Deterrence, Coercion, and Appeasement: British Grand Strategy, 1919-1940

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Deterrence, Coercion, and Appeasement presents a compelling and original survey of British grand strategy in the inter-war period. Whereas most existing accounts privilege either diplomacy and foreign affairs, intelligence, or military affairs more narrowly, this study underlines the inexorable relationships between foreign policy, grand strategy, military force, intelligence, finance and not least, domestic politics and public opinion. Britain was the world's only global power in the inter-war period, and it confronted problems on a global scale. Policy-makers sought two goals: peace with security. They did so successfully in the 1920s, partly due to favourable circumstances that made their task relatively easy, and partly because they understood the strengths and limitations of British power and knew how to wield them. The situation deteriorated rapidly in the 1930s, however, as the international system became increasingly unfavourable to Britain. Policy-makers proved less adept than their predecessors at meeting these new challenges, partly because those challenges were more formidable, but also because they lacked the self-confidence of their predecessors, who had held high office during the most difficult years of the First World War and who lacked their understanding of how to wield the lever of international power. The study ends by providing a new and more sophisticated account of how and why Neville Chamberlain appeased the fascist powers in the late 1930s, and why Winston Churchill opposed him and eventually supplanted him in May 1940. Cover Deterrence, Coercion, and Appeasement: British Grand Strategy, 1919–1940 Copyright Acknowledgements Contents Abbreviations 1: Introduction Peace with Security An Age of Appeasement? Part I: Making Peace and Managing Peace, 1919-30 2: Who Made British Policy and Grand Strategy Ministers and Cabinets The Departments The Committee of Imperial Defence Intelligence The World as Seen from Whitehall The Political Landscape and Thinking about War and Peace The August 1919 Assumptions: The Ten-Year Rule The Churchill Committee Preparing for the Next War Conclusion 3: Creating the New World Order, 1919–21 Introduction Grand Strategy 1914–18 and the Armistice The Paris Peace Conference and the European Settlement The League of Nations Britain and the Bolsheviks The Peace Settlement in the Middle East Internal Challenges: India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ireland The Dominions Conclusion 4: Reconstructing the New World Order, 1921–6 Introduction The Western Pacific: Japan, the USA, and the Washington Conference Rapallo, the Chanak Crisis, and the Fall of Lloyd George The Anglo-French Estrangement The Treaty of Lausanne: Unpicking the Revisionist Alliance Composing the Franco-German Quarrel: The Dawes Plan and Locarno Conclusion 5: Managing the New World Order, 1926–30 Austen Chamberlain’s Diplomacy Containing Communism Projecting Power across the Globe: The China Crisis and the Shanghai Defence Force The Singapore Deterrent Security through Disarmament: The Coolidge Conference, and the London Naval Treaty The Military Foundations of British Power Conclusion Part II: The Crumbling of the New World Order, 1936-6 6: The World Crisis and the National Government, 1931–3 Introduction The Great Depression The National Government The Revisionist Powers: Japan and Manchuria The World Disarmament Conference Conclusion 7: A New Grand Strategy: The Defence Requirements Committee, 1932–5 Introduction The Demise of the Ten-Year Rule The Grand Strategy of the Defence Requirements Committee Neville Chamberlain’s Grand Strategy Hankey’s Imperial Tour The Leith-Ross Mission and the Second London Naval Conference Containing Hitler: The Stresa Front Conclusion 8: ‘I wish I saw a real policy emerging, but frankly I don’t’: The Baldwin Government, 1935–7 Introduction The Baldwin Government, Defence, and the Public The Collapse of the West European Balance of Power Abyssinian Crisis and the 1935 General Election The Mediterranean Crises The Rhineland Crisis and the Search for a Western Pact Rearmament Manufacturers, Trade Unionists, and the Rearmament Programme Conclusion Part III: The Ascendency of Chamberlain, 1937-40 9: The Grand Strategy of Fortress Britain, May 1937–September 1938 Introduction The Inskip Review and the Creation of Fortress Britain Mending Fences with the Dictators Eden, an Armed Truce and Containment The Anschluss The Czechoslovak Crisis The Political and Military Balance in the Summer of 1938 Chamberlain’s Z Plan and the Munich Conference Conclusion 10: ‘And I sincerely believe that we have at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos’: Appeasement, Containment, and War, October 1938 to September 1939 Introduction Responses to Munich Kristallnacht and the Pursuit of Mussolini A Continental Commitment Deterrence and Containment The Abortive Soviet Alliance Appeasement through the Backchannels Strategy, Politics, and the Decision for War Conclusion 11: ‘. . . there was no hurry as time was on our side’ Chamberlain’s War Introduction A Long but Limited War Mobilizing the Home Front The Scandinavian Short-Cut Norway and the Fall of the Chamberlain Government The Churchill Government Conclusion 12: Conclusion Bibliography Unpublished Primary Sources Birmingham University Library British Library Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge Library and Archives Canada Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College London National Archives of Australia National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew, London F. D. Roosevelt Presidential Library Memoirs and Published Primary Sources Newspapers and Journals Published Secondary Sources Index