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What is meant by appeasement
Appeasement is the name given to British foreign policy immediately
before the start of the Second World War. The policy is closely
associated with Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister 1937-40.
Chamberlain was voted the second least popular twentieth-century
Prime Minister in 2000.
Source 1
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Appeasement, widely thought to represent weakness, even cowardice,
was applauded during the 1920s and 1930s until Hitler’s demands on
Czechoslovakia in September 1938 for the incorporation of Sudeten
Germans within the German fatherland. Before this topic is explored,
the term appeasement needs definition and context.
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‘The central core of the policy of appeasement
was the attempt by France and Britain to reach a permanent
settlement with Germany and bring stability to Europe by means of
negotiation and limited concessions rather than resistance and the
risk of war. It is important to stress the words limited
concessions. All too often appeasement is called a policy of ‘peace
at any price’, which it certainly was not. … As to dates, the
central events relating to the policy of appeasement took place
between 1935, when Germany began open rearmament, and the Prague
coup of March 1939.’ wrote Philip Bell.
Source 2
R.A.C. Parker puts the date for the
commencement of the appeasement policy earlier, to a softer approach
to Germany than Clemenceau and the French at the Peace of Versailles
and to the 1920s. As R.A.C. Parker wrote ‘Appeasement meant
conciliation and the British more and more chose that line in the
1920s. It began with Lloyd George …’. Dr Parker mentioned the Dawes
Plan, 1924, and Young Plan, 1929, as ways Germany was relieved from
the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles and he makes the point
that appeasement did not become a controversial policy until 1938
and 1939 ‘… the months of the coming of the war. Before then, as
many people preferred later to forget … appeasement was a policy
approved by nearly everyone in Britain’. To make the point more
strongly, he follows that comment immediately with this: ‘The word
“appeasement” became a word of abuse, something short-sighted,
foolish, and distasteful only in 1939.’
Source 3
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The peak period of the appeasement policy
The period when appeasement is most in focus and is most
controversial is after the Austrian Anschluss [union
of Austria with Germany] in March 1938 and the start of war between
Britain and Germany
3 September 1939. The issue that dominated this time was
German-Czechoslovakian relations: initially it was the question of
the status of the Germans in the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia.
Within days of the Anschluss, the Sudetens, encouraged by
German Nazis, began to campaign for autonomy from Czechoslovakia.
This demand mattered so much because, after the Anschluss,
western Czechoslavkia was surrounded on three sides by German
territory and the Sudeten area was the most militarily defensible
area and contained many armaments factories. If the Czechoslovakian state lost control of the area the
remainder of Czechoslovak would be vulnerable.
From April to
September there were threats from Germany but other countries,
France, Soviet Russia and Britain, gave moral support to
Czechoslovakia but with German mobilisation, and thereby the
suggestion of war, Chamberlain, seeking to avoid war, visited Hitler
at his mountain retreat, the Eagles Lair at Berchtesgaden in
Bavaria on 15 September. The Czechoslovakian government eventually reluctantly
agreed, on 21 September 1938, to allow those Sudeten areas where
over half the population were German to be incorporated into
Germany.
With that achieved, Hitler then demanded immediate occupation of
Sudetenland by Germany.
Czechoslovakia and France mobilised and Russia offered Czechlovakia
support and Britain and France threatened Hitler with force if he
did not agree to negotiate. This demand, and Hitler’s response, was
the background to the famous, or infamous, Munich meeting 29
September 1939. At the meeting Chamberlain and Daladier of France,
together with the Italian leader Mussolini and Hitler agreed to the
immediate transfer of the Sudetenland the Germany. The
Czechoslovakia government was not a party to the agreement and was
obliged to accept it.
After the meeting, at Chamberlain’s request, Chamberlain and Hitler
met in Hitler’s Munich flat, where Chamberlain pulled from his
pocket a sheet of paper. It was an agreement between Germany and
Britain, which Hitler signed. It specified that Germany would not
use force to settle disputes. This sheet, the ‘piece of paper’ was
flourished by Chamberlain on his rapturously-received return to
Heston airport, London, on 30 September and its content read
allowed. Chamberlain later appeared, before wildly cheering crowds,
with the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, on the balcony of
Buckingham Palace.
For a chronology see
Source 4
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It is important for a clear understanding of
the issues that there is a difference between, on the one hand, a
policy of not opposing German actions by inactivity, such as passive non
intervention to prevent German rearmament in 1935, rearmament that
was contrary to the Treaty of Versailles, and
to German military reoccupation of the Rhineland
in 1936, also contrary to the Treaty of Versailles, and
on the other hand,
to active
intervention in disagreements to ensure the continuation of peace:
this was the case of the Munich meeting, September 1938. The
pressure by Britain and France on a smaller state, Czechoslovakia, to accept the Nazi
demands was considered dishonourable.
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Within months, the rest of Czechoslovakia had been invaded and the
western area incorporated into Germany while the eastern area was
established as a puppet regime. Britain and France made guarantees
to Poland on 31 March 1939 but Hitler invaded Poland in connection
with territorial demands on 1 September. On 3 September Britain and
France declared war on Germany.
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Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister in May 1940 after the failure
of the British Norway campaign. The time from September 1939 until
10 May 1940 is called the ‘phony war’, when there was little
fighting. On 10 May 1940 Germany invaded The Netherlands and Belgium
and advanced to Dunkirk on the Channel coast.
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The nature and extent of Chamberlain’s commitment to appeasement
policy
If students deduce from this information that Chamberlain believed
in peace at any price and that his policy was based on
delusions, weakness and cowardness there is a later sequence of
events that will oblige a re-evaluation. Lord Halifax, Foreign
Secretary from 1937, had opposed Chamberlain’s agreement to the
Godesberg terms in 22 September 1938 and he had declined to succeed
Chamberlain as Prime Minister when he resigned in May 1940. Chamberlain successor as
Prime Minister was, as is well known, Churchill. Churchill had had a
varied political career. He had supporters but there were many MPs
who distrusted his judgement. Within days of Chamberlain’s
resignation, the German army raced through North West Europe,
including the allegedly impenetrable Ardennes, at Blitzkrieg speed.
Holland surrendered on 15 May and the German army reached Dunkirk on
the English Channel by 21 May, as mentioned before. Britain seemed in peril. The French
suggested that an approach to Mussolini might secure Italian
non-intervention in the war and gain Mussolini’s intercession with Hitler
for peace, more or less as happened at Munich in September 1938. Halifax proposed this in a finely balanced war cabinet of
Churchill supporters and non-supporters and Chamberlain held the
casting vote. A vote against Churchill would probably lead to his
resignation. The scene is described by John Garland:
At the second meeting, Halifax went immediately on to the attack,
and Churchill responded vigorously. Britain would be offered no
worse terms if it went on fighting, even to defeat, than would be
available from the Axis now, he argued. Others spoke. The discussion
went round and round. At last Chamberlain intervened. The former
premier, as everyone knew, hated war. He had spent the whole of his
premiership trying to prevent it, and then when it came, attempting
to keep it within civilised limits. His instincts and temperament
made him the natural ally of Halifax. Yet he knew that if he
supported his old friend and colleague, the collapse of the
government was more or less certain. In one of the most significant
and unlikely acts of his long political career, Chamberlain made his
choice. The bland language of the Cabinet minute in no way captures
the historic importance of his intervention: ‘The Lord President
[Chamberlain] said that, on a dispassionate survey, it was right to
remember that the alternative to fighting on nevertheless involved a
considerable gamble.’ That was all, but that was enough. The minute
continues, ‘The War Cabinet agreed that this was a true statement of
the case.’
For context, for paragraphs before and after that quoted here see Source
5
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Additional [and different] aspects of
policy during the appeasement time
We are challenged to revise common views on
Chamberlain by this act. If Chamberlain was ready to fight in 1939
why was this not the case in 1938? Why did he appease Germany and, some
might claim, humiliatingly condone Hitler’s actions in 1938? This
writer suggests the answer can be induced from figures, the money
spent on armaments and on the production of aircraft. Who would know
these figures better than anyone? The man who had been Chancellor of
the Exchequer from 1931-37, Chamberlain himself.
Source 6
details payments for the armed forces but here
we note only annual overall expenditure on rearmament rose (all figures
in millions) from £37.2 in 1934, to £60.7 in 1936, to £104.4 in
1937, £182.2 in 1938 and £273.1 in 1939
These
bald figures are more interesting if we look into the schedule for
the production of the fighters, the Spitfire and the Hurricane, that
won the Battle of Britain, July to September 1940. A Merlin
II-powered Hurricane first flew in 1937 and by September 1939 500
were manufactured. The Spitfire first flew in 1936. To the initial
order for 310, an additional order for 200 was made in March 1938.
The performance and number of serviceable aircraft, as well as
fighter-pilot training and in particular radar, enabled British success. Hitler
abandoned Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain, in September
1940.
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With the rearmament figures and fighter
production figures in mind, what would have been the probable
outcome had armed conflict with Germany begun in 1938? This is a
rhetorical question and information for an answer can be assembled
by students. (See, also, the file on Chamberlain v Churchill –
pending)
Source 7
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The moral dimension in History
There
were further benefits from the ‘dishonourable’ appeasement policies
of 1938-9. When Hitler’s demands for territorial changes began to
seem unlimited, for example the demands on Poland, the Britain
people were far more united in resistance to Nazi Germany, and
having made seemingly exhaustive efforts to maintain peace, Britain
could claim the moral high ground. The sense of rectitude was to
play a part in the British war effort over the next five years.
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Appeasement ‘bought time’.
However, had the
Foreign Office, advisors to Chamberlain and Halifax, misjudged
Hitler and his ambitions? The answer is both yes and no. As Philip M.H. Bell points out, they were well briefed on Hitler’s ambitions
for Germany, they were set out in Mein Kampf, but they
misunderstood Hitler the man.
Source 8.
Hitler
did not want only the incorporation of all ethnic Germans in the
Third Reich and the acquisition of Lebensraum but he wanted
it achieved by conquest, by violence. When Mussolini intervened and
brought about the Munich Conference, September 1938, Hitler,
deprived of his invasion of Czechoslovakia, was furious.
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The difference between real politics and public politics
Students are bound to wonder if, during the peak appeasement years,
1938-9, Chamberlain’s sole concern was not the maintenance of peace
then how was he able to present the policy so convincingly.
Chamberlain might have spoken passionately about the terrible
destructiveness of war but to speak so does not oblige him to have
no other policy options in his mind. The answer is that background
policies behind public policies, to which they are contrary or at
least divergent, are not uncommon and the recognition of hidden or
divergent policies is part of the History students’ task.
Further, students may wonder in what sense the wellbeing of Austrians, Sudetens, Czechs and Slovaks was considered. To this the answer
seems to be that the sacrifice of peoples is not unknown to readers
of Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince and to followers of
Bismarck’s Realpolitik.
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It
is helpful to remember that behind the events Hitler was still
struggling with the influence of the German military class and their
allies among the conservatives. Every Hitler success, most notably
the unopposed military reoccupation of the Rhineland, 1936,
strengthened Hitler in this internal power struggle. Only during the
busyness with war after 1940 was the Fuhrer’s security of leadership
in the Army greater, helped later by the expansion of the SS army
regiments but, even so called into question again by the Stauffenberg 1944
Bomb Plot. Therefore, every success, courtesy of an appeasement
policy, helped Hitler against internal opposition and in this
respect appeasement was mistaken.
Source 9
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A wider context
There is a further twist, albeit a tentative
twist, to the appeasement debate. We are now in the ‘virtual
History’ area. The conclusion of this twist will be that it was in
Britain’s interests to follow appeasement if not the interests to
the smaller and weaker East European states or in the interests of
collective security and the League of Nations. In The
Testament of Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s comments recorded by Martin Bormann
in the Berlin bunker, February – April 1945, Hitler indicates his
bemusement that Britain bothered about Europe. He assumed, as
incidentally did Churchill, that Britain’s interests were with her
Empire. (4 February and 6 February entries.) Although sometimes laughable in appearance and public behaviour, and
unconventional in background, Hitler’s mind had wide geopolitical
and historical sweep, as the historian Lord Dacre [Hugh Trevor-Roper] notes in his
introduction. The heart of Hitler’s plans had always been in Eurasia, in the East. The longer Britain avoided war with Germany, the
more Hitler was drawn into following his plans for the East, as happened in June 1941
nearly three years after Hitler signed Chamberlain’s ‘piece of
paper’, the day after the Munich Agreement on Sudetenland and
Czechoslovakia. Once Hitler’s attention turned east, encouraged
by successes in the East, as in Czechoslovakia, Britain’s chance of
survival increased.
See
Extract from
The Testament of Adolf Hitler.
Introduction by
H.R. Trevor-Roper. Cassell,
London, 1961: pp31-5 [Available in the Study Centre]
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