A J Taylor - Origins Of The Second World War

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

A J P Taylor was one of Britains most popular and authoritative historians. He wrote major scholarly works of British and diplomatic history, which also became bestsellers, and he was much admired for the many impromptu television lectures he gave.

Alan John Percivale Taylor was born in Lancashire in 1906. He was educated at Bootham School in York before winning a scholarship to read History at Oriel College, Oxford, where he received a first-class degree. He then became a lecturer in Modern History at Manchester University from 1930 to 1938, and from then until 1976 was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He was later made an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen and received honorary doctorates from, among others, Bristol, Warwick and Manchester universities. His books include The Course of German History; The Last of Old Europe; How Wars Begin; How Wars End; The Trouble Makers; Beaverbrook; Essays in English History; Europe: Grandeur and Decline; and his autobiography, A Personal History. His most important works are still in print, of which Penguin publish Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman; The Origins of the Second World War; The First World War; The Second World War: An Illustrated History; The Habsburg Monarchy 18091918; The War Lords; a collection of essays on nineteenth-century Europe entitled From Napoleon to the Second International; and From the Boer War to the Cold War, a further collection of his essays.

A J P Taylor died in September 1990. In his obituary, The Times paid tribute to him as probably the most controversial, and certainly the best known, historian in the English-speaking world. In his prime A J P Taylor attracted and usually bewitched a wider following than Macaulay ever dreamt of. Prolific and bestselling author, gifted journalist, and sui generis as a television star, he attempted to transform the historical understanding of his day.

A J P Taylor

Penguin Books

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First published by Hamish Hamilton 1961

Published in Penguin Books 1964

Reprinted in Pelican Books 1987

Reprinted in Penguin Books 1991

Copyright A J P Taylor, 1961, 1963

All rights reserved

This edition contains the Foreword:
Second Thoughts (1963)

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-192702-2

I wrote this book in order to satisfy my historical curiosity; in the words of a more successful historian, to understand what happened, and why it happened. Historians often dislike what happened or wish that it had happened differently. There is nothing they can do about it. They have to state the truth as they see it without worrying whether this shocks or confirms existing prejudices. Maybe I assumed this too innocently. I ought perhaps to have warned the reader that I do not come to history as a judge; and that when I speak of morality I refer to the moral feelings at the time I am writing about. I make no moral judgement of my own. Thus when I write ( asked President Benes whether he did not think that Czechoslovakia would have been stronger if it had included, say, a million and a half Germans fewer. So long did the spirit of appeasement linger. As a matter of fact, there was no half-way house: either three and a half million Germans in Czechoslovakia or none. The Czechs themselves recognized this by expelling the Germans after the second World war. It was not for me to endorse, or to condemn, Hitlers claim; only to explain why it was so widely endorsed.

I am sorry if this disappoints simple-minded Germans who imagined that my book had somehow vindicated Hitler. I have however no sympathy with those in this country who complained that my book had been welcomed, mistakenly or not, by former supporters of Hitler. This seems to me a disgraceful argument to be used against a work of history. A historian must not hesitate even if his books lend aid and comfort to the Queens enemies (though mine did not), or even to the common enemies of mankind. For my part, I would even record facts which told in favour of the British government if I found any to record (goak again). It is not my fault that, according to the record, the Austrian crisis was launched by Schuschnigg, not by Hitler; not my fault that the British government, according to the record, not Hitler, took the lead in dismembering Czechoslovakia; not my fault that the British government in 1939 gave Hitler the impression that they were more concerned to impose concessions on the Poles than to resist Germany. If these things tell in favour of Hitler, it is the fault of previous legends which have been repeated by historians without examination. These legends have a long life. I suspect I have repeated some. For instance I went on believing until the last moment that Hitler summoned Hacha to Berlin; only when the book was in proof, did I look at the records again and discover that Hacha asked to come to Berlin, not the other way round. No doubt other legends have slipped through.

Destroying these legends is not a vindication of Hitler. It is a service to historical truth, and my book should be challenged only on this basis, not for the political morals which people choose to draw from it. This book is not a contribution to revisionism except in the lesser sense of suggesting that Hitler used different methods from those usually attributed to him. I have never seen any sense in the question of war guilt or war innocence. In a world of sovereign states, each does the best it can for its own interests; and can be criticized at most for mistakes, not for crimes. Bismarck, as usual, was right when he said of the Austro-Prussian war in 1866: Austria was no more in the wrong in opposing our claims than we were in making them. As a private citizen, I think that all this striving after greatness and domination is idiotic; and I would like my country not to take part in it. As a historian, I recognise that Powers will be Powers. My book has really little to do with Hitler. The vital question, it seems to me, concerns Great Britain and France. They were the victors of the first World war. They had the decision in their hands. It was perfectly obvious that Germany would seek to become a Great Power again; obvious after 1933 that her domination would be of a peculiarly barbaric sort. Why did the victors not resist her? There are various answers: timidity; blindness; moral doubts; desire perhaps to turn German strength against Soviet Russia. But whatever the answers, this seems to me the important question, and my book revolves round it, though also of course round the other question: why did they resist in the end?