Book Review: Commonwealth of Nations: The Appeasers
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900124 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Author | Gordon A. Craig |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
Rzviaws
101
Commonwealth
of
Nations
THME
ApPEAsms.
By
Martin
Gilbert and
Richard
Gott.
1963.
(London:
Weidenfeld
&
Nicolson.
Toronto:
McClelland
&
Stewart.
x,
380pp.
$10.50)
At
the
beginning
of
this
new
study
of
British
foreign
policy
before
World
War
II,
the
authors
have
quoted
the
passage
from
Through
the
Looking
Glass
in
which
Alice
says,
"There's
no
use
trying:
one
can't
believe impossible
things",
and
the
Queen
answers,
"I
dare
say
you
haven't
had
much
practise".
It
may
not
be
too
far-fetched
to
assume
that
the
authors
(both
of
whom
were
born
in
the
late
1930's)
identify
themselves
with
Alice,
and
that
the
Queen
stands
for
the
muse
they
serve.
Certainly,
the
prevailing
tone
of
their
book
suggests
that
they
find
the
behaviour
of
Neville
Chamberlain
and
his
associates incredible
and
are
constrained
to
record
it
only
because
they
have
been
con-
vinced by
their
researches
that
these things
actually
happened.
There
is
an
intimation
also
that
they
are
appalled
at
the
possibility
that
they
might,
unless
we
are very
careful,
happen
again.
The
dust
jacket
tells
us,
at
least,
that
Mr. Gilbert
believes
that
recent
history
shows
"an
amazing
indictment
of
past
errors
and
future
pitfalls".
The
authors
are
too
well
trained
as
historians,
however,
to waste
much time
on
crystal-gazing.
Their
concern
is
with
the
record
of
British
policy
in
the
period
after
1933
and
particularly
during
the years
when
Neville
Chamberlain
was
Prime
Minister,
and
they
have reconstructed
it
with
exemplary
thoroughness,
making
full
use
of
the
rich
documentary
and
secondary
materials
and
of
information
gleaned
from interviews
with
such
participants
in
the
events
of
the
period
as
Sir Horace
Wilson,
R.
A.
Butler,
Alexander Cadogan,
Basil Newton and
Orme
Sargent.
In
telling
the
story,
they
have
emphasized
aspects
that
have
received
rather
too
little
attention
in
the past,
and
the reader
will
find
in
their
account
interesting
pages
on
the
varied forms
of
economic
appeasement
employed
by
the
Chamberlain
government,
on
the
Prime
Minister's
obsessive conviction
that
Hitler
could
be pacified
by
colonial concessions
and
the
generosity
with
which
he
offered
the
Fuehrer
the
African
pos-
sessions
of
other
Powers, and
on
the
Gallophobia
that
affected
the
thinking
of
Chamberlain's
closest
associates
and
the
corrosive
effects
it
had
on
western unity
and
determination.
The
authors
have
no
patience
with
the
comfortable
thesis
that
appeasement
was
an
unfortunate but
well-meaning
mistake from
which
the
Chamberlain
government
recovered
quickly
after
Hitler's
march
into
Prague
in March
1939,
and they
are
even
more
scornful
of
the
argu-
ment
(advanced
most
recently
in
Iain
MacLeod's
'biography
of
Chamber-
lain)
that
the
Munich
surrender
gave
England
a
year's
grace
in
which
to
prepare
for
war.
The
latter
theory
they
dismiss
by
pointing
to
the
lack
of
energy
shown
in
the
armaments
programme
of
the
government
after
Munich
and
by
claiming,
as
Hugh
Dalton has
before
them,
that
the
Germans
gained
more
from the year's
respite
than
the
British
and
the
French.
In
addition,
they
make
it
clear
that
appeasement
did
not
To continue reading
Request your trial