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Appeasement, in aninternational context, is adiplomaticnegotiation policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressivepower with intention to avoid conflict.[1] The term is most often applied tothe foreign policy between 1935 and 1939 of the British governments ofPrime MinistersRamsay MacDonald,Stanley Baldwin and most notablyNeville Chamberlain towardsNazi Germany andFascist Italy.[2] UnderBritish pressure, appeasement of Nazism and Fascism also played a role inFrench foreign policy of the period but was always much less popular there than in theUnited Kingdom.[3]
In the early 1930s, appeasing concessions were widely seen as desirable because of theanti-war reaction to the trauma ofWorld War I (1914–1918), second thoughts about the perceived vindictive treatment by some ofGermany during the 1919Treaty of Versailles, and a perception thatfascism was a useful form ofanti-communism. However, by the time of theMunich Agreement, which was concluded on 30 September 1938 between Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, the policy was opposed by theLabour Party and by a fewConservative dissenters such as future Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, Secretary of State for WarDuff Cooper, and future Prime MinisterAnthony Eden. Appeasement was strongly supported by theBritish upper class, includingroyalty,big business (based in theCity of London), theHouse of Lords, andmedia such as theBBC andThe Times.[4][better source needed]
As alarm grew about the rise of fascism in Europe, Chamberlain resorted to attempts at newscensorship to controlpublic opinion.[5] He confidently announced after Munich that he had secured "peace for our time".[6]
Academics, politicians and diplomats have intensely debated the 1930s appeasement policies ever since they occurred. Historians' assessments have ranged from condemnation ("Lesson of Munich") for allowing Hitler's Germany to grow too strong to the judgment that Germany was so strong that it might well win a war and that postponing a showdown was in the best interests of the West.
Appeasement policy, the policy of appeasing Hitler and Mussolini, operating jointly at that time, during 1937 and 1938 by continuous concessions granted in the hope of reaching a point of saturation when the dictators would be willing to accede to international collaboration.... It came to an end when Hitler seized Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, in defiance of his promises given at Munich, and Prime Minister Chamberlain, who had championed appeasement before, decided on a policy of resistance to further German aggression.
— Walter Theimer (ed.),The Penguin Political Dictionary, 1939
Chamberlain's policy of appeasement emerged from the failure of theLeague of Nations and the failure ofcollective security. The League of Nations was set up in theaftermath of World War I in the hope that international co-operation 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, if possible, was to be based oneconomic sanctions against an aggressor. The policy appeared to be ineffectual when confronted by the aggression of dictators, notably Germany'sRemilitarisation of the Rhineland andItaly'sBenito Mussolini'sinvasion ofAbyssinia.
In September 1931, theEmpire of Japan, a member of the League of Nations, invadedManchuria, innortheast China, by claiming that the regional population was not onlyChinese but was multi-ethnic. TheRepublic of China appealed to the League of Nations and to the United States for assistance. TheLeague of Nations Council asked the parties to withdraw to their original positions to permit a peaceful settlement. The United States reminded them of their duty under theKellogg–Briand Pact to settle matters peacefully. Japan was undeterred and went on to occupy the whole of Manchuria. The League set up a commission of inquiry that condemned Japan, and the League duly adopted the report in February 1933. In response, Japan resigned from the League and continued its advance into China, with neither the League nor the United States taking any action. However, the U.S. issued theStimson Doctrine and refused to recognize Japan's conquest, which played a role in shifting U.S. policy to favour China over Japan during the late 1930s.[7] Some historians, such asDavid Thomson, assert that the League's "inactivity and ineffectualness in the Far East lent every encouragement to European aggressors who planned similar acts of defiance".[8]
The 1934Anglo-German Payments Agreement stabilised economic relations between Britain and Germany, guaranteeing German interest repayments on bonds arising fromWorld War I reparations and deepening British economic ties to Germany, particularly in the area of trade.Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to Britain, in 1938 characterised the agreement, alongside the 1935 naval agreement, as carrying "the swaying structure of foreign relations [between the UK and Germany] even in critical periods".[9]
The 1935Anglo-German Naval Agreement had Britain permit Germany to begin rebuilding theGerman Navy, including itsU-boats, despite Germany having repeatedly violated theTreaty of Versailles.
Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini hadimperial ambitions inAbyssinia. Italy was already in possession of the neighbouringEritrea andSomalia. In December 1934, there was a clash betweenRoyal Italian Army andImperial Ethiopian Army troops atWalwal, near the border betweenBritish andItalian Somaliland, in which Italian troops took possession of the disputed territory, and about 150 Abyssinians and 50 Italians were killed. Italy demanded apologies and compensation from Abyssinia, which appealed to the League, with EmperorHaile Selassie famously appealing in person to the assembly inGeneva. The League persuaded both sides to seek a settlement under theItalo-Ethiopian Treaty of 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 since blocking them, it was thought, would provoke war.Albania,Austria andHungary refused to apply sanctions, and Germany and the United States were not in the League. Nevertheless, theItalian economy suffered. The League considered closing off theSuez Canal, which would have stopped arms to Abyssinia, but thinking that would be too harsh a measure, failed to do so.[10]
Earlier, in April 1935, Italy had joined Britain and France in protest againstGerman rearmament. France was anxious to placate Mussolini to keep him away from an alliance with Germany. Britain was less hostile to Germany and set the pace in imposing sanctions and moved a naval fleet into theMediterranean, but in November 1935, British Foreign SecretarySir Samuel Hoare and French Prime Minister,Pierre Laval had secret discussions in which theyagreed to concede two thirds of Abyssinia to Italy. However, the press leaked the content of the discussions, and a public outcry forced Hoare and Laval to resign. In May 1936, undeterred by sanctions, Italy capturedAddis Ababa, the Abyssinian capital, and proclaimedVictor Emmanuel III as Emperor ofEthiopia. In July the League abandoned sanctions. The episode, in which sanctions were incomplete and appeared to be easily given up, seriously discredited the League.
Under theVersailles Settlement, theRhineland wasdemilitarised. Germany accepted that arrangement under theLocarno Treaties of 1925. Hitler claimed that it threatened Germany and, on 7 March 1936, sent theWehrmacht into theRhineland. He gambled on Britain not getting involved but was unsure of how France would react. The action was opposed by many of his advisers. His officers had orders to withdraw if they met French resistance.France consulted Britain and lodged protests with the League but took no action. Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin said that Britain lacked the forces to back its guarantees to France and that in any case, public opinion would not allow so. In Britain, it was thought that the Germans were merely walking into "their own backyard".Hugh Dalton, aLabour Party MP who usually advocated stiff resistance to Germany, said that neither the British people nor Labour would support military or economic sanctions.[10] In the Council of the League, only theSoviet Union proposed sanctions against Germany. Hitler, who was invited to negotiate, proposed anon-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 it put Germany in a powerful strategic position.[citation needed]
Many historians argue that the British policy of non-intervention was a product of the Establishment's anti-communist stance. Scott Ramsay (2019) instead argues that Britain demonstrated "benevolent neutrality" and was simply hedging its bets by avoiding the favouring of one side or the other. The goal was that in a European war Britain would enjoy the "benevolent neutrality" of whichever side won in Spain.[11]
In 1937,Stanley Baldwin resigned as Prime Minister. He was replaced byNeville Chamberlain, who pursued a policy of appeasement and rearmament.[12] Chamberlain's reputation for appeasement rests in large measure on his negotiations with Hitler overCzechoslovakia in 1938.
When theGerman Empire andAustria-Hungary were broken up in 1918,Austria was left as arump state with the temporary adopted nameDeutschösterreich ("German-Austria"), with the vast majority ofAustrians wanting to join Germany. However, the victors' agreements ofWorld War I (theTreaty of Versailles and theTreaty of Saint-Germain) strictly forbade union between Austria and Germany without League consent, as well as the name "German-Austria", which reverted to "Austria" after the emergence of theFirst Republic of Austria in September 1919. The constitutions of both theWeimar Republic and the First Republic of Austria, 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, an Austrian by birth, had been apan-German from a very young age and had promoted a Pan-German vision of aGreater Germanic Reich from the beginning of his career in politics. He wrote inMein Kampf (1924) that he would attempt a union of his birth country Austria with Germany by any means possible and by force if necessary. By early 1938, Hitler had consolidated his power in Germany and was ready to implement his long-held plan.
Austrian ChancellorKurt Schuschnigg wished to pursue ties with Italy but turned toCzechoslovakia,Yugoslavia andRomania (theLittle Entente). To that end, Hitler took violent exception. In January 1938, theAustrian Nazis attempted aputsch following which some were imprisoned. Hitler summoned Schuschnigg toBerchtesgaden in February and demanded, with the threat of military action, for him to release imprisoned Austrian Nazis and to allow them to participate in the government. Schuschnigg complied and appointedArthur Seyss-Inquart, a pro-Nazi lawyer, asinterior minister. To forestall Hitler and to preserve Austria's independence, Schuschnigg scheduled aplebiscite on the issue for 13 March. Hitler demanded for the plebiscite to be cancelled. TheGerman Propaganda Ministry 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 that demanded him to hand over all power to the Austrian Nazis or face an invasion. The British Ambassador in Berlin,Nevile Henderson, registered a protest with the German government against the use of coercion against Austria. Schuschnigg, realising that neither France nor the United Kingdom would actively support him, resigned in favour of Seyss-Inquart, who then appealed to German troops to restore order. On 12 March, the GermanWehrmacht crossed the Austrian border. They met no resistance and were greeted by cheering Austrians. The invasion was the first major test of the Wehrmacht's machinery. Austria became the German province ofOstmark, with Seyss-Inquart as governor. Aplebiscite was held on 10 April and officially recorded the support of 99.73% of the voters for theAnschluss.[13]
Although theAllies had prohibited the union of Austria and Germany, their reaction to theAnschluss was mild.[14] Even the strongest voices against annexation, particularly those ofFascist Italy,France and Britain (the "Stresa Front"), were not backed by force. In theBritish House of Commons, Chamberlain said, "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".[15] 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.[citation needed] TheAnschluss paved the way for Munich in September 1938 because it indicated the likely non-response of Britain and France to future German aggression.
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.
— Neville Chamberlain, 27 September 1938, 8 p.m. radio broadcast, on Czechoslovak refusal to accept Nazi demands to cede border areas to Germany.
Under the Versailles Settlement,Czechoslovakia was created with the territory of the Czech part more or less corresponding to theCzech Crown lands as they had existed within Austria-Hungary and earlier. The new country includedBohemia,Moravia, andSlovakia and had border areas with a majority-German population that was known as theSudetenland and areas with significant numbers of other ethnic minorities (notablyHungarians,Poles andRuthenians). In April 1938, theSudeten German Party, led byKonrad Henlein, agitated for autonomy and then threatened, in Henlein's words, "direct action to bring theSudeten Germans within the frontiers of the Reich".[16] An international crisis ensued.
France and Britain advised Czechoslovak acceptance of Sudeten autonomy. The Czechoslovak government refused and ordered a partial mobilisation in expectation of German aggression.Lord Runciman was sent by Chamberlain tomediate inPrague and persuaded the Czechoslovak government to grant autonomy. Germany escalated the dispute, with the country's press carrying stories of alleged atrocities against Sudeten Germans, and Hitler ordering 750,000 troops to theCzechoslovak border. In August, Henlein broke off negotiations with the Czechoslovak authorities. At aNazi party rally inNuremberg on 12 September, Hitler made a speech attacking Czechoslovakia[17] and there was an increase of violence by Sudeten Nazis against Czechoslovak and Jewish targets.
Chamberlain, faced with the prospect of a German invasion, flew toBerchtesgaden on 15 September to negotiate directly with Hitler, who now demanded that Chamberlain accept not Sudeten self-government within Czechoslovakia but the absorption of the Sudeten lands into Germany. Chamberlain became convinced that refusal would lead to war. Thegeography of Europe was such that Britain and France could forcibly prevent the German occupation of the Sudetenland only by the invasion of Germany.[18] Chamberlain, therefore, returned to Britain and agreed to Hitler's demands. Britain and France told the Czechoslovak PresidentEdvard Beneš to hand over to Germany all territory with a German majority. Hitler increased his aggression against Czechoslovakia and ordered the establishment of aSudeten German paramilitary organisation, which proceeded to carry out terrorist attacks on Czechoslovak targets.
On 22 September, Chamberlain flew toBad Godesberg for his second meeting with Hitler and said that he was willing to accept the cession of the Sudetenland to Germany. He was startled by the response of Hitler that the cession of the Sudetenland was not enough and that Czechoslovakia, which Hitler had described as a "fraudulent state", must be broken up completely. Later in the day, Hitler resiled by saying that he was willing to accept the cession of the Sudetenland by 1 October. On 24 September, Germany issued theGodesberg Memorandum, which demanded cession by 28 September or war. The Czechoslovak government rejected those demands, France ordered mobilisation and Britain mobilised theRoyal Navy.
On 26 September, Hitler made a speech at theSportpalast in Berlin in which he claimed that the Sudetenland was "the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe",[19] and he gave Czechoslovakia anultimatum of 28 September at 2:00pm to cede the territory to Germany or to face war.[20]
In the atmosphere of growing conflict, Mussolini persuaded Hitler to put the dispute to a four-power conference. On 29 September 1938, Hitler, Chamberlain, French Prime MinisterÉdouard Daladier and Mussolini met in Munich. Czechoslovakia was not to be a party to these talks, nor was the Soviet Union. The four powers agreed that Germany would complete its occupation of the Sudetenland but that 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 readily signed an agreement for between the United Kingdom and Germany. Chamberlain returned to Britain and promised "peace for our time". Before Munich, U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt had sent a telegram to Chamberlain that said, "Good man" and he later told the American ambassador in Rome,William Phillips, "I am not a bit upset over the final result".[21]
As a result of the annexation of the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia lost 800,000 citizens, much of its industry and its mountain defences in the west. The rest of Czechoslovakia was left weak and powerless to resist subsequent occupation. In the following months, Czechoslovakia was broken up and ceased to exist, as Germany occupied the Sudetenland; Hungary took part of Slovakia, includingCarpathian Ruthenia; and Poland annexedTrans-Olza. On 15 March 1939, the GermanWehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia, and fromPrague Castle, Hitler proclaimedBohemia andMoravia to be theProtectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, completing theGerman occupation of Czechoslovakia. Slovakia separated and became aGerman satellite state.
In March 1939, Chamberlain foresaw a possible disarmament conference between himself, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini andStalin.Home Secretary,Samuel Hoare, said, "These five men, working together in Europe and blessed in their efforts by thePresident of the United States of America, might make themselves eternal benefactors of the human race".[22]
In effect, the British and French had by the Munich negotiations pressured their ally Czechoslovakia to cede part of its territory to a hostile neighbour in order to preserve peace. Churchill likened the negotiations atBerchtesgarten,Bad Godesberg andMunich to a man demanding £1, then, when it is offered, demanding £2, then when it is refused settling for £1.17s.6d.[23] British leaders committed to the Munich Agreement in spite of their awareness of Hitler's vulnerability at the time. In August 1938, GeneralLudwig Beck relayed a message to Lord Halifax to explain that most of theGerman General Staff had prepared acoup against the Fuhrer for if there was "proof that England will fight if Czechoslovakia is attacked". When Chamberlain received the news, he dismissed it out of hand. In September, the British received assurance that the General Staff's offer to launch the coup still stood with key private sector police and army support, even though Beck had resigned his post.[24] Chamberlain ultimately ceded to all of Hitler's demands at Munich because he believed Britain and Nazi Germany were "the two pillars of European peace and buttresses against communism".[25][26]
Czechoslovakia had a modern well-prepared military, and Hitler, on enteringPrague, conceded that a war would have cost Germany much blood[27][23] but the decision by France and Britain not to defend Czechoslovakia in the event of war and the exclusion from the equation of the Soviet Union, which Chamberlain distrusted, meant that the outcome would have been uncertain.[23] The event forms the main part of what became known asMunich betrayal (Czech:Mnichovská zrada) in Czechoslovakia and the rest of Eastern Europe,[28] as the Czechoslovak view was that Britain and France had pressured it to cede territory to prevent a major war, which would involve Western Europe. The Western view is that the pressure was done to save Czechoslovakia from total annihilation.
Rumours had reached theLithuanian government to the effect that Germany had specific plans to take overKlaipėda. On 12 March 1939, Foreign MinisterJuozas Urbšys represented Lithuania at the coronation ofPope Pius XII in Rome. On Urbšys's return to Lithuania, he stopped in Berlin with the hope of clarifying the growing rumours.[29] On 20 March, just five days after theGerman occupation of Prague, German Foreign MinisterJoachim von Ribbentrop agreed to meet Urbšys but not the Lithuanian Ambassador to Berlin,Kazys Škirpa, who was asked to wait in another room. The conversation lasted for about 40 minutes.[30] Ribbentrop demanded the return of Klaipėda to Germany and threatened military action. Urbšys relayed the verbal ultimatum to the Lithuanian government. Because the ultimatum was never set down in writing and did not include a formal deadline, some historians downplay its importance and describe it as a "set of demands", rather than as an ultimatum.[31] However, it was made clear that force would be used should Lithuania resist, and Lithuania was warned not to seek help from other nations. A clear deadline was not given, but Lithuania was told to make a speedy decision and that any clashes or German casualties would inevitably provoke a response from theGerman military.[30]
Lithuania secretly informed the signatories of theKlaipėda Convention about those demands since technically, Lithuania could not transfer Klaipėda without the signatories' approvals.[32] Italy and Japan supported Germany in the matter, and the United Kingdom and France expressed sympathy for Lithuania but chose not to offer any material assistance and followed a well-publicized policy of appeasement. The British treated the issue in the same way as the earlier Sudeten Crisis and made no plans to assist Lithuania or the otherBaltic States if they were attacked by Germany.[33] The Soviets supported Lithuania in principle but did not wish to disrupt their relations with Germany since they were contemplating theGerman-Soviet Pact.[30] Without any material international support, Lithuania had no choice but to accept the ultimatum. Lithuanian diplomacy characterized the concession as a "necessary evil" to enable Lithuania to preserve its independence, and it maintained the hope that it was merely a temporary retreat.[29]
By August 1939, Hitler was convinced that the democratic nations would never put up any effective opposition to him. He expressed his contempt for them in a speech that he delivered to his Commanders in Chief: "Our enemies have leaders who are below the average. No personalities. No masters, no men of action.... Our enemies are small fry. I saw them in Munich".[34]
On 1 September 1939, German forces started theirinvasion of Poland. Britain and France joined the war against Germany but initially averted serious military involvement during the period known as thePhoney War. After theGerman invasion of Norway, opinion turned against Chamberlain's conduct of the war. He resigned after theNorway Debate in the British House of Commons, and on 10 May 1940Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. In July, after theFall of France, when Britain stood almost alone against Germany, Hitler offered peace. Some politicians both inside and outside the government were willing to consider the offer, but Churchill refused to do so.[35] Chamberlain died on 9 November the same year. Churchill delivered a tribute to him 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".[36]
As the policy of appeasement failed to prevent war, those who advocated it were quickly criticised. Appeasement came to be seen as something to be avoided by those with responsibility for the diplomacy of Britain or any other democratic country. By contrast, the few who stood out against appeasement were seen as "voices in the wilderness whose wise counsels were largely ignored, with almost catastrophic consequences for the nation in 1939–40".[37] More recently, however, historians have questioned the accuracy of that simple distinction between appeasers and anti-appeasers. "Few appeasers were really prepared to seek peace at any price; few, if any, anti-appeasers were prepared for Britain to make a stand against aggression whatever the circumstances and wherever the location in which it occurred".[37]
Chamberlain's policy in many respects continued the policies of MacDonald and Baldwin 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.[38] Many believed after the First World War that wars were started by mistake, in which case theLeague of Nations could prevent them; or that they were caused by large-scale armaments, in which casedisarmament was the remedy; or that they were caused by national grievances, in which case the grievances should be redressed peacefully.[10] Many thought that theVersailles Treaty had been unjust, that theGerman minorities were entitled to self-determination, and that Germany was entitled to equality in armaments.[citation needed]
Appeasement was accepted by most of those responsible for British foreign policy in the 1930s; by leading journalists and academics; and by members of theBritish royal family such as KingEdward VIII and his successor,George VI.[37]Anti-communism was sometimes acknowledged as a deciding factor, as mass labour unrest resurfaced in Britain, and news ofStalin's bloody purges disturbed the West. A common upper-class slogan was "betterHitlerism thanCommunism".[39] In France, right-wingers were sometimes accused of believing "Better Hitler thanBlum" in reference to theFrench Socialist Prime MinisterLéon Blum at the time.[40] Anti-communism was a motive of a close ally of Chamberlain,Lord Halifax, who said after he had visitedGöring and met Hitler in Germany in 1936 and 1937: "Nationalism and Racialism is a powerful force but I can't feel that it's either unnatural or immoral! I cannot myself doubt that these fellows are genuine haters of Communism, etc.! And I daresay if we were in their position we might feel the same!"[41]
Most Conservative MPs were also in favour, but Churchill said that their supporters were divided and in 1936 led a delegation of leading Conservative politicians to express to Baldwin their alarm about the speed of German rearmament and the fact that Britain was falling behind.[23] Baldwin rejected their sense of urgency and declared that he would not get Britain to war with anybody "for the League of Nations or anybody else" and that if there were to be any fighting in Europe, "I should like to see the Bolshies and Nazis doing it".[42] Amongst Conservatives, Churchill was unusual in believing that Germany menaced freedom and democracy, that British rearmament should proceed more rapidly and that Germany should be resisted over Czechoslovakia. His criticism of Hitler began from the start of the decade, but Churchill was slow to attackfascism overall because of his own vitriolic opposition to communists, "international Jews" andsocialism generally.[43] Churchill's sustained warnings about fascism commenced only in 1938 afterFrancisco Franco, who was receiving aid from Italy and Germany during theSpanish Civil War, decimated theleft inSpain.[44]
The week before Munich, Churchill warned, "The partition of Czechoslovakia under pressure from the UK 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 the UK nor to France".[23] He and a few other Conservatives who refused to vote for the Munich settlement were attacked by their local constituency parties.[23] However, Churchill's subsequent leadership of Britain during the war and his role in creating thepost-war consensus against appeasement have tended to obscure the fact that "his contemporary criticism of totalitarian regimes other than Hitler's Germany was at best muted".[37] It was not until May 1938 that he began "consistently to withhold his support from theNational Government's conduct of foreign policy in the division lobbies of the House of Commons". He seems "to have been convinced by the Sudeten German leader, Henlein, in the spring of 1938, that a satisfactory settlement could be reached if Britain managed to persuade the Czech government to make concessions to the German minority".[37]
In Britain, theRoyal Navy generally favoured appeasement although it was during theAbyssinia Crisis of 1937 that it was confident it could easily defeat theRoyal Italian Navy in open warfare. However, it favoured appeasement because it did not want to commit a large fraction of its naval power to theMediterranean Sea, which would weaken its positions against Germany and Japan.[45] In 1938, the Royal Navy approved appeasement regarding Munich because it calculated that Britain then lacked the political and military resources to intervene and to maintain an imperial defence capability simultaneously.[46][47]
Public opinion in Britain throughout the 1930s was frightened by the prospect of Germanterror bombing of British cities, which had started during the First World War. The media emphasised the dangers, and the general consensus was that defence was impossible and, as Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had said in 1932, "The bomber will always get through".[48] However, theRoyal Air Force had two major weapons systems in the works: betterinterceptors (Hurricanes andSpitfires) and especiallyradar. They promised to counter the German bombing offensive but were not yet ready and so appeasement was necessary to cause a delay.[49][50] Specifically, regarding the fighters, the RAF warned the government in October 1938 that the GermanLuftwaffe bombers would probably get through: "the situation... will be definitely unsatisfactory throughout the next twelve months".[51]
In France, theArmée de l'Air intelligence section closely examined the strength of theLuftwaffe and decided the Germanpursuit planes andbombers were the best in the world and that the Germans were producing 1000 warplanes a month. It perceived decisive Germanair superiority and so it was pessimistic about its ability to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938.Guy La Chambre, the civilian air minister, optimistically informed the government that the air force could stop the Luftwaffe. However, GeneralJoseph Vuillemin, air force chief of staff, warned that it was far inferior and consistently opposed war against Germany.[52]
TheLabour Party opposed the fascist dictators on principle but until the late 1930s also opposed rearmament and had a significantpacifist wing.[53][54] In 1935, its pacifist leader,George Lansbury, resigned after a party resolution in favour of sanctions against Italy, which he opposed. He was replaced byClement Attlee, who at first opposed rearmament by advocating the abolition of national armaments and a worldpeacekeeping force under the direction of the League of Nations.[55] However, with the rising threat fromNazi Germany and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations, that policy eventually lost credibility, and in 1937,Ernest Bevin andHugh Dalton persuaded the party to support rearmament[56] and oppose appeasement.[57]
A few on the left said that Chamberlain looked forward to a war between Germany and theSoviet Union.[10] Attlee claimed in one political speech in 1937 that theNational Government had connived at German rearmament "because of its hatred of Russia".[53] British communists, following the party line defined byJoseph Stalin,[58] argued that appeasement had been a pro-fascist policy and that the British ruling class preferred fascism to socialism. TheCommunist MPWillie 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".[59]
British public opinion had been strongly opposed to war and rearmament in the early 1930s, but that began to shift by mid-decade. At adebate at theOxford Union Society in 1933, a group of undergraduates passed a motion saying that they would not fight for King and country, which persuaded some in Germany that Britain would never go to war.[23] Baldwin told theHouse of Commons that in 1933, he had been unable to pursue a policy of rearmament because of the strong pacifist sentiment in the country.[23] In 1935, eleven million responded to the League of Nations "Peace Ballot" by pledging support for the reduction of armaments by international agreement.[23] On the other hand, the same survey also found that 58.7% of British voters favoured "collective military sanctions" against aggressors, and public reaction to theHoare-Laval Pact with Mussolini was extremely unfavorable.[60] Even the left wing of the pacifist movement quickly began to turn with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and many peace-balloters began signing up for theInternational Brigades to fight Franco. By the height of the Spanish conflict in 1937, the majority of young pacifists had modified their views to accept that war could be a legitimate response to aggression and fascism.[61][62]
Czechoslovakia did not concern most people until mid-September 1938, when they began to object to a small democratic state being bullied.[10][16] Nevertheless, the initial response of the British public to the Munich agreement was generally favourable.[10] As Chamberlain left for Munich in 1938, the whole House of Commons cheered him noisily. 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 onto the balcony atBuckingham Palace before he had reported to Parliament. The agreement was supported by most of the press, with onlyReynold's News and theDaily Worker dissenting.[10] In Parliament, the Labour Party opposed the agreement. Some Conservatives abstained in the vote, but the only MP to advocate war was the ConservativeDuff Cooper, who had resigned from the government to protest the agreement.[10]
Positive opinion of appeasement was shaped partly bymedia manipulation. The German correspondent forThe Times,Norman Ebbutt, charged that his persistent reports about Nazi militarism had been suppressed by his editor,Geoffrey Dawson. Historians such asRichard Cockett,William Shirer andFrank McDonough have confirmed the claim.[63][64] The results of an October 1938Gallup poll, which showed 86% of the public believed Hitler was lying about his future territorial ambitions, was censored from theNews Chronicle at the last minute by the publisher, who was loyal to Chamberlain.[65] For the few journalists who were asking challenging questions about appeasement, primarily members of the foreign press, Chamberlain often froze them out or intimidated them. When asked at press conferences about Hitler's abuse of Jews and other minority groups, he went so far as to denounce these reports as "Jewish-Communistpropaganda".[66]
Chamberlain's direct manipulation of theBBC was sustained and egregious.[67] For example, Lord Halifax told radio producers not to offend Hitler and Mussolini, and they complied by censoringanti-fascist commentary made by Labour andPopular Front MPs. The BBC also suppressed the fact that 15,000 people protested the prime minister inTrafalgar Square as he returned from Munich in 1938 (10,000 more than welcomed him at10 Downing Street).[68] The BBC radio producers continued to censor news ofpersecution of Jews even after the war broke out, as Chamberlain still held outhopes of a quick armistice and did not want to inflame the atmosphere.[69] AsRichard Cockett noted:
[Chamberlain] had successfully demonstrated how a government in a democracy could influence and control the press to a remarkable degree. The danger in this for Chamberlain was that he preferred to forget that he exercised such influence, and so increasingly mistook his pliant press for real public opinion... the truth of the matter was that by controlling the press he was merely ensuring that the press was unable to reflect public opinion.[70]
The journalistShiela Grant Duff'sPenguin 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 and confronted the need for war if necessary. It was influential and widely read. Although she argued against the policy of "peace at almost any price",[71] she did not take a personal tone, unlikeGuilty Men two years later.
Once Germany invaded Poland and so ignitedWorld War II, consensus was that appeasement was responsible. The Labour MPHugh Dalton identified the policy with wealthy people in theCity of London, Conservatives and members of thepeerage who were soft on Hitler.[72] The appointment of Churchill as Prime Minister after theNorway Debate hardened opinion against appeasement and encouraged the search for those responsible. Three British journalists,Michael Foot,Frank Owen andPeter Howard, writing under the name of "Cato" in their bookGuilty Men, called for the removal from office of 15 public figures they held accountable, including Chamberlain. 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,[73] butGuilty Men shaped subsequent thinking about appeasement, and it is said[74][75] that it contributed to the defeat of the Conservatives in the1945 general election.
The change in the meaning of "appeasement" after Munich was summarised later by the historianDavid Dilks: "The word in its normal meaning connotes the pacific settlement of disputes; in the meaning usually applied to the period of Neville Chamberlain['s] 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."[76]
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 since for safety, military and air power should be strengthened.
One of the first dissents to the prevailing criticism of appeasement was made byJohn F. Kennedy in his 1940Harvard College thesis,Why England Slept, in which he argued that appeasement had been necessary because the United Kingdom and France were unprepared for a world war.[77][78]
In 1961, the view of appeasement as avoidable error and cowardice was similarly set on its head byA.J.P. Taylor in his bookThe Origins of the Second World War. Taylor argued that Hitler did not have a blueprint for war and behaved much as any other German leader might have. Appeasement was an active policy, not a passive one, and allowing Hitler to consolidate 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 that was both diplomatically and politically appropriate to the time.
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".[79]Martin Gilbert 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 thatprogress 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".[80]
The arguments in Taylor'sOrigins of the Second World War, which have sometimes been described as "revisionist",[10][81] were rejected by many historians at the time, and reviews of his book in Britain and 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 a 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 that had carried out their policies in the face of massive public resistance. Also, by portraying the leaders of the 1930s as real people attempting to deal with real problems, he made the first strides towards explaining the actions of the appeasers, rather than merely condemning them.
In the early 1990s a new theory of appeasement, sometimes called "counter-revisionist",[81] 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 because of 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 that view of appeasement, which was described his bookNeville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War[82] as a "post revisionist" study.[83] 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 criticised revisionist historians for concentrating on Chamberlain's motivations, rather than how appeasement worked in practice, as a "usable policy" to deal with Hitler.James P. Levy argues against the outright condemnation of appeasement. "Knowing what Hitler did later", he writes, "the critics of Appeasement condemn the men who tried to keep the peace in the 1930s, men who could not know what would come later.... The political leaders responsible for Appeasement made many errors. They were not blameless. But what they attempted was logical, rational, and humane".[84]
The view of Chamberlain colluding with Hitler to attack the Soviet Union has persisted, however, particularly on the far left.[85] In 1999,Christopher Hitchens wrote that Chamberlain "had made a cold calculation that Hitler should be re-armed... partly to encourage his 'tough-minded' solution to theBolshevik problem in the East".[40] Consciously encouraging war with Stalin is not widely accepted to be a motive of theDowning Street appeasers, but there is a historical consensus that anti-communism was central to appeasement's appeal for the conservative elite.[39] AsAntony Beevor writes, "The policy of appeasement was not Neville Chamberlin's invention. Its roots lay in a fear of bolshevism. Thegeneral strike of 1926 and the depression made the possibility of revolution a very real concern to conservative politicians. As a result, they had mixed feelings towards the German and Italian regimes which had crushed the communists and socialists in their own countries".[86]
Statesmen in the postwar years have often referred to their opposition to appeasement as a justification for firm, sometimes armed, action in international relations.
U.S. PresidentHarry S. Truman thus explained his decision to enter theKorean War in 1950, British Prime MinisterAnthony Eden in his confrontation ofEgyptianPresidentGamal Abdel Nasser in theSuez Crisis of 1956, U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy his "quarantine" ofCuba in 1962, U.S. PresidentLyndon B. Johnson inhis resistance tocommunism inIndochina in the 1960s, U.S. PresidentRonald Reagan inhis air strike onLibya in 1986, and U.S. PresidentDonald Trump in thedrone strike that led to theassassination ofQasem Soleimani in 2020.[87][88]
After theViet Minh won theBattle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, U.S. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower wrote in a letter to British Prime Minister Churchill, "We failed to halt Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler by not acting in unity and in time. That marked the beginning of many years of stark tragedy and desperate peril. May it not be that our nations have learned something from that lesson?" Similarly, President Lyndon Johnson said to defend the Vietnam War, "Everything I knew about history told me that if I got out of Vietnam and letHo Chi Minh run through the streets ofSaigon, then I'd be doing exactly what Chamberlain did in World War II. I'd be giving a big fat reward to aggression".[78]
During theCuban Missile Crisis, U.S. Air Force Chief of StaffCurtis LeMay and various hawks within theKennedy administration for an air strike on Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba compared Kennedy's hesitance to do so to appeasement. That was partially a jab at Kennedy's fatherJoseph P. Kennedy Sr., who had supported appeasement while he wasU.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and later supported a negotiated surrender to Germany during theMay 1940 War Cabinet Crisis and theBattle of Britain.[89][78]
During theCold War, the "lessons" of appeasement were cited by prominent conservative allies of Reagan, who urged him to be assertive in "rolling back" Soviet-backed regimes throughout the world.The Heritage Foundation'sMichael Johns, for instance, wrote in 1987 that "seven years after Ronald Reagan's arrival in Washington, the United States government and its allies are still dominated by the culture of appeasement that drove Neville Chamberlain to Munich in 1938."[90] Some conservatives even compared Reagan to Chamberlain after his withdrawal of theMultinational Force in Lebanon because of the1983 Beirut barracks bombing.[78]
British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher invoked the example of Churchill during theFalklands War of 1982: "When theAmerican Secretary of State,Alexander Haig, urged her to reach a compromise with theArgentines 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 theCzechs as a faraway people about whom we know so little'".[91] Thatcher, along with U.S. National Security AdvisorBrent Scowcroft, made similar arguments after the1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the planning for theGulf War.[78] The spectre of appeasement was raised in discussions of theYugoslav wars of the 1990s.[92]
U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bush and British Prime MinisterTony Blair also cited Churchill's warnings about German rearmament to justify their action in the run-up to the 2003Iraq War.[93]
In 2013,Obama administration officials such as Secretary of StateJohn Kerry and Secretary of DefenseChuck Hagel claimed that a failure of the United States to intervene in theSyrian Civil War after theGhouta chemical attack would be an act of appeasement towardsBashar al-Assad.[78]
In May 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush cautioned against "the false comfort of appeasement" when dealing withIran andIranian PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad.[94] Opponents of PresidentBarack Obama later criticized theJoint Comprehensive Plan of Action as an act of appeasement with Iran.[95][96] U.S. Secretary of StateMike Pompeo later stated that thefirst Trump administration's foreign policy was "trying to correct for what was the Obama administration's appeasement of Iran."[88]
Tibetan separatists consider the policy of the West towards thePeople's Republic of China with regard toTibet as appeasement.[97]
The minimal international reactions to theinvasion of Chechnya, theinvasion of Georgia and the2014 annexation of Crimea, as well as theconflict in the Donbas, which all stand in violation of international law, is seen by some as the cause that encouraged Russian presidentVladimir Putin to conduct afull-scale invasion of the rest of Ukraine in 2022.[98][99]
Some commentators have suggested that someNATO countries are following the policy of appeasement towardsVladimir Putin'sRussia by rejecting the support ofUkrainiandemocracy through military operations and aid during the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[100][101][102][103]
The 2020 Doha Agreement between the United States and theTaliban without involvement of the thenAfghan government was criticized as the American appeasement of the Taliban. Over theAmerican war in Afghanistan, the United States and itsNATO allies (ISAF andRSM periods) along with the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and itsnational defense and security forces warred against the Taliban and its allied militant groups and later theIslamic State – Khorasan Province. AfterDonald Trump become the president, he decided to wrap up all military operations inAfghanistan and to begin negotiation with the Taliban, which culminated with the Doha Agreement on 29 February 2020. After PresidentJoe Biden decided towithdraw all American troops from Afghanistan on 31 August 2021, the Taliban launchedtheir final offensive of the war, which brought the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, during whichKabul wastaken over by the Taliban on 15 August 2021. The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan and theevacuation of American citizens and residents and at-risk Afghans fromKabul International Airport on 30 August 2021.[104]
In the mid-20th century, appeasement was seen as discredited in the United Kingdom due to its role in contributing to World War II.[105]
Scholar Aaron McKeil pointed out that appeasement restraint against liberal interventionism would lead to more proxy wars, and fail to offer institutions and norms for mitigating great power conflict.[106] Alternative strategies to avoid conflict includedeterrence, where threats or limited forcedissuades an actor from escalating conflict,[107] typically because the prospective attacker believes that the probability of success is low and the costs of attack are high.[108]
Appeasement can be seen as promotingfrozen conflicts and rewardingaggression from a game-theoretical point of view.[109] If the defensive player is willing to appease, the offensive player is incentivised to create the conditions to be appeased by their opponent.
Appeasement might be more difficult to achieve if the source of conflict is indivisible and can be held by only one party, preventing small concessions.[110]
The case ofpeacebuilding in Timor-Leste can be seen as appeasement to avoid conflict without addressing underlying conflict grievances.[111]
TheMinsk agreements have been called by some as appeasement, which subsequently failed to prevent the 2022Russian invasion of Ukraine.[112][113]
Appeasement can face the dilemma where appeasing a group of former rebels can increase grievances with new groups.[114]
By and large, the Chamberlain government tried to persuade editors to operate an informal self-censorship. [...] Editors of leading national newspapers were asked to support Chamberlain's efforts to gain a peaceful settlement and to avoid critical comment. Yet the freedom enjoyed by the press ensured that total government control was never feasible and critical comment continued to appear.
Government pressure to restrict criticism of appeasement on BBC radio was far more successful. Radio coverage of foreign policy during the inter-war years was severely restricted through a combination of discreet pressure, self-censorship and guidance from Downing Street and the foreign office.
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