‘Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the road to war’, by Tim Bouverie

Review by Reg Naulty

What is of special interest to Friends in this story, so well told by Tim Bouverie, is the strong inclination to pacifism which existed in Britain between the wars, and the huge efforts of Neville Chamberlain to preserve peace. Bouverie writes: ‘The campaign against the arms manufacturers was continued by the Left [in the decade after world war one]. The Liberals were wholly committed to disarmament; while the Labour leader, the Christian Socialist George Lansbury, wanted to disband the Army, dismiss the Air Force and dare the world to “Do Your Worst”.’

The politicians of the day were well aware of the sympathy for pacifism, and took it into account in their campaigning. The spirit of pacifism possessed the educated, moneyed class to such an extent that, when the threat of war became real towards the end of the 1930s, there was a procession of amateur diplomats to see Adolf Hitler in the cause of peace, including: Philip Kerr, Arnold Toynbee, Nancy and Waldorf Astor, the chair of The Economist, and others.

Moreover, Chamberlain was in some respects a model Quaker. He not only wanted to forestall a war with Germany, he wanted to avoid war for all time. For a Conservative, he did a surprising amount to help the poor. In fact, he laid the foundations for what became the welfare state after the war. And whereas some of his colleagues regarded Hitler as an evil being with whom no compromise should be attempted, Chamberlain thought differently: ‘The dictators are too often regarded as though they were entirely inhuman. I believe this to be entirely erroneous.’

Although Hitler did display casual ruthlessness in conversations with British leaders, his behaviour showed very human traits. The book describes how he suffered a bad attack of nerves before he over-ran Czechoslovakia, and the tension before he invaded Poland seems to have brought on a full-scale breakdown. So, I believe Chamberlain was right to try to reach his human side.

But Chamberlain had some attitudes which hampered him. He treated the Labour Party badly, regarded the US with frigid disdain, held the League of Nations in contempt, and put too much store in his own assessment of people from very different backgrounds. He also liked Benito Mussolini (who considered Chamberlain one of the ‘tired sons of a long line of rich men’).

An unexpected feature of the story is the people from the German opposition to Hitler. One was Ewald von Kleist-Schenzin, a Prussian conservative, sent at the behest of the anti-war head of German military intelligence, Wilhelm Canaris, who tried repeatedly to frighten the British government into re-arming. Another was a senior officer from the German General Staff, another was Joachim von Ribbentrop’s chief of staff.

The book is full of interesting characters, Edward Wood, nicknamed ‘Holy Fox’ by Winston Churchill, being one of the most memorable. He was a deeply religious man, viceroy of India during one of Mohandas Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaigns, over which they negotiated. The press dubbed them ‘the two mahatmas’. Hitler met him when he was foreign minister, and referred to him as ‘the English parson’. Many wanted Wood to succeed Chamberlain, but he declined. Churchill did not.

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