David Dutton

Bio: David Dutton is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Foreign policy. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 2 citations.

Simon and Eden at the Foreign Office, 1931–1935

Abstract: This is according to Protocol. More briefly ‘Dear Anthony meet me at Geneva. Yrs. Cleopatra’Very few of the figures who held responsibility for the making and direction of British foreign policy in the 1930s did so with much benefit to their subsequent historical reputations. Three of the four men who occupied the post of Foreign Secretary after the General Election of 1931 appeared in the cast list of the ‘Guilty Men’, vilified by the triumvirate of left-wing journalists who wrote under the pseudonym of ‘Cato’ in the dramatic summer of 1940. That vilification has been only partially redeemed by the efforts of later revisionist biographers. Certainly, Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Halifax all left the Foreign Office with their political reputations lower in the public mind than at the time of taking office. The exception to this experience was, of course, the case of Anthony Eden who, at the time of his resignation in February 1938 after more than six years as a member of the National Government, stood, in Churchill's famous words, as the ‘one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender’. The making of his reputation had begun in the early 1930s when Eden occupied only subordinate office within the administration. Yet an examination of the making of British foreign policy in the years 1931–5 will show that popular perceptions of Eden's position and of an apparently serious rift between him and his departmental superior were somewhat misleading.

Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919–1939: Soviet Russian assertiveness: February 1936–July 1937

Abstract: The decision not to offer Soviet Russia a loan (and, by extension, not to prepare the way for a possible political arrangement between the two states) did not end the choices facing those who made British policy. The next year and a half was full of events that made determining the direction of British policy even more difficult. British strategic foreign policy continued in its ‘deterrence’ phase, with no new consensus about its proper direction emerging. The German remilitarization of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936 and the ratification of the Franco-Soviet Treaty on 2 May undermined Eden's efforts to find a comprehensive settlement based on an Anglo-French-German understanding. Italy annexed Abyssinia, again revealing the League's impotence. On 18 July 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out, with all its ideological, political and strategic complications. In the Far East, a series of incidents kept Anglo-Japanese relations on edge, while, on 25 November, the signing of the German–Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact linked two of Britain's potential foes together. In May and June 1937, the Purges in the Red Army and the resulting questioning of Soviet Russia's strategic value threatened to disrupt the precarious balance of power. Finally, on 7 July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge incident initiated fully fledged hostilities between Japan and China, which threatened British interests in China. However, until the advent of the Purges, Soviet Russian military strength increased, and Moscow continued to pursue a policy of deterrence towards both Germany and Japan.

Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919-1939

Abstract: Introduction 1 The period of persuasion: British strategic foreign policy and Soviet Russia, 1919-33 2 1933-4: parallel interests? 3 A clash of sensibilities: January to June 1935 4 Complications and choices: July 1935-February 1936 5 Soviet Russian assertiveness: February 1936-July 1937 6 Chamberlain's interlude: May 1937-September 1938 7 Chamberlain as Buridan's ass: October 1938-September 1939 Conclusion