Chamberlain's thinking at Munich

[Rich Rostrom]

...some of the revisionist thinking about Munich
seems to indicated strongly that Chamberlain was not
the wishful thinking clewless fool that he has often
been painted as by history to date, and that he was
buying time for UK rearmament...

As may be.

ISTM that there are two very strong arguments against
this view.

First, Chamberlain himself made great public play of
the Munich accords. Was it not he who uttered the
infamous phrase "peace in our time"? If he knew
better, then he was setting himself up to be
humiliated and embarrassed, which seems unlikely.

Second, if his chief concern was that Germany was
ahead in the arms race, then why did he consent to
an arrangement that would allow Germany to acquire
the Czech arsenal and the Skoda Works?

I don't believe Chamberlain was a clueless fool;
but I do believe that he, like most Britons and
Frenchmen, was very fearful of what another "Great
War" would mean in death and destruction. Thus he
was eager to seize on any hope of avoiding such a
war.

Incidentally, while we (being Anglophones) focus on
Chamberlain. what about Daladier? Was he also eager
for "peace in our time", or buying time for French
rearmament?

[Don Phillipson]

...some of the revisionist thinking about Munich
seems to indicated strongly that Chamberlain was not
the wishful thinking clewless fool that he has often
been painted as by history to date, and that he was
buying time for UK rearmament...

We should rank the factual evidence above the thinking
(wishful or not) in this as in other questions.

1. The mainly unresolved question of "thinking" was whether
Chamberlain's top priority was maintaining peace (avoiding
war) or preserving the nation and empire if war came (viz.
defence and survival.) He may well have said both goals
were equally essential..

2. Events since Versailles (1919) are relevant. The League
Charter proposed a new basis for international relations, viz.
negotiation and plebiscites in place of warfare. This new
doctrine was institutionalized in a dozen international treaties
(Locarno, etc.) concerning European inter-state relations,
frontiers, populations, etc.

Even after Hitler came to power at the head of an avowedly
revolutionary movement, he operated in the early years within
this new paradigm -- up to the date he unilaterally repudiated
the Locarno Treaties. Even after this, Hitlerite Germany and
the UK negotiated a naval treaty (limiting fleets, as under the
Treaty of Washington a decade earlier.)

Negotiating at Munich in 1938, Hitler professed that the
Sudetenland was his "last territorial claim in Europe:" and
Chamberlain signed the agreement as this profession were
true and reliable. We do not know Chamberlain's private
beliefs: but he acted and spoke as if the New Versailles
paradigm was still shared by both parties (as if he trusted Hitler:)
and responded to the first counterindication (annexation of
Bohemia) by guaranteeing east European frontiers, on threat
of war. He was aware of the UK's simultaneous rearmament
programme (having reduced it before approving it as
finance minister.) Chamberlain's colleagues did not
doubt his resolution in 1938-39 (testifies John Colville,
then his new private secretary;) they doubted later, as
symptoms emerged of the cancer that killed him in 1941.

[The Horny Goat]

On Mon, 10 Dec 2012 02:05:33 -0500, Rich Rostrom

Post by Rich Rostrom
ISTM that there are two very strong arguments against
this view.
First, Chamberlain himself made great public play of
the Munich accords. Was it not he who uttered the
infamous phrase "peace in our time"? If he knew
better, then he was setting himself up to be
humiliated and embarrassed, which seems unlikely.

"Peace in our time" is not an original phrase to Chamberlain as many
believe - it comes from the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer
as many in Chamberlain's audience would have clearly recognized and it
is one of the pleas to God found in several of the various litergies
of the Church of England. It is most commonly one of the prayers sung
by the presiding clergy to which 'God Save the King/Queen' is the
usual lay response.

So if you want to describe the phrase as "infamous" you had best blame
Thomas Cranmer rather than Neville Chamberlain.

Post by Rich Rostrom
Second, if his chief concern was that Germany was
ahead in the arms race, then why did he consent to
an arrangement that would allow Germany to acquire
the Czech arsenal and the Skoda Works?

To me this is the most credible argument against the 'gaining time'
theory.

Post by Rich Rostrom
I don't believe Chamberlain was a clueless fool;
but I do believe that he, like most Britons and
Frenchmen, was very fearful of what another "Great
War" would mean in death and destruction. Thus he
was eager to seize on any hope of avoiding such a
war.

To me that is the most credible explanation both for Chamberlain and
Daladier.

Post by Rich Rostrom
Incidentally, while we (being Anglophones) focus on
Chamberlain. what about Daladier? Was he also eager
for "peace in our time", or buying time for French
rearmament?

Has any historian actually written on the French view of Munich?

[Michele]

Post by Rich Rostrom
First, Chamberlain himself made great public play of
the Munich accords. Was it not he who uttered the
infamous phrase "peace in our time"? If he knew
better, then he was setting himself up to be
humiliated and embarrassed, which seems unlikely.

Yes...

Post by Rich Rostrom
Second, if his chief concern was that Germany was
ahead in the arms race, then why did he consent to
an arrangement that would allow Germany to acquire
the Czech arsenal and the Skoda Works?

Huh, Chamberlain couldn't be sure, when he gave the Sudeten away, that
Prague would certainly also fall.

[Mart van de Wege]

I don't believe Chamberlain was a clueless fool; but I do believe that
he, like most Britons and Frenchmen, was very fearful of what another
"Great War" would mean in death and destruction. Thus he was eager to
seize on any hope of avoiding such a war.

Perhaps Chamberlain was hoping that Hitler was just as fearful of
another 'Great War'. Given that it was well-known that Hitler was a
veteran of WWI, this would not be such a stretch.

What Chamberlain didn't know is that Hitler was planning a war
regardless, and attempting to plan it in such a way that it would avoid
the stalemate of WWI.

In the latter, he largely succeeded. Whether or not he succeeded in
hoodwinking Chamberlain is a matter of speculation on Chamberlain's
motives. I tend to side with you, as Chamberlain's public utterances
correspond most closely to those of a man wanting to avoid war, not
preparing for it.

Mart

[David Wilma]

Was not Joseph Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to
the UK, also of the opinion that Hitler could be
dealt with? Kennedy was a businessman (not a
bootlegger) and figured if he could just sit down with
the Chancellor that they could make a deal.

[Padraigh ProAmerica]

Re: Chamberlain's thinking at Munich

Group: soc.history.war.world-war-ii Date: Tue, Dec 11, 2012, 10:24am
From: ***@comcast.net (David Wilma)
Was not Joseph Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to the UK, also of the opinion
that Hitler could be dealt with? Kennedy was a businessman (not a
bootlegger) and figured if he could just sit down with the Chancellor
that they could make a deal.

====================

Kennedy was an anglophobe who admired Hitler and his program. His
appoiintment as Ambassador to the Court of ST. James was political
payback, not competent diplomacy.

BTW, Kennedy's bootlegging may be open to question; his stock
manipulations and philandering are not.

--
"Some things take a set amount of time. You can't get a baby in one
month by getting nine women pregnant."--

Unknown

[Rich Rostrom]

Post by David Wilma
Was not Joseph Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to
the UK, also of the opinion that Hitler could be
dealt with? Kennedy was a businessman (not a
bootlegger) and figured if he could just sit down with
the Chancellor that they could make a deal.

History is replete with examples of men and
nations who assumed that an adversary's motives
and morals were similar to their own, but were
grossly mistaken.

This error is especially pernicious when one is
dealing with people of a different culture.

Professor Richard Landes calls this "cognitive
ethnocentrism."

[David Wilma]

Are there grounds for the idea that moving the borders
for the Sudetenland were a continuing adjustment to
acknowledge language as a determinate in national
borders? In other words, because of the way Europe
was redrawn in 1919 would Hitler have a case there?
Did he use this as an argument?

[Alan Meyer]

...some of the revisionist thinking about Munich
seems to indicated strongly that Chamberlain was not
the wishful thinking clewless fool that he has often
been painted as by history to date, and that he was
buying time for UK rearmament...

Here are a few quotes from Chamberlain, as reproduced in _The Storm of
War: A New History of the Second World War_, by ...


"In short I had established a certain confidence which was my aim and on
my side in spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in his
face I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon
when he had given his word.'"

[Hitler] "would not deliberately deceive a man whom he respected with
whom he had been in negotiation."

"It is my hope, and my belief, that under the new system of guarantees
the new Czechoslovakia will find a greater security than she has ever
enjoyed in the past."


In my view, this does not establish that Chamberlain was a fool. He was
an intelligent man. But the word "clueless" does seem appropriate. He
had no clue about Hitler's real character and seemingly could not
imagine that a person who was obviously very intelligent and was the
leader of a great nation could look him in the eye and, in the sincerest
seeming straight-faced way, tell an outrageous lie.

In one sense it is a credit to Chamberlain that he couldn't imagine that
anyone could be such bastard as Hitler was. But Britain needed a man
with more sense of reality and less wishful idealism.

Alan

[Alan Meyer]

Post by Alan Meyer
Here are a few quotes from Chamberlain, as reproduced in _The Storm of
War: A New History of the Second World War_, by ...

I forgot to fill in the author's name before clicking Send. It is
Andrew Roberts.

I'm reading the book now and, although I'm under halfway through, I
think it's quite good. The description of the war and the conclusions
about what did happen and what could have happened will not be new to
members of this group, but the author provides many interesting quotes
from primary sources to explain what happened and many of those were new
to me.

Roberts is in the camp of those who believe that the outcome of the war
was not foreordained, and that Germany could have won. His assessment
of Hitler is particularly interesting. If I understand Roberts, and if
I can generalize from only reading the first part of the book, he
regards Hitler as a highly intelligent man with a tremendous capacity
for detail, but one who was defeated partly by his own ego and
megalomania, and very largely by his racism and anti-semitism which led
him both to disdain Russians and Americans, and to treat conquered
peoples in a way that guaranteed resistance.

Alan

[e***@gmail.com]

David Faber in "Munich,1938" has fascinating quotes from a letter that
Chamberlain wrote to his sister Ida on 20 March 1938. These personal
remarks may be more revealing about the prime minister's thinking than
his public speeches:

"You only have to look at the map to see that nothing that France or we
could do could possibly save Czecho-Slovakia from being over-run by
the Germans if they wanted to do it. The Austrian frontier is practically
open; the great Skoda munition works are within easy bombing distance
of the German aerodromes, the railways all pass through German
territory, Russia is 100 miles away."

And:

"Therefore we could not help Czecho-Slovakia---she would simply be a
pretext for going to war with Germany. That we could not think of unless
we had a reasonable prospect of being able to beat her to her knees
in a reasonable time and of that I see no sign."

From these remarks one can distill that Chamberlain was thinking ahead

about the consequences of a possible war between Britain and Germany.
He correctly concluded that after the "Anschluss" of Austria, the defensive
position of Czechoslovakia was hopelessly bad, caught as it was in an
enormous strategic pincer. To Chamberlain, the interests of Czechoslovakia
(and later, presumably, Poland) were thus completely subordinate to the
bigger question of whether Britain and France could win a large war, or not.
The 1938 crisis was a possible "pretext" but the big strategic decisions were
to be made on other grounds. And in 1938 the chiefs of staff told him that
they could not be confident of victory; in 1939 they would be far more
optimistic.

British efforts at re-armament had started in 1934, when Stanley Baldwin
was still prime minister and Chamberlain Chancellor, after the Foreign Office
recommended it in November 1933: The Entente governments had a lot
more foresight than they are usually given credit for. (French military budgets
also began to grow in 1934.) However, gearing up for war production took
a lot of time. For example, in 1934 Baldwin promised that the RAF would
achieve parity with the German air force in 1939... and actually he would
have been more honest to say 1942, because this is when the plan expected
to RAF to have adequate reserves for war.

Chamberlain's government continued to re-arm at an accelerating pace.
In this matter there was no complacency after Munich, regardless of anything
the prime minister might say in public. Chamberlain certainly preferred
peace over war, if he could achieve it, but he still preferred to negotiate
from a position of strength. He was more willing to accept Hitler's promises
than he should have been, but he was no fool. And although he was
remarkably autocratic by British standards, policy was made by the entire
cabinet and had to find support in the Commons. Several cabinet members
were sharply critical of Chamberlain's foreign policy.

[Bay Man]

Post by Rich Rostrom
First, Chamberlain himself made great public play of
the Munich accords. Was it not he who uttered the
infamous phrase "peace in our time"? If he knew
better, then he was setting himself up to be
humiliated and embarrassed, which seems unlikely.
Second, if his chief concern was that Germany was
ahead in the arms race, then why did he consent to
an arrangement that would allow Germany to acquire
the Czech arsenal and the Skoda Works?
I don't believe Chamberlain was a clueless fool;
but I do believe that he, like most Britons and
Frenchmen, was very fearful of what another "Great
War" would mean in death and destruction. Thus he
was eager to seize on any hope of avoiding such a
war.
Incidentally, while we (being Anglophones) focus on
Chamberlain. what about Daladier? Was he also eager
for "peace in our time", or buying time for French
rearmament?

Tooze:
Page 273
"If Hitler had wanted war on 1 October 1938, he could have had it. The
French and British had reached the point at which they could make no further
concessions. The armies of France and the Soviet Union had mobilized. The
Royal Navy stood at full alert. On 9 September 1938 it was Hitler who
stepped back not his opponents"

Page 274
"Hitler backed down and accepted the extraordinarily generous settlement on
offer at the hastily convened conference in Munich. In so doing, he almost
certainly saved his regime from disaster."

Hitler was more nervous at Munich in 1938. The USSR, France and the RN were
at action stations. Hitler backed away from war - he could have had it if
he wanted. However the Brits & French gave him too much in the negotiations
making it look too much like appeasement.

If the British and French said a clear "no" to everything Hitler demanded
over Czechoslovakia he would have backed down. Brinkmanship of course, but
the cards were stacked against Germany.

Chamberlain actually declared war on Germany.

Niall Ferguson in The War of the World, page 332, states:
"the Americans were eager to appease Germany as anyone in Britain".
Roosevelt wanted to give the Polish corridor back to them. The USA just
prior to WW2 increased imports dramatically to Germany.

On page 333, he states:
"In Asia, the USA had already established a pattern of calling on others to
take stands against aggression, while pursuing its own economic interest".
"When Roosevelt began to do the same in Europe too. Chamberlain concluded
that Americans were "a nation of cads". He said "it is best and safest to
count on nothing from the Americans except words".

Chamberlain, distrusted the Americans to a degree viewing them as economic
opportunist. He wasn't far wrong as they made a profit on WW2..

Ferguson states that the UK and France in 1938 should have rolled over the
German border instead of Chamberlain engaging in shuttle diplomacy over
Czechoslovakia. The Germans militarily would not have stood a chance.
Although is this being more wise in hindsight by Ferguson? Well, Churchill
said that throwing a small state to the wolves to obtain peace was highly
delusionary, supporting an advance into Germany in 1938.

[m***@netMAPSONscape.net]

Post by Bay Man
Page 273
"If Hitler had wanted war on 1 October 1938, he could have had it. The

Um, to point out the BLINDINGLY obvious, you have a war anytime you want it; all
you have to do is attack somebody.

Mike