ABSTRACT
Hitherto, the tendency amongst historians of British defence and rearmament policies in the 1930s has been to concentrate on strategic policy1 or on Treasury and other constraints on the extent and pace of British rearmament2 which have been used to defend or justify appeasement against its critics. In addition, other historians have written, normally critically, about the performance of the armaments industries in rearming the United Kingdom and helping it to prepare for war.3 However, there has been little or nothing written on an important aspect of defence and rearmament in the period, namely, the sale of arms abroad which had a political as well as a commercial dimension. As a preliminary attempt to examine this neglected area, this discussion will focus on government policy and attitudes with regard to the sale of arms abroad, notably to European countries and on the attitudes and responses of the single most important arms producer in the United Kingdom during the period under review, that is, Vickers-Armstrong. The examination will include specific references to arms negotiations between the British authorities and potential European allies and customers, including Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland.
