Appeasement

I

Introduction

Appeasement, term used to describe the response of the British and French governments to the expansionist activities of Germany and Italy under Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in the 1930s in attempting to achieve a negotiated settlement. Politicians use the term today to denote a policy of weakness and capitulation. Traditionally, appeasement was regarded as a naive policy that gave the democracies the appearance of weakness and encouraged the Fascist powers in their attempts to construct empires. Its failure in preventing World War II coloured the diplomacy of the immediate post-war period and the decline into Cold War, and continues to impact upon the foreign policies of western nations today. However, appeasement was a policy that emerged from the economic, imperial, military, and political priorities of the inter-war period. It reflected willingness, especially on the part of Britain, to reappraise the Treaty of Versailles, which was increasingly recognized as being unfair.

II

Roots of Appeasement

Appeasement was a reversion to and an extension of traditional British foreign policy and diplomacy, which during the 19th century had sought to avoid entangling itself in the problems of Europe. The rationale dealt with each new incident as it arose through the prism of British interests, with a solution achieved by negotiation and arbitration where possible. This allowed British military force to be concentrated on the policing of the Empire. During the inter-war period the Empire was at its largest and most troublesome. There were nationalist uprisings in the Middle East and India. In addition, while facing threats from Italy and Germany, Britain and France also faced threats to their Asian interests from Japanese expansionism. Given these threats, negotiating with Germany, the greatest and closest of these threats, appeared prudent policy.

There was a reluctance among policymakers in Britain, even greater in the Dominions (see Statute of Westminster), to commit to the defence of Eastern Europe—as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain put it in a moment of exasperation during the Sudeten Crisis: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing!” Public opinion, in Britain and France, was largely pacifist, not only as a result of the impact on popular memory of the horrors of World War I, but also because of the fear that modern warfare would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians from poison gas and air raid attacks.

Appeasement also grew from economic realities. The relative decline of the British economy since World War I was exacerbated by the Great Depression. On top of the social and political impact of the Depression, the budgetary priorities on welfare spending meant that in 1931 defence spending was one sixth of the amount spent in 1919, and only after 1936 was defence spending finally increased to fund rearmament. France did not let defence spending drop by the same amount although the majority of it went into the building of the Maginot Line, a defensive fortification along the Franco-German border that, in the event, proved useless against Blitzkrieg.

Finally, the frantic pursuit of the appeasement of Hitler in particular reflected an unusual diplomatic situation. France, faced with huge domestic political and economic problems that even threatened civil war, lacked any assurance in diplomacy. This sense of paranoia was not helped by the refusal of the British to enter a treaty to protect the French borders, or by the diplomatic isolation of the United States. Beginning with the failure to ratify Versailles or partake in the League of Nations, and culminating in the passage of strict Neutrality Acts in the mid-1930s, the refusal of the United States to involve itself in European affairs despite it being the world’s largest economic power left a vacuum in western democratic leadership.

III

Course of Appeasement

Although appeasement is a policy associated with Neville Chamberlain, it was also pursued under his predecessor Stanley Baldwin, who was equally committed to avoiding war. Hitler came to power in 1933 and, riding on a wave of popular support following a referendum in the Saarland in 1935 that supported a return to German administration, he reintroduced conscription and began rearmament. This was in blatant contravention of the Treaty of Versailles. Meeting at Stresa, Italy, the French, British, and Italian governments issued a formal protest. The initial aim of the policy was to keep Italy in the coalition against Germany in what became known as the Stresa Front. However, Britain still pursued a unilateral policy with Germany, which contributed to antagonism between the Stresa allies. In June the Anglo-German Naval treaty was signed, which allowed Germany to build a navy 35 per cent the size of the Royal Navy, which showed a certain willingness to accept rearmament, and controlled, if possible through negotiation. The Stresa Front then came under impossible pressure when Italy launched the invasion of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in August. British foreign secretary Sir Samuel Hoare and his French counterpart Pierre Laval put together a plan by which some parts of Abyssinia could be ceded to Italy, and so sustain the Front against Germany. Yet such was the popular outrage when details of the plan emerged that Hoare was forced to resign. However, the plan reflects tenets that are key to understanding appeasement. Why should Germany in eastern Europe, and Italy in Africa, not be allowed to entertain imperial interests when France and Britain both sustained large empires?

In March 1936, while the League of Nations debated the crisis in Abyssinia, Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland. The French political classes, already faced with insurmountable domestic problems, were paralysed by a misplaced fear that the German army was much bigger than the French force, and it precipitated a total collapse in confidence. They decided to do nothing without Britain, and British public opinion, following the credo of self-determination that lay behind Versailles, felt nothing should be done because the Rhineland was German territory anyway. Historians have shown that Hitler had been concerned over what the French and British reaction was going to be, and demonstrated that the failure to act in fact encouraged Hitler in his expansionist ambitions.

Later that year the Spanish Civil War broke out. Regarded as an internal problem for the Spanish, the British and the French adopted a policy of non-intervention. It quickly became apparent that the Italians and to a lesser extent the Germans were supporting, both financially and militarily, the revolutionaries led by Francisco Franco. British policy forbade the supply of arms to either side. The intervention of the Soviet Union on the side of the Republic rapidly discredited the democratic government and confirmed the democracies’ commitment to non-intervention. Franco’s forces finally overcame republican forces in 1939.

As the German economy continued to build towards a war footing, so its need increased for raw materials and labour. To avoid having to introduce austerity measures that would require rearmament to be slowed, Hitler looked to begin to fulfil his quest for Lebensraum. Attempts at the Nazification of Austria had started in 1934, with an attempted coup that led to the death of Chancellor Engelbert Dolfuss. Four years later Hitler attempted to browbeat his successor Kurt von Schuschnigg into accepting Anschluss. An attempt to resolve the issue by plebiscite led Hitler to order his troops to take Austria. Italy, whose intervention on the southern border of Austria might have supported resistance to the Germans, refused to move without imperial concessions from Britain.

Hitler also began to make threats of invasion against Czechoslovakia (the modern-day Czech Republic and Slovakia), where a substantial minority of Germans lived in the Sudeten region. In a series of negotiations with Hitler in October 1938 at Berchtesgaden, Bad Godesberg, and finally Munich, Neville Chamberlain attempted to broker a deal, eventually succeeding in buying off Hitler with concessions. Certain areas of Czechoslovakia would be handed over to Germany, in return for an undertaking that all future conflicts would be resolved by consultation rather than the threat of force, thus ensuring the pacification of Europe. To Europe-wide popular relief, it seemed that Chamberlain had secured “peace in our time” with the Munich Pact. Only a few disparate voices, such as those of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, criticized the abject surrender of Czechoslovakia to Nazi aggression.

Six months later, in March 1939, Germany invaded and occupied the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain declared the end of appeasement by guaranteeing the borders of Poland, Romania, and Greece, little more than drawing a line in the sand. He also ordered a huge rearmament programme to attempt to retain the military advantage Britain enjoyed over Germany. Conscription, abandoned in 1920, was reintroduced. In September, following the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Germany invaded Poland through the Danzig (modern-day Gdánsk) corridor, and France and Britain declared war on Germany.

IV

Assessment

Despite its immediate popularity the Munich Pact is now more commonly regarded as a cowardly desertion of allies. Chamberlain and Baldwin were labelled “guilty men” for the abject appeasement of Nazi Germany, their pursuit of appeasement even encouraging Hitler in his pursuit of European domination. But Chamberlain’s policy of exploring every avenue of peace united public opinion behind the need for the fight against Nazism. In addition, if Britain and France had to face down Germany, then 1939 was as opportune a moment as any: the advent of radar in 1937 was invaluable to eventual victory, while the war was launched before Germany was on an equal or superior military footing, something they would have achieved around 1942. The main failure of appeasement, however, was the total inability on the part of British and French policymakers to comprehend the nature and resolve of the Nazi threat.