We’ve been hearing about Neville Chamberlain and the Munich appeasement again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. But if non-appeasement is the Iron Law of International Relations, there must be plenty of other examples in history of disasterous wars that started as a result of appeasement. (After all, WWI started as a result of an overreaction to a terrorist attack.)
The British appeasement at the Munich Treaty was sound tactical advice: Britain wasn’t prepared at that point in time to go to war directly (while Germany was, because Hitler had secretly prepared everything), so Chamberlain went home and in that one year, closed the gap and brought the British army up to strength.
Also, a very old tactical axiom is to never let the enemy choose the time and place for a battle; in this case Hitler had chosen the time, so Churchill picked his own. Apparently, Hitler was privately hopping mad after the signing, because he had hoped to start his war right now, everything in place and prepared, and the other leaders hadn’t played along with his plan.
That’s what I always heard.
The point isn’t that WWII started as a result of appeasement, it’s that appeasement failed to prevent it. The pre-WWII appeasement was especially disastrous because it postponed the inevitable war for twelve months at a time when Germany was gorwing stronger, and it involved a concession (the loss of the most defensible part of Czechoslovakia) which weakend the Allies further.
One can find other examples of appeasement which failed to prevent war, but few involve a concession so disastrous as that at Munich. For example, during the 1850’s, the American North appeased the pro-slavery South by a series of concessions vis-a-vis slavery: enactment of a stricter fugitive slave law (1850), legalization of slavery on the Great Plains (1854), and later, legalization of slavery in all federal territories (Dred Scott case, 1857).
The concessions failed to appease the South and forestall war. But they weren’t disastrous, because the North was growing stronger, relative to the South, during the 1850’s.
Actually, as constanze noted, the Munich accord actually set off enough alarms within the British government that they finally began to make the preparations that allowed them to defend themselves. (I have never heard that Hitler was upset by the agreement.)
The two salient points regarding Munich that make it a case for condemnation are that Britain and France gave away parts of Czechoslovakia–which they clearly had no right to do–and Chamberlain’s unfortunate statement on the tarmac while disboarding his plane that the compronise had secured “peace in our time.”
Regarding the latter, Chamberlain realized, immediately, what a foolish statement that had been, but he was not able to unsay the words and he has been incorrectly tarred with the claim that he actually thought that he had secured a lasting peace. What he had done, and what he knew he had done, was buy some time for the preparation of a defense. He was not so stupid as his unfortunate comment has led later critics to contend.
The actual lesson should never have been Munich. By the time of that meeting, war was inevitable, but Chamberlain’s remark has given countless ill informed people a soundbite on which to hang bad history. The point at which the allies failed was the re-militarization of the Rhineland in 1936 which they permitted based on a lack of foresight and a desire to avoid any nasty confrontations.
Technically, what Chamberlain said secured “peace for our time” wasn’t the agreement to give the Sudetenland to Germany, but a second, later, agreement between Britain and Germany, saying:
So, it wasn’t the giving up of the Sudetenland that Chamberlain relied on, but instead, Hitler’s assurances that he would seek a peaceful resolution to future conflicts rather than war.
I’d argue that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was a prolonged period of appeasement. Whenever the two powers were in direct conflict and it appeared an actual war might break out, there were instead diplomatic meetings and some agreement was worked out to put off the fighting. And it worked; eventually one side collapsed and the other side won without having to fight a general war.
I don’t think so. There weren’t “appeasements” to the Soviets on the part of the US admin., it was more a case of cooler heads prevailing before the hawks on each side managed to launch WWIII and destroy half the human race.
E.g. when during the Cuba crisis, a US battleship captain on the blockade dropped hand grenades onto a Soviet sub - which was already at a heighented state of alert, after all - the Soviet captain would have been entirely in his right, under the cirumstances of imminent war alert, to reciprocate that attack by firing his atomic missiles; but he didn’t. There was no appeasement there.
Or when technical glitches (like in War games, but not a hacker, a failure of a 40cent chip in the computer) lead the computer centers - on both sides - to believe that large amounts of nuclear missiles were coming their way - the only reason we didn’t go up in a poof of dust was that some officers kept their cool, and checked the data before going into a panic of “we must defend ourselves”. No appeasement there.
I also don’t call the economic collapse of the Soviet Union the “aim” of the Cold War, and most certainly, the US didn’t win it.
Point taken. The basic argument is that muscular confrontation always prevents war and that any other approach inevitably emboldens…someone…to attack.
That’s an interesting example (although I doubt Sen. Allen is going to be among those citing it :dubious: ). But in this case I don’t see how a more confrontational approach would have prevented secession.
The Second World War by Winston S. Churchill and John Keegan is a comprehensive history of the war. See Volume I, “The Gathering Storm.”
I still think you’re mis-characterizing the usual argument against appeasement. (This is difficult because we’re dealing with an abstraction; if we were debating a specific argument that someone was advancing against a specific appeasement, this would be easier.)
The idea that the other side won’t attack if we don’t appease is only a small part of the usual argument. It does come into play–I don’t have a cite, but I’m sure there were those in 1938 who argued, “Germany is bluffing, and even if we concede nothing in Czechoslovakia, we won’t have war.” And I know that there were Northerners in 1850 and 1860 who said, “The South is bluffing; if we don’t embolden them with concessions, they’ll never secede.”
In both cases, persons making those arguments would have been wrong. But that’s only a part of the argument.
The follow-up is, even if we do make concessions, we’ll embolden the other side to make further demands. Germany will want the rest of Czechoslovakia and then Poland, the South will demand a Slave Code for the territories. We’ll have to make further concessions, or fight. And in the meantime, we’ll have lost ground and dishonored and demoralized ourselves.
A classic example was the Danegeld; essentially, a bribe or tribute from the English to the Vikings to not be invaded and plundered.
Can we have a cite for this story, please?
Because I don’t believe the US had any battleships in the fleet during the Cuban Missile crisis.
The 4 WWII Iowa-class battleships had all been de-commissioned and placed in reserve between 1955-1958, I believe. Some were later reactivated during the Vietnam war, and the (first) Gulf war. But none were seaworthy during the Cuban Missile crisis.
Also, a sub firing its atomic missiles wouldn’t hurt the battleship; those missile are targeted for land bases or cities hundreds of miles away. Torpedos would be the appropriate weapon to use against a battleship (if the sub had any).
Also, how did a sub get close enough to a battleship for hand grenades to be dropped onto it? As I recall, it has always been US Navy doctrine to use the fleet of secondary ships & planes to keep all unfriendly ships far away from capital ships. For example, in the 1980’s, the boundry for carriers was 100 miles (160 km) – no unidentified vessel was allowed to come closer than that. I believe approach to battleships was similarily restricted.
So, a captain of a US battleship during the Cuba crisis thought the best way to attack a nuclear sub was to toss hand grenades at it? I call BS.
Don’t know about battleships, but the confusion about hand grenades may stem from the National Security Archive
Moved to GD.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
How many hours later?
The event was the Munich conference in September, 1938, in which the Brits and France decided that Hitler could take the Sudetenland if he wanted it. At some point during the conference, Hitler “agreed” that Germany and Britain would not go to war, again. (Hitler might even have been willing to honor that agreement, given that it was Britain who declared war on Germany following the invasion of Poland.*) Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” speech was made at his arrival back in Britain.
*I am making no silly claim that Hitler was honorable or “wanted” peace, only noting that Hitler would have probably preferred that Britain remain neutral while Hitler had his way with Europe. Hitler would have been perfectly happy with an industrialized neutral trading partner (similar to Sweden but with more industry) on his Northwest flank rather than an open enemy, but it would have been unrealistic of him to expect Britain to go along with that idea.
Sorry, English is not my first language; I didn’t mean battleship as specific class, but as big fighting ship.
As to a cite: I read this (IIRC) in an newspaper article (or saw in on a TV report) during the anniversary of the Cuban crises.
A soviet sub, whether its atomic missiles would have hurt the US ship, or whether it would have used torps that could have hurt the ship, would very likely have started WWIII, that’s what I meant.
I think you are correct, I don’t think that Hitler wanted, or anticipated war with the UK
I am very doubtful about Dunkirk.
He was not that interested in France.
My take is that he was focused on the East, essentially recovering old German stamping grounds.
It is ironic that with Ost-Politik and influence, trade, gas and oil have nearly accomplished what Hitler was after.
OK, we’ve got 2 suggested examples besides Munich; any others? I can think of one, but I’ll hold off for a bit.
Precisely. And Chamberlain could hardly have said that he’d secured “war for our time, but delayed it by a year or so.” The quote that gets cited so often is not actually proof of a mutton-headed leader who couldn’t see what Hitler was up to. Chamberlain knew that war was coming; that line was one of the lies that world leaders have to tell from time to time.
While few would say so directly, I imagine that in 2001 many in the international community agreed to tacitly support American action in Afghanistan for appeasement purposes. The idea being that once the Taliban had been kicked and punched a bit, the desire for revenge would be slaked and America wouldn’t want to start any more wars in the Middle East. If anyone did view it that way, subsequent events proved them to be very wrong.