Tuesday 22 January 2008

Appeasement

Read Article on 'Lines of Least Resistance.' The article gives important information about Winston Churchill and how appeasement was not an unusual occurance and Europe displayed a history of pacifism.

Some good points that were mentioned in the dicussion were...

  • Europe was tired of war and were destined to potentially be the first pacifist continent. This history of peacemaking is shown by events such as The Hague Convention 1899 (this forbade the use of torture and abuse of human rights) and The Kellogg-Briand Pact 1929.
  • The whole concept of the League Of Nations, and still shown today in the form of the United Nations. It presented the idea that peace can be collectively kept, and how the west's policy of appeasement towards Hitler can be included in this bracket.
  • Appeasement needed to be considered in it's wider context, and the best reasons for it's use was mainly to avoid war.
  • However, trying to impose pacifism, especially to such a determined nation such as Germany seemed irrational in such situations, and how humanity isn't wired to have that quality of all wanting peace.

Read article 11.12 on given set of documents in stapled set...

It mentions how Anchluss had just ocurred, and a fear of a German merge with Czechoslovakia was present, but the article still backs the appeasement used by Chamberlain. This however can be seen as absurd, as England could accept peace more easily, as it was a nation of isolation in effect, separated from Europe by the seas, while contiental countries are surrounded by eachother, proving it harder to keep the peace between them and reduce friction.

It was argued England should have took preventative measures at this time, such as ally themsleves with France who were allied with Czechoslovakia(Little Entente) England however could not physically help the Czecks as they are far apart.

Chamberlain sees appeasement as the only way forward, as he cannot guarantee Czech safety. The 'tipping-point' was the Czech-Britain crisis of 1938, when Chamberlain faced this dilemma of what action to take about German potential aggression towards Czechoslovakia.

However, Chamberlain saw the Sudetenland crisis as an opportunit to show Hitler the possiblitly of negotiation without violence. However, this seemed foolish just to hand over the Sudetenland to Hitler, as it was never actually part of Germany, and was a physical barrier between them and the Czecks. Germany with possession of this mountaneous land could hold a strong defensive and attacking point towards Czechoslovakia. This countered the policy of appeasement, as it gave Germany the advantage of the Czech's by having the Sudetenland.

A. Brown