Who is blamed for starting World War 2?

Answer 1

Who was to blame for the outbreak of the Second World War? Was it Adolf Hitler or was it the appeasers of Britain and France?

Was Hitler to blame for attacking Poland and others or was it people like Neville Chamberlain who should have taken a firmer stand against Germany.

Many feel the appeasers are to blame. Appeasement is the policy of avoiding war with aggressive powers by giving way to their demands if they are not too unreasonable.

Therefore during my essay I will be discussing whether appeasement was the wrong policy at the wrong time during the 1930's. The majority of the British public were against war in the 1930's. This was shown in the peace ballot of 1935 where the majority favoured peace. The oxford debate also backed up this point. Another indication was the great reception Chamberlain received when he returned from Munich in 1938.

The treaty of Versailles favoured Britain. The prime minister at the time Lloyd George had hoped for a "stern" peace. His hope was granted. The League of Nations was "the cornerstone of British foreign policy". The League of Nations was not strong and had failed to do its job.

Britain may have took this route due to the economic crisis in Britain at the time or the terrible state that the British forces were in at the time. Also the British feared the idea of war and they may have felt that Germany and Italy had been unfairly treated at Versailles.

It was also felt that the disarmament conference of 1932 in Geneva had been a success due to the ban on bombing and the limitation on tanks and armed forces. The use of chemicals had also been stopped. But this was not a success. Germany and Russia voted against and eventually in 1933 when Hitler came to power he withdrew Germany from the world disarmament conference and began to openly rearm. (His army had risen to 550,000)

So why did this happen. It may be due to the foreign policies of Hitler and Mussolini for that matter. It was well documented that Hitler had wanted to unite all Germans and German speakers into what he called "greater Germany" in his book Mein kampf and his ideology of lebensraum, which translates to living room.

He had many stages in how to achieve this. Firstly was the Rhineland where Adolf Hitler marched his 22,000 troops back into the demilitarised zone on March 7th 1936. This was a clear act of aggression which had broken the Versailles and Locarno treaties.

Britain chose to ignore this saying it was an outdated concept and were committed to appeasement. Some may say it was not feasible to use military force. A quote for Anthony. Anthony Eden sums it up. He says: "Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland was an occasion when the British and French governments should have attempted the impossible".

It is true to say that Hitler may have backed down or have been overthrown if force had been used.

It was unfortunate that Hitler was rightly confident at the time due to factors of British sympathy and another crisis, this time in Abyssinia due to Mussolini.

Abyssinia was invaded in October '35 despite Abyssinia's innocence at the wal wal incident, and even offering to give up some of their territory and a placate on Mussolini. It was clear that some action had be taken because this was also breaking treaties but yet again, due to appeasement, nothing done.

Britain and France were more worried about their relationship with Italy that Abyssinia and they didn't want to antagonize Mussolini. They also didn't want to break the stresa front.

They took the wrong option and chose appeasement and came up with the Hoare Laval pact, which stated Italy was to be given Abyssinian land and economic rights.

The pact had to be discredited because it caused outcry in public.

These two events show, to me, that appeasement was definitely the wrong policy because they had went against all the Britain had stood for e.g. collective security. It also gave the impression the aggressors were being rewarded and it gave them confidence in the future to keep going with their demands.

The Spanish civil war is another example where the governments of Britain and France took up the policy of non - intervention in the war lead by Leon Blum, the leader of France.

The powers of Italy and Germany yet again broke rules and showed that appeasement was ineffective and quite simply a policy that would not work.

The British and French were clearly hoping that disarmament would work with the French suggesting four years of supervising armament levels. But in the end this form of appeasement didn't work either and it was ended in early 1934. The British and French didn't see that this was a failure of appeasement.

Following on Britain thought they could appease Germany by offering the Anglo German naval agreement stating the Germans could have an naval fleet 35% the size of the British. It failed to work. The French and Italians felt the British were too unreliable and led to a fall out and a break of the stresa front. It was also seen as a poor basis for a stance against aggression and weakened the case for appeasement, it only made Germany stronger.

The French were clearly satisfied to settle for non-intervention in the Spanish civil war because Blum was terrified of Germany. Britain's main reason for non-intervention was in with their policy of appeasement - they didn't want to make an enemy of Franco or Mussolini. There was also the worry of "the bomber will always get through". The events after the Nyon conference show that maybe a firmer stand would have been more effective. British and French navies were to destroy non-Spanish ships in the med. The piracy finally stopped. The question is whether this stance would have worked in other situations.

The argument for appeasement is not helped by the claims that it was Hitler's policy from the beginning to start a war. The Hossbach memorandum was shown to have Hitler ideas including a war. "Germany's problems could only be sorted by a matter of forces. Although this may only be speculation it may show that Hitler never had peace on his mind and if this were the case then the policy of appeasement would have been no use. The Sudetenland crisis was a key event. These sequences of events show the difficulty of justifying appeasement due to the fascist aggression. In Hitler's aim of uniting all Germans he had to overcome the problem of 3.5 million Germans living in Czech Sudetenland.

Hitler was warned not to go in by Britain France and Russia. This seemed to anger Hitler and it seemed to make war look inevitable. Then Neville Chamberlain, who was very much in favour of appeasement, managed to negotiate with Hitler at three meetings all in Germany - Berchtesgaden, Bad Godesberg and finally Munich for the Munich conference which stretched appeasement to all limits which was called a "negotiation" but it was really giving Hitler all he had asked for.

This was probably a step to far for appeasement. This was letting Hitler do anything he wanted and it was at this stage, if not before, that the policy of appeasement should have been dropped.

This point of appeasement failing is backed up a month later when Germany invaded Poland which was the final straw for the appeasers and war was declared. The one thing to debate is whether this should have been done earlier. The liberal leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair shows his feelings on the matter with his comment "we have eaten dirt in vain".

Many people relate the policy of appeasement to the weakness of Britain and in particular Neville Chamberlain. Britain were weak due to disarmament and were still unprepared for war in 1938. But on the other hand it is said that the German military and their strength was exaggerated and in the early stages that they would have been beaten if Britain and France had stood up to them.

There is also evidence that Hitler may have pulled out of the Rhineland if he was questioned. The Rhineland was probably the turning point. This gave Hitler the confidence to continue and he then knew he would be confronted with appeasement and not force.

Historians who have justified appeasement in the past have said the empire was weak and would not support them in war or the military was weak or even that chamberlain was trying to buy time. The argument of chamberlain buying time can be levelled with that it gave the Germans more time and they also got stronger.

In Conclusion I would say that the arguments that have been presented definitely suggest that appeasement was the wrong policy to take during the 1930's. Although the British public were in favour of peace British policy was not suitable or successful. The league of nations didn't work neither did disarmament or collective security.

The events of the Rhineland and Abyssinia also showed that appeasement was never going to work with these two fascist powers. If there was ever going to be a time to ditch the appeasement policy then this should have been the time.

Answer 2

Adolf Hitler.

Answer 3

Adolph Hitler