Book Review: International Politics and Economics: On Borrowed Time: How World War II Began
| Author | F. H. Soward |
| Date | 01 September 1970 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207002500312 |
| Published date | 01 September 1970 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book
Reviews
International
Politics
and
Economics
On
Borrowed
Time:
How
World
War
II
Began.
By
LEONARD
MOSLEY.
London:
Weidenfeld
&
Nicolson [Toronto:
Ryerson].
1969.
xvi,
509pp.
$12.50.
This
vividly
written
book,
by
a
veteran
foreign
correspondent
who
was
in
Eger,
Munich,
Danzig,
and
Berlin
at
critical moments
during
the
period
described,
deserves
wide
circulation. The
author
has
ran-
sacked
the
archives
of
five
countries,
read
widely
among
the
printed
sources,
and
secured
by
interview
or
correspondence
significant
informa-
tion
from
such
key
figures
as
Sir
Horace
Wilson,
Charles
Bohlen,
Edward Daladier,
General
Stehlin,
and
Eric
Kordt.
Occasionally
he
has
paraphrased
in
conversational
fashion
memoirs
and
despatches,
as
when
Molotov
is
described
as
telling
the
Anglo-French
delegates in
Moscow
"You
must
think
we
are
Nitwits
and
Nincompoops."
The
author's
skill
as
a
journalist
allows
him
to
employ
local
colour
effectively
as
in
describing
Hitler's
seasickness
en
route
to
Memel,
Admiral
Draxas'
coughing
spells,
and
Dahlerus' purchases
in
Fortnum
and
Mason. Sometimes
this facility
betrays
him
and
he solemnly
tells
that
when
Eden
suggested
Halifax
go
to
Moscow
in
the
summer
of
1939,
"an
invisible
shudder passed
down
the
aristocratic
Halifax's
long
frame."
An
exciting
revelation
is
the
fact
that
Charles
Bohlen
was
smuggled
into
the
German
embassy
in
Moscow
to
listen
in
a
cubicle
while
the
contents of
the
secret
protocol
signed by
Stalin
and
Ribben-
trop
were
being
telephoned
to
Berlin:
"Word
for
word
it
was
on
its
way
to
Washington
four
hours
later."
Bohlen
believes
that
on
at
least two
occasions
a
communist
spy
in
the
British
Foreign
Office
intercepted
warning
despatches
from
Washington
and
quotes
Eden
as
so
informing
him.
But
Lord
Avon
is
recorded
as
being
"unable
to
recall
the
con-
versation."
The
author
is
almost
as
harsh
with
Chamberlain as
was
Cato
a
generation
ago
in
Guilty
Men.
At
the
outset
of
the
period,
in
September
1938,
Chamberlain
is
".
..
the
villain
of
pre-war
Britain
dragging
his
nation
down
by
a
mixture
of
arrogance
and
self-deception."
When
it
was
realized
that
Hitler
was
determined
to
invade
Poland,
he
became
"...
a
pathetic
dupe
aghast
at
the
avalanche
of
evil
consequences
about
to
descend
on his head." Hence
the
efforts
to
employ
Mussolini
as
a
mediator and
the
odyssey
of
Dahlerus
the
indefatigable
Swede
whom
Goering
recruited
and
the British
accepted.
There
is
a
new
vignette
of
Churchill:
"sipping
his
brandy
and
puffing
at
his
cigar
he
huffed
like
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