A Controversy Re-examined
Taylor and Trevor-Roper
By HUGH THOMAS
I ,s-r week, Mr. A. J. P. Taylor gave his last I lecture at Oxford—just over two years since, in April, 1961, he published perhaps his most controversial book, The Origins of the Second World War. Sebastian Haffner, in the Observer, called this book a masterpiece. David Marquand compared Taylor with Gibbon and Macaulay. After some weeks, however, discordant voices came. A correspondence began in The Times Literary Supplement (whose anonymous re- viewer had earlier spoken of Taylor's 'im- peccable logic'). Taylor's chief critics were Mr. A. L. Rowse (who had himself recently produced All Souls and Appeasement) and Professor H. R.
Trevor-Roper, who published a review of Tay- lor's book in the July, 1961, issue of Encounter. A few weeks later, Taylor and Trevor-Roper discussed the book on television. The debate solved nothing. Who was right? Interest in the subject has been revived by the new book on appeasement which did not mention Taylor, • though a Taylor pupil was one of its authors. Perhaps now we can approach the subject more openly.
The truth is, that neither Professor Trevor- Roper nor Mr. Taylor ought to look back on this episode with satisfaction. The Professor, however, emerged with less credit than Mr. Taylor does. Consider a few of Trevor-Roper's argu- ments. (These were met, to a limited extent, by Mr. Taylor himself in Encounter, though oddly defensively.) 'Accordingly,' the Professor wrote in Encounter, 'Mr. Taylor's heroes among Western statesmen are those who recognised German claims : Ramsay MacDonald and Neville Chamberlain.' This is not true. Taylor approved MacDonald's attitude towards Germany in the Twenties; so should anyone who realises that British and French discouragement of the frail German democratic constitution of Weimar was an obvious reason for its collapse. But Taylor did not praise MacDonald for what he did in the Thirties. Nor did Chamberlain appear as a hero; when describing Amery's appeal of Sep- tember 2, 1939, to the acting Leader of the Opposition (Greenwood) to 'speak for England,' Taylor added that this was 'a task of which Chamberlain was incapable' (page 277). When speaking of the British Government's intention to guarantee Poland, Taylor wrote : 'with the narrow moralism of a reformed drunkard, men who had not scrupled to desert Benes now felt themselves bound to observe Beck's every whim.' Odd hero-worship, surely?
Next, Trevor-Roper, purporting to describe Taylor's views on Mussolini, suggested that his Government, unlike (quoting) 'the solid demo- cratic' rule of Hitler, lived in illegality. Now everyone would assume from this that Taylor judged Hitler's regime to be democratic. In fact, Taylor said (page 68) that 'Hitler was ap- pointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg in a strictly constitutional way and for solidly democratic 'reasons. Whatever ingenuous specu- lators, liberal or Marxist. might say, Hitler was appointed because he and his Nationalist allies could control a majority in the Reichstag.'
There are other occasions where Trevor- Roper used quotations rather oddly. He poured scorn on Taylor for saying: 'Hitler .„ became involved in war through launching on August 29th a diplomatic manoeuvre which he ought to have launched on August 28th.' What Taylor really said was (page 278): 'Both countries went to war for that part of the [Versailles] peace settlement which they had long regarded as least defensible. Hitler may have projected a great war all along: yet it seems from the record that he became in- volved in war through launching on August 29th a diplomatic manwuvre which he ought to have launched on August 28th.' (The diplomatic manoeuvre was an offer to Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, to negotiate directly with Poland if a Polish representative with full powers arrived in Berlin.) Trevor-Roper is surely hardly justified in quoting Taylor out- side the context and without the words here italicised. Taylor implies that, whatever the 'long-term causes,' the direct cause of the war was the failure of a German last-minute diplo- matic approach ultimately rejected by Poland. Taylor's remark itself betrays a desire to be epigrammatic at almost all costs; but Trevor- Roper's treatment of the remark is equally mis- leading.
The most curious instance remains. In a parenthesis, Trevor-Roper quoted Taylor as say- ing that Hitler, 'in principle and in doctrine, was no more wicked and unscrupulous than many other contemporary statesmen.' Taylor, how- ever, had been arguing (page 71) that 'everything that Hitler did against the Jews followed logi- cally from the racial doctrines in which most Germans vaguely believed. . . . Hitler took them at their word. He made the Germans live up to their professions, or down to them—much to their regret. In principle Hitler was no more wicked and unscrupulous than many other con- temporary statesmen. In wicked acts he outdid them all.' The facts are perhaps here overstated, but the point is at least arguable. Can there be any doubt that Trevor-Roper's use of the single sentence he picked out is misleading?
There is a final quotation about Munich which was used by Trevor-Roper, and which has been much discussed. 'British policy over Czecho- slovakia,' argues Mr. Taylor, 'originated in the belief that Germany had a moral right to the Sudeten German territory, on grounds of national principle; and it drew the further corollary that self-determination would provide a stabler, more permanent peace in Europe. The British Govern- ment were not driven to acknowledge the dis- memberment of Czechoslovakia solely from fear of war. They deliberately set out to impose this cession of territory on the Czechs before the threat of war raised its head. The settlement at Munich [this is the phrase which has been so much quoted] was a triumph for British policy, which had worked precisely to this end; not a triumph for Hitler, who had started with no such clear inten- tion. Nor was it merely a triumph for selfish or cynical British statesmen, indifferent to the fate of far=off peoples or calculating that Hitler might be launched into a war against Soviet Russia. It was a triumph for all that was best and most enlightened in British life; a triumph for those. who had preached equal justice belweiw peoples; a triumph for those who had courageously de- nounced the harshness and shortsightedness of Versailles.'
This is different from merely quoting the sec- tion italicised (which Trevor-Roper did). The pas- sage is controversial, but it is presumably charged with bitterness, reflecting the undoubted truth that in the pursuit of appeasement in the late Thirties Chamberlain and the British were doing too late what their predecessors could have safely done in the Twenties. The irony is that if, for example, Eden and others felt guilty about what was done at Munich, the men of Munich felt guilty about what was done at Versailles. `All that was best and enlightened in British public life': is this hackneyed phrase, in Mr. Taylor's hands, quite what Trevor-Roper makes it seem? The fact that Mr. Taylor does not mean by `triumph' all that is generally understood by that word is seen by his earlier judgment that 'the statesmen of Western Europe moved in a moral and intellectual fog—sometimes deceived by the dictators, sometimes deceiving themselves, often deceiving their own public.'
If, therefore, several of Trevor-Roper's allega- tions are seen to be false, was The Origins of the Second World War the masterpiece %, hich it has been made out to be? Unfortunately not. There were undoubtedly errors of fact, and of judgment, and in at least one question Trevor- Roper was right. An illustration of an error is seen in what Taylor said about the relation between the Spanish civil war and general European historY On page 121 Mr. Taylor alleged that the British Government proposed the idea of Non-Interven- , tion to the French. 'The British Government,' says Mr. Taylor, 'made a seemingly attractive proposal : if France refrained from helping the Spanish Republic, then Italy and GermanY could be urged not to help the rebels. The Spanish people could decide their own destiny; and in all probability if Non-Intervention really worked, the republic would win.' Taylor gave no reference for this statement. Nor could he. For, contrary to what was believed in 1936, all the evidence is that the French thought out the idea of Non-Intervention. 'Taylor's remark is a guess, untupported by any evidence. How can we TIIE SPECTATOR. JUNE 7. I 9 6 3 trust the general narrative if details are invented? Another error of Taylor's is his account of the Rapallo conference of 1922. He says that the Allies were going to invite the Germans to join in exploiting Russia, while the Russians were to be urged to claim reparations from Germany. In fact, this was roughly what the Germans (though not the Russians, who were better in- formed) feared would happen as a result of a memorandum prepared by the British and • French on the first day of the conference. But, in fact, the West did not have any such decided Plan to play off Russia against Germany. Then there is the question of Taylor's treat- ment of the Polish crisis which led directly to War in 1939. Trevor-Roper accused him of in- stance, documents, of taking from, for n- stance, the records of Hitler's talks with his generals on May 23 and August 22, those sen- tences which suit his theory. This theory was that Hitler only wanted Danzig and not Poland; but, because Poland could physically prevent the Ger- man occupation of Danzig. Germany was reluc- tantly obliged to attack Poland. Since the British had guaranteed Poland in March, 1939, this meant world war. However, as Trevor-Roper Pointed out, on May 23 Hitler spoke to a group of generals in quite different terms: Taylor men- tioned the speech, but omitted certain sentences, including one which specifically says: It is not 6anzig that is at stake. For us it is a matter of expanding our living space in the East and Making food supplies secure and also solving the Problem of the Baltic. States.' Again, on August 22, Hitler addressed his generals and again, as Trevor-Roper said, Taylor was guilty of ornis- si°11s; it simply is not correct to argue that the speech was not 'a serious directive for action.' The speech is a full-blooded incitement to action. It is true that, as Taylor said, there is a sen- tence which suggests that Hitler might have been h °Ping at least for continued passivity by Britain and France; 'the probability is still great,' says Hitler, 'that the West will not intervene.' (Taylor cut the word 'still' here, no doubt accidentally; but it does make a difference.) In general, -„ Roper's attack on this account of the Polish crisis (or the Danzig crisis) is accurate, while Taylor is wrong. Is this controversy, then, entirely unimportant, the reflection of yet another tedious squabble at Oxbridge? And is The Origins of the Second world War totally valueless? On the contrary. The Origins of the Second World War is a rash
sketch had for what might have been a great work, _
more time and care been lavished on it. As it stands it reads like a brilliant collection of essays, full of new things, and also full of 'brilliant' :marks which do not stand up to analysis. Mr. Taylor does not approach his vast subject with o:Ilingoess to peer deeply beneath the surface d'Plomatic exchanges. The psychology of the ce,adirig figures in the drama --from Hitler to namberlain---does demand understanding treat- ment from someone prepared to accept Namier's hint of the historian's mission: to interpret the oast off a nation or a community with something oc a The sympathy with which an analyst approaches rte, But Taylor seems too impatient to do rns. though he clearly realises that this should be spirit with which to approach his jagged Material.
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