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On October 1, 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to Great Britain to announce that “peace with honor” had been preserved by his signature in the Munich Pact. This was an agreement that gave part of Czechoslovakia to Germany. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, had promised to demand no further territories with this arrangement. France had also agreed to this deal that had been reached without consulting Czechoslovakia, the nation that was stripped of some of its most valuable territory. The Munich Pact was hailed by many as a triumph of diplomacy in the avoidance of war, yet less than one year later the world was plunged into a global conflict and the Munich Pact was attacked as one of the final nails in the coffin of world peace. Is appeasement, the policy employed by Britain and France at Munich, an effective policy in preventing aggression? Why did British and French leaders choose to appease aggressors in the years before the Second World War? Roots of Appeasement To appease means that, in order to avoid a conflict, a person gives in to some or all of an aggressor’s demands; a parent who gives a child chocolate in order to stop a temper tantrum is said to be appeasing the child. Appeasement used as a means of preventing conflict among nations would similarly involve a nation or nations conceding to the demands of

another to avoid war. During the pre-World War II period, Britain and France appeased Hitler. Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany on January 30, 1933. Almost immediately he announced that Germany would not follow the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and would pay no further reparation payments. (1) He withdrew Germany from the League of Nations and in the spring of 1935 German rearmament officially began with the creation of the Luftwaffe (air force) and the explanation of the Kreigesmarine (navy) and Wehrmacht (army): the German economy quickly became focused on the revival of military strength. Furthermore, Hitler’s writings in Mein Kampf had made no secret of his plans to create more Lebensraum (literally “living room”) for the German people by conquering neighboring lands to the east. However, these actions and announcements met with little reaction from Britain, France or the United states, the Big Three a the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The United States had made its foreign policy objectives clear when the Senate had refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. Since then, American involvement in international affairs had remained deliberately slight. Britain and France had other motives for avoiding war. Although appeasement today has come to be associated with weakness, or even cowardice, appeasement of Hitler in the 1930’s was seen as an

effective means of avoiding war with Germany, and was widely supported in both Britain and France, neither of which nations had fully recovered from the economic losses of World War I. They simply could not afford a war or the expenses of maintaining armed forces large enough to deter German expansion. In addition, the Great War (World War I)

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had scarred both nations and individuals; few people wanted to risk another such catastrophe. Pacifism, or the desire to avoid war, was a major force in all European nations (although it was largely crushed in the new German police-state). There were other factors that eventually led to the policy of appeasement. Many British and even French citizens had second thoughts about the Treaty of Versailles by the 1930’s, thinking that the allies had been too harsh in their treatment of defeated Germany. Why should Germany, fifteen years after the war, continue to be bound to the restrictions imposed in 1919? Indeed, many citizens and even government leaders in both Britain and France were either secret or public admirers of Hitler and fascist groups in both countries urged closer ties with Nazi Germany. The French people, who had been so eager for war against Germany in 1914, had found another form of security in the building of the Maginot Line, which was near completion in 1936. This line of defense ran along the French-German border and was an imposing bulwark of trenches, tank traps, and gun emplacements, connected by a system of underground rail lines; it was considered to be impregnable. Once the Maginot Line was finished there was a tendency for French leaders to ignore the threat from Germany, placing absolute faith in the Maginot Line’s ability to repel any possible Germany aggression. The League of Nations was also seen as a barrier to future threats. Even though the League had failed to deal effectively with conflicts in Manchuria and Ethiopia, British and French leaders continued to support the shaky collective security that it promised. They avoided taking action outside the League (which meant, in effect, taking no action at all). By the mid-1930’s there was a vacuum in international leadership that Britain and France, for the reasons described above, were reluctant to fill. Opinion in Britain and France was not unanimous in favor of avoiding conflict; in France a young colonel, Charles de Gaulle, led the opposition to the Maginot Line and supported sharp increases in French military spending; in Britain, Winston Churchill criticized government policies that took little action to defend against the German increase in strength. However, the dominant fear was that confronting Hitler could lead to war; therefore, confrontation was avoided. Appeasing Hitler In March 1936, Hitler shocked the world by sending troops into the German Rhineland, in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Although public indignation in Britain and France was high, there was little reaction from the governments. British and French forces could have stopped the German occupation – Hitler’s rearmament was just getting underway – but neither nation wanted to take the first step. Instead, letters of protest were sent to Germany, followed by reluctant acceptance of the remilitarization of the Rhineland, provided that Hitler promised no further violations. This easy victory encouraged Hitler to make even greater demands.

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Neville Chamberlain, who became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1937, approved of the British action – or lack of action – over the Rhineland. He believed that the League of Nations’ collective security was a failure and that direct negotiation with aggressive dictators was needed to reach a peaceful compromise. He got his chance in 1938, when Hitler increased his aggressive activities. Hitler wanted to bring Austria into the German Reich (Empire), a move expressly forbidden in the Treaty of Versailles. The Austrian Nazi Party, which received its orders from Germany, worked in Austria to promote this aim, often by using rioting and violence, but the Austrian Chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, struggled to maintain Austrian independence from its powerful neighbor. In March 1938, Schuschnigg called a plebiscite to decide whether Austria should join in an Anschluss (union) with Germany. Fearing the outcome of the plebiscite, Hitler ordered Austrian Nazis to create disorder and then sent German troops to occupy the country, supposedly to maintain order. Austria became part of the Reich, and in April held a Nazi-supervised plebiscite, which overwhelmingly favored the Anschluss, although the real amount of Austrian support for union with Germany will never be known. Neville Chamberlain and the French leader, Edward Daladier, expressed their disapproval of this move but again were unwilling to confront Hitler. After all, as one British journalist later said, who was willing to risk a major war to prevent a German-Austrian union? In the fall of 1938, Hitler’s attention focused on Czechoslovakia, specifically the area of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, which bordered Germany. Over three million ethnic Germans lived in the Sudetenland, and Hitler demanded that the area be given to Germany. He further claimed that the Sudeten Germans were persecuted by the Czech government. Czechoslovakia refused to consider giving the Sudetenland to Germany and felt reassured by its alliance with France. France had promised to intervene if Czechoslovakia was invaded. A war between Czechoslovakia and Germany could endanger European peace by drawing France into the conflict to support Czechoslovakia and Italy into conflict to support its German ally. To avoid this threatened war, Chamberlain flew to Germany to meet with Hitler on three separate occasions in September 1938. At each meeting Hitler continued to insist on the ceding of the Sudetenland to Germany, threatening war as an alternative. On September 29-30, 1938, in Munich, the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy met and reached the solution, which brought “peace with honor”. Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini agreed to give the Sudetenland to Germany. Chamberlain and Daladier considered this concession a small price to pay for maintaining a European peace; Czechoslovakia was not consulted and was powerless to resist when German troops occupied the Sudetenland the next day. Hitler, for his part, promised to leave the remainder of Czechoslovakia alone.

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The Munich Pact, or Accord, as the agreement was called, represents the climax of appeasement. Many people in Britain and France were not happy with having given away part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler but believed, like Chamberlain, that “appeasement alone can save the world from chaos.” Unfortunately, however six months after the signing of the Munich Pact, Hitler occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia, violating his earlier promises. This action discredited appeasement to most British and French observers and prompted rapid preparations for war in the West. In the summer of 1939, it was obvious that Hitler’s next target was Poland. Both Britain and France assured Poland that they would help defend the country against any German attack. After what had happened to Czechoslovakia, few Poles were reassured by this promise and Hitler continued to make threatening moves. Britain and France also tried to enlist the Soviet Union in an alliance against Germany, but Stalin, the Soviet leader, did not trust the western leaders and felt that he had been ignored in earlier crises. Instead, on August 23, 1939, Stalin signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler. This Nazi-Soviet deal was startling because it represented a partnership of fascists and communists, two opposite and hostile political and economic ideologies. Nevertheless, it gave Hitler the guarantee that the Soviet Union would not oppose him, and on September 1, 1939, he launched the invasion of Poland. The Non-Aggression Pact carved up Poland, with Stalin staking claim on the eastern half while Hitler would take the west (Polish corridor) re-uniting East Prussia and greater Germany. Appeasement had failed. In one last effort to avoid war, Britain and France gave Hitler two days to withdraw from Poland. When this ultimatum went unanswered, they declared war on September 3, 1939. The Second World War had begun. One of the most popular speculations in history is what would have happened if Britain and France had chosen to confront Hitler rather than appease him. Did the policy of appeasement, which was aimed at avoiding war at all costs, actually result in an even larger and more destructive war? These questions will never be answered fully, but, although appeasement may have seemed at the time to be a logical course of action, it has today become a “dirty word” in the vocabulary of foreign policy.

Sources: Historical Atlas of the Third Reich, A Map History of the Modern World, Weimar and Nazi Germany, Social 30 Readings

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On each map below: On each map below: Explain Explain the event identified in the title.the event identified in the title. Colour in the area occupied by Hitler’s armyColour in the area occupied by Hitler’s army

Anschluss: Anschluss: March 1938March 1938 Munich Agreement: SeptMunich Agreement: Sept 19381938

Czechoslovakia: March 1939Czechoslovakia: March 1939 Invasion of Poland: SeptInvasion of Poland: Sept 19319399