Anthony Eden Research Articles

The Allied War Effort and the Jews, 1942-1943

The publication of Bernard Wasserstein's Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939-1945 in 1979 implicitly raised questions about existing studies of American response to the Holocaust. Wasserstein's approach and interpretation of British policies toward European Jews differed appreciably from those of scholars who had studied the Roosevelt administration's corresponding activities. Not content with highlighting the Foreign Office's role in the formulation of refugee policy, Wasserstein probed the views of the Home Office and Colonial Office as well. What he found was a virtually solid bureaucratic bloc that opposed most proposals for aid to Jewish victims of nazi persecution. The single most important consideration behind this opposition was concern that Britain might have to introduce Jewish refugees into Palestine, which would have damaged Britain's political and military position. A pro-Zionist Winston Churchill could make only limited headway against the consensus of the professional civil service and, on occasion, the military. Although Wasserstein found a number of cases of official dislike for Jews, most notably in the case of Foreign Minister Anthony Eden,' British policy did not rest primarily on prejudice. It was, rather, a question of priorities. Studies of the United States have concentrated to varying degrees on the activities of the State Department and the pervasiveness of anti-semitic prejudice there. Although surprisingly well-researched, journalist Arthur Morse's While Six Million Died (1967)2 bore the tone and episodic structure of an expose. Morse's main villain, apart from the nazis themselves, was Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long, whose political and social views were said to have kept Jews from reaching the shores of the United States. Historian Henry Feingold (The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945) goes even further in

The Prelude to the Truman Doctrine: British Policy in Greece, 1944-47 (review)

132 Reviews REFERENCES 1. / Tetárti Avgústu (The Fourth of August). Athens, 1975. 2. / epangelia tis adinatis epanástasis (The Promise of the Impossible Revolution) Athens, 1976. 3. Penguin Books, 1969. 4. Thanos Veremis, /epemvásis tu strata stin ellinikÃ-politiki, 1916-1936 (The Interventions of the Army in Greek Politics, 1916-1936). Athens, 1977. 5. I.A. Peponis, Nikólaos Plastirasstagegonóta, 1909-1945 (Nicholas Plastiras in the Events, 1909-1945), 2 vols. Athens, 1948. 6. Meleiimatayiro apo ton Venize'lo ketin epohitu (Studies on Venizelos and His Times), ed. O. Dimitrakopoulos and Th. Veremis. Athens, 1980. 7. See, for instance, a series of articles on the National Schism of World War I, in Kathimerini of 1934-1935, and particularly the concluding articles. 8. The Journal of Modem History, 54:4 (Dec. 1982), 746-65. 9. The American Historical Review, 84:2 (Apr. 1979), 367-98. 10. Greece and the British Connection, 1935-1941. Oxford, 1977, 59. 11. Ofasismós ke i Tetárti Avgustu (Fascism and the Fourth of August). Athens, 1977. George Alexander. The Prelude to the Truman Doctrine: British Policy in Greece, 1944-47. New York: Oxford University Press. 1982. $46.00. Mr. George Alexander is a counter-revisionist on the subject of Anglo-Greek relations at the end of the second world war. The revisionist thesis, which has held the field for many years, may be summarized thus: that EAM was a genuinely democratic organization, which happened to include a minority of Communists; that its armed force, ELAS, was solely concerned with resistance to the German occupation; and that Churchill (and later Bevin, the Labour Foreign Secretary from 1945) ruthlessly crushed them both in order to reimpose the unpopular monarchy of George II, supported by a tyrannical right-wing government. Mr. Alexander rejects this account both of the nature of EAM/ELAS and of British policy. EAM/ELAS, he argues, was the instrument with which the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) sought to obtain its objectives. "Its immediate objective was a multi-party government under communist hegemony; its ultimate aim, a Bolshevist Greece" (p. 8). This claim, which was the basis of British policy forty years ago, is Reviews 133 not easily proved even now, since KKE records are only selectively available and Soviet records not at all. But leading Communists have published reminiscences which tend to support this rather than the revisionist view. Mr. Alexander quotes Ioannis Ioannidis, writing in 1979, to the effect that the KKE's object in 1944 was to convince the British that "we were not intending to seize power by violence in order that they should not bring . . . their troops to Greece and so we would catch them sleeping and not them us" (p. 46). A number of similar remarks could be cited. With regard to British policy, it is not necessary to have recourse merely to inferences from reminiscences, because virtually all the relevant documents are now open for examination in the Public Record Office. Mr. Alexander has made very thorough use of them. His conclusion is exactly what British policy-makers would have hoped and expected: that the intention was not to crush a popular movement or to impose a monarchy by force, but "to produce a friendly, stable and democratic ally" (p. 251). Given this moderate objective, a clash with the revolutionary aims of the KKE is seen to have been inevitable. On the question of the restoration of the King, Mr. Alexander shows that neither British officials nor the Foreign Secretary (Anthony Eden) were committed to a policy of restoring him if the Greek people did not want him. Sir Rex Leeper, the Ambassador to the Greek government-in-exile, was impressed in 1943, soon after taking up his post, "by the strength of republican feeling in the cabinet" (p. 10), which reflected the even stronger feeling in Greece. Eden said in 1944 that there was "no question of our forcing any particular form of government on the Greeks . . . nor were we in any way committed as regards the position of the King" (p. 48). Churchill was more ardent than in his colleagues in hoping that the King would be restored, but had no...

Reviews Of Books

Book reviewed in this article: History and Imagination: Essays in Honour of H. R. Trevor‐Roper. Edited by Hugh Lloyd‐Jones Studies in Irish History Presented to R. Dudley Edwards. Edited by Art Cosgrove and Donal McCartney. Dublin: University College. (Distributed in Great Britain by Colin Smythe Ltd., Gerrards Cross.)1979. [ix], 253 pp. IR £12.00. Ireland under the Union: Varieties of Tension. Essays in Honour of T. W. Moody. Edited by F. S. L. Lyons and R. A. J. Hawkins. Plantation to Partition: Essays in Ulster History in Honour of J. L. McCracken. Edited by Peter Roebuck Documents Illustrating the Crisis of 1297‐98 in England. Edited by Michael Prestwich. The Crown and Local Communities in England and France in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by J. R. L. Highfield and Robin Jeffs. The Public Career of Sir Thomas More. By J. A. Guy. Brighton The House of Lords in the Parliaments of Edward VI and Mary I: An Institutional Study. By Michael A. R. Graves. Cambridge Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I: Volume I: 1558–1581. Edited by T. E. Hartley. Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy 1572–1588. By Wallace T. MacCaffrey. Commonwealth to Protectorate. By Austin Woolrych. The Declaration of Rights 1689. By Lois G. Schwoerer. London Politics 1713–1717: Minutes of a Whig Club 1714–1717, edited by H. Horwitz The Dynamics of Change: The Crisis of the 1750s and English Party Systems. By J. C. D. Clark. The Parliamentary Agents: A History. By D. L. Rydz. Holland House. By Leslie Mitchell. Gladstone: Church, State and Tractarianism. A Study of His Religious Ideas and Attitudes 1809–1859. By Perry Butler. Lord Ripon 1827–1909: A Political Biography. By Anthony Denholm. Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life. By R. F. Foster. Edward Carson. By A. T. Q. Stewart. Property and Politics 1870–1914: Landownership, Law, Ideology and Urban Development in England. By Avner Offer. The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics 1870–1914. By D. W. Bebbington. Anthony Eden: A Biography. By David Carlton.

The Resignation of Anthony Eden

On Sunday 20 February 1938, Anthony Eden, accompanied by the cheers of the waiting crowd, left the foreign office for an emergency cabinet session. That same evening he tendered his resignation as foreign secretary. Ten years later Churchill recollected his feelings on learning of the news.

Review: Foreign Service: Anthony Eden

Review: Foreign Service: Anthony Eden

Two views of Germany: Nevile Henderson vs. Vansittart and the Foreign Office, 1937–1939

On April 30, 1937 Sir Nevile Henderson arrived in Berlin and assumed charge of the British Embassy as His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. There appeared to be nothing unusual about the appointment which seemed on the surface to reflect the new more active attempts to approach the leaders of the Third Reich by Neville Chamberlain who knew that he would shortly become Prime Minister. What was unusual about the choice was the fact it was made by Sir Robert Vansittart, then Permanent Undersecretary at the Foreign Office and approved by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. Both men soon regretted the grave decision and Vansittart, as if to try to rectify his error, spent an enormous amount of energy during the next two and a Jialf years severely critizing Henderson's recommendations, evaluations and actions.

4 February 1942: Its Causes and Its Influence on Egyptian Politics and on the Future of Anglo-Egyptian Relations, 1937–1945

The British military presence in Egypt established in 1882 ended on 27 July 1954 with an agreement providing for withdrawal of forces from the Suez Canal Zone within twenty months. The signing was a victory for Colonel Jamāl 'Abd al-Nāsir and a defeat for Anthony Eden who had sought to retain British forces on air bases within the Zone. British attempts to regularize their occupation of Egyptian territory after World War II in the face of nationalist demands had failed, its doom foretold with the advent of the officers’ regime which took over Egypt on 23 July 1952 and exiled Fārūq three days later.

Another World 1897-1917 (review)

268 biography Vol. 2, No. 3 to the same issue of Poetry. 2) a quote from Elinor's extremely cagey and oblique review of The Waste Land. Frost: He stayed at Amy Lowell 's house, and Elinor may have met him at dinner. Once. Ralph Hodgson: "Not since I discovered Ralph Hodgson have I had such happiness in a new volume of poems." Edna Millay to Elinor Wylie. Dr. Olson ventures a rare literary judgment in the next sentence: "Ralph Hodgson, while so startling to Edna Millay, failed to make the slightest intrusion on the history of poetry." Perhaps one should be grateful that Dr. Olson withholds so much analysis, but why not withhold the entire book? And there, friends, with the exception of "Shelley , fascination with," as it is indexed, you have the references to poets. Oh, there is the usual mob of literary mediocrities of the Twenties , who took themselves, and each other, so seriously, and who, unlike Ralph Hodgson, have virtually disappeared without a trace. Why resurrect them? One final word: The New York Times Book Reviewer says that "the strength of this book is Stanley Olson's prose." The book has no strengths that are visible to me. And the prose is execrable. Reader beware! Carolyn Kizer Berkeley, California Anthony Eden, Another World 1897-1917. New York: Doubleday, 1977. 175 pp. $7.95. It may be the horror of our century's events, or the slackness of its prose, which causes most modern statesmen's memoirs to sink, under their own weight, with scarcely a trace left behind. But Lord Avon's last book is much more likely to stay afloat. Written not long before his death early last year, Another World (which reviews the first twenty years of the life much more fully chronicled in four other volumes, including Full Circle and Facing the Dictators) is a shy, slight, almost apologetic afterthought. The author is going over private rather than public ground now, and he is not altogether sure of the course. But his hesitancy proves part of his book's charm and worth. He tells us of his childhood at "Windlestone" in County Durham— the photographs show it to be a house somewhat larger than the art museums of most major cities—under a gentle, beautiful mother (ad- reviews 269 mired in a quoted stream of Edwardian thank-you notes from, among others, the poet and novelist George Moore and the painter Walter Sickert) and a diffident but discerning father who painted and collected pictures. Around the author were also a lovely older sister, some good fellows for brothers, worthy servants and tutors, and only the most tame and occasional "ruction" to upset an idyllic life that "all seemed so permanent; the same family had been established at this site for four centuries. Why should it end in any of our lifetimes? . . . [I]n the summer of 1911, none of us had an inkling of the holocaust to come." This extinguished world is evoked with a charming , embarrassed vagueness; Eden's exposition of chronology and background where personal and family history are concerned is appealingly slack. We get, instead of chronicle, moments and sketches. The author's career at Eton, except as it pertains to training for the war, merits a single paragraph; an earlier incident with a pony gets two. The memories are quiet, anti-climactic, even ghostly. Anyone familiar with Siegfried Sassoons' autobiography (the actual one, not the Sherston memoirs) will recognize this way of putting forth the past. It is infuriating and compelling. Then the holocaust. Lord Avon was a Platoon Leader, Adjutant and Brigade Major in a service career that stretched from before the horrific Somme campaign past the Armistice. He tells his story in the same calm manner in which he tells the story of his world before 1914. He is not "literary": the world of the trenches does not become "unreal" or "absurd" when held against the world he knew. The world of war is simply a bad world, different from the unquestioned good one he left behind. It was perhaps this sturdy lack of imagination which led the leaders of Europe into the Great War, but that...

Peacemaking on the Dark Side of the Moon: Hungary 1943–1947

At the close of hostilities geography proved decisive in the mis-fortune of Hungary, a country that had been in the inner circle of the German power sphere. From this came the basic problem of Hungarian diplomacy—attempting to preserve Hungarian independence in an almost impossible situation. None of the Axis satellites was in so precarious a position. The peripheral location of Italy, Finland, Rumania and Bulgaria made possible their early surrender, but events in Hungary inevitably turned out differently. Hungary could hardly succeed in changing sides during the war. She did not enjoy the trust of the Germans, her supposed partners. She did not enjoy much sympathy in the West. And she was positively disliked by the Russians. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden said to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that he “thought Stalin would want to be pretty arbitrary about Hungary.”

Anthony Eden and the Truman-Molotov Conversations, April 1945

Anthony Eden and the Truman-Molotov Conversations, April 1945

Chamberlain and Eden, 1937-38

When Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister on 28 May 1937, he 'inherited' the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Anthony Eden, and the Under-Secretary, Viscount Cranborne (later to be the fifth Marquis of Salisbury). Baldwin had not exerted a strong personal influence over the Foreign Office; but when Chamberlain took control he was determined to tackle the dangerous and deteriorating international situation in a purposeful manner. Some months later he reminded Eden of the policy on which they had agreed:

Leadership personality and war: the cases of Richard Nixon and Anthony Eden.

Leadership attributes affecting the policy process are examined at two levels: the Head of Government's experience in foreign affairs prior to assuming office and, secondly, psychological factors accounting for degrees of dogmatism — the extent to which, in an international crisis situation, the leader is “open” or “closed” to relevant evidence and advice. The dogmatic determination of Prime Minister Anthony Eden and President Richard Nixon — who were widely regarded as foreign affairs experts — to proceed with their respective 1956 Suez and 1970 Cambodian military operations despite advice highlighting evidence that the policies were likely to be counterproductive suggests that expertise will not necessarily prevent irrational decision-making. Eden's and Nixon's actions were motivated not by domestic political requirements or foreign pressures, but by their powerful inner needs to meet a challenge in their area of expertise in order to counter deep-rooted personal feelings of insecurity and inferiority.

Sir Robert Vansittart's Search for Italian cooperation against Hitler, 1933—36

As Permanent Under Secretary of State and head of the British Foreign Office from 1930 to 1938 Sir Robert Vansittart acquired a reputation as a relentless foe of Germany. From the time Hitler came to power Vansittart never ceased to warn his government about the German menace and the need for Britain to re-arm. An acknowledged expert in foreign affairs, his advice was actively sought and sometimes followed even by those who had reservations about his policies. He was respected by Britain's Foreign Secretaries with whom he worked, Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare and Anthony Eden, all of whom had high regard for his ability.1 Despite Hitler's peaceful rhetoric during the first years of the Nazi regime, Vansittart mistrusted the Fiihrer and predicted after only seven months of his leadership many of the disasters that would befall Britain unless she changed her course towards Germany.2 Since in his view Hitler's Germany was the main enemy, Vansittart believed Britain should

Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, 1893-1972

Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil, fifth Marquess of Salisbury, was born at the family seat, Hatfield House, on 27 August 1893, eldest son of the fourth Marquess. After spending his early childhood at Hatfield he went to school at Eton and thence in due course to Christ Church, Oxford. His time at Oxford was cut short by the outbreak of the First World War, when he was gazetted to a commission in the Grenadier Guards and served with his regiment in France. Invalided home in September 1915 after having won the Croix de Guerre, he became, in 1916, Personal Military Secretary to the Secretary of State for War; at the conclusion of hostilities he did not return to Oxford but went into the City as a member of a firm of bill brokers and a Director of the Westminster Bank. As a Cecil, representing the latest generation of a family which had served the state with distinction from the days of Lord Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth I’s Minister, whose son became the first Earl of Salisbury (the Marquessate dates from 1789), it was only to be expected that he would, in due course, turn to politics. This he did when, in 1929, as Viscount Cranborne—the courtesy title by which he was generally known until he succeeded his father in 1947—he entered Parliament as Conservative member for South Dorset, a constituency which he continued to represent until 1941. He first attained junior office in 1934 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr Anthony Eden when the latter became Lord Privy Seal with special responsibility for League of Nations affairs. These two travelled all over Europe on League business and so closely and successfully did they work together that when, in 1935, Eden was made Minister without Portfolio, the Government wished him still to have the assistance of Cranborne as Parliamentary Undersecretary of State. As Eden had no Department of his own this was done by appointing Cranborne Under-Secretary of State to the Foreign Office and passing a special Act of Parliament to permit two Under-Secretaries of State of the Foreign Office to sit in the Commons at the same time.

The Pathology of Leadership

That the illness of political figures can shape history is well-known. Hugh L'Etang, an English physician and editor, brings the chronicle up to date by recounting how, since 1908, 11 out of 13 British prime ministers and 6 out of 10 American presidents have suffered from some degree of incapacitating illness while in office. Illness also affects the second echelon of decision-makers, cabinet ministers, and generals. While Woodrow Wilson's cerebral thrombosis and hemiparesis are wellknown to Americans as a major cause for the failure of the treaty of Versailles, a less familiar item is Franklin Roosevelt's propensity for surrounding himself with sick and ailing cabinet ministers and other advisers. Dr. L'Etang astutely points out that at the time of the Suez crisis, Anthony Eden was suffering from recurrent biliary-tract disease and John Foster Dulles from the preliminary symptoms of his intestinal cancer. Even during World War I the British generals

Roosevelt on Peace and Freedom

T HE AGREEMENTS and understandings of the Yalta Conference concluded in February 1945 represented the supreme effort of Roosevelt and his advisors to secure cooperation of the Soviet Union for establishing democratic governments in eastern Europe. At that point, the Americans believed that was possible to work together with the Russians within the framework of an international organization as an alternative to relying on spheres of influence. But only few weeks after the signing of that declaration, the U.S.S.R. installed Communist-controlled government in Rumania, in violation of the Declaration of Liberated Europe. Secretary of War Stimson has written that the conference dealt a good deal in altruism and idealism instead of stark realities.1 However this may be, the conference as whole dealt with problems related to both war and peace, and therefore the coming-into-being of the peace makes possible for us to study the manner in which Roosevelt, one of the principal architects of the Yalta agreements, sought to achieve peace and freedom. Yalta, moreover, has some affinity to the Cold War, for the issues left unsettled there would become burning issues in the Cold War period. The Yalta Agreement has come to be associated in the public mind with secret and somehow shameful agreements. Some of the President's critics have had no difficulty in seeing that the part of the agreement, which was made in secret by Roosevelt and Stalin, contributed to the collapse of the Nationalist regime in China. Churchill signed the secret agreement along with Roosevelt and Stalin, but was careful to disassociate himself from it. He stated in his memoirs that it was regarded as an American affair and was certainly of prime interest to their military operations. It was not for us to claim to shape it.2 But, as Anthony Eden relates,

Towards Peace in Indo-China

Journal Article Towards Peace in Indo-China Get access Towards Peace in Indo-China. By Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon. Foreword by the Rt. Hon. Kenneth Younger. London, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne: Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs. 1966. 71 pp. (Chatham House Essays: 14.) 7s. 6d. Saul Rose Saul Rose Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 43, Issue 1, January 1967, Pages 183–184, https://doi.org/10.2307/2612589 Published: 01 January 1967

The Reckoning: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden by the Earl of Avon

Book Review| January 01 1966 The Reckoning: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden by the Earl of Avon The Reckoning: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden. By the Earl of Avon. Boston: Houghton Miffin Company, 1965. Pp. 716. $8.50. William R. Rock William R. Rock Bowling Green State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (1966) 65 (1): 146–147. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-65-1-146 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation William R. Rock; The Reckoning: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden by the Earl of Avon. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 January 1966; 65 (1): 146–147. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-65-1-146 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsSouth Atlantic Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1966 by Duke University Press1966 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Anthony Eden and the Cacophony of Nations

Anthony Eden and the Cacophony of Nations

The Memoirs of Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon: Facing the Dictators.

<i>The Memoirs of Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon: Facing the Dictators</i>.