The Policy of Appeasement

Appeasement

Appeasement is the policy of acceding to the demands of a potential enemy in order to maintain peace. This is commonly associated to the actions of British Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain between 1937 and 1939. After World War One the world was still getting back on its feet and rebuilding what has been destroyed over the war. At the same time Germany had just elected a new chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a man who wanted to get Germany back to its former glory after being completely destroyed by the Treaty of  Versailles. Hitler began to do so by taking a risk and re militarising the Rhineland, hoping that Britain and France wont intervene. Britain and France went to the League of Nations and protested Hitler's action, but nothing was done.  Later the British Prime Minster Stanley Baldwin (predecessor to Chamberlain) said that Britain lacks the forces to back up France if they choose to go to war and that it was opposed by public opinion. It was thought as Germany merely walking into their own backyard. In 1937 Neville Chamberlain took office and a year later was faced with a challenge. In April of 1938, Nazis in the Sudetenland( and area created by the Treaty of Versailles, that was taken from Germany and made into the Czechoslovakia)  asked for autonomy, and Chamberlain thought that because of this there might be a possibility of a German invasion, and warned Hitler that Britain might attack if Hitler does so. Hitler wasn't shaken and ordered an attack on Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain quickly then sent a person to Prague to convince the Czech Government to grant the Sudeten autonomy, and the Czechs agreed, war is avoided. Later that year Neville Chamberlain flew over to Austria to speak with Hitler himself, hoping to set up and agreement and to permanently avoid war. When they met Hitler demanded that the Sudetenland shoudl be absorbed into Germany, and as Chamberlain desperately wanted to avoid war, he appeased Hitler and allowed for such a thing to occur. Chamberlain thought that because of him another war was forever avoided. Yet, even after giving Hitler more land(which lead to more power), Hitler on September 1st,1939 invaded Poland, marking the start of World War Two. The problem with Neville Chamberlain using the appeasement policy was that he really was just delaying the inevitable and also by doing so was making the enemy stronger , in the long run the appeasement policy was a bad decision I think. If they acted upon Hitler re arming the Rhineland then I think things could have gone favourably for Britain.