Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[Henri McPhee]

The Luftwaffe were expecting a short war and Churchill with his lack of appeasement, and with the support of the too slow Gloster Gladiators in the RAF, was expecting it to be all over by Christmas. They were both wrong.

 

[jimbob]

The Luftwaffe were expecting a short war and Churchill with his lack of appeasement, and with the support of the too slow Gloster Gladiators in the RAF, was expecting it to be all over by Christmas. They were both wrong.

Really?

 

[Andy_Ross]

That's your summary of the thread so far?

 

[fagin]

It's as uncannily accurate as any of his other posts.

 

[Hans]

The Luftwaffe were expecting a short war and Churchill with his lack of appeasement, and with the support of the too slow Gloster Gladiators in the RAF, was expecting it to be all over by Christmas. They were both wrong.

Henri goes for a fringe reset, looses the ball, hits himself in the head with his left ankle and knocks himself out of bounds.

Fail

 

[SpitfireIX]

The Luftwaffe were expecting a short war and Churchill with his lack of appeasement, and with the support of the too slow Gloster Gladiators in the RAF, was expecting it to be all over by Christmas. They were both wrong.

[citation needed]

Further, what part of "The Gladiator was fast enough to catch the He 111, and in any case the RAF already had four Hurricane squadrons operational" was unclear?

 

[Garrison]

The Luftwaffe were expecting a short war and Churchill with his lack of appeasement, and with the support of the too slow Gloster Gladiators in the RAF, was expecting it to be all over by Christmas. They were both wrong.

Quote your source for this extraordinary claim because it matches with none of what I've read on the topic. The Wehrmacht believed it would be a disaster to got to war in 1938 according to the research presented by Adam Tooze in 'Wages of Destruction'. By Christmas still isn't 'in a week' or are you abandoning that claim now? Oh and again Churchill was a backbench MP in 1938, please stop these dishonest claims about him being in power then.


In short another random collection of nonsense from Henri.

 

[Henri McPhee]

There is an article about appeasement by an academic historian which may be too academic for this forum and not quite true at:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592290802344962

It was someone no less than Winston Churchill who, at the time of the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, declared in Parliament: “Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is alike futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble, and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.”

 

[Hans]

There is an article about appeasement by an academic historian which may be too academic for this forum and not quite true at:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592290802344962

Did you even read the article Henri?

It has from time to time been suggested that the incidence of the appeasement/Munich analogy will decline as the generation of public figures with some experience or memory of the period passed from the scene.
That prediction appears increasingly untenable. Moreover, contrary to the view once expressed by this writer that the appeasement debate was over, or that it is “an ongoing one and historians change their minds,” or to argue that there have been “too many mystifications” by historians, it is abundantly clear that “appeasement studies” have a bright future.

 

[jimbob]

Did you even read the article Henri?

It was too academic

 

[Henri McPhee]

Did you even read the article Henri?

I don't entirely agree with what he wrote about Chamberlain. I would have done exactly the same as Chamberlain if I was in his shoes, except that I would not have cut the unemployment dole in the early 1930s. I have always been under the impression that the Suez crisis was 1956 though I suppose it was late 1956 and the effects were felt in 1957, as he writes. America, or Eisenhower, threatened sanctions, and the Russians were threatening rockets thanks to the Edenites.

This bit makes sense to me:

Time and again politicians, diplomats and commentators have focused on the 1930s to argue that effective deterrence and resistance at an early stage obviates the need for armed resistance later. Their rhetoric is consistent: appeasement simply will not do. In the run up to the Gulf War that opened on 1 January 1991, for example, then President George H. W. Bush declared: “If history teaches us anything, it is that we must resist aggression or it will destroy our freedoms. Appeasement does not work. As was seen in the 1930s, we see in Saddam Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening his neighbours.” 1

1. The Times, 9 August 1990. It was reported at the time that Bush was reading Martin Gilbert, The Second World War (London, 1989) and cited Winston Churchill's view that the second world war could have been averted had Hitler's re-occupation of the Rhineland been resisted in 1936. Time, 7 January 1991, p. 21.
View all notes
On 28 February 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that “The lesson we learnt [in the 1930s] was that if, confronted by a threat, we back away because we assume that our good and peaceful intentions are matched by those threatening us, the threat only grows and at a later time has to be confronted again, but in far more deadly and dangerous form.” 2

2. The Times, 1 March 2003.
View all notes
Speaking to the Israeli Knesset on 15 May 2008, President George W. Bush derided “the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.” 3

3. View all notes
If the lessons for politicians seemed straightforward enough, why have historians had so much trouble with the study of appeasement? If historians have it right, then why have the lessons of history been so ignored by practitioners? If historians have it wrong, or cannot come to any consensus, as the historiography of appeasement suggested for many decades, then can public policy be faulted for clinging to the enduring legacy?

 

[Rincewind]

I don't entirely agree with what he wrote about Chamberlain. I would have done exactly the same as Chamberlain if I was in his shoes, except that I would not have cut the unemployment dole in the early 1930s. I have always been under the impression that the Suez crisis was 1956 though I suppose it was late 1956 and the effects were felt in 1957, as he writes. America, or Eisenhower, threatened sanctions, and the Russians were threatening rockets thanks to the Edenites.

This bit makes sense to me:

Apparently the quote that makes sense to you is totally against appeasement.

So - you've changed your mind have you?

 

[Henri McPhee]

Eden was opposed to appeasement before the second world war, and Eden caused the Suez fiasco in 1956, if not a government in exile in Canada. There was petrol rationing in 1957 and it was not good for British made products, or confidence.

The United Nations must provide the will, and the major powers the force, to blanket violence in that most violent corner of the world.

 

[Garrison]

Eden was opposed to appeasement before the second world war, and Eden caused the Suez fiasco in 1956, if not a government in exile in Canada. There was petrol rationing in 1957 and it was not good for British made products, or confidence.

The United Nations must provide the will, and the major powers the force, to blanket violence in that most violent corner of the world.

So you still have nothing to offer in support your claims then. Okay, see you in another couple of months when you post another irrelevant word salad.

 

[Henri McPhee]

Part of the reason for all this distaste of appeasement is that Roosevelt was conned by Stalin with false promises about free and fair elections in Poland and with regard to the Czechs at the Tehran conference in 1943 and Yalta in 1945. Chamberlain was a clever politician when he was alive.

 

[fagin]

Did he get stupid after he died?

 

[jimbob]

Did he get stupid after he died?

Funny you should say that:

You are missing the point Henri; we aren't disputing the assertion that Churchill wasn't a strategic genius. We are pointing out that this assessment is hardly novel.

The bits about the state of the German forces at Kursk is different. We do disagree with that.

Similarly, we also disagree that Chamberlain had any useful knowledge of the German plans for the invasion of Russia due to him being dead when the planning started.

<snip>
I still maintain that Chamberlain and Halifax were fully aware that Hitler intended to invade Russia. Hitler mentioned it in his Mein Kampf book in the 1920s, and our secret service knew about it from 1934. Chamberlain's strategy of giving Britain another year to get organised for the Battle of Britain, and prepared for war was right judgment by him. Chamberlain's piece of paper about the Czechs, which keeps coming under so much criticism, was just diplomatic language, a bit like Tony Blair's empty waffle nowadays.

Chamberlain was pretty negligent once he was dead.

 

[dudalb]

The Luftwaffe were expecting a short war and Churchill with his lack of appeasement, and with the support of the too slow Gloster Gladiators in the RAF, was expecting it to be all over by Christmas. They were both wrong.

B.S. German intelligence was often faulty, but the Luftwaffe never expected to be opposed by mainly Gloster Gladiators.

 

[Hans]

Funny you should say that:



Chamberlain was pretty negligent once he was dead.

I also understand that his concerns about his personal hygiene suffered so much so they had to dig a hole and cover him up with dirt and marble.......

 

[Pacal]

I don't want to march on Moscow. That's thuggery. It's a monstrous and dangerous policy. Oh for the days when diplomacy happened with the Chamberlains before the war, and there was a bit of subtlety.

Yes like surrendering the Czechs and Slovaks to the tender mercies of the Nazis. Or how about how Chamberlain tried to find an excuse not to declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland. Like how "smart" it was to surrender the significant Czech armaments industry to the Nazis, along with the very substantial Czech financial resources. Yes the subtlety of enabling Germany to vastly and significantly strengthen itself and of course allowing the Nazis to viciously brutalize the Czechs and Slovaks for more than 6 years.

I am sure, snark, that the Czechs and Slovaks are just so impressed with Chamberlain sacrificing them to a genocidal dictatorship.

But then only a few years before Britain and France had hemmed and hawed over Italy's invasion of Ethiopia allowing it to be conquered, and then endure 5 years of brutal occupation characterized by mass slaughter throughout the 5 years. But I guess like the Ethiopians the Czechs and Slovaks just don't count.

One of the features of appeasement was that certain foreign peoples just don't count and can be sacrificed. An attitude that persists to this day. (East Timor anyone.)