Chandarly Halil Pasha Quotes
Your power, which is already very great, you can increase more by peace than by war. For the outcome of war is uncertain. More often you see adversity rather than prosperity accompany it.
Chandarly Halil Pasha, ?-1453, Grand Vizier to the Ottoman Sultan, Advice to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, Council of War, April 21, 1453
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This was the week after he returned from his meeting with Hitler in Munich where he appeased the German Dictator. See {585941} for his famous naive statement.
This is the quotation that came to define Chamberlain’s naivety for history and the icon of failed diplomacy. However to see the beginning of the sequence of events that would lead up to this statement, see {585940} when Chamberlain suggested the infamous meeting in Munich. There had been an interesting history to Chamberlain’s appeasement of Germany. 39 years earlier, Chamberlain’s father, then Britain’s Colonial Secretary, and advocated a natural alliance with Germany. See Joseph Chamberlain, 1836-1914: {585939}.
This idea came from Dutch Philosopher Benedict Spinoza. See his quotation from 1677.
His appeal was also in the name of concurring heads of state of Finland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Luxemburg, and Sweden.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. Chamberlain was about to leave for the Munich Conference where his appeasement emboldened Hitler and the Germans and dashed all hope of peace. Baldwin was out of office, but his support of the Munich appeasement changed his image from that of a popular statesman, to a craven appeaser. See {626930} for Churchill’s view of Baldwin.
Although Great Britain had abolished slavery, British economic interests during the Civil War suffered because of the northern blockade of the South. Much political opinion in England was hostile to the blockade policies of the Union. Bright, a great admirer and supporter of the United Sates and the Union cause was concerned that the United States might drift into War with Great Britain. His letter to Senator Sumner was written with the understanding that it would be in shared with President Lincoln, and it was actually read at a cabinet meeting.
