Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler

Chamberlain and Wilson blindly pursued bilateral friendship between Britain and the dictators and ferociously resisted alternative policies such as working with France, the Soviet Union, or the U.S. to face down the dictators. They resisted all-out rearmament which would have put the economy on a war footing. These were all the policies advocated by Winston Churchill, the most dangerous opponent of appeasement. Churchill was a hated figure for Chamberlain and Wilson. They could not accept Churchill's perception that that Hitler was the implacable enemy of peace and Britain, and opposing him became an end in itself for them. Churchill and Wilson had been bitter adversaries since early in their careers because of an incident that Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler reveals publicly for the first time. Chamberlain had a fraught relationship with Churchill long before appeasement became an issue.

Neither Chamberlain nor Wilson had any experience of day-to-day practical diplomacy. Both thought that the dictators would apply the same standards of rationality and clarity to the policies of Italy and Germany that applied in Britain. They could not grasp that Fascist demagogues operated in an entirely different way to democratic politicians. The catastrophe of the Chamberlain/Wilson appeasement policy offers a vital lesson in how blind conviction in one policy as the only alternative can be fatally damaging.