The War on our Doorstep by Harriet Salisbury

Author:Harriet Salisbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448117086
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

PART 2

The Second World War

CHAPTER 7

Britain’s Phoney War

Gathering Clouds in Europe

‘There hasn’t been a dictator in the history of the world who hasn’t talked peace when he’s been preparing for war.’

– ERNEST BEVIN

THE BATTLE OF Cable Street was the East End’s personal conflict but it was closely linked to events taking place in Europe. Two days after being routed by the Jews and Communists of the East End, Mosley got married in the home of Dr Goebbels, in Berlin. Hitler was a guest and came to dinner after the wedding, presenting a picture of himself in an eagle-topped silver frame.

Since being elected German Chancellor in 1933, Hitler had transformed a country that was bankrupt and humiliated by the end of the First World War into a proud and economically successful totalitarian state. While Communists and blackshirts were battling for prime public-speaking positions in the East End, Hitler was forming alliances that would help him in his territorial ambitions, sending military aid to General Franco in the Spanish Civil War, and supporting Mussolini in his expansion of the Italian empire in Abyssinia. Mussolini then supported Hitler over the Munich Agreement, under the terms of which Czechoslovakia was forced to surrender some of its districts to Germany. The deal was also supported by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who claimed it would guarantee ‘Peace in our time’.

The events in Europe brought a new influx of refugees into the East End, and the new residents were kept aware of political developments overseas through families and friends. Many debated whether armed conflict was the only way to stop the rise of fascism, and certainly they understood Hitler’s cynical non-aggression pact with Stalin, in August 1939, for what it was. It was as if Mosley had formed an alliance with Brick Lane’s Jews. If Hitler-hating Russia and Communist-hating Germany were marching together, it could be for one reason only – so that they could carve up poor old Poland and share it out between them.

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