Beschreibung:

Sir Nevile Henderson Four autograph letters signed written whilst British Ambassador to Germany, to Lord Noel-Buxton, initially, on 13 February, putting forward his hopes for averting war ("...the Great War was fought not to increase British territory overseas but to preserve what we already had & to end wars in future. The Versailles Conference missed the point, but it is not too late to uproot the seeds of future war which Versailles sowed..."), on 7 April, giving a detailed exposition of a possible solution to the Czechoslovakian crisis, and, in October, registering his reaction to Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland ("...It has all made me feel rather sick. it c'ld have been so easily avoided. But perhaps Providence preferred the clean cut: & certainly it sh'ld save further crises in the future. Czechoslovakia was as a house built upon the sands & it c'ld never have stood ag'st the rising tide of Germany..."), 8 pages, quarto and octavo, annotated in pencil by the recipient, British Embassy, Berlin, February to October 1938 "...I w'ld not, if I had the arranging of it, begin by a plebiscite. I w'ld first persuade Benes, with French help if possible but without if unattainable, that he must accord at least cultural autonomy & self administration to those areas in which the Sudeten are in the majority. Once the country is to that extent federalised as a state of nationalities, instead of as now being governed as a centralised national state, I w'ld provide for the right of those self-administrating areas to hold a plebiscite. But I w'ld defer the date of exercising such right for a period of years. Only then can those areas really & calmly make up their minds whether they wish to remain in the E:Slovak state or go over to Germany..." LETTERS PROVIDING AN INSIGHT INTO THE THINKING OF A LEADING SUPPORTER OF APPEASEMENT. Sir Nevile Henderson (1882-1942) held the unenviable post of Britain's ambassador to Germany in the lead-up to World War II. He supported Chamberlain's efforts to avoid war over Czechoslovakia and genuinely believed that the Germans had rightful grievances over the Versailles settlement, but he was swiftly disillusioned by German bullying tactics and the cynical carve-up of Czechoslovakia after the Munich agreement. PROVENANCE:Sotheby's, London, 23 July 1985, lot 436