French, who agreed to parallel the British action, Britain declared war on 3 September 1939.

In Chamberlain's radio broadcast to the nation, he said:
In Parliament on the same day Chamberlain (not a man to show his emotions) appeared devastated:

"This is a sad day for all of us, and to none is it sadder than for me. Everything that I have worked for, everything that I hoped for, everything I have believed in during my public life has crashed into ruins." (Hansard, 5th series, Vol CCCLI, p. 292)

As part of the preparations for conflict, Chamberlain asked all his ministers to "place their offices in his hands" so that he could carry out a full-scale reconstruction of the government. The most notable new recruits were Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

and the former Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey

Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey

Maurice Pascal Alers Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC was a British civil servant who gained prominence as the first Cabinet Secretary and who later made the rare transition from the civil service to ministerial office.-Life and career:The third son of R. A...

, now Baron Hankey

Baron Hankey

Baron Hankey, of The Chart in the County of Surrey, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1939 for the civil servant Sir Maurice Hankey, Cabinet Secretary from 1920 to 1938. His eldest son, the second Baron, was a diplomat and served as British Ambassador to Sweden...

. Much of the press had campaigned for Churchill's return to government for several months, and taking him aboard looked like a good way to strengthen the government, especially as both the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

and Liberal Party

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

declined to join.

Initially, Chamberlain intended to make Churchill a minister without portfolio (possibly with the sinecure

Sinecure

A sinecure means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service...

office of Lord Privy Seal

Lord Privy Seal

The Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state...

) and include him in a War Cabinet

War Cabinet

A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members....

of just six members, with the service ministers outside it. However, he was advised that it would be unwise not to give Churchill a department, so Churchill instead became First Lord of the Admiralty. Chamberlain's inclusion of all three service ministers in the War Cabinet drew criticism from those who argued that a smaller cabinet of non-departmental ministers could take decisions more efficiently.

War premiership

The first eight months of the war are often described as the "Phoney War", for the relative lack of action. Throughout this period, the main conflicts took place at sea, raising Churchill's stature; however, many conflicts arose behind the scenes.

The Soviet invasion of Poland and the subsequent Soviet-Finnish War

Winter War

The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

(the "Winter War") led a call for military action against the Soviets, but Chamberlain believed that such action would only be possible if the war with Germany were concluded peacefully, a course of action he refused to countenance. The Moscow Peace Treaty in March 1940 brought no consequences in Britain, though the French government led by Édouard Daladier fell after a rebellion in the Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of deputies is the name given to a legislative body such as the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or can refer to a unicameral legislature.-Description:...

. It was a worrying precedent for an allied prime minister.

Problems grew at the War Office

War Office

The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...

as the Secretary of State for War

Secretary of State for War

The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

, Leslie Hore-Belisha

Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha

Isaac Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha PC was a British Liberal, then National Liberal Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister. He later joined the Conservative Party...

, became an ever more controversial figure. Hore-Belisha's high public profile and reputation as a radical reformer who was turning the army into a modern fighting force made him attractive to many, but he and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lord Gort

John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort

Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort, VC, GCB, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, MVO, MC , was a British and Anglo-Irish soldier. As a young officer in World War I he won the Victoria Cross at the Battle of the Canal du Nord. During the 1930s he served as Chief of the...

, soon lost confidence in each other in strategic matters. Hore-Belisha had also proved a difficult member of the War Cabinet, and Chamberlain realised that a change was needed; the Minister of Information

Minister of Information

The Ministry of Information , headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II...

, Lord Macmillan, had also proved ineffective, and Chamberlain considered moving Hore-Belisha to that post. Senior colleagues raised the objection that a Jewish Minister of Information would not benefit relations with neutral countries, and Chamberlain offered Hore-Belisha the post of President of the Board of Trade instead. The latter refused and resigned from the government altogether; since the true nature of the disagreement could not be revealed to the public, it seemed that Chamberlain had folded under pressure from traditionalist, inefficient generals who disapproved of Hore-Belisha's changes.

When Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, an expeditionary force was sent to counter them, but the campaign proved difficult, and the force had to be withdrawn. The naval aspect of the campaign in particular proved controversial and was to have repercussions in Westminster.

Chamberlain's war policy was the subject of impassioned debate, to such an extent that he is one of the very few Prime ministers to have appeared in popular songs. The 1940 song "God Bless you Mr Chamberlain" expresses support :
God bless you, Mr Chamberlain,
we are all mighty proud of you.
You look swell holding your umbrella,
all the world loves a wonderful fellow...

Fall and resignation

Following the debacle of the British expedition to Norway, Chamberlain found himself under siege in the House of Commons. During the Norway Debate

Norway Debate

The Norway Debate, sometimes called the Narvik Debate, was a famous debate in the British House of Commons that took place in May 1940. It led to the formation of a widely-based National Government led by Winston Churchill which was to govern Britain until the end of World War II in Europe...

of 7 May, Leo Amery – who had been one of Chamberlain's personal friends – delivered a devastating indictment of Chamberlain's conduct of the war. In concluding his speech, he quoted the words of Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

to the Rump Parliament

Rump Parliament

The Rump Parliament is the name of the English Parliament after Colonel Pride purged the Long Parliament on 6 December 1648 of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason....

:
When the vote came the next day, over 40 government backbenchers voted against the government and many more abstained. Although the government won the vote, it became clear that Chamberlain would have to meet the charges brought against him. He initially tried to bolster his government by offering to appoint some prominent Conservative rebels and sacrifice some unpopular ministers, but demands for an all-party coalition government grew louder. Chamberlain set about investigating whether or not he could persuade the Labour Party to serve under him and, if not, then who should succeed him.

Two obvious successors soon emerged: Lord Halifax, then Foreign Minister, and Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

. Halifax would have proved acceptable to almost everyone, but he was deeply reluctant to accept, arguing that it was impossible for a member of the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

to lead an effective government. Over the next 24 hours, Chamberlain explored the situation further. That afternoon he met with Halifax, Churchill and Margesson, who determined that if Labour should decline to serve under Chamberlain then Churchill would have to try to form a government. Labour leaders Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

and Arthur Greenwood

Arthur Greenwood

were unable to commit their party and agreed to put two questions to the next day's meeting of the National Executive Committee

National Executive Committee

The National Executive Committee or NEC is the chief administrative body of the UK Labour Party. Its composition has changed over the years, and includes representatives of affiliated trade unions, the Parliamentary Labour Party and European Parliamentary Labour Party, Constituency Labour Parties,...

: Would they join an all-party government under Chamberlain? If not, would they join an all-party government under "someone else"?

The next day, Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France. At first, Chamberlain believed it was best for him to remain in office for the duration of the crisis, but opposition to his continued premiership was such that, at a meeting of the War Cabinet, Lord Privy Seal

Lord Privy Seal

Sir Kingsley Wood

Kingsley Wood

Sir Howard Kingsley Wood was an English Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance...

told him clearly that it was time to form an all-party government. Soon afterwards, a response came from the Labour National Executive – they would not serve with Chamberlain, but they would with someone else. On the evening of 10 May 1940, Chamberlain tendered his resignation to the King and formally recommended Churchill as his successor.

External links

University of Birmingham Special Collections The political papers of Neville Chamberlain
Downing Street website
The Struggle for Peace by Neville Chamberlain

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Commitment to peace

Rearmament

Diplomatic efforts

Potential allies

Germany

Italy

United States

1938: Early negotiations

1938: The Anschluss and the Sudetenland crisis

Preparations for war

The attitude of the Dominions towards war in Europe

German opposition plans for a putsch

Plan Z

Bad Godesberg negotiation

The Munich Agreement

1938: Appeasement and its alternatives

Fall 1938: Attitudes towards Italy and Germany

1939: The "Dutch War Scare" and the German coup of Czecho-Slovakia

1939: The "guarantee" of Poland

Historic views of appeasement and the guarantee of Poland

1939: The containment policy

Summer 1939: The Tientsin Incident

Summer 1939: Last attempts at peace

Outbreak of war

War premiership

Fall and resignation

See also

Biographies

External links