Richard J Evans (Critic at Large, 21 January) appears to endorse the charge that Neville Chamberlain was “weak and unintelligent”, though Jock Colville, his private secretary, said he was “quick, clear and incisive”. Evans denies there is any evidence that Chamberlain distrusted Hitler, but he told Joe Kennedy, the US ambassador, that Hitler was “completely ruthless”. Chamberlain did not consider Hitler “a conventional European statesman”, as Evans writes, but felt the British government was “doing business with a madman”.
Most seriously, Evans dodges the central question: should Chamberlain have overruled his advisers and declared war in September 1938 with Britain deeply divided and the empire’s dominion nations unwilling to commit their forces? He would have plunged the country into a long, costly struggle on behalf of a state it could not save. Chamberlain kept to the course set a year earlier when he told his adviser Lord Weir: “The Air Force must go on and build itself up as rapidly as possible. I hope my efforts with Germany and Italy will give us the necessary time.”
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