In the decades between the two world wars, Europe was very unstable, and many countries saw dictators come to power. Here, Stephen Prout considers how democratic Britain engaged with the dictators in Italy, Spain, and Germany over the period
Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler meeting in 1938. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-063-32 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, available here.
Britain’s relationships with the main West European dictatorships, Italy, Spain and Germany, during the interwar period were often of a cordial and accommodating manner. The view Britain stood alone in defying the dictatorships was not necessarily true in this period.
The treaties established after the Great War did not address all the old grievances. New ones arose. The USA almost immediately distanced itself from the League of Nations and Europe, leaving the victors to preside over matters with their old imperial ways. Democracies largely failed and a precarious economic outlook helped both right- and left-wing extremism flourish. Communism was often the specter most reviled by the democracies and the dictators, ironically bringing unintended consensus between them.
Britain and Italy
Mussolini is remembered as being part of the Axis Powers, but Italy was very much regarded as an asset and the relationship followed a friendlier dynamic and path right up to the war.
During the Great War the British government maintained Italian participation and Mussolini himself was supported financially by British Intelligence payroll to promote pro-war feeling in his journalistic capacity. This cordial relationship continued after fascism installed itself.
Fascist atrocities and violence did little to deter the British from continuing this friendly relationship with Mussolini. They would adopt a partially sighted attitude to many of Mussolini’s actions such as his march on Rome to seize power, the murder of his political rival Giacomo Matteotti, and the removal of opposition figures that followed were simply dismissed with the thought that ‘Italy is not England’.
The condoning was publicly evident. The Times of London proclaimed that British and Italian empires were in perfect harmony. Up to the beginning of the 1930s Italian policy was given full approval by the British press and statesmen, such as Sir Austen Chamberlain. Clearly, Britain would not be shaken when British interests were unmolested.
In 1923 for a few short months Italy invaded the island of Corfu and demanded substantial reparations from Greece. A short military offensive ensued described by Baldwin as “violent and excusable” for demands that Lord Curzon termed as “extravagant”. Britain did little to protest; instead Curzon believed that referring the matter to the League of Nations would cause Italy to leave the League, so he bypassed protocol.
Curzon believed the League would have been ineffective as sanctions would have been vetoed by France and the USA, not being a member, would still trade with Italy. The outcome would have isolated a friendly power, which was not expedient to British interests. In fact, Lord Curzon dealt with the matter by dispensing with all Foreign Office formalities and involving the League little, a behavior or disregard that was no better than those displayed Mussolini. However aggressive military actions by the British in Iraq around the time were little different, so they had no moral high ground themselves.
Strained relations
Curzon showed limited disapproval of Mussolini’s actions, but Britain needed an ally. Apart from the Corfu incident there were divisions with France over the 1922 Treaty of Lausanne. Reliance on France was in question after France, with Soviet Russia and Italy, set up formal agreements with Turkey. His efforts to maintain a relationship with Poincare, the French Premier, were strained and by 1922 Britain saw herself isolated and weakened in the Middle Eastern diplomatic world. Britain and France were on the brink of a European ‘divorce’ from their old alliance. Italy could fill that void or balance out French power and influence. Indeed, Italy appeared to be the one to rival or at least be used in leverage against French ambitions to support British interests.
More approval came when the Ambassador to Rome Howard Kennel commented “that the Fascist Regime was the thing saving Italy from Communism”. The anti-communist stance would be of equal importance in influencing Britain’s dealings with the dictators alongside her own financial interests. Much could be tolerated if her own interests were not affected.
This attitude can be found in the circles of the Cliveden set in Britain. This group was an elite networking group of the political and establishment influencers. Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden, and Lord Halifax were known in these circles. They had admiration for fascism and sympathies for German grievances. The Times of London in August 1922 saw fascism as “a necessary subversive force” to counter the perceived menace of Bolshevism.
Winston Churchill himself was not shy of praising Mussolini and other dictators. In 1927 he quoted from Creeds of The Devil “If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have whole been whole heartedly with you from start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.” He would also later say: “I would not pretend that if I had to choose between Communism and Nazism that I would choose Communism”.
Churchill often changed his attitudes and allegiances, but interestingly before the Second World War he courted the dictators from Italy, Spain, and Portugal before his overtures to Stalin. Expediency allows many things to be forgotten and overlooked.
The relationship with Italy was further ratified and strengthened in 1925 by King George’s visit to Italy, which “added a glint of respectability to the fascist regime.” Meanwhile establishment circles and media were sharing similarly favorable sentiments.
Another view by the Observer was that “Italy should be kept as an ally against France” at a time when the French occupation of the German Ruhr was seen as just as reprehensible as Italian actions in Corfu by some.
Italy’s later invasion of Abyssinia did little to change British diplomacy. The reluctance to deal with Italian aggression in 1935-36, which sprang not from timidity of the fascist but of “conservative ideological sympathy with the Fascist regime” (AJP Taylor).
Franco and the Spanish Civil War
Franco’s Spain also enjoyed cordial treatment from the British government. Spain between 1936 and 1939 was undergoing a Civil War. All the main European Powers played a part. Italy and Germany were actively supporting Franco. Soviet Russia, Franco’s opponents. The British followed a policy of non-intervention along with France, which did as much to aid Franco as military support from the Axis Powers.
AJP Taylor also says that timidity was the primary influence behind the British political stance on Spain, Pro-Fascism second and then a significant financial interest. It has been argued had it been the Communists who had the upper hand then perhaps actual intervention would have been applied. Churchill, he argues, was also pro-Franco during the civil war.
Westminster also echoed anti-communist and pro-Franco sentiments as British economic interests were at stake, with Spain accounting for many British imports and exports and with the strategic importance of Gibraltar.
Diplomats such as George Ogilvie-Forbes reported in 1936 to the Foreign Office that “word was needed in the press or parliament that the rebels were guilty of wanton cruelty especially to children” however the response was muted. These reports detailed regular atrocities, yet Britain maintained her distance. At the end of the war in 1939, Franco quickly gained recognition from Britain.
Eastern Europe and the united front
Trouble in Czechoslovakia and Poland gathered momentum in the late 1930s. Although Britain always kept a distance from Eastern Europe, she took a lead in the 1938 Sudeten Crisis. The likes of Neville Chamberlain, William Strang, Nevile Henderson, and Lord Halifax did not favor the Czechoslovaks but instead tolerated Hitler’s demands, putting pressure on the Czechs to concede. Henderson regarded the Czechoslovak leader Benes as “pig-headed” over his refusals. Strang from the British Foreign Office recommended the surrender of Czechoslovakia, making her a German satellite.
Poland suffered equally dismal treatment. Lord Halifax said on the very day of his pledge “we do not think this guarantee will be binding”. Alexander Cadogan, another unsympathetic diplomat, remarked that “Poland was not worth the bones of a single Grenadier”.
While the Czech crisis was in full swing an Anglo-Italian agreement was concluded fresh from the international illegalities of Abyssinian affair. Britain was still prepared to sign agreements with the dictators.
In Britain’s defense the horrors that the Nazi regime committed were not yet known and they perhaps felt no obligation to fully understand what the regime would do. Most countries that were in the center of the disputes were not democracies and some, like Poland and the Soviet Union, had their own virulent anti-Semitic ways. There was genuine sympathy for German claims after he Great War, a menacing Soviet Union in the background, and few allies to rely on.
What do you think of Britain and the Great Dictators? Let us know below.
References
AJP Taylor “Origins of the Second War ”
R J B Bosworth “The British Press, The Conservatives ad Mussolini, 1920-34” Sage Publications
Creeds of the Devil Churchill Between the Two Totalitarianisms 1917-45 – Antoine Capet Universite De Rouen
Enrique Moradiellos – British Strategy in the Face of Military Rising in Spain P 123-157 – Contemporary European History – Cambridge University Press
C E Peden – Economic Background to British Foreign Policy 1937-39 – Wiley
C A Macdonald – Economic Appeasement and the German Moderates Introductory Essay – Past and Present P 105-135 – Oxford University Press.
