angrysoba
Philosophile
It is often said by those who favour pugnacious foreign policies that their opponents are Neville Chamberlains and almost no explanation of this is considered necessary as if it were so obvious that Chamberlain was so awful.
In recent years, the term seems to have been used to refer to people who opposed the Iraq War, oppose bombing Iran, were not in favour of going to war with Putin over Crimea, didn't want to start bombing Syria, and probably many other things that I can't remember right now.
The corollary also seems to be that the person saying it is helping himself (well, it usually is a man but I suppose some women use the meme as well) to the mantle of Churchill; that their desire for war proves that they are either tougher, wiser, stronger and more charismatic than their opponent who, being Chamberlain is usually considered to be:
and various other ridiculous things.
However, I wonder if this is a fair appraisal of Chamberlain, or whether it is a lazy caricature based on hindsight and a lack of serious judgement.
First of all, I should say that I used to accept without question that anybody who can be called a Chamberlain is some kind of fool who enables Hitler-like tyrants through wishful thinking, and that anybody who can be called Churchill is a prescient battler against fascism in all its forms who knows how to see off trouble before it arrives but is not listened to by sheeplike wishful thinkers who can't imagine that there are really, really nasty people out there who are good at spotting weaknesses.
But, once when I was writing an essay many years back in university trying to argue this very thing I found quite a lot of scholarship that seemed to, at the very least, cloud this simple picture. From what I remember, Chamberlain was not as much of a fool as depicted, that in fact he knew full well that Hitler was not to be trusted and ordered massive rearmament of the British armed forces which were never in any state to fight against Hitler to keep him out of the Sudetenland.
It also seems that much of Chamberlain's poor reputation was in fact the work of Churchill's caricature of him in his own memoirs which were accepted following the Second World War almost as though the whole war was Chamberlain's fault in the first place. But again, this cannot be the case if Britain and France were never in any serious position to halt Hitler's advance into the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia (not to mention the fact that Poland was one of the countries that took a bite out of the latter).
It also neglects the fact that Chamberlain himself did declare war on Germany after Hitler invaded the opportunistic dictatorship of Poland alongside another menacing dictatorship of the Soviet Union.
So, I would like to know what those here think about the fairness or otherwise of how Chamberlain is characterized, and perhaps also a re-evaluation of Churchill if such is needed.
For example, one thing that Churchill famously said following the Second World War is that to "jaw-jaw is better than to war-war". Should we then take it that Churchill later thought that negotiation is better than fighting? If so, does this make him some kind of Chamberlainista?
And finally, one thing that seldom comes up (or in fact, I think I have never seen it mentioned) is how come Churchill does not get a lot of stick for what he called the "worst disaster" and "largest capitulation" in British military history, namely the Fall of Singapore?
Could we then say that Churchill was guilty of a Chamberlainista failure to spot the danger of Imperial Japan?
In recent years, the term seems to have been used to refer to people who opposed the Iraq War, oppose bombing Iran, were not in favour of going to war with Putin over Crimea, didn't want to start bombing Syria, and probably many other things that I can't remember right now.
The corollary also seems to be that the person saying it is helping himself (well, it usually is a man but I suppose some women use the meme as well) to the mantle of Churchill; that their desire for war proves that they are either tougher, wiser, stronger and more charismatic than their opponent who, being Chamberlain is usually considered to be:
- weak
- grovelling
- stupid
- blind to Hitler's ambition
- gullible
- impotent
- foolish
and various other ridiculous things.
However, I wonder if this is a fair appraisal of Chamberlain, or whether it is a lazy caricature based on hindsight and a lack of serious judgement.
First of all, I should say that I used to accept without question that anybody who can be called a Chamberlain is some kind of fool who enables Hitler-like tyrants through wishful thinking, and that anybody who can be called Churchill is a prescient battler against fascism in all its forms who knows how to see off trouble before it arrives but is not listened to by sheeplike wishful thinkers who can't imagine that there are really, really nasty people out there who are good at spotting weaknesses.
But, once when I was writing an essay many years back in university trying to argue this very thing I found quite a lot of scholarship that seemed to, at the very least, cloud this simple picture. From what I remember, Chamberlain was not as much of a fool as depicted, that in fact he knew full well that Hitler was not to be trusted and ordered massive rearmament of the British armed forces which were never in any state to fight against Hitler to keep him out of the Sudetenland.
It also seems that much of Chamberlain's poor reputation was in fact the work of Churchill's caricature of him in his own memoirs which were accepted following the Second World War almost as though the whole war was Chamberlain's fault in the first place. But again, this cannot be the case if Britain and France were never in any serious position to halt Hitler's advance into the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia (not to mention the fact that Poland was one of the countries that took a bite out of the latter).
It also neglects the fact that Chamberlain himself did declare war on Germany after Hitler invaded the opportunistic dictatorship of Poland alongside another menacing dictatorship of the Soviet Union.
So, I would like to know what those here think about the fairness or otherwise of how Chamberlain is characterized, and perhaps also a re-evaluation of Churchill if such is needed.
For example, one thing that Churchill famously said following the Second World War is that to "jaw-jaw is better than to war-war". Should we then take it that Churchill later thought that negotiation is better than fighting? If so, does this make him some kind of Chamberlainista?
And finally, one thing that seldom comes up (or in fact, I think I have never seen it mentioned) is how come Churchill does not get a lot of stick for what he called the "worst disaster" and "largest capitulation" in British military history, namely the Fall of Singapore?
Could we then say that Churchill was guilty of a Chamberlainista failure to spot the danger of Imperial Japan?
But yes hardly anyone wanted a war or thought the German annexations were the Empire's business.