Munich | David Faber | Review by The Spectator

David Faber’s account of the Munich crisis has been published to mark the 70th anniversary of the four-power conference that made appeasement a dirty word. But it is timely as well as commemorative.

True, the recent comparisons drawn between Hitler and Putin are dangerously misplaced. Nonetheless, Western politicians are finding themselves debating the same sort of issues over Georgia — with Ukraine and the Baltic States to follow — that divided their forebears over Hitler’s Czechoslovakian demands in 1938. Are national boundaries inviolate or subject to revision along ethnic grounds? Would offering guarantees to small countries protect them or make confrontation from their big neighbour more certain? Most fundamental of all, to what extent should concessions be forced from what Neville Chamberlain once called ‘people of whom we know nothing’ in order to preserve the peace and quiet of the rest of us?

It is not hard to fathom why Chamber-lain’s appeasement policy has held such an enduring appeal for historians. Its failure ensured the second world war. And this was far from the limit of its legacy. ‘The lessons of Munich’ set the language and the frame of reference for geopolitics in the near half-century of Cold War that followed. It even influenced Anthony Eden in his disastrous intervention over the Suez Canal, helping to embolden the cause of Arab nationalism.

Yet, while the general historiography of appeasement is formidable, David Faber is the first British historian to write a major book specifically on the Munich crisis since the works of John Wheeler-Bennett and Keith Robbins in the 1960s. His achievement is such that we might wait another 40 years before feeling the need for someone else to give it a go.

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Comments

Max

October 2nd, 2008 1:15am

TDK

Thanks for your comments, but you don’t say why Chamberlain was wrong to try to avoid war at all costs. He did declare war eventually but that was forced on him by Churchill especially. You are right about the reception he received following his “peace in our time speech”. What is less well known is that the reception to it in Germany was just as great – people out in the streets cheering etc. If only Germany had been a democracy what a lot of trouble it would have saved.

Before the war the population of Germany was bigger than it is now (in a sense) and not much smaller than that of Britain and France put together. In those days Britain was still a great industrial power (hard to believe now I know) but half the size of Germany. France was less industrial, with much of its wealth from agriculture.

So industrially Germany outstripped us. Plus (and this was acknowledged by Churchill before the war) German science and technology was in advance of ours - and everyone else’s as well.

The possibility of defeat was staring at us from the beginning and when we went to war we were gambling everything – house, home, wealth, our very existence. No one does that unless there is no alternative (in which case it’s not a gamble) or they are mad. Churchill was mad. He believed that he was some sort of “chosen one” and he talks of this in his biographical writings. His delusions went above the usual “I believe in God” nonsense. He believed he was God or at least a messiah.

Once the war started it could only go wrong – and it did. Is often forgotten that at one time it we were even contemplating declaring war on the Soviet Union as well. It was all mad.

And so it was that all the wealth accumulated over the centuries was gambled and lost. We were left with nothing except our existence and we were lucky not to lose that.

I’m afraid I just don’t understand this death wish thing which continues to this day. Now of course our situation is even worse than then. We did not become a German colony. Instead we are to become an Indian colony and that cannot now be stopped.

Britain is now the land of forced marriages, honour killings, female genital mutilation, wife beating and the oppression of women generally, the cast system, weird laws concerning the position of widows, witch craft, cow worship and many of our fellow British citizens are calling for apostates to be executed. Did you hear the programme on BBC Radio 4 when British citizens (British citizens) and its worth saying again, British citizens, were discussing the best way to execute people for apostasy – the choices are (apparently) beheading of course; hanging and - wait for it – crucifixion.

We are told this is all great and diversity of culture is wonderful. Yea right; and if you can believe that - you can believe Chamberlain was wrong to try to avoid a war we couldn’t win.

If only Germany – sorry I mean Britain - had been a democracy what a lot of trouble it would have saved.

Truly the only wish guaranteed to come true is the death wish. I don’t think we are going to be saved by the Soviet Union this time.

Thanks also to Charles.

I agree. You might also have commented on the American funding of IRA terrorists for 30 years as well. Plus the refusal of American courts to extrude a single terrorist.

See what I mean about countries not helping each other and just how stupid we are when we sacrifice ourselves for others?

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Charles

October 1st, 2008 12:18pm

What sticks in my craw is the way in which the US 'neo-cons' demonise Chamberlain in their scheming to polarise opinion against their enemies. By so doing, they are implicitly insulting the great majority of people in this country who supported his policies, for good reason, right up until the point when it seems there was no alternative to war. If they are really looking for scapegoats, perhaps they should be looking at the US industrialists and financiers who facilitated the Nazi rearmament - fat chance of that though, isn't there?

October 1st, 2008 11:10am

Max wrote

We knew before the war began that even the French and the British combined could not match Germany’s scientific, industrial and technological power and we would almost certainly lose.

Britain alone outproduced Germany in planes and ships throughout the war. At the start of the Battle of France we had more troops and tanks than the Germans. DUring the Phoney War it was assumed that economic blockade would win the war.

Nobody imagined in 1938 that France would lose in so short space of time. The real fear was a repeat of the trench warfare of WWI. That's what they wanted to avoid.

I have some sympathy for your point that no country has an obligation to commit suicide for another. What is forgotten now is that Chamberlain was widely applauded upon his return. It was only in the months after that the mistake became obvious.

Wishful thinking was common in the thirties. Thank God George Lansbury was replaced. That doesn't excuse us for wishful thinking now. Chamberlain made a mistake.

September 30th, 2008 4:37pm

What was shameful about Britain’s policy of avoiding war at almost any cost? Absolutely nothing - the British have (or had) a right to an existence of their own and not to jeopardise that for the sake of others.

We knew before the war began that even the French and the British combined could not match Germany’s scientific, industrial and technological power and we would almost certainly lose. Why do the British (really the English) still consider it “noble” to commit suicide on behalf of others? It is completely cockeyed.

Even with the fall of our ally France - which was supposed to supply the main army - we were still too dim to accept the offer of peace. All because of some lunatic had believed “from an early age” that he was a man of "destiny". We were led by, and we followed, a man suffering from a severe form of mental delusion.

So, the British people had to suffer dreadfully throughout the war and for years afterwards as well. They fought for longer than anyone else: on more fronts than anyone else: mobilised a greater percentage of their population than anyone else (including the Germans). The British were bombed and starved for six years.

Did anyone say thanks for fighting-on when everyone else had either given-up or not bothered to get involved in the first place? Well, we do get a lousy Christmas tree from the Norwegians once a year - in perpetuity – (I wonder what the Muslims will say when they are in charge - I think we may have to “step away from the Christmas tree”). Oh, and the Belgians blow a trumpet each evening in our honour.

On no other occasion in history have a people done as much for others for less reward. Virtually every country of the world gained something. The Russians gained a big chunk of Eastern Europe: even the Poles gained in the long run; their country is bigger than it would have been. The Americans saw their rivals (which included the British) brought down. The Americans even took the opportunity of deliberately undermining our currency while we were helpless, just to make sure we wouldn’t get up again soon. Even the Germans got democracy out of it. We got nothing. Nothing at all.

This is a fact acknowledged by American historians who find that amusing indeed. We were and are, brainless beyond belief.

We should have made peace - and to hell with the others. Because that is what everyone else would have done.

But it is worse. We survived that war but the death-wish remains. Now the British are fixated with the “nobility” of self sacrifice again and intent on becoming an ethnic minority in their own country. In fact the British will soon be almost the only nation of people on earth that has no land that it can call its own.

No doubt deluded people are delighted by the grandeur of it all. Sacrificing everything for the benefit of people who (let's be honest) hate us. How great is that?

The end of Britain – brought down by liars and stupid authors who do little more than peddle conventional and twisted wisdom. Even that war failed to teach us anything. God, we are cretins - but soon to be extinct, so perhaps it doesn’t matter.

September 30th, 2008 9:34am

A small anecdote which, perhaps, demonstrates the lengths to which Chamberlain would go in his attempts to forge a 'relationship' with Hitler:

The latter was so convinced that a particular British soldier had spared him from death during WW1 that he kept a painting of this soldier's regiment in his mountain retreat. Chamberlain saw the picture and talked to Hitler about the event. He then, when back in England, tracked down the soldier and phoned him to substantiate the truth of the matter. (The details are here: www.firstworldwar.com/features/tandey.htm)

Whatever else can be said of Chamberlain's actions, one gets the impression that he was prepared to see no stone unturned in his search for a peaceful solution to the problem he faced.