Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 ‘A world apart’: gentlemen amateurs to professional generalists
- 2 ‘Experiencing the foreign’: British foreign policy makers and the delights of travel
- 3 Arbitration: the first phase, 1870–1914
- 4 ‘Only a d…d marionette’? The influence of ambassadors on British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914
- 5 Old diplomacy and new: the Foreign Office and foreign policy, 1919–1939
- 6 The evolution of British diplomatic strategy for the Locarno Pact, 1924–1925
- 7 Chamberlain's ambassadors
- 8 The Foreign Office and France during the Phoney War, September 1939–May 1940
- 9 Churchill the appeaser? Between Hitler Roosevelt and Stalin in World War Two
- 10 From ally to enemy: Britain's relations with the Soviet Union, 1941–1948
- Works by Zara Steiner
- Select bibliography
- Index
9 - Churchill the appeaser? Between Hitler Roosevelt and Stalin in World War Two
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 ‘A world apart’: gentlemen amateurs to professional generalists
- 2 ‘Experiencing the foreign’: British foreign policy makers and the delights of travel
- 3 Arbitration: the first phase, 1870–1914
- 4 ‘Only a d…d marionette’? The influence of ambassadors on British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914
- 5 Old diplomacy and new: the Foreign Office and foreign policy, 1919–1939
- 6 The evolution of British diplomatic strategy for the Locarno Pact, 1924–1925
- 7 Chamberlain's ambassadors
- 8 The Foreign Office and France during the Phoney War, September 1939–May 1940
- 9 Churchill the appeaser? Between Hitler Roosevelt and Stalin in World War Two
- 10 From ally to enemy: Britain's relations with the Soviet Union, 1941–1948
- Works by Zara Steiner
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
On Bonfire Night, 5 November 1944, a German V-l ‘flying bomb’ landed in Sussex. Nothing surprising in that: southern England had been under fire since June. But this V–l carried propaganda not explosives. Its fourpage leaflet explaining why Britain should sue for peace ended with a V-l shaped crossword. The clues and answers included the following:
He is your enemy, too. Bolshevik.
He wants all you have got. Roosevelt.
Britain has none at inter-Allied conferences. Voice.
At Tehran, Churchill practically did this before Stalin. Knelt.
The claim that Churchill had sold out Britain to America and Russia was a staple of Nazi wartime propaganda. As the Yalta conference was beginning in February 1945, Hitler denounced Churchill for living in the past:
The crucial new factor is the existence of these two giants, the United States and Russia. Pitt's England ensured the balance of world power by preventing the hegemony of Europe – by preventing Napoleon, that is, from attaining his goal … If fate had granted to an ageing and enfeebled Britain a new Pitt instead of this Jew-ridden, half-American drunkard, the new Pitt would at once have recognized that Britain's traditional policy of balance of power would now have to be applied on a different scale, and this time on a world scale. Instead of maintaining, creating and adding fuel to European rivalries Britain ought to do her utmost to encourage and bring about a unification of Europe.
In these final outpourings, Hitler argued that he had given Churchill plenty of opportunity for ‘grasping the truth of this great policy’ and allowing Germany a free hand on the Continent.
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- Diplomacy and World PowerStudies in British Foreign Policy, 1890–1951, pp. 197 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996