Chamberlain, Neville

Keith Failing, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London Macmillan, 1946), pp.314-15. See Sean Greenwood, Sir Thomas Inskip as minister for co-ordination of defence, 1936-39 , in Paul Smith (ed.). Government and the Armed Forces in Britain 1850-1990 (London Hambledon Press, 1996), pp. 155-89. 

Defence expenditure in future years interim report by the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence , CP 316(37), 15 Dec. 1937, GAB 24/273, paras. 7-10. These paragraphs, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, called a classic statement of the elements that make up our strength for national defence (Cabinet conclusions, 16 Feb. 1938, CAB 23/92, TNA) are printed in Gibbs, Grand Strategy vol. I, pp. 283. Feiling, Neville Chamberlain, p. 292. 

During the DRC s discussions in January and February 1934, Fisher and Vansittart had unsuccessfully urged the CAS, Ellington, to ask for more than he did. The DRC report recommended ten additional squadrons to complete the Home Defence scheme of flfty-two squadrons of 1923 ten additional squadrons of aeroplanes and four of flying boats for service in the Far East and twenty additional squadrons for the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). The report stated that a further twenty-flve squadrons would be necessary to meet all eventual requirements , but it did not consider these to be part of the worst deflciencies to be remedied by 1939, although they should be reconsidered if Germany expanded her air force rapidly. " When the report was considered by ministers, Neville Chamberlain produced an alternative proposal for thirty-eight additional squadrons instead of ten for the Home Defence... 

The Defence Requirements Sub-Committee, British strategic foreign policy, Neville Chamberlain and the path to appeasement , English Historical Review, 118 (2003), 651-84. 

Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain and the defence of Empire , in John B. Hattendorf and Malcolm Murfett (eds.). The Limitations of Military Power Essays Presented to Professor Norman Gibbs on his Eightieth Birthday, Basingstoke Macmillan, 1990, pp. 160-72. 

As late as 1937, following the disastrous military exercises of that year, the noted military commentator Captain B.H. Liddell Hart wrote in The Times of 27 September The ruling minds in the W.O. are still running on 1914 tram lines . Even Neville Chamberlain, certainly no Man of War, was to comment that, The obstinacy of some of the Army heads in sticking to obsolete methods is incredible. ... 

In September 1939, Hankey - now with a seat in the House of Lords - was brought into the War Cabinet as Minister Without Portfolio. His influence over Neville Chamberlain had never been greater, and to Hankey the Prime Minister confided the job of Britain s biological warfare overlord with the proviso, recalled... 

The British Government of Neville Chamberlain had decided to limit Jewish immigration to 1,500 per month. But the pressures set up by the frightful massacres of European Jews by Hitler had proved stronger than the decrees of Whitehall, and illegal immigration had continued and after the war had risen to very high levels. 

Winston Churchill had accepted George VFs invitation to form a government upon Neville Chamberlain s resignation the day Germany invaded the Lowlands he shouldered the prime ministership calmly but felt the somber weight of office. C. R Snow recalls a more paradoxical mood ... 

At Munich in September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to Nazi demands to partition Czechoslovakia. Peace with honour, he told the London crowds. Complete surrender, Winston Churchill charged. 

---