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‘Appeasement’ and British defence policy in the inter-war years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Paul M. Kennedy
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Extract

THE British Empire after 1919, Liddell Hart once observed, was the greatest example of strategical over-extension known to history. Like the Roman or Spanish empires in earlier centuries, the gap between the country's obligations and its capacity to carry them out had become alarmingly wide – too wide, in fact, to be ever closed. The blunt fact was that, by the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century, Britain was well into a process of decline, militarily, economically and geopolitically, vis-à-vis certain of the other Great Powers, who were soon o t usurp her predominance in various parts of the globe.1 To a large extent, the First World War and its consequences – the defeat of Germany and the seizure of its colonies, the Soviet revolution in Russia, the American retreat into isolationism – had suggested to the public mind that the British Empire was still as formidable as ever and thus was masked this process of decline until, by 1945, it had become clear to almost everyone. In the secret discussions and analyses of British statesmen and their advisers, however, the weaknesses within the system of home and imperial defence were all too apparent long before that date. To the ‘official mind’, the 1930s in particular was a decade of almost continuous anxiety as the ever more frequent international crises exposed the inadequacies of the armed services and affected the country's diplomacy. Because this topic relates directly to the discussion upon ‘appeasement’ and, indirectly, to the origin and course of the Second World War, it has always been one ofgreat interest to historians; but the restrictions upon the use of government records of the inter-war years made it impossible until a few years ago to know more than that which was related in the memoir literature and in the official war histories written in the post-1945 period. Now that the archives are open and new studies based upon their holdings are appearing in large numbers, it is possible to obtain a much more detailed picture of the workings of British defence policy during the “Twenty Years Crisis”. What follows, then, is an attempt to summarize the findings of a variety of such publications which have appeared over the course of the past two years.

Type
Review Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , July 1978 , pp. 161 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1978

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References

page 161 note 1 On this overall trend, see especially Barnett, C., The Collapse of British Power (London, 1972);Google ScholarBeloff, M., Imperial Sunset, i (London, 1969);Google ScholarKennedy, P. M., The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 1976).Google Scholar

page 164 note 1 Compare the brief footnote on p. 511 of Gibbs' book with the analysis in Barnett, , op. cit. pp. 497–504Google Scholar, and the personal account in Hart, B. H.Liddell, Memoirs, 2 vols. (London, 1965), as well as the study by Bond, reviewed below.Google Scholar

page 164 note 2 Barnett, , op. cit. p. xi.Google Scholar

page 164 note 3 For a good list of some of the recent contributions to this debate, see Gruner, W. D.‘“British Interest” in der Zwischenkriegszeit. Aspekte Britischer Europa-Politik 1918–1938’, in Bosl, K. (ed.), Gleichgewicht – Revision – Restauration (Munich/Vienna, 1976), p. 86, fn. 4.Google Scholar

page 165 note 1 Gruner, , op. cit. passim: idem, ‘ “British Interest” und Friedenssicherung. Zur Interaktion von britischer Innen- und Aussenpolitik in frühen 19. Jahrhundert’, Historische Zeitschrift, 224 (1977), pp. 92–104;Google ScholarHildebrand, K., ‘“British Interests” und “Pax Britannica”. Grund-fragen englischer Aussenpolitik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert’, Historische Zeitschrift, 221 (1975), pp. 623–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In this connection, see also my article ‘The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy 1865–1939’, British Journal of International Studies, ii (1976), pp. 195–215Google Scholar, which makes a similar attempt at a long-term, structural look at Britain's external policy since the nineteenth century; and the new, and very clever analysis of Niedhart, G., ‘Britische Deutschlandpolitik vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament), 2 April 1977, pp. 26–39.Google Scholar

page 165 note 2 For Barnett and BelofF, see fn. 1 above; Thorne, C., The Limits of Foreign Policy (London, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Northedge, F. S., The Troubled Giant (London, 1966).Google Scholar

page 166 note 1 E.g., in his ‘Britain, Europe and the Dominions in the 1930s’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, xxii (1976), pp. 36–50Google Scholar; idem., ‘Sicherheit und Gleichgewicht. Das britische Kabinett und die Remilitarisierung des Rheinlandes 1936’, Rheinische Vierteljahresblätter, Jg. 38 (1974), pp. 406–9.Google Scholar

page 168 note 1 Given in Barnett, passim; Howard, M., The Continental Commitment (Harmondsworth, 1974);Google ScholarKennedy, P. M., ‘“Splendid Isolation” gegen “Continental Commitment”: Das Dilemma der britischen Deutschlandstrategie in der Zwischenkriegszeit’, in Hütter, J./Meyes, R./Papenfuss, D. (eds.), Tradition und Neubeginn (Cologne/Berlin. 1975), pp. 151–72.Google Scholar

page 169 note 1 Volume one of Naval Policy between the Wars appeared in 1968; Hankey, 3 vols., between 1970 and 1974.

page 169 note 2 Cited in Feiling, K., The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1946), p. 314.Google Scholar

page 171 note 1 Frankland, N., The Bombing Offensive against Germany (London, 1965);Google Scholar and see also unusually outspoken, and immensely valuable, official history by Webster, G. and Frankland, N., The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939–1945, 4 vols. (London, 1961).Google Scholar

page 171 note 2 Review of Gibbs' Grand Strategy, volume one, in The Observer, 8th August, 1976.

page 171 note 3 Liddell Hart's writings and influence extended well byond the year 1939, of course, as Mr. Bond demonstrates in the later chapters of his book; but only that portion – chapters 1 to 4 – which pertains to the theme of this review is considered here.

page 172 note 1 Northedge, op. cit. p. 622.

page 172 note 2 Thorne, op. cit. Lee, B. A., Britain and the Sino-Japanese War 1937–39 (Stanford, Calif., 1973);Google ScholarEndicott, S. L., Diplomacy and Enterprise: British China Policy 1933–1937 (Manchester, 1975);Google ScholarLouis, W. R., British Strategy in the Far East 1919–1939 (Oxford, 1971);Google ScholarShai, A., Origins of the War in the East: Britain, China and Japan 1937–39 (London, 1976).Google Scholar

page 174 note 1 Feiling, op. cit. p. 336.

page 174 note 2 See Meyers' first article (and his footnote references) in fn. 7 above; Watt, D. G., Personalities and Politics (London, 1965), pp. 139–74Google Scholar; Tamchina, R., ‘Commonwealth and Appeasement’, Neue Politische Literatur (1972), no. 4, pp. 471–89;Google ScholarDoherty, J. G., ‘Die Dominions und die britische Aussenpolitik von München bis Kriegsausbruch’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 20 Jg. (1972), Heft, 3, pp. 209–34.Google Scholar

page 175 note 1 Dr. Shay's book is reviewed above. See also Wendt, B.-J., Economic Appeasement. Handel und Finance in der britischen Deutschlandpolitik 1933–39 (Düsseldorf, 1971)Google Scholar – a detailed investigation which has no equivalent in the English language, although one should note the following: Goghlan, F., ‘Armaments, Economic Policy and Appeasement, Background to British Foreign Policy 1931–37’, History, 57 (1972), pp. 205–16;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMacDonald, C. A., ‘Economic Appeasement and the German “Moderates” 1937–39’, Past and Present, 56 (1972), pp. 105–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Teichova, A., An Economic Background to Munich (Cambridge, 1974).Google Scholar

page 175 note 2 Apart from the studies by Shay and Wendt, see Howard, op. cit. pp. 134–7, and Barnett, op. cit. pp. 12–14, 564.

page 175 note 3 See, for example, the brilliant and controversial interpretation by Mason, T. W., Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich (Opladen, 1977), espec. pp. 238ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A start upon a comparative approach has been made in the symposium Wirtschaft und Rüstung am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Forstmeier, F./Volkmann, H. E. (eds.) (Düsseldorf, 1975).Google Scholar

page 175 note 4 Cowling, M., The Impact of Hitler (Cambridge, 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 176 note 1 Watt, D. G., ‘Appeasement. The Rise of a Revisionist School?’ Political Quarterly, xxxvi (1965), pp. 191–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 177 note 1 A point also stressed in Wendt, B.-J., ‘Grossbritannien – Demokratie auf dem Prüfstand: Appeasement als Strategic des Status Quo’, on pp. 11–12 of Forndran, E./Golczewski, F./Riesenberger, D. (eds.), Innen- und Aussenpolitik unter nationalsozialistischer Bedrohung (Opladen, 1977)Google Scholar, a penetrating new assessment – with an emphasis upon the role of economic factors – published just as this article was completed.

page 177 note 2 Gibbs, op. cit. pp. 296–8, 491–529, Shay, op. cit. pp. 235–46 and Barnett, op. cit. pp. 552–69, give details of these changes of front. (It is not implied by this, however, that Neville Chamberlain himself was bent upon unlimited rearmament and a continental commitment in the Spring of 1939; he still clearly hoped for a more lasting arrangement with Germany, if at all possible.)