ABSTRACT
This essay was first published as a review of E.L. Woodward and Rohan Butler (eds), assisted by Margaret Lambert, Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, Third Series, Vol. 4: 1939, (London, HMSO, 1951), in the New Statesman and Nation (15 September 1951). Alan Taylor also reviewed this volume in the Manchester Guardian (16 August 1951), an essay subsequently reprinted as part of 'From Munich to Prague: British Version' in his collections of essays, Rumours of Wars (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1952) and Europe: Grandeur and Decline (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1967).
This essay is notable not only for the argument that Hitler was 'defeated by the blunders of his opponents, not by their foresight' but also for his praise of the editors now printing Foreign Office minutes with the documents. He also raised in the essay the need for the publication of documents on the military advice given to the British government.
