In Appeasing Hitler, a skilfully crafted account of a low, dishonest decade, political journalist Tim Bouverie recounts the British miscalculations – some honourable, others foolish, a handful treacherous – expressed as the policy of appeasement. Efforts to accommodate the dictators and thus prevent another war found prominent supporters in Britain throughout the 1930s. Some politicians had turned pacifist after the horrors of World War I. Others, opposing rearmament as fatal to a fragile peace, trusted in international organisations, notably the League of Nations and the 1925 Locarno Treaties. There were conservatives who feared communism and found much to admire in Hitler and Mussolini, those on the left who distrusted British militarism, and a welter of naïve aristocrats who, pace The Remains of the Day, felt that they could achieve peace with Germany through private negotiation.

All these strands are documented by Bouverie, who often draws on private letters. His central focus, though, remains a portrait of Neville Chamberlain, mayor of Birmingham, appointed a minister in 1922, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Depression, and prime minister from May 1937. Appeasing Hitler portrays a Chamberlain who is optimistic, vain, and overly confident of his own judgement. This leader was genuine in his wish to avoid war but sometimes underhand in his tactics, reinforcing German perceptions of a foolish British ruling class.

Appeasement did not start with Chamberlain, though he became the public face of seeking an accord with Hitler to prevent conflict. From 1933 a succession of impressionable British élites visited Nazi Germany, were awed by the Nuremberg rallies, and left private meetings convinced that Hitler was a reasonable man who just wanted to reclaim dignity for his nation. Media baron Lord Beaverbrook returned from Berlin sure that reports of the persecution of Jews were exaggerated. Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times, backed Chamberlain despite reports from his own reporters on the Continent about German intentions. Sadly, public broadcasting did not offer a more analytical view. BBC Director-General John Reith was keen not to offend Germany. As he argued, with tortured logic, ‘Assuming that the BBC is for the people, and the Government is for the people, it follows that the BBC must be for the Government.’

Even Mussolini expressed quiet astonishment that British government representatives could be so gullible about the persistently dishonest Hitler. Yet not everyone was fooled. There were informed players in Chamberlain’s own party who understood the clear and present danger. Hitler’s ruthless suppression of opponents, his animus toward Jews, revealed the character of the man. So did Mein Kampf, in which the future führer helpfully laid out his vile views and global ambitions.

Yet Chamberlain thought it possible to deal with such a man. In the acid observation of Conservative politician Duff Cooper, ‘Chamberlain had never met anyone in Birmingham who in the least resembled Adolf Hitler.’ The prime minister was used to rational, sensible people – rather like himself – who were honest and could make a deal. For Cooper, Chamberlain resembled ‘a little boy who played with a wolf under the impression that it was a sheep’.

In mitigation, Chamberlain understood the weakness of British military preparation and the clear aversion of the British people to another war. When he returned from Munich in September 1938, waving his agreement with Hitler and promising ‘peace for our time’, thousands lined the streets to cheer him on the drive home from the airport. Downing Street was flooded with letters from grateful citizens. ‘With the possible exception of Our Lord,’ wrote one elderly correspondent, ‘no greater man than Mr Chamberlain has ever trod this earth.’

Neville Chamberlain holding the paper containing the resolution to commit to peaceful methods signed by both Hitler and himself, Munich, 30 September 1938 (photograph via the Ministry of Information, D 2239 Imperial War Museums/Wikimedia Commons)

And yet Munich was neither an honourable peace nor a wise policy. Britain may not have been ready to fight in 1938, but neither was Germany, as Hitler well knew. Bluff was his favourite tactic – the 3,000 German soldiers who re-occupied the Rhineland in 1936 were under order to retreat immediately at the first sign of French aggression. It never came. Hitler watched the Allies complain but make no serious efforts to oppose Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia, nor Japanese aggression in Manchuria and China. Germany flouted international agreements without consequence. Britain and France ignored blatant fascist involvement in the Spanish Civil War. So Hitler marched into Austria, the Sudetenland, and, finally, all of Czechoslovakia after displays of bravado, theatrical posturing, and unsubtle threats that saw the Allies rush to soothe him with compromise. By 1939, as the tyrant eyed Poland, why would he take seriously concerns from a dour Englishman with an umbrella?

In a thoughtful conclusion to Appeasing Hitler, Bouverie carefully weighs arguments for and against appeasement. He acknowledges Chamberlain’s sincere abhorrence of war and his awareness of the public’s longing for peace. Yet it was Chamberlain’s poor judgement that exposed Britain to danger. The prime minister ignored intelligence reports, often sourced from within the German armed forces, pointing to Hitler’s duplicity. He isolated the handful of Tories, including Churchill, who spoke up against the dictators. He fumbled an alliance with the Soviet Union and spurned proposals from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A program of rearmament began late, long after the march to war was evident. Determined to ignore unwelcome facts, Chamberlain and his supporters left their nation tragically vulnerable.

Why write such a book now? The topic is familiar and much covered. Bouverie offers a fine synthesis and some original research, but essentially confirms judgements familiar from other texts. Chamberlain misjudged his times, and eventually found himself in an untenable position. Parliament turned to Winston Churchill to lead the nation in a now unavoidable, long, and bloody war.

Bouverie signed a contract for his book in November 2016, just months after Britain voted to leave the European Union, a nation once more in splendid isolation. Lurking beneath the text is a question that has renewed urgency: why do democracies wilt when faced with an existential crisis? Hitler made his intentions clear, yet egregious newspaper proprietors claimed the threat was elsewhere and politicians followed rather than led. Expert opinion was shunned, apologists preferred to realists. As Bouverie notes, the story might have ended differently had Britain’s leaders ‘spelled out the nature of the German threat and the need to resist it’. In fact, the British public decided that Hitler was a liar long before the political class; when a poll found that eighty-six per cent of those surveyed did not believe Hitler’s denial of further territorial ambitions, the chairman of the News Chronicle, Sir Walter Layton, sought to suppress the finding. He was worried the news might ‘exacerbate feelings in Germany’.

Perhaps Brexit poses another existential crisis facing Britain, just as authoritarian states again make territorial claims to test Western resolve. Readers may reflect on how democracies – and their media owners – respond to the threat of climate change. The failure of the 1930s to register reality and respond was nearly fatal for Britain. History repeats not as detail but as pattern. Will we too find ourselves at the sharp end of a fatal miscalculation, stare blankly, and ask, ‘What now?’