Chamberlain - Munich agreement 1938

[Angus-Innit]

I'm currently doing my A levels, and we're doing coursework in history on the munich agreement, and the question is to do with whether chamberlain's appeasement policy was a success or not...could anyone provide me with some sources? Also I would be interested to know what people think of the policy themselves...

Thanks

[Rumsfeld]

Who came up with the idea of resolving the czech crisis through the munich agreement?

[Vesper]

Read A.J.P. Taylor, Origins of the Second World War. I highly recommend it for the inter-war era.

~Vesper

[maxxx]

I'm currently doing my A levels, and we're doing coursework in history on the munich agreement, and the question is to do with whether chamberlain's appeasement policy was a success or not...
Thanks

Strange.the munich agreement gave Hitler the very reliable czech tanks, their industry , a few million more people (and maybe 20 extra divisions) and he started the war just a few months later....how can anybody see this as a success?

[phylo_roadking]

In late 1933 the British Air Staff (the staff chiefs of the RAF) laid an Expansion Plan before the Cabinet for approval; work on it had begun in february 1933. The Air Staff envisioned a war with Germany no sooner than the summer of 1939...and wanted to expand the RAF to be ready for it. The Plan envisioned"growing the RAF in ALL areas - technical training for artificers, colleges, air bases, modern aircraft, and flight training establishments. All THIS was to be done alongside swelling the actual number of fighter and bomber squadrons to a planned "wartime" complement. This plan was accepted early in 1934. Work was not complete by 1938. The Air Staff would have seen buying these extra months to the projected completion of the Expansion Plan as a success, as there was no way the RAF of 1938 could have combatted the Luftwaffe of 1938.

[Jon G.]

the question is to do with whether chamberlain's appeasement policy was a success or not

Whether Munich was a success or not depends very much on your perspective. For example, I doubt if anyone in Czechoslovakia considered the agreement successful. If postponing WW2 by a year was a success, then it was successful - it might also have bought France and Britain some extra time rearming, but then Germany got the Czech armaments industry too. On the other hand, the Munich agreement also meant that Britain and France gave up a good casus belli in return for the less clearly cut issue (Danzig) over which they eventually went to war, and the French 'Little Entente' which centered on Czechoslovakia fell apart as a result of Munich.

...could anyone provide me with some sources? Also I would be interested to know what people think of the policy themselves...

There's plenty of threads discussing appeasement on this forum, try a forum search.

[phylo_roadking]

Is there an echo in this forum?

[Rumsfeld]

Removed by moderator.

[Qvist]

Rumsfeld: You have been asked repeatedly to keep your pet theory to its assigned thread, in order to avoid encless repetitions of the same discussion in a large number of threads. If there is anything about that that is unclear to you, feel free to ask.

[Pasha]

Hello

1- A good healthy book about the origin of the war AJP Taylor - Origins of the Second World War-.

2- Carroll Quigley's book "Tragedy and Hope» will have some good coverage on the subject.
http://www.alexanderhamiltoninstitute.o ... 0Hope.html

3-Another excellent book by Dr. David Hoggan «The Forced War when peaceful revisions failed»
That book is the most intensive book - to my knowledge - and other historian - which uncovers many details and discusses in depth the German Polish problem before the war and also discuss the Sudeten Land.

Dr Hoggan fluently spoke and wrote Books in German - that book also published in Germany under name Der Zweite Weltkrieg und die Kriegsschuldfrage ".
And that's why he went to many sources in German-Polish Archive of that period.
Many chapters of that book available online.
His outcome of the Book - which is the theory supported by Hoggan - and also AGP Taylor to acquit Hitler from the responsibilities of the outbreak of the war is disputed by some historians and still under debate!
It is a serious issue as you might see «Who started the WWII "

But still a fact that his book is the richest and most comprehensive research in the area of 1933-1939 addressing the problem between Germany and its neighbors.

Never mind that the Book was taken with great welcome by Revisionist and Neo-Nazi as if you take it with fair eye you will find it unique.

It is hard to say chamberlain's appeasement was successful or not but it is for sure had some influence on the history of that period.
As for my opinion Chamberlain’s wanted peace and wanted to limit Hitler hostility by all means to avoid war and keep Western Europe under the control of the British Empire!
Something very hard to get and eventually the appeasement policy was not successful.

Regards
Pasha

[Peter H]

Back to the original question.Suggest you check The War of the World by Niall Ferguson.This is the book based on the TV series that Ferguson also wrote and narrated.

Basically Ferguson's argument is that "war lead to appeasement,appeasement did not lead to war".

By "war lead to appeasement" Ferguson means the conflicts in China,Spain and Ethiopia,all before 1938.Japanese expansion in Asia especially concerned the British and the threat to their Empire east of Suez.This was the biggest threat to the British Empire in those days.Time was needed for rearmament and to get over the economic hurdle of the Depression of the early 30s.Unfortunately Ferguson's contention is that while Britain got an extra 12 months to build up its forces and arms,so did Hitler.

[phylo_roadking]

Just an additional point on rearmament.

Remember too that rearmament was to some extent viewed as a means to an end - a heavy armaments building programme always creates a mini-economic boom and drags a country out of economic depression; government spending and pumping money into the economu is up, people i.e industrial workers have wages that go back into the economy, and general industry gets a boost from them needing consumer products to spend it on.

It coincided with general recovery in Europe and the U.S. - but vastly speeded this up. The best encapsulated and "defined" example however is Holland - which suffered VERY badly from the Depression as the government refused to come off the Gold Standard and instead ploughed money into trying to support the Guilder. But in 1936-37 when the government embarked late compared to the rest of Europe on a programme of home-built rearmament (as opposed to just buying in) it created a mini-boom that pulled Holland out of it's significantly-longer period of Depression.

[Peter H]

Good point phylo.

The fear of aerial bombing must had affected British considerations as well:

http://www.terrorismresearch.net/finalr ... Morale.pdf

In the interwar period, a widespread conviction existed that aerial attack could deliver a ‘knock-out blow’ by killing a substantial section of the urban population. When, in 1932, Stanley Baldwin declared in the House of Commons that ‘no power on earth can prevent the man in the street from being bombed… the bomber will always get through’, he expressed a view supported by the Air Staff). By scaling up casualty statistics derived from German air-raids on London in 1917-18, the Committee of Imperial Defence calculated in 1937 that a 60-day offensive could kill 600,000 and leave 1.2 million injured.

These frightening projections assumed a sinister aspect when related to the prediction thatfor every physical casualty there would be two to three psychological.

[Michael Emrys]

As for my opinion Chamberlain’s wanted peace and wanted to limit Hitler hostility by all means to avoid war and keep Western Europe under the control of the British Empire!

On what do you base this? As far as I can tell, Western Europe has never been under the "control" of the British Empire. Britain has had a role in Continental Europe for the last thousand years, and sometimes that role has been pivotal, but that does not equate to "control".

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Unfortunately Ferguson's contention is that while Britain got an extra 12 months to build up its forces and arms,so did Hitler.

Well, yes, but it can be argued that the delay in opening hostilities helped Britain more than it helped Germany. Germany jumped into an early lead in the arms race during the mid-'30s, but during 1939 Britain (and France, don't forget) began to close the gap and would have overtaken Germany in arms production after 1940.

Michael