Book Review: Europe in Decay

AuthorS. Mack Eastman
Published date01 September 1951
Date01 September 1951
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/002070205100600327
Subject MatterBook Review
BOOK
REVIEWS
261
EUROPE IN
DECAY.
A
STUDY
IN DISINTEGRATION,
1936-40.
By
L.
B.
Namier,
1950.
(London,
Toronto:
Macmillan.
vii,
330
pp.
$3.50,
members
$2.80.)
With
Europe
in
Decay,
Professor
Namier
has
again
placed
stu-
dents
of
contemporary
diplomatic
history
in his
debt.
He
writes
with
brevity,
logic
and
style,
and
his
frank
judgements
usually command
the
assent
of
the
careful
reader.
But should
not
the title read
"Europe
in
Agony"
rather
than
"Europe
in
Decay"?
This
volume,
consisting
of fifteen
reprinted
essays
and
book
reviews,
and an
appendix
dealing
with
Czech-Polish relations,
serves as
a
sequel
to
his
brilliant
"Diplomatic
Prelude,
1938-1939."
He
promises
to
keep
up his
good
work
of
critical
analysis
of
the
most
important
new
publi-
cations
of
documents,
memoirs
and
monographs
covering
particularly
the
period
1936-40.
Among
the
authors
of
books
and
memoirs
appraised,
we
find
Flan-
din,
Reynaud,
Bonnet,
Baudoin, Stucki.
Ciano,
Churchill,
von
Hassell.
Collections
like
the "Documents
on
British
Foreign
Policy,"
"Nazi-
Soviet
Relations,
1939-1941"
and
the
French
and
other
"Coloured
Books"
are
also
utilized.
Rightly
his
hero
is
Churchill, and
naturally,
like
most
writers
since
"Munich,"
he
scorns
the
"appeasers,"
perhaps
at
times
without
sufficient
allowance
for
the
appalling
alternatives
which
confronted
some
of
them, or
for
the
fact
that
their
parliaments
and
national opinion
applauded
them,
realizing
that
now
they
had
to
"negoti-
ate from
weakness."
(Does
Mr.
Namier
discern appeasement
today
in
Korea?)
The
private
letter
of
President
Benes
to
the
author
(April,
1944)
and
the
accompanying
enclosures
dating
from
the
time
of
"Munich"
make
the
most
poignant
reading.
In
January
1934,
Pilsudski
and
Beck
had
accepted
from
Hitler the
offer
of
a
non-aggression"
pact which
Benes
had
previously refused
while loyally
warning
Poland,
among
others.
On
September
22, 1938
President
Benes,
fearing war
with
Germany,
vainly
appealed
to
the Polish
President
for
a
friendly
settlement
of
their
old
frontier
quarrel.
"The
reply
sent
me
by
Poland
provided
me
with
the
last
and
decisive
reason
for
the
fact
that,
in
spite
of
the
insistence
of
Moscow,
I
did
not
provoke
war
with Germany
in 1938.
But
it
was
clear
to
me
already
that
Poland
would pay
a
terrible
price
for
what
she
had
done."
(p.
284).
The
Polish
reply had proven
that
Poland
was
definitely
in
the
German
camp.
From
high
tragedy to
low
but revealing
comedy
:-in
August,
1939,
we
take
a
peep
at
Berchtesgaden:
Ciano, Attolico
and
Magistrati
in
council "in
Ciano's bath-room, with
taps running,
to
defeat
German
microphones."
(p.
268).
The
fraternity
of
dictators!
The Italian
spy-system
was
less
mechanized
but
more
effective,
as
witness
Ciano's
references
to
the
former
Secretary-General
of
the
League
of
Nations,
later British
Ambassador
to
Rome,
Lord
Perth:

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