CCALS: The Road to War

Recently, British historian and former political journalist at Channel 4 News, Tim Bouverie, came to Churcher's to give a superb talk on ‘Appeasement and the road to War’ as part of our Churcher's College Academic Lecture Series (CCALS).

Around 80 students attended to understand the motivations behind the 1930’s British politicians' actions to appease Hitler’s territorial expansion at that time.

Even though Hitler made it very clear from the outset what kind of regime he was going to create in Germany, he was tolerated as he was seen as a counter to an even more pernicious Communist Russia. Added to this, many in Britain were haunted by the First World War, feeling that the Treaty of Versailles had been too harsh, many British diplomats were pro-Nazi and above all, no one had the gift of hindsight in 1938.

Tim also focused on key individuals such as Chamberlain and the Labour leader Lansbury, using excellent primary sources.

He finished by saying that lessons we can take today from this time period were: to understand the nature of the regime and the nature of the threat that governments continue to face, as well as to beware of engaging in wishful thinking or to be corrupted by distorting the truth.

A huge thank you to Tim for visiting us.