I’ve just finished what I regard to be an excellent book, called “Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the road to war”.
Tim Bouverie basically gives an excellent summary of his own book at the end of chapter 9 (“hunting for peace”, the chapter that describes how fox hunting aficionado lord Halifax went to see Hitler in late 1937).
Here is that summary (the final two paragraphs of chapter 9):
Thus the new, or rather the evangelical, appeasers began their mission. The doctrine was not original, but the fervour, the conviction, the ruthless determination were. What was previously a reactive and desultory policy, tempered by scepticism, was now an active, positive policy, which would carry all before it. Above all, the evangelical appeasers were optimists who placed an extraordinary amount of faith in a combination of goodwill and reasonable discussion. As Halifax had written just before his visit to Hitler (in a statement which might just as easily have come from Chamberlain), ‘I feel that if we could once convince them [the Germans] that we wanted to be friends we might find many questions less intractable than they now appear.’
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Unfortunately, this was the precise moment when the Germans were reaching the opposite conclusion. After waiting so long for the elusive Anglo-German alliance, Hitler had come to view Britain less as a potential friend and more as a probable enemy. Not unconnected with this state of mind was the transformation of Ribbentrop from chief Anglophile to leading Anglophobe. Embittered by his lack of success, both diplomatic and social, the German Ambassador spent December 1937 hidden away in his study, writing a monster report for Hitler explaining that his mission had failed and that Germany must henceforth count England among her most implacable enemies. The British would never abandon their commitment to the balance of power, nor their friendship with France. German policy, therefore, should be directed to cementing that series of alliances which could counter ‘our most dangerous enemy’ and, if necessary, dismember her Empire. As the year 1937 drew to a close, British and German policies were therefore moving in opposite directions: an increasing polarity which would set the tone for the following year and take Europe to the very brink of war.
I basically could not have given a better summary than Mr. Bouverie himself effectively provides with those two paragraphs. To make sure that the term ‘evangelical appeasers’ is understood correctly, it refers not necessarily to anyone’s religious beliefs, but to the fervor with which the leading appeasers pursued their policy from late 1937 on forward all the way to September 1939 where Chamberlain had to announce the declaration of war. But even by May 1940, some were still grasping at straws to save the policy from becoming the historic folly it turned out to be.
Bouverie’s use of ‘evangelical appeasers’ refers above all to Chamberlain himself, Edward Wood (lord Halifax) and the newly appointed British ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson, along with a host of ‘unofficial diplomats’ which were mostly upper class conservatives who would visit various German government officials throughout the process (often with Chamberlain’s encouragement).
Two other things from the book I wanted to highlight. When the German government complained to Chamberlain and Halifax that the British press (or at least, parts thereof) was basically giving them a hard time, Chamberlain and especially Halifax went out of their way to put pressure on leading publishers, editors, journalists and even cartoonists to ‘refrain from offending Herr Hitler’. Though it must be said that it seems the conservative press needed little persuasion. While Bouverie notes that appeasement was certainly not the exclusive realm of upper class conservatives, they were disproportionately overrepresented. The anti appeasement coalition Churchill was gathering around him consisted of more moderate conservatives, liberals and labourites. However, it wasn’t until September 1939 that the anti appeasers managed to get traction.
The second of those other things is from the chapter ‘Bowlers are back’ which is chapter 10. Background here is that part of Chamberlain’s idea was to detach Italy from Germany and try to work both dictators at the same time whilst preventing them from getting together to make deals to which Britain wasn’t privy. Chamberlain didn’t trust his foreign minister, Anthony Eden (this is still late 1937, early 1938) to be enough of a “pro-appeaser” and sought ways of bypassing Eden altogether.
In order to open talks with Italy, Chamberlain had been vigorously pursuing his own unofficial diplomacy with Mussolini. For this there were two channels. There was Ivy Chamberlain [widow of his deceased half brother Austen Chamberlain] - of whose flirtations with the Duce Eden was broadly aware and, increasingly annoyed at - and then there were the shadowy activities of Sir Joseph Ball - of which the Foreign Secretary was almost entirely unaware.
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[snip]
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In mid-1937, Ball was approached by Adrian Dingli, a British barrister of Maltese-Italian-British heritage and legal counsellor at the Italian Embassy [in London]. According to Ball, Dingli offered to supply him with ‘information’ about Italian diplomatic moves; in Dingli’s version, the two men discussed ways in which Anglo-Italian relations could be ‘improved’. Either way, the meeting led to the creation of an unofficial diplomatic channel which allowed Chamberlain to communicate with the Italian government behind the backs of the Foreign Office and vice versa.
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This development, as events were to prove, was almost entirely to the Italians’ advantage. The fact was that it was the British and not the Italian Foreign Office which the pair [Ball and Dingli]; along with Chamberlain, were conspiring to undermine. This point was immediately realised by the Italian Ambassador, Count [Dino] Grandi, who saw in the Ball-Dingli relationship not only a heaven-sent means to catechise those close to the Prime Minister, but also an opportunity to ‘drive a wedge into the incipient split between Chamberlain and Eden [of which Grandi was fully aware] and to enlarge it if possible’.
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To this obvious danger Chamberlain was oblivious. On 10 January 1938, taking advantage of Eden’s absence in the south of France, he asked Ball to get in touch with Grandi to find out whether he could ‘obtain permission from Rome to start “talks” in London with the PM’, then in sole charge of the Foreign Office.
[snip]
On 17 January, he [Chamberlain] took the extraordinary and surely unprecedented step of drafting, together with Ball, a letter for Grandi to sent to Eden [which was to be a letter officially on behalf of the Italian government], requesting a meeting with himself and the Foreign Secretary. Initially, Dingli had his doubts about this ruse, which, he feared, placed the Italians in the role of suppliants. Yet when Ball appeared with the letter, on Downing Street writing paper, this ridiculous misconception of the situation evaporated. After imposing only minor changes, [Ambassador] Grandi had the letter typed and signed it.
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Two events occurred which threatened to scupper the entire scheme. On Friday 21 January 1938, the British merchant ship Endymion was sunk by a [Spanish] Nationalist submarine off the coast of Spain and, in the evening, the BBC’s news bulletin announced that ‘no efforts to improve Anglo-Italian relations were at all contemplated’ by the Government.
[snip]
Meanwhile, Ivy Chamberlain, having been chided by Ciano about Britain’s unwillingness to start talks, decided to show him a letter she had recently received from her brother-in-law [PM Chamberlain] in which he expressed his belief that conversations would start before the end of February. Summoned for an audience with the Duce, Ivy was asked if she would mind reading the letter to him. This, of course, was pure charade. Thanks to the Italian Secret Service, Mussolini was well acquainted with the contents.
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[snip]
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The Italians were, however, anxious to cover their backs and Ciano instructed Grandi ‘to give a touch of the accelerator to the London negotiations’.
[snip]
On 15 February, he [Grandi] warned Dingli - and in effect Chamberlain - that if the meeting did not occur within the next few days, he planned to abandon his efforts towards improving Anglo-Italian relations and leave London indefinitely. Worse, he [Grandi] threatened to reveal that if ‘his’ letter to Eden were ever to be made public then he would, in the interests of Italian honor, be forced to reveal Chamberlain as its true author.
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Chamberlain, confronted with this blackmail moved quickly to bring the meeting forward.
Quite extraordinary, if you ask me, how Chamberlain sought to undermine and bypass anyone, in this case Foreign Secretary Eden, in his zeal to keep appeasing the dictators. As a closing note, the relationship between Dingli and Ball did not end well. Though it was never proven, Ball, as a former MI5 agent, is suspected to have murdered Dingli in May 1945 and stolen his diary.