What effect did the policy of appeasement have on Britain's defence weakness?

Answer 1

Appeasement and Britain's DefencesFollowing the breakdown of a major international disarmament conference in October 1933, Britain embarked on rearmament on a massive scale, especially from January 1935 onwards. The programme was highly capital intensive (and very expensive), as it was geared towards the RAF and Royal Navy. Obviously, the British rearmamemt programme was based on certain assumptions about such matters as the speed and nature of German rearmament. It is clear that the British military underrated the "dynamism" of Nazism and/or failed to make all the necessary adjustments to their own plans.

Especially in view of the expansion of the British Empire after WW1 and the growing ambitions of Japan, Britain was badly overstretched in terms of its commitments. In addition to being able to defend Britain itself, it also had to try to stengthen its position in the Far East, and govern turbulent new possessions in the Middle East and keep the key route to India open.

By comparison, Germany was a very compact country - without a vast and burdensom empire.

Arguably the overall plan was defensive in outlook, but the traditional American high school and college notion of Britain entering WW2 woefully unprepared is inaccurate.

Joncey

PS. By one of those quirks of fate it was none other than Neville Chamberlain who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer for most of 1930s (until 1937), had to raise the money for rearmament. Shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1940, Churchill thanked his predecessor as Prime Minister in fulsome terms for his work in this area.