Reasons for appeasement

Question 1

Intro

Answer 1

Biggest reason was the under-preparedness of Britain and France, fuelled by the aftermath of WW1 (as this weakened their economies and militaries)

Question 2

Paragraphs

Answer 2

• Weakness of collective security
• Fear of Communism
• Legacy of WW1/fear of starting another war
• Domestic issues in Britain and France + need to rearm

Question 3

Weaknesses of collective security

Answer 3

• Manchuria
• Abyssinia
• Remilitarization
• Britain (Chamberlain) and France (Daladier) saw that collective security was failing so wanting to take matters into their own hands without putting their countries at risk of war.

Question 4

Fear of communism- examples

Answer 4

• Spanish Civil War
• The depression stoked the fear of communism that had been developing since the Russian Revolution
• Germany was seen as a physical buffer against the Soviet Union.
• A common saying at the time was ‘better Hitlerism than Communism’

Question 5

Fear of communism- explanation

Answer 5

• Britan and France not intervening in the SCW demonstrates that they saw communism as a bigger threat than fascism
• France and Britain considered the threat of the spread of Communism from the Soviet Union to be a bigger threat and they thought that Germany could be a buffer to communism and a potential ally if war broke out with the Soviet Union.

Question 6

Legacy of WW1/fear of starting another war- examples

Answer 6

• Europe was still recovering from the Great War not only economically, but also socially.
• The UK lost 886,000 soldiers and 2,000 civilians in the war and France lost 1.3 million soldiers. The populations were traumatized and would do anything not to go into another war.

Question 7

Legacy of WW1/fear of starting another war- explanation + historiography

Answer 7

• Ultimately, as democracies, Britain and France had to persuade public opinion to support a war, and due to the still raw trauma of WW1, people were not willing to risk a war just to put Hitler to justice.
• The historian James Sheehan argues that the alternative to appeasing Hitler was fighting him and even the threat of war would not have stopped him. Chamberlain and Daladier could not have known that their actions would lead Hitler to invade Poland in 1939.

Question 8

Domestic issues in Br and Fr/need to rearm- examples

Answer 8

• The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression put off military spending- British and French were not ready to go to war and the effects of the depression were devastating for Britain’s industrial areas, with unemployment reaching 2.5 million by 1930.
• As a result of the Great Depression, economic pressures restricted funds to invest in military programs and the Labor Party believed that military build-up would increase the likelihood of war. In the early 1930s, the National Government acted to limit armaments. At the same time, Germany and Italy began rebuilding their military forces.
• Between 1936 and 1938, the franc had to be devalued three times to help pay for rearmament.

Question 9

Domestic issues in Br and Fr/need to rearm- explanation and historiography

Answer 9

• France and Britain were in no state to be going to war and spending money on military equipment.
• They believed that appeasement would prevent, or at least delay, a war that they were not ready for.
• Many historians (e.g. David Cameron Watt) have also argued that considering the other concerns that Britain had at the time, Chamberlain can’t be blamed for his actions.