Examples of Appeasement

1. Anglo-German Naval Agreement (June 1935)

• Treaty of Versailles clearly stated that the German navy should consist of only 6 warships that were 10,000 tons and no submarines.
• Signed between Britain and Germany, and marked the beginning of appeasement.
• Allowed Germany to have a navy which had one-third the tonnage of Britain’s surface fleet and equal tonnage of submarines.
• In hope that these terms will reduce German anger at treaty and stabilise Europe.
• The agreement was drawn as Britain thought that if Hitler continued to build his army, it would not pose a significant threat to Britain.
• However, it resulted in the French being angry & confused the British people as the British government had recently condemned Germany for breaking the Treaty of Versailles but was not encouraging Germany’s behaviour.

2. Lack of action against Hitler’s acts of aggression

• Western powers did not take any proper measures to keep Hitler in check while he took each of these steps, allowing him to become more ambitious and daring.

a. Remilitarisation of Rhineland:

• British sympathy for Germany – saw it as Hitler merely returning ‘to his own backyard.
• France unwilling to fight Germany without British backing.

b. Involvement in Spanish Civil War:

• Hitler portrayed himself as defending civilisation and combating communists.
• Western powers did not want communists to win and thought Hitler could be trusted as a potential ally against communism.

c. Anschluss with Austria:

• Chamberlain did not want to go to war to defend Treaty of Versailles that he thought had serious flaws.
• Hitler promised that union with Austria would be the last of his demands.

3. Munich Agreement

• Hitler had declared he would go to war for Sudetenland if necessary.
• Czechoslovakia had a modern army and would not back down and was ready to fight with support from Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

• People in Britain prepared for war by digging trenches & building air-raid shelters.
• Chamberlain gave in to Hitler’s demands on Sudetenland to defuse the threat of war.
• Hitler’s troops took over Sudetenland on 1 Oct. 1938 – war avoided temporarily.
• Hitler invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 – war avoided temporarily.

• Appeasement had clearly failed and the policy was abandoned.
• By the time the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed in August 1939, Chamberlain knew that Hitler could not be trusted, and prepared for war.
• When Germany attacked Poland on 1 September 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany – World War II had begun.
• As agreed in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Soviet Union also invaded eastern Poland on 17 September 1939.
• The Nazis and Soviets abided by the terms of the pact until Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.