ABSTRACT
Chamberlain’s relief at the withdrawal of Eden was greatly enhanced by the obvious benefits to be obtained by installing Lord Halifax as his successor. In the shadowy world of diplomatic dealings with erratic dictators, Halifax possessed an unimpeachable reputation for integrity which commanded the highest esteem across the entire political spectrum. The archetypal aristocrat, who less typically of his class combined historic title and rolling acres with high intellectual capacity, Halifax’s unblemished Christian conscience made him appear a ‘saintly type’ and ‘a sort of Jesus in long boots’.1 With Halifax at the Foreign Office, British policy thus seemed to be cloaked in an aura of respectability and unswerving moral purpose. There was also a deep personal sympathy between the two men. Since their first meeting in the early 1920s, Chamberlain had always felt ‘more at home’ with Halifax than any of his other colleagues. ‘I miss you, my dear Edward, a great deal’, Chamberlain wrote soon after Halifax became Viceroy of India in 1926. ‘Somehow or another … you are apt to leave a hole behind you which no one-else can quite fill, and … I do wish very often that you were about to discuss things with.’2 After his return to England in 1931, this friendship soon blossomed into a mutual respect and admiration of a sort which was never possible between Chamberlain and Eden. As Foreign Secretary, Halifax also started with the inestimable advantage that he fully endorsed all the main lines of Chamberlain’s foreign policy. Little wonder that in the wake of the German Anschluss with Austria in March 1938, Chamberlain came to believe this tragedy might have been averted if Halifax had been Foreign Secretary earlier, or that when he wrestled with the Sudeten problem a few months later, he should have rejoiced at ‘what a comfort he is to me & how thankful I am that I have not to deal with Anthony in these troubled times’.3
