ABSTRACT
What happened to destroy this chance? Was Hitler merely talking through his hat, and deliberately deceiving us while he matured his schemes? I don’t think so. There is good evidence that orders for the invasion on the 25th August were actually given and then cancelled at the last moment because H. wavered. With such an extraordinary creature one can only speculate. But I believe he did seriously contemplate an agreement with us, and that he worked seriously at proposals (subsequently broadcast) which to his one-track mind seemed almost fabulously generous. But at the last moment some brainstorm took possession of him – maybe Ribbentrop stirred it up – and once he had set his machine in motion, he couldn’t stop it … Mussolini’s proposals were, I think, a perfectly genuine attempt to stop war, not for any altruistic reasons, but because Italy was not in a state to go to war and exceedingly likely to get into trouble if other people did. But it was doomed to failure, because Hitler by that time was not prepared to hold his hand, unless he could get what he wanted without war. And we weren’t prepared to give it to him …
So the war began, after a short and troubled night, and only the fact that one’s mind works at three times its ordinary pace on such occasions enabled me to get through my broadcast, the formation of the war cabinet, the meeting of the House of Commons, and the preliminary orders on that awful Sunday, which the calendar tells me was this day a week ago …
Source: Letter from the Prime Minister, in Feiling (1946: 416-17).
