Guest Post - Hendon Air Disaster

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input by Robbie Tayor, Philip Ebbrell, and Allen W. McDonnell.

Sep 15, 1938-

A Lockheed 14 Super Electra departed Hendon Aerodrome carrying British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on his ill-fated flight to Munich. Tragedy struck when a mechanical failure occurred with the plane only 200 feet off the ground. The right wing dipped, sending the aircraft into a sharp turn, causing it to slow and lose lift, resulting in a rapid descent. It crashed into a nearby field, killing all on board.

The British government was facing a unique crisis of confidence even before the Hendon Air Disaster. Having never flown in an aircraft before, Chamberlain was taking a unique set of personal and political risks in agreeing to meet Adolf Hitler. He considered this absolutely necessary because the unchecked rise of Fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain threatened to sweep away British influence on the continent and beyond. His previous activity in no way prepared him for the challenges for this role, causing growing tension in his cabinet. By now, members of the Tory Caucus were entertaining serious doubts about his appeasement policy, causing the recent resignation of Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.

Chamberlain was personally leading the diplomatic mission because this troubled great office was the political hot seat seeing a rapid turnover of university-educated individuals ill-equipped to form a foreign policy under extreme circumstances. Not only had the European security structure collapsed, but the victor powers were weakened by economic depression and war weariness. A strategic pause to re-arm would only allow Germany to grow in strength as well, and the necessary choice of engaging Stalin was politically unacceptable to the Tories. Eden's successor at the foreign office was his de facto deputy Viscount Halifax, the former Viceroy of India, and current Leader of the Lords. Having personally met Hitler, he strongly believed "we ought to get on good terms with Germany." In addition to these unique insights, he had the natural authority of an aristocrat aided by his immense height. Like Chamberlain, he wanted to deter further German aggression, but he was personally inclined to fight even though the mood of the country was strongly against it. Memories of the Great War remained strong; only five years earlier, the Oxford Union Society had presented a motion that "This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country."

Chamberlain had only been considered to be a placeholder to take the Conservatives to the next general election after Stanley Baldwin stepped down in the wake of the abdication crisis. His natural successor at 10 Downing Street would likely have been Samuel Hoare but he was strongly disliked by the right wing for his involvement in the Government of India Act and his part in the shameful Hoare-Laval Pact that ended the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. It was Halifax that led demands for Hoare's resignation, and Eden strongly supported this move believing Mussolini to be an untrustworthy gangster without gestures of good faith on his part. And so, with Eden out of office, Halifax emerged as the senior figure in the party even though as a peer he was not a member of the House of Commons. Also working in his favour was the active support of the King George VI who distrusted Winston Churchill and other Tories for their role in the abdication crisis.

Great Britain stood at a crossroads. The Empire, the Class System, and the Monarchy overshadowed the interests of a divided country, with a revitalized Labour Party under Clement Attlee ready to take office. Being desperately short of political allies, Halifax had to listen to the advice of Hoare. In their discussions, they returned to the cornerstone of foreign policy that the dictatorships' very separate interests could be teased apart. Despite the circumstances of the forced resignation, Halifax had broadly agreed with Hoare's strategic approach but rejected his approach as "too much like the off-the-stage arrangements of nineteenth-century diplomacy." The new prime minister quickly realized that an accommodation with Fascist Italy was the only way forward because Mussolini also feared subordination to Hitler's Germany. Rather than following in Chamberlain's steps, he exploited this opportunity by flying to Rome instead for a fateful meeting with Il Duce. This ultimately would grant Italy wide scope for expansion in the Mediterranean that would not lead to an Empire Reborn, but at least keep Italy within the a proven security structure, the so-called Stresa Front with Britain and France.

The promise of self-determination for the three million German people living in the Sudetenland was justifiably consistent with the principles of the Treaty of Versailles, at least on paper. In a joint communiqué from Rome, Mussolini and Halifax would demand a plebiscite accompanied by robust guarantees for the rest of Czechoslovakia, an artificial state created from Habsburg lands. The man of the hour, Halifax would gleefully arrive in Hendon promising "peace in our time," although his wiser French counter-part Daladier would return to buoyant crowds in Paris and famously soliloquy "Oh, the fools!"

Italy's subsequent neutrality regarding German war efforts would remove a wheel from an axis on which the world might have turned. As Hitler and Stalin deeply distrusted each other, the war in the East started early with the Soviets thinking they had better move first and Stalin having won the border war with Japan and ended the Great Purge. This Soviet-German War would exhaust both sides until the final victor was too weak to go on with conquest.

Author's Note:

Chamberlain completed the trip, returning to London with the mistaken belief that he had obtained a breathing space during which agreement could be reached and the peace preserved.

The role of Halifax is famously explored in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day, his policies are summarized in a TV broadcast in 1939. His conviction to fight collapsed during the Battle of France. With the Allies facing apparently catastrophic defeat and British forces falling back to Dunkirk, he favoured approaching Italy to see if acceptable peace terms could be negotiated. He was overruled by Churchill after a series of stormy meetings of the War Cabinet. From 1941 to 1946, he served as British Ambassador in Washington.

Provine's Addendum:

Though Britain, France, and Italy watched violence in the east and west with the Spanish Civil War at last proving a fascist victory, their empires were not immune. Italian East Africa, recently established after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War that had worn out the first Stresa Front, faced numerous rebellions that eventually evolved into a third war. France saw similar internal struggles in Africa, but their greatest threat proved to be encroaching Japanese influence on their holdings in Indochina. Britain devoted huge resources to repress independence movements in India. Attempting to reinvigorate their position near the Suez Canal also, leaders brought a new wave of encouragement to the 1917 Balfour Declaration for a "national home for the Jewish people" within the British Mandate for Palestine. Jewish people fleeing the increasingly oppressive regimes in Germany and other parts of Europe flocked to the region, sparking strife with Palestinian locals. "Peace in our time" proved hardly universal, and world leaders held their breath to see where the next great war would begin.