A Crusade For Peace: George Lansbury's Worldwide Trip for Peace, 1936-37
which no aggressive action was taken by him [save covert operations in Spain]. It was the proverbial "lull before the storm." Lansbury was conned into believing that Hitler wanted peace, that he was sincere. Later, Lansbury even wrote that:
I think history will record Herr Hitler as one of the great men of our time. He appeared to me to be a man free of personal ambition, not at all ashamed of his humble start in life, simple in his mode of living.... I am told that he has no love of pomp or show, [!!!] is a total abstainer, non-smoker, vegetarian, and lives in the country rather than a town. He is a bachelor and likes children and old people.... In spite of the past, it seemed to me that he could listen to reason, and I felt strong enough to believe that Christianity in its purest sense might have a chance with him.
[17]
It is considered incredible today that anyone could have actually believed as Lansbury did, but he did. In July he went to Rome, where he met Mussolini, and again pleaded for peace. He remarked afterwards that "the cynics might say that Signor Mussolini's assurance [of peace] was only to "cod" a silly old man, but [he preferred] to take people at their face value." [18]
Lansbury doggedly pursued the mirage of peace, even trying to seek it from those, like Mussolini and Hitler, who desired war. This pursuit was indicative of the fervent, but many times unrealistic, idealism which had permeated his life up to that point. This pursuit would lead to many of his friends watching "with dismay as his pacifism drove him to even greater muddle and confusion." [19]
Footnotes:
[1] The prerequisite for initiating parliamentary debate.
[2] 308 H.C. Debs., 5 February 1936, col. 209.
[3] Ibid., col. 214.
[4] Ibid., cols. 215-16.
[5] Ibid., col. 234.
[6] Jonathan Schneer, George Lansbury: Lives on the Left, (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1990), p. 179.
[7] Ibid., pp. 177, 180.
[8] Ibid., p. 180.
[9] Ibid., p. 181, quoting Fenner Brockway, Bermondsey Story: The Life of Alfred Salter, (London: 1949), p. 198.
Salter was a fellow Labour pacifist who accompanied Lansbury on his speaking tour.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] See note #9.
[13] Ibid., quoting Brockway, p. 198.
[14] George Lansbury, My Search For Peace, (London: Michael Joseph, Ltd., 1938), p. 140.
[15] Ibid., p. 187.
[16] Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, 3rd ed., (NY: Harper Perennial, 1991), p. 199.
[17] Lansbury, p.
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