Chamberlain and the Lost Peace

Great Britain, like all countries, lives by a national myth. The story every child learns at school is that in its finest hour the country stood alone against Germany and saved the world from an evil creed called Nazism. What is ignored is that the only result of the war was that Eastern Europe was lost to an equally evil creed called Communism. And in case you are thinking "What about the Holocaust?" don't forget that the Holocaust didn't begin until well into the war; Hitler's original plan was to expel the Jews. In order to make the national myth work, Chamberlain, and anyone who helped him in his attempts to prevent war, must be demonised as weak and stupid. But what was weak and stupid about trying to prevent millions of deaths or recognising that Germany had some legitimate demands? John Charmley shows Churchill as most people in the 1930s saw him - a war-mongering opportunist with very bad judgement. He presents Chamberlain in his true colours - a decent man doing his best for his people.

English historian John Charmley has disturbed World War II "establishment historians"--and established myths--by his iconoclastic re-interpretaion of the origins and beginning of the 1939-1945 war. Yet, in a series of closely reasoned studies he makes telling points that reveal a number of missed opportunities, in the months and weeks before and even after the outbreak of war, to have secured a satisfactory resolution of the growing hostility between the UK and Germany. He does not say that this resolution would have been permanent in the long run; indeed, the two powers may have eventually ended up in conflict. Nevertheless, the possibility that Britain could have kept out of a general war for another couple of years, while Germany was expending its resources and materiel in a war in the East, might well have changed the course of history. The "war hawk" party in London, egged on surreptiously by the Roosevelt administration and ideological "anti-fascists," managed to get Britain mired in a conflict for which it was not ready and which in the end totally exhausted it, which ended its role as world power, and that meant the destruction of the "empire." Churchill's vaunted promise to "defend the empire" was made hollow as he presided over the very destruction of that empire--and of historic Britain. Charmley offers ample notes and primary sources for his interpretation. While certainly not a new view--Barnett, Taylor and others have made similar points--Charmley's points deserve respectful consideration--not the "Establishment" condescension (and apparent fear!) that some have exhibited.