How important a factor was the weakness of British defences in influencing the British Government to adopt a policy of appeasement in the years 1935-38?

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Laura Westwood

How important a factor was the weakness of British defences in influencing the British Government to adopt a policy of appeasement in the years 1935-38?

Appeasement is the policy of giving in to the demands of aggressive powers in order to avoid war, as long as these demands are reasonable. This was the policy pursued by Britain and France in dealing with Germany and also Italy and Japan between the first and second World Wars. In 1935, when Hitler announced rearmament, Britain and France did nothing to uphold the Treaty of Versailles. The same was true for the reoccupation of German troops in the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, and the demands over the Sudetenland.  Neville Chamberlain was the leading figure in the policy of appeasement in Britain and he hoped that by giving in to some of the demands made by Hitler and Mussolini, they would be satisfied and not ask for more.  Chamberlain himself loathed the prospect of war, and once said that it ‘wins nothing, cures nothing, ends nothing.’  He wanted to resolve international disputes through negotiation and compromise and this policy was closely involved in all matters of Government throughout the 1930’s.  

In 1935 Hitler was prompted to push ahead with rearmament, and publicly announced  that the German army, which had been limited to 100 000 by the Treaty of Versailles, had already expanded to 240 000.  Also, that conscription, which was also banned by the Treaty, would increase this further to 555 000 in less than 3 years.  When this came to be known by the public, British, French and Italian representatives met at Stresa and issued the ‘Stresa Front.’  This did not propose any action against Germany for breaching the Treaty, but it involved negotiation and the peaceful unity of the Allies is a key example of the policy of appeasement. Furthermore, in response to the reaction of France and the USSR to German rearmament, the British government ‘decided to adopt a conciliatory attitude to the German desire to rearm.’ (McDonough.F.Hitler, Chamberlain and Appeasement) and they recognised Germany’s right to rearm by signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement.  This limited German Navy Vessels to 35% of the existing Royal Navy.  This shows that one of the main reasons for this form of appeasement was due to the weakness of the British defences, and their inability to rearm quickly and on a large scale.  Chamberlain was obviously responding to his fear of being overtaken by German threats of rearmament in the only way possible as it was not possible to stop Hitler through the use of force.

Robbins Sees the policy of appeasement as ‘an unavoidable consequence of (Britain’s) economic and military weaknesses.’ Williamson. ‘The Outbreak of the Second World War.4 Britain, France and Appeasement.’  Britain was militarily weak in the period between 1934- 1939 and it was felt that appeasement bought Britain time to re- arm.  This military weakness was largely due to the fact that an arms race between Germany and Britain was one cause of WW1, and it was therefore felt that disarmament would provide peace in the future.  A secret report on the condition of national defences revealed that The Navy was incapable of defending the Empire, the army was very small and poorly equipped and that the air force had few bombers and was totally inadequate.

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The ‘Ten Year Rule’ as it was known, stated that Britain would not be engaged in another great war during this period, therefore, ‘no expeditionary force is required for this purpose.’  This ‘rule’ led to cuts in Britain’s armed forces, cutting spending from £692 million (1919) to £115 million (1921) and this figure only began to rise in 1934.  Conscription was also abolished in 1920 which cut army recruits to less than before WW1.  This also implied that there was no urgency to build a major bombing fleet, so the RAF suffered cuts due to the rule. Winston Churchill decided ...

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