ABSTRACT
Discussions on rearmament and strategic policy continued at length throughout 1936, but no firm decisions were reached, that is, apart from a general determination to avoid any agreement of the pre-war type that would involve Britain in the automatic commitment of land forces to a continental campaign. It would be wrong, however, to suggest that Chamberlain was preoccupied with financial considerations to the exclusion of all else. There was a hint of the War Office position in a memorandum it submitted to Baldwin in connection with the defence deputation. Political considerations aside, military reasons demanded that Britain maintain efficient land forces for deployment on the Continent. The political importance of a British land contribution was also emphasized in a minute by Orme Sargent, who wrote that the staff conversations of April 1936 were ‘merely eyewash, since our representatives were only allowed to dole out information and not exchange plans’.
