Peace For Our Time --(History repeats itself) Peace for our time Peace for our time

BBC News ^ | February 3, 2003 | Alistair Cook

[It's me]

-snip-

I promised to lay off topic A - Iraq - until the Security Council makes a judgement on the inspectors' report and I shall keep that promise.

But I must tell you that throughout the past fortnight I've listened to everybody involved in or looking on to a monotonous din of words, like a tide crashing and receding on a beach - making a great noise and saying the same thing over and over.

And this ordeal triggered a nightmare - a day-mare, if you like.

Through the ceaseless tide I heard a voice, a very English voice of an old man - Prime Minister Chamberlain saying: "I believe it is peace for our time" - a sentence that prompted a huge cheer, first from a listening street crowd and then from the House of Commons and next day from every newspaper in the land.

There was a move to urge that Mr Chamberlain should receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

In Parliament there was one unfamiliar old grumbler to growl out: "I believe we have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat."

He was, in view of the general sentiment, very properly booed down.

This scene concluded in the autumn of 1938 the British prime minister's effectual signing away of most of Czechoslovakia to Hitler.

The rest of it, within months, Hitler walked in and conquered.

"Oh dear," said Mr Chamberlain, thunderstruck. "He has betrayed my trust."

During the last fortnight a simple but startling thought occurred to me - every single official, diplomat, president, prime minister involved in the Iraq debate was in 1938 a toddler, most of them unborn. So the dreadful scene I've just drawn will not have been remembered by most listeners.

Hitler had started betraying our trust not 12 years but only two years before, when he broke the First World War peace treaty by occupying the demilitarised zone of the Rhineland.

Only half his troops carried one reload of ammunition because Hitler knew that French morale was too low to confront any war just then and 10 million of 11 million British voters had signed a so-called peace ballot.

It stated no conditions, elaborated no terms, it simply counted the numbers of Britons who were "for peace".

The slogan of this movement was "Against war and fascism" - chanted at the time by every Labour man and Liberal and many moderate Conservatives - a slogan that now sounds as imbecilic as "against hospitals and disease".

In blunter words a majority of Britons would do anything, absolutely anything, to get rid of Hitler except fight him.

At that time the word pre-emptive had not been invented, though today it's a catchword.

After all the Rhineland was what it said it was - part of Germany. So to march in and throw Hitler out would have been pre-emptive - wouldn't it?

Nobody did anything and Hitler looked forward with confidence to gobbling up the rest of Western Europe country by country - "course by course", as growler Churchill put it.

I bring up Munich and the mid-30s because I was fully grown, on the verge of 30, and knew we were indeed living in the age of anxiety.

And so many of the arguments mounted against each other today, in the last fortnight, are exactly what we heard in the House of Commons debates and read in the French press.

The French especially urged, after every Hitler invasion, "negotiation, negotiation".

They negotiated so successfully as to have their whole country defeated and occupied.

But as one famous French leftist said: "We did anyway manage to make them declare Paris an open city - no bombs on us!"

In Britain the general response to every Hitler advance was disarmament and collective security.

Collective security meant to leave every crisis to the League of Nations. It would put down aggressors, even though, like the United Nations, it had no army, navy or air force.

The League of Nations had its chance to prove itself when Mussolini invaded and conquered Ethiopia (Abyssinia).

The League didn't have any shot to fire. But still the cry was chanted in the House of Commons - the League and collective security is the only true guarantee of peace.

But after the Rhineland the maverick Churchill decided there was no collectivity in collective security and started a highly unpopular campaign for rearmament by Britain, warning against the general belief that Hitler had already built an enormous mechanised army and superior air force.

But he's not used them, he's not used them - people protested.

Still for two years before the outbreak of the Second War you could read the debates in the House of Commons and now shiver at the famous Labour men - Major Attlee was one of them - who voted against rearmament and still went on pointing to the League of Nations as the saviour.

Now, this memory of mine may be totally irrelevant to the present crisis. It haunts me.

I have to say I have written elsewhere with much conviction that most historical analogies are false because, however strikingly similar a new situation may be to an old one, there's usually one element that is different and it turns out to be the crucial one.

It may well be so here. All I know is that all the voices of the 30s are echoing through 2003.

-snip-

[It's me]

I heard this the other day on Dr. Laura. It is really scary how history repeats itself...

[It's me]

Whoops! Sorry for the title. :o(

[EaglesUpForever]

But as one famous French leftist said: "We did anyway manage to make them declare Paris an open city - no bombs on us!"

Chirac's dad?

[Travis McGee]

Click here to create two home-printable bumper stickers that say:

Only UN-Americans put the U.N. before the U.S.

Artwork and linkage by FReeper Howie. Stick them inside your car’s rear window with a few bits of 3M Magic Tape, the tape will peel off easily with no glue residue even after months in the sun.

[ppaul]

:

BOMB

SADDAM
www.FreeRepublic.com

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[Straight Vermonter]

In 1928 a treaty was signed outlawing war. It was known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact. So if war was outlawed (and there was a treaty and Germany was a signatory) then how could they make war on their neighbors? I mean a treaty is all the protection a nation needs right? A treaty means we don't have to have expensive military programs etc. The treaty alone will protect us.

History clearly shows how ridiculous it is to make, or at least rely on, treaties. While treaties and multilateral organizations make politicians popular, they have never protected a mile of sovereign land or protected a single human being. Just ask those who died in the UN "Safe Havens" in Bosnia. The only means of security is through the barrel of a gun as ugly as it sounds it will always be true.

[JoeFromSidney]

In 1928 a treaty was signed outlawing war. It was known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact. So if war was outlawed (and there was a treaty and Germany was a signatory) then how could they make war on their neighbors?

Actually, violating the Kellog-Briand pact (and other treaties) was one of the "war crimes" for which the top Nazis were prosecuted at Nuremburg. Fat lot of good it did by then, of course

[fightinJAG]

bump for excellence

[bannie]

"Only half his troops carried one reload of ammunition because Hitler knew that French morale was too low to confront any war just then and 10 million of 11 million British voters had signed a so-called peace ballot."

What's the reverse of dejevu?

If this is Alstare Cook, I'm surprised. I never considered him a voice of reason.

These are strange days we are in...

[dyed_in_the_wool]

It is really scary how history repeats itself...

Especially like the bit where Turkey holds out for more money, then realizes its mistake too late and loses part of it's country.
Of course, then was WWI and the Ottoman Empire was dismantled.
Now they're losing the Kurds.
Ironic, isn't it?

[goldstategop]

Alistair Cooke is an Americaphile. He has a deep and abiding love of this country more than some native born Americans we know. You probably remember him as the host of the celebrated series America and for his stints in the 80s on PBS' Masterpiece Theater . Not too bad for someone born in 1908.

[bannie]

In a history class, many moons ago, the very liberal professor used Cook's book (I can picture it, but I can't recall if the title was more than, America.). Included in the course were some of the TV shows.

I did not gain a sense of love from Cook. I did gain a belief that he considered us a "project" of his. Perhaps from this, he developed an attitude of, "It's my dog: Only I can kick it."

?

I simply recall that his perspective was that of a superior looking at an odd but imperfect specimen.

I wonder if he's changed? I wonder if we're just so used to being insulted that we no longer recognize it?

[kimosabe31]

bump

[kimosabe31]

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