-
Sheer abject cowardice on the part of Chamberlain
This nave Prime Minister had allowed himself to be misled by Hitler
Appeasement was a noble attempt to prevent bloodshed The policy was a brilliant feat of diplomacy that prevented a major
European war in 1938 [and, therefore, should NOT have
been abandoned in relation to Poland!]
Appeasement shrewdly postponed war with Germany: by implementing it, Chamberlain was wisely buying Britain some
desperately needed time to RE-ARM, etc.
Key Question 1:
Why Appeasement?
Many reasons have been given for why Britain 'appeased' Hitler in the
1930s. Historians have ascribed every possible motive to Chamberlain,
each of which either damns or praises his policy of appeasement :
-
Zachweiner,
SMBC,
August 2013
-
Nowadays, many people criticize Chamberlain for appeasing Hitler. Appeasements prevailing legacy/ lesson is that one does
NOT negotiate with dictators [nor terrorists, for that matter!]
E.g.: George H. Bushs response to Iraqs 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Bush Sr. saw Saddam Hussein as an Arab Hitler whose
aggression against Kuwait, if unchecked, would lead to further
aggression in the Persian Gulf. In announcing the dispatch of US
forces to Saudi Arabia on August 8th, 1990, he declared:
To assume Iraq will not attack again would be unwise and unrealistic. If history teaches us anything, it is that we must
resist aggression or it will destroy our freedoms.
Appeasement does not work. As was the
case in the 1930s, we see in Saddam
Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening
his neighbors.
-
USAF F-15s and F-16s fly over Kuwaiti oil fires, set by the retreating Iraqi
army during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
-
In the 1930s, there were some people most notably Winston Churchill who damned Chamberlains policy:
It is a total defeat. Czechoslovakia will be swallowed up by the Nazis. And do not
suppose that this is the end. This is only the
beginning.
-Churchill, speaking about the Munich Agreement, 1938.
But at the time, most people thoroughly agreed with Chamberlain, praised him even:
Give thanks to your God. Your children are safe. Peace is a victory for all mankind. If we must have a
victor, let us choose Mr. Chamberlain.
-The Daily Express, 1938.
-
Voice in the Wilderness: The Truth About Hitler-article Churchills alarmist profile of Hitler, published in The Strand Magazine in November 1935.
-
For obvious reasons, we tend to think of the 1930s in terms of the origins of the Second World War. The question we tend to ask, is
whether or not the Western Powers could have done more to avert it,
whether or not the policy of appeasing Japan and Germany was a fatal
blunder that led to war. But this may be to reverse the order of
events; appeasement did not lead to war; it was war, the
numerous acts of aggression that swept the world in the
1930s, that led to
appeasement.
In Defense of Appeasement: a noble attempt to keep the peace?
-Niall Ferguson in
The War of the
World (PBS, 2007)
-
1. FEAR OF COMMUNISM:
besides the obvious economic
benefits to Britain of a
rejuvenated , trade-friendly
German nation, many British
people hoped that a strong
Germany would redress the
upset traditional Balance of Power [=deterrent to aggression] in Europe & block
the imminent expansion of Soviet Communism!
1941: playing on known fears of
Communism: Nazi Anti-Bolshevik poster,
titled: Europe's Victory is Your Prosperity.
The FIVE most important contemporary reasons for/attitudes toward appeasement, were:
-
2. DISCREDITING OF THE VERSAILLES SETTLEMENT:
many Britishers agreed with Hitler that the Treaty of Versailles had been unfair and, consequently, felt that his demands & actions were reasonable [e.g. in regards to the demilitarized Rhineland, Britons questioned whether it was, fair to prohibit a major European power from stationing troops in one part of its territory. Most
people in Britain were not prepared to support any military action designed to prevent Hitler from walking into his own back garden (Culpin 226).
1936: GERMANY
REOCCUPIES RHINELAND
German sentries on the Rhine
opposite Coblenz
NOTE: consequently, throughout the 1920s, subsequent British
governments had sought to revise
the Treaty in Germanys favor;Chamberlains policies were not much different from the policies of his predecessors!
-
E.g.: in his controversial defense of appeasement policy in 1961, English historian A.J.P. Taylor,
claimed that , the real culprits for the international crisis of the 1930s were the peacemakers of 1919,
who had failed to completely eradicate the possibility of a German military revival. Taylor
viewed Chamberlains determined bid to appease German grievances as a very realistic assessment of the failings of the past and a well-meaning attempt
to solve them.
According to Taylor, Munich was a triumph for appeasement because it solved a key German
grievance and at least delayed the outbreak of a
major European war. Indeed, Taylor claims that
war came quickly in 1939 because Chamberlain,
under pressure from his domestic critics, was
forced with some reluctance to ABANDON (!) appeasement (McDonough 78).
-
3. BRITISH MILITARY
SPREAD TOO THIN:
many people in the United
Kingdom felt that events in
Central- and Eastern
Europe were not Britain's
business; therefore, most
were not prepared to
support any military action
against Germany. Instead,
some wanted Britain to
focus on maintaining her
overseas Empire (and worry
about Imperial Japans
aggressive expansionism
into Asia, for starters!).
-
In any event, Britain did not have troops to spare to counter
[Hitler]; they were at full stretch
in PALESTINE [suppressing
the Arab Revolt of 1936-39], in
various parts of the British
Empire and particularly in
India (Culpin 226).
NOTE: protecting British interests overseas was deemed to be hard enough without adding Germany as an additional challenge.
Indeed, the [British] army and naval chiefs constantly warned Chamberlain that Britain was not militarily prepared to fight a war
against Germany, Italy and Japan simultaneously and Chamberlain accepted their arguments (McDonough 82). Revisionist historians have suggested that this was another
important reason why Chamberlain adopted appeasement policy.
Palestine, c. 1938: 1st Battalion Irish Guards of the British Army near Nablus
-
1938: British troops on observation post with rifles, machine-guns & flare-lights
Responsibilities of Empire: pacifying the troubled regions of Palestine
-
Trouble on the Horizon: a 1938 Japanese propaganda poster for the
Tripartite Pact: "Good friends in three
countries.
And then there was ITALY and Mussolinis empire ambitions to add to
the list of nations to keep an eye on:
-
4. THE DESIRE TO AVOID ANOTHER WAR & NEGATIVE
IMPACT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION: the majority of the British people wanted peace as opposed to fighting yet another Great War [90% of Britons according to a League of Nations poll!]; rather than spending billions on re-armament, they wanted to see this money spent on fighting the Great Depression instead: domestic socio-economic betterment at home! (Public opinion before 1937 opposed all-out rearmament and wished to avoid war (McDonough 82).
Left-Wing
Support for
Appeasement
Hence, democratically elected British politicians (thus including
Chamberlain!) had no alternative but
to pursue the policy of appeasement
lest they would be voted out of office
in the next general election!
Revisionist scholars regard the latter as yet another important
reason for the policy.London, 1938: Hyde Park Peace Demonstration:a speaker addresses a crowd at a peace rally
-
At any rate, the British economy did
not [yet] contain
enough skilled
workers to produce
rapid rearmament
without severely
disrupting the fragile
economic recovery
from the great slump [Great Depression](McDonough 82).
NOT UNTIL LATER: 1942: Hawker employees at
work on the production
of Hurricane fighter aircraft at a
factory in Britain
-
Christian pacifist Dick Sheppard advertising a meeting of
the Peace Pledge Union in February 1937. The Union
recruited more than 100,000 supporters. Sheppards
charismatic personality helped to create a broad absolute
pacifist movement in 1936 and 1937 as fear of war
deepened in Europe.
Focus on Peace: Canon Dick Sheppard
-
London 1936: Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of
Fascists, is saluted by female & male blackshirts
5. CONSERVATIVE ADMIRATION:
Some right-wing members of the British
upper class as well as the working class
envied German Fascism as a viable & efficient alternative to what they denounced
as their own weak, incompetent, failing and inefficient democratic
system [e.g. in mishandling the Great
Depression!] and approved of Hitler's
policies.Right-Wing
Support for
Appeasement
The Duke of
Windsor and his
American wife,
Wallis Simpson,
meet Hitler in 1937
-
Olympic Stadium, Berlin, 1938:
Germany vs. England 3-6
Dark Times - the extent of appeasement
policy: players of the English National Soccer
Team instructed by its government to give the
Nazi salute during the German national
anthem before a match in Germany in 1938
-
1. a) Allowed Hitler to grow stronger;
b) (To some extent) caused the war, by encouraging Hitler to think he could do and get away with-anything with complete impunity.
2. Humiliated Britain & damaged her reputation no country in Central- and/or Eastern Europe would soon trust Britain again; this encouraged Stalin to sign the Non-Aggression Pact in 39.
3. Abandoned millions of people to the Nazis (!)
4. Gave Britain the morale high ground when war came, Britons knew they had done everything possible to keep the peace; it had been an honorable attempt to prevent the deaths of millions of people in another Great War.
5. Was ultimately inconsequential; a different (aggressive) response would not have stopped Hitler either, who was determined to go to war no matter what.
Its significance: 6 Results
of Appeasement
Historians have said that
appeasement:
-
Poland, 1939: England! This is your doing!
Some historians hold the view that, appeasement abandoned millions of people to the Nazis
-
Where the Chamberlain-bashers have really got it wrong is when they miss his genuine commitment to Britains victory over Nazi
tyranny. As chancellor, he authorized aerial rearmament in 1934, doubling the strength of the RAF. And in his last budget in 1937 he hitched up income tax to pay for a massive
1,500 million rearmament plan.
-British historian Dominic Sandbrook,
BBC History Magazine, 2008.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few
-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 1940
6. Appeasement bought Britain time
to RE-ARM.
-
A Closer Look at
Appeasement in Action:
The Sudeten Crisis
Rally on Heroes' Square in Vienna Hitler Delivers a
Speech on the Day after the
Annexation of Austria (March 15, 1938)
Before 1938, Britain had already condoned Hitlers domestic &
foreign policy steps on a number of
occasions, but it was the events of the
Sudeten crisis which demonstrated
appeasement in action seemingly
trying to buy off Hitler by giving in to his demands, seemingly no matter
his price.
March 11, 1938:
Hitler enters Austria Munich
-
After Hitler's Anschluss with Austria in March 1938, Czechoslovakia was
widely believed to be his next target: it
seemed the Fhrers obvious, self-evident next step.
-
The new democratic state of Czechoslovakia was created in 1918, when the vast, multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire was broken up into
smaller nations after losing World War I. The principle that gave
countries such as Czechoslovakia independence was called self-
determination: each nation had the right to its own state within the
area where its people were in the majority.
However, in the case of Czechoslovakia, the borders were drawn along historic rather than ethnic boundaries. While the country was
predominantly Slavic, there were also areas with overwhelmingly
German and Hungarian majorities.
It seemed in many ways a contradiction of that post-war philosophy of self-
determination: 3 million Germans(=23% population of Czechoslovakia!)
lived within its boundaries, yet were
never asked whether they wanted this!
-
One of these areas a fringe around the western part of the country, mostly populated
by Germans was known as the Sudetenland.
At first, the coexistence of Slavs and Germans in the new republic worked fine. German parties were important power brokers and
participated in almost every coalition government. Hitlers rise to
power, however, led to the growth of Sudeten German nationalist
sentiment.
Soon, 70% of Germans in Czechoslovakia voted for
the Sudeten Nazi Party (!)
1938: flags are out in the small Sudetenland town of Kuschwarda
to show support for the recent takeover by Germany.
Spotlight on the
Sudetenland
-
Formidable Fortifications
As soon as Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933,
Czechoslovakia grew nervous
about invasion.
Czechoslovakia began constructing a ring of
fortifications along its
mountainous borders (which
were predominantly inhabited
by ethnic Germans; e.g. the
area around Slavonice, which
was part of the Sudetenland):
Iron- reinforced concrete
bunkers were connected by
underground tunnels.
-
Bunker in the Czech fortification line in the mostly mountainous
Sudetenland (= ideal for military defensive purposes!) This was why
Hitler wanted the region: it would leave Czechoslovakia powerless
before him.
-
Stachelberg artillery fortress in Bab near Trutnov
(Modern Czech Republic)
-
In 1938, Hitler set his mind to
taking over the
Sudetenland.
First, Hitler encouraged the
Sudeten Nazis to
demand union
with Germany.
Next, Hitler made plans to invade
(and then
smash!) the
young Republic of
Czechoslovakia.
Hitler's pro-Nazi henchman in the Sudetenland was Konrad Henlein, leader
of the nationalist Sudeten German Party
[SdP]. Henlein was actively engaged in
persuading the Sudeten Germans to loudly
demand unity with Hitler's Germany.
Hitler with Henlein, Leader of the Sudeten-Germans
-
Throughout the summer of 1938, Nazi agitators in the Sudetenland
had caused political and social
unrest while Nazi Propaganda
Minister Goebbels
propaganda machine waged a
ferocious anti-Czech campaign,
claiming that Sudeten Germans
were being persecuted & abused
by the Czechs.
Hitler and Henlein
September 7,
1938
Hitler instructed Henlein to be a real pain-in the-neck to Czechoslovakia by making ever-increasing
demands on behalf of the Sudeten Germans;
these demands were to be absurd & unreasonable
to the extent that they would be totally,
unacceptable to the Czech government (!)
-
Henlein
-
There were bloody riots; the Czech government declared martial law in the Sudetenland, while German newsreels showed
evidence of Czech atrocities against the innocent Sudeten
Germans; Nazi leaders in Czechoslovakia fled to Germany.
Czechoslovak soldiers patrolling the town of Krsn Lpa (German: Schnlinde) in
the Sudeten Region, September, 1938
-
German soldiers
attending Nuremberg RallyWAR appeared IMMINENT.
This Nuremberg speech of September 12, 1938, precipitated
the final crisis over Czechoslovakia
(Czech troops had been mobilized
against Germany since May of that
year). Hitler again gambled on
Britain and France not being
prepared and/or willing to fight (!)
At the annual Nuremberg Rally in early September, Hitler and Gering both made threatening speeches concerning the so-called
Sudeten Question; both Nazi leaders threatened to support the
Sudeten Germans with military force:
The Germans in Czechoslovakia are neither defenseless, nor are they deserted, and people should take notice of that fact.
-
Then Chamberlain intervened September 15, 1938
Munich 1938:
Chamberlain waving his hat
to unseen
crowd at
Oberwiesenfeld
Airport.
1. Chamberlain met Hitler at
Berchtesgaden:
Hitler promised him that that the Sudeten Question was, the last problem to be solved.
Chamberlain decided Hitler was, a man who can be relied upon.
Hitler demanded the parts of the Sudetenland in which ethnic
German formed the majority be
annexed to Germany on grounds
of the principle of self-
determination (by holding a
referendum).
-
Chamberlain and Deladier, the French Premier, agreed that all areas, in which more than half of the population was German, should be
ceded to Germany (pending a plebiscite), while the borders of the rest
of Czechoslovakia should be internationally guaranteed.
(Left:) Still Hope: Peace Dove Chamberlain descends
upon Hitlers home (below) on the Obersalzberg of the
Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden in
Southern Germany.
-
The Berghof, September 15: Hitler greets Chamberlain; Nazi Foreign Minister
Von Ribbentrop watches on the right.
Next, Chamberlain and Deladier forced (!) the Czech Government to accept this arrangement.
-
2. Chamberlain met Hitler for a 2nd
time, now at Bad Godesberg:
Still not satisfied, Hitler now rejected the Anglo-French concession and made
additional demands; his new price for
peace: the immediate annexation ( =
WITHOUT a referendum!) of all German
areas with military installations & factories
intact, plus supervised plebiscites in areas
with German minorities. This would
increase both the area and value of land that
Czechoslovakia would have to give up.
1938: England During
Czech Crisis
Photo showing a newspaper
stand in London.
September 22, 1938
Chamberlain refused these new demands; the Czech Government mobilized all its
forces; France called up over half a
million reserves. War seemed probable
-
3. Britain and France met Hitler
yet again and made a pact with
him at Munich :
Chamberlain now determined that Czechoslovakia was not one of the
great issues which justified war, but merely, a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom
we know nothing.
Neville Chamberlain waving and smiling as he steps out of
the airplane for the benefit of
the press.
September 29, 1938
Joined by FDR, he called for an
international conference, which would
be convened in Munich and involve
the four Great Powers of Europe; the
Czech Government was not even
invited to the talks (!) nor was the
Soviet leadership
-
At Munich, Hitler won his new demands:
The Czechs would have to evacuate the German [Sudetenland] areas as early as
by October 10th
Plebiscites were to be held under international supervision in all areas
home to German minorities
The adjusted borders of the Czechoslovak state would be guaranteed
by all four Powers.
Britain and France notified the Czechs that they were free to fight if they wished, but that they
would have no British nor French support (!)
The Czechs acknowledged the futility of
resistance and chose not to fight
-
Selassie
Schuschnigg
Bene
-
Hitler Signs the Munich
Agreement
(September 30, 1938)
Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitlers Joint Resolution "Never to Go to War with One Another Again"
-
Chamberlain gave Hitler the green light for a peaceful annexation of
the Sudetenland; thus, on September 29th, Britain and France sealed
the fate of Czechoslovakia by signing the infant-state over to the Nazis.
Significance of Munich 1938:
Neville Chamberlain (England), douard Daladier
(France), Hitler, Benito Mussolini (Italy), and Galeazzo
Ciano (Italy) before signing the Munich Agreement.
-
The Betrayal of
Czechoslovakia:
Chamberlain, Daladier,
Mussolini & Hitler
-
September 30th, 1938
Chamberlain returned to England with his famous piece of paper: I believe it is peace for our time, he told the cheering crowd. To his sister, the Prime Minster wrote:
You have only to look at the map to see that nothing that France or we could do could possibly save Czechoslovakia
from being overrun by the Germans, if they wanted to do it.
-
At the time of the Munich Conference in September 1938, the fortifications were filled with 1.5 million mobilized Czechs and
Slovaks. Morale was high, and nobody doubted that the French and
British would honor treaties with Czechoslovakia and help the young
democracy.
But instead, Chamberlain signed off on the Munich Agreement, ceding the German areas of Czechoslovakia, and with it the Czech
fortification line (!),
to Hitler without
involving Czech
representatives in
the negotiations.
Results of Munich:
(Chamberlain won a Nobel Prize for this
appeasement policy!)
-
Alone, the Czechoslovak army outnumbered by the Germans three to one would stand no chance. The frustrated soldiers
were ordered home, and Czechs were forced out of the
Sudetenland. Half a year later, in March 1939, Hitler occupied
the rest of the Czech Republic
Today, the never-used bunkers along the hiking trails around Landtejn stand witness to the futility of appeasement policies
and to the Czechs bitter sense of betrayal
-
An assessment of the Munich Agreement by a Czech historian:
With the protective belt of frontier-mountains Czechoslovakia lost the warrant of her independenceWith the destruction of the Czechoslovak
state Central Europe had its spine broken, the Western democracies
lost more than 40 divisions of potential allies, and Germany had no
obstacle in her march to the South-East (Polisensky 1947).
-
Captured without firing a shot: A Czech bunker in German hands following the German take-over of the Sudetenland
The Never-Used Fortifications
-
Hitler marched unopposed into the Sudetenland. He said that it was the start of a 1,000-year German Reich; earlier, after the Munich
Conference, he had declared:
Thus we begin
our march into
the great
German future
October 1, 1938
The last democracy in
Eastern Europe
had been
abandoned to
Hitler
-
Czechoslovakia, 1938:
Konrad Henlein speaks in the
marketplace in Eger during the
time of the German annexation
of the Sudetenland.
-
October 13, 1938: Hitler visiting his victorious Army in the Sudetenland
-
Great PR for Hitler:
Liberation Day for theSudeten-Germans
Eger, October 3rd, 1938
-
Significance of Munich to (future)East-West relations [= The Cold War!]
However, fear of Communism spreading throughout Europe was sufficiently strong to prompt Britain and France to exclude (!) Russia from the negotiations in Munich
The USSR was the obvious choice to protect Czechoslovakia: Britain and France were too far away to be able to viably act and Russians,
Czechs & Slovaks shared a common Slavic heritage.
-
This Soviet-exclusion from Munich arguably
precipitated the 1939
Nazi-Soviet Non-
Aggression Pact; a well-
founded fear on the part
of Stalin that Russia
would be abandoned by
Britain and France (just
like Czechoslovakia had
been!) led the Soviet
leader to secure his own
borders by whatever
means necessary even
if that meant striking a
deal with Hitler in
August 1939!
-
1930s-era Soviet poster
by Kukryniksy showing
Western powers serving
up Czechoslovakia to
Hitler on a dish.
Inscription in the flag:
To the East!
-
The Occupation of Prague:
A Motorcycle Division on the Charles Bridge
(March 15, 1939)
On 15 March 1939, Hitlers troops
marched into the rest
of Czechoslovakia.
This, for most British
people, was the time
when they realized
that the only thing
that would stop Hitler
was war
Czechoslovakia
-
Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1939 Last but not least: UP