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Who was to blame for the outbreak of world war 2
Anthony Eden sums it up. He says: “Hitler’s reoccupation of the Rhineland was an occasion when the British and French governments should have attempted the impossible”.
It is true to say that Hitler may have backed down or have been overthrown if force had been used.
It was unfortunate that Hitler was rightly confident at the time due to factors of British sympathy and another crisis, this time in Abyssinia due to Mussolini.
Abyssinia was invaded in October ‘35 despite Abyssinia’s innocence at the wal wal incident, and even offering to give up some of their territory and a placate on Mussolini. It was clear that some action had be taken because this was also breaking treaties but yet again, due to appeasement, nothing done.
Britain and France were more worried about their relationship with Italy that Abyssinia and they didn’t want to antagonize Mussolini. They also didn’t want to break the stresa front.
They took the wrong option and chose appeasement and came up with the Hoare Laval pact, which stated Italy was to be given Abyssinian land and economic rights.
The pact had to be discredited because it caused outcry in public.
These two events show, to me, that appeasement was definitely the wrong policy because they had went against all the Britain had stood for e.g. collective security. It also gave the impression the aggressors were being rewarded and it gave them confidence in the future to keep going with their demands.
The Spanish civil war is another example where the governments of Britain and France took up the policy of non – intervention in the war lead by Leon Blum, the leader of France.
The powers of Italy and Germany yet again broke rules and showed that appeasement was ineffective and quite simply a policy that would not work.
The British and French were clearly hoping that disarmament would work with the French suggesting four years of supervising armament levels. But in the end this form of appeasement didn’t work either and it was ended in early 1934. The British and French didn’t see that this was a failure of appeasement.
Following on Britain thought they could appease Germany by offering the Anglo German naval agreement stating the Germans could have an naval fleet 35% the size of the British.
It failed to work. The French and Italians felt the British were too unreliable and led to a fall out and a break of the stresa front. It was also seen as a poor basis for a stance against aggression and weakened the case for appeasement, it only made Germany stronger.
The French were clearly satisfied to settle for non-intervention in the Spanish civil war because Blum was terrified of Germany.
Britain’s main reason for non-intervention was in with their policy of appeasement – they didn’t want to make an enemy of Franco or Mussolini. [next page]