Summary

Appeasement in the 1930s is most closely associated with Neville Chamberlain’s efforts to negotiate with Hitler, particularly in the lead-up to the Munich Agreement of 1938. His belief that Hitler could be “relied upon” became infamous when he waved his “piece of paper” and declared "peace in our time."

Many historians argue that appeasement contributed to the outbreak of WWII. By ignoring Hitler’s aggressions, Britain and France effectively accepted Germany’s right to expand. Furthermore, appeasement weakened potential anti-German alliances, and Britain’s failure to support Czechoslovakia in 1938 led smaller nations to seek protection from Germany, and led Stalin to sign the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Most of all, appeasement is seen as encouraging Hitler, who believed Britain and France would always back down; his comment in August 1939 that "our enemies are little worms" shows that he saw their appeasement as weakness – so that he had no reason to believe Britain would defend Poland in 1939.

However, appeasement was not the sole or even the main cause of WWII. Political scientists point out that the key forces behind WWI – aggressive nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and alliances – were also active in the 1930s. Meanwhile, the Great Depression increased international instability, while ideological conflicts between fascism, communism, and democracy intensified tensions … at the same time that the discrediting of the ToV and the collapse of the LoN were removing those brakes on war. A series of crises, including Manchuria, Abyssinia, and the Spanish Civil War, threatened the peace. In such a climate Hitler’s unrestrainable expansionism made war inevitable. The marvel is, not that war broke out, but that did not do so until 1939.

Indeed, rather than causing war, appeasement delayed it. In 1938, the world stood on the brink of war. Munich postponed this. Indeed, given Britain’s military weakness and the public’s desire for peace it was common sense to do so; it gave Britain time to rearm and meant that, when war did come, the British public had realised that Hitler was either bad or mad and supported the War.

As for Hitler calling France and Britain “little worms”, this was just a throwaway; Hitler was not an idiot, and he based his decision to go to war on military facts, not guesswork about British resolve.

Ultimately, appeasement was an attempt to prevent war, not a cause of it, and you can’t argue that it caused the war because it failed to stop it.

‘The policy of appeasement was the main cause of the Second World War.’ How far do you agree with this statement?

Appeasement nowadays is defined as ‘giving in to a bully’, but in 1930s diplomacy it meant ‘being reasonable’. Britain's appeasement of Hitler has been traced back to Ramsay MacDonald's acceptance of German rearmament after 1933; or to Stanley Baldwin’s naval agreement with the Hitler in 1935. But most historians date appeasement proper from a speech by Neville Chamberlain in June 1936 in which he acknowledged that collective security had failed; thereafter he negotiated directly with Hitler, most notably in the meetings (Berchtesgaden, Bad Godesberg) leading up to and including the Munich Pact of 29 September 1938. Appeasement is therefore associated with his delusory statement that Hitler “can be relied upon”, and with him waving a peace of piece of paper and declaring “peace in our time”.

It has indeed been argued that appeasement caused WWII:

Even during WWII the book The Guilty Men (1940) blamed the British government’s “surrender … in the face of Hitler’s blatant bullying”. Winston Churchill and many historians since have agreed, and numerous suggestions have been offered as to how appeasement led to the war:

It has been said that appeasement legitimized Hitler’s expansionism. By allowing remilitarization of the Rhineland, Anschluss, and the acquisition of the Sudetenland, Britain and France effectively agreed that the ToV was flawed and that Germany had the right to want to grow stronger. The historian Clement Leibovitz (1993) even suggested that Chamberlain and his Cabinet wanted the Nazis to win, as a bulwark against Soviet Communism.

The most common argument is that appeasement encouraged (even entrapped) Hitler into further aggression. Appeasement certainly meant that there was no ‘red line’ … so that Hitler – seeing how the Allies backed down every time he threatened war – had no reason to believe that Chamberlain would honour his 25 August 1939 guarantee to Poland. “Our enemies are little worms. I saw them at Munich,” he declared as he explained to his generals in August 1939 why Germany could invade Poland.

Appeasement certainly undermined anti-Hitler alliances and lost the trust and support of other countries, especially those in central Europe. Italy deserted the Stresa Front after the Anglo-German Naval Pact, and Hungary (1937) and Slovakia (1939) aligned themselves with Germany in the belief they were safer with than against Hitler. Appeasement destroyed Britain’s moral standing – who could ever trust Britain again after Munich? Certainly not Stalin, who made his 1939 Pact with Germany explicitly because he did not trust Chamberlain not to betray him. When Hitler made his “little worms” comment, the alliance with Soviet Russia – offering safety on Germany’s eastern flank and a safe supply line which would negate any British naval blockade – was a much more prominent argument for war.

Meanwhile, it is argued, the belief that Hitler’s objectives were limited and could be satisfied – when people like Churchill and the cartoonists Low were warning that Hitler was insatiable – was a disastrous and unforgiveable misjudgement. It meant that British foreign policy during the run-up to the war was misguided … not least in that it gave the government an excuse to delay rearmament (and the unpopular extra taxes it would need), leaving Britain weaker when war came, and an attractive ‘easy target’ for a German army they had allowed not only to become huge, but to test its strategies in the Spanish Civil War. When Hitler made his “little worms” comment, by far the major part of his argument had been the military weakness of Britain and France.

So we can see that there are reasons to regard appeasement as a factor in the Second World War.

But was appeasement the MAIN cause of the War? There were many factors increasing tensions in the 1930s.

As political scientists John Vasquez (1996) pointed out, the four influences which underlay WWI were still present and active in the 1930s – aggressive nationalism (notably Nazi Germany, which used violence and intimidation to achieve its aims in: the Saar in 1935, Austria 1934, Sudetenland 1938; and Danzig 1939 … where it led directly to WWII); imperialism (eg Japan’s Co-Prosperity Sphere and Italy’s African project, but also the still-assertive older empires of Britain and France); militarism (again, most notably in Germany, but by 1939 ALL nations were re-arming as fast as possible); plus an ever-growing network of (openly) defensive alliances, many with (secret) offensive protocols (eg the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1937 and the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939). At the same time, the wider economic crisis of the Great Depression (which made many countries other than Japan, Italy and Germany anxious to get more land and power, and more aggressive on behalf of their nation’s interests), and the clash of competing ideologies (fascism, communism, liberal democracy – all of which focussed their differences into a life-or-death battle of good versus evil) added to the international instability .

In this tinderbox situation, many historians are agreed, Hitler’s unbridled expansionism made war unpreventable. Even if he did not have a Stufenplan for war; even if he was not, as Mason suggested in 1989, forced to war by his economic policies; and even if he was not, as the 1980s functionalist historians argued, railroaded into war by the nationalist and expansionist forces his propaganda had created … Hitler clearly intended to go on and on whether-or-not-and-until his actions provoked a war.

Meanwhile, neither was appeasement the only constraint on war which failed in the 1930s. When Hitler openly denounced it at the Disarmament Conference of 1933, the ToV had been generally disowned as a mechanism for peace and was becoming rather a catalyst for conflict; the League of Nations made a number of attempts during the 1930s to divest itself of its obligation to defend the Treaty. Yet, by 1936, the League itself was, in AJP Taylor’s words, exposed as “useless fraud, everybody running away from it as quickly as possible”.

Add to this a stream of worldwide diplomatic crises, each of which brought Europe to the edge of war – Manchuria (1931-32), Abyssinia (1935-36), the Rhineland (1936), China (1937), Austria (1938), Sudetenland (1938), Czechoslovakia (1939), and particularly the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) which was de facto a proxy war for and against fascism – and the marvel is, not that war broke out, but that it took it until 1939 to do so.

So what delayed it? What stopped one of those crises of the late 1930s breaking out into war? The answer, of course, is appeasement. When Hitler was demanding the Sudetenland in 1938, and France was militarily obliged to help Czechoslovakia if attacked, the world stood on the brink of war. Munich was not “peace with honour” – even Chaberlain regretted that gaffe – and the cost was horrific for the people of Czechoslovakia – but it was peace.

Appeasement has not always had a bad press. In 1961, AJP Taylor suggested that – given Britain’s military weakness and vulnerable, far-flung empire – Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was just common sense politics. In 2006 Peter Neville pointed out that trying to understand the other’s point of view is NORMAL in diplomacy. Historians have pointed out that there was a huge mood for peace in Britain in 1938, that appeasement gave Britain an extra year to rearm, and – most important of all imho – that trying to ‘be reasonable’ time after time meant that, when war did eventually come in 1939, Britain held the moral high ground and war was wholly supported by a British public which had come to realise that Hitler was either bad or mad.

Also —although some historians have suggested that appeasement encouraged Hitler into war – there is precious little evidence of this beyond the “little worms” quote … and Daryl Press (2007) considered that to be a throwaway aside in a speech which concentrated much more on Franco-British military weakness and the benefits of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Hitler was not an idiot and, if he was going to go to war, he was going to base that decision on facts, and not on conjecture about his enemies’ mettle.

Thus, all this is to say that appeasement was not and never was a CAUSE of war – appeasement was always an attempt to PREVENT war. It failed, yes, but, as we have seen, the 1930s were hell-bent on war. And blaming appeasement for causing WWII is akin to a toddler kicking his mother because he has walked into the table.

Going Deeper

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