Policy British toward Nazi Germany in Neville Chamberlain Period, 1937-1940
Introduction 5
Meaning of Appeasement Policy 5
Reasons for the British policy of Appeasement 6
World Depression 6
British Army 6
Unpopularity of War 7
Fear for Communism 8
The Treaty of Versailles 8
Weakness of League of Nations 9
Influence of the USA 9
Failure of the appeasement policy in 1938 10
Summary 11
References: 13
Campbell, W.M., Holt, R.N, & Walker, T.W, 1999, AP European History w/ CD-ROM (REA) – The Best Test Prep for the AP Exam, London: Research & Education Assoc. pp.24-175. 13
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Dockrill, L.M, & McKercher, C.J., 2002, Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890-1951, pp.86-292 13
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Murphy, J, 2011, ‘Peace in Our Time: Constructing Parallels between Britain’s failure to appease Hitler and British Policy towards Republican Dissidents in Northern Ireland’, University College Cork, pp. 1-19. 15
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Smith, K 2009, ‘Reassessing Roosevelt’s View of Chamberlain after Munich: Ideological Affinity in the Geoffrey Thompson-Claude Bowers Correspondence’, Diplomatic History, 33, 5, pp. 839-864. 16
Abstract
In the period between the latter half of the nineteenth century and late 1930s, appeasement of aggressors became a key element of British foreign policy. The policy became synonymous with the conservative British Prime Minister Chamberlain who, in the effort to avert another world war, used appeasement towards Germany as Hitler broke the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles of 1919, heavily rearmed Germany, annexed Austria in 1938, and invaded some countries such as Czechoslovakia in 1939. Criticism of the policy was championed by President Roosevelt in 1940 terming it as “fundamentally flawed”. However, proponents of appeasement have held that it is a major component of government policy for preventing aggression. This paper discusses the use of the appeasement policy against Nazi Germany in the period of Neville Chamberlain, 1937-1940.
Introduction
At the time Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister of Britain (1937-1940), Britain was faced by three major threats from three fronts. From Europe, Britain faced major threat from Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler; in the Far East from Japan; and from fascist Italy in the Mediterranean (Murphy, 2011, 1). At the time Britain was at odds following the devastating effects of the depression after the end of the World War I. In fact, the British Empire had come to the brink of bankruptcy in 1931. Adolf Hitler had risen to power in Germany following the fall of the Weimar Republic owing immense inflation that crippled the German people. From the onset, Hitler was on an aggressive mission to restore Germany to its previous position among world leaders (Anievas, 2011, 605). This meant that Hitler had to reclaim colonies that Germany lost after signing the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler’s plan to rebuild the German nation would place the country at loggerheads with Britain, Europe’s main power at the time. However, the ill economics of Britain could allow it to mount a military confrontation against the aggressor (Woods, 1993, 611). The situation in the rest of the world in terms of the British Empire’ collective security against aggression by the Japanese in China and Italy in Africa and Spain did not favor Britain engaging the enemies in war. It is for this reasons that Prime Minister Chamberlain opted to avoid war at all costs on grounds of social and economic considerations, leading to the adaption of the controversial foreign policy of appeasement (McKercher, 2008, 392).
Meaning of Appeasement Policy
Historians have defined the policy of appeasement as a policy in which international quarrels are resolved through admission and satisfaction of grievances by means of rational negotiation and compromise, which rules out the need for expensive, bloody and possibly dangerous armed conflict. It is therefore a diplomatic or foreign policy purposed to avert war through concessions with an aggressor. In the years between 1937 and 1940, Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was widely perceived as positive for a number of factors (Campbell et al, 1999, 45).
Reasons for the British policy of Appeasement
World Depression
Chamberlain favored the policy of appeasement towards the Nazi Germany as a Self Interest tactic. In the wake of the world war and the crash of Wall Street in 1929, many countries including Britain were weakened economically and thus lacked resources for any form of armed conflict (Caputi, 2000, 151). The economy of Britain had suffered a great deal as key sectors such as iron and steel, shipbuilding, and coal were hit hard. As a result, Chamberlain perceived rearmament as suicidal to the fragile economy and thus reduced spending on the military. Furthermore, Britain was the major European power and other countries followed her lead, translating that they would not act unless Great Britain did. In view of this, it was only viable to act in self interest and avoid war even if it meant appeasing the aggressors through concessions (Witherell, 2012, 514).
British Army
Prior to being elected Prime Minister of Britain in May 1937, Neville Chamberlain was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had spent significant amounts of money to improving housing and welfare in Britain at the expense of the British army (Uldricks, 1999, 626). This meant that at the time he became Prime Minister the British Army had significantly shrunk and thus ill prepared to match the relatively large and strong Nazi Army that Hitler had thrown in everything to build since ascending to power in Germany.
Unpopularity of War
War was very unpopular among the British and other countries at the time Chamberlain was Prime Minister. This was as a result of the wounds of the World War I, where many innocent people and soldiers had lost their lives (Thompson, 2007, 413). To many people, therefore, engaging in another war meant that the lives had been lost in vain. Prime Minister Chamberlain was keen to pursue the policy of appeasement towards the Nazi Germany in the belief that Hitler would bring Europe into another world war. Appeasement thus represented the widespread British desire to get healing of the pains of World War I in addition to correcting what was perceived as injustices of the Versailles Treaty among many British officials (Cross, 1985, 323).
Furthermore, majority of self-governing British Dominions were against the idea of entering a war against the Nazi Germany. Britain’s contingency plan was founded on the assumption of Dominion support, which meant that Britain could go to war because the Dominions were hesitant to enter any military arrangements with Great Britain (Sloane, 2008, 67). This was crucial considering that the Dominions were very essential to British strength because they provided capital contributions to the British Army as well as the Allied forces. Dominions such as Canada are known to have placed immense pressure on the British government not to be party to a conflict that would plunge them in another unnecessary war (Thompson, 1993, 603).
While it can not be stated that Chamberlain took up the Dominion stand as the sole reason to placate the dictators, it is evident that the response of the Dominions to the Mother Country’s foreign policy was one of the key elements that influenced the adoption of the appeasement policy (Meisel, 2011, 401). This is especially evident from the Imperial Conference of 1937, where the Dominion Prime Ministers supported Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement and strategy to seek a viable adjustment to German grievances. Even when the appeasement of Nazi Germany was unfruitful to safeguard European security when war broke out, the Dominions did not relinquish their support for Britain foreign policy of appeasement, a further evidence of the unpopularity of war among the British and its affiliates (Sloane, 2008, 68).
Fear for Communism
In the 1930’s, Britain regarded communism as its principle threat as compared to Nazism. While Nazism was aggressive, it was limited and did not injure left capitalism unless the enterprises were Jewish. On the other hand, communism was blamed for destroying the established order besides causing famines and Red Towers (Crowson, 2000, 164). The USSR under Stalin had long promised to form a common front with democracies like Britain against Fascist dictators but still agitated for world revolution. As such, Chamberlain, the British and other Eastern Europe countries could not trust the USSR. Furthermore, there was widespread fear for revolution and war among the conservative circles followed the previous experiences in 1917-18 (Strang, 2008, 490). Therefore, Britain regarded Communist USSR as its principle threat rather than fascism, believing that authoritarian right-wing regimes were bulwarks against its spread. Many commentators have expressed opinion that in adopting the appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany, Chamberlain and Great Britain hoped that Stalin and Hitler would fight and weaken each other significantly (Strang, 2006, 76).
The Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles created in 1918 after the end of World War I greatly informed Britain’s decision to follow the policy of appeasement under Prime Minister Chamberlain. Britain felt that Germany had been forced to accept the peace treaty, whose terms were rather harsh (Dockrill & McKercher, 2002, 157). Germany was ordered to pay major reparations for damage caused during the war, surrender overseas territories, undertake large scale disarmament, and limit their troop numbers in the army and navy. A strong feeling to appease Germany became popular among the British as a result of growing feelings of guilt seeing how much Germany was struggling to fulfill the terms of the treaty (Murphy, 2011, 15). The British fear for Germany resorting to aggression and sparking another war rendered Britain willing to give in to Hitler’s demands as a means of redressing Germany’s legitimate grievances (Dutton, 2008, 800).
Weakness of League of Nations
The League of Nations was formed during the Treaty of Versailles to resolve all international disputes peacefully through negotiation and sanctions. However, the league was ineffective owing to the lack of its own independent army. The reliance of the League of Nations on countries agreeing failed during and after the economic depression of the 1930s as it had during the prosperous 1920s (Steven, 2007, 77). By 1938, the League only relied on Great Britain and France. More so, France would take action without the express support of Great Britain. Thus, Britain followed the appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany as the League was largely tasked to enforce the demands of the Versailles Treaty that were considered harsh and unjust to Germans (Mee, 1998, 347)
Influence of the USA
Like all other foreign policies, the British foreign policy of appeasement did not exist and operate in a vacuum because they are influence and are influenced by the foreign policies of other states. This means that the British foreign policy towards Nazi Germany in 1937-40 was not played out with a free hand as it was greatly influenced by the United States (Flint, 1997, 468). At the time, the American foreign policy was that it kept off from interfering in European politics. As such, the British could not rely on the support of the United States were they to impose sanctions or go to war against Nazi Germany under Hitler (Marshall, 2009, 93).
Failure of the appeasement policy in 1938
The failure of Britain’s appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany was dealt a major blow on 15 March 1939 when Adolf Hitler violated the Munich Agreement of 1938 by occupying Czechoslovakia (Stern, 1985, 1124). The Munich Agreement was the greatest representation of the British-led policy of appeasement. The policy had achieved a piecemeal review of the most problematic aspects of the 1919 Versailles Treaty, which punished Germany as the perpetrator of World War I. Hitler had ratified the Munich Agreement ceding the Czech fortifications and German-speaking Sudetenland to Germany while other parts of Czechoslovakia were relinquished to Hungary and Poland (FOSTER, 1999, 18). Hitler was thus appeased by being allowed to immediately march in his German troops, something that afforded him the triumph he yearned for to reinforce his popularity and power at home. In exchange, Hitler had guaranteed to uphold the post-Munich status quo in Central Europe (Levy, 2012, 339). Thus his invasion of Czechoslovakia signaled the official failure of the appeasement policy championed by Britain. The first two meetings between Hitler and Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden and Godesberg had ended in failure because Chamberlain was unable to talk the Nazi leader out of military action (Stedman, 2011, 87). From that point on it was difficult to reconcile German differences owing to the fact that subsequent Hitler’s assurances could be trusted.
As a result, Prime Minister Chamberlain revoked the appeasement policy towards the Nazi Germany in a public speech delivered on 17 March 1939 at Birmingham. A week later, Hitler pressed for the transfer of Lithuanian port city of Memel to Germany which was acceded to for lack of option (Graebner, 2011, 254) . Hitler further demanded Danzig, a predominantly German-speaking city in Poland, which was under the control of the League of Nations thanks to the Treaty of Versailles. The British government was forced to scrap out the policy of appeasing Nazi Germany and in place embarked on pursuing a balance of power (Johnson, 2003, 479). The stage for World War II was set when peacetime conscription was re-launched and guarantees given to Poland, Greece and Romania against German aggression.
In move meant to eliminate any resumption of negotiations with Poland or Britain, the German ambassadors to Warsaw and London were recalled in the weeks leading the outbreak of the war (Smith, 2009, 841). In September 1939, Hitler notified the German armed forces or the exhaustion of all political possibilities of amicably resolving issues pertaining to Germany’s Eastern frontiers, leaving the only option of a ‘solution by force’ (Hicks, 2011, 515).
Summary
In summary, the interpretation of the British policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has been both positive and negative (Hucker, 2012, 415). Debate among historians has ranged from criticism for letting Hitler to gain excessive power to the argument that Chamberlain had no option and acted in Britain’s best interest. Distinguished critics of the policy such as US president Roosevelt, J.W. Wheeler-Bennett, L. B. Namier, Allan Bullock, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill argued that appeasement is a shameful policy informed by naiveté, cowardice and weakness in the face of challenge from dictators (Churchill, 1989, 26). Their opinions were reinforced by the collapse of Chamberlain’s desire for “peace for our time” following the outbreak of the World War II (Hoffman, 1996, 84).
The proponents of the policy of appeasement argued that Chamberlain was right to to use it considering the economic, military and public opinion on war that Britain faced at the time. In addition, it is argued that if appeasement was misplaced in this instance, it cannot be discarded altogether (Smith, 2009, 842). The policy is overly suitable where a government is fully satisfied that the aggressor would buy the idea of a peaceful outcome if their legitimate grievances are satisfactorily addressed diplomatically.
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