Editing Stanley Baldwin (section)

==Prime Minister (1935–1937)<span class="anchor" id="Third premiership"></span><!-- linked from redirects [[Third premiership of Stanley Baldwin]], [[Third prime ministership of Stanley Baldwin]] -->==
===National Government and appointment===
{{further|National Government (1935–1937)}}
With MacDonald's health in decline, he and Baldwin changed places in June 1935: Baldwin was now prime minister, MacDonald Lord President of the council.<ref>Taylor, p. 378.</ref> In October that year, Baldwin called a [[1935 United Kingdom general election|general election]]. Neville Chamberlain advised Baldwin to make rearmament the leading issue in the election campaign against Labour and said that if a rearmament programme was not announced until after the election, his government would be seen as having deceived the people.<ref>Maurice Cowling, ''The Impact of Hitler. British Politics and British Policy, 1933–1940'' (Chicago University Press, 1977), p. 92.</ref> However, Baldwin did not make rearmament the central issue in the election. He said that he would support the League of Nations, modernise Britain's defences and remedy deficiencies, but he also said: "I give you my word that there will be no great armaments".<ref name="Taylor1">Taylor, p. 383.</ref> The main issues in the election were housing, unemployment and the special areas of economic depression.<ref name="Taylor1"/> The election gave 430 seats to National Government supporters (386 of these Conservative) and 154 seats to Labour.

===Rearmament===
Baldwin's younger son A. Windham Baldwin, writing in 1955, argued that his father, Stanley, had planned a rearmament programme as early as 1934 but had to do so quietly to avoid antagonising the public, whose pacifism was revealed by the [[Peace Ballot]] of 1934–35 and endorsed by both the Labour and the Liberal oppositions. His thorough presentation of the case for rearmament in 1935, his son argued, defeated pacifism and secured a victory that allowed rearmament to move ahead.<ref>A. Windham Baldwin, ''My Father: The True Story'' (1955)</ref>

On 31 July 1934, the Cabinet approved a report that called for expansion of the [[Royal Air Force]] to the 1923 standard by creating 40 new squadrons over the next five years.<ref>Correlli Barnett, ''The Collapse of British Power'' (London: Methuen, 1972), p. 412.</ref> On 26 November 1934, six days after receiving the news that the German air force ([[Luftwaffe]]) would be as large as the RAF within one year, the Cabinet decided to speed up air rearmament from four years to two.<ref name="Barnett1">Barnett, p. 413.</ref> On 28 November 1934, Churchill moved an amendment to the vote of thanks for the King's Speech: "the strength of our national defences, and especially our air defences, is no longer adequate".<ref>R. A. C. Parker, ''Churchill and Appeasement'' (Macmillan, 2000), p. 45.</ref> His motion was known eight days before it was moved, and a special Cabinet meeting decided how to deal with the motion, which dominated two other Cabinet meetings.<ref>Parker, p. 45.</ref> Churchill said [[German rearmament|Nazi Germany was rearming]] and requested that the money spent on air armaments be doubled or tripled to deter an attack and that the ''Luftwaffe'' was nearing equality with the RAF.<ref>Martin Gilbert, ''Churchill. A Life'' (Pimlico, 2000), pp. 536–7.</ref> Baldwin responded by denying that the Luftwaffe was approaching equality and said it was "not 50 per cent" of the RAF. He added that by the end of 1935 the RAF would still have "a margin of nearly 50 per cent" in Europe.<ref>Gilbert, pp. 537–8.</ref> After Baldwin said that the government would ensure the RAF had parity with the future German air force, Churchill withdrew his amendment. In April 1935, the Air Secretary reported that although Britain's strength in the air would be ahead of Germany's for at least three years, air rearmament needed to be increased; so the Cabinet agreed to the creation of an extra 39 squadrons for home defence by 1937.<ref name="Barnett1"/> However, on 8 May 1935, the Cabinet heard that it was estimated that the RAF was inferior to the [[Luftwaffe]] by 370 aircraft and that to reach parity, the RAF must have 3,800 aircraft by April 1937, an extra 1,400 above the existing air programme. It was learnt that Nazi Germany was easily able to outbuild that revised programme as well.<ref>Barnett, p. 414.</ref> On 21 May 1935, the Cabinet agreed to expanding the home defence force of the RAF to 1,512 aircraft (840 bombers and 420 fighters).<ref name="Barnett1"/> (see also [[German rearmament#Nazi government era: 1933–1945|German rearmament]])
On 22 May 1935 Baldwin confessed in the House of Commons, "I was wrong in my estimate of the future. There I was completely wrong."<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 818.</ref>

On 25 February 1936, the Cabinet approved a report calling for expansion of the [[Royal Navy]] and the re-equipment of the [[British Army]] (though not its expansion), along with the creation of "shadow factories" built by public money and managed by industrial companies. The factories came into operation in 1937. In February 1937, the Chiefs of Staff reported that by May 1937, the Luftwaffe would have 800 bombers, compared to the RAF's 48.<ref>Barnett, pp. 414–15.</ref>

In the debate in the Commons on 12 November 1936, Churchill attacked the government on rearmament as being "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on, preparing more months and years – precious, perhaps vital, to the greatness of Britain – for the locusts to eat". Baldwin replied:

<blockquote>I put before the whole House my own views with an appalling frankness. From 1933, I and my friends were all very worried about what was happening in Europe. You will remember at that time the Disarmament Conference was sitting in Geneva. You will remember at that time there was probably a stronger pacifist feeling running through the country than at any time since the War. I am speaking of 1933 and 1934. You will remember the election at Fulham in the autumn of 1933.... That was the feeling of the country in 1933. My position as a leader of a great party was not altogether a comfortable one. I asked myself what chance was there... within the next year or two of that feeling being so changed that the country would give a mandate for rearmament? Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming and we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cry at that moment! I cannot think of anything that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more certain.... We got from the country – with a large majority – a mandate for doing a thing that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible.<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 970, p. 972.</ref></blockquote>

Churchill wrote to a friend: "I have never heard such a squalid confession from a public man as Baldwin offered us yesterday".<ref>Gilbert, p. 567.</ref> In 1935 Baldwin wrote to [[J. C. C. Davidson]] in a letter now lost that said of Churchill: "If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister".<ref name="Middlemas3">Middlemas and Barnes, p. 872.</ref> [[Thomas Dugdale, 1st Baron Crathorne|Thomas Dugdale]] also claimed Baldwin said to him: "If we do have a war, Winston must be Prime Minister. If he is in [the Cabinet] now we shan't be able to engage in that war as a united nation".<ref name="Middlemas3"/> The General Secretary of the [[Trades Union Congress]], [[Walter Citrine]], recalled a conversation he had had with Baldwin on 5 April 1943: "Baldwin thought his [Churchill's] political recovery was marvellous. He, personally, had always thought that if war came Winston would be the right man for the job".<ref>[[Walter Citrine, 1st Baron Citrin|Lord Citrine]], ''Men and Work. An Autobiography'' (London: Hutchinson, 1964), p. 355.</ref>

The [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] strongly opposed the rearmament programme. [[Clement Attlee]] said on 21 December 1933: "For our part, we are unalterably opposed to anything in the nature of rearmament".<ref name="Barnett2">Barnett, p. 422.</ref> On 8 March 1934, Attlee said, after Baldwin defended the Air Estimates, "we on our side are out for total disarmament".<ref name="Middlemas2"/> On 30 July 1934, Labour moved a motion of censure against the government because of its planned expansion of the RAF. Attlee spoke for it: "We deny the need for increased air arms...and we reject altogether the claim of parity".<ref name="Barnett2"/> [[Stafford Cripps]] also said on that occasion that it was fallacy that Britain could achieve security through increasing air armaments.<ref name="Barnett2"/> On 22 May 1935, the day after Hitler had made a Reichstag speech<ref>[https://krupp.library.vanderbilt.edu/sites/default/files/D3-2288-PS.pdf full text] (pdf). [https://archive.org/details/RedeDesFhrersUndReichskanzlersAdolfHitlerVorDemReichstagAm21.Mai full text] (German).</ref> claiming that German rearmament offered no threat to peace, Attlee asserted that Hitler's speech gave "a chance to call a halt in the armaments race".<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 819.</ref> Attlee also denounced the Defence White Paper of 1937: "I do not believe the Government are going to get any safety through these armaments".<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 1030.</ref>

===Abdication of Edward VIII===
The accession of King [[Edward VIII]], and the ensuing [[abdication crisis]], brought Baldwin's last major test in office. The new monarch was "an ardent exponent of the cause of [[Anglo-German relations|Anglo-German understanding]]" and had "strong views on his right to intervene in affairs of state," but the "Government's main fears... were of indiscretion."<ref name="autogenerated1">Middlemas and Barnes, p. 979.</ref> The King proposed to marry [[Wallis Simpson]], an American woman who was twice divorced. The high-minded Baldwin felt that he could tolerate her as "a respectable whore" as long as she stayed behind the throne but not as "Queen Wally".<ref>Philip Williamson, ''Stanley Baldwin: Conservative Leadership and National Values'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 326.</ref>

Mrs. Simpson was also distrusted by the government for her known pro-German sympathies and was believed to be in "close contact with German monarchist circles".<ref name="autogenerated1"/>

During October and November 1936, Baldwin joined the royal family in trying to dissuade the King from that marriage, arguing that the idea of having a twice-divorced woman as the Queen would be rejected by the government, by the country and by the Empire and that "the voice of the people must be heard."<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 990.</ref><ref>Norman Lowe, ''Mastering Modern British History'', 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 488.</ref> As the public standing of the King would be gravely compromised, the Prime Minister gave him time to reconsider the notion of this marriage.<ref name="autogenerated2">Middlemas and Barnes, p. 992.</ref> According to the historian Philip Williamson, "The offence lay in the implications of [the King's] attachment to Mrs. Simpson for the broader public morality and the constitutional integrity which were now perceived—especially by Baldwin—as underpinning the nation's unity and strength."<ref>Williamson, p. 327.</ref>

News of the affair was broken in the newspapers on 2 December.<ref name="autogenerated3">Lowe, p. 488.</ref> There was some support for the wishes of the King, especially in and around London. The romantic royalists Churchill, [[Oswald Mosley|Mosley]], and the press barons, [[Lord Beaverbrook]] of the ''[[Daily Express]]'' and [[Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere|Lord Rothermere]] of the ''[[Daily Mail]]'', all declared that the king had a right to marry whichever woman he wished.<ref name="autogenerated3"/> The crisis assumed a political dimension when Beaverbrook and Churchill tried to rally support for the marriage in [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]].<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> However, the King's party could muster only 40 [[Members of Parliament]] in support,<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 1008.</ref> and the majority opinion sided with Baldwin and his Conservative government.<ref name="autogenerated3"/> The [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] leader, [[Clement Attlee]], told Baldwin "that while Labour people had no objection to an American becoming Queen, [he] was certain they would not approve of Mrs. Simpson for that position", especially in the provinces and in the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth countries]].<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 1003.</ref> The [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], [[Cosmo Lang]], held that the King, as the head of the [[Church of England]], should not marry a divorcée.<ref>G. I. T. Machin, "Marriage and the Churches in the 1930s: Royal abdication and divorce reform, 1936–7." ''Journal of Ecclesiastical History'' 42.1 (1991): 68–81.</ref> ''[[The Times]]'' argued that the monarchy's prestige would be destroyed if "private inclination were to come into open conflict with public duty and be allowed to prevail".<ref name="autogenerated3"/>

While some recent critics have complained that "Baldwin refused the reasonable request for time to reflect, preferring to keep the pressure on the King – once again suggesting that his own agenda was to force the crisis to a head" and that he "never mentioned that the alternative [to the marriage] was abdication",<ref>Lynn Prince Picknett and Stephen Clive Prior, ''War of the Windsors'' (2002) p. 122.</ref> the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] immediately and overwhelmingly came out against the marriage.<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> The Labour and [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] parties, the [[Trades Union Congress]],<ref name="autogenerated4">Williamson, p. 328.</ref> and the [[dominions]] of Australia and Canada, all joined the [[British cabinet]] in rejecting the King's compromise, initially supported and perhaps conceived by<ref>{{Cite book |author=Pearce and Goodland |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hL8zAgAAQBAJ&q=churchill+++morganatic+marriage.&pg=PT64 |title=British Prime Ministers From Balfour to Brown |date=23 May 1991 |publisher=Transworld Publishers Ltd |isbn=978-0-4156-6983-2 |access-date=3 January 2019}}</ref> Churchill,<ref>{{Cite book |author=Pearce and Goodland |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e5yLAgAAQBAJ&q=n+king+Edward+VIII+wanted+to+marry+Mrs.+Wallis+Simpson%2C+++Cosmo+Gordon+Lang&pg=PA80 |title=British Prime Ministers From Balfour to Brown |date=2 September 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-4156-6983-2 |page=80 |access-date=3 January 2019}}</ref> for a [[morganatic marriage]] that had originally been made on 16 November.<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> The crisis threatened the unity of the [[British Empire]], since the King's personal relationship with the Dominions was their "only remaining constitutional link".<ref>Williamson, p. 327</ref>

Baldwin still hoped that the King would choose the throne over Mrs. Simpson.<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> For the King to act against the wishes of the cabinet would have precipitated a [[constitutional crisis]].<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> Baldwin would have had to resign,<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 998.</ref> and no other party leader would have served as the prime minister under the King,<ref name="autogenerated2"/><ref name="autogenerated3"/> with the Labour Party having already indicated that it would not form a ministry to uphold impropriety.<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> Baldwin told the Cabinet, one Labour MP had asked, "Are we going to have a fascist monarchy?"<ref name="autogenerated4"/> When the Cabinet refused the morganatic marriage, Edward decided to abdicate.<ref name="autogenerated3"/>

The King's final plea, on 4 December, to broadcast an appeal to the nation was rejected by the Prime Minister as too divisive.<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/><ref>Middlemas and Barnes, pp. 1006–7.</ref> Nevertheless, at his final audience with King Edward on 7 December, Baldwin offered to strive all night with the King's conscience, but he found Edward to be determined to go.<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> Baldwin announced the King's abdication in the Commons on 10 December. [[Harold Nicolson]], an MP who witnessed Baldwin's speech, wrote in his diary:

<blockquote>There is no moment when he overstates emotion or indulges in oratory. There is intense silence broken only by the reporters in the gallery scuttling away to telephone the speech.... When it was over... [we] file out broken in body and soul, conscious that we have heard the best speech that we shall ever hear in our lives. There was no question of applause. It was the silence of Gettysburg...No man has ever dominated the House as he dominated it tonight, and he knows it.<ref>Harold Nicolson, ''Diaries and Letters. 1930–1939'' (London: Collins, 1966), pp. 285–286.</ref></blockquote>

After the speech, the House adjourned and Nicolson bumped into Baldwin as he was leaving, who asked him what he thought of the speech. Nicolson said it was superb to which Baldwin replied: "Yes&nbsp;... it was a success. I know it. It was almost wholly unprepared. I had a success, my dear Nicolson, at the moment I most needed it. Now is the time to go".<ref>Nicolson, p. 286.</ref>

The King abdicated on 11 December and was succeeded by his brother, [[George VI]]. Edward VIII was assigned the title of the [[Duke of Windsor]] by his brother and then married Mrs. Simpson in France in June 1937 after her divorce from [[Ernest Simpson]] had become final.

Baldwin had defused a political crisis by turning it into a constitutional question.<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> His discreet resolution met with general approval and restored his popularity.<ref name="autogenerated3"/> He was praised on all sides for his tact and patience<ref name="Stuart_Ball"/> and was not in the least put out by the protestors' cries of "God save the King—from Baldwin!" "Flog Baldwin! Flog him!! We—want—Edward."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081211150526/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757199,00.html Foreign News: Baldwin the Magnificent – TIME], ''Time Magazine'' (21 December 1936).</ref>

[[John Charmley]] argued in his history of the Conservative Party that Baldwin was pushing for more democracy and less of an old aristocratic upper-class tone. Monarchy was to be a national foundation by which the head of the Church, the State, and the Empire would draw upon 1000 years of tradition and could unify the nation. George V was an ideal fit: "an ordinary little man with the philistine tastes of most of his subjects, he could be presented as the archetypical English paterfamilias getting on with his duties without fuss." Charmley finds that George V and Baldwin, "made a formidable conservative team, with their ordinary, honest, English decency proving the first (and most effective) bulwark against revolution". Edward VIII, flaunting his upper-class playboy style, suffered from an unstable neurotic character and needed a strong stabilising partner, a role that Mrs. Simpson was unable to provide. Baldwin's final achievement was to smooth the way for Edward to abdicate in favour of his younger brother, who became George VI. Both father and son demonstrated the value of a democratic king during the severe physical and psychological hardships of the world wars, and the tradition was carried on by [[Elizabeth II]].<ref>{{Cite book |first=John |last=Charmley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_AcBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA129 |title=A History of Conservative Politics Since 1830 |date=2008 |isbn=978-1-1370-1963-9 |pages=129–30|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>