The British policy of appeasement during the interwar years has been controversial for many reasons. The most significant and revealing reason for this controversy was that it was a policy meant to avoid conflict with other nations, to avoid a repeat of World War One but instead to the Second World War. Traditional historians regards Chamberlain underestimation of Germany’s new leader, Adolf Hitler, taken in by his reasonableness and willingness to negotiate through summit diplomacy as the main point of controversy. This policy of delusion was exploited by Hitler who used it to his advantage to strengthen Germany’s position in Europe and despite the Munich Conference,1938 which recognised Hitler’s grievances against the Treaty of Versailles, war broke out anyway 11 months later. The impact of appeasement was also far reaching; the impact of the policy went beyond the end of the Second World War and was in part responsible for starting the Cold War. The ideological power struggle between communist Russia and capitalist democracy of the USA, which was evident at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, has its origins in the interwar period. With appeasement came further controversy as it can be argued that there was alternative policies which Chamberlain could have followed. Many politicians were against appeasement, coining the term ‘anti-appeasers’ and felt as though there were different policies which would have led to a different outcome. However, revisionist historians have been kinder to Chamberlain, the architect of British appeasement, suggesting there was no other option given the social, political and economic pressure Great Britain was facing in the 1930s. Britain had just come out of the First World War and themselves, anti war feeling was strong and alongside their ally, France, were in no position to have further conflict with other nations, leaving Chamberlain with little option.
The policy of appeasement was so controversial during the interwar years due to the fact that it was promoted as “the peace in our time” but led directly to the outbreak of World War Two in September 1939. The architect of appeasement, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was hailed a saviour, confident that his negotiations with the German leader Adolf Hitler had been successful and that Hitler’s foreign policy plans had been satisfied by the Munich Agreement and the Anglo- German Declaration, an agreement of the British and German People’s ‘never to go to war with one another again’ reassured the British public.’ Peace in Europe, however, was short lived; the August 1939 Nazi Soviet Pact an alliance of opposites which saw Russia abandon its alliance negotiations with GB meant neutrality between Germany and Russia and the opportunity to divide Poland between them without the need for a war. Appeasement was controversial as it was morally wrong, it failed in its only objective to secure peace and resulted in the outbreak of World War Two 11 months later.
Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement had the full backing of the British people given the context of the 1930s. It was a realistic policy given the shift regarding the fairness of the Treaty of Versailles with a softening of opinion regarding Germany’s treatment, most notable of which was the $6.6 billion to be paid in reparations. The view of economist John Maynard Keynes, that reparations would send Germany into economic chaos, destabilize world trade and lead to widespread economic upheaval had been proven correct. The British Government saw that the League of Nations was failing, especially after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia,1935;GB and France took no action when German troops re-militarizes the Rhineland in 1936 and for historian Ian Kershaw, the allies ‘let slip’ the last chance to stop Hitler and GB’s rearmament programme introduced by Chamberlain in 1936 was significantly behind Germany’s. Appeasement was the result of a belief that peaceful negotiation would bring security for Britain. The controversy stems from the simple fact that Chamberlain failed and Czechoslovakia was abandoned.
In a Parliamentary debate in October 1938 after the Munich Agreement had been signed, Winston Churchill, a strong critic of appeasement, stated ‘All is over, silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness’ highlighting the abandonment of a small state’s independence. Czechoslovakia lost 66 percent of of its coal industry, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power, depriving the nation of natural fortifications that left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. The autonomy of Czechoslovakia was sacrificed on the altar for short-term peace because, in the words of President Benes of Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland was ‘a long way from Great Britain and France’ and Germany had achieved what he wanted ‘the domination of Central Europe.’ The swift occupation of Moravia and Bohemia 6 months later and GB’s guarantee to Poland in the hope of making Hitler re-think, failed and war was declared. As early as 1940, the publication of Guilty Men by CATO spurned the policy of appeasement, criticising Chamberlain for ‘cowardice, a lack of wisdom and disregard of the principle of freedom and democracy’ as the expansionism of the Nazi regime and the nature of Nazi rule became all too apparent. Historian R.A.C Parker suggests that Chamberlain manipulated the public opinion to favour appeasement, a view supported by historian, Frank McDonough who argues he “deliberately deceived British public opinion with overly optimistic accounts of the prospects for lasting peace with Germany” and by preventing war over Czechoslovakia in 1938, it happened anyway over Poland in 1939. It is controversial because he was the master of his own downfall and World War Two was the result.
Another major reason that appeasement was so controversial was that it confirmed that Chamberlain underestimated Adolf Hitler and his drive for world domination which directly threatened British national security. On September 30th, 1938, Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact ceding Sudetenland to Germany and in doing so, reassured the British public that this would be Germany’s final territorial demand.” Chamberlain’s mistake was to put his trust into Hitler and is described by historian Keith Middlemas as ‘diplomacy of illusion.’ This revisionist view challenged the morality of appeasement and suggested that the policy was one of incompetence and self- deception.’ The British Prime Minister underestimated the opportunism of Hitler, appeasement was based on the illusion that Hitler would stop after Munich, Chamberlain believing his ambitions were limited to the revision of the Treaty of Versailles which could be settled through negotiation and agreements despite evidence of German rearmament. The underestimation of Germany is what made appeasement controversial as he made the mistake of taking Hitler’s word, that he was a trusted leader and according to Nick Smart he “realised that the world could see he had been taken for a chump” and ‘it was a bitter pill to swallow.” This was further compounded by the belief that Adolf Hitler was “pro-British.” His repeated assurances that he admired the British Empire and would never go to war with Britain contributed to Chamberlain’s delusion. Historian Patrick Buchanan argues that there was no need for GB to declare war on Germany in September 1939 as Hitler did not want a war with Britain, his preference being an alliance with GB against communism Russia. As early as May 1933 Alfred Rosenberg was sent by Hitler to seek out friendly contacts and this coupled with the belief that Germany’s legitimate grievances should be addressed, Chamberlain believed that Germany would be satisfied with concessions using diplomacy but this was to be only temporary as the occupation of Czechoslovakia was to show. Chamberlain’s three visits to Hitler in the space of two weeks in September 1938 and the subsequent public appreciation for his achievements was short lived. The more reasonable Chamberlain was, the more Hitler’s contempt grew; with Hitler describing his opponents at Munich ‘as little worms.’This further suggests that the policy of appeasement was controversial in the interwar years as it became clear that the government led by Chamberlain had severely underestimated the power of Hitler’s ambition.
Inter-war appeasement was the cause of further controversy as it contributed to the development of the Cold War after 1945. Appeasement in the 1930s, specifically the Munich Conference continued to influence post war international relations and cast a shadow on negotiations between the Grand Alliance to agree on what a post war Europe would look like after 1945. At Yalta the wartime alliance was showing signs of strain, although united to fight the common enemy, Germany, post war plans saw a divergence of opinion and distrust. Stalin had not forgotten his exclusion from Munich in 1938 and was determined to protect Soviet interest at all costs. Yalta was consequently branded ‘a second Munich;’ The first school of thought about the origins of the Cold War agrees suggesting that the distrust between communism and western capitalism started after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution which marked the beginning of the antagonism, which only intensified as the inter-war period progressed.Polish land east of the Curzon line to Russia and German territory east of the Oder-Neiss Line to Poland was according to Rathbone, a very real area of contention as Britain has entered World War Two to ‘protect the territorial integrity of Poland.’ Over five years of war and Russia was given half of Poland as part of the post war settlement. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was acutely aware of potential parallels with Munich. Yalta and Munich were regarded as failures and this was to influence both British and US politics in the 1950s and 1960s. This is exemplified for GB by Anthony Eden, who was later to become British Prime Minister, he was described by Chamberlain himself as “one strong young figure standing up against appeasement against long, dismal, drawing tides of drift and surrender.” Not only does this show that younger members of parliament were against appeasement, they were also against the idea of a summit meeting, it also shows that they were unwilling to use such a policy as exemplified by the Suez Crisis in 1956 adopting a more confrontational approach, anxious not to be seen as conciliatory. The USA adopted a similar approach. Roosevelt’s decision to go to Yalta and negotiate with Stalin was seen as a sign of weakness in America and was critical of face to face summit meetings as the personal approach emboldened Stalin to ask for more. This had an affect on other Democratic leaders when facing a struggle against a rise of power of other countries, being more determined to fight from a position of strength This is shown through John F Kennedy and how the Munich Conference altered his approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis, taking a hard line of defence because he felt best to negotiate from a position of power against the USSR because negotiation weakened a country’s position. An unsuccessful meeting with the Soviet leader, Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, where analogies to Munich were drawn did not sit well with Kennedy and saw a more hardline approach over Cuba. which was more confrontational although limited to blockade rather than a full blown invasion.
Appeasement was controversial as mindful of how summit politics failed in 1938, Yalta was seen as a double to the Munich Conference. Britain now had to take a harder line to avoid another war, with Germany divided into four sections and the USSR undoubtedly had more power and with a key objective to secure a buffer zone in Eastern Europe to prevent another invasion. Friction and suspicion replaced the uneasy trust of the wartime alliance which broke down and this marked the start of the Cold War and the resultant global power struggle and military rivalries between competing ideologies communism and liberal capitalism which was to last for 45 years.
However, Chamberlain has been criticised for having ignored alternatives to appeasement that were presented to him during the interwar years and due to the outcome of appeasement has now added to the controversy surrounding the policy. There were a number of ‘anti- appeasers’ in Parliament, such as Robert Vansittart, Archibald Sinclair, Leo Amery, and Winston Churchill, who presented an alternative course of action to Chamberlain. Mainly Conservative MP’s, they favoured the idea of “alliance diplomacy” that Britain should use alliance diplomacy to build alliances against Hitler, to limit his growing power. However, although this was the main thought, there were differences between the anti-appeasers; some favoured full alliance diplomacy with as many countries as possible, whereas others favoured alliances with specific countries. Leo Amery, for example, pushed for an alliance with Italy or Japan to strengthen the British position, believing that a major goal of British policy should be to “square both Italy and Japan in the first instance” because “German can be squared much more easily after the balance of forces has been shifted against her.” He also opposed colonial concessions to satisfy Germany’s expansionist ambitions and believed that the Germany issue could only be settled in Europe suggesting a Danubian economic bloc to create stability in Europe and which GB, by remaining on the outside, would benefit from. In a sense, his strategy did not dramatically differ from that of Chamberlain but in tactics and he was critical of his crisis diplomacy of 1938 over Czechoslovakia which he saw as weak and said so in Parliament.
Another critic of appeasement was Winston Churchill whose favoured alternative was an alliance of nations to counteract the growing strength of Germany. His faith in his idea of the Grand Alliance, using France and the USSR to bolster Britain and at the same time embarking on a rapid programme of rearmament, particularly airpower, standing up to Germany sooner rather than later, which he believed appeasement would inevitably do, did not have universal support. This would counteract the growing power of the USSR, reducing the communist threat to Gb and limiting Hitler’s power. Churchill saw the Munich agreement as a “total and unmitigated defeat” which brought shame on GB and favoured confronting Germany over Czechoslovakia in March 1939. This shows further why the policy of appeasement was so controversial during the interwar years as there were other options to Chamberlain’s form of appeasement which could have been successful suppressing the growing power of Hitler and avoiding war.
However, it can be argued that Chamberlain had no choice but to consider appeasement and therefore plays down the idea of a controversy and instead suggests a necessity for Great Britain. Firstly, the state of the British army during the interwar years and the 1930s in particular, was in no way ready to take on any army. Britain had to be prepared to fight a potential colonial war, a European war and a naval war and so could not risk focusing solely on the army in case Hitler opted to attack. From 1935, the British government had recognised that rearmant could no longer be postponed but the money and support from public opinion, and many in Parliament just wasn’t there. Public opinion did not want a repeat of World War One and the slaughter it brought, Germany was felt to have genuine grievances at Versailles, there was no appetite for involvement in continental Europe and the economy wasn’t ready after the impact of the Great Depression, for the burden of rearmament. Britain did not have enough skilled workers for quick rearmament, there were fears it would lead to another economic crisis and further unemployment and more importantly money was still needed domestically for housing, health and education. Nick Smart describes GB as a ‘pacific democracy’ and appeasement promised to ‘promised to relieve a hard-pressed economy from the burden of armaments expenditure, and high-profile summit diplomacy seemed preferable to a spiralling arms race and entangling alliances with doubtful continental allies.’ Conciliation and negotiation was preferable to conflict and Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement reflect this.
This was a sensible option as GB was no longer able to fulfill a world power role. Peter Neville describes it as the ‘imperial overstretch,’ GB was no longer strong enough to fight the three dictatorships of Japan, Italy and Germany and alongside America’s policy of isolation and the distrust felt towards communist Russia, best seen perhaps in the half hearted, low rank delegation sent my boat to the USSR to discuss an Anglo-Soviet alliance, appeasement seemed the most realistic rather than delusional policy. Britain’s empire could not be safeguarded or relied upon to help and summit diplomacy rather than trying to develop alliances as a protection against these dictatorships was seen as the best alternative. Appeasement was seen as a way of protecting Britain’s global position by staying out of an avoidable European conflict. Furthermore, France, Britain’s most likely ally was still in deep economic turmoil. The expense of the First World War alone was enough to significantly damage the French economy. Furthermore, their major industry, steel production, was reduced by almost half in the post-war years, due to the collapse in finance and the loss of 1.5 million men as well as 3 million wounded. Like GB, France was unfit to partake in another war no matter the circumstances, their main defence against a potential attack was strengthening their defensive Maginot line along their shared border with Germany. In addition, the League of Nations was not a peacekeeping organisation; inaction against both Japan and Italy in Manchuria and Ethiopia respectively revealed its ineffectiveness without an army of its own and could not be relied upon, despite Churchill’s calls for a united front against the threat of Nazism from the back benches of Parliament. Anti-war feeling in Britain was strong and Chamberlain as an elected politician had to take this internal pressure and external strategic considerations meant he had little choice. However, this line of having no choice could also be seen as controversial as Chamberlain personally had no faith in his policy, if he were to be more patient the outcome would have been different according to historian John Charmley. Charmley argues that staying out of war was the right decision for Britain and Chamberlain was right to take the road of appeasement and if he had stuck to it and let Hitler and Stalin “slug” it out, then Stalin would have won, but the USSR’s resources and military force would have taken a severe hit and Britain have avoided bankruptcy and would have retained the British Empire.
To conclude, there are many reasons to why the policy of appeasement was so controversial during the interwar years. Firstly, it led to World War Two and failed as a policy of peace which promised no conflict to the people after the long demoralising and devastating effects from World War One. Secondly, the policy of appeasement is also considered controversial as it confirmed that Chamberlain had severely underestimated Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain had been extremely public about the trust he had in Hitler believing summit diplomacy was the best approach, helped along by Hitler’s perceived pro-British stance. Furthermore, this policy has faced further controversy due to the claims that it was the beginning of a chain of events which led to the Cold War which was to last a further 45 years as Stalin created his Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe and saw the permanent division of Germany until 1990. Appeasement can also be seen as controversial as there had been alternatives available to Chamberlain in the 1930s; many anti-appeasers felt that a policy that supported alliance diplomacy to contain the German threat and protect the British empire and Churchill, even as a lone voice in Parliament wanted military action in 1938 to check German aggression before it was too late. However, despite the controversy and the alternatives, Chamberlain had no other option; given the state of the British economy, the lack of military preparation and that the empire could not be relied upon to help, suggests that Chamberlain was in no position to take any other line apart from appeasement. On top of this, the morale of the British people, their desire for peace at all costs, remembering sharply the impact of the First World War meant that they were heavily against another war, left appeasement as the only option for Chamberlain. Far from a policy of delusion, it was more hopeful that Hitler would be satisfied by the ceding of Sudetenland and a realistic policy if not, as time was bought to speed up rearmant and prepare for war.
2019-1-21-1548084598