Debating british decisionmaking toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s

International Security

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 173-182

  Barros, Andrew ^a   Imlay, Talbot C ^b   Resnick, Evan ^c   Ripsman, Norrin M ^d   Levy, Jack S ^e  

^a UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

^b UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL   (Canada)

^c YESHIVA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering   (Canada)

^e RUTGERS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 70349513299     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: 15314804     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/isec.2009.34.1.173     Document Type: Letter

References (26)

1. Norrin Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s," International Security, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall 2008), pp. 150-151.
2. Christopher Layne, "Security Studies and the Use of History: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Revisited," Security Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3 (July 2008), pp. 397-437
3. Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "The Preventive War That Never Happened: Britain, France, and the Rise of Germany in the 1930s," Security Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (January 2007), pp. 32-67
4. Steven E. Lobell, "The Second Face of Security: Britain's 'Smart' Appeasement Policy towards Japan and Germany," International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 7, No. 1 (January 2007), pp. 73-98
5. Daniel Treisman, "Rational Appeasement," International Organization, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 345-373.
6. The National Archives [hereafter TNA], Kew Gardens, Britain, CAB 23/95, Cabinet minutes, 39 (38), September 17, 1938.
7. CAB 23/95, Cabinet minutes, 42 (38), September 24, 1938
8. A useful introduction to the vast literature is Richard Bessel, Nazism and War (New York: Modern Library, 2004)
9. Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000)
10. Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004)
11. On this point, see Donald Lammers, "From Whitehall after Munich: The Foreign Office and the Future Course of British Policy, " Historical Journal, Vol. 16, No. 4 (December 1973), pp. 831-856.
12. Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (London: Allen Lane, 2006)
13. For rumors of a German attack in the west, see Talbot C. Imlay, "The Making of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1938-39," in Martin S. Alexander and William J. Philpott, eds., Anglo-French Defence Relations between the Wars (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 92-120.
14. The growing importance of France in British calculations of the strategic situation in 1938-39 calls into question Ripsman and Levy's claim that the British decided "early on to calculate the balance of power based solely on Britain's military capabilities, excluding those of its allies." Ripsman and Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time?" pp. 180-181.
15. This is a basic argument of Williamson Murray's important study, The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939: The Path to Ruin (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).
16. Significantly, German military leaders were not particularly concerned about an Allied blockade. See the comments of Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, in Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg, RW 4/764, "Aussprache mit Generaloberst Keitel am 17.8.39" [Discussion with General Keitel on 17.8.39].
17. On this point, see Wesley K. Wark, The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 179-187
18. Peter Jackson, France and the German Menace: Intelligence and Policy Making, 1933-1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 3373-3378.
19. For more on this subject, see Talbot C. Imlay, "Anglo-French Economic Intelligence and Strategy during the 'Phony War,'" Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 13, No. 4 (1998), pp. 107-132.
20. See Karl-Heinz Blumenhagen, Die deutsch-sowjetischen Handelsbeziehungen, 1939-1941 [German-Soviet commercial relations, 1939-1941] (Hamburg: Kovac, 1998)
21. TNA CAB 53/10, COS 283d meeting, March 18, 1939; and CAB 53/49, COS 905, "Anglo-French Action in Support of Poland," June 3, 1939
22. Churchill College Archives, Cambridge University, Alexander of Hillsborough Papers, AVAR 5/3, ms. notes of conversation with Churchill, September 19, 1939. For Ironside in December 1939
23. see Talbot C. Imlay, "AReassessment of Anglo-French Strategy during the Phony War, 1939-1940," English Historical Review, Vol. 119, No. 481 (2004), p. 360. For Ironside in January 1940
24. see TNA CAB 79/3 COS(40)15, January 25, 1940
25. What follows is based on Talbot C. Imlay, Facing the Second World War: Strategy, Politics, and Domestic Politics in Britain and France, 1938-1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 50-75, 105-127
26. Talbot C. Imlay, "A Reassessment of Anglo-French Strategy during the Phony War, 1939-1940," pp. 333-372.