Book Review: British Foreign Policy in the Second World War
| Author | William H. McNeill |
| Published date | 01 March 1963 |
| Date | 01 March 1963 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206301800130 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEW
121
conformity with
the then prevailing
Nazi
and
Bolshevik
propaganda,
he
interprets
as
a measure
for
peace.
The
best
that
one
can
say
of
Mr.
Taylor
is
that
he
has
become
a
late
victim
of
Nazi
propaganda.
The description
of
the
last
critical
days of
August,
1939,
is
so
hair-raising
that
it
is
useless
to
contradict
it.
It
has
nothing
to
do
with historical
reality.
One
must
add
that
Taylor's
book
is
not
only
worthless
scientifically,
but also
that
it
is
irresponsible
politically.
For
neo-Nazi
circles
in
Germany,
as
was to
be
expected,
immediately
adopted it.
And
they
now
can
stand
solidly
on
the
work
of
the
"famous"
Oxford
historian
Taylor,
when
they
deny
the
unimpeachable
truth
that
Hitler
and
the
Nazi
system
bear
the
main
responsibility
for
the
Second
World
War.
University
of
Bern,
Switzerland
WALTHER
HOFER
BRrrISH
FOREIGN
POLICY
IN
THE)
SECOND WORLD
WAR.
By
Sir
Llewellyn
Woodward.
1960.
(London:
Her Majesty's
Stationery
Office.
Iv.,
592pp.
37/-)
As
the author
explains in
the
preface,
this
volume
is
"an
abridge-
ment
of
a
larger
work
written
for
official
reference".
Successive
chap-
ters
therefore
distill
the
Foreign
office
files,
section
by
section;
and
the
content
of
the
work
reflects
the
necessarily
limited
and
sometimes
even
parochial
vision
of
the
civil
servants
who
occupied
secondary
and
ter-
tiary
official
levels
in
the
Foreign
Office
during
World
War
II.
Except
for
the
Introduction,
where
the author
speaks
in
his
own
authentic
and
magisterial
accent,
the
result
is
a
plethora
of
information,
and a dismal
lack
of
overall
perspective
upon
the
professed
subject of
the
book.
With
few
exceptions,
personalities
(even
Churchill's!)
disappear
behind
the
gray
anonymity
of
office.
The
place
of
the
Foreign
Office
"within
the
domestic
balance
of
forces
that
produced
"British
foreign
policy"
is
left
out
of
consideration (save
for
a caveat
entered
in
the
Introduction).
Most
vital
of
all,
the
actions
of
other
governments
and
the
military
and
economic
settings within
which
Foreign
Office
policies
were
generated appear marginally
when
they
are
not
omitted
entirely.
The
volume
therefore
offers
a
pr~cis
of
one
of
the
elements
of
British
foreign
policy,
but
completely
falls
short
of
the
promise
of
its
title.
Even within
the
limits
Sir
Llewellyn
has
accepted,
the reader
cannot
help
wondering about
what
may
have
been
left
out in
the
course
of
abridgement.
The
special
animosity
of
the
British
government
against
Count
Sforza,
for
example,
remains
as
mysterious
as ever.
Indeed,
perhaps
because
British
policy
in
Italy
was
for
the
most
part
handled
not
by
the
Foreign
Office
but
by
other
branches
of
the
British
govern-
ment,
the
whole
course
of
British-Italian relations
remains
particularly
unintelligible
as
presented
here.
One
cannot
suppress
the
suspicion
that
the
record
may
have
been
edited
to
avoid
offending
a
friendly
and
allied
power
of
1962.
Future
historians
of
the
diplomacy
of
World
War
II
will none-
theless
find
Sir
Llewellyn's pages
of
some
value,
for
he
presents
a few
nuggets
of
information
not
otherwise
available.
The role
of
the
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