J.A. Lyons, the tame Tasmanian

About this book

The Tame Tasmanian examines the neglected career of Australian prime minister, Joseph Lyons. A dramatic story of a quest for peace set in the turbulent 1930s, it involves many well-known, and many less well-known but equally important, figures. Of particular interest is the examination of the vital role Lyons played in the Anglo-German negotiations that occurred during the Czech crisis of September 1938. These negotiations culminated at the last minute in the Munich conference of October 1938, which seemed to contemporaries to have secured peace for Europe. The leading British scholar of appeasement in the immediate post-war period, D.C. Watt, suspected that Lyons had played a significant role in the brinkmanship that led up to the Munich conference, but confessed to a lack of evidence. David Bird assembles and scrutinises documentation to demonstrate that Watt's suspicions were well-founded - cables, telephone transcripts and private notes from Australian, British and European sources show that distant Joseph Lyons motivated Neville Chamberlain to make his "last last" attempt to draw Hitler back from the precipice of war. The age of telephone diplomacy had arrived and Australia's voice was heard in London and elsewhere with dramatic consequences. But Lyons was not just a peacemaker – he also accepted the need for rearmament and presided over five such programs up until 1939, which is itself a striking tale of technical innovation and resource mangement. Although peace eluded him, Lyons left the nation well prepared for dangerous times. This is a compelling account of one man’s struggle for the security of his country. Dr. David Bird is an independent historian based in Melbourne. He is currently researching aspects of extreme-Right thought in Australia during the period between the two world wars. He recently contributed to the Companion to Tasmanian History and is the author of several short stories published in anthologies, all with historical settings. This is his first major work of Australian history.