Abstract
The strategic basis of British foreign policy built around the ‘appeasement’ of adversarial Powers began with the rise of the Conservative, Neville Chamberlain, to the premiership in May 1937. Before this moment, although appeasement had a tradition in English and, later, British external relations stretching back to the seventeenth century if not before, the country’s diplomatists had employed it only tactically to support grand strategy. Since at least the reign of Elizabeth I until the late 1930s, this strategy comprised the pursuit of the balance of power — changing alliances or drawing close to other Powers to preclude the regional hegemony of one nation or alliance.1 It occurred, first, in relation to Western Europe and the security of the home islands and, then, as the expanding British Empire saw policy-makers in London defend the manifold interests of the only world Power, in key areas of the globe. Thus, appeasement had been just one of a number of tactical alternatives in the planning and execution of British foreign policy designed to ensure the security of Britain’s national and Imperial interests. These alternatives also included working with other Powers politically or militarily in short-term arrangements or longer-term alliances, unilateral threats or the use of military action, a reliance on conference diplomacy, and more.
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Notes
See J.R. Davies, ‘Britain and the European Balance of Power’, in C. Williams, (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth Century Britain (Oxford, 2004), pp. 34–52;
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Cf. W.E. Mosse, ‘Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: The British Public and the War-Scare of November 1870’, Historical Journal, 6(1963), pp. 38–58;
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On Gladstone’s russophobia, see W.E. Gladstone, Bulgarian horrors and the question of the East (London, 1876).
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Cf. M.L. Dockrill and J. Fisher, The Paris Peace Conference. Peace Without Victory (London, 2001), pp. 35–51;
A. Lentin, Guilt at Versailles. Lloyd George and the Pre-History of Appeasement (Leicester, 1985).
See, for example, K. Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815–1908 (London, 1967);
A.D. Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853–56, 2nd edition (Farnham, 2011);
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On morality in foreign policy, see Gladstone’s Third Midlothian Campaign Speech, 27 November 1879, in W.E. Gladstone, Political Speeches in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1879), pp. 5–56.
On Gladstone’s foreign policy, see P. Knaplund, Gladstone’s Foreign Policy (Hamden, CT, 1970);
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See K. Bourne, The Foreign Policy of Victorian England, 1830–1902 (Oxford, 1970), pp. 137–40;
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J.S. Galbraith and A.L. al-Sayyid-Marsot, ‘The British Occupation of Egypt: Another View’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9(1978), pp. 471–88;
A.G. Hopkins, ‘The Victorians and Africa: A Reconsideration of the Occupation of Egypt, 1882’, Journal of African History, 27(1986), pp. 363–91.
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M. Epkenhans, Die wilheklminische flottenr ü stung 1908–1914: Weltmachtstreben, technischer Fortschritt, soziale Integration (Munich, 1991); Ibid., ‘The Naval Race before 1914’, in H. Afflerbach and D. Stevenson, (eds), An Improbable War?: The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture before 1914 (New York, 2007), pp. 118–26.
Cf. P.M. Kennedy, The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London, 1980), pp. 446–51.
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Then see Lentin, Pre-History; S. Rudman, Lloyd George and the Appeasement of Germany, 1919–1945 (Newcastle, 2011).
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This fell to Gladstone’s successor, the third Marquess of Salisbury. See C.J. Lowe, Salisbury and the Mediterranean, 1886–1896 (1965);
G. Goodlad, British Foreign and Imperial Policy, 1865–1919 (London, 2000), pp. 57–58.
Such books are legion. Cf. M. George, The Hollow Men: An Examination of British Foreign Policy Between the Years 1933–1939 (London, 1965);
L.B. Namier, Diplomatic Prelude, 1938–1939 (London, 1948), p. 41;
W.R. Rock, British Appeasement in the 1930s (New York, 1977);
J.W. Wheeler-Bennett, Munich: Prologue to Tragedy (London, 1966), pp. 3–4, p. 16.
Then see S. Aster, ‘Appeasement: Before and After Revisionism’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 19(2008), pp. 443–80.
Cato, Guilty Men (London, 1940).
W.S. Churchill, The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm (London, 1948),
Cf. D. Reynolds, ‘Churchill’s Writing of History: Appeasement, Autobiography and The Gathering Storm’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 11(2001), pp. 221–47;
Graham Stewart, Burying Caesar: Churchill, Chamberlain and the Battle for the Tory Party (1999).
See A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (London, 1961).
Then cf. F.S. Northedge, The Troubled Giant: Britain among the Great Powers, 1916–1939 (London, 1966), pp. 483, 618, 629;
D.C. Watt, ‘Appeasement Reconsidered — Some Neglected Factors’, Round Table, 53(1963), pp. 358–71; Ibid.; ‘Appeasement: The Rise of a Revisionist School?’, Political Quarterly, 36(1965), pp. 191–213.
Cf. P. Bell, Chamberlain, Germany and Japan, 1933–4 (London, 1996);
D. Dilks, Neville Chamberlain, Volume I: Pioneering and Reform, 1869–1929 (Cambridge, 1984);
D.C. Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (London, 1989), pp. 610, 615.
But see the complete defence of Chamberlain in A.D. Stedman, Alternatives to Appeasement: Neville Chamberlain and Hitler’s Germany (London, New York, 2011).
For instance, D. Dutton, Neville Chamberlain (London, New York, 2001);
M.F. James, Neville Chamberlain’s Domestic Policies: Social Reform, Tariffs, and Financial (Lewiston, NY, 2010);
R.C. Self, Neville Chamberlain: A Biography (Aldershot, 2006).
For examples of newer studies that trumpet the tired old views, see G. Kennedy, ‘“Rat in Power”: Neville Chamberlain and the Creation of British Foreign Policy, 1931–1939’, in T.G. Otte, (ed.), Makers of British Foreign Policy. From Pitt to Thatcher (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 173–89;
P. Meehan, The Unnecessary War: Whitehall and the German Resistance to Hitler (London, 1992);
L. Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The rebels who brought Churchill to power and helped save England (New York, 2007).
F. McDonough, Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War (London, 1998), 161.
Cf. Joseph Maiolo, The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, 1933–1939: A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War (London, 1998).
L.W. Fuchser, Neville Chamberlain and Appeasement: A Study in the Politics of History (New York, 1982), pp. 196–202.
Also see J. Ruggiero, Neville Chamberlain and British Rearmament: Pride, Prejudice and Politics (London, 1999).
R.A.C. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War (London, 1993), p. 347.
Cf. R.J. Caputi, Neville Chamberlain and Appeasement (Selinsgrove, PA, 2000).
P. Finney, (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War (London, New York, 1997), p. 16.
Also see B.J.C. McKercher, ‘National Security and Imperial Defence: British Grand Strategy and Appeasement, 1930–1939’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 19(2008), pp. 391–442.
Cf. R.J.Q. Adams, British Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of Appeasement, 1935–39 (Stanford, CA, 1993); Bell, Chamberlain, Germany and Japan;
M. George, The Warped Vision; British Foreign Policy, 1933–1939 (Pittsburg, PA, 1965);
P. Haggie, Britannia at Bay: The Defence of the British Empire against Japan, 1931–1941 (Oxford, New York, 1981);
F. Hardie, The Abyssinian Crisis (London, 1974).
Cf. G. Post, Jr., Dilemmas of Appeasement: British Deterrence and Defense, 1934–1937 (Ithaca, NY, 1993);
R.P. Shay, British Rearmament in the Thirties: Politics and Profits (London, 1977);
E. Wiskemann, Europe of the Dictators, 1919–1945 (London, 1966), p. 145;
K.E. Neilson, ‘The Defence Requirements Sub-Committee, British Strategic Foreign Policy, Neville Chamberlain and the Path to Appeasement’, English Historical Review, 118(2003), pp. 651–84, does consider strategy, but in terms of an ahistorical construct that he calls ‘strategic foreign policy’. British diplomatists and others, especially Chamberlain, however, never used this concept at the time.
On the primacy of the Foreign Office, see B.J.C. McKercher, ‘Austen Chamberlain and the Continental Balance of Power: Strategy, Stability, and the League of Nations, 1924–29’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 14(2003), pp. 207–36; Ibid., ‘The Foreign Office, 1930–1939: Strategy, Permanent Interests, and National Security’, Contemporary British History, 18(2004), pp. 87–109.
Gibbs, Rearmament, p. 55. Cf. J.R. Ferris, Men, Money and Diplomacy. The Evolution of British Strategic Policy, 1919–1926 (Ithaca, NY, 1989), pp. 158–78.
S.L. Endicott, Diplomacy and Enterprise: British China Policy, 1933–1937 (Vancouver, 1975), pp. 46–49, p. 139;
W.R. Louis, British Strategy in the Far East 1919–1939 (Oxford, 1971), p. 222.
FO 371/17599/7695/1938, Orde (Far Eastern Department) minute, 28 Aug. 1934, Craigie (American Department) minute, 23 Aug. 1934, Vansittart minute, 25 Aug. 1934, Vansittart minute to Simon, 29 Aug. 1934. Cf. Neville Chamberlain MSS., Birmingham University, NC 8/19/1, Chamberlain memorandum, ‘The Naval Conference and Our Relations with Japan’, n.d. [but early Aug 1934], with two undated Chamberlain minutes. The rest of this paragraph is based on B.J.C. McKercher, Transition of Power. Britain’s Loss of Global Pre-eminence to the United States, 1930–1945 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 96–203.
G. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, Volume I (Chicago, 1970), pp. 93–99.
M.L. Roi, Alternative to Appeasement. Sir Robert Vansittart and Alliance Diplomacy, 1934–1937 (Wesport, 1997), pp. 77–82.
See A. Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston, 1943), pp. 613–18.
See J.J. Abbatiello, Anti-Submarine Warfare in World War I: British Naval Aviation and the Defeat of the U-Boats (New York, 2006).
Cf. R.A. Best, ‘The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935: An Aspect of Appeasement’, Naval War College Review, 34/2(1981), 68–85;
C. Bloch, ‘Great Britain, German Rearmament, and the Naval Agreement of 1935’, in H. Gatzke, (ed.), European Diplomacy Between the Two Wars, 1919–1939 (Chicago, 1972), pp. 125–51;
E. Haraszti, Treaty-Breakers or ‘Realpolitiker’? The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 (Boppard am Rhein, 1974).
Maiolo, Royal Navy; McKercher, Transition, pp. 207–17; Roi, Alternative, pp. 80–81. Cf. D.C. Watt, ‘The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935: An Interim Judgement’, Journal of Modern History, 28(1956), pp. 155–76.
M.L. Roi, ‘“A completely immoral and cowardly attitude”: the British Foreign Office, American neutrality, and the Hoare-Laval Plan’, Canadian Journal of History, 29(1994). Then see A. Mockler, Haile Sellassie’s War (New York, 2002).
Still unsurpassed in its assessment is D.C. Watt, ‘German Plans for the Reoccupation of the Rhineland: A Note,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 1(1966), pp. 193–99.
The rest of this paragraph is from M.L. Roi, ‘From the Stresa Front to the Triple Entente: Sir Robert Vansittart, the Abyssinian Crisis, and the Containment of Germany’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 6(1995), pp. 61–90; Ibid., Alternative, p. 154.
Cf. S. Bourette-Knowles, ‘The Global Micawber: Sir Robert Vansittart, the Treasury, and the Global Balance of Power, 1933–1935’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 6(1995), pp. 91–121.
D. Carlton, Anthony Eden (London, 1981), p. 105.
Earl of Avon, Facing the Dictators (London, 1962), pp. 242–43.
See M.L. Dockrill, British Establishment Perspectives on France, 1936–40 (Houndmills, 1999), Chapter 3;
L. Pratt, East of Malta, West of Suez: Britain’s Mediterranean Crisis, 1936–1939 (Cambridge, 1975);
G.L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, Vol.II: Starting World War II 1937–1939 (Chicago, 1980), pp. 81–85.
On Munich, see E. Goldstein, ‘Neville Chamberlain, the British Official Mind and the Munich Crisis’, in I. Lukes and E. Goldstein, (eds), The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II (London, 1999) pp. 276–92; D. Reynolds, qq.
Then see Z.S. Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark. European International History 1933–1939 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 671–1035;
D.C. Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (London, 1989).
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McKercher, B.J.C. (2013). Strategy and Foreign Policy in Great Britain, 1930–1938: From the Pursuit of the Balance of Power to Appeasement. In: Baxter, C., Dockrill, M.L., Hamilton, K. (eds) Britain in Global Politics Volume 1. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137367822_7
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