What is evaluate the effectiveness of the policy of appeasement regarding territorial aggression?

Answer 1

The greatest example of territorial aggression in World War II was Adolph Hitler's invasions of neighboring lands for German "Lebensraum" or "living space." The invasions were preceded by re-arming and ramping up of the military, despite the Treaty of Versailles. Allowing military conscription and other re-militarization was appeasement, although it did not at first involve territory.

In 1936, Hitler moved the Army into Germany's Rhineland, while Great Britain and France did nothing, even though France's Army far outnumbered its neighbor and was required, as was Britain, by treaty to respond. Hitler detected a weakness that emboldened him to act.

In winter and early spring of 1938, Hitler politically and militarily bluffed and maneuvered Austria to accept the Anschluss or union with Germany, with the outlawed Nazi party re-established and in power.

His early, big test of territorial aggression occurred in September 1938 when after a series of orchestrated Nazi complaints in ethnic German Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave into several demands to maintain peace. Great Britain, Germany and her ally Italy met in Munich -- the Munich Agreement (or Appeasement) -- in what led to the German occupation of all of Czechoslovakia in 1939. By the time Great Britain along with France formally protested the invasion, it was too late.

Without going into great detail, the invasion of Poland, Norway, Holland, France and Russia followed along similar lines. Britain, which replaced Chamberlain with Winston Churchill, and her allies were too late to stop Hitler's territorial aggression with the failed policy of appeasement.