1. Critically examine the policy of appeasement after World War I and explore its connection if any with the outbreak of World War II.

If we look at the two decades between the World Wars, we see that foreign policy, international relations and its dynamics can be seen, in generic terms as a play between aggression and appeasement. The roots of this can be traced to the First World War. AJP Taylor rightly points out that the First and the Second World Wars were deeply linked. Germany fought in the second war in particular to reverse the verdict of the first and to destroy the settlement which followed it. Her opponents fought, though less consciously, to defend that settlement.

In the international system, wars occur when the balance of power is disturbed. It is believed that as long as equilibrium is maintained between the dominant powers and their interests, there will be peace. If all powers favour the existing order there would be no reason for war. In this situation there would be relative security. Most conflicts however lead to a state of affairs in which certain powers are satisfied with the prevailing conditions, while others are not. The former can be seen as the status quo powers and the latter as the revisionist powers who wish to bring about a change in the prevalent system. Wars occur when these two opposing tendencies clash. The end of the First World War left a group of nations dissatisfied with the post war settlement, and desirous to reverse it. While the status quo powers remained the only channel for preserving the settlement, events took an unexpected turn when instead of standing up to the revisionist demands, these countries decided to give in to them through what is known as the policy of appeasement, which literally means to pacify or satisfy. Revisionism therefore did not lead to war. The question then is how long would these status quo powers continue to accept it? War eventually broke out when the status quo powers refused to accept revisionism any more. In order to understand appeasement and its impact on future events, it is imperative for us to examine the attitudes of the individual allied powers towards Germany, Italy and Japan’s aggressive politics in the interwar period as well as their significant internal developments and thus account for the inability of the new international order to deal with them.

The beginnings of appeasement or allied policy towards the revisionist powers can be traced to the post war settlement embodied in the Treaty of Versailles. The instability of the interwar years was a reflection of an unstable settlement, which not only left many pre-World War One issues unsolved but also created new issues through a vindictive treatment of the defeated nation. The Treaty of Versailles was a dictated peace, not a negotiation. The lynchpin of this treaty was the idea of sole responsibility of Germany for World War I. Germany was expected to pay reparations (amounting to approximately 6,600 million pounds), war materials were confiscated and France got to exploit key industrial regions such as Ruhr, Saar etc. Germany was not allowed to have more than 100,000 men in the army and the development of an air force was forbidden. She also lost Alsace Lorraine to France. The Rhineland was demilitarized. On the east and the south lost territories which had been bones of contention between Germany and her neighbours. Poland was recreated from the states of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. With the creation of Poland Germany lost a German majority area. There was also German population in many new states of Eastern Europe such as Czechoslovakia. According to the peace settlement, the Germans also had to surrender all their colonies.

German consent to the treaty was given grudgingly and unwillingly, after a long debate over whether it would not be better to refuse to sign. Consent was given only because of the weakness of the German army, the exhaustion of the German people and the pressure of the Allied blockade, and not from any conviction that the terms were even just or tolerable. Nevertheless the German government accepted the treaty and by doing so acquired a valuable power. The treaty was designed to protect against potential German aggression, yet the German cooperation in it was imperative. Both disarmament and reparations were in the hands of the Germans. In the long-term it seems that the best thing in the treaty for the Germans was that it created a united Germany. Germany only had to modify the treaty, or shake it off altogether, and she would emerge almost as strong as she had been in 1914.

The Treaty of Versailles was characterized by a confusion of principles. It was based on the system of collective security evolved at the various peace settlements in 1919 guided by the idealism of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. While Woodrow Wilson represented conciliation and self-determination, and the French premier Clemenceau was a man of real politics who wanted a merciless treatment of Germany. The settlement was a mixture of the two – Wilson’s idealism and Clemenceau’s real politics. So neither was it able to reconcile Germany, nor was it able to destroy it. The latter view believed that if Germany was to be humiliated it should not be left with enough strength for resurgence. The former however did not want a weakened Germany for various geo-political and economic reasons.

The peacemakers differed in their attitudes towards Germany. The United States and Britain having dealt with the immediate war threat were content with reverting to the pre-war set-up. For America this meant isolation from European affairs. At the end of the war the position of America was the strongest in the world. The United States, unlike the European allies, emerged from the war not poorer but much richer, with the others heavily indebted to her especially in terms of hard cash to the extent of about 2000 million pounds. President Wilson however had failed to secure the confirmation of the peace treaty by the American Senate. The inclusion of USA would no doubt have increased the prestige of the League of Nations but it would not necessarily have transformed it into an effective instrument of security. The United States were debarred both by geography and political outlook from belonging to a European system of security. The most that could be expected from them was that they would intervene if this system of security failed. The Americans were still in favour of a peaceful Europe and a stable economic order. American loans restored many European economies including the German economy. The Americans however were misled by their own strength. They assumed that Germany, after defeat, was no danger to USA and by extension to the other countries of Europe. American policy would have mattered less if the European Great Powers had been of one mind. France, Italy, and Great Britain were a formidable coalition.

Following her victory in the First World War, Britain went back to pursuing a policy in favour of a European balance of power. While geography allowed her to remain, to a large extent detached from the affairs of the mainland, she had never wanted any single nation to dominate the European continent. Britain’s interest and security lay in maintaining a balance of power in the mainland. Now that France was being perceived as an emerging dominant power, it meant that a conciliatory attitude would have to be adopted towards Germany, the only other country which could counter French ascendancy, especially in the context of the Russian Revolution and the end of Austria-Hungary. In fact, some economists at the peace conference actually saw German economic revival as vital to Britain’s European trade circuit. They did not see the need for harsh measures to be applied on Germany. Germany’s capacity to pay the reparations was limited and furthermore that she would pay mainly by exports which would be particularly liable to injure the trade of her industrial competitor, Britain, stripped by war of foreign markets which had underpinned her nineteenth-century supremacy.

 
Enforcing the peace treaty ran against practical difficulties quite apart from moral objections. The allied threat was becoming ineffective as men became increasingly reluctant to leave their homes in order to fight a war which they were told they had already won. Taxpayers were also reluctant to pay for a war when they were already groaning under the cost of the last one. Besides, every threat broke on the question: if it had not been worthwhile continuing the war to secure ‘unconditional surrender’, how could it make sense to renew it for some lesser object?

There were other measures of coercion than the renewal of the war and occupation of German territory. This was the economic blockade which helped to push the German government into accepting the peace treaty in June 1919. Once removed it could not be restored in its wartime rigour, for fear of its becoming too effective. For if Germany were reduced to economic chaos and her government collapsed, who then would operate the terms of the treaty? The Allies threatened to choke Germany to death; the Germans threatened to die. The Allies offered to restore Germany to her rightful place in the world if their demands were fulfilled; the Germans answered that there would not be a peaceful world until these demands were reduced.

It was France that was the chief architect of a ruthless punitive settlement. France shared a long border with Germany and hence felt a great deal more of insecurity at the idea of a German revival. After the First World War, France felt abandoned by her allies and immediately tried to forge a system of alliances that could protect her against German resurgence. But the allies she obtained (Poland, Czechoslovakia) were not able to contain Germany, and so French interests were still dependent on the British. Britain and France had been traditional rivals and only the common German threat had brought them together at the time of the First World War, an alliance which was weak and soon broke down. France therefore did not receive assurances of defence and security on its western frontier from Britain while the latter continued to pander to the wishes of the Germans and other aggressive powers. From the 1920s itself Anglo-French relations were strained when Britain began her systematic policy of appeasement under Chamberlain. The French saw it as an immediate threat to their security, an apprehension which wasn’t ill-founded as proved when Hitler reunited the Rhineland.

The forum for appeasement through most of the 1930s was the League of Nations. The League of Nations was set up as a multinational organization in which peaceful means for settling disputes were sought. It was also intended to assist member nations against aggression. From the very beginning the United States, from where the idea of an international organization had germinated did not join the League, symbolizing in some ways its ineffectiveness and lack of representation for the entire inter war period. While it can be argued that the Second World War was caused in real terms by the aggression of the revisionist powers, who set about repudiating all international laws and treaties, conversely it can also be argued that it was the inability or unwillingness of the League to take effective measures to counter this aggression that led to appeasement on an unprecedented scale and allowed the leading revisionist, Nazi Germany to rise to power. It was this appeasement which made Hitler confident of acquiring Poland in September of 1939 without armed conflict, leading to the World War when Allied appeasement finally ended.

There was a section of people in these status quo nations who had denied the existence of the ‘German problem’. Some of these people were inclined to believe that Germany had been weakened for a long time after the World War. Germany was threatened by revolution, racked by social discontent and it was generally believed that such experiences destroyed a country’s strength. Such men however were surprised by Germany’s recovery, which though delayed, was unprecedented in its speed and strength.

The German problem as it were had remained unsolved even after the First World War. European statesmen generally agreed that peace could only be secured if Germany could be reconciled to accepting the terms of the treaties. However, in the deeply unstable conditions that followed the First World War – political and economic, after the war, Germany suffered greatly. In addition to inflation and unemployment, there was also the question of the reparations which Germany had to pay, leading to widespread discontentment among the people.

The French were bent on the enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles and for them this meant occupying the Ruhr and Saar coalfields when Germany defaulted on payments. The problem of reparations was reviewed by the Dawes Plan in 1924. After the First World War, Germany had had to renounce all rights and titles over her overseas possessions. The return of her possessions was seen by the League as important to overcome problems of reparation and for French security. French occupation of the Ruhr was ended; hyper-inflation arrested and economic recovery was on its way. In 1925 the Treaty of Locarno was also signed, whereby Britain, France, Germany and Italy agreed to accept the terms regarding Germany’s western frontiers at the time of the Treaty of Versailles, in return for which the allied occupation for the Rhineland would end early and a regular check on the German military would be stopped. Germany also agreed to the membership of the League of Nations. Thus by the mid-late 1920s Germany seemed to be resettling into the Europe of reconciliation. But it is significant that the Treaty of Locarno did not recognize Germany’s eastern limits, therefore leaving out the whole issue of revision of the principle of self-determination and nationalism that had been denied to Germany in the Treaty of Versailles.

In October 1929, the Wall Street Stock Exchange in America crashed plunging America and almost all of Europe (with the exception of Soviet Russia) into an economic depression. The economic collapse was accompanied by the consequent and related collapse of collective security. If one looks for a direct causation between the economic collapse and the World War, it can be seen in terms of the rise of radical ideas and the increasing polarization of ideologies. The rise of the Nazi party in Germany had been less than gradual throughout the 1920s. In fact in certain cases it had definitely been definitely stagnant. With the sudden collapse of the economy for the second time in ten odd years, Adolf Hitler made full use of the general discontent to push the Nazis into power in 1933. With his coming to power, all hopes that the German problem had been solved were dashed. Here was an ultra-nationalist, anti-parliamentary, anti-communist, racial radical who threatened to pose a considerable threat to European security.

The Far East was a reflection of how things had changed. Before 1914 there had been a balance there, almost as complicated as the balance in Europe. Japan had to reckon with Russia, Germany and France as well as with Great Britain. The United States had had an active policy in the Far East for a few years after the war, but it was short indeed. By the time of the Manchurian crisis, Great Britain faced Japan in the Far East virtually alone. 

The collapse of collective security in the interwar years can be traced to the early 1930s and paradoxically can be situated outside Europe. The first country to attack the principles of the League and expose its possible and potential ineffectiveness was Japan. In September 1931, still a member of the League of Nations, Japan attacked China who was also a member of the League. Although the Chinese appealed under Article 11, which empowered the League to ‘take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations’, nothing concrete was done. No sanctions were imposed on Japan (except refusal to recognize the Manchukuo State set up in Manchuria), nor was the ‘status quo’ returned. The inactivity and ineffectualness lent encouragement to European aggressors who planned similar acts of defiance.

While Hitler tried to convince the other foreign powers that Germany wanted peace he was simultaneously also suggesting that all other powers either disarm to match the German level or let Germany rearm to match theirs. The first act of British conciliation almost amounting to appeasement within Europe is here. Ramsay McDonald tried to persuade a rightly stubborn France into agreeing, which they refused. The Disarmament Conference met in 1932 to discuss on intervention to prevent German rearmament. The British wanted it within the framework of an international agreement and not an ‘expense-incurring’ intervention. The French also withdrew offer of ‘equality’ of armaments because Germany refused to stay disarmed for four more years and because Britain also could not guarantee observance of the Convention by Germany. Hitler withdrew from the Conference on 14 October and left the conference dead leading to an ‘arms race’ in which France could not participate till 1936 because she had cut her arms estimate. In October 1933, Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations. In the same year, however the Soviet Union was officially recognized by the American government and in July 1934 she entered the League of Nations.

By this stage, Germany, Italy and Japan began to systematically flout the rules of the peace settlements and the League of Nations. In early 1935, Hitler renounced the Treaty of Versailles and openly announced the remilitarization of the country. In order to halt or at the very least restrict German rearmament the Stresa front was opened, but this did not work and Britain subsequently signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement with Germany allowing the latter to build a navy 33 % the strength of the British navy. France was outraged but on her own there was nothing she could possibly do.

So far our focus of the Revisionist powers in Europe has been limited to Germany. Another significant player in this period was Italy. Italy was the weakest of the European great powers, at the end of the First World War, both in terms of economic resources and political coherence. She was also estranged from her allies due to resentment that she had not received her due share of war prizes in the post-war settlement. She missed her cut of the Ottoman Empire; and was given worthless colonial land after much complaint. On the other hand she enjoyed an illusory security as a detachment from Europe which almost turned her into an island. Her enemy had been Austria-Hungary and not Germany. When the Habsburg monarchy fell to pieces, she acquired a screen of small neighbours. The ‘German problem’ seemed remote from her. Italy had little to contribute to a system of security; and that little she did not contribute.

In October 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and although the League imposed sanctions, they were of no use. Two months later a secret Anglo-French Pact was leaked in the press in which the two countries agreed to accept and condone the Italian aggression on Ethiopia. Public outrage even forced Samuel Hoare, the British Foreign Secretary to resign on this account. It was believed that the plan had been designed to help Italy extract herself from a difficult situation; nevertheless the mutual collusion on the issue allowed Italy to acquire a coveted country. By May 1936 the Italians had won and this was a cause of great embarrassment to the League and Great Britain.

By this time, Hitler’s aggression was starting to gain momentum. Hitler announced the reoccupation of the Rhineland destroying the Treaty of Locarno. France immediately protested, but the League did not do anything to restrict the Germans. This was one of Hitler’s most crucial territorial aggressions. Now France was exposed to attack, as the last buffer zone between herself and a resurgent and aggressive Germany had fallen. In November, Germany and Japan signed the anti-Comitern pact, a month after the Rome-Berlin Axis, now bringing all three aggressors into a single unit. It was definitely a dangerous sign that the ‘revisionists’ were drawing together. In 1937 the Sino-Japanese issue blew into a full-fledged war. By the end of 1937, with the Spanish Civil War and this new conflict it was quite clear that active ‘collective security’ which had been envisioned at the time of the peace settlements in 1919 had broken down.

In 1937 Neville Chamberlain, became the British Prime Minister of Britain, bringing the policy of appeasement form the discussion halls into the arena of political enforcement. Chamberlain it seems believed to the very end that Hitler and Mussolini had limited aims i.e. a reversal of the post World War One scenario, and that their countries had been given a raw deal. Instead of resisting their claims, if they were granted timely concessions, they would be satisfied. An alternate explanation for Chamberlain’s views is that he realized that these objectives were not limited, but wished to avoid war for as long as possible. Whatever the reasons behind Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, it was definitely incompatible with the notion of collective security. Soon Hitler also realized he could denounce without major consequence the restrictions posed on Germany. His first step was to absorb Austria into the German fatherland, the Anschluss in 1938. The attempts of Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary and Winston Churchill to form in the latter’s words, a ‘Grand Alliance’ to present the revisionists with a common front of resistance to any further aggression was met with reluctance from other countries, including France, especially since faith in the League’s ability to stand up to aggression had weakened considerably.

The most shocking and blatant appeasement came in 1938 with the Czech Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia with its disgruntled minorities of Germans, Poles, Romanians and Magyars had been a ‘problem state’ as recognized by the British. Czechoslovakia was coveted by Hitler for other reasons besides the nationalist principle of self-determination (‘he who controls Bohemia controls Europe’). Czechoslovakia had recently become a considerable military and economic power. The Czechs turned to Britain and France, their natural allies for aid. British refused mediation while the French had a military alliance and commented on favourable conditions of the minorities. A perceived threat by Germany in 1937 to stage a Sudetan uprising led to Britain and France making ‘guarantees’. The Czechs were also constantly trying to negotiate and make concessions to Germany to avoid war. The British wanted to solve the Czech problem also through Anglo-German collaboration, not the League, not with France.

In November both decided on a solution based on autonomy which was not received well by the Czechs. The British exploited the ‘Sudetan’ crisis to improve Anglo-German relations and Chamberlain hence, agreed on separation of Sudetenland from the rest of Czechoslovakia. So bent were the two governments on avoiding war that they confronted President Benes with the decision that he must cede the Sudetenland. The Anglo-French proposals provided for transfer of Sudetan areas either through direct transfer or plebiscite with a promise of guarantee against unprovoked aggression. On September 23, 1938, Hitler issued a ‘memorandum for the Czechs’ that provided for withdrawal of Czech armed forces and officials, directing all Sudetan Germans and holding plebiscite to decide new frontiers. The ‘British Plan’ of 27 September, 1938 provided for German occupation of territories with German and Czech plenipotentiaries to indicate complete arrangements. The plan was accepted except the contradiction with the Anglo-French proposals. The ‘Munich Pact’ of 30 September, 1938 led to loss of liberty of Sudentans and of national independence of the Czechs. The Munich Pact demonstrated confident aggression on the one hand and fear and concession on the other. By March 1939, Hitler had invaded half of Czechoslovakia and a joint-declaration regarded the Munich Pact and the Anglo-German naval agreement as ‘symbolic of desire not to go to war with one another’ was issued. It should be noted that the Munich Pact marked the zenith of appeasement, a point after which even public opinion began to strongly turn against such pacification of the fascist aggressors. The influence of Winston Churchill in Britain in this context was considerable.

The policy of appeasement caused a reversal of the power balance in Europe. The hitherto dominant victors of the First World War had literally voluntarily ceded power to the Axis powers. It was in fact when the Allied powers decided to change this state of affairs and defend the post war settlement that war broke out. In this context when we see the Allied willingness and compliance in the revisionism of the interwar years, their very position as status quo powers is questionable, for they too sought a change in the post war scenario to suit their economic and political interests, though this they could do under the garb of the generous victors.

In order to understand appeasement and its causative effects on the Second World War, we need to explore a few other issues as well. These are the role played by Hitler and the extent of his responsibility and the isolationism of Russia in the context of the Communist threat. Early historiography on the subject saw the Second World War as ‘Hitler’s War’, a nomenclature in which Adolf Hitler’s exclusive responsibility was implicit. In this view Hitler’s role was seen as the sole cause of the war, and the policy of appeasement, which might have worked, is seen as one which was bound to fail when a master strategist and politician like Hitler was in power. This theory, bound with an individual, inevitably deposits much of its focus on the defining characteristics of Hitler: his personality, his feverish conviction in Nazism, and his unequivocal dominance within Germany, such that Hitler stood synonymous for the German state in this period. The emphasis on the importance of Hitler within Germany, and on how he completely commanded the foreign policy of the state, is obvious. Hitler had, according to the proponents of this theory, singularly manoeuvred Germany and the world towards War, and had followed a programme of aggression that was coherent and consistent.

AJP Taylor in his influential work, ‘The Origins of the Second World War’ asserts that Hitler’s foreign policy was essentially a continuation of his predecessors in its aims i.e. to free Germany from the restrictions of the peace treaty, restore the German army and make Germany the greatest power in Europe from her ‘natural weight’. Hitler did not want to challenge the Western settlement; eastern expansion was his policy’s primary purpose. In foreign affairs, he just waited for concessions.

The Austrian crisis of March 1938 is a case in example. The crisis was not provoked by Hitler. In fact, it seems that there had been no German preparations for war at the time. With Czechoslovakia, Hitler carried out a major bluff, which tricked everyone. Few preparations had been made for even a defensive war with France. This bluff paid off and through the Munich pact Hitler got concessions through a political settlement. His military directives in the subsequent period were measures of precaution, not plans for aggression.

One of Taylor’s foremost critics was Trevor-Roper. He points to one of Hitler’s oldest and most oft-stated programs, that of creating a ‘Lebensraum’ (living space) through the conquest of Russia. This was not a traditional German aim; and necessarily entailed the risk of and preparation for a war against the Western powers. A more rigorous critique of Taylor is provided by T. W. Mason, who emphasises internal matters as foreign policy determinants. He argues that in the later 1930s, the Nazi movement was slacking and time was ripe for change. The expansion of the Nazi party was dynamic, limitless and unprecedented. Even without a comprehensive plan, it was Nazi Germany that was the real force for change, and hence for the war. Besides Germany’s overwhelming military-economic preponderance in Europe in 1939, important structural changes occurred in her economy, 1929-39: the steadily growing predominance of the heavy industrial sector, the trend towards economic independence, and the great increase in public spending. Further, between 1937 and 1939, economic, social and political tensions resulted in an acute general crisis; the Nazi regime could effectively take measures for combating this only after an external crisis had provided the necessary justification.

Alan Bullock’s emphasizes the need for a composite understanding of Hitler’s personality, paralleled by his foreign policy, “which combined consistency of aim with complete opportunism in method and tactics”. Bullock opines that after achieving German supremacy by mid 1934, Hitler didn’t take much interest in internal matters – he focused almost entirely on foreign policy and rearmament. He declared more than once that his important tasks would be to rearm Germany, then revise the Treaty of Versailles, then conquer Lebensraum in the East. However, Hitler’s policy in 1933-34 remained cautious; his appeal “to Wilsonian principles of national self-determination and equality of rights”, and his use of ‘the language of the League’, succeeded to some extent in creating an illusion of righteous aims. While Hitler was an extremely influential figure and an instrument for many determining events of the period, the war cannot be seen in monocausal terms especially since focusing on one individual would lead one to ignore significant circumstantial factors.

Another important aspect in appeasement was the perceived threat from Communist Russia. A lot had changed for the western powers after the Russian Revolution. The ostensible reason for excluding Russia from any alliance to counter the spread of fascist aggression was the fear of socialism. When considering appeasement, Soviet historians claim that Great Britain and France wished to win over Germany for a European crusade against Soviet Russia. At the same time some western historians allege that the Soviet leaders were constantly stirring up trouble in international affairs in the hope of fomenting revolution. Neither however appears to have been committed to their stands completely. The Bolsheviks implicitly confessed their sense of security and indifference to the rest of the world when they went over to ‘Socialism in a Single Country’. The West too never seems to have taken the socialist danger seriously enough to plan any new war of intervention against it.

There were other reasons as well for the lack of attempts made to draw Russia back into European affairs. Defeat during the war destroyed her reputation as a Great Power; Revolution after it was supposed, had condemned her to weakness for a generation. The Great Purges of the 1930s in Russia also detracted from her value as an ally. The new states such as Poland and Czechoslovakia, which made up the cordon sanitaire on Russia’s western border, were now serving an important function for the French, as advantageous substitutes for the erstwhile Russian ally.

Germany’s defeat in 1919 had been thanks to an alliance between France, England and Russia and eventually the USA. Only a continuation of this alliance could have prevented a German resurgence. The Soviet Union after the Revolution came to be was feared, in many cases even more than the Nazi/Fascist threat. She was not even invited to Munich over the Sudetenland issue, the whole issue being settled with deliberate exclusion of Russia. She was obviously inclined to believe that the western countries would adopt a conciliatory policy towards Germany eastwards expansion.

Perceiving this rightly as a threat to her, the Stalin-Ribbentrop Pact was signed on August 23, 1939, along with the partition of Poland. As a background to this, we can see the foreign policy of the USSR, which in the 1920s had been geared towards improving relations with the western nations. These attempts were still met with suspicion and hostility on the part of the latter. In the early 1930s Russia it seems was even attempting to build an eastern alliance to secure its western frontier in the absence of any concrete help from her wartime allies. It was in 1935 that Soviet foreign policy started to actively find a solution for the fascist threat and united or ‘popular fronts’ with all anti-fascists were sought. However due to the deep mistrust of Russia, this too could not succeed completely.

The policy of appeasement resulted in the Soviet Union emerging as the leading anti-fascist power from 1935-39, as they sincerely disliked fascism and made consistent and concrete efforts to stop it. The popular opinion, a force becoming increasingly important in Europe turned even more in their favour after the militarization of Rhineland and the Spanish civil war; and later the Munich pact (1938). The validity of liberal democracies began to be questioned as they began to be seen as those who were not firm enough to take a stand.

Following Munich and Hitler’s open declaration of aggressive intentions in the East, the Western powers got alarmed and began to feel the need for the Eastern ally in Russia once again in order to prevent German movement towards the west. Stalin too could not ignore this, as the balance of power in Europe had now been radically altered and German forces were within striking distance of the Soviet frontier. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1939, Germany also began to show interest in an alliance with the USSR, with similar goals in mind, i.e. the prevention of an Anglo-Soviet-French alliance and Soviet neutrality in the event of a Polish-German war. It is in this background that the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, also known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, was signed on the eve of World War II, a pact regarded as one of the most stunning and dramatic events in diplomatic history. For Stalin one of the main reasons for signing this pact was to buy time in order to prepare for what even he recognized as the inevitable conflict with Germany. For Hitler too the Pact was a tactical maneuver and he continued to look eastwards for Lebensraum.

At the same time, the Polish question which was directly going to lead to war was becoming important. After annexation of Prague by Germany on March 15, 1939, Romania felt threatened and sought British help on March 18th. Any British help to such a distant nation would endanger appeasement. Poland as an ally became important and Britain and France gave the same type of guarantee to it as they wanted her to give Romania; which was made public by March end due to public opinion demanding action. The British and French now had an eastern ally but still Henderson pushed for Polish negotiations, which were not adhered to.

During the summer of 1939, Danzig became the focal point of European tensions. In April and June rumours of a German invasion began to spread fast. ‘New Appeasement’ began with the appeasers pressing Beck to negotiate with Germany over Danzig assuming Danzig’s return. Britain was considering a new policy for Danzig where Hitler’s terms would be imposed by the British on the Poles. On August 15, the Anglo-French military talks with Russia in Moscow reached a ‘fundamental problem’ with Poland refusing entry to Russian troops into Polish territories in the event of a German attack. After prolonged negotiations with Henderson Hitler suddenly abandoned plains of gains through negotiations and at 4 a.m. in 1st September, German mechanized troops entered the Polish frontier. Britain and France declared war on September 3.

When analyzing the question of appeasement, it is believed that Hitler’s invasion of Poland marked the end of appeasement. It should however be noted that at no point during 1st and 2nd September 1939 did Chamberlain’s government entirely give up the hope of a reconciliation. Faced only with stubborn resistance of men like Duff-Cooper, Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill, the Chamberlain government was forced to declare war on 3rd September, followed shortly after by France. The decisive factor in this change of policy turned out to be the anti-fascist lobby, reflected in the public opinion, which ultimately pressurized the allies into an active defence of the post war settlement in the face of fascist aggression.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  • AJP Taylor – The Origins of the Second World War
  • HR Trevor Roper – ‘Hitler, War and Taylor’ in Waite (ed.) – Hitler and Nazi Germany
  • Alan Bullock – Hitler and Stalin
  • David Thompson – Europe Since Napoleon
  • E J Hobsbawm – The Age of Extremes
  • EH Carr – International Relations Between the Two World Wars
  • Crozier – The Causes of the Second World War
  • Martin Gilbert – The European Powers : 1900-1945