Guilty Men
''Guilty Men'' is a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. A classic denunciation of the former government policy, it shaped popular and scholarly thinking for two decades. Contents ''Guilty Men'' was a British polemical book written under the pseudonym "Cato" published in July 1940. It attacked fifteen public figures for their failed policies towards Germany and for their failure to re-equip the British armed forces. In denouncing appeasement, it defines the policy as the "deliberate surrender of small nations in the face of Hitler's blatant bullying". The book's slogan, "Let the guilty men retire", was an attack on members of the National Government before Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940. Most were Conservatives, although some were National Liberals and one was Ramsay MacDonald, the former leader of the Labour Party. Several we ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Appeasement
Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governments of Prime Ministers Ramsay MacDonald (in office: 1929–1935), Stanley Baldwin (in office: 1935–1937) and (most notably) Neville Chamberlain (in office: 1937–1940) towards Nazi Germany (from 1933) and Fascist Italy (established in 1922) between 1935 and 1939. Under British pressure, appeasement of Nazism and Fascism also played a role in French foreign policy of the period, but was always much less popular than in the United Kingdom. At the beginning of the 1930s, appeasing concessions were widely seen as desirable—due to the anti-war reaction to the trauma of World War I (1914–1918), second thoughts about the perceived vindictive treatment by some of Germany in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and a perception that fasci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ernest Brown (British Politician)
Alfred Ernest Brown (27 August 1881 – 16 February 1962) was a British politician who served as leader of the Liberal Nationals from 1940 until 1945. He was a member of Parliament and also held many other political offices throughout the Second World War. Biography Born in Torquay, Devon, Brown was the son of a fisherman and prominent Baptist and it was through following his father that he came to preach, gaining much experience as a public speaker. He soon came to the attention of the local Liberals and became a prominent public speaker at political meetings. Brown served in the First World War: in 1914 he joined the Sportsman's Battalion and in 1916 was commissioned as an officer in the Somerset Light Infantry. He was mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the Military Cross. After three unsuccessful attempts in other constituencies, he was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Rugby in the 1923 general election but lost his seat in the 1924 general elec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Left Book Club
The Left Book Club was a publishing group that exerted a strong left-wing influence in Great Britain from 1936 to 1948. Pioneered by Victor Gollancz, it offered a monthly book choice, for sale to members only, as well as a newsletter that acquired the status of a major political magazine. It also held an annual rally. Membership peaked at 57,000, but after the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact of 1939, it disowned its large Communist element, and subsequent years of paper-rationing, during and after the war, led to further decline. It ceased publishing in 1948. The concept and series was revived in 2015, following at least one earlier effort to relaunch the series in the early 2000s. Early success and organisation The Left Book Club, founded in May 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and the 1940s in the United Kingdom. It was set up by Stafford Cripps, Victor Gollancz and John Strachey to revitalise and educate the British Left.... The club's aim was to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Victor Gollancz
Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism, but he defined himself as a Christian socialist and internationalist. He used his publishing house chiefly to promote pacifist and socialist non-fiction, and also launched the Left Book Club. In the postwar era, he focused his attention on Germany and became known for his promotion of friendship and reconciliation based on his internationalism and his ethic of brotherly love. He founded the organisation Save Europe Now (SEN) in 1945 to campaign for humane treatment of German civilians, and drew attention to their suffering, especially children, and atrocities committed against German civilians. He received an honorary doctorate at the University of Frankfurt in 1949, the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz of Germany in 1953 and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Peter Howard (journalist)
Peter Dunsmore Howard (20 December 1908 – 25 February 1965) was a British journalist, playwright, captain of the England national rugby union team and leader of Moral Re-Armament from 1961 to 1965. He also won a World Championship bobsleigh medal in 1939. Biography Born in Maidenhead, England, Howard was educated at Mill Hill School. A graduate of the University of Oxford and journalist, Howard captained the England national rugby union team while he worked with Oswald Mosley for the New Party. Howard represented Oxford University RFC in The Varsity Match in 1929 and 1930 and made his England debut against Wales in January 1930 while he was still at Oxford. He played eight times for England and in all four matches in the Five Nations Championship in both 1930 and 1931. He captained England against Ireland at Twickenham in 1931, Ireland winning 6–5.Griffiths, page 1:25 In 1939, he won the silver medal in the four-man event at the FIBT World Championships in St. Moritz. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two Major party, major List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs (British political party), Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites and reformist Radicals (UK), Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century it had formed four governments under William Ewart Gladstone, William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule Movement, Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 United Kingdom general election, 1906 general election. Under Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed Liberal welfare reforms, reforms that created a basic welfare state. Although Asquith was the Leader of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frank Owen (politician)
Humphrey Frank Owen (4 November 1905 – 23 January 1979) was a British journalist, writer, and radical Liberal Member of Parliament. He was Liberal MP for Hereford between 1929 and 1931. He was an editor of the ''Evening Standard'' and the ''Daily Mail''. He was awarded the OBE in 1946. Background Frank Owen was born in Hereford on 4 November 1905, the son of an innkeeper Thomas Humphrey Owen and Cicely Hannah Green. He was educated at Monmouth School and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He graduated from Cambridge with honours in history. He married Grace Stewart McGillivray of Boston, USA in 1939. She died in 1968. Journalism and books He worked as a journalist on the '' South Wales Argus'' (1928–29), the '' Daily Express'' (1931–37) and was editor of the ''Evening Standard'' (1938–41). He was strongly anti-Nazi, and during the years of appeasement he made a feature of rewriting ''Mein Kampf'' week after week to sound the alarm. In 1940, along with Michael Foot and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the '' Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler, '' Guilty Men'', under a pseudonym. Foot served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1955 and again from 1960 until he retired in 1992. A passionate orator, and associated with the left wing of the Labour Party for most of his career, Foot was an ardent supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and of British withdrawal from the European Economic Community (EEC). He was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Employment under Harold Wilson in 1974, and he later served as Leader of the House of Commons (1976–1979) under James Callaghan. He was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under Callaghan from 1976 to 1980. Elected as a compromise candidate, Foot s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reginald Dorman-Smith
Colonel Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman-Smith, GBE (10 March 1899 – 20 March 1977) was an Anglo-Irish diplomat, soldier and politician in the British Empire. Early life and politics Dorman-Smith was educated at Harrow School and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. After serving in the army, he continued his career with a strong interest in agriculture, becoming president of the National Farmers Union (the NFU) at the age of 32, and then later Minister of Agriculture. He was first elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Petersfield in the 1935 general election as one of a handful of MPs sponsored by the NFU and served as the Union's president for the following few years. In the late 1930s, the British Government's agricultural policy came in for heavy criticism from the NFU, Parliament and the Press and in January 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain took the bold step of appointing Dorman-Smith as Minister of Agriculture. In October 1940, Dorman-Smith instigated th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil
William Shepherd Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, (10 August 1893 – 3 February 1961), was a British politician. He was a long-serving cabinet minister before serving as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1951 to 1959. He was then appointed as the 14th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1960 until his death in 1961. Morrison was the son of a Scottish farmer, born in the small village of Torinturk, Argyll. He attended George Watson's College and then went on to the University of Edinburgh; his studies were interrupted by World War I, where he served with the Royal Field Artillery and won the Military Cross. Training as a lawyer, Morrison was called to the bar in 1923 and began working as a private secretary to Thomas Inskip, the Solicitor General. After several previous attempts, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1929, representing a constituency in Gloucestershire for the Conservative Party. In 1936, after several years as a junior minister, Morr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope
James Richard Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope, (11 November 1880 – 15 August 1967), styled Viscount Mahon until 1905, and known as the Earl Stanhope from 1905 until his death, was a British Conservative politician. Background Stanhope was the eldest son of Arthur Stanhope, 6th Earl Stanhope, and Evelyn Henrietta (née Pennefather), daughter of Richard Pennefather of Knockeevan, County Tipperary and Lady Emily Butler. The Hon. Edward Stanhope and Philip Stanhope, 1st Baron Weardale, were his uncles. Lord Mahon was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 5 January 1901, and went with his battalion to serve in South Africa during the Second Boer War. Following the end of this war in June 1902, he returned with a large contingent of men from the guards regiments on board the SS ''Lake Michigan'', which arrived in Southampton in October 1902. Political career Stanhope entered the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1905, and made his maiden speech in No ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Leslie Burgin
Edward Leslie Burgin (13 July 1887 – 16 August 1945) was a British Liberal and later Liberal National politician in the 1930s. Biography Born to Edward Lambert Burgin, a solicitor, Burgin studied law at the University of London, graduating with a first-class LL.B. in 1908 and a LL.D. in 1913. Burgin trained as a solicitor specialising in international law and served as principal and director of legal studies to the Law Society. He contested Hornsey four times and East Ham North once, without success. In the 1929 general election Burgin was elected as Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Luton. Along with some other Liberal MPs he joined the Liberal Nationals in 1931 and was made a Charity Commissioner. In 1932 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. He was appointed to the Privy Council in the 1937 Coronation Honours. In 1937 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appointed Burgin as Minister of Transport. Two years later he was appointed as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |