appeasement and declared war on Germany. Most politicians involved at the time such as
the French prime minister Clemenceau and the British prime minister Neville Chamberlin
were in favour of appeasement but Winston Churchill, Chamberlin's successor, was one of
the few who opposed the idea.
There were many good reasons for people to be in favour of appeasement. During
that time, for instance, many of the British felt that the implications of the Treaty of
Versailles were too harsh on Germany. They thought that Germany should be given back
the land that had been taken away from her in 1919, and that if this took place, Hitler
might be content and not try to expand any further.
When Germany later invaded Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, the majority of the
British public and politicians were reluctant to go to Czechoslovakia's aid because they felt
that it was a small, irrelevant country that had hardly anything to do with Britain, and that
it was certainly not worth driving the world into another dreadful war over the matter.
(Source 10 shows a British cartoon from 1938 in which Czechoslovakia is portrayed a far
away and of no consequence to Britain.) The First World War had taken place just ten
years beforehand, and most people still remembered the terrible effects it had had. The
prime minister Neville Chamberlin said, "When I think of those four terrible years [the First
World War], and I think of the seven million young men who were killed, the thirteen million
who were maimed and mutilated, I feel it was my duty to strain every nerve to avoid a
repetition of the First World War" (Source 7.) Nearly everybody was determined not to let
anything like World War One happen again.
Source 6, the results of a public opinion poll in Britain in 1938, shows that 43% of
the population thought that Britain should not have helped Czechoslovakia if Germany
invaded, with only 33% saying that Britain should have helped and 24% undecided.
Although later on Hitler caused the deaths of so many people, at the time he was
seen as the great leader in Europe who had brough order to Germany and lifted it out of
its financial depression. Hitler was strongly against the idea of Communism, and people felt
that he would be the one to prevent it from spreading further into Europe. Communism
was greatly feared by the Europeans after the Russian Revolution in 1917 which had left
so many ordinary and wealthy citizens with no propery or money, and had even resulted in
millions of murders. If Hitler was allowed his freedom, he would then be in a position to
protect Germany and the rest of Europe from the threat of the Communists.
The prime minister Neville Chamberlin thought that sitting back and doing nothing
in the long run was not an option, however he believed that for the time being Britain
should not do anything until she was ready for war. He thought that the League of Nations
should listen to Germany's complaints and try to find a solution, but if this did not work,
Britain should be ready to fight. However at that point, Britain was not ready. She had
reduced the size of her armed forced after World War One so it would have been pointless
to go to war with Germany right then when Germany had a much stronger army. It was at
this particular time that new technology was being developed and therefore new, more
advanced weapons were being invented. So in 1936 the British government introduced a
four year long plan for preparing Britain for war with the newly advanced weapons and
aircraft. Source 5 is advice given to Chamberlin by his gernerals in 1938; they say, "From
the military point of view, time is in our favour. If war with Germany has to come, it would be
better to fight her in six to twelve months time." They obviously felt that this was a good
amount of time in which to prepare Britain for a possible war. Britain also prepared for war
by distributing gas-masks and buying goods such as chemicals and aircraft from the US.
Source 11 shows British people digging an air-raid shelter in London in September 1938.
People feared that a war would bring heavy bombing like before.
Despite there being a number of good reasons as to why appeasement should be
undertaken, there were also many who opposed the idea, and also with very good
reason.
In 1938, Hitler says in one of his speeches, "I shall only decide to take action against
Czechoslovakia if I am convinced that France will not march and that Britain will not intervene."
(Source 4.) There is plenty of evidence to prove that Hitler was not certain about going
ahead with his plan of expansionism. He only wanted to do it if he was sure that Britain
and France would not put up a resistance. All it would have taken to stop Hitler from
rearming Germany and invading the Sudetenland was the slightest opposition from France
of Britain. However when they did nothing, it encouraged Hitler to take further action.
Source 3 tells us that in 1936, after sending soldiers into the Rhineland, Hitler said, "The
48 hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking of my life. If the
French opposed us then we would have had to withdraw. Our forces were not strong enough
even to put up a moderate resistance." Many believe that Hitler's invasions could have been
brought to a halt very easily at that early stage, but because France and Britain left it until
too late to abandon their policy of appeasement, it wasn't until Germany was already
powerful and had gone as far as invading Poland that they finally decided to do something
about it, and by this time Germany had become strong enough to fight back. By sending
troops into the Rhineland and having Austria and Sudetenland to her advantage, Germany
had surrounded herself with strength and protection from invasion. She also gained
soldiers, weapons, gold, iron ore, coal, and armament factories from Austria and
Czechoslovakia. The longer Britain and France left Hitler to do what he wanted, the
stronger Germany grew and it became more and more difficult to defeat.
The MP Winston Churchill, who later became the prime minister in Chamberlins
place, believed that Britains time was wasted during the appeasement because by the
time war broke out, Britain was still not ready, therefore Czechoslovakia was sacrificed
unnecessarilly. He said that Chamberlin was in fact fooled by Hitler into waiting for more
time to rearm and unite Britain.
When Stalin saw that Britain had not stood up to Hitler when he invaded
Czechoslovakia, he was convinced that Britain would not stand up to Hitler either if he
chose to invade the USSR. This drove him to form some kind of alliance with Russia, and
the Nazi-Soviet pact was agreed. Now Germany had Russia on her side and was even
more powerful. This was what enabled Hitler to invade Poland in 1939.
Source 8 is a photograph of prime minister Chamberlin as he arrived back from the
Munich Agreement in which Hitler had apparently promised peace. Chamberlin was
confident in Hitler's promise, but it was clearly evident from his earlier speeches and
writings and his invasion of the Sudetenland that by then he intended to conquer the rest
of Eastern Europe.
Even though at the time of Hitler's expansionism there was a lot of evidence to
back up the policy of appeasement, looking at the case from afterwards it is evident that if
it had not been undertaken then Hitler could have been stopped sooner, almost instantly,
and the Second World War may never have had to happen. Appesement was indisputably
a mistake. If France and Britain had not sat back and let Hitler take land, steal rights, and
constantly break the agreements made in the Treaty of Versailles for the long five years
which lead up to the War, Germany would not have had a chance to expand so greatly and
become as powerful as she did.
It may have been a fair opinion that Germany deserved back the land and the
rights that she lost in 1919, but it should have been clear that letting Hitler take these
things for himself before having permission from the makers of the Treaty would just
encourage him to carry on further and try to conquer the rest of Europe, even if that had
not been his whole intention from the beginning.
Looking back now, it seems ridiculous that Britain and France did not see for such a
long time that this was what Hitler was inevitably going to try and do. It took them five
years to finally realise that if they carried on doing nothing, the whole of Eastern Europe
would soon be under the dictatorship of Germany. Instead of appeasement preventing the
War, it caused it; simply because the policy was abandoned just too late. Before Germany
had had her five years to arm herself for war, she was not in any position to resist the
power of the other European countries and her defeat was almost inevitable. If only
France and Britain had put up any kind of resistance as soon as Germany began ignoring
the agreements of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler may well have realised that he was
outnumbered. Undoubtedly, appeasement was one of the most fatal mistakes made by
Britain in the history of warfare.
