Neville Chamberlain
British Prime Minister 1937-1940, architect of appeasement (1869-1940)
Also known as: Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain, Chamberlain's
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940 and the public face of British appeasement: the Munich Agreement, the abandonment of Czechoslovakia, and the slow pivot to war in 1939. Quigley argues that the appeasement policy was not Chamberlain's personal misjudgment but the institutional output of the The Milner Group's inner circle and the Cliveden circle around him — Halifax, Hoare, Lothian, Dawson, and the Astors.
The Chamberlain family
Neville was the half-brother of Sir Austen Chamberlain (Foreign Secretary 1924-1929, the figure most associated with Locarno) and the son of Joseph Chamberlain (Colonial Secretary 1895-1903). Quigley distinguishes the three Chamberlains carefully: Joseph 'was already acquainted with Milner. They had fought Home Rule together in the election of 1886 and had both been in Egypt in 1889' (AAE 43); Austen, the Cecil-Bloc-connected statesman; and Neville, the businessman-turned-politician who entered Cabinet in his fifties. Together with Stanley Baldwin, Quigley records, 'Sir Austen Chamberlain and Stanley (Lord) Baldwin were agreed that "\'unconstitutional\' is a term applied in politics to the other fellow who does something that you do not like"' (T&H 477) — the cynical aphorism that characterized the inter-war Conservative establishment.
Premier and the appeasement consensus
Chamberlain became Prime Minister in May 1937. Quigley's analysis of the appeasement decade locates Chamberlain inside a circle, not at its apex: 'The group which spread this version of the situation included Chamberlain, Lord Halifax, John Simon, Samuel Hoare, Horace Wilson, the Cliveden Set, the British ambassador in Berlin (Sir Nevile Henderson), and the British minister in Prague (Basil Newton)' (T&H 640). The Cliveden Astors 'urged Chamberlain at the decisive moment to have the courage of his convictions and place Halifax, even though he was a Peer, in the office to which his experience and record so richly entitled him' (AAE 62) — the Foreign Office, in February 1938 after Eden's resignation.
Munich
The September 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Britain and France accepted the German annexation of the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, is for Quigley the test case. He argues — using the captured Reichswehr archives — that the British government 'knew these facts but consistently gave a contrary impression and that Lord Halifax went so far in this direction as to call forth protests from the British military attachés in Prague and Paris' (T&H 636). The 'Chamberlain government made it clear to Germany both publicly and privately that they would not oppose Germany's projects' (T&H 636). Quigley notes that 'although Lord Halifax, Churchill, and others were informed, about 5 September, 1938, by representatives of the German General Staff and of the German Foreign Office that Hitler would be assassinated by them as soon as he gave the order to attack Czechoslovakia, the British' government rejected the offer (Quigley Misc, 4).
Fall, May 1940
After the Norway debacle and Amery's 'In the name of God, go' speech, Chamberlain resigned on 10 May 1940 and Churchill took office. Quigley reads the May 1940 transition as the moment the Group lost control of the British government — the appeasement-era faction was discredited and the Churchill-Eden faction, drawn from the Group's anti-appeasement minority and the broader Conservative establishment, took charge. Chamberlain died of cancer in November 1940, six months out of office. Quigley does not personally vilify him: 'Each of these four accounts is convincing within itself, because each presents its hero's actions solely in terms of his knowledge of the situation at the time' (Book Reviews, 156).
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 27 Quigley
Maurice Hankey, the fourth Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Lansdowne, Bishop Henson, Halifax, Stanley Baldwin, Austen Chamberlain, Lord Carnock, and Lord Hewart. This list includes only members up to 1925.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 62 Quigley
These people, who used Cliveden House as the Astors' guests and earned the title of a 'set,' to which, in spite of imaginative left-wing propaganda, they never aspired, urged Chamberlain at the decisive moment to have the courage of his convictions and place Halifax, even though he was a Peer, in the office to which his experience and record so richly entitled him.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 633 Quigley
in a conversation between Lord Halifax and Hitler at Berchtesgaden on November 17, 1938; (b) in a letter from Neville Chamberlain to his sister on November 26, 1937; (c) in a conversation between Hitler, Ribbentrop, and the British Ambassador (Sir Nevile Henderson) in Berlin on March 3.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 636 Quigley
the Chamberlain government knew these facts but consistently gave a contrary impression and that Lord Halifax went so far in this direction as to call forth protests from the British military attaches in Prague and Paris. The Chamberlain government made it clear to Germany both publicly and privately that they would not oppose Germany's projects.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 640 Quigley
The group which spread this version of the situation included Chamberlain, Lord Halifax, John Simon, Samuel Hoare, Horace Wilson, the Cliveden Set, the British ambassador in Berlin (Sir Nevile Henderson), and the British minister in Prague (Basil Newton).
- book-reviews · p. 144 Quigley
the complex intrigue which went on in Paris. For these two things, which are not so well known as the preambulations of Neville Chamberlain, it would probably be worth-while to publish this book.
- quigley-misc · p. 4 Quigley
Although Lord Halifax, Churchill, and others were informed, about 5 September, 1938, by representatives of the German General Staff and of the German Foreign Office that Hitler would be assassinated by them as soon as he gave the order to attack Czechoslovakia.