Answered
In World War 2
What was the policy of appeasement?
Appeasement .
The common, popular answer is to say that is was an incorrect government policy of giving in to dictatorships in the hope that the dictators would mellow over… time and international peace would be secured. More specifically, appeasement is meant to describe the relationship between Chamberlain's British government and that of Hitler's Germany. The policy had been deemed an historic failure since it only emboldened the dictatorships and eventually led to world war. The inference is that 'had they only tried harder' the western nations could have held back the dictatorships and prevented World War II..
The truth is much more complex. When the appeasement era began, less than twenty years had passed since the end of World War I. In that war, the so called "war to end war", the ending was a disaster. The French and to a lesser extent the British, destroyed most of a generation of their young men fighting Germany. The USA got involved in order to spread democracy, but instead saw dictatorships spread rapidly over the globe. To a large extent the French and British fought to protect their massive global colonial empires from encroachment by Germany. While they certainly achieved that goal, in fact, both extended their empires to their greatest extent ever, they nearly bankrupted themselves in the process..
Thus the Chamberlain world view was that Britain and their ally France were still weak in manpower and money and unable to accept the burden of another war. The USA was rightfully disgusted at the entire process since the American's involvement had not only failed to spread Democracy but had enabled the major colonial powers to expand their control even further. Thus the British believed they could not count on the USA to assist them either..
Into this arena stepped Hitler, the most influential, talented politician of the twentieth century. He understood better than any leader on earth, the fears and anxieties of the western powers, the psychotic phobias of the Russian leadership, the fractured militaristic governing bodies of Japan and the egotism rampant among the leaders of other lesser national leaders such as those in Italy and Poland..
Hitler made very reasonable early demands. He remilitarized the Rhineland, which merely meant he moved a few troops with rifles into the 100 mile wide western border zone of Germany. He stopped paying reparations. He started rebuilding the German military - this step was widely supported by many in the west since the 100,000 man limit on Germany's army after WWI was entirely unrealistic, not even enabling Germany to defend herself from aggression by the expansionist Poland. He asked for a vote that allowed ethnic Germans in Bohemia, Poland, and Austria to join Germany - not in the least unusual since they had at different times been part of Germany in the past..
We can see from these moves and his various letters that Hitler was gradually building his strength towards a confrontation with Stalinist Russia, and had no aggressive plans against the western nations. But, the western powers, believing their 'appeasement' was creating a bolder Hitler, one they feared might eventually upset the world order (ie, take away some of their colonies), decided to stop him. They used the German invasion of Poland (set off for basically two reasons - one, German minorities in Poland were being abused and two, payback since Poland had expanded aggessively into German territory after WWI while Germany lacked the ability to defend herself. Many German troops who 'invaded' Poland, felt they were liberating conquered territory from the Poles.) Of course, Hitler also needed to eliminate Poland in order to continue his plans vs. Russia..
In any case, general war ensued. Hitler had to delay his plans to destroy communism and fight the western powers. While initially successful, the fighting in the west sapped German strength. While the main fighting did occur later against Russia, the nagging attacks by the western nations eventually contributed to a complete collapse of German forces..
The outcome, fairly predictable, was a gross increase in the expansion of Communism until it consumed one third of the entire globe, and the premature collapse of the French and British colonial empires..
With hindsight, some might say that appeasement was the correct policy after all. At its worst, Hitler's Germany was never as repressive as Stalin's Russia. Compared to Russia in the 1940's, Germany was an open and liberal society. Without the blockade by the western nations, German would likely have 'emigrated' the Jews from Europe instead of creating the holocaust. Had appeasement continued, the British and French would have been able to continue their world colonial empires much longer. With appeasement, the French, Dutch and English would have been strong enough that the Japanese would never have attempted to expand into those nations colonial possessions..
Answer .
Appeasment, means just what it says..
In the mid 1900's it was understood by all the leaders in Europe that Hitler was breaking the reparations agreements that were agreed at the end of the 1st World War and, becomming openly hostile towards it's neighbours and was seeking to annex certain countries. Rather than taking any form of direct action a number of negotiations were entered into. These negotiations were brokered by the British Prime Minsister Neville Chaimberlain. Their primary result was to release Germany from certain obligations in return for German peace agreements....hence the term appeasement..
As it happened Germany took what was offered, ignored their agreements and went to War. Answer .
\nThe policy of appeasement, embraced in vain by Great Britain and France in the 1930s, was ultimately a bid to reach a peaceful understanding with Germany. The major powers were anxious to abort any German influence over Eastern Europe. While the countries of this region were equally anxious, their interests rested elsewhere--unrestricted barter of agricultural products for that of German manufactured goods. As it was, Czechoslovakia remained the sole nation who relied upon support from Great Britain and France. Answer .
\nThe policy of appeasement, embraced in vain by Great Britain and France in the 1930s, was ultimately a bid to reach a peaceful understanding with Germany. The major powers were anxious to abort any German influence over Eastern Europe. While the countries of this region were equally anxious, their interests rested elsewhere--unrestricted barter of agricultural products for that of German manufactured goods. As it was, Czechoslovakia remained the sole nation who relied upon support from Great Britain and France. (MORE)