Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-lrf7s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-31T08:37:10.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nevile Henderson in Constantinople, Cairo and Belgrade: the prototype appeaser?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Peter Neville
Peter Neville*
Affiliation:
University of Wolverhampton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article will argue that far from being an inveterate appeaser, Henderson showed in Constantinople that he could be an advocate of tough measures. And that in Cairo, contrary to his reputation, he was a Foreign Office loyalist while his superior, George Lloyd, was critical of official policy. Nevertheless, Henderson’s early career does offer useful insights into why, once posted to Germany in 1937, he became an advocate of accommodation. In Yugoslavia, in particular, he showed a willingness to work with authoritarian leaders and a sympathy for them, which helped him to secure the Berlin appointment.

Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 24 , 2000 , pp. 194 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. von Schlabrendorf, Fabian, The Secret War Against Hitler (Oxford 1994) 96 Google Scholar.

2. The best account of these differences is given in Charmley, J., Lord Lloyd and the Collapse of the British Empire (London 1987)Google Scholar.

3. Henderson, Nevile, Fatture of A Mission (London 1940) vi Google Scholar.

4. Henderson, Nevile, Water Under The Bridges, (London 1945) 94 Google Scholar; concern was expressed most notably by Nicholson, Harold in Peacemaking 1919 (London 1919)Google Scholar and Keynes, J.M. in The Economic Consequences of the Peace Treaty (London 1919)Google Scholar.

5. Baker, Vaughan B., ‘Nevile Henderson in Berlin: A Re-evaluation’, The Red River Valley Historical Journal 2/4 (Winter 1977) 343-44Google Scholar.

6. Henderson was not, however (as suggested in Ms Baker’s article above), regarded by Rumbold as ‘a strong man’. Rumbold made this clear in a letter to the Foreign Office. Rumbold to Selby 15/7/27, FO 794/10, Foreign Office Individual Files, Public Record Office.

7. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 109.

8. The Conference opened on 20 November 1922.

9. Henderson’s colleague Andrew Ryan did not, however, think that he was unduly pro-Turkish. The difference between Rumbold and Henderson, he wrote later, ‘was one of general outlook and approach to the question under discussion’ (a reference to the Lausanne Peace Conference of 1922-3). Ryan, A., The Last of the Dragomans (London 1951) 179-80Google Scholar.

10. Henderson to Rumbold 23/1/23, FO 800/254, Oliphant Papers, PRO.

11. Henderson to Oliphant, FO 800/254, PRO.

12. Rumbold to Henderson 2/1/23 cited in Gilbert, M., Sir Horace Rumbold. Portrait of A Diplomat (London 1973) 281 Google Scholar.

13. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 111.

14. Henderson to Rumbold 29/12/22, FO 800/254.

15. Henderson to Oliphant 15/7/24, FO 800/254; the Mosul issue was not finally resolved until 1926. For details, see Northedge, F.S., The Troubled Giant. Britain Among the Great Powers 1916-39 (London 1966) 153–155 Google Scholar.

16. Henderson to Oliphant 4/8/24; Oliphant to Henderson 5/8/24, FO 800/254.

17. Henderson to Oliphant 15/7/24.

18. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 113.

19. ibid., 136-7.

20. Henderson and Lloyd had been at Eton together and corresponded with each other regularly.

21. Charmley, J., Lord Lloyd and the Decline of the British Empire (London 1987) 132 Google Scholar.

22. Henderson to Selby 31/7/26, FO 800/265, Henderson Papers, PRO.

23. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 140.

24. ibid., 150; Henderson himself was to behave in just such a manner when he was Ambassador in Berlin short-circuiting the Counsellor Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes (much to his irritation) in favour of the more sympathetic Ivonne Kirkpatrick.

25. Lloyd to Chamberlain 6/5/28, FO 794/10, Foreign Office Individual Files, PRO.

26. Chamberlain to Lloyd 15/5/28, ibid., FO Individual Files. Henderson was en route to Paris as Counsellor.

27. Henderson to Selby 1/2/28, FO 794/10.

28. Henderson, , Failure of A Mission (London 1940) 13 Google Scholar.

29. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 160.

30. Henderson to Patrick 24/10/27, Lloyd Papers 19/14, Churchill College, Cambridge.

31. Henderson to Oliphant 1/2/28, FO 794/10.

32. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 167.

33. ibid., 169.

34. ibid., 167.

35. For an account of the development of independent Yugoslavia after 1919, see Crampton, E., Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London 1994) Ch. 9 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Vansittart, Lord, The Mist Procession (London 1958) 360 Google Scholar.

37. It is true that in Henderson’s bizarre third memoir Hippy. The Story of A Dog (London 1943) (about his dachsbrache), there are pictures of Henderson and the King with the victims of their shooting exploits.

38. Henderson to Vansittart 31/1/35, FO 800/268, Henderson Papers, PRO.

39. Henderson to Sargent 19/1/35, ibid.

40. A whole chapter of Failure of A Mission is devoted to Göring.

41. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 171.

42. Vansittart to Henderson 31/1/35, FO 800/268.

43. Henderson to Vansittart 4/2/35, FO 800/268.

44. Henderson to Phipps 10/2/35, ibid.

45. Vansittart to Henderson 13/2/35; Henderson to Vansittart 28/2/35.

46. Oliphant to Henderson 18/4/35.

47. The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton 1918-40 ed. Pimlott, B. (London 1986) 134 Google Scholar.

48. For a more detailed analysis of why Henderson was selected for the Berlin post, see my article ‘The Appointment of Sir Nevile Henderson 1937: Design or Blunder?’, Journal of Contemporary History 33/4 (October 1998) 609-619; see also Goldman, A., ‘Two Views of Germany. Nevile Henderson and Vansittart and the Foreign Office’, British Journal of International Studies 6 (1980) 247-77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Charmley, J., Chamberlain and the Lost Peace(London 1989) Ch. 1 Google Scholar.

49. Henderson to O’Malley 21/5/35, FO 800/268; O’Malley was to write supportively to Henderson when he was sent to Berlin in 1937, and opposed Vansittart’s anti-German line, see O’Malley to Henderson 9/6/37, FO 800/268. O’Malley is disappointingly defensive about his attitude to appeasement in his memoirs, and takes unconvincing shelter behind the Official Secrets Act: The Phantom Caravan (London 1954) 157. O’Malley served as Ambassador in Mexico from 1937 to 1938, and was then posted to Madrid. He had been successively an Assistant in the Central Department, and Head of the Southern Department, between 1929 and 1937.

50. Henderson to Vansittart 21/5/35, FO 800/268, Henderson Papers, PRO.

51. Henderson to Vansittart 23/4/35, Henderson Papers, PRO.

52. Henderson to Sargent 19/6/35, ibid.

53. Joseph Addison was the British Minister to Prague 1930-6 and was notoriously anti-Czech; Henderson to Vansittart 24/6/35.

54. Henderson, Water Under The Bridges, 172.

55. This comment was made by Geoffrey Harrison, a former First Secretary in the Berlin Embassy to Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart after the war. The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, Volume II, 1939-45, 8/12/49, ed. Young, K. (London 1973) 707 Google Scholar.

56. Avon, Lord, Facing The Dictators (London 1962) 570 Google Scholar.

57. Phipps was removed because he had ‘no telephone line’ to Hitler who despised him. Jones, T., A Diary With Letters (London 1954) 304 Google Scholar.