Nevil Chamberlin Vs General Patton, page 2

Wow, life sure is simple in your world huh TKainZero? And why not, it's easier than checking anything, right? Why remove the names? Let's not. You chose them to fit your purpose and so obviously have a good understanding of their respective natures - I mean it's obvious, right? Black and white. One of the (no doubt) many things you understand fully.

I do wonder if you have read up on Neville Chamberlain (I don't grant you the intelligence to alter the spelling to Cham-berlin as a pun) being well aware of Britain's military situation at the time was not up to the task that lie in wait (as was exemplified by the speed with which France fell) and time was desperately needed to make the changes required.

From Blood, Sweat and Arrogance: The Myths of Churchill's War by Gordon Corrigan :

In May 1937, Prime Minister Baldwin resigned, exhausted with the abdication crisis of the previous year, and was replaced by Neville Chamberlain, hitherto Chancellor of the Exchequer. Chamberlain has been advocating rearmament for longer than anyone else - at a time when Churchill was advocating cuts in the defence vote - and as Prime Minister was quite clear about what he wanted. As both he and his successor as Chancellor, Sir John Simon, were convinced that public opinion would not stand for the level of expenditure that the Chiefs of Staff considered necessary - which could only be met by substantial increases in taxation and a reduction in social expenditure - the new Prime Minister had to find some way of improving Britain's military position without provoking national bankruptcy or serious social unrest.

...

Conventional received opinion tells us that it was Chamberlain and the appeasers, the guilty men of Munich, aided and abetted by craven generals and tight-fisted bean counters at the Treasury who were to blame, and that picture is reinforced by those who won political control of the nation in 1940, when disaster after disaster, as we shall see, prompted a change in government. It was in the interests of Winston Churchill - brought in from the cold as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1939 - and his adherents to propagate that view and to ridicule the little man and his umbrella.
In fact, Chamberlain was not ridiculous in appearance, and nor was he a coward, nor a lackey of the dictators, nor an unrealistic believer in universal brotherhood incapable of seeing the threat that Fascism posed. Chamberlain was repelled by National Socialism and was one of the first members of the cabinet to oppose the ten-year rule and, in 1934, one of the first to advocate rearmament.

...

Because of the ten-year rule, and the tortuously slow pace of rearmament after its abolition, the last time that Britain might have been able to stamp on Germany militarily was in 1936, but it is a pretty big 'might' ... After 1936 appeasement was the only possible course for the Chiefs of Staff and the government to take until Britain's armed forces were capable of acting decisively.

Although you don't seem like one who would let facts interrupt what appears a (rapidly) passing train of thought, there is a little colour for your black and white world. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is more to consider in this world than you care to.

Love,

a younger member. X x x

[edit on 8/8/08 by Mark Harris]