Rules of the Game; Beyond the Pale: Memoirs of Sir Oswald Mosley and Family by Nicholas Mosley

Rules of the Game; Beyond the Pale: Memoirs of Sir Oswald Mosley and Family Reviews

• 
  Michael

  Academic historians are understandably dubious of memoirs, and of biographical accounts of controversial figures written by family members, and it is surely wise to take this account of the life of the founder of the British Union of Fascists, written by his son, with a healthy dose of salt. However, the book succeeds in part because Nicholas Mosley does not claim to be writing a definitive history of British fascism, but rather a subjective view of a man who is rarely viewed with sympathy or reasonable criticism. And Nicholas applies both to his father in large proportions - he was not, at the time of writing, himself a fascist (although he seems to have gone through a "phase" in his youth), and he and his father had not gotten along well for the last years of the latter's life. However, Sir Oswald did agree to turn all his papers over to his son in his will, with the understanding that Nicholas, an accomplished writer, would produce a biography. There is sure much here that he would have disagreed with, and his widow officially distanced herself from and "disapproved" of it. I suspect, however, that he knew that after decades of vilification by the British press and public, he was unlikely to find a more sympathetic biographer outside the bizarre microcosm of his own followers.
  Sir Oswald Mosley began his political career immediately after World War One auspiciously, becoming a member of parliament for the Conservative Party while still in his twenties. When the Conservatives proved unable to live up to the principles he cherished, he crossed the aisle and became a Labour politician, at a time when a member of nobility espousing Socialism appeared outre and fascinating. His popularity only increased, and his aristocratic wife also became a successful Labour MP. When Labour came to power, but failed to take action to resolve the unemployment problem in Britain at the outset of the Depression, he again resigned on the grounds of principle, founding "The New Party" from disgruntled politicians of all backgrounds. The New Party collapsed after only one year, largely because the economic crisis in England failed to become as bad as was anticipated, but also because of its own lack of cohesion and Mosley's increasing intransigence and attraction to Italian fascism and the German Nazi Party (not yet in power).
  Mosely did then found a fascist movement in Britain, attempting to unify the tiny disparate groups that had used the name up until then, and trying to bring a certain vision of order and sense to a nation he saw as increasingly under the thrall of chaos. He was, by any account, an odd sort of fascist - one who opposed war but still utilized military-style discipline and uniforms, one who proclaimed revolution but insisted on conforming to legality, one who advocated action, but used only words to achieve his goals. If Nicholas's account is correct, he may be said to have been one of the most decent men ever to become a fascist leader (not to say that he was without fault - he had many). Perhaps it is predictable, then, that there was never any possibility of his gaining power. On the other hand, it may be the case that no sort of person could have successfully advocated fascism in England.
  In any event, when the Second World War came the country cried for his blood, suspecting all sorts of horrible treason and evil of himself and his followers. His imprisonment may actually have served more as a protective incarceration that kept him from being lynched than as a punishment for exercising his right to free speech in a democracy. Nicholas suggests that his patriotism would have prevented him ever becoming a Quisling-style ruler in an occupied Britain, but it is difficult to know what temptations a man would give in to or what rationalizations he might accept under extreme circumstances. Certainly under such conditions, he would have been far from a popular ruler, no more so than Quisling himself was. After the War, Mosley seems to have been stuck trying to justify himself to whomever would still listen, mostly a pathetic group of sycophants and political fantasists.
  Most of the above can be learned from any account, but Nicholas brings the story to life with insights into the personal world of an unacceptable public figure. Mosley's relations with his wives, his many affairs, his treatment of his children, servants, and followers are all explored unflinchingly yet fairly. Numerous anecdotes, either drawn from the sources or from first-person rememberences by Nicholas, make a man who claimed at times to be a god (but was often treated as a devil) into a human being. Like most people, Mosleys words and actions often contradicted one another, and this account avoids oversimplifying even where it does attempt to explain. One need not agree with all of Nicholas's conclusions about his father's nature or "style" to find much of value in so close an examination.
• 
  Annie Garvey

  Nicholas Mosley does a good job of impartially dealing with his father. However, you can tell he worshiped him as Nicholas' mother Cimmie and her sisters did, too.