Was Britain's policy of Appeasement in the 1930's right or wrong?.
Although many people criticise Britain's policy of appeasement in the 1930's I think it was a good idea. A lot of people would disagree with this though because there are several reasons why appeasement wasn't a good idea. .
Many people think that if Britain and France had stood up to Hitler they might have prevented a number of events leading up to the Second World War, e.g., Rhineland 1936, the German and Austrian "Anschluss" in 1938 and the Czech Sudetenland crisis of 1938. Hitler himself said that if Britain had opposed him when he took over the Rhineland he might not have gone on to do what he later did. Also, if they had stood up to Hitler straight away, instead of trying to compromise, the war would have started sooner but might have finished more quickly, resulting in a smaller number of the deaths of soldiers and civilians. .
Another reason against appeasement, is that although Chamberlain thought that Hitler was a gentleman other people knew that he wasn't reasonable and was only interested in his own plans, Winston Churchill knew this and wanted Britain to stand up to Hitler but Chamberlain wanted to give Hitler a chance to prove that he was a gentleman.
If Britain had opposed Germany, Russia might have been more impressed with their force and decided to stay on the allied side instead of signing the Nazi-Soviet pact with Hitler. It might also have encouraged France and Italy to stay with the Stresa Front if British diplomacy had been stronger and Czechoslovakia might have tried more strongly to resist German attack. But as Britain's position was misinterpreted as weakness, many countries decided that it would be too risky to fight on their side and in the case of Russia and Italy joined with Germany instead of the allies. .
Although Chamberlain thought that appeasement would buy time to re-arm in case war did start, they didn't actually start to rearm until March 1939, when the rest of Czechoslovakia was taken.
