The 2nd reason why Chamberlain followed a policy of appeasement is concern for her empire. Britain could not fight a war in Europe and defend her empire which mattered a great deal to British politicians in the 1930s. The dominions were all great supporters of appeasement and would not back Britain if they went to war over Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain was told on the 1st September South Africa and Australia would not give military support if war broke out. It was clear to Chamberlain that an aggressive policy towards Germany would split the British Empire. Also Britain was threatened by the rise of Japan in the East where there was a lot of British Empire. British military leaders were terrified at the idea of war with Germany and Japan so strongly advised and supported Chamberlain in appeasement, they needed more time. Seeing his military leaders so scared at the thought of war convinced Chamberlain that if he did go to war there was a good chance he may not win.
Next is the Sleeping Superpowers, Britain could not fight Germany alone. In the First World War Britain fought Germany with France and allies in Russia, Italy and Japan and even then could only defeat Germany when the USA entered the war. If Britain had been given effective support it could have been harsher toward Germany. However the USA had an isolationist policy, it was the ‘sleeping giant’, the British leaders didn’t trust the USSR communists especially after Stalin’s purges they were considered unreliable and of little use and the French did not want war either. In the late 1930s Britain and France had no powerful allies and so if it did eventually come to war they could not be sure of winning.
As Britain is a democracy it meant that Chamberlain didn’t have the right to start a war as he pleased, he could not go to war without the support of his people and until 1939 most of his people wanted peace at almost any price. The Labour party wanted to spend money on housing not rearmament, conservatives liked Hitlers strong, right-wing government, young people did not want to fight and Guernica had showed what German bombers could do to Britain is there was a war. All this contributed towards the public not wanted a war, encouraging appeasement. Morality says it is right to try everything possible to keep peace. This means that everyone around Chamberlain was encouraging and pleading with him to appease Hitler not to start another devastating war. Chamberlain was a politician and so he has to take into consideration public opinion and what the consequences would be for them if he didn’t follow appeasement. It would have been very scary to even consider doing anything but appeasement.
Appeasement was a complex policy, it didn’t just involve giving into Hitler. The negotiations were accompanied by a policy of rearmament so that aggression could be resisted by force. Between 1934 and 1938 Britain increased four-fold the amount of money spent on defence. Appeasement gave Britain time to rearm so that in 1939 she was much better prepared. At Munich in 1938 Chamberlain felt rearmament had not gone far enough to risk a war, he knew that Britain was rearming quickly, it was looking likely that at some point there would be a war and so Chamberlain just needed to buy some more time to rearm to make the chances of winning the war greater.
In conclusion there are many reasons why Chamberlain followed a policy of appeasement. The most important was that Britain was weak and needed time to rearm. Chamberlain wanted, almost needed, to believe Hitler when he said all he wanted was the Sudetenland but I think Chamberlain was smarter than that. He was prime minister, he had seen what Hitler had done and how Hitler’s aggressive actions had escalated. Even though Chamberlain wanted, (and even said) he believed Hitler, Chamberlain must surely have doubted that Hitler would honour his word. I do not believe Chamberlain could be so naïve as to think Hitler didn’t have an ulterior motive at their meetings. Appeasement was the smartest thing to do as it bought time, Chamberlain sacrificed his reputation to do what he believed was best for his country. He bought Britain the time she needed to rearm knowing that when war came people may think he was foolish and mean for letting Hitler take over the Sudetenland when he suspected there would be a war anyway. So Chamberlain put on an act, he said he believed Hitler as; he wanted to believe Hitler, it helped get the public on his side for when there was a war as they know Britain had done everything possible to stop it and it bought him the time Britain needed to rearm to the point where she could win the war.
(I don’t know if all the British public actually did think Chamberlain was foolish etc. but my great grandparents told me that’s what they thought at the time so I wanted to add it in)
