Latest news with #NevilleChamberlain
Telegraph
a day ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Chamberlain hoped to ‘avoid worst' as Second World War loomed
Neville Chamberlain wrote 'I still hope we may avoid the worst' six days before the start of the Second World War, a letter has revealed. The former prime minister is infamous for his failed appeasement policy, which saw him offer Adolf Hitler numerous concessions to try to avoid war. Now a newly discovered letter suggests he clung on to the hope his strategy would pay off up until the moment Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1 1939. Writing to Captain William Brass, the Conservative MP, on Aug 26 1939, he said: 'I still hope we may avoid the worst, but if it comes we are thank God prepared for it.' Chamberlain's confidence in Britain's readiness for war would prove to be misplaced as within nine months the Nazis had captured swathes of Europe. More than 330,000 British Expeditionary Force troops had to be hastily evacuated at Dunkirk between May 26 and June 4 1940, to enable Britain to 'fight another day'. The day before Chamberlain 's hopeful note, however, Britain had signed the Anglo-Polish military alliance, promising to support Poland if its independence was threatened. Hitler had originally scheduled his invasion of Poland for Aug 26, but when news of the Anglo-Polish pact reached Berlin, he temporarily postponed the attack by six days. Chamberlain's policy of appeasement saw Britain make no response to Hitler's annexation of Austria in March 1938, a move Winston Churchill warned at the time was a mistake. During a speech in the House of Commons, Churchill said: 'The gravity of the annexation of Austria cannot be exaggerated.' 'Total and unmitigated defeat' Hitler quickly moved on to trying to control the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, and by Sept 1928 Chamberlain had flown to Hitler's holiday home to negotiate in person, to no avail. Chamberlain said at the time: 'How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.' The Munich agreement saw Chamberlain sign over the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany from Oct 1 1938, in exchange for Hitler giving up on plans for further expansion across Europe. Churchill called it a 'total and unmitigated defeat' and it failed to stop Nazi Germany annexing more Czech land, including Prague, and launching an invasion of Poland – which finally sparked war. Chamberlain lost the confidence of Parliament and resigned as prime minister in May 1940, when Churchill stepped up to lead the nation. The one-page letter, on 10 Downing Street letterhead and dated Aug 26 1939, has emerged for sale at RR Auction in Boston, US. It is tipped to fetch $20,000 (£15,000) because of its historical significance. An RR Auction spokesman said: 'Behind the scenes, British diplomats were still scrambling to avert war. Chamberlain hoped that deterrence, through strong alliances and military mobilisation, might still dissuade Hitler. 'At the same time, Britain was accelerating preparations – air raid precautions were being implemented across cities, reservists were being called up, and public morale was being steeled for the possibility of conflict. 'Thus Britain found itself in a state of grim resolve: committed to defending Poland, preparing for war, yet still clinging to fragile hopes that Hitler might yet be deterred. 'Within a week, however, those hopes would be extinguished as Germany launched its invasion of Poland on September 1.' The sale takes place on Wednesday.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Neville Chamberlain's naive words of optimism six days before WWII began - revealed in unseen letter
A candid letter by Neville Chamberlain saying 'I still hope we may avoid the worst' six days before the start of the Second World War has emerged. The beleaguered British prime minister pursued an appeasement policy with Nazi Germany in a bid to prevent an escalation into a global conflict. After signing the derided Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler in September 1938, he infamously declared that it was 'peace in our time'. Now a newly discovered letter shows how he clung on to the hope that his strategy would pay off right up until Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Writing to Conservative MP Captain William Brass on August 26, 1939, he stated: 'I still hope we may avoid the worst, but if it comes we are thank God prepared for it.' However, within nine months the Nazis had captured large swathes of Europe. More than 330,000 British Expeditionary Force troops were hastily evacuated at Dunkirk to enable Britain to 'fight another day'. Chamberlain lost the confidence of Parliament and resigned as Prime Minister in May 1940, with Winston Churchill stepping up to lead the nation. The one-page letter, on 10 Downing Street letterhead and dated August 26, 1939, has emerged for sale at RR Auction, of Boston, US. It is tipped to fetch £15,000 ($20,000) due to its historical significance. An RR Auction spokesperson said: 'On August 26, 1939, Great Britain stood on the precipice of war, with tensions between Germany and Poland escalating to a breaking point. 'For months, Europe had watched Adolf Hitler's aggressive expansion with growing alarm. 'Britain, having learned hard lessons from appeasement, had made a guarantee to come to Poland's aid if its independence was threatened, solidified in the Anglo-Polish military alliance signed one day earlier on August 25. 'Hitler had originally scheduled his invasion of Poland for August 26, but when news of the Anglo-Polish pact reached Berlin, he temporarily postponed the attack. 'Behind the scenes, British diplomats were still scrambling to avert war. 'Chamberlain hoped that deterrence, through strong alliances and military mobilisation, might still dissuade Hitler. 'At the same time, Britain was accelerating preparations - air raid precautions were being implemented across cities, reservists were being called up, and public morale was being steeled for the possibility of conflict. 'Thus Britain found itself in a state of grim resolve: committed to defending Poland, preparing for war, yet still clinging to fragile hopes that Hitler might yet be deterred. 'Within a week, however, those hopes would be extinguished as Germany launched its invasion of Poland on September 1.'
The Sun
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Keir Starmer is about as frightening as a stick of celery… but I'm more scared of him than Putin – here's why
CAN you imagine what would have happened if Neville Chamberlain – our Prime Minister when Germany invaded Poland – had announced Britain was in grave danger and, as a result, would increase funding for the Armed Forces and therefore be ready to do 'war fighting' by 1975. Or maybe a bit later. Hitler would have just laughed at him. But that's exactly what happened this week when Sir Starmer announced that because of Russia's expansionist tendencies, he was going to totally overhaul our Armed Forces so we'd be ready to fight, and fight hard by, er, some point in the future. He would build 12 new nuclear subs, and a wave of new fighter-bombers that could rain atomic death on our enemies. And in addition, our fighting men and women, and all those who are neither, would be trained to become ten times more effective and lethal. According to Starmer, we'd go from a country that can't even stop a rubber dinghy reaching the shores of Kent to a country that would shake fear into the entire Russian naval machine. It all sounds a bit preposterous, frankly, because first of all, where's the money coming from? He's already spent what little he had on train drivers, junior doctors and solar parks. So how can he suddenly afford 12 new submarines and a murder of fighter jets so complex they haven't even been invented yet. And who's he going to get to operate all this new kit, and run around in the muddy trenches, shooting at Ivan? Back in the Thirties, everyone in the country knew their duty. Not any more. Everyone's too busy shoplifting or choosing a gender or glueing themselves to the road. From tactical nuke to 7,600mph missile & 50k-troop assault…6 ways Putin could respond to Ukraine blitz after Trump call There's another issue too. As we have seen in the Ukraine war, an entire squadron of bombers can now be destroyed by someone with a lorry and a few drones, made from stuff you can buy for a tenner at Dixons. But by far the biggest problem we have is Keir Starmer himself, because he is very possibly the least war-like leader the world has ever seen. He is a stick of celery in a crap suit. Putin ran the KGB. So at one point he will definitely have used his thumbs to push a man's eyes into his brain. Starmer hasn't done that. Starmer is a human rights lawyer. If the balloon went up, he'd be on the side of a trans person who refused to fight until gender-neutral lavatories were provided on the battlefield. He can make as many 'war fighting' speeches as he likes but we know he doesn't even understand what he's on about. He's just making noises to try to make himself look tough. But he isn't tough. He's as frightening as Will from The Inbetweeners. You'd only have to snap his spectacles and he'd give in immediately. And he's in the hot seat for four more years. That scares me more than Putin does. RIGHT OFF THE MARK THE BBC told us this week that because Geert Wilders, the far-right leader of a party in the Netherlands, had left the ruling coalition, the government was in disarray. I'm always confused by the Beeb's idea of 'far right' because I've looked into the man and he's a long way from Hitler. He just wants a firm stance on immigration and an end to what he calls the 'Muslimification' of his country. In short, he's about as far to the right as Starmer is to the left. So how come the BBC never refers to our Prime Minister as 'far left'? Out of the Goop for 40 years 4 4 AS you probably heard, I had a bit of a problem with my heart last autumn. And if you want to know what caused it, have a look at the last two episodes of Clarkson's Farm, which are out now. There's no doubt in my mind that the unbelievable stress of opening a pub while trying to do the harvest caused the issue. Well, that and 40 years of living a life that in no way mirrored Gwyneth Paltrow 's. Game over, kids OBVIOUSLY, when I die, my farm will be confiscated by the Government so they can smother it with solar panels and sustainable houses for hard-working families in the immigrant community. Until then, however, it's mine, which is why I spent a chunk of the week clearing a stream, removing undergrowth and various trees that have fallen over so my grandkids are able to spend their afternoons in it, sploshing about, playing Pooh sticks and building dams. I may have been wasting my time though because a survey by the NSPCC has found that today, many children prefer to sit at home, on their iPads, all by themselves. Only a quarter regularly play with another child. This is a worry because a child that's spent its formative years shooting aliens in the face and watching mindless American cartoons is going to have no understanding of how to behave in society. They're going to meet people they don't like, and hear things they find offensive, and they're going to fall over occasionally and graze their knees. And they will have no idea how to cope. So they'll become intolerant and bitter and angry, lashing out at every little thing. And pretty soon, we'll end up, er… pretty much where we are now. With an entire generation of young adults who learned everything they know from sitting in their bedrooms. And think they can be excused from any responsibility by simply dreaming up an acronym for whatever they think is wrong with them. Hmmm. I'm no businessman and I'm terrible at maths. But if I wanted a flag from this particular battle, I'd probably go for the cheaper one.
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Chamberlain called German blitzkrieg a ‘minor setback'
Neville Chamberlain called the German blitzkrieg a 'minor setback', a letter has revealed. The former prime minister accused his critics of being 'defeatist' in the 1940 correspondence, which has emerged for sale 85 years on. It was in written response to an article by his friend Lord Beaverbrook, the newspaper magnate, which called for the British people to stay calm. Just four days later, Chamberlain was ousted as prime minister in favour of Winston Churchill. Chamberlain wrote: 'When so many are sounding the defeatist note over a minor setback, it is a relief to read such a courageous inspiriting summons to a saner view.' Weeks later 330,000 Allied troops were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk after being surrounded by the Germans. The one page, two sided letter, signed 'Neville Chamberlain', has emerged for sale for £15,000 ($20,000) at RR Auction, of Boston, US. It is marked as 'Personal'. An RR Auction spokesman said: 'This is a letter to influential British newspaper publisher Lord Beaverbrook thanking him for publishing a supportive article amidst the Norway crisis. 'Lord Beaverbrook's article could not stem the tide of opinion.' The letter has been consigned by a private collector. The Allies, then consisting of Britain, France and Poland, sent nearly 40,000 troops to Norway after Germany invaded in April 1940. But the German forces, using swift amphibious assaults and paratroopers, seized key Norwegian cities and British attempts to counter at Narvik ended in defeat. After the Norway debate in Parliament, Chamberlain's government survived a no confidence vote on a drastically reduced majority. He attempted to form a coalition war government with Labour and Liberal involvement, but was told that they would only sign up under a different Conservative prime minister. Winston Churchill was installed as the wartime prime minister and three days later gave his famous 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' speech. The sale of the letter takes place on June 11.
Telegraph
30-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Labour's slavish obedience to international legalism prevents us from defeating Putin
Don't you know there's a war on?' This challenge, usually directed at someone who was being selfish and demanding, was frequently thrown at people during the Second World War. I want to ask the same question today, the war being that in Ukraine. It needs to be asked of all Nato countries, both in Europe and North America. Once again, it is, sort of, a rhetorical question. Almost everyone knows there's a big war on. Nobody can state accurately how many people have died in the Ukraine war, but if you guessed more than 250,000 dead, most would say you were underestimating. Russia has invaded, massacred and tortured. It has repeatedly and deliberately bombed civilians and abducted about 20,000 children. Although the Balkan wars of the 1990s were grim, with more than 100,00 people dying, the invasion of Ukraine is much the largest and most serious war in modern Europe. It was started by a great European power. In this, it is unique since 1939. Not only is it the engine of death and destruction; it is also a massive, deliberate violation of the entire post-1945 legal, political and military European peace which was designed to prevent the alteration of borders by force. We know this, and most of us, in Britain at least, hate it. Polls show popular support for Ukraine remains very high. But there is an unresolved question about how much we believe it involves us. Shortly before he went off to appease Hitler at Munich in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain self-contradicted on precisely this point. He acknowledged Britain's responsibility for ensuring peace, yet he also lamented being dragged toward war 'because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.' His word 'quarrel' implied equal fault on both sides rather than identifying one side's aggression. Such what's-it-got-to-do-with-us? ideas lurk somewhere in our collective psyche about Ukraine, even though part of the answer hit us directly in 2022 when energy prices exploded. In Donald Trump's America, there is a disturbing strand which thinks the conflict was got up by President Zelensky to get the United States to pay. That mode of thought leads to dreams of some quick deal about material advantages rather than a just – and therefore lasting – peace. Even when President Trump this week rounded on Putin for bombing Ukrainian cities more heavily than ever, his tone was not that of a man repelled by wickedness, but of an exasperated friend: 'I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known him a long time.' He distributed blame equally between Putin, Zelensky and Joe Biden. Why the surprise? Russia's attempt to flatten every Ukrainian city is horribly consistent with Putin's declared war aims. Our current Labour Government, like our previous Conservative one, has not fallen into the Chamberlain/Trump trap. It is clear about the central issue. Putin is the aggressor, says Sir Keir Starmer. Britain can accept no deal which does not satisfy the people of Ukraine. We will do – the phrase endlessly repeated – 'whatever it takes'. This is not insincere, and there are some in the Government, notably the Defence Secretary, John Healey, who are really working for Ukraine to prevail. Nevertheless, if the Government believes it is doing 'whatever it takes', it has not plumbed the depth of the problem. This was brought home to me on Thursday when I attended a conference organised by Policy Exchange about the Law of Armed Conflict. Under the Ottawa Treaty, the signatories are forbidden to use anti-personnel mines. A comparable convention also restricts the use of cluster munitions. The conference, partly private, was addressed by the leading retired US general David Petraeus, by political and military leaders from frontline states such as Poland, Estonia and Finland, and by many of our own top brass and legal experts. The consensus was that these agreements, forged in the piping time of peace, now seriously disadvantage all Nato signatories. Russia ignores all such rules and tries to cover Ukraine with landmines. It was its vast use of mines which stalled the Ukrainian counter-offensive planned for late summer 2023. If Ukraine had not responded in kind, including not only landmines but its effective use of cluster munitions against Russian tanks, it would by now have been overrun. Those Nato frontline states countries with the most vivid and direct experience of Russian attitudes and tactics are now withdrawing from the relevant agreements. They know it is illegal to do so once a war has started: they think a Russian attack is likely, so they are withdrawing now. Yet Britain, though their most significantly engaged European defender, still purses its lips and reiterates its support for the treaties. This is what General Petraeus characterised as 'legal freeloading'. The need to repudiate Ottawa is, as he puts it, a 'no-brainer'. At the very same time as this highly practical, war-focussed and well-informed gathering, elsewhere in Westminster, the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, was addressing the Royal United Services Institute. Although he made much of the need to counter Putin in Ukraine, he spoke as if it would be international law, rather than allied political, economic and military strength, which would do the trick. Recalling his visit to Bucha, scene of Putin's worst massacre, he seemed to see the solution in the hope that international justice would hold the guilty to account. One shares that hope, but what Lord Hermer did not acknowledge was that Putin has so far got away with these horrors precisely because the rules-based international order, which includes Nato, has let him do so. As in the 1930s, we are acting as if we do not fully accept that there is a war on. Indeed, we have even less excuse than did the Western democracies then. When Chamberlain flew to Munich, he was talking to a man who, clearly evil though his intentions were, had not yet waged aggressive war. Putin has done so for more than three years, arguably for 11 years, and still we have not concerted to stop him. Lord Hermer says he wants to 'depolarise' our disputes in this country about international law and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Even he now dimly senses that his absolutism and that of his chief legal and political patron, Sir Keir, on this point, is divisive and unpopular. Nevertheless, the strongest focus of attack in his RUSI lecture was not on warmongers abroad, such as Putin, but on what he called the 'pseudo-realists' at home. These wicked people are those Conservatives and Reform supporters who think we should leave the ECHR. Such persons, says Lord Hermer, may have patriotic motives, but are falling for the trap of the Nazi legal thinker, Carl Schmitt, who invented spurious philosophical justification for the exercise of 'raw power'. This incendiary comparison is unworthy of the sober-sided role of a law officer. It shows how the mind of the human-rights extremist – the school of thought in which Sir Keir spent his whole professional life – works. The people who disagree with you are Nazis. The threat from the true 'raw power' merchants of the modern world – Putin, Hamas, North Korea – is sidelined. Surely at the top the hierarchy of wrongs which international law is designed to prevent is aggressive war. Rules which prevent allies resisting aggression with the necessary weapons objectively assist the aggressor. There is just such a war on. If, like Lord Hermer, we apply self-righteous legalism to the problem, we cannot win it.
