“That Churchill was a warmonger for refusing a ‘peace deal’ with Hitler in 1940, and that Britain could have survived neutrally.”
Hitler broke every treaty he signed. A ‘deal’ would have led to disarmament and vassalage.
“We shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.”
— Winston Churchill
A dangerous modern radicalism suggests that Britain should have accepted Hitler’s vague offers of peace in 1940. This relies on the extraordinarily naive belief that Adolf Hitler honoured treaties. It is a fantasy to imagine the Nazis would have left a sovereign, armed Britain on their flank.
Hitler followed a consistent pattern: feign a desire for peace, sign a deal, disarm the opponent, and then invade. He did this with the Munich Agreement, using the pretext of the Sudetenland to swallow all of Czechoslovakia. He did this with Stalin in the Nazi-Soviet Pact. To believe he would have spared Britain is to ignore all historical evidence.
Any “peace” would have required British disarmament and supine acquiescence to Nazi hegemony in Europe. Britain would have become a vassal state, neutered and powerless, waiting for the inevitable moment when Berlin decided to finish the job. Churchill understood that one cannot negotiate with a man who regards honour as a weakness.