Neville Chamberlain

"I stick to the view I have always held that Hitler missed the bus in September 1938. He could have dealt France and ourselves a terrible, perhaps a mortal, blow then. The opportunity will not recur."

"I don't agree...that we should make peace with Germany in order to resist Russia. I still regard Germany as Public Enemy No. 1, and I cannot take Russia very seriously as an aggressive force, though no doubt formidable if attacked in her own country. I am afraid that, although the Germans would like to make peace on their own terms, they are very far from that frame of mind which will be necessary before they are prepared to listen to what we should call reason."

"The result was that when war did break out German preparations were far ahead of our own, and it was natural then to expect that the enemy would take advantage of his initial superiority to make an endeavour to overwhelm us and France before we had time to make good our deficiencies. Is it not a very extraordinary thing that no such attempt was made? Whatever may be the reason—whether it was that Hitler thought he might get away with what he had got without fighting for it, or whether it was that after all the preparations were not sufficiently complete—however, one thing is certain: he missed the bus."

"The most common cry, and this of course is chronic in the U.S.A., is "why are we always too late? why do we let Hitler take the initiative?" ... The answer to these questions is simple enough, but the questioners would rather not believe it. It is, "because we are not yet strong enough". ... We have plenty of man-power, but it is neither trained nor equipped. We are short of many weapons of offence and defence. Above all, we are short of air power. If we could weather this year, I believe we should be able to remove our worst deficiencies."

"In the afternoon of to-day it was apparent that the essential unity could be secured under another Prime Minister, though not myself. In these circumstances my duty was plain ... For the hour has now come when we are to be put to the test, as the innocent people of Holland, Belgium, and France are being tested already. And you, and I, must rally behind our new leader, and with our united strength, and with unshakable courage, fight and work until this wild beast, that has sprung out of his lair upon us, has been finally disarmed and overthrown."

"We are a solid and united nation, which would rather go down to ruin than admit the domination of the Nazis... If the enemy does try to invade this country, we will fight him in the air and on the sea; we will fight him on the beaches with every weapon we have... We shall be fighting...with the conviction that our cause is the cause of humanity and peace against cruelty and wars; a cause that surely has the blessing of Almighty God."

"Give us another 3 or 4 months of production, not more hampered than it is at present, and we shall have something over, with which we can make ourselves disagreeable in many ways, and many places. We could perhaps take a stronger line with Japan then, even though we still got no help from the U.S.A. ... People ask me how we are going to win this war. I suppose it is a very natural question, but I don't think the time has come to answer it. We must just go on fighting as hard as we can, in the belief that some time—perhaps sooner than we think—the other side will crack."

"It is not inconceivable that human civilisation should be permanently overcome by such evil men and evil things, and I feel proud that the British Empire, though left to fight alone, still stands across their path, unconquered and unconquerable."

"I will confess to you that never for one moment have I had any doubt that I had to do what I did, and when I look back I don't see what more I could have done, having regard to the state of public opinion and the sharpness of party feeling. That is a tremendous solace to me. Few men can have known such a reversal of fortune in so short a time."

"Never for one single moment have I doubted the rightness of what I did at Munich, nor can I believe that it was possible for me to do more than I did to prepare the country for war after Munich, given the violent & persistent opposition I had to fight against all the time."

"You have sat here too long for any good you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

"Neville annoys me by mouthing the arguments of complete pacifism while piling up armaments."

"He was Lord President [in Churchill's government]. Very able and crafty, and free from any rancour he might well have felt against us. He worked very hard and well: a good chairman, a good committee man, always very businesslike. You could work with him."

"We were convinced that a major war was in the offing, what with the uncorrelated news before us of Schuschnigg's arrest by the Nazis, the fall of the French cabinet, Blum's formation of a new one, the mobilization of French troops on the border and the clamor of the British population for the resignation of Neville Chamberlain, who continued to place the interests of his class above the interests of his country."

"Neville Chamberlain’s government, like most of the British population, was still prepared to live with a rearmed and revived Germany. Many conservatives saw the Nazis as a bulwark against Bolshevism. Chamberlain, a former lord mayor of Birmingham of old-fashioned rectitude, made the great mistake of expecting other statesmen to share similar values and a horror of war. He had been a highly skilled minister and a very effective chancellor of the Exchequer, but he knew nothing of foreign policy or defence matters. With his wing-collar, Edwardian moustache and rolled umbrella, he proved to be totally out of his depth when confronted by the gleaming ruthlessness of the Nazi regime."

"I think one of the fascinating things about Chamberlain was that he tried to do the right thing by the country and all the way through these speeches [in The Struggle for Peace] actually, some of which I know, you can see how he is in a sense wrestling with the fact that however evil Hitler is the thought of war is just so horrific."

"The debate over appeasement – the attempt by Britain and France to avoid war by making "reasonable" concessions to German and Italian grievances during the 1930s – is as enduring as it is contentious. Condemned, on the one hand, as a "moral and material disaster", responsible for the deadliest conflict in history, it has also been described as "a noble idea, rooted in Christianity, courage and common-sense". Between these two polarities lies a mass of nuance, sub-arguments and historical skirmishes. History is rarely clear-cut, and yet the so-called lessons of the period have been invoked by politicians and pundits, particularly in Britain and the United States, to justify a range of foreign interventions – in Korea, Suez, Cuba, Vietnam, the Falklands, Kosovo and Iraq (twice) – while, conversely, any attempt to reach an accord with a former antagonist is invariably compared with the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement. When I began researching this book, in the spring of 2016, the spectre of Neville Chamberlain was being invoked by American conservatives as part of their campaign against President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, while today the concept of appeasement is gaining new currency as the West struggles to respond to Russian revanchism and aggression. A fresh consideration of this policy as it was originally conceived and executed feels, therefore, timely as well as justified."

"Hitler's open atrocities against the Jews in the autumn of 1938 certainly deeply impressed Chamberlain... And of course Halifax was certainly no less shocked. Many people who did not know Chamberlain personally had the impression that he was a gullible and obstinate old man. During all that ghastly time I saw almost as much of him as I did of Halifax and I will say, from my observation of him, that nothing could be further from the truth. He was haunted day and night by the prospect that he saw clearly enough, he gave everything of his strength to try to avert it. Many people thought he was a cynic. Cynicism was a virtue with which he was perhaps not sufficiently equipped, or he would not have been taken in by Hitler's rather transparent "piece of paper". On the other hand he had quite a streak of the sentimental and emotional in him, which betrayed him into uttering those unguarded words to the crowd in Downing Street after his return from Germany."

"During these long violent months of war we had come closer together than at any time in our twenty years of friendly relationship amid the ups and downs of politics. I greatly admired his fortitude and firmness of spirit. I felt when I served under him that he would never give in: and I knew when our positions were reversed that I could count upon the aid of a loyal and unflinching comrade."

"It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour."

"On May 28, 1937, after King George VI had been crowned, Mr. Baldwin retired. His long public services were suitably rewarded by an earldom and the Garter. He laid down the wide authority he had gathered and carefully maintained, but had used as little as possible. He departed in a glow of public gratitude and esteem. There was no doubt who his successor should be. Mr. Neville Chamberlain had, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, not only done the main work of the Government for five years past, but was the ablest and most forceful Minister, with high abilities and an historic name. I had described him a year earlier at Birmingham in Shakespeare's words as the "pack-horse in our great affairs," and he had accepted this description as compliment. I had no expectation that he would wish to work with me; nor would he have been wise to do so at the time. His ideals were far different from mine on the treatment of the dominant issues of the day. BUt I welcomed the accession to power of a live, competent, executive figure. While still Chancellor of the Exchequer he had involved himself in a fiscal proposal for a small-scale national defence contribution which had been ill-received by the Conservative Party and was, of course, criticised by the Opposition. I was able, in the first days of his Premiership, to make a speech upon this subject which helped him to withdraw, without any loss of dignity, from a position which had become untenable. Our relations contnued to be cool, easy and polite both in public and in private."

"Neville Chamberlain, on the other hand, was alert, businesslike, opinionated, and self-confident in a very high degree. Unlike Baldwin, he conceived himsef to be able to comprehend the whole field of Europe, and indeed the world. Instead of a vague but none the less deep-seated intuition, we had now a narrow, sharp-edged efficiency within the limits of the policy in which he believed. Both as Chancellor of the Exchequer and as Prime Minister, he kept the tightest and most rigid control upon military expenditure. He was throughout this period the masterful opponent of all emergency measures. He had formed decided judgments about all the political figures of the day, both at home and abroad, and felt himself capable of dealing with them. His all-pervading hope was to go down to history as the Great Peacemaker; and for this he was prepared to strive continually in the teeth of facts, and face great risks for himself and his country. Unhappily, he ran into tides the force of which he could not measure, and met hurricanes from which he did not flinch, but with which he could not cope. In these closing years before the war, I should have found it easier to work with Baldwin, as I knew him, than with Chamberlain; but neither of them had any wish to work with me except in the last resort."

"[In September 1938] I asked Chamberlain straight out, did he really believe that Hitler wanted a peaceful settlement? The Prime Minister paused before replying and then said reflectively: "If we accept the challenge now it means war. If we delay a decision something might happen. Hitler may die." Morrison, Dalton, and I looked at one another but said nothing."

"This was one of the frankest interviews I had attended, but my experience of Chamberlain had shown him to be far more forthcoming in private conversation than most of his predecessors. He was not liked by my colleagues, and my own first impressions were similar to theirs, with the major difference that I was considerably impressed by the incisiveness of his mind and the clarity of his speech. He always knew his case, but I felt that he showed little generosity in his attitude to anyone whom he felt was a political opponent. He was an adept at veiled sarcasm when he replied to trade union people ... I remember one occasion when he was tearing up some argument which we had presented, Ben Tillett interposing mildly: "Don't be sarcastic. You can put your case without that." Chamberlain seemed rather taken aback, and as far as I could judge, he tried to follow Ben's advice. He appeared at that time to be utterly devoid of human sentiment. Like Poo Bah in the Mikado, he seemed to have been born sneering."

"I can never erase from my mind the thought of his struggle, in the later days of his life, against the depression resulting from his political misfortunes and knowing that he was suffering from an incurable illness. Knowing also that, despite his long public service, few of those who cheered him so loudly on his return from Munich really cared what happened to him."

"The Prime Minister then told us the story of his visit to Bechtesgaden. Looking back upon what he said, the curious thing seems to me now to have been that he recounted his experiences with some satisfaction. Although he said that at first sight Hitler struck him as "the commonest dog" he had ever seen, without one sign of distinction, nevertheless he was obviously pleased at the reports he had subsequently received of the good impression that he himself had made. He told us with obvious satisfaction how Hitler had said to someone that he had felt that he, Chamberlain, was "a man." But the bare facts of the interview were frightful... After ranting and raving at him, Hitler had talked about self-determination and asked the Prime Minister whether he accepted the principle. The Prime Minister had replied that he must consult his colleagues. From the beginning to end Hitler had not shown the slightest sign of yielding on a single point. The Prime Minister seemed to expect us all to accept that principle without further discussion because time was getting on."

"Personally I believe that Hitler has cast a spell over Neville. After all, Hitler's achievement is not due to his intellectual attainments nor to his oratorical powers, but to the extraordinary influence which he seems able to exercise over his fellow-creatures. I believe that Neville is under that influence at the present time. "It all depends," he said, "on whether we can trust Hitler." "Trust him for what?" I asked. "He has got everything he wants for the present and he has given no promises for the future." Neville also said that he had been told, and he believed, that he himself had made a very favourable impression on Hitler, and that he believed he might be able to exercise a useful influence over him."

"At 8 p.m. we listened to the Prime Minister's broadcast... It was a most depressing uterrance. There was no mention of France in it or a word of sympathy for Czecho-Slovakia. The only sympathy expressed was for Hitler, whose feeling about the Sudetens the Prime Minister said that he could well understand, and he never said a word about the mobilisation of the Fleet. I was furious. Winston rang me up. He was also most indignant and said that the tone of the speech showed plainly that we're preparing to scuttle."

"Neville Chamberlain was determined to go to extreme lengths in the cause of peace ... That was why he flew to Germany ... I may recall that after thirty years in Parliament I never saw a House of Commons so unanimous in its apparent goodwill to a national leader and never before did Socialist Members of Parliament open their hearts so fully to a traditional opponent such as myself. At least five of them told me spontaneously how fine they thought Chamberlain's action, and one of them, a famous extremist from the North, rushed up to me with tears streaming down his cheeks, put his hand on my shoulder and exclaimed, "Isn't it marvellous how God has found a man to save us from all the misery of war?""

"Very shortly after his return from Munich Neville Chamberlain asked me to lunch quietly at No. 10. I put the question straight to him: "What really is your impression of Hitler?" He answered that he "believed that no man, much less the accepted leader of a great nation, could have sworn to me his will for peace unless he meant it. Hitler's words rang absolutely sincerely, never from anyone have I had assurances so emphatic." I immediately asked the Prime Minister: "Then why...did you start the very day after your return to do everything possible to speed armaments all round?" He answered, that although he believed Hitler he had felt that he was "in the presence of a man of intense cruelty and I was obsessed with the fact that if in a year or two he changed his mind he would be so ruthless that he would stop at nothing.""

"What a Chamberlain government would have done had there been no war in 1939 will never be known, but an election was due in 1940, and the manifesto proposals outlined by the Conservative Research Department embraced family allowances and the inclusion of insured persons' dependants in health cover—about half the advances usually attributed to Beveridge. As Lady Cecily Debenham wrote to Chamberlain's widow, Anne, after his death: "Neville was a Radical to the end of his days. It makes my blood boil when I see his ‘Tory’ and ‘Reactionary’ outlook taken as a matter of course because the Whirligig of Politics made him leader of the Tory party.""

"I would like to testify that you did more than any former British Statesman to make a true friendship between the peoples of our two countries possible, and, if the task has not been completed, that it has not been for want of goodwill on your part. I hope that you may still be able to work for, and that we may both be spared to see, the realisation of our dreams,—to see our two peoples living side by side with a deep neighbourly sense of their value one to another, and with a friendship which will make possible whole-hearted co-operation between them in all matters of common interest."

"All those months of acute anxiety that heralded and followed the French collapse while I was at the War Office, Neville was so unvaryingly sympathetic and helpful, that I feel I could never thank him enough for all he did. His faith in final victory never wavered at the darkest hour; I am confident that he will still share with us the happier days that must come."

"Duncan: I'm sure we've got everything under control."

"Hacker: Chamberlain thought Hitler was under control."

"Duncan: Ah, well, Chamberlain."

"Hacker: Eden thought Nasser was under control."

"Duncan: Are you suggesting the Foreign Office doesn't know what it's doing?"

"Hacker: No, I am suggesting that they are not telling us what they're doing!"

"Things don't happen just because Prime Ministers are very keen on them. Neville Chamberlain was very keen on peace!"

"Few men had a more real enjoyment of all things of beauty and art, whether in the world of nature or of men, which make life colourful and rich, and few had his knowledge and deep appreciation of all that is greatest in music. No one was a truer lover of the countryside. He shared with Lord Grey the love of birds, and like him had learnt as a fisherman the art of patience, so essential to the trade of politics. Anyone who worked with him, and I suppose I worked as closely with him as anybody, was bound to be impressed by two things. One was his complete disinterestedness and disregard of any lesser thoughts of self; and the other his unfaltering courage and tenacity, once he had made up his mind that a thing was right. These are qualities of signal value for a democratic leader, and all who have the vision to appreciate how close they lie to the roots of health in a democratic state will feel a debt to Neville Chamberlain for his practical demonstration of them."

"No man could have done more to save the world from this war. Your efforts to secure peace gave to our cause a moral strength that can never be disregarded. For this all who have regard for Britain's honour must be profoundly grateful. You have saved us from a war at a moment when we were unready, and if others had been sincere and faithful to their pledges would have prevented hostilities in Europe perhaps for generations. You will surely receive the reward of those who are promised the blessing of peace-makers."

"If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers."

"What calibre of Conservatism Chamberlain would have sought to impose is open to conjecture, since he never properly had an opportunity to impose one. He was kept cramped in the wings for so long that he reached the centre stage only moments before the intermission. Yet there is a strong impression that he would have tried to impose something: his politics was a doctrine of action because that was the sphere where he knew himself to be at his best and because that was what he thought he was there to do. It is far from clear, on the other hand, in which direction he would have gone. His own introduction of tariffs in 1932, with suitable acknowledgement to "name and blood", had blocked one path. It may be that he would have extended the moderate collectivism towards which Conservatism, in its "national" guise, had been moving; certainly he took pains to rebut the charge that the National Government was a sterile administration. His view that British government in the 1930s was reformist may have been heartfelt for his achievement, as much as his propaganda, suggests that he pursued a measure of social reform as an end in itself. To that extent the European imbroglio to which Chamberlain was heir has masked the degree to which he was a radical democrat. He was closer to a compassionate understanding of "the people" than any other leader examined here. He understood the urban poor, as Baldwin did not, and he had the organizational equipment to direct those who agreed with him."

"My reliable informants in the German camp had already made it clear to me that Hitler regarded the Prime Minister [Neville Chamberlain] as an impertinent busybody who spoke the ridiculous jargon of an out-moded democracy. The umbrella, which to the ordinary German was the symbol of peace, was in Hitler's view only a subject of derision."

"I was never able to discover what passed through Mr. Chamberlain's mind in this fleeting negotiation which he conducted entirely alone without, so far as I am aware, warning anyone in advance. Did he believe in Hitler's sincerity? Or was he carried away by the emotion of relief that war had been averted? Or did he believe that the best chance with Hitler was to try to bind him by a public declaration and then to proclaim the belief that Hitler would keep his word? I am inclined to think that the last is the most likely hypothesis. One thing is certain. The subsequent seizure of Prague was a bitter blow to Mr. Chamberlain, which provoked a personal resentment against Hitler. I noticed that whenever Hitler's name was mentioned after March 17th [1939], the Prime Minister looked as if he had swallowed a bad oyster."

"I cannot but add that I have always been a supporter and defender of your policy when you were Prime Minister. I am sure that it was right. In view of the attitude of France and of the unreadiness of this country for which you were in no way to be blamed, it would have been folly to precipitate then a war with Germany. It was your strength of will and purpose and self-restraint that saved us from that mistake. When the time to meet the challenge of Hitler came, you had made it plain to the whole impartial world that you had done everything possible to keep Europe from war, and to fix the blame for that calamity on the unbridled ambition of Hitler. You enabled your country to enter the war with a clear conscience and a united will."

"A vein of self-sufficient obstinacy in the new Minister contributed to the difficulties that baffled all our endeavours ... The machinery which Mr. Chamberlain created showed itself incompetent to deal even with volunteer recruits, and certainly too unreliable to be entrusted with the administration of dictatorial powers ... Mr. Neville Chamberlain is a man of rigid competency. Such men have their uses in conventional times or in conventional positions, and are indispensable for filling subordinate posts at all times. But they are lost in an emergency or in creative tasks at any time."

"Mr Chamberlain views everything through the wrong end of a municipal drain-pipe."

"[T]he Parliament of 1924–9 was a great constructive Parliament. It marked some of the greatest advances in social and administrative reforms that have ever been made. For these, Baldwin relied on Neville Chamberlain and on Churchill... [Chamberlain] moved firmly along a clearly marked course. He was associated, above all, with the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Pensions Act—one of the foundations of the modern Welfare State—and with the great reforms of local government... Neville Chamberlain in this Parliament, as in previous ones, proved himself a true successor to the reforming tradition of England. Some of his ideas went back to those of Disraeli; others to the unauthorised programme of his great father, Joseph Chamberlain. Others followed naturally on the work of social reform which made the Liberal Governments of 1906 onwards so outstanding. His heart was in all this work, which he thoroughly understood. But he did not wear his heart upon his sleeve; on the contrary, he kept it so closely buttoned up behind his formal morning-coat that he was not suspected of anything except a desire for efficiency. In fact, he was inspired by a deep sentiment and feeling for the poor and suffering. Neither the Opposition who disliked him, nor those of our party who admired him, could see behind the mask. Yet in this Parliament he stood out. If Baldwin was by nature indolent, Neville Chamberlain was the most hard-working of men. The troubles of later years should never be allowed to obscure the great achievements of this period."