Eighty years ago: first shot in the Battle of the Atlantic, gongs for the worthies of appeasement Pt.1 and appeasement Pt.2 begins
Germany gave notice that it
intended to exercise its rights under the 1935 Anglo-German Naval Treaty to
increase its strength towards the limits set by the treaty. Of most interest was
what the Kriegsmarine might do about
its U Boot force. Under the treaty it was allowed full parity with Britain in
submarine strength but had accepted that it would not exceed 45% of Royal Navy
submarine tonnage unless “exceptional” circumstances arose. A Royal Navy
delegation flew to Berlin at short notice to clarify the position. Germany
claimed that it wanted to increase its U Boot fleet by a maximum of 10%.
Applying this to the Germans' own figures for the to navies’ respective submarine
strengths this implied a rise to 47% of the British total. A discreet silence
was maintained as to what exceptional circumstances might have prompted the move.
The New Year’s Honours list
provided a handy guide to who was well in with the Chamberlain government, in
particular the men who were deemed to have had a “good” Munich crisis. Top
scorer was Sir Nevile Henderson, Britain’s enthusiastically appeasement minded ambassador to Grmany, who was
promoted from KCMG (“Kindly Call Me God”) to the top rank of that order of
chivalry, GCMG (“God Calls Me God”). Two more junior Foreign Office officials received
the unusually high distinction of promotion to Commander of the Bath: William
Strang, who had accompanied Chamberlain on his first mission to the Berghof and
drafted the “Peace for our time” declaration and Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, who had
steered Lord Runciman’s mediation mission in a solidly pro-German direction. The
former First Sea Lord, Lord Chatfield, a consistent advocate of appeasing
Mussolini, received the Order of Merit.
The Governor the Bank of England
set off for Berlin on what was supposedly a private visit to his German
counterpart, Hjalmar Schacht President of the Reichsbank. It was a threadbare
pretence. He had seen Schacht in London a couple of weeks before. Even though
he had no appointments with anyone else, it was widely recognised that he would
be discussing political as well as economic matters. Norman was deep in the
confidence of Downing Street, notably Sir Horace Wilson. After the unseemly interruption of Kristalnacht, high level contact between was set to resume between Britain and Germany.
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