Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart
Robert Gilbert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart (
1881 -
1957) was the head of the
British diplomatic service.
He was educated at
Eton College and from
1902 was employed in the diplomatic service, including
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the
Prime Minister from
1928 to
1930 and
Permanent Under-Secretary from 1930 to
1938 and then Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the Government.
Vansittart was suspicious of
Hitler from the start; anything Hitler said, he claimed, was "for foreign consumption" and thought he would start another
European
war as soon as he "felt strong enough".
[Quoted in Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Hitler. British Policy and British Politics 1933-1940 (Chicago University Press, 1977), p. 156.] Vansittart believed in revising the
Versailles Treaty in
Germany's favour but not whilst Hitler was in power. An
alliance between
France and
Russia against Germany was in Vansittart's view essential and that Britain should be firm with Germany. Vansittart also urgently advocated
rearmament.
[Ibid.]In the
summer of
1936 Vansittart visited Germany and claimed that he found a climate that "the ghost of
Barthou would hardly have recognised" and that Britain should negotiate with Germany.
[Quoted in Ibid, p. 157.] He thought that satisfying Hitler's "land hunger" at Russia's expense would be immoral and regarded the Franco-Russian alliance as non-negotiable. It was because he believed Germany had gained equality in Europe that Vansittart favoured facilitating German expansion in
Africa.
[Quoted in Ibid.] He thought that Hitler was exploiting fears of a "
Bolshevist menance" as a cover for "expansion in Central and South-Eastern Europe".
[Quoted in Ibid, p. 158.]In a similar way to
Maurice Hankey, Vansittart thought in
power politics terms. He thought Hitler could not decide whether to follow
Goebbels and
Tirpitz in viewing Britain as "the ultimate enemy" or on the other hand adopting the
Ribbentrop policy of
appeasing Britain in order to engage in military expansion in the East.
[Quoted in Ibid.] Vansittart thought that in either case time should be "bought for rearmament" by an economic agreement with Germany and by appeasing "genuine grievance[s]" about
colonies.
[Quoted in Ibid.]Vansittart wanted to detach
Mussolini from Hitler and thought that the
British Empire was an "incubus" and that the Continent was the central British
national interest but he had a doubt whether agreement could be had there.
[Quoted in Ibid., pp. 158-159.] This doubt rested on his fear that German attention, if turned Eastwards, would result in a military empire between the
Baltic, the
Adriatic and the
Black Sea.
[Ibid, p. 159.]In the years before
World War II, in the
Foreign Office, he was a major figure in the unorganised group of
anti-appeasement officials and politicians; and also involved in intelligence work. He thought along the same lines as
Churchill in terms of anti-appeasement.
Maurice Cowling,
The Impact of Hitler. British Policy and British Politics 1933-1940 (Chicago University Press, 1977), pp. 156-159.
