Neville Chamberlain Did The Right Thing

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If ever a politician got a bum rap it's Neville Chamberlain. He has gone down in history as the British prime minster whose policy of appeasement in the 1930s allowed the Nazis to flourish unopposed. He has never been forgiven for ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the Munich Agreement of September 1938, and for returning home triumphantly declaring "peace for our time". The very word "appeasement" is now synonymous with him, signifying a craven refusal to stand up to bullies and aggressors. What a contrast to Winston Churchill, the man who took over as prime minister and who has ever since been credited with restoring Britain's backbone.

But is the standard verdict on Chamberlain a fair one? After all, memories of the slaughter of the First World War were still fresh in the minds of the British, who were desperate to avoid another conflagration. And anyway what choice did Chamberlain have in 1938? There's a good case for arguing that the delay in hostilities engineered at Munich allowed time for military and air power to be strengthened.

[michaelmazowiecki]

Just to add that handing over Czechoslovakia meant that Hitler got his hands on Czech military armaments industry and existing stocks which were sufficient to arm half of the German army in 1939/40 in the invasions of Poland, France , BeNeLux and Denmark / Norway. Czech production was expanded and was a major component of Nazi production to May 1945.

[AlbertSchram]

For the motion:
[02:10] Prof. John Charmley, University of East Anglia
[21:12] Prof. Glyn Stone, University of the West of England
Against the motion:
[11:40] Sir Richard Evans, University of Cambridge
[32:36] Piers Brendon, Former Keeper of the Churchill Archives

[reminder]

"If me auntie was me uncle she'd have a different set of equipment" - 1:08:27 My guy, It's been 10 years and have I got news for you!

[chelSEY]

Charmley would help his cause enormously if he cut out all the melodrama, histrionics and hyperbole and just made his case.

[paulzellman]

No-one ever mention British Lord Runciman who officially visited Czechoslovakia in summer 1938 and reported to PM Chamberlain that the Sudeten Germans have the right to self-determination, as promised by US President Wilson's 14 points in 1918.

[HSMiyamoto]

To be valuable, the question should be if Chamberlain deserves his low reputation. However, that question depends not on 20-20 hindsight, with full access to German archives, but on what Chamberlain was told at the time.

[JamesRichards-mjkw]

The Munich Agreement never failed. It was Chamberlain's decision to form an unworkable pact with Poland after it had invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938-39 that led to World War II. He should have pressured the anti-Semitic fascist regime in Warsaw more heavily to allow a referendum on Danzig.

[lobotrojan]

“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.' - Winston Churchill to Neville Chamberlain as France and England threw Czechoslovakia to Hitler.

[Herintruththelies]

There is a problem with this whole topic. We know now that Hitler basically lied to almost every single person he ever spoke to. So the question is, should Chamberlain have been able to forsee this or not?

[lancejacobs]

This is utter nonsense. The Germans were not ready for all out war in 1938. The year long delay that this agreement gave them is what allowed them to improve their forces and thus be able to conquer France.

[wstevenson]

The first speakers delivery detracts from his proposition. In love with his own voice

[brickingle]

A point Richard Evans makes on his chapter on the road to war in his book "The Third Reich in Power" notes that many of the appeasements, especially the re-militarization of the Rhineland and the Austrian Anschluss, but even to an extent the Annexation of the Sudenenland, was largely seen as a justifiable rectifying of the Versailles treaty by the international community

[VanlifewithAlan]

In 1938 I met Neville Chamberlain off the 'plane at London Airport.  As he had had nothing to eat on the flight, he suggested we went and got something to eat.  So we stopped off at a chip shop where I ordered cod and chips but Neville just had a bag of mushy peas.  I said 'Don't you fancy a nice piece of fish Neville' and he replied 'No, it is peas in our time!'

[davidsabillon]

He could have bluffed Hitler. Hitler saw the allies as weak and Chamberlain was at the forefront of that weakness.

[davepx]

Dr Stone is mistaken (23:14) in asserting that Moscow wouldn't ally with Britain and France: the problem was indeed a practical one, in that the USSR could realistically only attack Germany by going through Poland, and in 1938 and 1939 Warsaw wouldn't contemplate Soviet troops on its soil because it knew the USSR would want back the provinces seized by Poland in 1920.

That left Moscow with the unappealing prospect of going to war against Germany and then waiting to be invaded - as happened anyway, but importantly in 1941 rather than 1939. The Soviet calculation in 1939 was thus essentially the same as the fragile case for western appeasement in 1938 - better war later than sooner, given the ongoing need to re-arm. German generals ironically felt the same: Hitler had other other plans.

My view of Chamberlain's action has softened over the years: Munich was a disgrace, but the practical alternatives were no more appealing given the political obstacles to an effective "grand alliance". Blaming French weakness is no defence, though: Britain was less likely to be invaded, as had happened to France twice in the previous century.

[VanlifewithAlan]

Neville Chamberlain will always be remembered as the person who sold out the Czechs to Hitler and not for his success in balancing the books during the economic crisis of the 1930s.  It is really a pity that he had not stuck to what he was good at.

[RobertThomson-ym]

Britain should have stayed out of world war one. That was our downfall.

[tippersnore]

In hindsight Chamberlain was wrong and more people should have read Mein Kampf for the real skinny on Hitler, but history is always crystalline in hindsight. I think Monty Python got it right by calling Chamberlain's promise - the Killer Joke.

[buster]

I think it's wishful thinking that Chamberlain could have prevented WWII.

[Flexiblesteel]

You do not appease a bully. Not only is it morally wrong, but it just defers and increases the damage caused down the road. Appeasement is an incredibly shortsighted policy