Enough to make you weep

Well, I finished it!  It took a long time, not least because about two thirds of the way through I was so depressed I had to take a break and it was really hard work summoning up the strength to return.  I refer to the late Richard Lamb's superb history of the British government during the 1930s, The Drift to War.  Since my younger days I have always been a keen 'student' of the Second World War ever since I read Chester Wilmot's devastating - well, devastating to my youthful idealism - book The Struggle for Europe.  That era fascinated me to such an extent that I rather ignored the decade which led up to it.  Of course, I dismissed the memory of Neville Chamberlain whose only claim to fame was waving that piece of paper and claiming "peace in our time" the year before war broke out!  Also, I do remember reading, and swallowing, a defence of his record at Munich that claimed he had only 'surrendered' in order to gain more time to build more Spitfires.  Total 'blx', of course.

Having read Lamb's coruscating history, my only desire now is to dig up Chamberlain's bones, along with Lord Halifax's, Anthony Eden's and most of the rest of the cabinet of the day, and hang them from sundry trees in London.  Their blind stupidity, despite all the evidence that accrued almost from the day Adolph Hitler took power, was criminal.  Chamberlain's decision to throw Czechoslovakia to the Nazi wolves was not only a shameful act of cowardice but an act of crass stupidity which not only aided Germany but did us damage.  The Czech army of that time was very powerful not least because it was armed to the teeth with the very best products of the superb Skoda Armaments factory from which, of course, we were instantly cut off.  Chamberlain should have been taken out onto Westminster Green and shot!

Of course, whilst I am no historian, I am well aware of the many stains that have fouled our flag over the centuries but I don't think any of them match the catastrophe that Neville Chamberlain visited, not just upon the rest of the world, but this time on his own country.  I hope he rots in hell!

 

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

David it was fairly easy to tell when you were immersed in that book and when you weren't. Glad you have it behind you now. Welcome to the new Struggle for Europe! Seems a constant thing.

[Bob]

Blaming a few prominent politicians misses a lot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_World_War_II

https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175288241/angry-days-shows-an-america-torn-over-entering-world-war-ii

Note that a large portion of your despised "socialists" were among the most anti-Hitler groups.

[Whitewall]

Socialists hating other socialists has always been normal.

[Bob]

And on the other hand capitalists never hate other capitalists?