My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyaisles'. Such a man would have gone down well in England; even better thanKhrushchev.Would any technique, any device within the established order have availed in theprevention of war? Could we have met destiny head-on, and have frustrated it withthe petty manoeuvres which were all the existing system and prevailing sentimentwould have allowed? I think not. We were up against a tragic momentum of history.All that 'patience is exhausted' stuff on their side was a fatality; the first rule of realpolitics is that the patience of statesmen must never be exhausted, and if they haveany such sentiment, it is the last thing they should express. The English ruling class orclique were as offended by all that in Hitler as they were by the sabre-rattling of theKaiser; in their narrow, arrogant, insular fashion, they detested to the point of phobiathe whole show-off business, as they would term it. It was a prime error, for it excitedtheir fears and furies, instead of allaying them while Hitler achieved his objectiveswith the minimum possible fuss.Against Germany were not only the rigid probities and petulant emotions of the rulingclass, but also the savage vendetta of a Labour movement which saw similar men andinstitutions swept into oblivion by national socialism; both reinforced by a worldmoney power which felt its prevailing dominion threatened. On their side was a newproletarian hubris with an egocentric vehemence which thought destiny its toy; on ourside was the old aristocratic vanity mingling in mistaken rectitude not only with theprim stupidity of bourgeois obstinacy but also with the hysteria of the frightened Left;so what hope had peace? The answer of my considered judgment, for what it is worth,is that no force on earth within the system could have prevented the hell-bent drive towar. If I had tried to ride the Gadarene plunge I would just have gone with it into theabyss and have forfeited the European honour effacing it and at least attempting toresist. My own descent would have been right royally cushioned, but that would havemade no difference to the fall of the nation from the greatest power on earth to thepitiful, clinging dependence of the American satellite. Quern perdere vult Deusdementat prius, but he sometimes gives the English another chance.314 of 424