ABSTRACT
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to England from the Munich conference exhausted but exhilarated. At almost 70 years of age he had endured a fortnight of unprecedented shuttle diplomacy, wearying late night Cabinet meetings and lengthy sessions in the House of Commons, conscious all the while that the fragile peace of Europe was at stake. But he had emerged triumphant with the threat of war averted, the explosive Sudeten German question settled and Hitler’s signature secured on an AngloGerman declaration in which the representatives of the two peoples resolved ‘never to go to war with one another again’.2 Basking in the acclaim of the cheering throng greeting his motorcade, an appreciative press and the congratulatory messages that subsequently deluged 10 Downing Street, Chamberlain seemed to have achieved a singular political success. Very soon, however, it turned to dust. Over the months that followed the international situation deteriorated and doubts accumulated about the moral ambiguities and realpolitik wisdom of his diplomacy; critics at the time of Munich had been a dissenting minority, but gradually a groundswell of opinion began to urge the abandonment of appeasement in favour of a more confrontational stance towards Nazi Germany, even at the risk of war. Less than a year after his exultant return, Chamberlain faced the House of Commons sadly to impart the news that Britain was at war with Germany: ‘everything that I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life has crashed into ruins’.3
