Biography

In 1938 Chamberlain was lauded during his tenure as Prime Minister for keeping Britain out of a war with Germany. However after World War II he was denigrated for appeasement.

British Conservative Prime Minister (28 May 1937 - 10 May 1940).

The Munich Agreement is now regarded as a failure because it failed to stop further German aggression. Upon realizing its failure following the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, it was Chamberlain's decision to offer a military alliance to Poland on 25 August 1939 that resulted in World War II. Despite this alliance, the UK was in no position to do anything to help Poland and many of the Nazis' worst atrocities took place in that country over the next six years.

His brother started the urban myth that the Chinese have a saying: "May you live in interesting times".

He attempted to form an anti-fascist alliance with the Soviet Union in August 1939, but this was made impossible when Poland and Romania said they would not allow the Red Army to be stationed on their territory in order to deter a German invasion. The Soviet Union subsequently signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Germany on 23 August 1939.

The day may come when my much cursed visit to Munich will be understood. Neither we nor the French were prepared for war. I am not responsible for this lack of preparation ... It would be rash to prophesy the verdict of history, but if full access is obtained to all the records it will be seen that I realized from the beginning our military weakness and did my best to postpone if I could not avert the war.

So far as my personal reputation is concerned, I am not in the least disturbed about it. The letters which I am still receiving in such vast quantities so unanimously dwell on the same point, namely without Munich the war would have been lost and the Empire destroyed in 1938 ... I do not feel the opposite view ... has a chance of survival. Even if nothing further were to be published giving the true inside story of the past two years I should not fear the historian's verdict.

[on the outbreak of World War II] Everything I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life, has crashed into ruins.

In the absence of any powerful ally, and until our armaments are completed, we must adjust our foreign policy to our circumstances, and even bear with patience and good humour actions which we should like to treat in a very different fashion. (January 1938)

The only thing that matters is to win the war, though we may go bankrupt in the process.