Austria’s internal problems were exacerbated by
its more powerful neighbours. Germany posed a
threat to its independence. But Mussolini would
defend Austrian independence only if Austria
modelled herself on the fascist state. He specific-
ally insisted that the Social Democrats should be
excluded from participation in politics. Dollfuss,
who became chancellor in May 1932, leant
increasingly on the duce’s support against the
Nazis. In the spring and summer he banned the
Communist Party, the Republican Defence Corps
and the Nazis, and a few months later, early in
1934, banned the Social Democrat Party as well.
The Social Democrats determined to oppose this
attack on their existence. They offered armed
resistance when their strongholds were attacked.
They were then brutally beaten into submission
during a brief civil war in February 1934. Demo-
cratic Europe was particularly shocked by the
bombardment of the municipal blocks of flats
of the workers in Vienna. In fact, Dollfuss had
destroyed the one political force able to resist
the Nazis.
The Austrian Nazi conspiracy to take over
power came to fruition in July 1934. The Nazis
seized the government buildings in Vienna and
forced their way into Dollfuss’s office and there
murdered him. Although Dollfuss had lost much
of the support of the ordinary people, few rallied
to the Nazis. The coup failed. Kurt Schuschnigg
was appointed chancellor and promised to con-
tinue the policies of Dollfuss. Whether Hitler had
connived at this Nazi conspiracy and, if so, how
far remains uncertain. But, coming as it did just
a month after his visit to Venice, Mussolini was
outraged and rushed troops to the Brenner fron-
tier, warning Hitler not to interfere in Austria.
For a few years longer Austria survived.In Britain, the growing turbulence in Europe and
in Asia alarmed even a government as committed
to pacific solutions as that led by Ramsay
MacDonald. Even before Hitler had come to
power, the famous ‘ten-year rule’ was scrapped.
It had been adopted in 1919 to save on arma-
ments expenditure and postulated that such
expenditure should be based on the assumption
that there would be no war for ten years. Butthere was no real move to rearm for several years
after 1932. Throughout the 1920s and in the
1930s, too, every British government, Labour
and Conservative, believed that to spend money
on arms would worsen Britain’s economic plight,
making it weaker and less able to resist aggres-
sion. It was a perverse and paradoxical conclusion.
In February 1933, the Cabinet was informed of
the gross military deficiency on land, sea and air
caused by a decade of inadequate finance, but the
chancellor of the exchequer and future prime
minister, Neville Chamberlain, replied, ‘today
financial and economic risks are far the most
serious and urgent that the country has to face... other risks have to be run until the country
has had time and opportunity to recuperate and
our financial situation to improve’. The depres-
sion was Hitler’s best ally. When Churchill, in
Parliament, attacked the government’s neglect of
Britain’s security, especially in the air, Anthony
Eden, under secretary of state at the Foreign
Office, replied that the solution was to persuade
the French to disarm so that Germany would
limit its rearmament. Otherwise ‘they could not
secure for Europe that period of appeasement
which is needed’. And, speaking in Birmingham,
Chamberlain added:
it is our duty by every effort we can make, by
every influence we can exert, to compose dif-
ferences, and to act as mediators to try and
devise methods by which other countries may
be delivered from this great menace of war.These speeches from the government side in
1933 encapsulate the main tenets of British policy
over the next few years.
Too little was done for defence. The great fear
was that the new form of aerial warfare would
lead to devastation and huge civilian casualties.
German superiority in the air could thus become
a potent form of blackmail. Increased defence
spending was accordingly concentrated on the air
force. Curiously, though, it was spent not on
defensive fighter planes but on bombers. The
thinking behind this was that the ‘bombers would
always get through’ anyway. The only credible
form of defence was to build up a deterrent