Appeasement
Appeasement was the policy of European democracies in the 1930s that aimed to avoid war with the dictatorships of Germany and Italy. It has been described as "...the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous."[1] It arose from the desire to avoid another war like the First World War.
The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany between 1937 and 1939. His policies of avoiding war with Germany have been the subject of intense debate for seventy years among academics, politicians and diplomats. The historian's assessment of Chamberlain has ranged from condemnation for allowing Hitler to grow too strong, to the judgment that he had no alternative and acted in Britain's best interests. At the time, these concessions were widely seen as positive, and the Munich Pact among Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy prompted Chamberlain to announce that he had secured "peace for our time".[2]
The word "appeasement" has been used as a synonym for cowardice since the 1930s and it is still used in that sense today as a justification for firm, often armed, action in international relations.
The aftermath of the First World War
Chamberlain's policy of appeasement emerged out of the weakness of the League of Nations and the failure of collective security. The League of Nations was set up in the aftermath of the First World War in the hope that international cooperation and collective resistance to aggression might prevent another war. Members of the League were entitled to the assistance of other members if they came under attack. The policy of collective security ran in parallel with measures to achieve international disarmament and where possible was to be based on economic sanctions against an aggressor. It appeared to be ineffectual when confronted by the aggression of dictators, notably Germany's occupation of the Rhineland, and Italian leader Benito Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia.
On March the 7th 1936, in a challenge to the Versailles Settlement, Hitler sent German troops into the demilitarised Rhineland. It was a gamble for Hitler and many of his advisers opposed it. German officers had orders to withdraw if they met French resistance, but there was none. France consulted Britain and lodged protests with the League. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said that Britain lacked the forces to back its guarantees to France and that public opinion would not allow it. In Britain it was thought that the Germans were merely walking into "their own back yard". Hugh Dalton, a Labour Party MP who usually advocated stiff resistance to Germany, said that neither the British people nor Labour would support either military or economic sanctions.[3] In the Council of the League, only the Soviet Union proposed sanctions against Germany. Hitler was invited to negotiate. He proposed a non-aggression pact with the Western powers. When asked for details he did not reply. Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland had persuaded him that the international community would not resist him and put Germany in a powerful strategic position.
Mussolini had imperial ambitions in Abyssinia. Italy was already in possession of neighbouring Eritrea and Somalia. In December 1934 there was a clash between Italian and Abyssinian troops at Walwal, near the border between British and Italian Somaliland, in which Italian troops took possession of the disputed territory and in which 150 Abyssinians and 50 Italians were killed. When Italy demanded apologies and compensation from Abyssinia, Abyssinia appealed to the League. The League persuaded both sides to seek a settlement under a friendship treaty they had signed in 1928, but Italy continued troop movements and Abyssinia appealed to the League again. In October 1935 Mussolini launched an attack on Abyssinia. The League declared Italy to be the aggressor and imposed sanctions, but coal and oil were not included; blocking these, it was thought, would provoke war. Albania, Austria and Hungary refused to apply sanctions; Germany and the United States were not in the League. Nevertheless, the Italian economy suffered.[3]
In April 1935 Italy had joined Britain and France in protesting against Germany's rearmament. France was anxious to placate Mussolini so as to keep him away from an alliance with Germany. Britain was less hostile to Germany, set the pace in imposing sanctions and moved a naval fleet into the Mediterranean. But in November 1935, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare and the French Prime Minister, Pierre Laval, had secret discussions in which they agreed to concede two-thirds of Abyssinia to Italy. A public outcry forced Hoare and Laval to resign. In May 1936, undeterred by sanctions, Italy captured Addis Ababa, the Abyssinian capital, and proclaimed Victor Emmanuel III the Emperor of Ethiopia. In July the League abandoned sanctions. This episode, in which sanctions were incomplete and appeared to be easily given up, seriously discredited the League.
The conduct of appeasement, 1937–39
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/MunichAgreement.jpg/250px-MunichAgreement.jpg)
In 1937 Stanley Baldwin resigned as Prime Minister and Neville Chamberlain took over. Chamberlain pursued a policy of appeasement and rearmament. Chamberlain's reputation for appeasement rests in large measure on his negotiations with Hitler over Czechoslovakia in 1938.
When the German and Austro-Hungarian empires were broken up in 1918, the victors vetoed the inclusion of Austria within a German state, but many German-speaking Austrians wished to join Germany in the realignment of Europe. The constitutions of both the Weimar Republic and the First Austrian Republic included the aim of unification, which was supported by democratic parties. However, the rise of Hitler dampened the enthusiasm of the Austrian government for such a plan. Hitler had promoted an all-German Reich from the beginning of his career and in Mein Kampf (1924) said that he would attempt a union with Austria by force if necessary. By early 1938, Hitler had consolidated his power in Germany and was ready to implement this long-held plan.
The Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg wished to pursue ties with Italy, but turned to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania (the Little Entente). To this Hitler took violent exception and in January 1938 the Austrian Nazis attempted a putsch. Hitler summoned Schusschnigg to Berchtesgarten in February and demanded, with the threat of military action, that he release imprisoned Austrian Nazis and allow them them participate in the government. Schuschnigg complied and appointed Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a pro-Nazi lawyer, as interior minister. To forestall Hitler and to preserve Austria's independence, Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite on the issue for 13 March. Hitler demanded that the plebiscite be cancelled. The German ministry of propaganda issued press reports that riots had broken out in Austria and that large parts of the Austrian population were calling for German troops to restore order. On 11 March, Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg, demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian National Socialists or face an invasion. The British Ambassador in Berlin registered a protest with the German Government against the use of coercion against Austria, but realizing that neither France nor the United Kingdom would support him, Schuschnigg resigned in favour of Seyss-Inquart, who appealed to German troops to restore order. On 12 March the 8th Army of the German Wehrmacht crossed the Austrian border. They met no resistance and were greeted by cheering Austrians. This invasion was the first major test of the Wehrmacht 's machinery. Austria became the province of Ostmark, with Seyss-Inquart as appointed governor. A plebiscite was held on 10 April and officially recorded a support of 99.73 percent of the voters.[4]
Although the victorious Allies of World War I had prohibited the union of Austria and Germany, their reaction to the Anschluss was mild.[5] Even the strongest voices against annexation, particularly those of Fascist Italy, France and Britain the "Stresa Front") were not backed by force. In the House of Commons Chamberlain said that "The hard fact is that nothing could have arrested what has actually happened [in Austria] unless this country and other countries had been prepared to use force." [6] The American reaction was similar. The international reaction to the events of 12 March 1938 led Hitler to conclude that he could use even more aggressive tactics in his plan to expand the Third Reich. The Anschluss paved the way for Munich in September 1938 because it indicated the likely non-response of Britain and France to future German aggression.
Under the Versailles Settlement, Czechoslovakia was created, including the Sudetenland, which had a majority German population. In April 1938, Sudeten Nazis, led by Konrad Henlein, agitated for autonomy. Chamberlain, faced with the danger of a German intervention, warned Hitler that Britain might intervene. Hitler ordered an attack on Czechoslovakia. Lord Runciman was sent by Chamberlain to mediate in Prague and persuaded the Czech government to grant the Sudeten virtual autonomy. Henlein broke off negotiations and Hitler railed against Prague.[7]
In September, Chamberlain flew to Berchtesgaden to negotiate directly with Hitler, hoping to avoid war. Hitler now demanded that the Sudetenland should be absorbed into Germany, convincing Chamberlain that refusal meant war. Chamberlain, with France, told the Czech president that he must hand to Germany all territory with a German majority. Czechoslovakia would thus lose 800,000 citizens (who favoured Germany), much of its industry and its mountain defences in the west. In effect, the British and French pressed their ally to cede territory to a hostile neighbour to prevent annihilation.
Hitler then informed Chamberlain that Germany was about to occupy the Sudetenland and that the Czechoslovaks had to move out. The Czechoslovaks rejected the demand, as did the British and the French. Mussolini persuaded Hitler to put the dispute to a four-power conference. Czechoslovakia was not to be a party to these talks. On 29 September, Hitler, Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier (the French Prime Minister) and Mussolini met in Munich. They agreed that Germany would complete its occupation of the Sudetenland, but an international commission would consider other disputed areas. Czechoslovakia was told that if it did not submit, it would stand alone. At Chamberlain's request Hitler signed a peace treaty between the United Kingdom and Germany. Chamberlain returned to Britain promising "peace for our time". The following March, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist, divided among Germany, Hungary, Poland, and an independent Slovakia.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Czechoslovakia_1939.SVG/250px-Czechoslovakia_1939.SVG.png)
The failure of Munich precipitated a shift in policy and Chamberlain set in place preparations for war, including an expansion of civil defence. [3] In March 1939 Chamberlain assured the Poles that Britain would support them if their independence was threatened. In April, Hitler began to make demands on the free city of Danzig (now Gdansk). Britain's assurance to Poland became a formal treaty in August, but the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax urged the Poles to negotiate with Hitler[3] and pressed them to give up Danzig.[8]On 1 September Hitler invaded Poland and on 3 September Britain declared war on Germany. In October, Chamberlain rejected Hitler's offer of peace.
Chamberlain's conduct of the war was not popular and on 9 May 1940 Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. In July, some politicians inside and outside the government were still willing to consider Hitler's peace offer, but Churchill would not.[9] Chamberlain died on 9 November the same year. Churchill delivered a tribute to him in the in which he said, "Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged." [10]
Changing attitudes to appeasement
After the First World War
Chamberlain's policy was in some respects a continuation of what had gone before and was popular until the failure of the Munich Agreement to stop Hitler in Czechoslovakia. "Appeasement" had been a respectable term between 1919 and 1937 to signify the pursuit of peace.[11] Many believed after the First World War that wars were started by mistake, in which case the League could prevent them, or that they were caused by large-scale armaments, in which case disarmament was the remedy, or that they were caused by national grievances, in which case the grievances should be redressed peacefully.[3] Many thought that the Versailles Settlement had been unjust, that the German minorities were entitled to self-determination and that Germany was entitled to equality in armaments.
Most Conservative politicians were in favour of appeasement, though Churchill said their supporters were divided.[12] The Labour Party opposed the Fascist dictators on principle but did not want war, so it also tended to support appeasement. As Chamberlain left for Munich the whole House of Commons cheered him noisily. Churchill was unusual in believing that Germany menaced freedom and democracy and should be resisted over Czechoslovakia. A week before Munich he warned, "The partition of Czechoslovakia under pressure from England and France amounts to the complete surrender of the Western Democracies to the Nazi threat of force. Such a collapse will bring peace or security neither to England nor to France."[12]
Czechoslovakia did not concern most people until the middle of September 1938, when they began to object to a small democratic state being bullied.[3][13] Nevertheless, the initial response of the British public to the Munich agreement was generally favourable.[3] On 30 September, on his return to Britain, Chamberlain delivered his famous "peace for our time" speech to delighted crowds. He was invited by the royal family on to the balcony at Buckingham Palace before he had reported to Parliament. The agreement was supported by most of the press, only Reynold's News and the Daily Worker dissenting.[3]
In parliament the Labour Party opposed the agreement. Some Conservatives abstained in the vote. The Conservative Duff Cooper, who had resigned from the government in protest against the agreement, was the only MP to advocate war.[3]
The journalist Shiela Grant Duff's Penguin Special, Europe and the Czechs was published and distributed to every MP on the day that Chamberlain returned from Munich. Her book was a spirited defence of the Czech nation and a detailed criticism of British policy, confronting the need for war if necessary. It was influential and widely read. Although she argued against the policy of "peace at almost any price"[13] she never actually used the word "appeasement" and did not take the personal tone that Guilty Men was to take two years later.
A few on the far-left said that that Chamberlain looked forward to a war between Germany and Russia.[3] British Communists, following the Party line defined by Stalin,[14] argued that appeasement had been a pro-fascist policy and that the British ruling class would have preferred fascism to socialism. The Communist MP Willie Gallacher said "that many prominent representatives of the Conservative Party, speaking for powerful landed and financial interests in the country, would welcome Hitler and the German Army if they believed that such was the only alternative to the establishment of Socialism in this country."[15] This view has persisted on the far-left.[16]
Once war broke out, appeasement was blamed for the failure to stop the dictators. The Labour MP Hugh Dalton identified the policy with wealthy people in the City of London, Conservatives and members of the peerage who were soft on Hitler.[17] The entry of Churchill as Prime Minister hardened opinion against appeasement and encouraged the search for those responsible. Three British journalists, Michael Foot, Frank Owen and Peter Howard, writing under the name of "Cato" in their book Guilty Men, called for the removal from office of fifteen public figures they held accountable, including Chamberlain and Baldwin. The book defined appeasement as the "deliberate surrender of small nations in the face of Hitler's blatant bullying." It was hastily written and has few claims to historical scholarship,[18] but Guilty Men shaped subsequent thinking about appeasement and it is said that it contributed to the defeat of the Conservatives in the 1945 general election.
The change in the meaning of "appeasement" after Munich was summarised later by the historian David Dilks: "The word in its normal meaning connotes the pacific settlement of disputes; in the meaning usually applied to the period of Neville Chamberlain premiership, it has come to indicate something sinister, the granting from fear or cowardice of unwarranted concessions in order to buy temporary peace at someone else's expense."[19]
After the Second World War: Historians
Churchill's book The Gathering Storm, published in 1948, made a similar judgment to Guilty Men, though in moderate tones and with some claim to scholarship. This book and Churchill's authority confirmed the orthodox view.
Historians have subsequently explained Chamberlain's policies in various ways. It could be said that he believed sincerely that the objectives of Hitler and Mussolini were limited and that the settlement of their grievances would protect the world from war; for safety, military and air power should be strengthened. Many have judged this belief to be fallacious, since the dictators' demands were not limited and appeasement gave them time to gain greater strength.
In 1961 this view of appeasement as avoidable error and cowardice was set on its head by A.J.P. Taylor in his book The Origins of the Second World War. Taylor argued that Hitler did not have a blueprint for war and was behaving much as any other German leader might have done. Appeasement was an active policy, and not a passive one; allowing Hitler to consolidate himself was a policy implemented by "men confronted with real problems, doing their best in the circumstances of their time". Taylor said that appeasement ought to be seen as a rational response to an unpredictable leader, appropriate to the time both diplomatically and politically.
His view has been shared by other historians, for example, Paul Kennedy, who says of the choices facing politicians at the time, "Each course brought its share of disadvantages: there was only a choice of evils. The crisis in the British global position by this time was such that it was, in the last resort, insoluble, in the sense that there was no good or proper solution."[1] Martin Gilbert has expressed a similar view: "At bottom, the old appeasement was a mood of hope, Victorian in its optimism, Burkean in its belief that societies evolved from bad to good and that progress could only be for the better. The new appeasement was a mood of fear, Hobbesian in its insistence upon swallowing the bad in order to preserve some remnant of the good, pessimistic in its belief that Nazism was there to stay and, however horrible it might be, should be accepted as a way of life with which Britain ought to deal."[20]
The arguments in Taylor's Origins of the Second World War (sometimes described as "revisionist"[3][21]) were rejected by many historians at the time and reviews of his book in Britain and the the United States were generally critical. Nevertheless, he was praised for some of his insights. By showing that appeasement was a popular policy and that there was continuity in British foreign policy after 1933, he shattered the common view of the appeasers as a small, degenerate clique that had mysteriously hijacked the British government sometime in the 1930s and who had carried out their policies in the face of massive public resistance; and by portraying the leaders of the 1930s as real people attempting to deal with real problems, he made the first strides towards attempting to explain the actions of the appeasers rather than merely to condemn them.
In the early 1990s a new theory of appeasement, sometimes called "counter-revisionist",[21] emerged as historians argued that appeasement was probably the only choice for the British government in the 1930s, but that it was poorly implemented, carried out too late and not enforced strongly enough to constrain Hitler. Appeasement was considered a viable policy, considering the strains that the British Empire faced in recuperating from World War I, and Chamberlain was said to have adopted a policy suitable to Britain's cultural and political needs. Frank McDonough is a leading proponent of this view of appeasement and describes his book Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War[22] as a "post revisionist" study.[23] Appeasement was a crisis management strategy seeking a peaceful settlement of Hitler's grievances. "Chamberlain's worst error," says McDonough, "was to believe that he could march Hitler on the yellow brick road to peace when in reality Hitler was marching very firmly on the road to war." He has criticised revisionist historians for concentrating on Chamberlain's motivations rather than how appeasement worked in practice – as a "usable policy" to deal with Hitler.
After the Second World War: Politicians
Statesmen in the post-war years have often referred to their opposition to appeasement as a justification for firm, sometimes armed, action in international relations.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman thus explained his decision to enter the Korean War in 2010, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden his confrontation of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the Suez Crisis of 1956, U.S. President John F. Kennedy his "quarantine" of Cuba in 1962, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson his resistance to communism in Indochina in the 1960s, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan his air strike on Libya in 1986.[24] British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher invoked the example of Churchill during the Falklands War of 1982: "When the American Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, urged her to reach a compromise with the Argentines she rapped sharply on the table and told him, pointedly, 'that this was the table at which Neville Chamberlain sat in 1938 and spoke of the Czechs as a faraway people about whom we know so little'." [25] The spectre of appeasement was raised in discussions of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.[26] U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair also cited Churchill's warnings about German rearmament to justify their action in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War.[27] In May 2008, President Bush cautioned against "the false comfort of appeasement" when dealing with Iran and its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[28]
See also
- Neville Chamberlain's European Policy
- Danegeld
- Deterrence theory
- Finlandization
- Lesson of Munich
- Peace through strength
- Why England Slept
- The bomber will always get through
References
- ^ a b Kennedy, Paul M. (1983). Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945: Eight Studies. London: George Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-00-686165-2.
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(help) - ^ Hunt, The Makings of the West p.861
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Taylor, A.J.P., English History, 1914-1945, 1965
- ^ Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (2006) pp 646-58
- ^ Alfred D. Low, The Anschluss Movement 1931-1938 and the Great Powers (1985)
- ^ William L. Shirer (1984). Twentieth Century Journey, Volume 2, The Nightmare Years: 1930-1940. Boston: Little Brown and Company. p. 308. ISBN 0-316-78703-5 (v. 2).
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value: invalid character (help) - ^ Donald Cameron Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War (1989) ch. 2
- ^ Watt, How War Came ch 11
- ^ Richard Overy, "Civilians on the frontline", The Second World War - Day 2: The Blitz, The Guardian/The Observer, September 2009
- ^ Churchill's tribute to Chamberlain, 12 November 1940
- ^ Medlicott, W.N., Review of "The Roots of Appeasement" by M.Gilbert (1966), in The English Historical Review, Vol. 83, No. 327 (Apr., 1968), p. 430
- ^ a b Churchill, W, The Gathering Storm (1986), p.290 ISBN 039541055
- ^ a b Grant Duff, S., Europe and the Czechs, Penguin, 1938
- ^ Teddy J. Uldricks, "Russian Historians Reevaluate the Origins of World War II," History & Memory Volume 21, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2009, pp60-82 (in Project Muse)
- ^ Willie Gallacher, The Chosen Few, Lawrence and Wishart, 1940
- ^ See, for example, Clement Leibovitz and Alvin Finkel, In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion, Monthly Review Press, 1997 ISBN 0-85345-999-1
- ^ Dalton, H. Hitler's War, London, Penguin Books, 1940
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Dilks, D.N., "Appeasement Revisited", Journal of Contemporary History, 1972
- ^ Gilbert, M., The Roots of Appeasement, 1968
- ^ a b Dimuccio, R.A.B., "The Study of Appeasement in International Relations: Polemics, Paradigms, and Problems", Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 35, No. 2, March 1998
- ^ Frank McDonough, Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War, Manchester University Press, 1998
- ^ See, for example, McDonough, F., Brown, R., and Smith, D., Hitler, Chamberlain and Appeasement, 2002
- ^ Beck, R.J., "Munich's Lessons Reconsidered", International Security, Vol. 14, No. 2, (Autumn, 1989), pp. 161–191
- ^ Kenneth Harris (1988). Thatcher. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 135. ISBN 0006374573.
- ^ Vuilliamy, E., "Bosnia: The Crime of Appeasement", International Affairs , 1998, pp. 73–91 Year: 1998
- ^ "Appeasement: The Gathering Storm (Teachers Exercises)". Churchill College Cambridge.
- ^ Thomas, E., "The Mythology of Munich", Newsweek, 23 June 2008, Vol. 151, Issue 25, pp. 22–26
Further reading
- Adams, R.J.Q.,British Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of Appeasement, 1935-1939
- Alexanda A. and Rosecrance R., "Deterrence in 1939," World Politics, Vol. 29, No. 3. (Apr., 1977), pp. 404–424.
- Beck R.J., "Munich's Lessons Reconsidered" in International Security, 14, 1989
- Cameron Watt D.,, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938-1939, 1989
- Charmley J., Chamberlain and the Lost Peace (1989)
- Cockett R., Twilight of Truth: Chamberlain, Appeasement, and the Manipulation of the Press, 1989
- Doer P.W., British Foreign Policy 1919-39
- Dutton D., Anthony Eden: A Life and Reputation
- Dutton D., Neville Chamberlain
- Farmer A., British Foreign and Imperial Affairs 1919-39
- Hill C., Cabinet Decisions on Foreign Policy: The British Experience, October 1938-June 1941, 1991
- Jenkins R., Baldwin
- Jenkins, R., Churchill
- Levy J., Appeasement and Rearmament: Britain, 1936-1939, 2006
- McDonough, F., Neville Chamberlain, appeasement, and the British road to war, Manchester – New York (Manchester University Press), 1998
- Neville P., Hitler and Appeasement: The British Attempt to Prevent the Second World War, 2005
- Owen P., The Parting of Ways: A Personal Account of the Thirties, 1982, ISBN 0-7206-0586-5
- Post G., Dilemmas of Appeasement: British Deterrence and Defense, 1934-1937, Cornell University Press, 1993
- Rock S.R., Appeasement in International Politics, 2000
- Rock W.R., British Appeasement in the 1930s
- Shay R.P., British Rearmament in the Thirties: Politics and Profits, Princeton University Press, 1977
- Thorpe D.R., Eden
- Mommsen W.J. and Kettenacker L. (eds), The Fascist Challenge And The Policy Of Appeasement, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983 ISBN 0-04-940068-1.
- Peden G. C., "A Matter of Timing: The Economic Background to British Foreign Policy, 1937–1939," in History, 69, 1984
- Wheeler-Bennett J., 'Munich: Prologue to Tragedy, New York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948