Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[Hans]

I have seen it argued that Chamberlain was pessimistic because he was suffering from depression caused by his terminal illness. It makes sense to me. Mum's last paintings were very different in tone to all the rest.

Yeah he may have been worried about his legacy. Instead of being remembered as being involved in war as his last dance - he probably wanted to go out with credit for ensuring European peace.

 

[jimbob]

Yeah he may have been worried about his legacy. Instead of being remembered as being involved in war as his last dance - he probably wanted to go out with credit for ensuring European peace.

I was thinking more that illness can affect one's view. I'm sure Chamberlain meant well. It is just that he utterly misjudged what was needed and 50-million people died as a result.

 

[Henri McPhee]

There is a fair and just article about world war II and appeasement at:

https://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/blogs/article/chamberlain-appease-hitler/

On top of that, Britain was simply not ready for any major military confrontation. That very year, Chamberlain was warned that Germany's air force could ravage the nation with bombing offensives, and that our troops weren't ready to deal with such a menace.
As historian Robert Self says,
Chamberlain faced a brutally simple choice at Munich. Was Britain prepared to threaten Germany with war on behalf of a state which it certainly could not save?

 

[Border Reiver]

There is a fair and just article about world war II and appeasement at:

https://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/blogs/article/chamberlain-appease-hitler/

Once again, your blogger ignores the fact that in 1938 Britain was better prepared for war than Germany was.

Chamberlain allowed himself to be deceived by the German propaganda that Germany had become a military powerhouse, and the generals were allowing their own fears of being the ones responsible for a potential disaster to run away with them. As a result WWII happened.

 

[Garrison]

There is a fair and just article about world war II and appeasement at:

https://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/blogs/article/chamberlain-appease-hitler/

That very year, Chamberlain was warned that Germany's air force could ravage the nation with bombing offensives,

Yes Henri they did believe that, but they were wrong. Why is it you will believe the British assessment of Luftwaffe capability in 1938, but not the Luftwaffe's? You know, the people who knew how many planes they really had and what they could actually do?

 

[geoman]

Was Britain prepared to threaten Germany with war on behalf of a state which it certainly could not save?

Do you mean Poland? Yes, yes it was.

 

[Rincewind]

Do you mean Poland? Yes, yes it was.

Actually, This deserved more that one...

 

[SpitfireIX]

Sorry for the delay in posting this; my laptop conked out, and I can't afford to get it fixed yet. I have an hour at the library tonight, so I'll start my notes on Australia and Appeasement.

The situation in March 1938 (p. 46):

In the Cabinet deliberations, Malcolm MacDowell, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, warned his colleagues that, if Britain got into a war with Germany through France's treaty obligations with Czechoslovakia . . . 'the British Commonwealth might well break in pieces'. He advised that Australia and New Zealand would follow London's lead, but South Africa and Canada 'would see no reason whatever why they should join in a war to prevent Germans from rejoining their fatherland'. In the full Cabinet discussion on 22 March 1938 ministers were informed that any further commitments to Czechoslovakia would be 'very unpopular' in all the dominions, except perhaps New Zealand, and might lead to a crisis with some of them. While the British Cabinet made the specific proviso that its own foreign policy could not be subordinated to the views of the dominions, clearly the empire's reluctance to become involved in central Europe strengthened the hands of those ministers, such as Chamberlain, who opposed making any commitment to defend Czechoslovakia. [notes omitted; bolding mine]​

The situation at the end of August (pp. 73-74):

[MacDonald's] advice was that, if war came, Australia and New Zealand would certainly come in, but doubts surrounded the involvement of Canada and South Africa. . . .

On the eve of the Cabinet meeting Lyons met with Percivale Liesching, the Acting U.K. High Commissioner in Canberra. In their conversation Lyons advised that, if Britain went to war, Australia would be committed to active participation. [bolding mine]​

So, Henri, as I explained earlier, your contention that Chamberlain believed Australia and New Zealand would not have declared war in 1938 is clearly erroneous. Additionally, as I have also shown, the claim about Canada's doubtful reliability is demonstrably incorrect. I would hypothesize that the civil servants in the Dominions Office greatly overestimated the effect that the Francophone minority's presumed reticence to support the UK would have had on the country as a whole.

More to come in later posts.

 

[Henri McPhee]

So, Henri, as I explained earlier, your contention that Chamberlain believed Australia and New Zealand would not have declared war in 1938 is clearly erroneous. Additionally, as I have also shown, the claim about Canada's doubtful reliability is demonstrably incorrect. More to come in later posts.

I think more historical research needs to be done about this matter to establish the pure unadulterated historical truth. What one person's opinion is, or what Netanyahu and Begin in Israel think about the matter may not be the historical evidence. The matter is mentioned at this website:

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Neville-Chamberlain-believe-in-appeasement

Neither was it politically prepared. In 1938, the Empire's dominions such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa had made it clear that they would not support Britain in a war over the Sudetenland. As mentioned earlier, this wasn't supported by the British public opinion either. Gambling on a war in defiance to public opinion could cost Chamberlain his political career.

 

[ddt]

I think more historical research needs to be done about this matter to establish the pure unadulterated historical truth. What one person's opinion is, or what Netanyahu and Begin in Israel think about the matter may not be the historical evidence.

Say what?

The matter is mentioned at this website:

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Neville-Chamberlain-believe-in-appeasement

So, SpitfireIX quotes from a book from a bona fide historian, with quotes from cabinet proceedings, and you respond with what a nobody at some website writes?

Right.

 

[Klimax]

Botting (like test of AI) or trolling?

 

[SpitfireIX]

I just noticed that when I was copying the first quotation I accidentally wrote "Malcolm MacDowell" (assuming that wasn't an error in the book) instead of "Malcolm MacDonald^WP", and I didn't catch it when I was typing.

 

[Henri McPhee]

Say what?


So, SpitfireIX quotes from a book from a bona fide historian, with quotes from cabinet proceedings, and you respond with what a nobody at some website writes?

Right.

This is a bit about what Netanyahu thinks now about the Chamberlain and Lord Halifax policies in 1938, rather than those of the Edenites:

www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/its-always-1938

I’m reminded of a Peter Beinart piece from a while back.

Over the past quarter-century, there’s hardly an American or Israeli leader the Kristol-Netanyahu crowd hasn’t compared to Chamberlain. In 1985, Newt Gingrich called Reagan’s first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.” When Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, hawks took out newspaper ads declaring that “Appeasement is as unwise in 1988 as in 1938.”

Then, when Israel moved to thaw its own cold war with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yitzhak Rabin assumed the Chamberlain role…. Then it was Bill Clinton. “The word that best describes Clinton administration [foreign] policy is appeasement,” explained Robert Kagan and Kristol in 1999. Then, of course, it was the opponents of war with Iraq. “The establishment fights most bitterly and dishonestly when it feels cornered and thinks it’s about to lose. Churchill was attacked more viciously in 1938 and 1939 than earlier in the decade,” wrote Kristol in a 2002 editorial, “The Axis of Appeasement.”

 

[Garrison]

I think more historical research needs to be done about this matter to establish the pure unadulterated historical truth.

And yet when actual research is offered up you ignore it. You don't want historical truth, you want an echo chamber where everyone agrees with your fact free opinions.

This is a bit about what Netanyahu thinks now about the Chamberlain and Lord Halifax policies in 1938, rather than those of the Edenites:

More drivel, Henri you've been shown by SpitfireIX what real research looks like, either do the same or admit you can't back up your nonsense.

 

[Henri McPhee]

This is an interesting opinion which I don't necessarily regard as the historical truth, but there is an interesting quote from the supposed appeaser Lord Halifax:

http://www.themillenniumreport.com/...asement-to-trick-hitler-into-a-two-front-war/

Appeasement was designed to encourage Hitler to take action which would justify a declaration of war by the West.

“What we want to secure is the certainty of a war on two fronts,” Halifax said in March 1939. (Roberts, 146) Halifax was responsible for the foolhardy British guarantee of Poland that led to this war declaration in Sept. 1939. The USSR also invaded Poland but there was no declaration of war against it. Stalin was pre-primed to attack the Nazis in 1941.(This is essentially the deal Christian Rakovsky offered Stalin 1938.)

The whole knuckle-biting drama of war and peace in 1939-41, including England as the lonely defender of freedom, was a charade. Germany was in the cross-hairs all along. Could the USA be in the same position today as tensions in Syria increase?

 

[Garrison]

I just noticed that when I was copying the first quotation I accidentally wrote "Malcolm MacDowell" (assuming that wasn't an error in the book) instead of "Malcolm MacDonald^WP", and I didn't catch it when I was typing.

Hey it was a great post, you can be forgiven one typo.

 

[lobosrul5]

Guys, just let Henri have the last post. He's never gonna give this up.

 

[geoman]

Guys, just let Henri have the last post. He's never gonna give this up.

But if you all let him have the last post, how am I going to learn so much stuff?

 

[SpitfireIX]

I think more historical research needs to be done about this matter to establish the pure unadulterated historical truth.

Translation: "I don't like this evidence, so I'm going to attempt to handwave it away by calling for more research." That aside, as has been pointed out to you so many times already, your opinion is demonstrably worthless, because you've clearly and repeatedly shown that you're not interested in any evidence that challenges your preconceptions, no matter how strong or relevant that evidence is. Also, what DDT said.

What one person's opinion is <snip of irrelevant dig at Israeli politicians> may not be the historical evidence.

The opinion of the then-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs about the willingness of the dominions to go to war isn't historical evidence?? Further, apart from the issue of whether MacDonald was correct, you have insinuated that Chamberlain believed the dominions wouldn't fight in 1938. That insinuation has clearly been refuted, and will remain so unless and until you can somehow produce some persuasive evidence that he believed this in spite of the advice he was getting from MacDonald.

The matter is mentioned at this website:

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Neville-Chamberlain-believe-in-appeasement

Neither was it politically prepared. In 1938, the Empire's dominions such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa had made it clear that they would not support Britain in a war over the Sudetenland. As mentioned earlier, this wasn't supported by the British public opinion either. Gambling on a war in defiance to public opinion could cost Chamberlain his political career.

I have repeatedly demonstrated that the hilited is erroneous; why do you keep repeating it? Further, the part about British public opinion is also erroneous, as demonstrated by the Peace Ballot^WP, which erwinl mentioned up-thread, and I correctly predicted you would ignore. Finally, you have claimed that Chamberlain knew that eventual war with Germany was inevitable. Therefore, according to this person, Chamberlain's political career was more important to him than saving countless lives by starting the war a year earlier, when Germany was much weaker, both militarily and diplomatically.

 

[Andy_Ross]

[quoteThis is an interesting opinion which I don't necessarily regard as the historical truth,[/quote]

So why quote it?