This essay focuses on the debate over Chamberlain’s attempts at ‘appeasement’ during his negotiations with the presidents of Germany, Italy, and Czechoslovakia, who would soon become the central European Axis powers in the Second World War. It specifically looks at two intertwined public protests in 1938 against Chamberlain’s plans to cede the German-speaking regions of Austria to Hitler, in exchange for Hitler not declaring all-out war in Europe. In addition to analysing Troilus and Cressida, directed by Michael Macowan in modern-day battle dress at the Westminster Theatre in London, this essay turns not only to Punch magazine’s review of the play in their October 1938 issue, but also to the other numerous cartoons, ironic poems, and satiric song lyrics that filled that issue, all clearly condemning Chamberlain’s reluctance, often called cowardice, to realize the consequences of agreeing to Hitler’s demands.

For much of the decade prior to 1940, Churchill was out of office and often seen as a warmonger. He saw appeasement as a policy not befitting a country of Britain’s standing that failed to take account of innate German militarism. One of his most effective tactics in opposing it was his evocative use of history, drawing parallels between his own life and that of his eighteenth-century ancestor, the 1st Duke of Marlborough. To Churchill, the British government’s dealings with Gandhi and the Congress Party were also a form of appeasement. There was a paradox in his thinking; that the forms of nationalism that bolstered British international power were legitimate, while those that did not were not. Churchill’s opposition to Hitler was based on his own first-hand experiences while researching his Marlborough biography and on his reading of the German ‘mental map’. The chapter traces his evolving response from the German occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 through to the Munich Crisis of 1938 and beyond. It ends by analysing Churchill’s path to power as prime minister, suggesting that far from being a triumph of opportunity, there were simply no other suitable candidates for the post.

This chapter traces the evolution of the international monetary system and the management of sterling from Britain's suspension of convertibility in September 1931 to the eve of Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration in March 1933. To influence the pound's value now that it was no longer tied to gold, Britain created the Exchange Equalisation Account, an innovation of lasting consequence that led to accusations of currency manipulation. All the while, the world splintered into monetary blocs: many countries followed sterling's lead, some recommitted to gold, and others found refuge in exchange controls. This fragmentation, coupled with sterling's depreciation, the secrecy with which London employed the fund to manage the pound, and the increasing tendency of all to view policy in zero-sum terms, drowned the powers in bad blood and brought monetary cooperation to a halt.

This chapter narrates the twists and turns in monetary relations that culminated in the Tripartite Agreement. After discussing the franc's deteriorating position from the spring of 1935 and the implications for Britain's management of the pound, it turns to the pivotal Anglo-American relationship. Distrust was pervasive, but the two sides eventually came to an understanding, assuring each other that they would not further depreciate their currencies in response to a fall in the franc. With London and Washington talking again, there was now space for an agreement to facilitate French devaluation. The resulting Tripartite Agreement, announced on September 26, 1936, set forth revolutionary principles for monetary cooperation, including the rejection of competitive depreciation and exchange controls. With time, the Agreement--informal and vague, unconventional and pathbreaking--would turn the page on the chaos of earlier years and redefine the international monetary landscape.

This chapter explores the first fifteen months under the Tripartite Agreement, from September 1936 to the end of 1937. It focuses on two events that consumed the attention of authorities: the Gold Scare in the spring and the Dollar Scare that autumn. Both events involved questions about the price of gold and wreaked havoc on markets. But the club members--foremost Britain and America---worked together to calm markets and to reaffirm gold's centrality as the international reserve asset par excellence around which the system revolved. In so doing, they demonstrated the Tripartite Agreement's role as the cornerstone of their international monetary policies.

The National Government entered a new phase in the spring of 1937, as Neville Chamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. As this chapter shows, appeasement, though controversial, preserved peace in the present and did little to disrupt the Conservatives’ continuing efforts to construct their popular appeals around the government’s record of economic recovery from 1931. Drawing upon all twelve constituency case studies, the chapter considers the impact of rearmament on employment levels and assesses the local implications of the government’s social reform programme, including the Education Act 1936, the Holiday with Pay Act 1938 and especially the impact of the Physical Training and Recreation Act 1937 on local government facilities. The chapter also demonstrates how Labour wrestled back some control of the political initiative in the late 1930s. It argues that Labour began to restore its own reputation for competent government through a well-publicised programme of municipal social reform in London, its growing presence in neighbourbood organization (including among the suburban electorate), and its critique of the government’s handling of the distressed area. In doing so, Attlee’s party not only contested the government’s narrative of recovery, it also began the process of articulating a particular version of 1930s Britain that ultimately defined Britons’ political and historical imaginary for several generations.

Existing accounts of how the Conservative party responded to the challenges of mass democracy after 1918 draw heavily on Stanley Baldwin’s leadership. Chapter 2 explores how local Conservative parties related to this Baldwinite public appeal, which was created in their party’s name using the latest mass-media technology but which they often found at odds with their own conception of popular Conservatism. It considers how activists sought to rehabilitate a ‘politics of place’ after 1918, shaping their own policy appeals, choice of language and public identity according to local political traditions and the perceived interests of the local electorate. It argues that the Conservatives’ experience of the 1920s was therefore marked by an uneasy asymmetry of appeals at national and local levels and highlights the mixed reception and doubts about the effectiveness of Baldwinite Conservatism. In doing so, it brings to the fore the attitudes with which Conservative activists approached the formation of the National Government in 1931.

This chapter charts the overall course and key episodes of the National Government during Ramsay MacDonald’s premiership (1931-1935) and that of Stanley Baldwin (1935-37), considering in particular the fortunes of popular Conservatism in the constituencies. It has four sections. The first explores how the Conservatives exploited the financial and political crises of August 1931 to construct a new anti-socialist paradigm that gave the outgoing Labour government’s alleged failing a concrete form around which all Conservatives could mobilise. The second and third sections outline the National Government’s work in securing economic recovery and responding to the plight of the unemployed. It argues that this reflected a culture of active and imaginative government. The final section explores the relationship between party and ‘national’ political identities in the constituencies. IT argues that the process of defining the National Government in the interests of local Conservatism introduced the rank and file to a broader range of political discourses, which complemented but did not supplant their preoccupation with rehabilitating a traditional politics of place.

Chapter 5 investigates my counter-example, the rogue diplomat whose indiscipline harmed U.S. interests. Joseph P. Kennedy, a contributor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 and 1936 election campaigns, demanded Embassy London as a reward, and FDR obliged. Upon arriving in Britain, Kennedy concluded that Adolf Hitler's Wermacht was invincible, that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's strategy of appeasement was correct, and that America had to remain neutral. Kennedy repeatedly misrepresented the Roosevelt administration's anti-fascist policy. Whereas FDR and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were endeavoring to bring American--and world - opinion around to a posture of resistance to Hitler, Kennedy proclaimed that America had no stake in the conflict and that, moreover, he expected Germany to win any war that might break out. No matter how often FDR ordered Kennedy to hold his tongue, he would not comply. Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland horrified the ambassador, who forecast an end to democracy in Europe and America. At the close of Kennedy's thousand days in London, Anglo-American relations were in tatters and Britain stood alone against the Nazi juggernaut. Few did more than Kennedy to bring about this hideous state of affairs.