To Policy Of Appeasement The Main Cause For Essay Example

is one reason why Hitler risked attacking Poland in 1939, as opposed to a year earlier; due to his increased confidence and his conviction that his opponents where not as daring or skillful, shown in their allowances to him in Munich and therefore would appease him again.

The policy of appeasement therefore only encouraged aggression, and allowed Germany to grow to a powerful force with major military, territorial, and technological gains, thus it was self defeating and hastened the drift to war. If Britain and France had abandoned their policy of appeasement and retaliated against Hitler's aggression war could have been averted. Appeasement was deeply embedded into British foreign policy, even to the the extent were they would not honor their military commitments to France under the Treaty of Locarno, that if Germany were to remilitarise the Rhineland, Britain would offer them support.

So, when Hitler ordered armed cars to enter the Rhineland in March 1936, France failed to retaliate. This was the ideal time to have halted Hitler as Allan Bullock quotes Hitler saying “If the French had then marched into the Rhineland we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs”, because Germany was still militarily weak and war would have lasted six weeks rather than six years.

However, the appeasers were determined to stop any violence, that they failed to see, according to Keith Eubank, had they “retaliated against the remilitarisation with force, the German military units would have withdrawn and perhaps Hitler would have been overthrown; the drift to war would have been halted and World War II averted”. Appeasement was destined to fail because Hitler could never be satisfied and

the appeasers did not understand they were dealing with an aggressive, unreasonable dictator.

Hitler Nazi ideologies stated the future of the German people could only be achieved by the conquest of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe, which could only be cleared by force. This matched his ideas on the struggle for life, and war as the test of a people's racial superiority which he reiterated in his 'Mien Kampf' and speeches, therefore as Professor Richard Bessel states ‘Nazism was inseparable from war’. According to Allan Bullock, he was unyielding in his assertion of will power, cunning and calculating, believing him self to be a man of destiny and prepared to use any means to achieve it.

His foreign policy was completely opportunistic and based on dishonesty, as he took advantage of the mistakes and fears of others when they appeased him. Norman Rich also found this continuity in Hitler's thinking, that German security could only be achieved by expansion, thus he states “war could not be avoided, not even a two-front war”. So clearly appeasement would never stop inevitable conflict, but merely postponed it and allowed Germany to develop into an almost unstoppable force.

The practice of appeasement lead Russia to initiate the Nazi-Soviet Pact, hich itself is another cause of war. Russia was prepared to support the Western powers should they retaliate against Germany, however under the appeasement policy it seemed like they were supporting Hitler. Therefore Stalin turned to make a non-aggression pact directly with Germany in order to protect the Soviet Union, as Richard Lamb states: “The efforts by Britain to negotiate further appeasement with Hitler, convinced Russia that Britain was not serious about the alliance

and really aimed at plunging Russia and Germany war”.

This pact ensured Germany and Russia would remain neutral, which greatly contributed to war because Germany would not be fighting two fronts, and therefore be more assured to invade Poland a week later, sparking the war. The fear of another war and the Treaty of Versailles surpass the policy of appeasement as a main cause of the Second World War because they justified such the policy. As Keith Eubank argues: The British “guilt feelings over the Treaty inclined to take a soft line whenever Germany complained”, so some politicians were sympathetic to Hitler's demands, believing he only wanted to rebuild and defend his country.

Earlier attempts to fulfill the treaty had resulted in complete failure, such as the French occupation of the Ruhr leading to the collapse of the German currency and hyper-inflation. Consequently, appeasers argued that war could only be prevented by non-fulfillment of the Treaty terms, that is, appeasement. The poor handling of the peace settlement after the first world war, left Germany devastated and embittered, and thus sowed the seeds for the next war.

It is clear to see that the policy of appeasement to a high extent was a main cause of the outbreak of war in 1939. However there are deeper roots to the policy and the war, namely the Treaty of Versailles. The overall aim of the policy of appeasement was to avoid conflict, and ultimately this failed, since it had the opposite effect and encouraged aggression, allowing Germany to grow more powerful and if Hitler had been stopped earlier, his plans for war would have failed, and war would have been averted.