10 December 2015
War For Our Time
by J R Thomas
That of course was not what Neville Chamberlain said. He apparently did not even mean to say what he did say. As he stood outside Downing Street on his return from his visit to Hitler on 30th September 1938 to sign the Munich Agreement, he waved the piece of paper that he and Hitler had signed to end Germany’s territorial ambitions. He read from it to cheering crowds and, after some prompting from his entourage, echoed Disreali’s words in 1878 on his return from the Congress of Berlin; saying that this was again “peace for our time”.
“Our time” turned out to be less than a year. By then Germany had invaded Poland, Britain was at war, and Winston Churchill was back in the cabinet, to replace Chamberlain as Prime Minister in May 1940.
Churchill had proved triumphantly correct. Throughout the latter half of the 1930’s the Sage of Chartwell issued dire warnings in writings and speeches of the dangers of appeasement (not many speeches, as there were few audiences prepared to hear him), that Britain should re-arm and prepare herself militarily and psychologically to intervene against the creeping Nazi takeover of German-speaking Europe. It was a message that fell on a remarkably unreceptive audience. Churchill was characterised as a spent force, an old man, a warmonger, trying to preach another war to a nation shattered by the appalling slaughter and cost of 1914 to 1918.
Appeasement has been much argued over by serious historians, as has Chamberlain’s conciliation of Hitler. Was the Prime Minister still really of the opinion in September 1938 that Hitler was a man who would stand by his agreements? Could anybody, let alone experienced politicians and the British Foreign Office, really believe that the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia would be Germany’s last act of aggression? Or was a subtle and intelligent strategy buying time so that Britain could prepare herself for war and get ready a militarily resource grossly underfunded and under equipped?
Chamberlain died in 1940 leaving no memoirs. Few of his circle defended their actions, most keeping their own counsels to the grave.
But the nation and its politicians had learnt, as they thought, a valuable lesson. Appeasement was wrong. Better to always walk tall; and carry a stout stick. That was the only way to stand up to bullies, dictators, aggression. Only ten years after the end of the war and just after Churchill’s last exit from 10 Downing Street, his successor, the suave and experienced diplomat, Anthony Eden, was faced with a new Hitler, as he saw it, in the Middle East. Gamal Nasser, since 1952 the army strong man of Egypt, in early 1956 took direct control of the Egyptian government. Needing to make a strong gesture to his fellow army officers and the political cadre in Egypt generally, he seized the French and British owned Suez Canal, a vital trade (and military) route between the Far East and Europe.
The short Suez War marked, more than any other single event, the end of Empire. A secretly backed Israeli invasion of the canal region was followed by Britain and France joining in. Within days the United Nations, USA and Russia forced them into a humiliating withdrawal.
If there had ever been a case for appeasement, this was it. Nasser was fundamentally pro-western – his coup in 1952 had been tacitly backed by the west – and was building a modern secular society in Egypt. Much better to have the canal held by a friendly and grateful government than fight a war over it and reinforce Arab suspicions of continuing western imperialism and arrogance. Eden had spent almost his entire political career in the Foreign Office and was both an expert diplomatist and an intelligent and thoughtful man. But his views were so coloured by the events of the 1930’s (and like Nasser, he needed to establish himself as a strong and determined leader) that any attempt at a peaceful approach to a resolution of the canal was seen in his own mind – and, to be fair, would have been characterised in the eyes of the British public – as “appeasement”.
It was the end of Eden’s career. But not of the feeling that negotiation and diplomacy was often weakness, giving way to aggression would be seen as “appeasement”, an epithet to be flung at any government that suggested compromise and settlement. The western involvement in Vietnam, though ostensibly justified by the domino theory (that eastern governments would fall one by one by one to communism if not fought for), can be seen as an avoidance of any suggestion of appeasement. And, not to take away Mrs Thatcher’s finest hour, the response to Argentina’s aggression in the Falklands can be seen as a stern echoing memory of her political youth in the 1930’s.
And when John Major made cause and justification to support the First Gulf War he knew what he would have been called had he not supported the American Task Force to free Kuwait. Twelve years later and Tony Blair had to do it all over again – no one would accuse Mr Blair of appeasement. And last week in the House of Commons those who stood against the bombing of Syria had that seventy five year old term of abuse flung at them. Indeed, Tory whips were telling their flock to “be Churchill, not Chamberlain” as they made for the voting lobbies.
Which is not to say that there are not occasions when a fight is right, when freedom and democracy must put its natural default position of peace and compromise temporarily aside and take up weaponry and send its forces into battle. But what happened in the 1930’s does seem to overshadow our ability to think with clarity and with a long perspective as to where our best interests lie.
The extent of Churchill’s unpopularity in the late 1930’s, the abuse that was directed at him, his exclusion from many social and political circles previously open to him, and the attempts to squeeze him from Conservative Party counsels, make unpleasant reading now. Churchill was a natural maverick and a man who, having considered matters carefully – and in the context of his knowledge and understanding of history – did not often change his mind. If he had any doubts about his stance against appeasement there is no evidence of it. He always expected to be proved right; and he was.
To be a Tory against war, or a Labour MP in favour, in circumstances such as we now face now, is perhaps equally difficult, and the correctness of any views on either side are unlikely to be clearly demonstrated, certainly in the next few years. Which is why we need to lay aside abuse and think broadly and with rigour about what really might bring long term peace and harmony in the Middle East. That could well involve all sorts of actions and involvements that sit uneasily with us; it might involve a great number of pieces of paper and endless shuttles of diplomacy, perhaps even soldiers on the ground. But we might also profitably keep a new watchword, and one coined by Winston: “Jaw- jaw is better than war-war”.
