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Chamberlain
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
I suppose this has been discussed hundreds of times before, but I am not all that often here.
I have always been under the impression that Chamberlain was considered merely rather wishy-washy in his policy of appeasement. (Though it seems to me this is a very valid policy especially under the circumstances of the time, with the memories of the last war so recent.)
But there is a sentence in the novel I am reading which made me wonder. It had a character saying, "Chamberlain saved us. Gave us a year to make more broomsticks to look like rifles. Even the carpet factory's making tents now." This part was set in 1939.
Is that, though, right? Did Britain need that year to prepare? Might the war have been different (all over in months?) if he had declared war earlier?
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 2
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Did Britain need that year to prepare? Ìý
Chamberlain's policy also gave the Germans an extra year to prepare - which included taking over the resources of Czechslovakia & stealing Czech tanks for his Panzer divisons
So I don't think the argument has any validity -
Message 3
Posted by U2133447 (U2133447) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Did Britain need that year to prepare?
Ìý
Well this is certainly a phrase that crops up time and again probably because there was some truth in it. -
Message 4
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Well this is certainly a phrase that crops up time and again probably because there was some truth in it.Ìý
I don't think so.
Chamberlain's policy had nothing to do with preparing for war - it was supposed to avoid war altogether.
And if the idea really had been to help Britain prepare for war then it didn't work very well - we nearly lost in 1940
Is the character in this novel a Tory party spin doctor? -
Message 5
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
I have always been under the impression that Chamberlain was considered merely rather wishy-washy in his policy of appeasement.Ìý
The fact that Neville Chamberlain died in 1940 (less than 6 months after he resigned) seems to have played a part in the portrayal of his legacy. One can not libel the dead after all and Chamberlain thus provided the ideal scapegoat for the Churchillian narrative (e.g. 'The Gathering Storm' 1948) which we have become so familiar with. -
Message 6
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
The portrayal is more or less accurate. Like many people in his time, Chamberlain was betting on two horses. On the one hand, there was a widespread feeling that the Versailles settlement of 1919 had neither been just nor tenable, and that Germany had legitimate grievances. This offered the hope that Germany would return to peaceful politics if these were redressed (as Hitler indeed promised). So Chamberlain was willing to go quite far in appeasing Hitler.
But on the other hand, it was clearly dangerous to rely on the success of such a policy, and Chamberlain was pragmatic enough to prefer to negotiate from a position of strength. So he did start re-armament. The build-up was slow, in part because of the economic problems of the 1930s, and in part because Britain's war industries were rather run-down after nearly twenty years of low spending: Government officials soon discovered that it was difficult to actually spent their enlarged budgets.
The period 1938-1939 was regarded as critical. In 1938, the advice that Chamberlain and the cabinet received from the Imperial General Staff was that the country was not ready for war and conflict should be avoided. In 1939, the advice from the military was altogether more confident. A big factor, as the Battle of Britain would show, was the strength of the RAF: At the time of Munich, the RAF had only a single squadron of Hurricanes, by the autumn of 1939 the situation was a lot better.
Another factor, though, was that intelligence about German strength was better in 1939 than in 1938: In 1938 it was wildly over-estimated, in 1939 less so (although it still was). -
Message 7
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
I disagree with Idamante's scepticism and would point out that fighter production went quietly ahead with some urgency in that year, plus all the technical installation work connected with the Chain Â鶹ԼÅÄ network, for example. It was moves like that which made our survival possible in 1940.
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Message 8
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
I think that people are being, and have been, unfair to Chamberlain..
I am not much of a bridge player I am not sure that he had much alternative to 'finessing' and playing for time..
British military power, especially naval- Royal and Merchant- had been very badly damaged during the 14-18 war: and the Jarrow Marches and the state of the other Depressed Areas around Britain's former great shipbuilding complexes points to the fact that Britain did not immediately discount and dismiss the Versailles Treaty aspiration of a disarmed world.
The great World Disarmament Conference took place c1929: not coincidentally the year of the Wall Street Crash. Economic development since the Dutch really invented the modern system at the start of the seventeenth century had seen a close connection between the power and security of a State and its investment in its military capacity.
This was not the cause of the collapse into economic World Chaos in 1932; but rearmament was a popular way for the Nazis to get Germany back to work. It almost certainly would not have worked in Britain.
1932 the future ruling elite at Oxford voted that they would not fight for King and Country, while presumably the success in recruiting spies for the Soviet Union amongst the "Cambridge branch"- indicated a similar reluctance there too.
At the other end of the social scale, it is most unlikely that the British working class would have tolerated the "full employment" solutions of Totalitarian Germany and the Soviet Union.. We are particularly aware of the way that the "Labour Corps" in Germany were put to work building the kind of infrastructure like autobahns in virtual conditions of subsistence forced labour..But almost certainly the extensive slave labour Gulags in the USSR were similarly improving the Soviet capability.
Within Britain, faced, as he said as Chancellor of the Exchequer, with "an armed and arming world, Britain could not be the only country not to be armed"..
But Britain was having to play catch up in more ways than one:
(a) obviously they had to design, develop and produce weapon systems capable of meeting the new super-advanced systems of Germany- produced by the some of the leading engineers and scientists in the World. Fortunately a British sea-plane had won the Gordon Bennett trophy in the south of France in c1929.. Take the floats off the thing and develop it as a fighter interceptor and you ended up with the Spitfire. But, as anyone who has worked with a top-class engineer will know, you just can not rush things.
(b) But I think that people underestimate the fragmented and fractious nature of British society during the inter-war period. I know that P.G. Wodehouse made a joke of young men in beards talking about "the revolution".. But during my Fifties working class childhood it was still common to hear mutterings about "We missed our chance in 1926".. "We were betrayed by the TU bosses in twenty six and by Ramsay Macdonald when he formed the National Government".. And political Labour, increasingly vital, had, along with the trade union movement, opposed the Capitalist war in 1914.
In fact when the Britain faced the prospect of the Darkest Hour in 1940 Attlee raised in the War Cabinet just how it would be possible to keep the East End, that he knew intimately, on side once the Germans started bombing the docks..
And when they eventually bombed the West End he said that they had missed a trick- the possibility of splitting Britain down the middle of its Two Nations. Churchill gave Harold Nicholson the task of drawing up Britain's war aims- the ideas for a better Britain that the people could be promised as their "spoils of war". Nicholson immediately saw that some real advance towards Socialism would be the only thing.
So what we tend to forget is that those years from c1935 saw three developments
(a) a process of rearmament
(b) the process of negotiation that really made it possible for the British people to see Hitler as the kind of monstrous and wicked bully that appealed to something quite visceral
and (c) As Stuart King Hall wrote in the 1938 edition of "In Our Own Times", Britain actually had started to adopt socialist measures from c1935. As Seebohm Rowntree observed in the introduction to his c1936 version of "The Human Needs of Labour" the government had just launched a three year programme aimed at improving the level of fitness and health of the British people.
The Nazis and the Communists were fond of showing their people what the British and the Americans had been like while they were "wallowing in the depths" - but I remember reading a Penguin Special in c1960 about the Czech Crisis written at the time. No one was really fooled that Munich had been any kind of real solution. A long time ago the English had learned that paying Danegeld to bully-boys just ends up going one way.
Of course Britain was not in any position to really fight the Germans on their terms in 1939 or 1940. But the English solution to the crisis at Dunkirk brought the English people at least back on familiar ground.. It was now everyone in it together in a last ditch stand like Alfred at Athelny. From that moment there was only ever going to be one winner- though it would take a long time.
Cass -
Message 9
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
And what a close-run thing Dunkirk was!! Our future could have been decided adversely had the weather been even a little rough!
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Message 10
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
LairigGhru
Agreed..
But then so was the Armada.. The important think is that the Engish people being freeborn and accustomed to taking responsibility for working things out for themselves,using whatever is to hand, have (so far) been able to show that intelligent and reactive human components working as a team will eventually get the edge over attempts at overwhelming force.. I am not sure that the Americans always get this.
By the way I really enjoyed last nights documentary about the women pilots in the Battle of Britain series.. Truly those ladies were as "bad" as their male peers.
Cass -
Message 11
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, a long-standing friend of the Czechs, in his foreword to his account of the Munich Agreement, "Munich: A Prologue to Tragedy", its publication timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Agreement, tells the story of meeting Lord Halifax, Chamberlain's Foreign Secretary, whilst the book was in preparation. Halifax remarked:
I suppose I shall be in the dock in this book?Ìý
to which Wheeler-Bennett replied, after a moment's pause:
Yes, I suppose you shallÌý
The extra year's breathing space argument has been used mainly by revisionist historians as well as Chamberlain supporters (I remember hearing the argument used on a TV programme some years ago by the Late Lord Hailsham, then Quintin Hogg, who was narrowly elected as M.P. for Oxford against an anti-Munich candidate in a bye-election six weeks after the agreement - although of course he did not use that argument at the time - he later redeemed himself by voting against Chamberlain in the Norway debate of May 1940 as well going on active service during the war).
It was certainly true that Britain was grossly deficient in every aspect of her defences in September 1938 including Civil defence. Sir John Anderson, the former permanent head of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Office and Governor of Bengal, who had only entered Parliament a few months before as the replacement for Ramsay Macdonald as M.P. for the Scottish Universities, was immediately appointed to the Cabinet after the Agreement had been signed to attempt to remedy the gross deficiency in air-raid shelter provision that the crisis had revealed.
Nevertheless despite the extra 11 months the Agreeement had bought Britain's defences were still woefully inadequate for any sustained war effort when war eventually came at the beginning of September 1939. The fact that this was so can only be laid at the foot of the incumbent National Government which had been in power since August 1931 and won unparalleled parliamentary majorites of 500 and 250 at the elections of 1931 and 1935. The government was one of the strongest Britain has ever had in peacetime with the largest popular mandate and Chamberlain, both as Chancellor from 1931-7 and Prime Minister (at least until the outbreak of war) the strongest figure within it so any failings cannot be blamed on lack of popular support or a vexatious opposition in Parliament.
Also whatever improvement was gained by the postponement of war at Munich on the British (and indeed the French) side was more than outweighed by the fact that the Skoda works, the largest armament factory in Europe, fell into Hitler's lap without firing a shot when he tore up the agreement and swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
Armament production, though increased, was wy behind what German factories were turning out:
By 1939...over 20% of all German industrial workers worked for the armed forces, while nearly 33% of those in the manufacturing and building sectors worked there. By comparison, in 1938, Britain and the United States produced just 13% of the quantity of weapons that Germany produced that year. German armament spending went from under 2% of gross national product in 1933 to over 23% in 1939Ìý
The only other power that came even close to matching this proportion of resources devoted to war preparation was the Soviet Union:
29
Also the commercial agreement that the Nazis and the Soviets entered into in August 1939 - the first of three which were to last until Hitler turned on his supplier in June 1941 - secured for Germany a valuable and secure supply of raw materials and enabled the Nazi regime to largely circumvent the British naval blockade that was put in place when hostilities commenced.
However on the credit side a few items should be entered in Chamberlain's defence. Ramsay Macdonald's last act as Prime Minister was to initial the Defence White Paper of June 1935 which signalled a shift in government policy from one of almost continuous disarmament to one of slow but steady rearmament.
During this period the Royal Air Force was modernised and equipped with Spitfires and Hurricanes (as well as the Wellington bomber) which meant that although Britain's air force was smaller than the other major powers it was to prove technically superior.
At the Treasury Chamberlain was a champion of the newly-discovered radar and sustained it even though the initial trials were disappointing and financed the building of a whole chain of radar stations around the coast of eastern and southern England. These were to be as decisive as the fighter planes in winning the Battle of Britain. The horse was phased out of the Army more completely than the military of any other nation (including Germany) with cavalry regiments becoming armoured and mechanised.
Nevertheless, to offset this, Britain's industrial capacity, especially her steel industry, was much reduced, often with deliberate government assistance, by the inter-war economic depression which left Britain dangerously dependent on imports, particularly from the USA, imposing a heavy burden on merchant shipping and making the Battle of the Atlantic crucial to the outcome of the war.
However Chamberlain's chief legacy, for which he must be given credit, was, as Churchill pointed out in his moving encomium to Chamberlain in the House of Commons after his death in November 1940, was to ensure that Britain entered the war innocent of any responsibility for its cause, save by acts of omission:
no future generation of English-speaking folks...will doubt that, even at great cost to ourselves in technical preparation, we were guiltless of the bloodshed, terror and misery which have engulfed so many lands and peoples...Long, hard, and hazardous years lie before us, but at least we entered upon them united and with clean heartsÌý -
Message 12
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Chamberlain's attitude whilst at the Treasury of supporting the modernisation of the army and air force and being the principal champion of radar might be contrasted with Churchill's tenure of the same post in 1924-29 when he consistently supported reductions in defence expenditure.
He refused to finance the complete defence of Singapore on the peninsula side - he was reluctant to allow any provision to be made for the fortification of what was Britain's major strategic naval base in the Far East on the grounds that a war with Japan, the only potentially hostile power in the region, was inconceivable during his lifetime but eventually compromised in allowing the fortification of the seaward side.
This oversight led to 200,000 British and Commonwealth troops falling into Japanese hands in February 1942 with barely a shot being fired and suffering a cruel and barbarous three and a half year captivity which many of them did not survive. -
Message 13
Posted by ambi (U13776277) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Hindsight is I suppose the basis of such discussions, but that notwithstanding, just as Britain used 1938-39 to prepare for war so did Germany. At the time of the Munich crisis Germany only had light tanks and has been stated were able to appropriate superior Czech tanks to the point that a third of Panzer strength was made up of them at the outbreak of WWII. In addition, after Munich Hitler ordered Luftwaffe strength to be increased five-fold.
If war had come at the time of Munich, Luftwaffe biplanes would have fought RAF biplanes, German tanks armed only with machine guns would have met heavier Czech, French and British models and a Wermacht even more significantly dependent on horse transport than in 1940 would have to pursue a strategy based on rapid movement. Of course the tactical brilliance of Blitzkrieg might have been as devastating in 1938 as 1940, but Hitler certainly gives the impression of a gambler who kept upping his stakes with each successive winner; who knows what would have happened if he'd had his bank depleted in 1938. -
Message 14
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Hi Caro
Britain was certainly not ready for war in 1938, not just the lack of fighter squadrons but also the lack of support infrascructure such as totally inadequate protected storage of aviation fuel, but then neither was Germany. Germany had, from memory only 55 divisions in 1938 of which 2 or 3 were panzer divisions nad they were mainly equipped with Panzer Is (which only had a machine gun) and Panzer IIs which was alight tank. The Luftwaffe still used biplanes and the navy was pretty non-existant. Czechoslovakia had 35 wellequipped divisions and Germany had no non agression pact with Germany which, prior to Munich, was supporting Britian, France and the Czechs.
the other thing is that we were not saved by waiting a year, Germany overran western Europe and Gb on its own could have never defeated Germany, it was Germany attacking the USSR and the USA that led to its defeat. Chamberlain's capitulation over Munich, as well as being morally repugnant, was not to give GB time to prepare for war but to avoid war. It gave removed the 35 divisons from the allied side, led the USSR into neutrality because they could not trust us and France, and gave Hitler a presnt of the Czech arms industry plus all the tanks and artillery the Czechs possessed. When the Germans attacked in the west in 1940 a considerable amount of the tanks and artillery were Czech made.
cheers
Tim -
Message 15
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Fortunately a British sea-plane had won the Gordon Bennett trophy in the south of France in c1929.. Take the floats off the thing and develop it as a fighter interceptor and you ended up with the Spitfire.Ìý
Where shall I start? The race for seaplanes was the Schneider Cup, not one of the many Gordon-Bennett trophies.
The contest was held in the country that had won in the previous edition, and the cup would be won definitively by the country that won three races in a row. So Sidney Webster won in Venice in 1927 with a Supermarine S.5 powered by a Napier Lion VIIB, Henry Waghorn in Calshot in 1929 with a Supermarine S.6 powered by a Rolls-Royce R engine, and John Boothman concluded it with the improved S.6B in 1931, also in Calshot.
As for the relationship between the Supermarine seaplane racers and the Spitfire, there was almost none, except for a common designer. The S.6, with its externally braced wings, was structurally very different. The development of the R engine did influence that of the Merlin and Griffon, but there was no direct link. The Spitfire was a further refinement, by a rather tortuous route, of the unsuccessful Supermarine Type 224. (The ugly and troublesome 224 was actually the first aircraft given the name Spitfire.) -
Message 16
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Mutatis
Thank you for the corrections.. Obviously
I got that all garbled.
Cass -
Message 17
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
The fact that this was so can only be laid at the foot of the incumbent National Government which had been in power since August 1931 and won unparalleled parliamentary majorites of 500 and 250 at the elections of 1931 and 1935.Ìý
It was a strong government and Chamberlain, despite its gentlemanly appearance, was a strong-willed man. Nevertheless, when he pushed in 1934 for an increase of home defence units to 38 squadrons (i.e. roughly quadrupling it) he was told that the Air Ministry was not a in a great hurry, and the responsible minister, Lord Londonderry, only accepted the funds with some reluctance. (Admittedly Londonderry had a lot of illusions about the possibility to reach agreement with Hitler.) In the next year the government did adopt a target of 84 home defence squadrons by 1939. In July 1936 the model of shadow factories, which expanded and safeguarded war production capacity, was adopted.
The problem that is overlooked by most people is the long lead time. Even in 1935, the RAF calculated that it's rearmament would be complete only in 1942; and we now know that was too optimistic. In reality short-term expansion was achieved by placing large orders for obsolete equipment. This allowed for training of manpower and cadres, and laid down the basis for future expansion, but it did not immediately add much to the fighting strength.
by the fact that the Skoda works, the largest armament factory in Europe, fell into Hitler's lap without firing a shotÌý
It is easy to overstate the importance of this for political purposes. In the whole of the German war industry, the Skoda works were useful to have, but they did not make a dramatic difference. The real result of the Munich crisis on German re-armament was a slump, as the Reich found it difficult to loan more money on the international markets, and entered a cashflow and raw materials crisis. Military investments plans had to be deeply cut to allow the industry to produce more for export, and make up the gap. Among other things, the consequences included a reduction in tank production plans by 50%. For light machine guns the cut was no less than 80%!
Armament production, though increased, was way behind what German factories were turning out:Ìý
Yes, but the Entente powers were smart enough to plan for a long war, not a short one. Reality was, as Hitler acknowledged, that they were still behind, but rapidly catching up. The extra year was valuable, because German production was levelling off while French and British production increased, and Italy was way behind.
In a long war, not only the current frontline strength mattered, but also the capability to send in reinforcements and replacements. While Germany spent 23% of its GDP on armaments in 1939, and Britain only 12%, the gap was narrowing. In 1940 the British aircraft industry would outproduce the German one by 50% -- and that rose to 70% in 1941. -
Message 18
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 19th September 2010
Mutatis
My copy of "The Private Papers of Hore- Belisha" R.J. Minney (1960) goes along with that. For example a brief point almost at random in a chapter headed "The Inheritance" says:
"The final design of the 3.7 inch anti-aircraft gun was only approved in midsummer 1937 and the 4.5 inch was then still on the drawing board. These were the two main anti-aircraft weapons."
And the chapter starts;
"Disarmament had been a keynote of the policy of successive governments for more than a decade after the war. Britain took a lead in setting an example to the world. The mood of the people was for peace. The combined force of moral persuasion, political agitation and the almost religious fervour which dominated meeting of the League of Nations Union in support of the crusade for disarmament, was too compelling for any government to overlook or withstand."
Cass
Cass -
Message 19
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 20th September 2010
A good analysis, MM. I watched the discussion on the Battle of Britain between James Holland and Stephen Bungay last night on the iplayer and it was pointed out that the shadow factories, championed by both Swinton, the Air Minister, and Chamberlain which proved vital to maintaining and increasing war production during both the BoB and the Blitz took a long time to set up because of bureaucratic difficulties. Also the Spitfire which was first ordered in May 1936 was not produced until 1938 because of technical problems surrounding wing production.
Chamberlain would have been very conscious of these problems plus the concern of the Chiefs of Staff not to engage all three Axis Powers simultaneously (a concern shared by Churchill who was willing to appease Italy and Japan in order to isolate Germany). This slow pace of rearmament and war preparation may well have motivated his foreign policy rather than the other way round but the real argument is not whether appeasement delayed war but made it more inevitable by advertising the Allies' military weakness (or their self-perception of it) and unwillingness to fight for their principles to Hitler. -
Message 20
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Chamberlain's capitulation over Munich, as well as being morally repugnant, was not to give GB time to prepare for war but to avoid war. It gave removed the 35 divisons from the allied side, led the USSR into neutrality because they could not trust us and France, and gave Hitler a presnt of the Czech arms industry plus all the tanks and artillery the Czechs possessed. When the Germans attacked in the west in 1940 a considerable amount of the tanks and artillery were Czech made.Ìý
Quite right. The other major consequence of the Munich Agreement, as Wheeler-Bennett points out, was the disastrous impact it had on US public opinion (which, in the wake of the Abdication, was hardly pro-British to begin with) and Roosevelt's attempts to modify the Neutrality Act. It took the BoB and the Blitz for US public opinion to swing back in our favour and enable Roosevelt to pass the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. -
Message 21
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Might the war have been different (all over in months?) if he had declared war earlier?Ìý
The plain answer to that is 'no'. Britain wasn't capable of beating the Germany then - and never was!
Surely there are two aspects. First, if we went to war, could Britain form a set of alliances which would provide us with a hope of winning? I think the problem was that this required a strong ally in the east - neither Poland or the Soviet Union (or the Czechs) were strong enough on their own and neither would work with the other, having their own strategic interests.
The other aspect is what sort of war Britain could fight. Our superpower status was control of money and trade - the ability to starve our enemy of resources. In that respect, we were not the power we had been. Also, Germany's great coup was establishing economic hegemony over SE Europe, so that it could no longer be starved into submission.
Chamberlain was well aware of both these points and did his best, but when it came down to it Britain was no longer a worthwhile ally for the smaller European states. They calculated that in the event of any war, they would be swallowed up by either Germany or the Soviet Union and Britain could do nothing about it. And they were quite right.
So let us drop these illusions of grandeur. Britain was never in the position to decide the outcome of WW2 - indeed it was lucky to have survived it. -
Message 22
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 20th September 2010
but the real argument is not whether appeasement delayed war but made it more inevitable by advertising the Allies' military weakness (or their self-perception of it) and unwillingness to fight for their principles to Hitler.Ìý
Hindsight is often less than 20/20. Munich is regarded today as a major victory for Hitler, which by most reasonable standards it indeed was. Nevertheless that was not how Hitler saw it: He actually was quite angry at being forced to back down.
He had been planning the military destruction of Czechoslovakia ever since the 'Anschluss' of Austria. A glance on the 1938 map shows why: More than half of Czechoslovakia was now surrounded on three sides by the Reich, making it a tempting and easy target. On the other hand, the proximity of much of western Czechoslovakia to the German heartland made it at least appear to be a potential basis for enemy attack. In the spring, Hitler declared his "unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia", some time after October.
But when France and Britain started to make some very modest and tentative threatening noises, much of the German civilian and military leadership was badly shaken (as odd as it sounds) by the prospect of a looming war. Facing the risk of a rebellion in own ranks and even a military coup, Hitler was forced to accept Mussolini's proposal for a conference: The settlement reached there, which gave him everything he had publicly asked for, allowed him to back down without losing face.
In August 1939, when war was Poland was imminent, Hitler actually expressed the fear that somebody would try to organize another Munich.
The question is whether an outbreak of war on 1 October 1938, as Hitler had planned, would have brought about the swift collapse of the Nazi regime. I think there is reason to question claims by German officers who advertised that they had been willing in 1938 to depose Hitler rather than risk war. After WWII, men like Halder certainly had good reason to exaggerate their courageous opposition to the regime, such as it was. Still, the possibility existed.
But if war had broken out, it seems unlikely that Czechoslovakia would have been able to defend itself for long; its strategic position was nearly impossible and neither France nor Britain would have been in a position to help. Nor was the USSR. -
Message 23
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Monday, 20th September 2010
To be fair I think that Chamberlain probably recognised that the UK could not afford to fight another global conflict,yet might find itself in a situation when it could not afford not to.A tricky situation,do risk you financial securities and hasten the end of your empire till you are absolutely sure that war is inevitable or do you wait to see how the cards play from the deck and then make your descision....
So let us drop these illusions of grandeur. Britain was never in the position to decide the outcome of WW2 - indeed it was lucky to have survived it.Ìý
A little harsh.I think that the UK was undoubtably not the force it was in 1914.WW1 had cost the UK dearley in terms of finance,men and industry,the subsequent post war years heaped even more problems on her capacity and powerbase.Yet by WW2 it was tasked with defending an empire covering 2/5ths of the planet against 3 potential enemies with less men and equipement than ever in history.I believe that General Alexander called it the "Biggest overstretch in history ".Britain may well have played a role in decideding the future of the world,but not probably in the way that was expected.Had she failed in 1940-41 who is to say that Western Europe would have not ended up being communist? -
Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th September 2010
I think the point about people saying in the post-Nazi era that the Nazi/Hitler hold on power was not as extreme as has been asserted must be taken in context.. rather like the post-Cold War survivors from the USSR who were apparently always "good fellows" and the whole Nuclear Arms race etc was mostly bluff, smoke and mirrors.. Well. There is always the "fog or war".. But there is also the "fog of peace".
Cass -
Message 25
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Monday, 20th September 2010
But if war had broken out, it seems unlikely that Czechoslovakia would have been able to defend itself for long; its strategic position was nearly impossible and neither France nor Britain would have been in a position to help. Ìý
The Czechs would have had the mountains of Bohemia & all their border fortifications intact. They also had military treaties with France & the USSR. The Germans were in no position to fight a war on 2 fronts and the threat of an invasion from the West, combined with the above factors, would surely have made them think twice about moving East.
I think that is why, as you say "much of the German civilian and military leadership was badly shaken (as odd as it sounds) by the prospect of a looming war." -
Message 26
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Munich is regarded today as a major victory for Hitler, which by most reasonable standards it indeed was. Nevertheless that was not how Hitler saw it: He actually was quite angry at being forced to back down.Ìý
Yes, when Chamberlain visited Hitler the morning after the signature of the Munich Agreement to bid him farewell and get him to sign his infamous 'piece of paper' Hitler's scrawled signature below Chamberlain's typescript was more than usually indecipherable. He reportedly told Hanfstaengel that he "could have broken the old man's umbrella and kicked him downstairs".
Hitler always lived on the edge of his nerves and the political crisis of the summer of 1938 (which he had largely manufactured) including a particularly blood-curdling speech at the Nuremberg Party Rally had taken a good deal out of him and he obviously did not relish the prospect of having to go through the whole process again. Also although he was a totalitarian ruler he realised that he needed to generate a sufficiently bellicose attitude in the German people to prosecute a war successfully and the more he gained his objectives by diplomatic coups the less would a war be deemed as necessary.
He also knew that when he occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, as he was to do six months later, his objective of a 'Greater German Reich' would be seen as the propaganda nonsense it always was.
We know that Chamberlain had received information from MI6 and possibly from the principals themselves that Beck and Halder were planning to remove Hitler in the wake of the Sudeten crisis and Chamberlain was urged to take a firm stand over the Sudetenland - advice which Chamberlain chose to discount.
It is arguable how credible this plot was or how effective it might have proved bearing in mind the botched attempt 6 years later but it is an irony that although Chamberlain hoped that Hitler might be displaced by a supposedly 'moderate' Nazi such as Goering or by a military coup the effect of the Munich Agreement was to immensely strengthen Hitler's position vis-a-vis the military and remove all prospect of a coup until the war had turned against Germany decisively. -
Message 27
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Idamante
I believe that the Czech situation was militarily compromised by the fact that the defensible borders that it was given at Versailles were in the north "at the expense of" the Sudeten Germans, who had been raised to a pitch of German nationalism by Sudeten Nazis..
The book "Dying We Live" begins with a letter from a 17 year old Sudeten farm boy who had been recruited for the SS- presumably blond hair,blue eyes etc- but both he and a friend of his were to be shot because they refused.. "We know what they do".. The letter was addressed to his parents asking them to forgive the pain that this news must bring them: but, given the values with which they had brought him up, he felt that he had no alternative.
Generally the Germans seemed to find plenty of Sudeten Germans who were willing to welcome them in when the Allies forced the Czechs to surrender the Sudentenland.
Cass -
Message 28
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 20th September 2010
The Czechs would have had the mountains of Bohemia & all their border fortifications intact. They also had military treaties with France & the USSR. The Germans were in no position to fight a war on 2 fronts and the threat of an invasion from the West, combined with the above factors, would surely have made them think twice about moving East.Ìý
It was Churchill who encouraged the idea that the Czechs had a chance to resist. But I go with the Chiefs of Staff:
"...no military pressure we can exert by sea, or land or in the air can prevent Germany either from invading and overrunning Bohemia or inflicting a decisive defeat on the Czechoslovakian army."
Far from threatening invasion from the west, Britain was well aware that it would have its work cut out in helping to defend France. And regarding the Soviet Union, the military view was that if forced to choose (as we eventually were) then Poland was the more useful military ally. And not that useful, as events soon showed.
But behind all such calculations was the knowledge that as soon as Britain did engage with Germany, then Italy and Japan would take the opportunity to attack - this would wipe us out as a great power forever. They did and it did. -
Message 29
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Cass,
When someone like Chamberlain is referring to the so called Sudetenland as "Germany´s backyard" then he has no idea of Germany´s territorial history. If he had, he would knew that this was not the case, because that area belonged for centuries to the House of Habsburg and hence to Austria. Since Austria was expelled from the then German Confederation (1815 - 1866), after Prussia´s victory, this "Sudetenland" has never been territory of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. So there was no link to the Versailles treaty, it was just the link for that area to the St. Germain treaty, concerning the lost of territory of Austria.
W. S. Churchill probably knew that, for he has studdied history, which Chamberlain hasn´t (as far as I know). Churchill already was allerted in March 1936 when Hitler re-occupied the demilitarised Zone of the Rhineland. Now we both know how that story was going on.
I think that Chamberlain was blinded by his - sometimes desperate - efforts to keep peace in Europe when he should had recognised that Hitler wasn´t a true man of peace. I can understand Chamberlain´s point and his efforts, but in his efforts, he wasted importand time to make Britain fit for what was at dawn in Germany and in Europe.
Regards,
Thomas -
Message 30
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Yes, but those Sudeten Germans paid a terrible price for that support when they were forcibly removed after the war by the Czechsto ensure that the Sudetenland was retained by them in perpetuity.
The Munich Agreement posed a dilemma for Churchill even during the war. Although Churchill had spoken against it (although not voted against it - he abstained in the vote called by the opposition) he was dubious about denouncing it since it would involve Britain reneging on her treaty obligations for which he had rightly criticised Hitler as well as setting a bad precedent (the Soviets were allowed to keep their slice of Poland they had obtained from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Poland compensated with German territory upto the Oder-Neisse line).
However the dreadful revenge exacted on the Czechs following the assassination of Heydrich in June 1942 (a plot hatched in Britain) ensured that Benes' demand that Czechoslovakia would be restored to its borders pre-October 1938 in the post-war settlement would be met.
The idea that Hitler would have been deterred by a show of armed force is not just speculative. In 1934 Austrian Nazis, prompted by Berlin, murdered the Austrian Chancellor, Dollfuss, in preparation for an anschluss. Mussolini immediately moved troops to the Brenner Pass. Hitler swiftly called off the coup attempt and launched a diplomatic charm offensive to create a Rome-Berlin Axis. Even when he launched his actual anschluss four years later he was still concerned about possible Italian intervention. -
Message 31
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Perhaps one of you can clarify the Chamberlain connection, because the political career and rise of Joseph Chamberlain is very evidently closely connected with the journey of the Unitarians, especially in his local congregation at Birmingham- from people excluded from public life as Nonconformists, to supporters of local and communal activity, and then- when Joseph Chamberlain, having invented the Populist politician capable of rousing histerical support-and the real modern political party machine - for the Liberal Party, moved increasingly to the right, missed out on becoming a Tory PM, and by the pre-war period issued an election manifesto that was really quite proto-Nazi.
I believe that Neville Chamberlain was his son.. And that one of those with some sympathy for Hitler and the Nazis during the Thirties was Austen Chamberlain?
As a Conservative Neville must have felt just about as certain of his personal political roots as Ramsay MacDonald, whose political career owe much to his marriage to Lord Kelvin's niece that meant that when the LRC was formed he was just about the only person with independent means and a flat in Westminster.
Garbled again?..
Cass -
Message 32
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Garbled again?..Ìý
Yes, slightly. Austen Chamberlain was Neville's half-brother (both had American mothers who died in childbirth). Austen could be said to have invented the policy of appeasement of Germany when he was Foreign Secretary in Baldwin's Government from 1924-9 when he agreed to the Dawes Plan which reduced the burden of reparations placed on Germany by Versailles and negotiated the Treaty of Locarno in 1925 in which Germany was admitted to the League of Nations winning the Nobel Peace Prize as a consequence.
However he was the first Tory backbencher to be critical of the National Government's policy towards Germany after Hitler had taken power. He favoured both a 'firm' policy and rearmament. He was a member of a delegation to the Cabinet led by Churchill in 1934 pressing for greater rearmament and formed a triumvirate with both Churchill and Leo Amery with Amery speaking on the Army, Churchill speaking on air policy whilst he spoke on naval policy. However he died in March 1937, two months before his half-brother became Prime Minister. -
Message 33
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Allan D
Thanks for that..
I was aware that Joseph Chamberlain had lost his first wife, and that Beatrice Potter (later Webb) seemed at one time to be a likely second spouse, coming from a similar Unitarian background.
She describes some of this in "My Apprenticeship"- but a biography that I have of Chamberlain goes into more details about "the rift in the lute"..
Miss Potter who had been brought up by her mother with very strict ideas about the evils of market distortion and paying staff any more than the "market price", vehemently disagreed with some proposal of his in office to do something to help low paid working girls.
Not the kind of wife and mother the great man was looking for.. But it seems no coincidence that she then volunteered to be part of Booth's team that set out to prove that the extent of poverty was greatly exaggerated- and proved the reverse.
What I think is interesting is what small circles there seem to have been- I suppose British Government was really government by dinner party - as much as any other kind of party.
Cass -
Message 34
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 20th September 2010
When someone like Chamberlain is referring to the so called Sudetenland as "Germany´s backyard" then he has no idea of Germany´s territorial history. If he had, he would knew that this was not the case, because that area belonged for centuries to the House of Habsburg and hence to Austria...Ìý
I doubt if any people within the Habsburg territories thought themselves as being 'Habsburgian' and precious few of the ones living in Austria territories thought of themselves as being Austrian. Young Hitler for example.
The Czech state was created by the victors in 1918 - it was only made viable by annexing territory which under the principles of self-determination should have belonged to Germany (and Hungary). The Sudetanland was next to Germany and inhabited by German speakers. If it wasn't German, it certainly wasn't Czech. -
Message 35
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Yes, socialists (one of whom Miss Potter became as Mrs Webb) are usually generous with everyone's money except their own.
To correct my posting above it was only Austen's mother, Harriet Kenrick, who died in childbirth causing some emotional distance between Joe and Austen although it was Austen who seemed destined for the glittering political career whilst Neville seemed destined for a business career. Joe eventually married his first wife's cousin, Florence Kenrick, who became Neville's mother. apologies for the error.
Neville did not enter the House of Commons until he was nearly 50 - 26 years after his half-brother. Whilst Austen made his biggest contribution at the Foreign Office (at the same time as his brother was making his reputation at the Ministry of Health). Neville has often been compared to Anthony Eden, a PM who was unable to reverse policy, whilst Austen has often been compared to R.A.Butler, who held distinguished office but who missed out on the Premiership three times.
Lloyd George's epigram on Austen is typically cruel but contains an element of truth:
He always played the game, and always lost itÌý -
Message 36
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 20th September 2010
The Sudetanland was next to Germany and inhabited by German speakers. If it wasn't German, it certainly wasn't Czech.Ìý
Neither was the South Tyrol which was annexed by Italy (one of the victors of WWI) from Austria in 1919 but Hitler never made any claims on this territory. -
Message 37
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Although as made clear I do not agree at all with the Munich agrement, one aspect of Britains unpreparedness for war that it often overlooked is the lack of protected storage for aviation fuel and other refined petroleum products.
The RAF in 1936 had only very limited stocks of aviation gasoline were held at a relatively few RAF stations. In addition the only reserves available were those held by the oil companies as a condition of Air Ministry contracts for the supply and distribution of fuel to the RAF. These reserves amounted to about 8,000 tons and even then this was estimated to represent only ten days war consumption. It is not clear what the government expected to happen once those ‘ten days’ of reserves were exhausted. In fact war time consumption of aviation spirits was to peak at about 8,000 tons per day so the total reserves up to 1936 would in fact have only been only enough for one day of war! It was in 1936 that the first flight of the Spitfire took place and now the RAF planned for squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires. However, these fighters would need fuel which would require storage facilities. Unlike in World War One that storage would need to be protected against aerial bombardment.
In 1936 the vast majority of oil storage depots belonging to both the navy and to the oil companies consisted of unprotected and densely packed above ground storage tanks. By comparison with the very limited RAF storage, by 1936 the Royal Navy had, world wide, three million tons of storage held, not surprisingly at or near ports.
The vast majority of commercial storage space was also held at ports in enormous above ground cylindrical tanks, which were typically sited close to conspicuous landmarks and made easy targets for air attack. About a third of the country’s civil oil storage was situated along the Thames Estuary. In July 1936 the Air Raid Precautions Department of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Office concluded that ‘it is perfectly plain that if a determined attack was made on these installations nothing could save them’. It also concluded that similar oil storage facilities on the Humber and along Southampton Water were equally vulnerable.
In February 1936 the Oil Board set up a subsidiary, the Petroleum Products Reserves Sub-Committee, to consider the need for fuel stocks for war and how they should be protected. In July of that year the Air Council, with the approval of the Oil Board, decided to build storage facilities with a capacity of 90,000 tons. This was at the time estimated to be sufficient for three months of war and was to be carried out through the expansion of storage facilities on existing oil company commercial sites. One month later the Committee of Imperial Defence advised all the Service Departments to build up reserves such that they had sufficient fuel stocks for six months of war with Germany. As a result Air Ministry requirement were increased to 290,000 tons based on a daily consumption of 1,600 tons per day. This requirement, when met, would amount to a 3,600 per cent increase in stocks from the actual position in 1936. -
Message 38
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th September 2010
hothousemat
Surely Anschluss- union with Austria- had occurred before Hitler turned his attentions on Czechoslovakia: and so was now part of Greater Germany.
Up to 1914 Austria-Hungary had existed as a multi-national Empire. The Peace Settlement had created Austria as a separate German state, but Vienna- that had had its problems before 1914 as the Empire was fairly moribund (hence the decision to have a victorious war with Serbia over the assassination at Sarajevo)- was now a real anomaly. It was a capital worthy of an Empire, but actually just running a small rump of a state.
I wonder whether Hitler would have eventually done the Roman thing and divided a Germany that dominated Europe from the Channel to the Urals,and had two capitals- Berlin and Vienna- north /south rather than East/West.
Cass -
Message 39
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 20th September 2010
Chamberlain hoped that Hitler might be displaced by a supposedly 'moderate' Nazi such as Goering or by a military coupÌý
Not necessarily. If the choice had been put to the British establishment in 1938, most of them would have preferred Hitler over a military dictatorship in Germany. The German military was perhaps 'moderate' compared with Hitler, but they were equally willing to use force to reverse the Versailles settlement. And from the Allied perspective, a military dictatorship was considered more dangerous because it was likely to be more competent.
London or Paris would have regarded the replacement of Hitler by Beck as a very much mixed blessing. -
Message 40
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Tuesday, 21st September 2010
Wow! That's a lot of information for me to digest and much of it not all that familiar to me. I think the consensus has been that it wasn't helpful to hold off, and that without the USA Britain's valour (not to mention the valour of the other countries involved) would have been for nought. I wonder.
Thank you.
Caro. -
Message 41
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Tuesday, 21st September 2010
posted by hotmousemat
The Czech state was created by the victors in 1918 - it was only made viable by annexing territory which under the principles of self-determination should have belonged to Germany (and Hungary). The Sudetanland was next to Germany and inhabited by German speakers. If it wasn't German, it certainly wasn't Czech.Ìý
Did you ever had a look on an ethnic map of Austria-Hungary of 1914? How can you say that the whole of Bohemia and Moravia should have gone to Germany and Slovakia to Hungary when you are referring by your example upon the "self-determination" principles?
Your suggestion would had taken the construction of the Greater Germany, built in 1938/1939 twenty years earlier. Well, probably it would have spared Europe a second world war, but the Allies of 1918 have been stuck by the opposite aims, to avoid a re-strenghtened Germany with Austria, Bohemia and Moravia in its contents.
Another reason for their decision is, that they had promissed the Czechs and Slovaks to have their own state when they would help the Allies to win the war by desertion, for instance. In 1918, the only country interested to continue the war was the German Empire, Kaiser Franz-Joseph´s successor, Kaiser Karl V was already enganged in attempts of peace negotiations, behind the back of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Here is a map from wikipedia:
-
Message 42
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Tuesday, 21st September 2010
Click on the above link Cass and you see the answer to your question which would had become reality if the war had been one by the other side.
Follow the red line to see the border of the Greater German Empire in its planned whole extend, towards the East in its widest extention. -
Message 43
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Thomas_B
Did you ever had a look on an ethnic map of Austria-Hungary of 1914? How can you say that the whole of Bohemia and Moravia should have gone to Germany and Slovakia to Hungary when you are referring by your example upon the "self-determination" principles? Ìý
I didn't.
We were talking about the Sudetanland, the border areas of Czechoslovakia coloured in red (for German speaking) on the map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire you link to.
If you look again at my post (34) you will see I say that these areas were needed to make the Czech areas 'viable' as a state. I don't know about you, but I would not be happy if my bit of England was given to a foreign state, one where the English would always be a minority, just in order to make that foreign state viable.
Your suggestion would had taken the construction of the Greater Germany, built in 1938/1939 twenty years earlier. Well, probably it would have spared Europe a second world war, but the Allies of 1918 have been stuck by the opposite aims, to avoid a re-strenghtened Germany with Austria, Bohemia and Moravia in its contents.
Another reason for their decision is, that they had promissed the Czechs and Slovaks to have their own state when they would help the Allies to win the war by desertion, for instance.Ìý
But the Allies said that their war was against the German and Austro-Hungarian imperial governments, not against the German people. That their objective was not to make territorial gains, but rather that future boundaries would be decided by popular self-determination.
Now if that was a lie - if in fact the settlement was just a matter of power politics, then a politician like Hitler could draw attention to the fact that it was unjust and that it was perfectly legitimate for Germany to try to get things readjusted. And it wasn't just Hitler saying this - don't forget Hungary and Poland also had issues with the Czech borders and when Hitler took the Sudetanland, they also annexed territories.
The point is that by the 1930s Britain did not have the power to preserve those divisions of eastern Europe imposed to suit Anglo-French interests 1918. Yes, it would have been desirable in strategic terms to maintain Czecheslovakian integrity, but it wasn't possible. -
Message 44
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
hothousemat
In fact one might point out that the Czechoslovakians did not do so once the Czechs and Slovaks got the modern right to set up "self-determined" states that no longer are required to have the kind of viability that involved being self-reliant..
It is now- we are told- an interdependent world- but some are more dependent than others..
Cass -
Message 45
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Now if that was a lie - if in fact the settlement was just a matter of power politics, then a politician like Hitler could draw attention to the fact that it was unjust and that it was perfectly legitimate for Germany to try to get things readjusted.Ìý
The second half of the sentence is a non sequitur and does not follow from the first. How could it be legitimate for territories such as Austria and the Sudetenland to be incorporated into the Reich when they had never belonged to the Reich in the first place? Hitler claimed that all ethnic Germans should be incorporated into a Greater Germany yet, until war came, excluded Alsace-Lorraine, the Baltic States and South Tyrol (even the former two areas which were taken by Germany through conquest were never formally incorporated into the Reich).
Hitler claimed he stood on the principle of self-determination advanced in Wilson's Fourteen Points which the Western Powers were perfectly willing to apply as in the case of the Saar referendum conducted by the League of Nations (an organisation which Hitler had walked out of two years earlier) but invaded Austria in March 1938 to forestall a plebiscite.
The occupation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and his willingness to throw scraps of the cadaver to Hungary and Poland at the same time showed up the vacuity and cynicism of his 'Greater Germany' policy and demonstrated that he was solely interested in 'power politics'.
You cannot understand Hitler's mindset without referring to the meeting with his military chiefs in November 1937 recorded by what is known as the Hossbach Memorandum in which Hitler set out the aims and objectives of his foreign policy and highlighted south-eastern Europe as the area in which Germany could most easily expand initially since it would be where Germany would meet the least resistance and where the Western Powers would be least likely to make a stand. His instincts proved to be correct. -
Message 46
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Allan D
The second half of the sentence is a non sequitur and does not follow from the first. How could it be legitimate for territories such as Austria and the Sudetenland to be incorporated into the Reich when they had never belonged to the Reich in the first place? Ìý
If the populations wanted to be incorporated, and the Reich agreed, why shouldn't they?
You presumably accept that Germany was a legitimate entity, yet there was no such state until modern times. It is a confederation. I don't see why its boundaries were fixed in stone in 1918 - the Germans inside and outside its borders didn't see why either. Nor did Woodrow Wilson in 1918 - he had argued at least some of the Sudetanland should be German.
The occupation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and his willingness to throw scraps of the cadaver to Hungary and Poland at the same time showed up the vacuity and cynicism of his 'Greater Germany' policy and demonstrated that he was solely interested in 'power politics'. Ìý
That isn't what happened. Hungary and Poland did not get their scraps when Hitler swallowed the remainder of Czechoslovakia but earlier, as part of the Munich settlement ('First Vienna Award'). Hungary not unreasonably asking why territories which had been Hungarian and where the population were Magyar should have been incorporated against their will into something called 'Slovakia'.
Then you tell me that Hitler turned out to be a bad man, which I already knew. But Chamberlain could hardly tell the Sudetans that they didn't have the right to self-determination because in the future Hitler might do bad things.
Once again, I suggest it is no good discussing this as though all Europeans saw things in the same way as Churchill or were bothered about what sorted British interests. When Hitler spoke about the plight of German minorities under the unfair terms of the 1918 settlement, nobody in Germany would disagree - and even the victors of WW1 had to admit he had some justification.
When Hitler spoke, the usual heckle to complaints about the wickedness of unfair treaties was not to deny this, but rather to quote the pot-kettle example of 'Brest-Litovsk'! -
Message 47
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
If the populations wanted to be incorporated, and the Reich agreed, why shouldn't they?Ìý
I think you have it the wrong way round. It was a demand by Hitler who then used Nazi stooges such as Seyss-Inquart and Henlein to whip up a popular campaign. If Hitler was so committed to the principle of self-determination why did he forestall a referendum in Austria in March 1938 and only hold one when the Anschluss was a fait accompli and the Nazis could rig the outcome?
I don't see why its boundaries were fixed in stone in 1918 - the Germans inside and outside its borders didn't see why either.Ìý
The boundaries had to be fixed because Germany had been so heedless of other countries' boundaries in 1914. Germany had begun the war and had then lost it. Compared to 1945 Germany got off rather lightly. Germany had freely recognised the post-war settlement by the Treaty of Locarno in 1925 in return for admission to the League of Nations and the shortening of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland.
Hungary and Poland did not get their scraps when Hitler swallowed the remainder of Czechoslovakia but earlier, as part of the Munich settlement ('First Vienna Award'). Hungary not unreasonably asking why territories which had been Hungarian and where the population were Magyar should have been incorporated against their will into something called 'Slovakia'.Ìý
Correct, and apologies for my error but the irony was that both states contained large ethnic minorities and had applied the test of viability in 1919. Poland, in particular, insisted on having access to the sea thus creating the Polish Corridor and ensuring that she would be Hitler's next victim after Czechoslovakia.
When Hitler spoke, the usual heckle to complaints about the wickedness of unfair treaties was not to deny this, but rather to quote the pot-kettle example of 'Brest-Litovsk'!Ìý
Or the example of the Treaty of Frankfurt which ended the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 in which Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to Germany and large scale reparations were imposed on France (despite the fact that the war took place on French territory) which the French paid out of their own resources within 4 years. -
Message 48
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Allan D
I think you have it the wrong way round. It was a demand by Hitler who then used Nazi stooges such as Seyss-Inquart and Henlein to whip up a popular campaign.Ìý
I don't think they could have whipped up a campaign out of nothing. As I say, the desire for the Sudetanland to be part of Germany was recognised back in 1918. And, as far as we can tell, about 60% of Austrians seem to have been in favour of union.
But again you seem to be trying to argue that because Hitler had his own agenda and wanted the results of any vote to go a particular way, this somehow invalidated the desire of the Germans of the Sudetanland to be part of Germany.
You cannot apply hindsight! It is like saying that the black inhabitants of Rhodesia were wrong to have demanded democracy, because Mugabe would turn out to be a bad man.
The boundaries had to be fixed because Germany had been so heedless of other countries' boundaries in 1914. Germany had begun the war and had then lost it. Compared to 1945 Germany got off rather lightly.Ìý
Well, people at the time did not agree with you, especially Germans. Nor were many other countries happy with the settlement. And it is no use talking, then or now, as if Britain was some all-powerful teacher, handing out national treats and punishments as we saw fit.
As I said earlier; we could not have prevented Germany taking Czechoslovakia and if we went to war it would have destroyed what was left of us as a great power. That was always the bottom line and both Chamberlain and Hitler knew it. -
Message 49
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
...because Hitler had his own agenda and wanted the results of any vote to go a particular way, this somehow invalidated the desire of the Germans of the Sudetanland to be part of GermanyÌý
There was no vote in the Sudetenland merely a transfer of territory by third party nations without even consylting the Czechs - a process you appear to be critical of when it occurred in 1919. What about about the desire of the 28% of the Sudeten population who were ethnic Czechs to remain within Czechoslovakia? By incorporating 750,000 ethnic Czechs into the Reich in October 1938 Hitler undermined the concept of 'Greater Germany'.
...if we went to war it would have destroyed what was left of us as a great power.Ìý
We did go to war 11 months after Munich because Hitler had formed the impression that the Western Powers had no appetite for conflict. Apart from having a negative effect on US public opinion the Munich Agreement convinced Stalin that Britain and France were willing to allow Germany to move east in a bid to postpone a confrontation and that he would be better off coming to an accommodation with Hitler as Britain and France could not be trusted or relied upon.
The question that should be asked is if Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler rather than caving in at the last minute whether war might have been averted altogether rather than merely postponed. -
Message 50
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Alan Apart from having a negative effect on US public opinion the Munich Agreement convinced Stalin that Britain and France were willing to allow Germany to move east in a bid to postpone a confrontation and that he would be better off coming to an accommodation with Hitler as Britain and France could not be trusted or relied upon.Ìý we've been at it long enough by now. This part of your deliberation is purely speculative. You know very well that I can drown you in material contradicting this assumption.
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