Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The first seven points were reiterated to Germany by various spokesmen from 1937 onward. They are also to be found in many recently published documents, including the captured archives of the German Foreign Ministry, the documents of the British Foreign Office, and various extracts from diaries and other private papers, especially extracts from Neville Chamberlain’s diary and his letters to his sister. Among numerous other occasions these points were covered in the following cases: (a) in a conversation between Lord Halifax and Hitler at Berchtesgaden on November 17, 1938; (b) in a letter from Neville Chamberlain to his sister on November 26, 1937; (c) in a conversation between Hitler, Ribbentrop, and the British Ambassador (Sir Nevile Henderson) in Berlin on March 3, 1938; (d) in a series of conversations involving Lord Halifax, Ribbentrop, Sir Thomas Inskip (British minister of defense), Erich Kordt (Ribbentrop’s assistant), and Sir Horace Wilson (Chamberlain’s personal representative) in London on March 10-11, 1938; and (e) in a conference of Neville Chamberlain with various North American journalists held at Lord Astor’s house on May 10, 1938. In addition, portions of these seven points were mentioned or discussed in scores of conversations and documents which are now available.

Certain significant features of these should be pointed out. In the first place, in spite of persistent British efforts lasting for more than two years, Hitler rejected Angola or the Congo and insisted on the return of the German colonies which had been lost in 1919. During 1939 Germany steadily refused to negotiate on this issue and finally refused even to acknowledge the British efforts to discuss it. In the second place, the British throughout these discussions made a sharp distinction between Germany’s aims and Germany’s methods. They had no objections to Germany’s aims in Europe, but they insisted that Germany must not use force to achieve these aims because of the danger of war. This distinction was accepted by the German professional diplomats and by the German professional soldiers, who were quite willing to obtain Germany’s aims by peaceful means, but this distinction was not accepted by the leaders of the Nazi Party, especially Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Himmler, who were too impatient and who wanted to prove to themselves and the world that Germany was powerful enough to take what it wanted without waiting for anybody’s permission.

These wild men were encouraged in this attitude by their belief that Britain and France were so “decadent” that they would stand for anything, and by their failure to see the role played by public opinion in England. Convinced that the governing group in England wanted Germany to get Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig, they could not understand why there was such an emphasis on using peaceful methods, and they could not see how British public opinion could force the British government to go to war over the methods used when the British government made it perfectly clear that the last thing that they wanted was a war. This error was based on the fact that these Nazis had no idea of how a democratic government works, had no respect for public opinion or a free press, and were encouraged in their error by the weakness of the British ambassador in Berlin (Henderson) and by Ribbentrop’s associations with the “Cliveden Set” in England while he had been ambassador there in 1936-1938.

In the third place, the British government could not publicly admit to its own people these “seven points” because they were not acceptable to British public opinion. Accordingly, these points had to remain secret, except for various “trial balloons” issued through The Times, in speeches in the House of Commons or in Chatham House, in articles in The Round Table and by calculated indiscretions to prepare the ground for what was being done. In order to persuade the British people to accept these points, one by one, as they were achieved, the British government spread the tale that Germany was armed to the teeth and that the opposition to Germany was insignificant.

This propaganda first appeared in the effusions of the Round Table Group whose leader, Lord Lothian, has visited Hitler in January 1935, and had been pushing this seven-point program in The Times, in The Round Table, at Chatham House and All Souls, and with Lord Halifax. In the December 1937 issue of The Round Table, where most of the seven points which Halifax had just discussed with Hitler were mentioned, a war to prevent Germany’s ambitions in Europe was rejected on the grounds that its “outcome is uncertain” and that it “would entail objectionable domestic disasters.” In adding up the balance of military forces in such a war, it gave a preponderance to Germany, by omitting both Russia and Czechoslovakia and by estimating the French Army at only two-thirds the size of the German and placing the British Army at less than three divisions. By the spring of 1938 this completely erroneous view of the situation was being propagated by the government itself.

For years before June 1938, the government insisted that British rearming was progressing in a satisfactory fashion. Churchill and others questioned this, and produced figures on German rearmament to prove that Britain’s own progress in this field was inadequate. These figures (which were not correct) were denied by the government, and their own rearmament defended. As late as March 1938, Chamberlain said that British armament were such as to make Britain an “almost terrifying power ... on the opinion of the world.” But, as the year went on, the government adopted a quite different attitude. In order to persuade public opinion that it was necessary to yield to Germany, the government and its supporters pretended that its armaments were quite inadequate in comparison with Germany.

We now know, thanks to the captured papers of the German Ministry of War, that this was a gross exaggeration. From 1936 to the outbreak of war in 1939, German aircraft production was not raised, but averaged 425 planes a month of all types (including commercial). Its tank production was low, and even in 1939 was less than Britain’s. In the first nine months of 1939 Germany produced only 50 tanks a month; in the last four months of 1939, in wartime, Germany produced 247 “tanks and self-propelled guns,” compared to British production of 314 tanks in the same period. At the time of the Munich Crisis in 1938, Germany had 35 infantry and 4 motorized divisions none of them fully manned or equipped. At that time Czechoslovakia could mobilize at least 33 divisions. Moreover, the Czech Army was better trained, had far better equipment, and had better morale and better fortifications. At that time Germany’s tanks were all below 10 tons and were armed with machine guns, except for a handful of 18-ton tanks (Mark III) armed with a 37-mm. gun. The Czechs had hundreds of 38-ton tanks armed with 75-mm. cannon. In March 1939, when Germany overran Czechoslovakia, it captured 469 of these superior tanks along with 1,500 planes, 43,000 machine guns, and over 1 million rifles. From every point of view this was little less than Germany had at Munich, and, at Munich, if the British government had desired it, Germany’s 39 divisions with the possible assistance of Poland and Hungary, would have been opposed by Czechoslovakia’s 34 divisions supported by France, Britain, and Russia.

Before leaving this subject it should perhaps be mentioned that Germany in 1930 brought into production a Mark IV tank of 23 tons armed with a 75-mm. cannon but obtained only 300 of the Mark III and Mark IV together before the outbreak of war in September, 1939. In addition, it had obtained by the same date 2,700 of the inferior Mark I and Mark II tanks which suffered breakdowns of as much as 25 percent a week. At this same date (September 1939) Germany had an air force of 1,000 bombers and 1,050 fighters. In contrast with this, the British air program of March 1934, which emphasized fighter planes, was to provide a first-line force of 900 planes. This was stepped up, under the urging of Chamberlain, and the program of May 1938 was planned to provide a first-line force of 2,370 planes. This was raised again in 1939. Under it, Britain produced almost 3,000 “military” planes in 1938 and about 8,000 in 1939 compared to 3,350 “combat” planes produced in Germany in 1938 and 4,733 in 1939. Moreover, the quality of British planes was superior to that of Germany’s. It was this margin which made it possible for Britain to defeat Germany in the Battle of Britain in September 1940.