The Foreign Policy of the Chamberlain Wartime Administration, September 1939 - May 1940
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CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE CHAMBERLAIN WARTIME ADMINISTRATION, SEPTEMBER 1939 - MAY 1940 by RICHARD CHARLES MEE A thesis submitted to the School of Historical Studies of TheUniversity of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Modern History School of Historical Studies The University of Birmingham December 1998 1 ABSTRACT This thesis is a detailed analysis of British foreign policy between 3 September 1939 and 10 May 1940. It concentrates on policy towards the Far East, Italy, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and Scandinavia. These areas represented the biggest challenges to British policy following the outbreak of war with Germany: Japan and Italy, whilst nominal allies of Germany, had opted to stay out of the war, the Soviet Union appeared to be acting in collaboration with Germany but was not at war with Britain, and the Balkans and Scandinavia were the most likely theatres of war if the conflict were to spread. Lack of resources dictated that British efforts be directed towards minimising military activity and containing the conflict, whilst putting economic pressure on Germany’s ability to fight. Potential allies of Germany had to be dissuaded from entering the war and prevented from helping Germany economically. Potential theatres of war had to be kept neutral unless or until an extension of hostilities would be in Britain’s interests. The contradictions and conflicts of interest created by these policies posed serious problems, and it is the British attempts to solve these problems which form the focus of this study. 2 Acknowledgements Professor John Grenville first suggested that I look at this subject, and cheerfully took on the burden of supervising the thesis when he could have been enjoying his retirement instead. My parents have consistently and unstintingly provided financial support, without which I would not have been able to undertake this research. The Department of Modern History in the School of Historical Studies (formerly the School of History) at the University of Birmingham has also been extremely generous in its support, providing me with both a fees bursary and an allowance for archival research, as well as allowing me to teach its undergraduate students. For this assistance I would particularly like to thank Professor John Breuilly, Dr. Graeme Murdock, Dr. Scott Lucas, Dr. Robert Swanson, and Professor Richard Simmons. In addition, the History Departments at the University of Sheffield, the University of Derby, and Newman College, Birmingham, have all given me teaching work which has helped to fund this research, and I would like to thank Professor Ian Kershaw, Dr. John Woodward, Dr. Ian Whitehead, Dr. Pauline Elkes, Dr. Ian Grosvenor, and Mr. Ronald Mackenzie for giving me these opportunities. The research for this study has involved work at a number of archives, and I would therefore like to thank the staff of the Public Record Office, Kew; Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College Cambridge (especially Carolyn Lye); Special Collections, the University of Birmingham; the Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh; the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York; Cambridge University Library; and Trinity College Library, Cambridge. For accommodating me at various times during this research, I would like to thank Dr. Susan Townsend and Dr. John Mee. Finally, in addition to those mentioned above, I would also like to thank the following: Audrey and Les Elcock, Gary Buck, James Williams, Dr. Nick Crowson, Carmen Dickson, Mike Norris, Nigel Williamson, Chris Williams, Sheldon Penn, and Professor Michael Bentley. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction: The Chamberlain Wartime Administration and the Phoney War 5 2. Avoiding Global Conflict: British Policy in the Far East 37 3. The Search for Anglo-Italian Co-operation, September - December 1939 75 4. Anglo-Italian Disenchantment, January - May 1940 102 5. British Policy and the Soviet ‘Enigma’ 132 6. Keeping the Balkans Neutral 172 7. Scandinavia: From the Margins to Centre Stage 209 8. Scandinavia: Crucible of the Phoney War 233 9. Conclusion 282 Appendix A: Selected Diplomatic Representatives 296 Appendix B: Selected Individuals Mentioned in the Text 297 Appendix C: Meetings of the Supreme War Council 299 Appendix D: Text of the British Note to Norway and Sweden, 5 April 1940 300 Abbreviations in Footnotes 302 Bibliography 304 4 1. INTRODUCTION THE CHAMBERLAIN WARTIME ADMINISTRATION AND THE PHONEY WAR Karl von Clausewitz famously described war as ‘nothing but the continuation of politics with the admixture of other means’.1 With this in mind, it might be argued that the so-called ‘Phoney War’ (3 September 1939 to 10 May 1940) was simply the continuation of politics without the ‘admixture of other means’. Also known as the ‘Bore War’, the ‘Twilight War’ and the ‘Sitzkrieg’, the period suffers from something of an image problem, especially when contrasted with the dramatic events of the months and years that followed it. This condescension seems unfair. By any standards, it contains much that is of interest to the historian, and it is largely hindsight - the knowledge of what happened next - which has consigned the ‘Phoney War’ to the margins of history. Conventionally it is either tacked on to the end of studies of the 1930s and ‘appeasement’,2 or else it is treated as an aperitif - a preliminary to the ‘real’ conflict, which is usually seen as beginning with the German Western offensive of May 1940 (or even, for some U.S. historians, with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941). Rarely is it treated as a separate and distinct period of history - and yet, as will be shown, it certainly merits such scrutiny.3 The biggest challenge of writing this study was not deciding what could be put in, but rather choosing what to leave out. 1 Quoted in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Second Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) p. 73. The quotation comes from Vom Kriege (On War). 2 See, for example, M. Cowling The Impact of Hitler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) and W. Murray The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1936 - 1939 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 3 The only exceptions to this, at least as far as full-length studies are concerned, are T. Munch-Peterson The Strategy of Phoney War (Stockholm: Militärhistoriska Förlaget, 1981); the rather whimsical E. S. Turner The Phoney War on the Home Front (London: Michael Joseph Ltd, 1961), and, to a certain extent, R. Douglas The Advent of War 1939 - 1940 (London: Macmillan, 1978). Sir Llewellyn Woodward British Foreign Policy in the Second World War Volume 1 (London: H.M.S.O., 1970) is the standard account of British foreign policy in this period, based on the Foreign Office archives, but it can be rather heavy going. 5 The focus of the work is the impact which the war against Germany had upon British foreign policy. Lest it appear that in the chapters that follow that Germany was anything other than central in this period, it is worth stating here that winning the war against Germany was the number one priority of the British Government during the Phoney War. However, the pursuit of this aim had inevitable and significant consequences on British policy towards nations as yet uninvolved in the war, and it is these which this study seeks to identify and explain. At the heart of the study is an analysis of British policy in five key areas: the Far East, Italy, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and Scandinavia. This might appear at first glance to be a slightly arbitrary selection, but on closer examination it should become clear why these areas were chosen. They represent the main arenas in which British foreign policy was challenged during the early months of the Second World War. It might be objected that, in addition to Germany, two crucial countries are missing from this list: the United States and France. This is partly the product of limited space - there are interesting observations to be made about both - and partly the result of the existence of reasonably full accounts of British policy towards these countries during this period.4 However, neither will be ignored or overlooked. The United States played a central role in the formulation of British policy in the Far East, and this is reflected in that section. France, as Britain’s ally, inevitably made her presence felt in most of the key policy decisions taken by the British, and the centrality of French opinion to British policy will also quickly become apparent. Indeed, the French influence on British policy in Europe is closely analogous to that of the United States on 4 For Anglo-French relations see E. M. Gates The End of the Affair (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981) and M. Dockrill ‘The Foreign Office and France during the Phoney War, September 1939 - May 1940’ in M. Dockrill and B. McKercher (eds.) Diplomacy and World Power - Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890 - 1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). For Anglo-American relations see W. R. Rock Chamberlain and Roosevelt. British Foreign Policy and the United States 1937-40 (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1988), D. Reynolds The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937-1941 (London: Europa Publications, 1981), N. J. Cull Selling War: the British Propaganda campaign against American ‘neutrality’ in World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) and D. Reynolds ‘Lord Lothian and Anglo-American Relations, 1939 - 1940’ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Volume 73, Part 2, 1983. 6 British policy in the Far East. This serves to illustrate one of the central contentions of this thesis - that foreign policy does not, and cannot, operate in a vacuum, and that countries both influence, and are influenced by, the foreign policies of their fellow states.