Exit of an acccidental opponent of appeasement

Anyone who might have doubted that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was fully in charge of British foreign policy was presented with unambiguous evidence that they were wrong. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigned suddenly and, despite a gentlemanly reluctance to go into the gory details on Eden’s part, this was obviously because they disagreed on policy. Eden was not opposed to appeasance as such - in fact it was he who came up with the word to describe British policy he was just deeply suspicious of Mussolini’s trustworthiness, but such doubts counted for little with Chamberlain. Chamberlain imagined he could play Italy and Germany off against each other by pursuing constructive diplomacy towards both powers. He imagined he held a trump card in the form of British recognition of Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia. Mussolini, naturally, wanted this but never intended to play any real price. More insidious than disagreement on policy was Chamberlain’s habit of going behind Eden’