A dead letter

When lists are compiled of our best and worst prime ministers (before the present incumbent), the two main protagonists of this book usually feature, holding the top and bottom positions.

Attempts are periodically made to revise these verdicts, most recently in John McDonnell’s description of Churchill as a villain; and by Robert Harris’s sympathetic portrayal of Chamberlain in his thriller  Munich. By and large, however, the general view of the two PMs remains fixed: Churchill was a hero who saved his country and arguably freedom and democracy worldwide, while Chamberlain was a purblind and arrogant fool who let Hitler stomp his jackboots all over him.

The revisionists who want to change those verdicts will get little comfort from this absorbing study of appeasement, the flagship policy of Chamberlain’s woeful premiership. Tim Bouverie has cast his net wide in telling the story, successfully melding the escalating acts of aggression by Europe’s Nazi and Fascist dictators abroad with the reaction to these events in Britain.

What is striking about Bouverie’s gripping narrative, as a distant cloud in the sky escalates into the thunderheads of looming war, is the complacent, escapist inaction, not only of the ruling political establishment, but of the general public at large. As Hitler’s appetite grew keener with every chunk of real estate swallowed — the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland — so Britain sunk deeper into the big snooze.

There were good reasons for the nation shutting its eyes to unpleasant reality. The Great War had left such a gaping wound that none relished the prospect of a rematch. The traditional British sympathy for the underdog and sense of fair play had resulted in an uneasy feeling that poor little Germany had been too harshly treated at Versailles. The great depression had focussed minds on jobs at home rather than what was happening across the Channel.