Appeasement: Encyclopedia II - Appeasement - Responses to criticism of appeasement

Appeasement - Responses to criticism of appeasement

However, these views are not without critics. It has also been argued that a strong stand by Britain and France would not have caused Hitler to back down, and that in the Sudeten crisis, Hitler was fully intent on going to war with Britain and France and seizing control of Czechoslovakia. Furthermore, the idea that an early war would have prevented a general war has also been criticised. Long before the Czech crisis, Hitler had revealed his intent to become master of Europe if not the world, and many historians feel that it is unlikely that a strong stand over Czechoslovakia would have caused him to permanently renounce such ambitions. In addition, though there were some in the German Army who detested Hitler and were actively looking for an excuse to effect a putsch or coup (for example, General Beck); there is no reason to believe that a loss of face over Czechoslovakia would have triggered a coup or that a coup would have been successful.

Finally, it has been argued that there is no reason to believe that a war over Czechoslovakia would have been less destructive than the war over Poland. Other historians have claimed that the reason for the length and severity of the war was that, even after war was declared, Britain and France took no aggressive action towards Germany (the Phony War or sitzkrieg). This, after the collapse of the Polish army, only gave Germany several additional months to rearm and pick their convenient timing to invade the next countries. There does not seem to be any reason why Britain and France would not have followed such a policy if the war had started over Czechoslovakia. This group of historians argues that if the Allies had taken the initiative, the war would have been over much more quickly. In other words, they contend that the policy of appeasement was not the main reason why the war was so severe.

Another example of appeasement could be the American and British position in the Teheran Conference and later in the Yalta conference, where both Roosevelt and Churchill eagerly accepted all Stalin's demands even if there was not any immediate risk of confrontation. Later, Winston Churchill considered that it might well have been worthwhile to continue World War II after VE Day by fighting the Soviet army. The move by Western consensus to draw the line at this possibility was perceived by some as appeasement by the West towards Josef Stalin which led to the Cold War. However, the post-war Soviet Union's prestige was colossal, and communism had a considerable following in Western Europe: to attack Russia might have provoked unrest or even revolution in war-torn Western Europe.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Responses to criticism of appeasement", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki