Went to see Eden. The immediate reason for my visit was the ‘consular conflict’.

In an attempt to further curtail the power of Narkomindel, as well as the flow of Westerners to the Soviet Union, the Kremlin reduced the number of Soviet consulates abroad and forced European consulates to withdraw from Russia; DVP, 1938, XXI, fn. 59.

On 11 January, Potemkin notified Chilston of the Soviet government’s decision to ask Britain to close down its consulate in Leningrad for reasons of parity, retaining only the consular department at the embassy in Moscow. The proud Brits took offence. Chilston had a few sour conservations with M.M. and then submitted two notes. The British decided to resort to punitive measures. They closed down the consular department in Moscow and announced that parity was thereby observed, as they had only one consulate in the USSR, in Leningrad. They suggested that we should now receive all ordinary visas in Leningrad (they agreed to issue only diplomatic and business visas in Moscow). I was instructed to meet Eden in order to resolve the conflict in some way. He knew nothing about it and promised to ask me over next week after he had familiarized himself with the essence of the dispute…

[Two threads intertwine when it comes to ‘appeasement’: retrospective attempts by the main actors to portray themselves as having been conscious of the German danger, and the common dismissal of the alarmists by contemporaries as oddities or warmongers. It should be noted, though (as the diary entry above attests), that just a week before his resignation Eden appeared to be rather complacent, convinced that the German danger to England had receded.

This emerges as well in Cadogan’s comments on Eden’s draft autobiography; see Cadogan papers, ACAD 4/5, 25 Jan. 1962. On Eden’s subsequent exaggeration of his rift with Chamberlain on matters of principle, see A.R. Peters, Anthony Eden at the Foreign Office, 1931–1938 (Aldershot, 1986), pp. 338–9.

It was Chamberlain’s decision to pursue negotiations with Mussolini behind Eden’s back which led to the latter’s resignation on 20 February.

R. Mallett, ‘Fascist foreign policy and official Italian views of Anthony Eden in the 1930s’, The Historical Journal, 43/1 (2000). An admission of that is in Cadogan papers, ACAD 4/5, letter to Eden, 22 Nov. 1961.

Chamberlain confided to his sister that he had gradually reached the conclusion that ‘at bottom Anthony did not want to talk either with Hitler or Mussolini, and as I did he was right to go’.

Self, Chamberlain Diary Letters, IV, p. 303.

Seen from Chamberlain’s perspective, both Halifax and Cadogan were pliant, whereas Vansittart had been openly hostile and Eden difficult to manage, particularly when it came to Mussolini. Halifax was an ideal choice for the post of foreign secretary. He found Eden’s ‘preconceived prejudices’ against the dictators ‘too strong … in as much as you have got to live with the devils whether you like them or not’. Presumably that should have rendered him more amenable to Stalin than Chamberlain was, but class bias, historical legacy (reinforced by his experience as viceroy in India) and his High Church leanings coloured his views of the Soviet Union. Moreover, he doubted his own competence for the position of foreign secretary, and finally accepted it reluctantly and only after receiving assurances that he could continue to spend the weekends hunting on his estate and would be exposed to a reduced load of material, which could be consulted ‘on train or at home’. His laidback demeanour enabled Chamberlain to bypass the Foreign Office and to call on his own advisers, particularly Horace Wilson.