To begin not at the beginning but at the end of the beginning. Or rather, to begin at another beginning, where Daniel Todman’s book ends. In January 1948, Clement Attlee’s foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, told the Commons that ‘the free nations of western Europe must now draw more closely together’, for western Europe was not just a geographic entity but a global presence:
‘If we are to preserve peace and our own safety at the same time we can only do so by the mobilization of such moral and material force as will create confidence and energy in the West and inspire respect elsewhere, and this means that Britain cannot stand outside Europe and regard her problems as quite separate from those of her European neighbors.’
But, says Todman, behind this rhetoric was a more cautious approach that sought to avoid the costs of choosing between Europe and the Commonwealth and Empire. Britain, as part of its developing Cold War alliance with the USA, would lead on European defense and security cooperation, but not on economic integration. ‘For good or ill,’ he concludes, ‘Britain’s entry into the new world created by World War Two would be defined by the legacies of the past.’
Read Full Article »