Guilty men
Neville Chamberlain was 68 years old when he succeeded Baldwin as PM on 28th May 1937. It was a post for which he would never fight a general election. As he was being groomed as future PM, he became more critical of policy decisions, sure that he could do better on foreign matters, and his diary recorded a constant lament. He felt that Hitler was the 'bully of Europe', and decided to hope for the best, and plan for the worst. Chamberlain embarked on a policy of deterrence and appeasement, searching for 'decency even in dictators'. Chamberlain saw war as the ultimate absurdity, and he desired peace at all costs. However, he believed in the principle of the 'vital cause', one which if you went to war for, and won you could say 'that cause is safe'.
Chamberlain's view that Britain was 'a very rich and a very vulnerable empire' was supported by the idea that Europe was divided between two ideologies. He believed that it was up to Britain to defend itself, holding France and the league of nations in low regard, with similar views towards the US. He was always quick to refute support for certain ideologies, claiming total indifference to Nazism, Fascism and Bolshevism. Chamberlain believed that a nation should not make threats unless it can back them up with action, and that foreign policy is dictated by circumstances. The criticism of Chamberlain came strongly, largely on the basis of the abhorrence of war. The idea of a 'vital cause' was valid, but a subjective one. Why did Britain go to war after the invasion of Poland, not the reoccupation of the Rhineland or the invasion of Czechoslovakia? This formed a large part of 'Cato's arguement. Though Cato agreed that beggars could not be choosers when it came to alliances, but there was disagreement on the need to buy time with appeasement. For the authors, they saw appeasing Hitler as futile, and the time bought criminally squandered. Chamberlain's honeymoon period was spent chasing indifferent Germans and Italians, and despite putting out numerous feelers, very little emerged from it. Relations between the foreign office and Chamberlain were not the best, Chamberlain branding them as having 'no imagination and no courage'. He wanted to try and forge good relations with Mussolini in order to provide a buffer against Germany, even though if he could get Germany on side, he would have no need to entertain Mussolini.
