October 17, 2008

Churchill and Appeasement, by R.A.C. Parker. Basingstoke and Oxford: Macmillan. 290 pages hardbound. Published at £20/ $32.

Reviewed by Warren F. Kimball

Dr. Kimball is Treat Professor of History at Rutgers University, a Churchill Center academic adviser, editor of the Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence, and author of several books on Roosevelt, Churchill and World War II.

    The “author will expose his prejudices” is the provocative opening to this book. “He thinks that Churchill could have prevented the Second World War.” A defensive “grand alliance” of European states atop a solid Anglo French alliance “might have stopped Hitler.” Churchill “might even have managed” to work out an arrangement with Stalin that offered enough security for the Soviet leader to accept independent nations in Eastern Europe (p. ix). Thankfully, the counterfactuals and extended speculations peter out quickly after a final barrage at the end of chapter two, and Alastair (R.A.C.) Parker settles down to what he does very well writing history.

    This is not just another “Churchill and …” book designed for an American public infatuated with a tabletop image of Churchill, and for a British public for which he is their only hero in memory. Recently, the Arts & Ideas section of The New York Times carried a column entitled “Rethinking Negotiation With Hitler.” The piece was a brief summary of the ongoing debate over whether Churchill considered negotiating with Germany in 1940, when Britain’s military situation seemed indeed parlous.

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    The two extremes‹Churchill as “uncompromising hero” versus Churchill the antihero whose lack of a strategy ensured Britain’s postwar humiliations‹leave a great deal of territory in between. That territory was once a no man’s land, but no longer. In fact, the army of historians in the middle, which includes Parker despite his confessed “prejudices,” now seems to be larger than the forces in the two opposing trenches. Those middle-grounders are, in fact, a very disparate group, sharing only one assumption‹that Winston Churchill was a complex leader who must be studied from a multitude of perspectives.

    Parker is an accomplished historian (Queen’s College, Oxford) who has written as fair and balanced a treatment as there is of Neville Chamberlain and Appeasement (London & New York, 1993) and who, in this book, takes that theme a bit further. He treats appeasement, one of the most value-laden words in English and in England, as a rational, even reasonable (if wrongheaded) policy that Chamberlain never abandoned‹not even after Hitler’s occupation of Prague in March 1939. Where Churchill and Chamberlain differed, deeply and bitterly, was over the issue of bargaining from strength. Whatever Churchill’s inconsistencies and uncertainty, he never ceased advocating that Great Britain rebuild its military forces: rearm to prevent war. Under those circumstances, even appeasement could be useful. Churchill applauded Anthony Eden’s “appeasement of Europe” speech in March 1936 after Germany moved into the Rhineland; and in 1938, Churchill supported appeasement of the Sudeten Germans.

    But this is not a book about British foreign policy. Rather, it examines the 1930s from the focused, even antic perspective of Parliament. The usual image of Winston Churchill is that of world statesman, standing straddle legged across the globe. But this story is told from the corridors of English politics, not world power. It is the view of and from the House of Commons, not the Foreign Office. The theme is clear–Churchill’s ability, and inability, to command political support in the Commons is what determined whether and how he could play global power politics. Even Churchill’s own thinking on international affairs takes a back seat to Parliamentary maneuverings and debates. As Parker notes, in the 1937-39 sessions alone, foreign affairs were debated in the Commons thirty times, with 1,533 questions from members.

    Hitler is strangely absent. (As are Franklin Roosevelt and the United States, but more legitimately.) Instead, Mussolini and Franco lurk in the shadows, for Italy (dreams of cooperation) and the Spanish Revolution (anti-Bolshevism was more important than anti-fascism) pulled Churchill into politically unrewarding territory. Add to that his support for Edward VIII during the abdication crisis and his refusal to go along with even a slight genuflection toward more home rule in India, and Churchill’s political leverage within Parliament understandably suffered.

    Perhaps the most striking impression left by a reading of this book is that, between March 1939 and May 1940, preventing Churchill from becoming prime minister was as important for Neville Chamberlain as dealing with Adolf Hitler. The Parliamentary politics are verbose and clever, but oddly removed. What a striking difference between the England of Alastair Parker and that of historians like Piers Brendon whose Dark Valley (London, 2000) reminds us of the national and international anger, despair, and confusion of the Great Depression.

    For those who see in Churchill the wise public philosopher, Parker offers a 1937 speech in the Commons (where most of the action is) wherein Churchill “daydreamed” about how, if only Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia could work together, they could “intervene in Spain to create a ‘hybrid’ government,” and “introduce a ‘new theme'” to the “mutually suspicious great powers of Europe” (124). This reviewer has rarely seen a more curious combination of ruthless realism and Wilsonian idealism.

    Parker’s initial challenge was his belief that Churchill could have prevented the Second World War. That judgment relies on Hitler drawing back from war and confrontation with Britain because, as prime minister, Churchill would have been tough, unyielding, and operating from a position of military strength. That Churchill was tough and feisty is a commonplace; whether or not Hitler would have drawn back is a question unexplored in this book. To suggest that Churchill would have rejected the Munich pact and that a revolt against Hitler would then have taken place (as claimed by German General Franz Halder) is more than a stretch; it is improbable. Parker, quoting Churchill’s wartime memoir, writes that the “theme and tentative conclusion” of this book is that the war was “unnecessary,” and “easy to stop.” Perhaps. But more to the point is Parker’s description (261ff.) of how Churchill’s ineptness in Parliament ensured that he would not be in the Governments of either Stanley Baldwin or Neville Chamberlain. It’s tough to save the world from war if you can’t take care of business at home.