Appeasement Notes

Appeasement

1. In the previous section, we saw how collective security failed in the 1930s. This was partly because of the weaknesses and loss of legitimacy of the League of Nations, but also due to another policy, called appeasement.
2. Appeasement was Britain and France’s policy of making concessions to Hitler in the hope that this would maintain peace in Europe.
3. In a way, it was a reversal of the Treaty of Versailles, that relied on impositions and control on Germany.
4. Appeasement was based on the idea that negotiation and toleration towards aggressive expansionism was the way to prevent open war.
5. The Prime Minister of Britain, Neville Chamberlain, legitimized Hitler’s violation of Versailles and later Locarno until 1939, when Germany invaded Poland and WW2 started.

Motives for Appeasement

1. It is true that in hindsight appeasement looks like a very wrong interpretation of Hitler’s ambitions and the general political scenario of Europe in the 1930s, but there were some motives to implement it:
   1. In the talks in Paris, while the Treaty of Versailles was being drafted Lloyd George, Britain’s Prime Minister at the time, was not in favor of a harsh treatment of Germany.
      1. Britain was against crippling Germany’s economy because they were interested in keeping Germany as a trading partner.
      2. Also, they shared part of Woodrow Wilson’s (the US president also present at Versailles) concerns that an unreasonably hard Pact on Germany would have disastrous political consequences.
   2. The Great Depression, apart from impacting Britain’s domestic economy, had opened new foreign policy preoccupations.
      1. In particular, the Japanese expansion was posing threats to British interests in the Far East and Britain acted on appeasement in Europe to deactivate issues on different fronts.
      2. The Great Depression also took its toll on budget allocation in Britain. Chamberlain was not gullible: he understood that Htiler wanted expansion, but Chamberlain needed time to rearm Britain in the event of military confrontation.
      3. But the Great Depression had left little resources to assign and fund military building, research and production, and that made appeasement a prime tool to buy time.
      4. Added to this, Britain knew that if Hitler attacked they could not count on the support from the US, as they had issued several Neutrality Acts and had gone protectionist because of the Great Depression: buying time for rearmament became a more crucial argument in favor of appeasement.
2. In Britain there was a general mood in favor of peace.
   1. Polls and news showed that the public’s attitude was against war at all costs.
   2. This was reinforced after the bombings the Nazis did on Spain (especially in Guernica) during the Spanish Civil War.
   3. Chamberlain was praised as a peacemaker up to the very eve of war.

France and Appeasement

1. France supported the policy of appeasement, but in a more reluctant way.
2. Unlike Britain, where the political body and the public in general did not hold grudges against the Germans, France was clearly against Hitler’s violations of Versailles.
3. Nevertheless, the Great Depression had impacted France so hard that the leaders could not afford to stand against Hitler.
4. Also, the French economy was on life support, and there was an immediate need to curb unemployment and revive production. That meant the rearmament was not really on the table for France (they will only start rearming in 1936)
5. There were also heated debates and divisions within the French legislative body, so assertive foreign policies were difficult to plan.
6. The decision was to preserve the relationship with Britain, in the hope that an alliance with the British would eventually help France face Hitler. In practice, this meant that France ended up supporting the policy of appeasement.