"Britain's appeasement policies in the years 1933 to 1939 were well-intentioned, but totally ineffective in preventing war." Assess the validity of this judgement.

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"Britain's appeasement policies in the years 1933 to 1939 were well-intentioned, but totally ineffective in preventing war." Assess the validity of this judgement.Whether Britain's appeasement policies were effective in preventing war depends on how far one expected them to prevent war - on how temporary the policy was meant to be, and whether Britain saw appeasement as a real solution to the problems facing Europe during the 1930s. Early examples of "appeasement" were quite effective at preventing war, simply in that "appeasement" meant a lack of military action on some issue or other (for example, on Abyssinia or remilitarisation of the Rhineland), which, if it had happened, could have resulted in war; and when war did eventually happen its timing was largely because there was a limit to the extent to which Britain -would- appease Hitler, and to the extent to which Britain saw that appeasement was an appropriate policy for preserving European security. Appeasement, then, was effective at preventing war for as long as the British (and French) wanted it to be, and
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no longer. The fact that Hitler was convinced that Britain would not declare war when he invaded Poland meant that he, at least, was persuaded of the lengths to which the policy could be carried.One could argue further to that that it was a failure to act according to the policy which instigated general war when it happened - particularly when one considers the Danzig crisis, during which Britain made lengthy attempts to convince the Poles to concede, which all failed, probably in no small part due to (justifiable) Polish obstinacy. The result was war, at least between Germany and ...

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